I’ve been blogging about Football Manager for seven years now, and I’ve never gone this far into a save, but here goes… [deep breath] …welcome to Season 12 of “Nacka’s Yard”!
Yes, I’ve been at Nacka FC for over a decade ago, but I’m still going strong… only with a few more grey hairs. Although the 2034 Allsvenskan season ended in disappointment, we have somehow reached the knockout stages of the Conference League. We will also soon have the opportunity to win the Svenska Cupen for a second year in a row.
So… what does 2035 have in store for us?
IT’S HAPPENING!
What about this for an exciting way to kick off the new season! We’ve finally been granted planning permission and funding for a new 4,330-capacity stadium – and it will be ready in time for next year!
The new ground will be more than quadruple the size of our current ground at Fisksätra IP, although it will still be the smallest in the Allsvenskan. I’m also a little disappointed we couldn’t find a site in the town of Nacka, but at least we don’t have to move very far.
And wow… the “Nacka FC Stadium”. What an imaginative name, Football Manager.
I will obviously rename the stadium myself – either after an existing site in Fisksätra, or perhaps a famous figure from Nacka. If you have your own suggestions, I would be happy to hear them… but please be sensible.
In other news, I freshened up our backroom. While our last two youth intakes have produced a couple of usable talents in right-winger Yaw Boateng and playmaker Aleksa Markićević, I’ve decided it’s time to hire a new Head of Youth Development.
I have long suspected that Stefan Lindmark – the ultra-aggressive former ball-winning midfielder – might be a bad influence on the kiddos. Case in point: no fewer than NINE players in our 2033 intake inherited his ‘Winds Up Opponents’ trait! It’s like all our youth-teamers have come straight out of the Emiliano Martínez School of Sportsmanship!
So Stefan has finally been shown the red card. Our new HoYD is Jacob Berg – a Norwegian perfectionist whom we poached from Moss. Is it just me or does he look like a curly-haired Tom Scott?
Holding midfielder Stian Røren was our only major sale this summer, as he returned home to Norway and signed for Lillestrøm for around £300,000. I also loaned three promising talents – goalkeeper Vladimir Lazarevski, winger Kazimierz Grzegorczyk and striker Leonel Grine – to Superettan clubs.
Most importantly, we kept all our key assets – including Ahmed Fouad, who would shortly become Nacka FC’s all-time record goalscorer after netting his 62nd competitive goal for the club. Centre-back Patricio Cisternas even signed a new four-year contract after forgetting about his Porto dream.
Right-wing superstar Mohammad Rasoulzadeh was much more reluctant to stay, as Monaco wouldn’t meet our £5million asking price. Raz still wants a move, but I’m happy to stand my ground until the summer, when his market value will increase and the top European clubs will have more money to spend. Probably.
Our first pre-season signing was Hassan Msengi – an 18-year-old Tanzanian wing-back who can cross AND tackle (not at the same time, obviously). Though naturally a left-back, he is right-footed and can be retrained to play on the right if needed. He also has a good personality and work ethic, and will surely blossom into a key player over the next few years.
I bolstered our centre-back options by taking Željko Živković on loan from Halmstad, with an optional future fee of £425,000. A brave and strong stopper, I’ve had my eyes on ZZ for a while and am delighted to finally bring him in.
I wanted a more creative central midfielder, and Giorgi Lobzhanidze fits the bill with his passing and off-the-ball skills. Giorgi the Georgian would be the ideal playmaker to take us up to the next level…
You see, I had promised Giorgi that I would strengthen our attacking options. When deadline day came and went, he took one look at our ‘new’ striker, threw a tantrum, and asked to leave.
To be fair, Ronnie Paulsson isn’t a natural finisher. Ronnie only scored 6 goals in 21 league matches while on loan with us from Örgryte in 2033, but he’s pretty good at creating chances, hence why I’ve now re-signed him for £50,000. He’ll be a decent short-term backup to Noel Sergel… at least until a very exciting 18-year-old striker from Senegal joins us in July.
So please, Giorgi, trust the process. And put your toys back in your pram, for heaven’s sake.
SQUAD REPORT
It’s been an unusually quiet transfer window, with just four additions to the first-team. But I feel like we now have decent depth in all departments, as well as a growing crop of promising youth-teamers who could get their opportunities over the coming year.
It’s also worth noting that both our Iranian lads will become homegrown at Nacka this summer, therefore taking us to six ‘Homegrown at Club’ players. This should make it easier to get through UEFA’s registration rules, even if we finally decide to sell off Bar Benitah and Aron Gauti Larússon later down the line.
