FM2016 - From Africa to Europe - ALL DONE!!!!!

[Abe Sargent]

Extra time

GET ME THAT ONE GOAL!!!

For Spain!

We have a bunch of chances in the 92nd, but their GK eventually stops parrying and holds. DC Mere booked. Half in Extra time

And there is is. Penalties. Stupid penalties….



We’re going in this order – Asensio, Isco, ST Perez, GK De Gea, ST Afredo, Dani Olmo is 6th

They go first….

In.

Here comes Asensio, running up and…

Blocked


We are down 1-0

Here comes Jae-Hwan….makes it. Duh. Isco hits.

2-1



Dong-Hyuk is next….hits. Double Duh…

Ayoze Perez follows,


3-2

Lee Jae-Sung steps up and…..


De Gea bats it away!


Can he follow with a pk?

He does, one GK nails it past another

3-3


Seung-Woo steps up for SK. In

Alright Alfredo. This is all on you to keep Spain in this

In. The young guy has what it takes!!!

4-4

Kim Myung-Ho, another Melilla player steps up. This is that 19 year old wonderkid we bought in. What can he do? In

Dani Olmo?In


5-5


DANG


South Korea?

In

Here’s Sergi Darder

IN

6-6



De Gea SAVES the next shot for SK. For this entire game, we’ve kicked to regain momentum and to answer, this is the first kick we get to make with the chance to win it. And who’s up next?

Gaya

Will our winger win the match? Can I finally get to my World Cup final? After like 15 years of playing the game, will it finally freakin’ happen?












Yes

It

Will


Gaya sinks it, and we win 7-6 on PKs!!!!

MOM is Isco.

Good job South Korea!

But….Alvaro Morata is out for 5-6 months with a damaged Achilles tendon

[Abe Sargent]

THE 2022 WORLD CUP FINALS SPAIN VS ECUADOR


Let’s look at Ecuador’s path to the World Cup Finals:

Group E:

Lost 5-2 to Spain
Tied 1-1 New Zealand
Beat Sweden 4-1

Advanced with 4 points

Knockout Round – Defeated England 1-0
Quarter Final – 3-1 over Colombia
Semi Final – 3-1 over Ghana

Finals – Spain

Now Ecuador has had one major, signature, tournament defining win. Beating England. Then they have Colombia and Ghana in their way ,and they easily handled them.

Spain’s Path:

Group E:

Defeated Ecuador 5-2
Defeated Sweden 2-0
Defeated New Zealand 3-0

Advanced with 9 points

Knockout – Defeated Australia 3-1
Quarters – Defeated Italy 1-0
Semis – Defeated South Korea 3-3 on penalties

Now, Spain has not lost. It beat Ecuador before. But it’s recent form has been a bit more misguided. 1-0 and 3-3 pk shootout.




9 July –

After a dry 0-0 game, South Korea defeat Ghana to gain 3rd place

[Abe Sargent]

It’’s time:

Your Spanish Starting XI:

GK David de Gea
DC Javier Garcia
DC Dani Perez
DC Jesus Vallejo
MR Marco Asensio
MC Thiago
MC Koke
ML Jose Gaya
AMC Juan Mata
ST Ayoze Perez
ST Alfredo

And there you go!

We have Perez in a ST for an injured Morata. Isco is down to 81% condition, and that makes no sense to toss him in. I have Thiago in instead.

Pick up where you left off!!!

[Abe Sargent]

Quiet First Ten Minutes, and then they foul Asensio driving into the box and it’s a penalty. Mata fires it in for a score. 10th minute of play.

They hit us on a counter about 4 minutes later and it’s 1-1. We launch a FK from way back and try to hit goal and another foul is commited and another penalty given. Mata steps up and….drops it. Goal in the 22nd.

I slide to counter for a bit

Ecuador with a card. We injure an Ecuadorian player named Santos in the 33rd.

We have a major offensive spurt turned aside in the late 30s

Vallejo with a card

On a FK, Thaigo finds Vallejo for a goal in the 44th.

Half 3-1 – we have two PKS and a FK. Don’t be complacent. Stay focused.

[Abe Sargent]

Quiet, and we turn aside just one major Ecuadorian thrust.

They hit Mata hard, so I bench him for Dani Olmo.

I poull Ayoze Perez for Oliver. We have two attacks beaten. Everyone has shots on target – Oliver, Olmo, Alfredo, all batted aside or punched away.

Hello Corral. Gaya is dead tired, so in and replace hin


And that’s it. We win 3-1, with two pks and one set piece FK that sunk. Their GK did amazing, 27 shots, 15 on target. MOM was Mata.

Passionately . Enjoy every minute. You have carved your name into football history.

