The Northern Lights - A Scandinavian Superleague Story

[FancyPantsCam]

Superleagues. A dreaded word amongst all who even have a passing fancy of football. Except Florentino Perez, he ruddy loves them.

Question though. What if one could be made to bring success to an area that has long been flush with talent, but never had the trophies to prove it? One that could help the clubs not only cultivate incredible players, but give them the security to try and keep a hold of them? Create champions and bring trophies to places and fans who have never had the rewards their fanaticism deserves?

Welcome everyone, to the Scandinavian Superleague, lovingly made here by someone much, much smarter than I.

An amalgamation of the Swedish, Danish, Norgewian, Finnish and Icelandic leagues, this new five tier system should give the Nordic nations the ability to bring the fight to Europe’s best in the long term. Like a very snowy Voltron.

Who else can unite the peoples of these proud nations into a team that can conquer Europe? How about the (very) distant relative of Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormsson, named in his image with a similar aim of unification of the Nords.

But whilst they both want to bring the peoples of Scandinavia under one banner, they have rather different methods. One used religion, language, winged spears and hatchets. The other a great atmosphere, chants, wingers and half-backs. Bit less likely to get one cancelled in 2024.

Taking charge of Norway’s current stars Bodo/Glimt (not at all just because the kits are fun, honest), this is a challenge to try and bring continental glory to beyond the Arctic circle and find out if Kylian Mbappe can do it on a cold Tuesday night in Gothenburg.

P.S.

Yes, before anyone says anything, the editor is being used. This is just due to a slight kink in the database. As the new league is based in Sweden, all my Norwegians don’t count as homegrown. So to avoid headaches with European competitions, that’s the only thing being changed.

 

[misterioBean]

Interesting concept, can't wait to follow. As I was reading I was wondering how it all would work out with registration since all of the leagues used had different ones but I guess that is not relevant anymore. The European registration rules is a bit of a pain though so the editor seems like a must have for it to work.

Good luck on your journey, expecting FC København to be a huge headache lol

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Interesting concept, can't wait to follow. As I was reading I was wondering how it all would work out with registration since all of the leagues used had different ones but I guess that is not relevant anymore. The European registration rules is a bit of a pain though so the editor seems like a must have for it to work.

Good luck on your journey, expecting FC København to be a huge headache lol

Thank you, I hope it's an interesting read. I also have a feeling København will be both my biggest enemy and ally.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Hailing from a town whose entire population could fit inside St James’ Park, Bodo/Glimt have had an incredible rise through the leagues to become the pre-eminent force in Norwegian football. Having caught the world’s attention after thumping Jose Mourinho’s Roma side back in 2021 at the pocket-sized Aspmyra Stadion, both the club and the surrounding area have flourished in the following years. It’s the 2024 capital of culture and everything.

So, having given myself the a rather large helping hand of taking over one of the better sides of the area, time to slap a couple of restrictions on myself for this save. Mainly in the transfer market. I would call them rules, but I’m not.

Two Foreign Players Allowed Per Season – I can only sign two non-Scandi players each season. One from the EU, and one not from the EU. Other than that, not even second nationalities are allowed. No avalanche of Brazilian wonderkids for me.

Sign Vikings and Goblins – When possible, sign either the tallest player possible, or the shortest player possible.

Build The League – A maximum of two players can be purchased from other league members per season. Don’t become Bayern Munich. When possible, sell players back into the league and make everyone stronger. This isn’t a full build a nation thing, but a rising tide lifts all ships.

With those rules in place, let’s have a look at the fine folks already at the club before I start hitting up the transfer market.

Despite the diminutive wage budget, in comparison to not only the teams we’re aiming to beat but also some others in the league, this a squad you can do a lot of damage with. Not only does it have a great starting 11, but some good depth too.

The squad definitely has three great areas. Both the starting fullbacks are properly special and most of the wingers here can play both sides and even centrally. It’s central midfield though that is the special sauce of this team, with the trio of captain Ulrik Saltnes, Patrick Berg (who is wonderfully a third generation Bodo player) and Albert Grønbæk are all far too good to be knocking around above the Arctic circle.