Let’s focus on our South American defensive duo. After a shaky start, Cisternas has settled down and become the cornerstone of our backline – not to mention a serious threat from set-pieces. The big Chilean has also made his international debut and will surely get better over the coming years.
Unfortunately, vice-captain César Gamarra has had a couple of rough seasons at right-back, where he has been outshone by the less talented but more technical Idan Baruchian. I still think César has something to offer, so I’m retraining him to play in defensive midfield as an anchor man.
I’ve also tweaked the 4-3-3 to try and fix our creativity issues. I’m trying out the Inverted Wing-Back again to give us more midfield options when we attack, as well as having a dedicated playmaker for the first time since we were in the Superettan. We’ll also focus our play on the flanks, so that we can get our wide attackers on the ball as often as possible.
As for the 4-2-3-1… yeah, I’ve binned that off, probably for good. I’ve spent far too long trying to find an AMC and Striker role combination that actually works well together, and I simply cannot be bothered anymore.
So I am ‘ride or die’ for the 4-3-3… at least until I suffer a nervous breakdown and switch to an asymmetric 3-5-2. I give it until August.
The bookies have again tipped us to finish in mid-table, but they certainly think a lot more of us. Both Fouad and Raz have been in and out of the Media Dream XI over the past six months or so and are rated my our coaches as “star Allsvenskan players”.
After missing out on automatic European qualification for the last two seasons, my target is obvious… but unfortunately, our task has been made trickier. Because the top Allsvenskan teams have struggled in Europe, Sweden is set to lose a continental spot, which now means only THREE teams are guaranteed to qualify via the league this year.
Therefore, we must better our 4th-place finish from the 2032 season to return to Europe. We’ve defeated every current Allsvenskan team at least once since getting promoted, so we are certainly contenders… but then again, there are about 6 or 7 other teams who can realistically win the league nowadays.
We would already have plenty of competitive action under our belts before the big April kick-off. Not only did we have the Group Stage of the Svenska Cupen, but we were also in the knockout rounds of the Conference League.
CUPEN
Let’s be honest. It was always going to be a struggle to defend our cup amid such a hectic schedule. Yet we fell short of even my lowest expectations with such a feeble, pathetic effort.
The first signs of trouble came when a second-string Nacka team were held to a 1-1 draw at home by Vänersborg – a team from the third tier. Following that, a toothless 2-0 defeat at Djurgården knocked us out of the Cupen before our final group match against Varberg… but the worst was still to come.
For the first time in three years, we had failed to get out of our group… and we weren’t even close. Serious questions would need to be asked (and answered) about our squad depth after this.
We now had only one avenue left to get into European competition for the 2035/2036 season – win the Conference League. No pressure, lads.
CONFERENCE LEAGUE KNOCKOUTS
Spoiler: we did not win the Conference League. But we got pretty close.
The Playoff round pitted us against Rijeka – one of the easier teams we could have had, in truth. Despite a few hairy moments in the first leg, we left Croatia unscathed before a 2-0 home win sent us through. Our forwards might not have been firing on all cylinders, but at least Cisternas was!
Next up – in the Round of 16 – were Başakşehir. They punished some sloppy defensive mistakes to beat us 2-1 at home, meaning that we HAD to win in İstanbul. After conceding two goals in the first half-hour, I was already getting flashbacks of our Europa League defeat to Galatasaray in August.
But then… well, I’ll just let the match summary speak for itself.
4-1 down on aggregate with 52 minutes to play… and then we went on a rampage. Daniel Ulvestaf gave us hope, and Fouad’s double pulled us level, before a 94th-minute header from Cisternas sent Nacka FC into the Conference League Quarter Finals! UNBELIEVABLE!
Our reward was a shot at revenge against bloody Craiova, who beat us 1-0 at home in the League Phase. It… er… didn’t exactly go to plan.
After a load of wasteful finishing and one defensive lapse in Romania, we suffered another 1-0 defeat. Back in Stockholm, Sergel levelled the tie to take us to extra-time, where we sadly burnt ourselves out and conceded a penalty. We had played better than Craiova in all three of our meetings, but we simply could not break them down.
And so that ends our continental adventures for at least the next 15 months. I’m sure we’ll be back in Europe soon enough… but right now, we really do need a strong league campaign.
ALLSVENSKAN
It was a mixed bag at first. After battling to a 2-1 home win over Brommapojkarna, we struggled on the road against the two promoted teams – LOSING at Falkenberg, and then needing an 88th-minute winner to see off Landskrona. Incidentally, our old friend Luis Mendoza now plays up front for Landskrona, and he even had a goal disallowed for offside against us.