[Abe Sargent]

There are a lot of inequities in football. We all know it. European football in particular. There’s a real divide between the haves and the have nots, and it makes it hard for any club not in the “in” crowd to ford the river. Take as a good example, the Champions Cup

There are multiple places where the Cup favors the major, big name teams. They make a ton of money from the viewers, the various revenue streams, and so forth And people are more interested in seeing two big name clubs duke it out, like Inter Milan and Chelsea, than a scrappy club like Slavia Prague vs Benfica or Porto. And the system is set out to reward the best teams and divisions with financial incentives, which is very different than the jaded and circuitous angles of sports in America.

First of all, your league gets more slots based on how many heavy hitters you have. No one wants a Champions League without Manchester United playing in it. Take the Spanish Liga as a good example. It has three major teams everyone wants in – the Madrids, and Barca. So you give it three automatic qualifying spots for the Group Stage of the Champions Cup, and then 4th spot for a playoff last leg, in case your big three are in 4th one year due to a team like Valencia hitting above them on the chart. You don’t want a surprise #3 ranking by Villarreal next year to drop Barca from the Champion’s League.

Then you are seeded in the Group Stage based on Coefficient, which is based on your continental history in the last five years. The better you have been historically, the better your seed. So if you do really well one year, and crack the Champions’s glass ceiling, you won’t get seeded based on how high up you hit, but dropped hard. Take us. We hit #2 in the Liga, and only Barca was above us. But we were seeded last, and put in a tough group with heavies like Juventus and Arsenal. We were punished for punching above our weight class .

That’s obviously a problem moving forward. You have serious cash incentives. In our Champions Cup winning run, we made…more than 200 mill. That’s a lot more cash that we have than others don’t. It creates obvious inequities in the system.


Everyone knows it. Perennial Champions Teams have so much more cash they can pay massive cash for their players. Even though we had a major injection of cash post-takeover, and were bringing in more transfer money than spending ,and bringing in the sweet sweet champions cup cash, we still ad the 5th largest payroll in the liga, at 1.75 mill a week. After resigning a deal at 135k a week, our best player, Ricardo, was making less than backups and rotation players make at Barca or R. Madrid. So you can understand why a player wants to move to these bigger clubs.

If a big name university, with a lot of cash, like Harvard, called me up on the phone and offered to bring me in to do the same job I;m doing now for 40k a year for 100k, I’d be ready to give my two weeks notice and leave. And if my boss blocked my move, I’d be pretty pissed off.

We all get it. The system is inequal.

So I built my club differently.

[Abe Sargent]

From the ground up

I honestly believe that, looking back, I won this dynasty in my first year in the liga. I picked up four young defenders to play for me, with the expectation that they would grow into quality liga players around the time I made it there. Of the four, I sold three immediately after arriving – Juan Lopez, Paul Jordan, and Seenyane Mosiuda.

I gained around 11mill from those sales, and then 7-8 mill from my board to spend normally. They gave me most of that cash as transfer. I went out and made a bunch of deals to improve my squad:

I bought Jae-Hwan for a 3 mill and some change
I bought DC Guy Ouattara for less than a mill
I bought David Ibrahim for less than a mill
I bought GK Seung-Gyu for a few hundred thousand
I bought Antonio Milic for a little less than SG
I bought Ragazzi for less than 2 million
I bought Van Persie for a mill
I bought Oliver for 1.6 mill
I bought Ntsume for a few hundred thousand as a backup hot prospect
And I also bought some bum called Ingason, for 2.5 mill and solid him 1.5 a year later

I also signed for free Ahmad Sayed, ST Patrick Bamford, Henri Lanzini

Now Ntsume, Ingason, Milic, and Van Persie weren’t major long-lasting moves. But they worked

And I won.


Do you see how?

[Abe Sargent]

First, I developed Jae-Hwan into a mega star. He was strong, played well on the right flank right away, then I moved him to my Vaz/Sayed role that did so well in my scheme. Jae-Hwan was great. He;s a rock for my team

We have developed Ibrahim. He was a good, solid depth, can start at this level, and now he;s a strong player, and may push hard for time as his finishes growing


Then we have Oliver, still on my squad, still a strong, useful rotation guy

All three of the players I signed for free were great contributors, major players, and then were solid for cash. Lanzini was more than 10 mill, Bamford a few (6?8?, can’t recall at the moment) and Sayed for sigh 30s. That set us up financially to make major moves later on. We also sold Ragazzi for 15 mill and Ouattara for a ton of money, and flipped MIlic and Sueg-Gyu for more.
These early moves my first year, and the sales of the players we got for free or purchased and flipped was incredible, and it allowed me to pick up Ricardo and Mance, Althof, Cecchi and Lopez, Garcia and Valenzuela.

Our free additions, like Dong-Hyuk, El Ghazi, Grealish and Cook helped us a lot.

So we won the first year, as I used that capital from the three sold players to build the foundation of our major dynasty, both in terms of finances and personnel.

Things rarely have good endings.