We’re solid at centre back and goalkeeper, but we may need to boost those in the long run. That can be next year’s problem.

It’s only upfront that we appear to be struggling. Kasper Hogh has some good potential as a pressing forward, but neither of my backups give me any sort of inspiration with only single figures for pace.

With a big chunky transfer budget of about £8m (thanks Database!) and the possibility of fighting on multiple fronts, a couple more names wouldn’t go amiss. Let’s see how badly I can mess up the squad cohesion.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Sorry all for the double post, can't seem to delete this one...

 

[FancyPantsCam]

With such a strong starting squad, there wasn’t much that was needed to make them into a real force. The Danish teams in this league are the four biggest spenders, with Copenhagen spending more than double what anyone else is.

Whilst I have made a commitment to signing people from the region, I only thought it best to start with one of the least Swedish sounding players around.
Eric Smith.

Eric becomes the first signing of the new era here at Bodo/Glimt, and as I’m not yet sure whether we’re going to play a back four or three, and he fits either system nicely. A good solid operator for whatever happens.

While Smith comes in as a good, reliable operator in his prime, this challenge is going to take some big talents. Whilst many are already here, it’s time to add the biggest and brightest one in the Nordic leagues. Sverre Halseth Nypan. Whilst he won’t join on a permanent deal now, he is very happy to join us on loan. And for whatever reason, Rosenborg are happy for me to add in a shockingly low future fee. It’s all a little too good to be true.

Tobias Salquist comes in on a free transfer having impressed during his trial to give our back line a little boost. As a giant, left footed Scandinavian defender for cheap, I couldn’t really say no to him.

While Hogh has impressed in preseason up front, a little notification in my inbox drew my gaze to the Mexican league. And there’s when I found the utterly delightful German Berterame looking like an absolute bargain. For just over £2m (mostly on instalments) and with Brentford monitoring him, he was far too good to not swoop for. Just don’t look at his wages, please don’t look at his wages.

Now, here goes the first little bit of bending the rules. I know, ridiculous that it’s happening already, but I think I can come up with a suitable compromise. Due to Berterame forcing the dreaded ‘sign someone to help me settle in’ clause into his negotiations, I have sacrificed my EU player this season to be able to sign his older brother. Who is utterly rubbish and just here for vibes.

So that’s that when it comes to my wheeling and dealing. A couple of players have left too, topping up the transfer budget a little and making sure I’ve not got too many glum Norwegians knocking around the gaff.

I’m feeling good about our chances going into the season, although Copenhagen are going to take some stopping. But before all that, we’re going to start our European journey with our Conference League qualifiers.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Having to start all the way back in the first round of qualifying might be seen as an inconvenience, but I’m actually happy about it. As the league doesn’t start until after these matches, it gives us a proper set of fixtures to get match sharp.

In terms of tactics, I’m just going for a pretty basic 4-3-3 whilst I’m still learning everyone’s names. The squad’s set up to make the most of this sort of setup as well, so no big risks. In the future there may be a change to something else a little different, but let's see who stands out in the opening few matches.

And warm up we very much did, opening our account for the season with what on paper looks like a battering of Estonian side Levadia. In reality, it was a comfortable match with three late goals that made it look like a blowout. The return leg was a box ticking exercise, but one done professionally and no drama.


Our next victims are Neman Grodno of Belarus, who once again don’t have the ability to hold off our attacks. An own goal and a penalty cause a couple of annoying blemishes, but apart from that we get through to the playoff round with ease.

I really did that this was going to be a bigger effort. Brugge are an establish European side with some proper pedigree and we absolutely dominate both legs. Their goal in the second leg was simply a consolation that came from a speculative longball. Other than that, Brugge offered very little resistance and our lads are beginning to click nicely.

In terms of who's been scoring, it's mainly been Kasper Hogh, with 6 goals in 6 matches making me look a little fooling for smashing my wage budget for Bertreme. Gronbaek has also been brilliant throughout with three goals and a load more assists and somehow Bjortuft has had a trio of goals from corners.

What we’re rewarded with is a pretty good looking group consisting of Lille, Rijeka and Swift Hesperange. Whilst Les Dogues are probably too strong for us right now, the Croations should be beatable and the poor folks from Luxembourg might become a bit of a punching bag. I’m very optimistic of us being able to get out of this group.

