I’m glad you could join me for the latest chapter of my Football Manager 2024 adventure.
After building up Nacka FC for the past 12 years, the Allsvenskan title is now firmly in our sights. We’ve enjoyed a good start to the 2036 season, setting us up nicely for a championship challenge, as well as a long-awaited return to the Conference League.
If you’ve been reading since the start, you might also have noticed that I’ve managed in Sweden for so long without dropping a single ABBA reference. I think now’s a good time to change that…
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!
Yes, folks! After years of signing and developing talents from across the world, this was the summer that we FINALLY got to cash in!
Having been a bit-part player for around six years, forward Bar Benitah went home to Israel and joined Ashdod for the princely sum of £50,000. Woooo.
Of course, that wasn’t our biggest sale… not by a long chalk.
Patricio Cisternas was adamant that he wanted a new challenge. We accepted an offer of around £5million for his services in July… but for some bizarre reason, the Chilean international centre-back didn’t really fancy moving to Portsmouth.
A few weeks later, Toulouse offered us a guaranteed £4.1million – potentially rising to £5.5million – plus 20% of the profit from his next sale. The chairman stepped in and accepted the offer straight away… and to be honest, I would probably have done the same.
As solid as Cisternas had been, this was the right time to say goodbye. Patricio gets to continue his development in Ligue 1 (Toulouse immediately loaned him out to Bordeaux), and his departure opens more opportunities for the fast-improving teenager David Koné to play.
We managed to hold firm and reject offers for our other top talents – Mohammad Alipour, Hassan Msengi, Tahirou Dioussé and Mohammad Rasoulzadeh (more on him later). But we would soon get another big pile of money from another sale.
I’m sure regular readers will remember Nasser Mutambe – the Mozambican wonderkid who lit up Nacka in our first Allsvenskan season in 2032, and then headed off to FC København. We only received £140,000 at the time, but we also snuck in a 50% sell-on clause in the hope that we could profit from a future big-money transfer.
Nasser was indeed the real deal. He made steady progress at København, eventually becoming their star forward and winning two Danish league titles. Now, at the age of 22, he was ready to step into the big time and join one of Europe’s most historic clubs.
On 18 August, Nasser Mutambe – perhaps the greatest centre-forward Mozambique had produced since Eusébio – completed a dream £45million move to Benfica. Because of that sell-on clause, our share of the transfer fee amounted to an eye-watering £22.5million.
A big slice of the Mutambe money would go into upgrading our youth and training facilities. And of course, we could now invest in even more exciting African talents.
Here comes Big Mama. Mamadou Diop is a powerful deep-lying forward from Senegal – perhaps a bit more of a creator than a finisher, but though his aerial prowess can’t be sniffed at either. Diop would get some first-team action straight away, as Noel Sergel unfortunately suffered another injury setback and wouldn’t return until September.
The other two lads are very much for the future. Jean-Claude Ateba is a left-back, if not a particularly quick one, and he might probably be better off as a holding midfielder in the long run. The Cameroonian will start his Nacka career on loan at Örebro, who are chasing promotion from the Superettan.
Malian right-back Dianka Sanou has also gone on loan, but he’ll get top-flight experience straight away with relegation-battling Norrköping. He’s resolute and has some very strong mental attributes for an 18-year-old, so don’t be shocked if he breaks into our starting line-up next year.
I also managed to make one final signing after the transfer deadline. Centre-back Max Pettersson had become a free agent after several years at Odense, and the 29-year-old would give some valuable experience and leadership to a youthful defence.
CONFERENCE LEAGUE
After missing out on Europe last season, we were back in the Conference League with a vengeance. Riga FC took a couple of 4-0 beatings as we sailed through our first qualifier… and we even started developing some of our own youth graduates in the process.
18-year-old Hamdi Aslan (aka ‘The Lion’) made his first senior start and looks to have a bright future as a defensive midfield workhorse. Aleksa Markićević is only 17 but is progressing nicely in a more advanced midfield role and could even be a future Nacka captain. Aleksa scored his first senior goal in Riga, where forward Jonathan Jildefalk also found the net – on his senior debut!
We then saw off Sligo Rovers to set up a mouth-watering Playoff against Dundee… but this wasn’t just any old Dundee team. The Dark Blues had a big wealthy tycoon and a fancy Portuguese manager who loved to play tiki-taka – and they finished 4th in the Scottish Premiership earlier this year.