This is true in both life and sports. It’s one of the reasons we like movies and tv shows and books and games were people live happily ever after. We live vicariously through them. I think our art is often the difference between now and what is not happening. The worse our lives are, the more we like our entertainment to be fun, light, and happy. The happily our lives are, the darker and edgier we want out stuff to be. (I think that may be one reason why rich and upper middle class suburbanites really like gangster rap).


Anyways, like rarely has good endings. Sports too. My Jaguars have never won a Super Bowl. So it’s nice when I can get one for the team in FOF. My Mountaineers have never won a football Championship. Sad. Even when my Jaguars have a breakout year, and make it deep, they don’t win it all. They invariably lose, and me with them.

In real life, we’ve seen clubs win their division and the top domestic Cup the same year. If your league has two or three heavy hitters, it’s actually pretty likely. If you have a two team league, like Dinamo Kiev and Shaktar, on any given year, there’s a roughly 40-45% chance that the winner also wins the cup (adding in the chance for an upstart in the cup),

And we’ve seen clubs win the Champions League and their own home division at the same time. It certainly happens. If you are a club like Bayern Munich or Juventus or R.. Madrid, then it’s very likely that you will win the division in any year in which you grab that Champions’s Trophy. And again, adding in the likelihood for a cup for the treble is totally doable.

So this year, Melilla won all three. And again, this is only my second time winning the trophy. Yay us!

My first time I won with Clube Desportivo Nacional de Madeira was, in part, because a lot of heavies fell earlier. We had CSKA Moscow in the Semis and Benfica in the Finals. We had an easier road. And we benefited from it

This happened with Melilla as well. We had Napoli, Porto, and Olympiakos. Not exactly three clubs that are the heaviest of the heavies, although not chumps. Then in the final, Leverkusen was our foe, a team punching above its weight class. We had an easier run. That happens. The previous year we ran into Man utd right out of the Group Stage, and lost on penalties, and they went on to win, and were the only club that came close to beating them. If we hadn’t played them, maybe we would have gone deeper, who knows.

And the same thing happened in this crazy World Cup.

We came is as a favorite, and we played against these teams, in this order:

Sweden
New Zealand
Ecuador
Australia
Italy
South Korea
Ecuador

Does that seem like a laundry list of the world’s best clubs? The massive upsets in the Knock rounds removed a lot of heavies from the competition, and South Korea removed the last one when they took out Brazil.


I would have loved to have seen my club win the World Cup after a gauntlet of teams like Brazil, Argentina, France and Belgium. But you know what? That was my first World Cup win, and I don’t care if I had to play the Faeroe Islands in the finals, it’s the World Cup.

And I got both a treble and the World Cup in the same year?

Folks, that’s your happy ending.

I have played this game series and I have never gotten this sort of a happy ending. It’s not life. It’s not football. They don’t have happy endings. And neither does FM>

So I am enjoying this.

[Abe Sargent]

Here are my players, post World Cup, at the beginning of the 2022/2023 season , with my stud addition, as per GS Scout

Ricardo – 195/200 – the best player in the world
Jae-Hwan – 182/187
Althof – 179/192
Valenzuela – 178/193
Mladen Mance – 178/193
Cecchi – 176/179
Felipe Anderson – My new addition – 175/176
Mputu – 174/182
Dani Perez – 169/198
Dong-Hyuk – 167/179
Garcia – 163/186
Grealish – 161/170
Bonnot – 158/172
Ibrahim – 158/170
Oliver – 158/169
Kadodia – 157/170
El Ghazi – 155/155
Diallo – 153/159
Mesa – 138/159

Other major players on my team of note:

GK Banda 134/180
ST Mwasika 136/165
ST Joe Heath 137/164

D/WB/M/AM LR Kim mYung-Ho, about 6 months left to be Spanish, is 153/180 and on loan to Barca on a first team basis
MC/DMC Jaime Sanchez, our youther last year who looks amazing is 119/193
ST Allan Luiz, on loan at Granada, 125/174


Now we have a lot of folks I brought in that don’t look this good, I’ve skipped them by. These are the current hits on our squad. MC Jose Antonio, our first decent youth guy is now 124/141, and that’s not really where we are as a squad. I have youthers like Ntsume or GK Adama that never really did anything. Gomes was always more potential than play. But there are my current hits.