Now though, we switch our focus back to the domestic league and see what this new Superleague has in store. We’ve been made as second favourites behind Copenhagen, so let’s see if we can keep up with the bookie’s expectations.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Well that went much, much better than I could hope for.

I knew that this group of players could be a force, but this is beyond my expectations and way, way ahead of schedule.

After starting the season so well in Europe, we continued that great energy into the league. The team has been flowing nicely as well during play, with goals not proving hard to come by. It was nearly 10 games until we dropped any points in the league and we remain domestically invincible going into the winter break.

Our big summer signing Bertrame is proving to be a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde player. Sometimes he’ll score a couple of goals, prove a constant menace and dominate a match, other times he is absolutely anonymous and can’t hit a cow’s **** with a banjo. Those moments are when having a great bench option like Hogh comes in clutch. He’s saved the team on more than a handful of occasions.

The star of the show has been Albert Gronbaek though, with the young Dane putting in superstar numbers over this first half of the season. Not only is he our joint second top scorer and our biggest assister, but he also ranks in the top three for dribbles and tackles per 90. How this lad isn’t wanted by every team out there is beyond me, he has been incredible.

I genuinely did not think we would be challenging Copenhagen yet, let alone thrashing them 4-0 in their own back yard. If you just go off the quality of the squad and the wages they’re paying out, they should by all accounts be walking this competition.

It’s gone brilliantly so far in Europe too. We kicked off the campaign in astonishing fashion, travelling to Luxembourg and absolutely kicking the snot out of Swift Hesperange. I even told them to hold back after a while, just seemed mean after the 6th, but the goals just kept coming for us.

The four matches after that though were the definition of a professional job. No goals conceded, another 10 scored. I was confident going into the group, but we sailed through to the next round on top of it. The final matchday loss to Lille wasn’t great, especially as that was set to be a very boring 0-0 before a speculative 25-yard shot took a wicked deflection and broke the unbeaten run. If you had offered me this before the group kicked off, I would have bitten your hand off.

The league now takes a little break for January, with this database having all the teams take part in the Youth Trofe. Designed to give your younger players a go, this competition restricts you to only having five players over 23 registered, with only one of them allowed on the pitch at a time.

As most of my squad is on the older side of that age barrier, it means delving into the under 21s to build up a team whilst most of my stars can put their feet up for a couple of weeks. After such a strong start to the season and with a lot of my squad having the dreaded ‘WNT’ sign next to them, lets see what fun and frivolity the January transfer window brings.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

We’re at that weird point in many a ‘building a team’ save when the club can start attracting players it very much cannot afford. Players that were on my wish list are now becoming interested in joining the project, but we are nowhere near reaching the point where £25m and £50k’s worth of wages can be put into Philip Billing.

We do have a slight boost in both transfer and wage budget thanks to a new chairman winning the elections, but let’s not get silly. Rome was not built in a day, and these are very encouraging signs.

We need to leap on players before they become the big-ticket items, which isn’t helped sometimes by myself being a stingy git. Me dilly-dallying about signing him meant I missed out of Samuel Gustafson to Brentford, a great Scandinavian player who wouldn’t have commanded a either a big fee or giant wages.

Perhaps driven by not wanting that to happen again, I may have gone a little insane and quadrupled our transfer record and splurged £8.5m on an 18 year old.

Ok, it’s a lot of money, like a stupid amount. Even on instalments it’s ridiculous

I can inhale some copium by saying that his wages are tiny, the potential he has is enormous and he could easily be one of our starting defenders for the rest of this run. Yeah, that's the stuff, I’m calling it an investment.

Also Borussia Dortmund bid for him and I got scared.

This season should be about playing the young kids like the aforementioned horribly expensive Kjelsen and building them up. But, I have a major weakness for an old player wanting one last ride to glory. With that in mind, please welcome our new starting centre back, Simon Kjaer. Ok, he can’t really do the whole running thing, which I hear is sometimes a requirement in sports, but he’s fantastic at everything else.

I’ll claim that the bargain basement rate of £80k forced my hand, but it’s probably the top knot if we’re being honest.

