Welcome back to “Nacka’s Yard”, where Nacka FC will today tick off another milestone in their rise to the top.
The 2037 Allsvenskan campaign hasn’t exactly gone to plan so far, with our forwards seemingly forgetting how to score goals. Is it already too late to save our fading hopes of winning the title?
We do at least have the Champions League qualifiers to look forward to. Having previously reached the latter stages of the Conference League, now we have the opportunity to dine at Europe’s top table…
TRANSFER WINDOW
You know you’re minted when you can happily dismiss a £24million transfer offer from Premier League Bournemouth for one of your star players. Right-back Hassan Msengi wasn’t going anywhere… but it was a different matter as far as another of our African defenders was concerned.
After a so-so first half of the season, I felt we needed some fresh blood at left-back. Vimoj Muntu Wa Mungu was on the decline, and Emílio Chamboco had become very erratic. When Troyes offered us £450,000 for Chamboco, I decided to take the money… and so, after 5-and-a-half years, Milly was on his way out.
Replacing Chamboco at left-back is 18-year-old Héctor Pinto – a £130,000 purchase from Colombian side Junior. He’s not a great big old Héctor, but he is quick, energetic and fairly intelligent. He also has plenty of time to develop his technical skills.
I raided the South American market again for another forward to (hopefully) fix our goalscoring woes. He didn’t come cheap – indeed, we had to fork out a club-record £1.5million to Talleres.
Gustavo Venditti has got blistering pace, great finishing, a spirited personality… and as much natural fitness as me [Don’t flatter yourself. -Ed]. The 20-year-old Argentine is a natural striker who can also do a decent job on the right wing, so obviously I am retraining him as a left Inside Forward.
I also decided to give some opportunities to young target man Aleksandar Stojkov. The 20-year-old Finnish giant joined us last year and spent the first half of this season on loan at Norway, but I recalled him because all our other strikers were struggling with injuries and/or poor form. As you will soon discover, Alex made quite a big impact… at least to begin with.
I was tempted to spend even more of my £20million+ transfer budget, but now wasn’t the right time. It would make more sense to rebuild the team before the start of next season.
MÄSTARNA! DE BÄSTA! DE STORA LAGEN!
After a couple of deep Conference League runs, we had surged into the top 64 of UEFA’s coefficient rankings – way ahead of any other Swedish club. Now it was time to prove that we could hack it at a higher level.
This would be our first ever crack at the Champions League qualifiers. We would take our place amongst the continent’s elite in the League Phase if we could get through three qualifying rounds… and our quest would start with a real cracker.
Sweden’s league runners-up vs Norway’s league runners-up. Strømsgodset would give us a major early test, holding us to a 1-1 draw at our home ground. But we then stepped up our game in the away leg, battling to a 2-1 victory to continue our progress.
It was a similar story in the next round against Anderlecht. Following a scrappy goalless home draw, we blew the Belgians away in Brussels. We scored FOUR goals in the first 30 minutes (including a brace from a hitherto out-of-form Tahirou Dioussé) and then clung on in the second half to win a 4-3 thriller. Was it now time to dream?
Now only Midtjylland stood between us and the Champions League proper. Though we missed several chances to win the first leg in Denmark, I was happy enough to take a 1-1 draw back home. I truly believed we were about to pull off something incredible… and then we had a horrendous spot of misfortune.
27 minutes into the second leg, our goalkeeper Vladimir Lazarevski broke his hand at the worst possible moment, leaving Midtjylland with an easy opener. The Wolves doubled their lead before half-time… and despite Ahmed Fouad‘s best efforts, we couldn’t quite turn it around. A cruel 2-1 defeat meant that we would drop into the Europa League, though we still had some mouth-watering matches to look forward to.
Our first match in the Europa League proper was at Fenerbahçe. After a slow start, Dioussé pegged us back level on the stroke of half-time – but despite battering our hosts in the second half, we could not find a way to win. The match stats pretty much summed up just how woeful we had been at taking our chances this season.
After a spirited 2-2 draw at home to Athletic Bilbao, we got our first win on the board – and some long-overdue revenge on Craiova. With five points from our first three matches, things were looking good…
…until they weren’t. Having valiantly kept Julian Nagelsmann’s Chelsea down to a 2-0 win, we finished the year with a couple of disappointing away defeats at Slavia Praha and Strømsgodset (yes, them again). Those losses left us in a very awkward position, down in 28th place.
We will play two more league matches in January – at home to Beşiktaş, and then away to Nantes. We might need to win both of them to qualify for the knockout rounds.
But hey, at least we still had the Allsvenskan to go for… right?
HOW *NOT* TO WIN THE ALLSVENSKAN
Our Allsvenskan title push had started poorly, with our profligate forwards already leaving us six points adrift at the mid-season break. Things didn’t exactly improve when the league resumed in July.
After a thoroughly underwhelming 1-0 win at Norrköping, things spiralled out of control again with a couple more defeats. The Nacka fans were getting on my back, and even the players were unhappy with my management.
EXCUSE ME, GUYS! It’s not my fault that Dioussé gets caught offside more often than Romelu Lukaku! It’s not my fault that you stupid clods lost at home to Örgryte! It’s not my fault that you only scored TWO goals in four matches – one of them was a penalty, and the other one was a deflection!