[Abe Sargent]

And here are the top 20 players in the world, by current ability:

Ricardo *
Neymar
Pogba
Hazard
Luna
De Gea
Courtois
Luciano
Jae-Hwan *
Odegaard
Ter Stegan
Peeters
Althof *
Asensio
Lohhoff
Sterling
Valenzuela *
Mance *
Martial
Isco

With Cecchi at 22, and Felipe Anderson 27 and Mputu 31

(Note how many Spain starters are in the top 20 – De Gea, Asensio, Isco, and Koke is 24th). And my guys are getting better, save for Anderson. In a few years, Althof is going to be 190 or so, and the best GK in the world. Jae Hwan has a little room left to grow, Ricardo too. Valenzueal could be 190 or so, Mance the same, and while some of my players, like Cecchi or Mputu have mostly plateaued and have little more room for growth, I have Dani Perez on the up swing and could be 190 or 195. Garcia could be 180-185. At that point, imagine a team with these numbers – 190 GK, 195-200 MR, 190 ST, 175 ST, 190 DMC< 190 DC, 185 DC, 185 DC, 185 MC, 175 ML? (Unless I have my young Korean middie Ibrahim, or Bonnot take over on the wing) and maybe a new pickup at MC at 170. That team would have, essentially, a Messi/Neymar/Ricardo at almost every position.

It’s not going anywhere. Now I may move Mance in a few years and have 170/170 Kadodia in there or 174/174 Luiz, in there, or another addition. Maybe a 150 or 160/193 potential Sanchez in the middle. But we are just blowing up this place right now.

And again, R Madrid is losing value. Their best is Isco at 177 and 30 years old,a nd then starters who are 31, 32, 33, 30, 25, 30, 28, 37. Ronaldo is down to 156 or about the same level as Kadodia. They haven’t invested a lot of young talent. Barca is the same. 30 eyars old Neymar is 1891, their GK ois 10, their mddies is 170, and then Messi is 165, and then 31 yar old Thiago is 163, Luis Suarw 162, Busquest 160, and these folks are 35, 33, 36 and where is the young folks? Have they invested that money into a ot of young up and coming talent like we did? A couple of wonderkids that have grown up – one is 23 and the other 20, both in the 150s and both with a potential of 180. That’s it

At. Madrid idn;t do any better. This information is July 10, after the world cup, and after clubs brought in a new laeyr of talent. And they still have Koke at 174, Lucas at 173, a guy at 164, and then they hit the 150s for the rest of their team. And they have no 150s and growing players, all are done growing or capped youther likes this 21 year old 150/150 guy. They didn’t invest wisely

What I like to do with my purchases is to buy low, and that’s usually young players in ascendance. Invest and get an amazing scouting department. We are currently at 74% world knowledge. Find those hot young studs in Korea, in South Africa, in Cameroon, in Chile, wherever you find them, and then bring them in. I brought in tons of talent from South Korea – three wonderkids, Ibrahim from Nigeria, Kadodia, Banda, and Mosiuda from South Africa, and more. I have players from Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia. I don’t care. And this worked. Sign those young, cheap, disaffected young guys that are clamoring for first time play, and stuck behind layers of folks on teams, like Oliver at At. Madrid.

Bring in players off waivers. Right now, we have free, a 155/155 23 year old d/wb/m l, a 153/161 25 year old DM M ROLC guy, a 149/157 25 eyar old D, a 147/149 26 year old ST, and a 146/158 21 year odl DC. Oh and a 20 year old 129/174 ST from Brazil. You can grab those or in any combination and build a starting top league squad right now. Ahmad Sayed was just 143/152, but he plyed his heart out in the right place. Be a merc and grab ofolsk on the first day you can for bosman contracts expiring both at the end of the football year and at the end of the actual year. Players like Osmar and Mahmoud really helped us as mid-season additions for free.

I jokingly call this the Korean National Team, North African Branch Campus

We have had a ton of Korean international playing for us.

[Abe Sargent]

World Cup Awards:

Best Player at the tournament:

Spain Marco Asensio!

2nd place Spain’s Isco. 3rd Brazil;s Gabriel Barbosa

With three players having 6 goals each, Barboasa wiis the Golden Boot, and Dong-Hyuk 2nd and our Alfredo 3rd.

Goal of the Tournament was Mance’s goal for Croatia vs Qatar in the Group Stage

Remember how Italy stuffed us hard in their game? Their GK wins GK of the tournament

Get Ready:

The World Cup Best Xi:

GK Scuffett, Italy
DC Jesus Vallejo, Spain
DC Dani Perez Spain
DR Florenzi, Italy
DL Alex Sandro, Brazil
ML Neymar, Brazil
MC Luciano, Brazil
MC Isco Spain
MR Asenso, Spain
ST Alfredo, Spain
ST Garbosa, Brazil

There you are!

5 Spain players in Top XI – Jae-Hwan was in the subs. Anyone who thinks I wa just playing my guys to play my guys at DC doesn’t understand how poor the Spanish DCs were, other than the very good Vallejo

I’l cheat with Ca:

Vallejo – 167
Martinez – 153
Duarte – 161
Mere – 158
Garcia – 163
Perez – 169


And the CA of other DCs in the pool is horrendous. And Perez and Garcia are getting better and better and soon will be 170+ elite players.