Perhaps slightly more rationally brought in for the grand price of nothing at all is Emil Krafth. Still under the age of 30, he was released by Newcastle whilst finishing the rehab for a horrible injury. Rude of them, fortunate for me. With heaps of experience and a more than able deputy to Wembangamo that is even able to cover at centre back, he seems to me like a very shrewd squad addition.

A bit of a goalkeeping injury crisis going into deadline day forces me to go and activate Egil Selvik’s release clause from the second division. No time for negotiation, just a quick easy deal to make. A solid shot stopper who’s happy to be a full time deputy, he proves more than capable in a bit of a rough spot.

Apart from that, a lot of the January window is spent on the defensive. Most of our first team has bids received for them, but thankfully most of them are happy with the proposed prices we put on their heads. Brighton in particular are very keen on Brice Wembangomo, who I am loath to get rid of. Thank goodness I’m able to repel their advances for now.

Whilst we lose out on some depth with the departures of Sorli, Zugelj, Sorenson and Boe, I couldn’t turn down a combined £9m for squad players I don’t plan to build around. Helps recoup all that cash I splashed out on the kid.

I'm really happy now though with the make up of the squad. We've got good experience, a mix of youth and cover in every area. Apart from left wing back, that was a bit of an oversight there, but we can easily switch to a back 4 should Bjorkan need a rest.

Oh my goodness why did I spend nearly £9m on a ruddy teenage defender again?

 

[efo94]

I’ve used this database for the last three years and it’s great. Adding your own limits on foreign players will definitely help make it more interesting in the long run. As a Norwegian I have to point out that this is a Nordic league, not a Scandinavian, as Finland and Iceland are not a part of Scandinavia.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

I’ve used this database for the last three years and it’s great. Adding your own limits on foreign players will definitely help make it more interesting in the long run. As a Norwegian I have to point out that this is a Nordic league, not a Scandinavian, as Finland and Iceland are not a part of Scandinavia.

Yeah, sorry about that, we Brits do tend to lump them all together. So far though, those Nordic nations haven't had a look in, so it might just be the Scandinavians fighting for glory after all.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Aside from making questionable transfer dealings, January also saw us take part in the Youth Trofe.

This seems to have been an addition made by the database creator, but it’s a nice opportunity for me to size up the younger players at the club and give them a proper run out.

You’re allowed to register six players over the age of 23 to take part in the tournament, but only one can play at a time. As Omar Elabdellaoui was kicking up a big stink about playing time and upsetting everyone, I thought I would make him the babysitter in chief.

It’s mainly the defence where we suffer from the registration rules, with randoms from the youth team making up the centre back pairings. With Sorenson, Hogh, Gronbaek, Gulliksen, Halsbeth Nypan, Sjofold and new boy Kjelsen all slipping under the age barrier. The bench is not a thing of great beauty though, getting to the point where name tags are very much needed.

Despite quite a few matches being packed in to a tight schedule, our lads do a magnificent job. I mean my first team barely trained during the month, but that extra pep in their legs paid off. That I still have three quarters of my preferred attacking players available helps massively, as they carry the rotated cast of youngsters. While we’re not hitting teams for silly score lines, none of our opponents are really able to lay much of a glove on us.

That trend even continues to the final, where we take on and absolutely batter FC Nordsjaelland to claim up our first proper silverware of the season.

The domestic super cup does not, and never will, count in that regards. I’m not Jose Mourinho.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Sorry for the delays in updating this, honestly been enjoying playing the save too much to write about it. Should be getting a couple of entries up soon though.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

So what do you do when you’re undefeated in the league, losing only once in all fixtures, halfway through the year? When you have a clear tactical idea that’s working well and winning games?

That’s right, change the entire system to something completely different!

The wingers working well, scoring goals and creating chances? Get rid of them and move them into central roles! The back four working as a nice cohesive unit?

Change that all around to crowbar in an aging Simon Kjaer!

Let me tell you, it was not the happiest transition.

We even had a (relatively) bad patch of form when we lost two out of three matches. Copenhagen obviously smelt the blood in the water and went on an incredible run of form, just as we started to stumble.