Ah, but we had Ahmed Fouad and Dioussé, who took turns on the left wing to torment Dundee’s defence over two legs. We had qualified for the League Phase of the Conference League for a second time, which meant yet another big pile of money!
“Did I miss again? I think I missed again. Oh, I think I missed again.”
The League Phase began with a couple of fairly comfortable wins in Northern Ireland and Luxembourg, though they weren’t without incident. Fouad missed his THIRD penalty of the season at Linfield, while Dudelange gave us a very early scare before we pulled ourselves together in the second half.
Because our new stadium was still not big enough for UEFA’s liking, we had to play our home games at the Stockholms Olympiastadion (which, as the name suggests, was built for the Olympics… in 1912). After battling past Estonian visitors Flora, we travelled to Switzerland and eased past Lugano 2-0 – booking our place in the knockout rounds with two games to spare!
Then it was back to Stockholm for our remaining fixtures. Our centre-backs blew our winning streak against Midtjylland, as Koné saw red for a two-footed lunge before Željko Živković conceded an equalising penalty in stoppage time. Thankfully, we held our nerve a week later to edge Trabzonspor in a five-goal thriller…
…and secure a 3rd-place finish – below only 2035 runners-up Union Berlin and 2032 champions Fulham. That means we’ll bypass the Playoff round and go straight into the Round of 16, which kicks off in March!
ALLSVENSKAN
Sitting in 5th place, we needed a good start after the mid-season break. A couple of late rallies saw off the Landskrona bois and Värnamo – and with the other frontrunners all struggling to hit form again, we surged into 1st place. Nacka FC were top of the Allsvenskan for the first time ever…
…well, for three days anyway. Then we conceded an injury-time winner at Norrköping, allowing Kalmar to get back on top.
At least Fouad was back in form and even scoring penalties again. The Egyptian’s spot-kick was just about enough to see off AFC Eskilstuna, before another narrow victory over Hammarby saw us return to the summit.
With a dozen games to go, we were leading the Allsvenskan by a single point. Alas, we were now in the middle of August – aka, that point in the season where everything falls apart at Nacka.
We were now juggling domestic and continental football once again, and the injuries were piling up. Defensive midfielder Sigge Jansson had fractured his leg, attacking midfielder Ulrich Nkolo was constantly getting hurt, and Sergel was still struggling for fitness. And then Göteborg massacred our boy.
That’s yet another long-term injury for Rasoulzadeh – and it came at the worst possible time too. Literally a few days earlier, we had agreed a deal to sell Raz to Vizela in Portugal for around £4million. The transfer collapsed, and now I was asking myself why I didn’t take West Ham’s money when we had the chance.
That was just one of many lows in a crushing 3-0 defeat, which started a run of four losses in six league matches, and a steady decline down the table. Ironically, our only victory was a 3-1 versus Elfsborg, who were top of the table at the time.
Following another loss to Djurgården that saw us slip to 5th, I decided to make a major change in goal. Arvid Hellman had been a very dependable goalkeeper on the most part, but he simply couldn’t cut the mustard (or rather the mayonnaise) in big matches. Hellman was sent to the bench, and 20-year-old Vladimir Lazarevski was promoted to first-choice keeper for the rest of the season.
The gamble paid off. Vlad shut out Örgryte, and goals from Nkolo and Dioussé ended our worst spell of form this season….
…and yet we dropped ANOTHER place, as Malmö overtook us on goal difference!
Just six points separated the top six teams as we headed into the autumn run-in. Just to remind you: the top two teams would get into the Champions League, 3rd and 4th would also qualify for Europe, 5th would face an anxious wait to see who won the Cupen… and 6th would miss out on continental football altogether. Anything was possible.
THE RUN-IN
And indeed, anything was possible after we swept to three more victories in October – thanks in no small part to the excellent scoring form of both Dioussé and Diop.
Häcken? We hacked them to pieces. Malmö? We marmalised them in the second half. Landskrona? It was men against bois.
Those victories kept us in the title hunt – but with Elfsborg now four points clear at the top, we needed to keep on winning AND hope for a late slip.
The nerves of being in championship contention finally got to us at Värnamo, who were bottom and already doomed to relegation. A slow start left us 1-0 behind at the break… but after switching to a 4-2-4 and throwing Fouad and Ronnie Paulsson up front, we turned the match on its head.