It’s also about finding the right skill set. Alfredo is 22, and 155/180 vs other ST that are more but our scouts love his big games, consistency, and his stats fit perfectly for the attacking role we needed to go alongside Morata’s better support role. He’s a perfectionist, highly professional, etc. Only major knock is injury prone. I was comfortable with his 155 given how well it worked with my team, and it did. And he was just named to the Best XI Dream Team, so he can really push things on from here. He has 11 goals in 11 caps.

It’s also nice to see my players doing well for their national squads, like El Ghazi for Holland, Grealish for England, Mance for Croatia, the Yoons, and such.

[Abe Sargent]

Post world cup –


The liga rose to the top competition in the Europe and bump the EPL to 2nd

Mellila rose more in club ranks.

Gameiro retires. He remains a coach for us

Benatia retires. He once won African Defender of the Year

The Kadodia – Dong-Hyuk experience and hook up went marvelously.

Ivan Villar’s deal is up, but I keep him on a month-to-month deal as a backup right now until I can find another option


Melilla has risen to the 12th richest club

R Madrid is 5th
Barcelona 19th
Valencia 22nd
At. Madrid 27


Joining us is Felipe Anderson, currrenlty on the Brazilian national squad. You’ll love him


I get 87 offers to loan out Kim Myung-Ho! I loan him out, on a first team deal, to….Barcelona.

I offer Dong-Hyuk a new contract after seeing his escalated value

We make 37 mill, and expected to both win the lgia and make the semis of the Champions League

For this year, we have a budget of 2 mill per week, and are at 1.7 right now, and then 25 mill transfer kitty available.

I sign Dong-Hyuk to 110k/year, 5 years, and bump his release fee to 200+ mill

Current value of my people:

Ricardo, 95 mill
Jae-Hwan – 81
Mance 60
Valenzuela – 59
Dong-Hyuk 57
Felipe Anderson 53
Grealish 47
Oliver 45
Cecchi 42
El Gahzi 40
Mputu 38
Ibrahim 36
Diallo 35
Perez 33
Bonnot 33
Garcia 22
Kadoda 8.25
Althof 8

Everybody else a lot less

That’s one of the reasons I exteneded Dong-Hyuk’s deal.

I have standing offers to sell Bonnot for 28 mill to AS Monaco, Kadodia for 22 mill to Dortmund,

I could sell both for 50+ mill (assuming I could negotiate for more) and then reinvest it

Now I don’t think that I would. I like Kadodia as my third ST option. Bonnot is just a hot prospect, but he’s a really, really good one.

[Abe Sargent]

For fun, I go on holiday for a while until the end of the next season so see what would happen – We win the Euro Super Cup vs Dinamo iev 3-0, and then Super Cup vs Barca, we make it to the finals of the Spanish Cup and lose to R. Sociedad, we lose in the first round of the knockout stage in the Champion League to Bayern Munich, and then we finih 3rd in the liga behind R Madrid and Valencia, and BArca were 5th. And while that’s clearly a let down from last season, we certainly show that we are at and near the top of stuff, and a new Spanish power and force to be reckoned with.


You know what? Let’s do something else instead. Because going on a holiday doesn’t give full control to another manager. I resign. They hire Carlo Ancelotti as their manager moving forward. Good choice. Won the Champions Cup twice with AC Milan, then moved to Bayern in 2016 and was there for six years dominating everyone. Now moved to Melilla.

First year without me at all:

4-1 over Barca for Super Cup
2-1 over D. Kiev in Euro Super Cup
Lost 3-2 in 1st Knockout to Juventus
Finished 2nd in Liga with R. Madrid in front, Barca 4th,
Lost in Quarters to R. Madrid in S. Cup

Transfer – Sold Bonnot for 28.5 mll to Bayern; sold Oliver for 9.75 to Napoli, sold Ibrahim to Bayern for 25 mill

Purchased - Middle Dani Ceballos for 11 mill from Betis
Grabbed youther Petr Pejsa from Viktoria Plzen fro 425k
Kenneth Paal for 6 mill from PSV,
Picked up 24 year old newgen hoss Ersin Yaradanakul from Fenerbahce fr 12.25 mill
12.5 mill for Willi Orban from RBL – 30 year old DC and fullback and MC
5.5 mill, Serbia nnewgen Milos Trifunovic, solid DC,
1.7 mill Christian Jorgensen for 1.7 mill from FC Midyjlland, 20 year old wonderkid Danish

I like the Jorgenson pickup, and there are some here I get all day long. I feel Milos is a bt redundant considering your DCs on roster. You can understand why Bonnot was sold, and Ibrahim too. We have Grealish, Ricardo, and Felipe Anderson

This guy barely played Anderson, and has transfer listed him. They have been moved to a 4-1-2-1-2. Ricardo at the AMC spot, and Yoons in the middle and Mance and Kadodia up front.

That;s year one

I go on holiday for another year

[Abe Sargent]

Year 2 –


Melilla dominates the liga again. They win and secure 105 points, and are 28 points over R Madrid in 2nd.