Thankfully we’re still able to grind out results on the regular, but we start to become a little more ‘Feast or Famine’. Whilst we are sometimes able to put up cricket scores, sometimes we’re completely blunt. More spoon than knife, a situation compounded by Bertrame getting injured for the best part of three months just after the close of the transfer window.

It all came down to the last two matches of the season, with both us and Copenhagen locked at the top with 92 points each. Exact same record, with only our better goal difference putting us on top. On the final day of the season we travel third place AGF and Copenhagen host mid-table Viking. Whoever could win those two matches would win the league.

The first of those pivotal games though? Oh, that would just be a little match between Bodo/Glimt and Copenhagen at our place.
I suspect the TV adverts for this would have run all week. Been teased in every other match being shown as ‘The Clash of Titans’, a match not to be missed. Obviously then, it would play out as a 0-0 that felt far more like a loss than a win. No matter what tinkering I did or words of encouragement I offered, my lads couldn’t find their way to making this anything to get excited about. Especially after Berterame missed a penalty and then decided to not hit a proverbial cow's **** with a banjo for the rest of the game.

So the final match was for all the marbles. Copenhagen needed to win, we just needed to match what they did. Two Denmark v Norway matches that would determine national bragging rights.

The fears of bottling this whole thing only grew with AGF taking the lead against us and Copenhagen taking the lead in their game almost simultaneously. Thank goodness though that my players seemed to just use this situation as motivation. Three unanswered strikes then took us to the brink of the title before a late AGF punt upfield made it all a bit uncomfortable. Berterame must have realised what this meant and went straight up the other end and finished off his final day hattrick.

Turns out though, that we didn’t even need to do that. Viking had performed their own comeback and handed Copenhagen a defeat at the worst possible time.

As the final whistle blew, up stepped Saltnes to lift the spoils. He’s already said to me that he wants to leave for a new challenge, so this was a wonderful epitaph for him.

In the Conference League, we just got unlucky, drawing Aston Villa in the round of 16. With Youri Tielemans earning nearly the same as our entire squad put together, and a manager as good as Unai Emery, they’re the favourites for a reason. Whilst we held our own in the first leg, the second was too much for us. They were the better side over the two matches, so now sour grapes. Villa then went on to win the whole thing, so at least we lost to the best around. It’s still frustrating though, as they were probably the only side that we couldn’t have taken on toe-to-toe.

We also came up short in the domestic cup, with us being beaten in the final by an inspired BK Haken side from the league below. I’m honestly not that beaten up though, just the narrative alone is worth us losing out on the trophy.

Coming to the end of our first season, it’s ended up being a bit of a mixed result. Whilst winning the league was a great achievement, I’m a little concerned about how much we and Copehagen dominated it. I was hoping the rest of the bigger teams in the region would run us closer and prove that we’re not going to be alone in getting up those coefficient points. It's weird to say, but I hope this gets a whole lot tougher, very quickly.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Coming into the second season of this challenge, title in hand and Champions League qualifiers upcoming, you would have thought that it would be getting easier to recruit good Scandi players to improve my team.

We’ve even got a nice little reputation bump that will surely put is in the market for some of the stars of Scandinavian football. Oh, what’s that you say? The best players from the region are already at clubs paying big wages and with huge valuations? Drat.
It also doesn’t help when the game seems to want to make this harder. William Clem from Copenhagen has oodles of potential and would slot nicely into my team. The price for me? £25m-£35m. The price for Man United? £3.5m going up to £10m. What the **** man!

Let's do the outs first, because honestly, they weren't that spectacular.

While I would have liked to have sold my players to our domestic rivals, it seems that as of yet, they don't quite have the resources to provide that opportunity right now. Keeping Saltnes around as a team leader would have been nice but he already said he wanted a new challenge, and Boro were more than happy to provide that for him. Weather's probably the same to be honest.

Amundsen, Gundersen, Elabdellaoui and Haikin all started kicking up a bit of a fuss about game time, so they all quickly got turned into a decent amount of money. The same can be said about Krafth and Salquist, who joined only last season for free and have now made me a tidy little profit. Not bad for a whole lot of dead wood.

We do have some new faces walk through the door on July 1st though, with me using up my non-EU player and my two inter-league signings as soon as possible.

