We’re back once again at Nacka FC on Football Manager 2024… and if you’ve been following since the beginning, this is a particularly exciting chapter.
After an inconsistent start to the 2033 Allsvenskan season, Nacka are now preparing for their first ever matches in the Conference League. Can we survive the qualifiers and get through to the League Phase – with all the money, prestige and Ally McCoist waxing lyrical about us on Thursday evenings that will bring?
This chapter will also see us conclude my 10th season at Nacka. Please stay tuned for a MAJOR announcement at the end.
THE CONFERENCE LEAGUE
The wait was over. Eight months after qualifying for the Conference League, Nacka FC were about to make their debut in European competition.
We had to get through three qualifying rounds to book our place in the League Phase proper, but it wouldn’t be easy. Our first test would be against Greek giants AEK Athens, whose talented but ageing team included the likes of Houssem Aouar, Giorgi Chakvetadze and Gabriel Barbosa… erm, not THAT one, THIS one.
On 21 July 2033, an incredible 6,844 fans turned up at the Zinkensdamms stadium in Södermalm to watch our very first UEFA match. Despite losing our vice-captain César Gamarra to a serious knee injury, we absolutely battered AEK… but their young fresh-faced goalkeeper (age 29) had the game of his life and saved practically everything.
Eventually, after 81 minutes, my decision to switch to a more attacking 4-2-3-1 tactic paid off. Iranian wing wizard Mohammad Rasoulzadeh knocked a cross into the path of fellow substitute Noel Sergel, who did this:
Nacka FC 1, AEK Athens 0! We had won on our European debut! Could we finish off the job in Greece?
I wasn’t too confident when Liam Millar levelled the tie for AEK midway through the first half of the second leg. But then Raz set up two more Sergel goals to put us back in control, and we went from strength to strength. A 5-1 aggregate win sent us through to the next round…
…where we faced Apollon Limassol. A quick start in an easy home win set us up nicely for the trip to Cyprus, where we had some more early jet lag. Sergel then settled us down with yet another goal, before Alieu Atlee Manneh completed a 4-1 victory.
We only needed to get through one more round to reach the League Stage, but now we faced our toughest opponents yet – Dynamo Kyiv.
Sadly, this was a step too far. Dynamo were incredibly clinical in the first half of our home leg – taking a 3-0 lead just before half-time. Raz and Ahmed Fouad pulled a couple of goals back either side of the break, but we could not complete the recovery.
Despite a valiant performance in Ukraine, a red card for anchor man Robin Reinholdsson scuppered our chances of victory, and so our first European journey ended with a goalless draw. We might not have made it into the League Stage, but we still earned a cool £1.4million in prize money!
WHERE’S OUR DEFENCE GONE?
Let’s rewind to early July, and the resumption of the Allsvenskan campaign. The break clearly didn’t do us much good, as lowly Helsingborg spanked us 3-0 to inflict our FIFTH consecutive league defeat.
That was followed by my worst nightmare – a visit from defending champions Djurgården. We had failed to win any of our previous five matches at the Fisksätra, losing the previous two. What could possibly go… right?!
Unbelievable. A brilliant strike from captain Daniel Ulvestaf was enough to give us a famous victory over Stockholm’s biggest club! (Sorry, AIK.)
After knocking down the champs, could this result inspire us to climb back up the Allsvenskan table?
[Sigh] Our European run had played havoc with our league form. With all the necessary squad rotation, and the inevitable pile-up of injuries, we simply could not string together any consistent results.
It was at the back where we had most of our problems. Atlee Manneh and Rasmus Andersson were still a solid central defensive pairing (to a point), but their backups were struggling. Erik Melin in particular was conceding penalties like they were going out of fashion!
And just like EVERY SINGLE goalkeeper I’ve previously managed on FM24, Marc Popów had forgotten how to be a goalkeeper. Following a sharp drop in form, I lost patience with the Polish clown after a shocking collapse at Kalmar. Elton Fischerström Opančar went in goal for the next few games, though he wasn’t much better in truth.
We didn’t exactly struggle to create scoring chances of our own – we had the second-most chances in the league, and the highest average xG per Shot – but our conversion could have been better. Sergel was saving all his goals for the cup competitions, while our other centre-forward Ronnie Paulsson was showing the shooting accuracy you’d expect from a striker with 9 Finishing.
Now, you might be wondering: “Hang on? Where’s that old Spanish striker you signed in March? It’s been ages since you mentioned him!”