They make it to the Finals of the Champions League and face Bayern Munich; They beat them 2-0

Mance is the Golden Boot Winner

They win the Spanish Cup 3-2 over At. Bilbao.

So they have essneitaly an identical to ours two years ago, winning the treble.

They sold:

Felipe Anderson for 19.25 mill to AC Milan
Dong-Hyuk for 42.5 mill to Juventus
Willi Orba for 4.3 mill to Liverpool
El Ghazi for 11 mill to AS Monaco
Diallo to Liverpool for 10.5 mill

They purchase:

Gaviao, 17 mill, from Santos, 23 year old newgen DC who’s fine
17 year old newgen Jerome Vialoa for 1.1 mill
23 eyar old negen Tom Stabb, ST from Crystal Palace and he’s fine too
From PSV 23 year old regen, Robin Renirie, DR, 10.75 mill Solid addition
Hugop BAptista, 1.8 mill, Boavista, 18 year old huge potential GK
12,75 from AS Monaco, Abdou Aziz Thiam, 27 year old DMC, MC DR,
4.3 mill, Luis Araujo, from Shakhtar, DR ,enwgen, fine


Holiday again.



Year Three:

Won on penalties vs AS Monaco in the Euro Super Cup
Defeated At. Bilbao 5-1 agrgegate in the Super Cup
Defeated Monterrey 4-0 in the Club World Championships
Won the liga
Lost in Spanish Cup Quarters vs Valencia
Made it to the Champions Final vs Man City and…beat them 2-1 or another Cahmpion Victory

Moves made:

Jesus Angel Ortega for 2.1 mil t Tours FC
Robin Renirie for 11.5 mill to Roma
Kim Myung-Ho for 42 mill to Man City
Dani Ceballos to Olympiakos for 2.5 mill
Molos Trifunovic for 8.5 mill to Paris SG


Bought –

Lima, 5.25 mill from Internacionl ,wonderkid, plays fullback and MR

8.75 mil for Robin Tim Becker, from Leverkusen, 28 year old fullback,

Let’s move forward into genie gs. Where are our players after three more years:

The best players in the world:

Ricardo – 200/200
Dani Perez, 196/98
Sergio Valenzuela – 193/193
Lukas Altho, 192/192
Pogba – 192
Mert Bayrak – 191
Mance – 191
Jae-Hwan – 187
Nadrea Barraco, 186
Jeet Padaruth, 186
Garcia – 185

So Mputu is 182, and CECCHI 179. That’s a lot of top line talent on our squad. We did a good job identifying and bringing them in. And players like Myung-Ho are 172/180 and Dong=Hyuk is 175/179. Ibrahim is 170/170.

Alright, another year.

Won Euro Super Cup vs Arsenal 3-1
Won Super Cup vs Valencia 3-3 aggregate on away goals
Lost in the first knockout round of Champ vs Gelsenkirchen
Lost in Spanish QF vs R. Madrid
Won liga with 102 points and 23 mor ethan RM in 2nd.


Sold – I’m just doing the folks we know

ST Mwasika – 3mill to Dinamo
ST Felix Kadodia, 47.5 mill to Bayern
GK Banda 875k to Anderlecht


Also let go of DC Combes, DL Matthew Adelson, and out great youth DC Alejandro Balderrabano


That’s year 4.

[Abe Sargent]

Year 5?

Won Spanish Super Cup 5-4 aggregate over Real Madrid
Made it to Champions Final, lost to Juventus 1-3
Won the Liga, with 104 points – Valencia was 2nd with 82 points, and Barca fell to 7th.
Won Spanish Cup over At. Bilbao 3-2


Gone:

MC Jose Antonio, free
ST Jorge Mesa, free


Year 6?

Won Spanish Super Cup 4-4 on away goal to At. Bilbao.

Lost in 5th round fo S Cup to Getafe, 3-2

Won Liga with 97, 13 points over R Madrid. Barca at 6t.

Lost in Champ Quarters to Paris StG 3-2 agg



Sold:

No major players left from the old days

As of today, top players in the world

Ricardo
D Perez
Bayrak
Valenzuela
Althof
Samed Seidu
Mance
Silvio Ferreria
Jacopo Moschella
Jeet Padaruth
Weslyter van der Meer
Yamil Luna
Jae-Hwan
Matteo Girault
Mike Muller
Andrea Barraco
Javi Garcia
Savs Hays
Jame Sanchez 0 Our youth is now 184/193
Jonathan Gonzalez
Louis Mputu
Jack Lokhoff
Roberto Ragazzi
Tarek Bouzid
Luciano Vicente

So you can see that Melilla not only had the top score retained and good, other players were not developed as good as they could have been, while Sanchez has been added to the group

How about another year?