The two players from within the league are both bright talents. Riisnaes becomes our second capture from Valerenga and will provide youthful cover for a whole bunch of positions. He was back on loan at his original club last year and is ready for a bit more game time upon his return. As good as he looks though, I am more excited about the arrival of Lovik from Molde. One of the better up and coming defenders in the region, he’s coming straight in to give Bjorkan some competition and eventually take his spot.

You may be asking about the non-EU player? As utterly silly as it sounds, everyone please welcome Talisca to the Arctic circle!
After being released from Al-Nassr last January, I have been keeping Talisca around on trial, just waiting for him to finally agree to a deal. I still have no idea how I’ve been able to nab him on such a small wage and that no-one else was battling me for his signature. He’s going to slot in nicely just about anywhere in our frontline and those technical attributes are bonkers.

Also, yes, Cristiano Ronaldo did also get released by Al-Nassr. And yes, I did try to get him in. But much like the haunted house on the Simpsons, he chose to end his career playing rather than come to Bodo/Glimt. Bit hard not to take that personally, but hey, we got our Brazilian so I’m happy about that.

I’ve also been keen to use my EU player allocation too, to no avail.

A lengthy pursuit of Lorenzo Lucca also came to nothing, as his club Pisa kept asking for more and more ridiculous prices. How a Serie B club can demand such is beyond me, but command it they did. The Italian eventually moved to the Bundesliga for over £25m, which was roughly about £15m more than I was willing to pay.

That was because I had a different focus for all my money. Having obviously not been satisfied with breaking the Bodo/Glimt transfer record last window, this summer saw us move the financial goalposts so far you need a map to see them.
Following a frankly ridiculous relegation last year, Eintract Frankfurt found themselves with a lot of very unhappy players. Whilst most were still out of my reaches due to huge wages, there was one that stood out above the rest.

Hugo Larsson. An elite, genuine, bonafide Scandinavian wonderkid. I had to have him.

Despite being wanted by Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Chelsea, we went all in on Hugo. I buttered him up in the press and even asked Berg to endorse the move. If there had been a button labelled ‘Send a basket of muffins’, I would have pressed it.
After some difficult negotiations, with both club and player, all I could do was wait. We’ve all been there. You agree a deal and then at the 11th hour, in comes PSG. But as the days ticked by, I couldn’t believe it. We weren’t being gazumped! Oh what a joyous sight it was, and Hugo became our new record signing.

I’m also very happy to bring Hugo Vetlesen back to the club, only a year after leaving us for now cash-strapped Brugge. With the possibility of Champions League fixtures this season, he’ll add a nice layer of depth to our squad and will prove an able deputy for Larsson should he ever get a bit tired.

With the midfield sorted, we looked for reinforcements up front and in defence. With cash a bit tight as we get to the end of the window, it's time to put on my Zealand merch and go look for some LLLOOOOAAANNNNSSSS.

And oh boy did I find two gems.

Isak Hein comes in as a proper physical threat. He'll basically be doing both his and Kjaer's running and comes with a decent optional fee and good experience at high levels.

But he's not the best one though.

Because how the blinking heck have I managed to convince Alexander Sorloth to come here for a year?!

An absolute bargain of a loan signing (despite what the board think), I'm only paying 20% of the wages for Norway's second best centre forward. A threat in the air, on the grund and in build up, he's an absolutely brilliant player to bring in to give Berterame some great competition up front. We've even been able to get in a decent future optional fee, which if possible, I will 100% be taking advantage of.

Last stop on our list? A decent shot-stopper.

For a set of nations chock full of giant fellows with big meaty hands, it’s amazing how few good Nordic goalkeepers there are. And the ones that do stand out are worth a fortune. So while we store up all our pennies and hope that we can grab a lower price deal on one of the premier options, in comes the best short term option around.

A 34-year-old Simon Kjaer not washed up enough for you? How about a 37-year-old Kasper Schmeichel? No, you’re stuck in Euro 2020! I’m sure a jumping reach of 11 isn’t going to haunt me at all. Nope, no way that could go wrong.