For all his apparent creative talents, Javi Puado just could not keep his 35-year-old legs fit. As soon as he recovered from one injury, he would hurt himself again almost immediately.
After making ZERO competitive appearances in four months, I finally gave up on Puado and cancelled his £2,000-per-week contract. What an enormous waste of money.
At least we did make around £600,000 by cashing in a sell-on clause on Mounir El Bassil’s contract. Our former goalkeeper had been stuck in Utrecht’s B team for 18 months, and he wasn’t even a guaranteed starter there. With that in mind, I decided to get some money in now rather than risk missing out if Utrecht decided to release him.
I reinforced our non-existent backline with two summer signings. We needed another left-back to give Emílio Chamboco some proper competition, so I brought in Sweden Under-21s international Christoffer Rönnberg on loan from Djurgården. Chris is quick, hard-working and defensively strong – just don’t ask him how to cross.
I then invested some of our Conference League money – spending a club-record £525,000 to sign Chilean teenager Patricio Cisternas from the Paraguayan club Guaireña. Cisternas is a pretty solid centre-back if you gloss over his Bravery – and once we can develop his ball-playing skills, he could have a long-term future as a Half-Back or even a Libero.
Looking even further ahead, I signed a couple of young right-backs, and an Estonian defensive midfielder who was released by Internazionale. I’ll let you have a closer look if any of them become anything special.
Unfortunately, our winger Aron Gauti Lárusson tore his hamstring and would be out for several months. I recalled the talented Polish speedster Kazimierz Grzegorczyk from his loan at Hammarby TFF, where he got 13 goal contributions in 15 Ettan Norra games. Kaz was an instant success in the Allsvenskan – getting an assist in his first match, then scoring in his second!
Anyway, after all those defensive tribulations, we had slipped to 11th place – only eight points clear of the bottom three. Relegation battle incoming?
To be fair, things were still pretty tight at the top, so we couldn’t completely rule out another push for Europe. We would, though, need to catch fire in the run-in… and quickly.
THE RUN-IN
Matches like this make me question whether I still enjoy playing FM. We were at home to Häcken, who were in freefall after failing to win a single league match since May. We dominated possession, created loads of chances… and lost 2-1.
Coincidentally, this was Popów’s first league match back after a few weeks on the naughty step. I mean… this is getting ridiculous now! If Marc is a “good Allsvenskan goalkeeper”, then my name is Sabrina Carpenter!
Talking of ridiculous… we won seven of our final eight matches! We might have had the defensive solitude of a bag of marshmallows, but we couldn’t stop scoring!
This run included three incredible away wins: a 4-0 demolition of AIK, a 3-2 win at our other city rivals Djurgården… and we even beat Malmö 4-2!
Unfortunately, we did have one late slip-up at home to IFK Norrköping. Sergel put us 1-0 up early on, and we should have won from there… until Popów gave away two cheap goals in the final 13 minutes. He had basically cost us our last chance of qualifying for Europe.
I’m sure you’ll agree my reactions were calm and rational. Okay, so I might have subbed Marc off, thrown a water bottle at him, banished him to the reserves, and put him on the transfer list before giving him a one-way ticket back to Poland… but I’m a calm and rational manager, AND DON’T YOU DARE ARGUE OTHERWISE!
Our excellent late-season form was only enough for 7th place. If we had beaten Norrköping, we would have finished 4th and qualified for the Conference League again. As it is, we will now have to win the Svenska Cupen next year to get straight back into Europe.
To be fair, we were only nine points adrift of Halmstad, who overtook Malmö on the final day to win their first Allsvenskan title since 2000. Roy Hodgson would be very proud.
SEASON REVIEW
And so ends one of the most bizarre seasons I’ve had on Football Manager in a long time. We played some sexy total football at times… but at other times, we looked more like a total trainwreck.
We got two wins each against the new league champions Halmstad and the former kings Djurgården. We also suffered defeats to each of the bottom three. Värnamo finished in last place with the fewest goals scored and most goals conceded, but still took four points off us.
We had scored the 4th-most goals in the Allsvenskan (48)… and conceded the 5th-most goals (44). We scored more goals in away matches than we did at home (25 to 23).
Fouad and Sergel led the scoring with 12 goals apiece, though I feel they were capable of bagging even more. Sergel hit form again towards the end of the season and was voted Nacka Fans’ Player of the Year for a second time.