[Abe Sargent]

Year 7 –


Won Super Cup vs Valencia 3-2
Lost in Champions Semis to Juventus 2-3
Lost in Span Cup Semis to R. Madrid 4-5
Won liga with 94 points, RM is 2nd, Barca 5th

No major players from my era leave


Year 8 –


Welcome to 2030:

1st in Liga by 10 points over R Madrid at 95 – Barca at #6.

Won the Jae-Hwan testimonial game 2-1

Won Super Cup vs R Madrid 7-2

Won the Spanish Cup 1-0 vs Barca

Lost in Champ Quarter to AS Monaco 1-2


ST Joe Heath, solid for 12.25 mill to Chelsea


Jae-Hwan is 31, Ricardo 29,

Jack Grealish will be retiring at the end of the year, at the age of 34, his 10th year with the club



Year 9 –

Won the Cecchi Testimonial 3-2

Won the Mance Testimonial 2-0

Won Super Cup over Barca 6-1

Won Spanish Cup 3-0 over At. Bilbao

Won Champions League on penalties over Arsenal

Won liga with 99 points, RM at 90, Valencia at 81


No major losses

Today, 2031, Melllia has upgraded to a 44,500 stadium, superb training and youth facilities

Oh, Spain were a runner up for the World Cup in 2030, and the Euro in 2028, and won the Olympics in 2024

[Abe Sargent]

Year 10 –


1st in liga, 97 points, Re Madrid with 85, Valencia with 84 – Barca at 6th

Won Althof Testimonial 4-1

Won Garcia Testimonial 4-1

Won Ricardo Testimonial 2-0

Won Euro Super Cup 3-1 vs Tottenham

Won Spain Super Cup 4-2 vs At. Bilbao

Won Wold’s ChamipshipFinal vs Palmeiras 4-0

Won Perez Testimonial 2-0

Lost in S Cup Final 1-0 to R Mad

Lost in Champions Quarters3-5 to Valencia (Velencia defeated Tottenham 3-0 to win the Champion’s Cup)


No major players leaving of note

10 years later:

Top players in the world include – Ricardo, D Perez, Matt Bayrak, Maxim Federov,Jamie Sanchez, Ben Beechley, Althof, Valenzuela, Samad Seidu, Mile Muler and more.

Melilla has 5 in top ten, but just one more in top 25, and then another at 34. Jae-Hwan is dropping.

Let’s go on holiday for another year

I want to see what happens in the post-Ricardo/Jae-Hwan/Valenzuela, Mputu, Mance, era.



11 years:

2nd in liga, 92 points, Valencia win’s with 93. RM at 3, Barca 4.

Tie for Valenzuela Testimonial

Win Mputu Testimonial

Lose Super Cup 2-4 to RM

Lose to Valenica in in Semis of Champions Cup

Lose to Valenzia in Spanish Cup 1-2

Valenecia wins Champions again – Valencia is clearly the new power



12 years:

At the age of 35, both Mance and Jae-Hwan are retiring at the end of this season

Won Super Cup vs Valencia 3-2

Lost in Champion Semis to Chelsea 5-4 agg

Lost in Spanish Cup Final to Valencia, 2-2 penalties

1st in liga, 100 points, Valencia is 2nd with 95, and then R Madrid at 3rd with 82 and Sevilla 4th and BArca 5th

Melilla did not lose this season, and was 31-7-0

[Abe Sargent]

13 Years:

1st in liga, vy 14 points over Valencia.


Won Spanish Suepr Cup vs Valencia,4-3

Lose in Champ Smeis 5-4 to AS Monaco

Won Spanish Cup 3-1 oover Getafe


14 years:

Welcome to 2036 – Cecchi will be retiring in a few weeks

Won Super Cup 3-1 vs Getafe

Lost to R. Madrid in 5th round of S Cup

1st in liga, 85 points, RM at 2 with just 79, then Valencia with 76

Lost in Champ Semis to Juventus, 2-1


15 years –

2nd in liga with 85, RM in fromt with 91 and Valencia with 83 at 3rd.

Won Sanchez Testimonial 3-0

Lost Super Cup 0-5 to Valencia

Lost Spanish Cup Semis to RM 1-2

Lost Champion Quarters to Chelsea 2-3

Sold 35 year old Mputu for 6.5 mill to Man City


Best players –

Only Sanchez still at the top of the game at 193. Perez at 172, Ricardo 167, Althoof 16- and Vaenzuela at 155 and Garcia at 148.