One last little deal I couldn't resist after coming up on a scouting report came in the form of Gustav Christensen, a young forward from Hertha Berlin who will go back there for the season to hopefully develop nicely before joining us next year.

Overall, I’m absolutely made up with that transfer window. Yes, it was a bit more of an overhaul than I intended, but it’s given us a really great platform to build off of. Just emulating last year's levels of success isn't going to be enough with these improvements.

Let's see what gains we can make.

 

[Paimeii]

Nice work! Keen to follow along

 

[FancyPantsCam]

After nearly bottling the title last year, it’s time for a little bit more tactical tinkering.

While still heavily influenced by a coach currently having a very, very hard time in Manchester, I’ve basically smashed the two previous systems together. I’ve never used a back five and wingers, but this should hopefully unlock my attacking players who struggled a little towards the end of last year.

The back three stays, but the two attacking midfielders have been moved back out wide. To make up for the gap in the centre, I’ve employed an attacking segundo volante, a role I’ve been itching to get into the side after loving them on a previous save.

This couple of changes have had a massive effect on the team, with the Champions League qualifiers the perfect showcase for them.

Us going down the ‘Champions’ path makes this a whole lot easier, meaning we had to face down such fierce foes such as Dinamo Tbilisi, Omonoia and Slovan Bratislava rather than the usual higher ranking sides that end up in the ‘league’ qualifiers.

We do a professional job in all six fixtures and cruise through to the new league phase. Whilst I was actually a tiny bit tempted to throw this match to get into the Europa league instead for a better chance of European glory, the money involved is too good to turn down.

Especially after my frivolous use of the company credit card.

Our reward? A frankly brilliant set of fixtures. Ok, Manchester City, Barcelona and Spurs are big and scary, but Union SG, Panathinaikos and CSKA Sofia? They shouldn't be too much trouble. The matches against Ajax and Porto are going to be the crucial ones that will determine if we progress or not.

Time to turn our eyes back towards the domestic season and unfortunately this is only the second season and yet we might have already broken the league. We are absolutely relentless during this first part of the season, only dropping two points. These statistics are incredible, but they could possibly be even better.

We’ve been heavily rotating whenever we have multiple matches in a week, so hypothetically we could have been battering the smaller teams by even greater scorelines had we always got our strongest lads in.

Copenhagen have not so much fallen away this season, more toppled head first down a ravine. They unfortunately sold three of their brightest stars in Bardghji (I tried to get him but couldn’t afford his wages), Jelert and Johanneson and have not been able to recruit well enough to replace them. I always worried that this might be a problem due to the AI’s, errr, questionable ability in the transfer market.

Whilst AGF and Brann have risen to be the 'best of the rest', it is very much that. All the teams second to sixth have taken points off each other and let us scamper away. They are both also no match for us when we play each other. So far only Brondy have managed to stop our juggernaut from scoring, everyone else has

Remarkably, this is also the case in the Champions League, which has so far gone better than I could ever have dreamt of.

The matches we expected to be competitive in, we prove to be far too strong. We can even go out swinging against much bigger guns. Tottenham? Sent away with a ****** nose, from our house beyond the artic circle, and Porto are dispatched with a massive result in the first round of fixtures.

We even pull off what might be the greatest result in the recent history of the club, stunning Barcelona to take all three points in our snowy contest with them. This was a proper FM-ing, but with us being the beneficiaries for once.

Schmeichel rolled back the years with a display that would make his dad proud, repelling shout after shot from the Catalans. I thought the gig was up when Gulliksen decided two-footing Frenkie De Jong was a good idea with 15 to go, but one threaded through ball and a great finish by Sorloth had me and our diminutive but loyal crowd in raptures.

We do have two games left to go in the league, with Erling Haaland's return to Norway causing me sleepless nights, but we are all but confirmed to be through without need of those pesky play-offs.

It really has helped with how good our summer arrivals have been so far.

Talisca has been incredible since he arrived in the summer, getting involved in so much of the attacking play and proving to not just be a great goal scorer, but provider as well. Larsson has completely lived up to the hype, an absolute midfield dynamo who terrorises teams with his late box-crashing runs and has proved the perfect partner for Berg.