After a shocking display at AFC Eskilstuna left us with just seven points from our first five league games, I knew that things weren’t right. Squad morale wasn’t quite rock-bottom, but we had a few unhappy players. We weren’t creative enough, we weren’t positive enough…. and I’d already thrown enough plastic water bottles to pollute the Baltic Sea.
So I made some major changes. Firstly, I would go a bit easier on the lads in my team talks. Secondly, I dropped Lobzhanidze to the reserves, because his attitude was stinking the place out.
And I also axed Gamarra, because his performances were stinking the place out. Two goal-costing mistakes at Eskilstuna were the final straw for the Paraguayan, who had become far too unreliable – whether he played at right-back or in defensive midfield.
Ahmed Fouad was promoted to vice-captain before an extraordinary home game against Malmö. ‘Di Blåe’ were top of the table, winning six of their first seven matches and only conceding one goal. We had also NEVER beaten Malmö at the Fisksätra.
So obviously we pulled their kegs down – coming from behind THREE times before winger Lárusson poked in an 84th-minute winner! But Aron was only on the pitch because of this…
Yup. Raz ripped his calf and was out until the summer. There’s a good chance he’ll get whisked away into the big leagues before he ever plays another game for Nacka.
Despite that, we went on an impressive run of five wins from six games – even committing daylight robbery at defending champions Hammarby! Our only blip was away to Djurgården, who rinsed us 3-0 after Paulsson tried to karate-kick Arsen Zakharyan in the 2nd minute. (Yes, Zakharyan does indeed play for Djurgården now – on loan from Sheffield United, no less!)
We quickly rebounded and climbed up to 4th place, and a goalless home draw against Halmstad was enough to keep us there at the mid-season break.
On the face of it, I should be pretty chuffed. This is our best ever start to an Allsvenskan season, helped by the fact that we have one of the most clinical teams in the league (exceeding our xG by seven goals). Djurgården are already building an ominous lead at the top, but we are definitely in the mix for European qualification at least.
And yet… some of the underlying statistics make for pretty grim reading.
WE’VE GOT ISSUES
It’s never a good sign when you’re aiming for a top-half finish and your xGA is nearly three points more than your xG. As potent as we have been in front of goal, we do also give up an alarming amount of high-quality chances, hence we’ve only kept three clean sheets in 12 league matches.
And even our creative output is lacking. We generate 0.11 xG per shot, which is the 4th-lowest in the league. Our pass and cross completion rates are firmly in mid-table… and although average possession is not really a priority for a counter-attacking team like ours, I would like it to be higher than 47%.
To be honest, I don’t think the Advanced Playmaker role works in this tactic. For one thing, I feel that the AP is more suited to possession football, and its tendency to drop into opposition holes left us too exposed on the left flank when we got countered. Instead, I’ve switched to a Deep Lying Playmaker, who will ideally provide more direct penetrative passes while also giving at least a little defensive cover for the wing-back.
I’ve also reverted the Inverted Wing-Back to a plain Full Back. We just weren’t getting any consistent performances out of anyone in the IWB role, and its tendency to move inside left us too exposed on the right flank when we got countered. Baruchian even put together a string of assists as soon as I switched back. Maybe this will be the year Baruchian finally displaces Gamarra for good…
…or maybe he’s just warming the seat for Msengi. Hassan has been very erratic at left wing-back for some reason – whether that’s his tender age, his low adaptability, his inability to speak fluent English, or even the fact that he just prefers his right foot. I’ll give Msengi more time to fully settle, but I now believe that his long-term future will be as a right-back.
Of course, success in Football Manager isn’t just about getting your tactics right. Your form can suffer if too many of your players are upset at the same time.
It’s no accident that results improved as soon as I banished Gamarra and Lobzhanidze to the reserves. Raz still wants to leave, and Benitah is also keen for a move, but two unhappy players don’t make much difference to team dynamics compared to four.
But let’s end this chapter on a brighter note. Having no European football next season isn’t the end of the world, because it means we can put all our focus into the league. Once the Allsvenskan resumes in July, we will have virtually a full week to prepare for nearly all our remaining fixtures.
As long as we keep our key players fit, sharp and hungry, we should be able to sustain a top-four challenge. A few quality additions at left-back and in midfield won’t hurt, either.
Join us again next week, when the 2035 Allsvenskan season concludes. Can some fresh blood lead Nacka FC to their highest league finish yet – and earn us another crack at Europe?
[Sigh] Bloody Craiova.
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