Rasoulzadeh had a very encouraging first season, making nine assists from right-wing and recorded the highest average rating in our squad (7.08). Meanwhile, Ulvestaf had a productive year in both goals and assists and was named in the Allsvenskan’s Team of the Year… or at least he made it onto the subs’ bench.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: I would also show you the chart for Expected Goals Prevented, but… er… Marc Popów isn’t even in the top 20. This is a 16-team league.]
Our defenders posted some pretty decent ratings too, but once again, there was one obvious weakness at the back. Even after a decade, I have STILL not been able to find a consistently competent goalkeeper.
Popów just isn’t it. Yes, he kept six clean sheets in 20 Allsvenskan matches and was voted ‘Player of the Match’ three times… but in those other 14 league games, he shipped 32 goals! The fact that Marc’s coach report says he is “very consistent” and “enjoys big matches” makes me believe that my assistant is having a laugh.
I’ve long held the belief that goalkeepers on Football Manager 2024 simply don’t save as many shots as they should. That doesn’t make it less infuriating when even a 4* goalie with no obvious fallacies can still underperform in my team. It’s got to the point where I don’t know what attributes and traits actually make a goalkeeper good on this game!
Aside from signing yet another keeper, I will need a new long-term left-back in the winter transfer window. Chamboco looked very hot at the start of the season but had pretty much burnt himself out by the summer.
But what about Mohammad Alipour, you ask? He’s a left-back, isn’t he? Let’s take a closer look at Alipour’s attributes.
You know how I’ve made a habit of signing natural centre-halves who perform better as full-backs? Well, it turns out Alipour is the opposite!
Alipour doesn’t have the work ethic or the technical skill to be a left-back… but he does have the strength, composure and tactical brain to play at centre-half. He played alongside Cisternas for a few games during the run-in. Despite a few early wobbles (they’re both 19, what do you expect?), I believe they can build a strong and stable central defensive partnership over time.
I’ll also be on the lookout for a proper box-to-box midfielder – and a centre-forward who can consistently finish chances as well as create them.
And lastly, a word on our youth team, who sadly found the U19 Allsvenskan rough going and were relegated after just one season. It hasn’t helped that we’ve not had a decent intake for ages, or that our HoYD Stefan Lindmark threatens to break the kiddies’ legs if they don’t clean their bedrooms. But with more investment being made into Nacka’s youth programme, I’m sure our fortunes will change soon.
BON VOYAGE?
As soon as the season had ended, I was offered a couple of job interviews by Ligue 1 clubs. In truth, I decided to attend both interviews more out of curiosity than courtesy… but then this job offer came my way.
Stade Rennais. My boys. Was it really only three FMs ago that I was leading them to a Champions League Final and an unbeaten domestic season?
In truth, this Rennes side does not have the same quality as my FM21 dream team of Milenković, Szoboszlai, Camavinga, et al. They were actually relegated to Ligue 2 in 2029 before coming straight back up – and although they are owned by a South Korean tycoon, he has since withdrawn his funding, hence they don’t have much money.
But the prospect of managing in a bigger league with a healthy pay rise is very tempting. If this was a journeyman save, I would almost certainly take the offer and run with it.
I’ve now been at Nacka FC for 10 years. Leading this humble part-time club from the fourth tier of Swedish football into European competition has gone beyond my wildest expectations. If I was to leave now, I would already consider this career an unqualified success.
But, of course, nobody knows when we’ll get to play the next version of Football Manager. As long as I’m still loving life at Nacka (and I still am… goalkeeping headaches notwithstanding), I might as well keep going and see just how far I can take the Örnana before that time comes.
I’m obviously never going to win the Champions League with Nacka, even if I play on for another 10 years. But winning the Allsvenskan within five years is doable… if we can overcome the one obstacle that is holding us back.
We sold out our 1,000-capacity Fisksätra stadium in 10 of our 15 home league matches last season, recording an average attendance of 990. When we played three home games in the Conference League qualifiers at larger grounds, we were consistently able to draw at least 4,000 spectators to each match.
Demand for Nacka tickets is growing. We need a bigger stadium to generate more revenue, thus allowing us to pay higher wages for those players who can take us to the next level. As long as we’re still playing at a tiny lower-league ground, it will become harder to compete with the big boys…
…and it seems that the Nacka board agree with me. A new stadium is officially in the works!
Now I’ve got a big decision to make. Do I stay with Nacka and see this project through… or do I take the money and try to rebuild Rennes?
Is this the end for “Nacka’s Yard”? I’ll leave you on that cliff-hanger for a few weeks, but please come back soon to find out what happens next!
Fuller FM 