This new formation has also freed up Wembangamo to become an attacking machine. His pace and direct running on the right have become a proper weapon of ours, with both goals and assists regularly against his name.

We look lethal in attack, great in possession and our only defensive frailty seems to be that every now and again, Kasper Schmeichel forgets how to jump. Put the ball on the deck, and he’s still a top-level shot-stopper. Floated crosses though? Kryptonite to our number 1.

Unbeaten so far in the league, in the top eight of the Champions league with two matches to go and I genuinely don’t know how the first part of the season could have gone any better.

Let’s try and snaffle a bargain or two in the winter window and then go get some trophies.

 

[FancyPantsCam]

Having witnessed the small group of great Scandinavian goalkeepers values only go upwards over the last half season, I have now realised that I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and use my EU slot on one. And if I’m going to do that, I might as well go for one that can sit between the sticks for the rest of this save and grow with the team.

So having rooted around all the under-23 goalkeepers around, I go for the biggest boy in the class with Dennis Sieman. He’s not properly broken into the Stuttgart team and still has oodles of potential and is happy to join and make a name for himself.

Also, it’s not because I like mispronouncing Dennis’ name, honest.

I almost went for Restes for Toulouse, but seeing Schmeichel getting out jumped constantly has left me with a complex about any keeper with a jumping reach under 15.

Selling Gulliksen was never part of the plan. A great young Norwegian talent, he was going to be a mainstay of my plans, but bigger clubs in the main continent turned his head. After a bit of a strop on his behalf, I had to agree to a £9m asking price. That I managed to instead get £16m from Leicester slightly made up for the loss. Thanks to the delay feature, I was even able to keep him around for most of the Youth Trofe.

That sudden influx of cash meant two things. I now had the means and the squad space to pull of the move I had been itching to make since the beginning of the save. Despite having taken a slight dip since last years addition, it was time to finally get Andreas Schjelderup into this squad.

Rotting on the bench at Benfica, this was the time to rescue him and let him realise his potential. Negotiations were relatively pain free with Benfica, they might have forgotten he existed to be honest. Whilst he wanted far more in wages than I really wanted to give him, he will 100% be worth it in the end. With the fee being about the same up front as we got for Gulliksen, I think that’s a fair trade.

All of this was going on alongside our travails in the Youth Trofe and the last two Champions League fixtures.

The game against Ajax in the Champions League that I thought would be crucial to our progress was turned on it's head by a wild thirteen minute spell where everything we hit went in. You won't hear me complaining though, as it guaranteed our passage before our big scary final round tie against Carlo Ancellotti's Manchester City (Pep's gone to PSG).

The match against Manchester City is an absolute barn-burner, with both us and them throwing players forward in a real game of “We’ll score more than you!”. Of course Erling Haaland scored, but it would not be the game winner, with us coming from 3-1 down with an injury time leveller from local lad Bjorkan.

The folks at the Etihad do the only reasonable thing to do following me stealing those two points from them. Put in a derisory bid for Patrick Berg and upset him.

What they don’t know though is that Berg’s ego can easily be used against him. It’s a bit odd that I have to tell the captain of the team that he’s pretty influential in the dressing room, but telling our Norwegian skipper the obvious does the trick and he’s happy to stay.

Those escapades though had us miraculously finishing top of the Champions League, err, league. Ok, it was on goal difference but that is so far beyond even my wildest expectations. Heck, getting through to the play off was all I wanted, so everything after here is just the cherry on top. Btw, yes, it looks very odd seeing our team be Swedish, but just a quirk of the database.

In regards to the Youth Trofe, most of it goes to plan but the results are sometimes a lot closer than I'd like. Yes we hit double figures in one match, but I don't think it's rude to Jerv to say that their youngsters aren't the envy of world football.

It all comes undone though when we reach the final. The performance in the first 55 minutes against Midtjylland might have been the worst I’ve seen from this club. The ten minutes after the interval weren’t much better, with the Danes getting a third unanswered goal. Whilst we were able to get two back, it's not enough for us to retain the title.

So while the board are a bit cheesed off at missing out on more silverware, I'm actually quite ok with not being able to win everything just yet at a canter.

With our team further strengthened through January, I can't feel anything other than positive for the rest of the year.