And it’s DEFINITELY not my fault that all of you turn into SHRINKING VIOLETS as soon as I put you under even the slightest pressure! DO YOU EVEN WANT TO WIN THE LEAGUE?!
[Deep breath] I’m calm. I’m calm. I’m calm.
We found our feet again in August, with three straight wins taking us to the giddy heights of 6th place. Perhaps we weren’t quite cooked yet?
Of course, it was at this point that Lazarevski got injured. And then…
[Raspberry] We took one point from our next three matches – conceding 10 goals. That’s what having Steve ’10 Agility’ Turner in goal does to you, folks.
Naturally, as soon as Vlad returned against Mjällby, we picked up another win and another clean sheet. However, it had come far too late to keep us in the title race…
…and our hopes of even qualifying for Europe would soon evaporate after more dismal results in October. We basically phoned it in for the final few games and limped home in 7th place.
Our worst Allsvenskan season for four years. I’m glad it’s over, but it really wasn’t supposed to be this way.
SEASON REVIEW
We played 55 matches this year. We won our second Cupen, and qualified for the League Phase of the Europa League. And yet it feels like we’ve only gone backwards.
For all our attacking talents, we only got 40% of our shots on target – one of the worst shooting accuracy stats in the league. We do at least convert a reasonable 14% of our shots into goals, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why we can’t even hit the target with much regularity anymore.
We’ve become a team that can beat anyone but can also LOSE to anyone. We dropped points against 13 of our 15 league opponents (only taking maximum points off Halmstad and Norrköping), and even failed to beat the likes of Landskrona and Helsingborg at home.
Fouad scored 18 goals in all competitions but only 6 of them were in the Allsvenskan – the first time he’s ever failed to hit double figures in a league campaign. His understudy Dioussé went from scoring 21 goals last season to only 11 goals this year. Clearly his big-money move to Eintracht Frankfurt has got to his head a bit.
And then there was our new right-winger Samuel Koné, whose debut season could be divided into three distinct chapters. For the first few months of the season, Sam was utterly brilliant. For the next few months, he was bloody awful. And for the final few months, he was constantly getting injured – like an Ivorian Darren Anderton (ask your parents).
Our only regular starter to record an average rating above 7.00 was our centre-forward Mama Diop. 12 goals from 45 matches is not a fantastic return, but he did sacrifice some of his scoring output to become more of a creative team player, so I’m not too worried. Diop was also named in the FIFA/FIFPro U19 XI – underlining his status as one of the world’s most promising teenage strikers.
At least one Nacka player has had a good season. Lazarevski was voted as the Allsvenskan’s best goalkeeper after another impressive campaign – keeping 9 clean sheets and conceding only 18 goals in 23 league games. And that’s despite having a couple of serious injuries that forced him to miss several matches.
I suppose our defence also deserves a bit more credit. Željko Živković was rock-solid at centre-back once again, though he too spent a long time out injured and was clearly missed during the summer. I’m also pleased with how Dragan Ljubenović has settled into his holding midfield role, to the extent that I’ve even earmarked him as a potential captain.
This is bad news for 31-year-old Daniel Ulvestaf, who I’m afraid has become an utter liability. Ulrich Nkolo is finally growing into his role as an attacking Central Midfielder or Mezzala, where Aleksa Markićević has also shown glimpses of his talent.
Time is also up for Vimoj (33) at left-back and the sluggish Max Pettersson (31) at centre-half, and even defensive midfielder Sigge Jansson (32) is a pale shadow of his former self. I will be sacrificing A LOT of experience this winter, which I appreciate is a huge risk, but it might also give us the chance to reset and find new leaders.
I’m not just selling off all the old guys either. 19-year-old Dianka Sanou has developed very well at right-back – but at risk of sounding like an English football scout from the 1970s, he’ll never be tall enough to be a reliable defensive player in this team. Although Sanou has shown some promise playing as a right-winger, I would probably be better off just selling him to another club where he can continue his development.
So, what are my plans for the winter transfer window? Two new wing-backs, another centre-half to replace Pettersson, and a top-quality midfield creator. Maybe also a right-winger whose knee ligaments AREN’T made out of Twiglets.
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
As you can probably tell, I am starting to feel burnt out with FM24 (again). It certainly didn’t help that I had a bout of man flu while playing through this season. I was also struggling with a repetitive strain injury in my right hand (NO, it’s not what you think it is).
But yeah, it’s mostly FM that’s been getting me down lately. When you’ve been playing the same save for eight months straight – constantly tweaking your tactics, and running into the same frustrating game logic time and again – it eventually feels more like work than fun. It’s at this point in a save when I start to think about stepping back.
My contract at Nacka runs for another two years, until November 2039. Unfortunately, I am not sure I have the motivation to continue for that long anymore… so the 2038 season will probably be the FINAL season of “Nacka’s Yard”.
I have one more chance to bring the Allsvenskan title to Nacka, and to our newly-expanded Gröna Dalen stadium. At long last, I’m going to open up my wallet and spend whatever it takes to rebuild this Nacka team into THE most-feared force in Swedish football.
It really is all or nothing.
Yes, this series has already been going on for far too long, and I’m honestly amazed (and humbled) that at least a few people are still reading. Will our patience be rewarded with a first Allsvenskan title – or is yet another Fuller FM story destined to end in heartache?
The 15th – and possibly final – season of “Nacka’s Yard” kicks off next Monday. Don’t miss it!
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