The year is 2029. Nacka FC have just survived the first major crisis of the Fuller era. After hurtling down the Superettan table in 2028, I now have to rebuild my squad, and assemble a defence that can… you know… defend.
Will it be third time lucky for Nacka in the Superettan? Will this be the year that we make it into the promised land of the Allsvenskan?
TRANSFER WINDOW
After cosplaying as Jimmy Thelin’s Aberdeen for the second half of the 2028 season, major changes were needed if Nacka were to avoid another Superettan relegation battle in 2029. I started by bringing in a new goalkeeping coach and a new physio from Norway, so that we would (hopefully) not have to deal with any butterfingers or injury crises this year.
The squad also got an overhaul, particularly in defence. Tough-tackling holding midfielder Stefan Lindmark retired from playing to spend more time scaring the kiddies in our youth set-up. Centre-half Rasmus Møller was finally gone, as was one-season wonder Kevin Larsson Ajayi… and we also said goodbye to one of our hottest talents.
When I saw that almost the entire Allsvenskan was interested in Ken Eilif Bredsdorff Hotvedt, I accepted that we would struggle to keep the teenage right-back (he’s NOT a centre-back!). After weeks of tough negotiations, we agreed to sell him to Kalmar for an initial £50,000 – with plenty more to come if he realises his significant potential.
Now let’s focus on those players who arrived at Nacka this winter. You might remember that I wanted to add a lot more experience to a very young and inconsistent squad. We ended last season with only four players over the age of 25, and now we have… er, four players over the age of 25.
Our most senior addition – having just reached the ripe old age of 28 – is our new record signing Fabian Falkstrand Ransjö. We paid £3,000 to newly-relegated Utsiktens for this brave, strong and consistent defensive general. Fabian has also taken the captaincy from Victor Tjeder, who still hasn’t learnt how to make a goddamn tackle.
Max’Med Mohamed is another old (or at least middle-aged) guy joining the ranks. The cool-headed playmaker can provide cover for our creator-in-chief Finlay Neat if needed.
I then ventured outside Northern Europe for a couple of freebies who’d been recommended to us. First, I got Luis Mendoza – a speedy and very exciting Paraguayan forward who can also be used out wide. (Just don’t ask McBain about him.)
Hopes are also high for Alexis Fonteneau – the best of three young defenders who’ve moved to Nacka. The former Marseille youth centre-half is 6ft 4in tall, is unusually brave for a Frenchman… [And now you’ve alienated an entire country, Christopher. Good job.]
We also reached an agreement to sign a very promising goalkeeper from Morocco, but you’ll meet him later.
Two of our former loanees – resolute goalkeeper Alexandros Iliopoulos and tireless attacking midfielder Ayoub Hussein – have returned to Nacka on full-time deals. Alex will hold the fort for the first few months of the season until our new goalie arrives, while Ayoub will again contend with Tim Hauzenberger for a starting place.
We couldn’t get Ivar Steggo Forsse back on loan from Hammarby. We did, though, bring in his team-mate Niklas Gustafsson, who’s an intelligent defensive midfielder with a bright future… at least if his star ratings are anything to go by.
SQUAD REPORT
Nine players in, about the same number out. Team cohesion has obviously taken a hit, but in terms of quality, we’re arguably stronger than we were this time last year.
Yusuf Aksoy was officially named the ‘worst’ signing in the Superettan last year. I think that’s very harsh, even if his central defensive partnership with Tjeder worked about as well as Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. I’ve now repurposed Yusuf as a right-back, where his teamwork can be put to better use.
Holding midfielder Hadi Noori continues as our vice-captain for a third season, despite strong interest from bigger and wealthier clubs. Further upfield, I hope that Aidan Zaar Ibrahimaga can cement his status as our main man up front after scoring 13 goals last season… though record scorer Albin Rickborg may have other plans.
One big problem we had last season was that we were too passive, basically giving our opponents all the freedom to attack us. I won’t let that happen again.
Seeing as we’re much better at attacking than defending, we’re going to play to our strengths and press high up the pitch. Shorter passing does seem counter-intuitive for a counter-attacking tactic, but I liked what I saw from this change in pre-season.
I’m still quite loyal to the good ol’ 4-3-3, but I’m also continuing to tweak the 4-2-3-1 for those matches against more defensive formations. A Shadow Striker seems to work well here, drawing a defender out of position and giving the Advanced Forward more space to attack.