16 -

3rd in liga, Valencia 1st, RM 2nd, 4th At Mad, 5th Sevilla, 6th Barca

Lost to Paris SG in Knockout Round of Champion

Lost in Semis of Spanish Cup, to R. Mad


DC Garcia is retiring at the end of this year


17th –

3rd in liga, Valenica first, then RM then Barca at 4tth

Lost in Spanish Quarter – 2-1 to RM

Lost in Champion 1st Knockout to Leverkusen, 0-3


In a few weeks, Althof, Perez, and Valenzuela are retiring leaving just a 38 year old Ricardo and a 33 year old Jamie Sanchez left

[Abe Sargent]

18th

Javi Garcia was hired as the head manager of Malaga

5th in liga, after Val, RM, BArca, and Sevilla

Lost in Spanish Cup Final 3-2 to Barca

Lost in Champions QF to OM 3-4

Ricardo retires

19th –

2nd in liga, Valencia 1st, Barca 3rd, Desportivo 4th, RM 5th

EURO Semi Final loss to Liverpool 3-4

Lost in S Cup Semis to RM 2-3


And finally – Year 20

2nd in liga

Valenica 1st, Melilla 2nd, and then Barca and Rm and AT Bilbao

Lost to Valencia in Champ QF 1-4

Lost in S Cup 5t heg to Sevilla, 3-3 on away goals


So as you can see, even after 20 years have passed, here at the end of 2042, and after the retirement of all of the major players, Melilla is still a major European presence. Melilla is still at and near the top of the liga, they are still going deep in European Play, and so forth.. Meanwhile, Valencia is in a time of ascendancy, with this the 5th straight year of winning the liga, and a Champion Cup and two more Champ finials to their credit.

Sevilla is also up - they won a recent EURO Cup in 2039,

Now Barcelona have mostly fallen. Their last liga win was 2020, 2015 the last Champ, and they’ve only snuck a air fo Spanish Cups in the last twenty years. They’ve ben hitting 7-4 most years.

Real Madrid has won 1 liga since 2023, and has been very quiet in continental play - they snuck out 3 S Cups during the last twenty years.

Melilla as of today:

4 Champions Cups
4 Club World Champs
14 liga wins
4 Euro Super Cups
5 Spanish Cups
11 Spain Super Cups

[Abe Sargent]

Let’s look at some of the icons:

Mance – 487 apps, 326 goals for UDM. Won Golden Shoe 4x. Golden Boot once. World Player of the Year 2nd place once.

Jae-Hwan – 548 apps, 108 goals – Best Player in Europe runner up, Golden Boy, tons of Asian Player Awards, World Player of the Year 3rd place 2x,

Ricardo – 722, 236 goals, World Golden Ball, Golden Boy, Brazilian Best European Playe r13 times, Footballer of the Year numerous times, Spanish League Player fo Year 6 times, Best Player in Europe, World Player of the Year runner up twice.

Perez – 615 apps, 28 goals, Spanish Young Player of Year 3x, shortlisted for World Golden ball a few times.

Valenzuela – 634 apps, 34 goals; no major awards, lots of 2nd, 3rds or shortlists.

Dong-Hyuk – 131 apps, 69 goals, Golden Shoe, numerous Asian awards, and then Champions Cup Golden Bootx2 – coach for S Korea squad

Althof – 676 apps, Named best GK in liga 14 times, Best GK at Olympics twice, and Confederations Cup Best GK

Javi Garcia – Now manager at Rayo – 636 apps for UDM, 15 goals - won Golden Boy, Spanish Payer of Year 5x, and Confederations Cup Best Player

Mputu – Manager of Eupen. 517 apps for UDM, no major awards


Others:

Ibrahim Diallo – 218 apps, 8 goals for UDM, no major awards

David Ibrahim – Current manager of the Nigerian National Squad. 76 apps with UDM, then 234 for Bayern M, African Footballer of the Year 2x, Broadcasters Afri….OTY x2; African Middie of the Year.


Bonnot – Bounce around from major club to major club, but never really solidified himself as a major player there.

Myung-Ho – This up and coming wonderkid is now done with his career. Had 361 apps for Man City,

Jesus Angel Ortega, - finished with 254 apps for Everton, 148 for Tours FC, and a solid career.

Kadodia – 115 apps for UD,, now AssMan at Sundowns in South Africa, Was at Bayern for like 9 eyars but was rarely used there.

ST Allan Luiz – Ass Man at Avai, went to lots of other clubs. Won some Brazilian Awards (Top Goalscoreer 2x)

El Ghazi is currently a manager, Ouattara had 319 apps for Bayern, Sayed finished with 11 apps for Man Utd over 5 years, and then 94 for Sampdoria for 6 more. Then retired. He never did as well as he did for us. Ragazzi had 495 apps for Man City after 50 or us. Oliver had 125 apps for Napoli for 7 years for them

[Abe Sargent]

And that's it. Two Liga champs, one Champion, 2 Super Cups, 1 Spanish Cup, and 1 World Cup Victory.

[Northwood_DK]

Well done sir.

Have really enjoyed this story.

[Abe Sargent]

Thanks thanks!!!

[Izulde]

Great read, Abe, and fantastic work at elevating this team to the highest levels. I also really liked your post-career year by year recaps.

[mrkilla22]

Awesome job! It was a blast to read.

[Abe Sargent]

I appreciate it!!!