After a brilliant comeback came the even better news that Elfsborg had been smashed 4-0 at Djurgården! With one game to go, we had cut the deficit down to a single point!
It all came down to the final day. If we could win at home to Norrköping (or even scrape a draw), Nacka would book a place in the 2037/2038 Champions League qualifiers. And if Elfsborg slipped up in their final match against Örgryte, we would have a chance to steal the Allsvenskan title!
Were both us and Elfsborg to lose, 3rd-placed Kalmar would still have a shot at glory – providing they won their remaining fixture. Although 4th-placed Djurgården had no chance of retaining their title anymore, they remained in Champions League contention. Hammarby were also hoping to sneak into the European places.
All we could do was focus on our game, and hope it was enough. For the record, we had played Norrköping nine times so far… and we had only beaten them ONCE.
After a drab goalless first half, we finally took the lead five minutes into the second period. Paulsson’s free-kick hit the post, and a mini-scramble ensued before – of all people – Sigge Jansson swung his de-fractured leg at the ball and scored his first goal of the season!
Paulsson then added two more goals (after some fine work from Fleckner and Dioussé) to wrap up a 3-0 win – our first ever home victory over Norrköping!
We had done our bit, so now we awaited news from Elfsborg. Had Örgryte upset the happy little elves and won us the title?
They hadn’t. Elfsborg had pushed them aside and secured their first league championship since 2025.
After winning our final six matches – our best ever run in the Allsvenskan – we had only missed out on the title by one point. Too many slip-ups earlier in the season had ultimately put our fate out of our own hands.
But we can’t dwell on what might have been. Having finished 3rd last season, we had now achieved something even greater. Champions League football was coming to Nacka.
SEASON REVIEW
Dioussé had an incredible first full year on the left wing – netting 21 goals, including 11 in the league and 9 in the Conference League. His Senegalese compatriot Diop scored 10 goals in his first 13 matches for Nacka. Despite having his worst season in terms of performances, Fouad still hit double figures for a fifth straight Allsvenskan campaign.
And then there’s Ronnie Paulsson – the profligate deep-lying forward whom I was desperate to sell in the spring. I’m glad I didn’t, because Ronnie proved my doubts wrong this year with 13 goals and 7 assists. His creativity and calmness under pressure has also won over the Nacka fans, who voted him as their Player of the Year.
Other standout performers included Emílio Chamboco (11 assists from left-back), Živković (very brave and consistent at centre-half) and Rasoulzadeh (at least when he can stay fit). A shout-out as well for Cisternas, who came 3rd in the Allsvenskan Young Player of the Year voting, despite leaving for France mid-season.
And after spending about a decade trying to find a decent goalkeeper, we ended up with TWO brilliant shotstoppers at the same time.
Loanee Hellman started the year as our number 1, and he certainly didn’t look too shabby – the occasional big-match mistake aside. He was also voted the 3rd-best goalkeeper in the Allsvenskan this year…
…despite losing his starting place to Lazarevski late on. Through all my time playing FM24, I have never had a goalkeeper exceed his Expected Save percentage… but Vlad saved 87% of our opponents’ shots on target and kept 11 clean sheets in just 24 matches. Still only 20 years of age, he will surely be my first-choice goalkeeper for the rest of this save.
We’ve certainly performed like potential champions – having the 2nd-highest xG and the 2nd-lowest xGA. In terms of statistics that actually matter, only Djurgården scored more goals than us and only Hammarby conceded fewer, but we finished above them both to become THE top team in Stockholm.
As always, there are things we can work on to become even better. A team with title aspirations will surely need to keep more than 50% of possession, and our pass completion rate of 86% is pretty mediocre by FM standards. So I will once again focus on midfield reinforcements over the winter – with a strong and composed holding midfielder being at the top of my wishlist.
We also need a more dynamic and prolific midfield runner to take over from Daniel Ulvestaf, who is now 30 and on the decline. The hope is that Nkolo or Markićević will break out in 2037 and take that spot.
But seeing as we now have £25million in the bank – thank you once again, Benfica – perhaps it’s time to loosen the purse strings and really splash out?
After 13 seasons, my grand Nacka project is nearing its conclusion. I now have three more seasons to win the Allsvenskan title. Let’s do this.
Elfsborg’s winners might have taken it all, but Nacka aren’t standing small. With plenty of money to invest further into what’s already a very talented young squad, surely it’s their destiny to win the Allsvenskan next year?
Join me again next time to find out!
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