New year, same story. Even after finishing 4th and 9th in the past two seasons, the bookmakers still think we’re absolutely, definitely, positively getting relegated. When will they learn?
I’m more optimistic. I’ll admit it might take some time for our new-look squad to gel, but the pace and firepower we have should be enough to keep us clear of the bottom four – and perhaps get us back into the top half. We’re probably at least a year away from being realistic promotion challengers, though.
Our league campaign begins with a tricky away game against newly-promoted dark horses Värnamo, who incredibly won the Ettan Södra UNBEATEN last year. Indeed, their only competitive defeat in 2028 was actually against us in Round 2 of the Svenska Cupen! Speaking of which…
CUPEN
This wasn’t a pleasant way to start the season. If the Cupen Group Stage tells us anything, it’s that our attack is still brilliant… and our defence is still utterly woeful.
Aidan was in lethal finishing form, getting four goals across the three games. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to make much difference if your clueless colleagues give away NINE goals from 6.77 xG – albeit against rather stronger opposition.
Having got one group win last year (ironically against Kalmar), it was disappointing to leave the Group Stage empty-handed this time. Even the gate receipts were less impressive, for heaven’s sake.
Ah well. At least we always know how to start our league campaigns strongly, eh?
FIRST HALF
Not this year. As expected, we lost to Värnamo on the opening day… and then we became gloriously inconsistent.
Our home form was particularly perplexing. We got a couple of thumping wins over the two relegated teams – 3-0 vs Helsingborg, and 4-1 vs Degerfors – but also got spanked 4-1 by Varberg. Today’s defensive masterclass is brought to you by Niklas Gustafsson.
And that was actually one of Gustafsson’s BETTER performances. Star ratings are a lie.
Our counter-attacking game actually seemed to work better on the road, making light work of Gefle, Umeå and AFC Eskilstuna. On the flip side, we also conceded an 85th-minute equaliser at Sirius, and an 82nd-minute winner at Mjällby.
Even our best attackers were struggling for consistency. Mendoza had got three assists (but no goals) by the summer break, while Aidan only scored three times. Instead, it was Rickborg and Zakariya Enow who rediscovered their old form and banged in most of our goals.
So after 11 games, we were firmly in mid-table – closer to the promotion play-offs than the relegation play-offs.
While our finishing was still as clinical as ever, our defence was still made of cardboard. Fortunately, I had a plan to fix that…
SECOND HALF
Meet Mounir El Bassil – an 18-year-old goalkeeper whom we had signed on a free transfer from IZ Khemisset in Morocco. He’s a commanding shotstopper with an unflappable mentality and a powerful kick. He could be the first keeper I’ve had on FM24 who doesn’t make me want to tear my hair out!
And although Fabian had been generally solid since his arrival, our other centre-backs were struggling – so I decided to bring in another experienced defender. Niclas Håkansson is a 33-year-old giant who enjoys big matches and can be a big threat at set pieces. The Swedish Jake Cooper, perhaps?
This meant there was no more room for former captain Tjeder, who had made only two league appearances this season – both as a substitute. Victor’s contract was cancelled by mutual consent, and he cried off to Denmark to play for Sønderjyske… ‘s reserves.
Mounir and Niklas came into the side after back-to-back games against Örebro and Öster, in which we conceded SIX goals from SIX shots on target. The new boys couldn’t possibly make our defence any worse than it already was. Indeed, El Bassil made a positive start by keeping a debut clean sheet in a 3-0 Fisksätra win over Oddevold.
A week after that, we had another home game… against Östersund.
[Sigh] That’s our ninth home league defeat since the start of last season, by the way.
And what about our next match at the Fisksätra? Only a 3-0 domination of league leaders Värnamo. Told you we were gloriously inconsistent!
This topsy-turvy theme continued throughout the summer. On the positive side, our high-pressing tactics did produce some excellent football… and a certain young Paraguayan eventually found his scoring boots in August. That’s five goals across four matches from MENDOZA!!!
Unfortunately, Mounir’s honeymoon was short-lived. In truth, expecting an 18-year-old lad who couldn’t yet speak any English to single-handedly protect our goal was perhaps asking too much. After a couple of shaky displays against Gefle and Varberg, I took El Bassil out of the firing line and let him rebuild his confidence in the Under-19s for a few weeks.
Our late collapse at Varberg also marked the end of Gustafsson’s time with us. After posting a 6.58 match average in 13 league games, Niklas was banished from the first-team while I waited for his mum (aka Hammarby) to pick him up.
We only really pulled ourselves clear of relegation danger in September, collecting 11 points from six matches. During this run, we produced an incredible comeback to win 3-1 at league leaders Sandviken…
…and four days later, we drew 1-1 at home to 12th-placed AFC Eskilstuna. They scored from their only shot, by the way. I wasn’t even sure we had a functioning defence anymore.
A sloppy pass by Afanasjev in our next game gave us a 2-1 defeat at Degerfors, leaving us nine points adrift of 3rd place. If we were going to make a late dash into the top three, we would have to be pretty much perfect in the run-in.
We weren’t quite perfect, but this was a bloody good effort to finish the season.
El Bassil saved one penalty to secure a narrow win over Mjällby, before Rickborg scored one himself to defeat Örebro. A set-piece masterclass against Öster made it three straight wins, and we were flying.
Unfortunately, our play-off dream was snuffed out in our penultimate game at Oddevold. Wall lost his head and got sent off for a two-footed lunge late in the first half, and our remaining 10 men could only manage a goalless draw.
Another draw against Östersund saw us finish off on a five-game unbeaten run. If we had won both those last two matches, we would have snuck into the play-offs, but this wasn’t a choke. Ultimately, our indifferent form earlier in the season had left us with too much to do.
Still, I’m delighted that we came 6th. That’s an improvement of three places and nine points on last year, while we also scored 14 more goals and conceded 11 fewer. If we can continue to build on this, I’m very excited about our potential in 2030.
SEASON REVIEW
We have come a long way since the dark days of late 2028. Six players averaged at least a 7.00 across the season – and that includes El Bassil, who finished the campaign strongly. I look forward to seeing just how good Mounir can become once he learns to speak English and gets a full season under his belt.
Our top performer – and our Player of the Year for a third year running – Zakariya Enow. Alongside his fellow winger Wall, Enow was a lively and creative performer, even if they did each have the occasional off day. Zak is now officially regarded as a Nacka ‘legend’, so I was delighted to tie him down to a new two-year contract before the winter holidays.
However, the future is not quite so certain where our top scorer is concerned. Rickborg scored 13 goals but underperformed his xG and only got 53% of his shots on target. He’s also demanding at least £1,000 per week to stay at Nacka, and I can’t justify those wages when Mendoza is likely to be our centre-forward for the long term. So it’s probably time that we shaved off ‘The Beard’.
Our midfield general isn’t going anywhere, though. Hauzenberger only started half our Superettan games, but his 10 goal contributions were enough to get him in the league’s Team of the Year. Tim is 27 now, and his experience will be vital as we continue to make progress.
It was also a good season for his colleague Neat, who was voted the Superettan’s Young Player of the Year. Finlay isn’t a massive assist machine these days – but his metronomic presence as a deep-lying playmaker is vital to our counter-attacking style.
As a team, we were the 2nd-top scorers in the Superettan, though you’ll be more surprised to see that we also had the 3rd-meanest defence. These charts tell the story of our season…
“No time for losers, ‘cos WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS… of xGeeeeeeeee!”
Having the most expected goals in your division doesn’t automatically make you a great team, but the more positive tactics are clearly making a difference. We consistently create good chances (our average xG per shot is 0.14), and we are pretty good at taking them too (converting 14% of our shots into goals). I’d expect us to be even better next year, when Mendoza leads our attack on a more regular basis.
Unfortunately, we still have issues at the other end. While we don’t give up many chances, we remain incredibly vulnerable to byline crosses into the six-yard box. If FM recorded a statistic for ‘Opposition Expected Goals per Shot’, I’d dread to think how high we would be on that table.
We did look a bit more solid once Håkansson joined Fabian at centre-back… but now I’m looking at our full-backs. For all his attacking endeavour at left-back, Ziani isn’t the most robust defender, and Aksoy isn’t a particularly quick or natural right-back. A couple of upgrades in those positions could make a huge difference next season.
Aside from recruiting a bit more defensive midfield depth, don’t expect sweeping changes at Nacka this winter. We’ve got the foundations of a competitive team now – and if I can build this lot into a more cohesive unit, promotion is definitely a realistic target.
Join me again soon for Season 7, when I sell half the Nacka squad, Mounir El Bassil forgets how to make any saves, and I try desperately to coax a 35-year-old Lee Angol out of retirement to save us from relegation!
Fuller FM 