After 15 seasons of toil, tears, sweat, and ranting about goalkeepers, my Football Manager 2024 adventure in Sweden is building up to a great crescendo.
Reinvigorated by some fresh blood in defence and midfield, Nacka FC are contending for the Allsvenskan title once again. Some encouraging results have left them in 3rd place as they head into the second half of the 2038 season – and after winning their third Svenska Cupen, they have secured European football once again.
These next six months will decide our destiny. Can we become Swedish league champions and get our hands on the Lennart Johanssons Pokal for the first time? Or will there be one more cruel twist in this tale?
TRANSFER WINDOW
It’s been an eventful summer for Vladimir Lazarevski. Despite not enjoying the most convincing start to this season, our young goalkeeper was wanted by Guingamp – an ambitious Ligue 1 club owned by a Swiss tycoon. Guingamp were prepared to offer us big money for Vlad, eventually tabling a final bid of £26million.
We’re now in a strong financial position where we don’t need to sell our prize assets, so I told Guingamp to “va te faire foutre”. Lazarevski was so upset that he skipped training – the first time any of my players have gone AWOL on this save – and then slapped in a transfer request.
I refused to budge. I know exactly how this situation works on Football Manager, so I decided to bide my time and wait for Guingamp to drop their interest.
[French accent] One month lateur…
Sure enough, Guingamp did sign another goalkeeper – a 37-year-old Anatolii Trubin, if you’re interested – and so they didn’t need Lazarevski anymore. Vlad saw sense, backed down, and then signed a new long-term contract at Nacka FC.
That’s how you play hardball with your wantaway players, folks.
Other than that, the summer transfer window was a pretty slow one at Nacka. The only notable departure was young midfielder Saeid Ranjbar, who sadly didn’t have the technical ability to carve out a place in our team. He went on loan to Norrköping for the rest of the season.
I promoted one of our pre-season youth signings to the senior squad. Goran Matijasevic is a pacey, left-footed Croatian with impressive technical ability who can play anywhere across the frontline. He would play mainly on the left wing as a backup to vice-captain Ahmed Fouad, while the prolific Gustavo Venditti recovered from a serious rib injury.
I made only one major addition to the squad this summer – taking Bosnian centre-forward Dino Mulahasanovic on loan from Dinamo Zagreb. Dino is a strong, clinical finisher who also has plenty of strength and power. You wouldn’t want to get in a way of a long shot from him, that’s for sure?
But hang on, Chris, you ask. Mamadou Diop has been in great form (10 goal contributions in 16 matches so far this season), so did you really need another meaty striker? I’m afraid I have some bad news about Big Mama…
OH, MAMA…
Having just returned from playing for Senegal at the World Cup, Diop resumed our league campaign by scoring the opening goal at Landskrona. Just a few minutes later, he pulled up with a serious knee injury in the build-up to our second goal.
My worst fears were soon confirmed. Diop had torn his ACL and was out for the rest of the season. Having scored 8 goals in 17 matches, he would be a massive loss.
But it’s fair to say we coped pretty well. A confident 2-0 victory over Göteborg sent us top of the table, and we never looked back – winning nine of our first 10 matches after the break.
Yes, you read that right. NINE wins out of 10! Indeed, since the final week of April, we had taken 46 points from just 17 matches!
In truth, we weren’t blowing teams away quite as emphatically as when we demolished Malmö and Djurgården (twice) in the spring. Instead, we had become very consistent and resilient, and I was doing a better job at rotating my squad and defending narrow leads late in matches.
The only bump along the way was in an ill-tempered match at Brommapojkarna. Left-back Héctor Pinto and playmaker Denis Fleckner were BOTH sent off in the final 10 minutes, meaning that we had to cling on for dear life just to preserve a goalless draw. Denis had recently lost his starting place to wonderkid Joel Pérez, and a straight red card certainly didn’t help his cause.
But even with European games eating our schedule and forcing us to constantly play two matches a week, we remained locked into our title challenge. Two more shutout wins against Malmö and Djurgården – both away from home – helped us to pull clear of the chasing pack by the end of September.
Not only had we built a nine-point lead, but we also had games in hand on nearly all the other contenders. The only exception was Hammarby, who were breathing down our necks in August but then hit a rough patch in September.
It’s worth noting that we hadn’t yet played Hammarby this season. We were supposed to visit the Tele2Arena in July, but European ties meant that fixture was postponed until 27 October. That would be just 11 days before our final game of the season… against Hammarby at home.
Imagine if they nicked the championship off us by beating us twice in the final fortnight. Even by Fuller FM standards, that would be an almighty bottle job.
We’d best get this title wrapped up ASAP, don’t you think?
ONE FINAL PUSH
After demolishing Värnamo 6-0 (courtesy of a Ronnie Paulsson hat-trick), things got a bit squiffy at Kalmar. Lazarevski couldn’t be bothered to save anything as Kalmar came dangerously close to beating us – having two late goals disallowed for offside. Luckily, we escaped with a 2-2 draw.
We then got back on track with a simple 2-0 win at Elfsborg, leaving us on the brink.
Göteborg and Malmö were now nine points behind us, but they each had just three matches to play and huge goal difference deficits to overcome. The only team who could realistically catch us were Hammarby – 10 points adrift, with four matches still to play (including those two derbies against us).
One more win from our final four matches would see Nacka FC crowned champions of Sweden.
Our first chance to clinch the title was at home to 12th-placed Landskrona, who to us were basically the opposite of a ‘bogey team’. We were unbeaten in our nine previous meetings with the Landskrona bois – winning seven and drawing the other two.
This wasn’t much of a contest. We dominated possession, carved through Landskrona’s three-man backline at will, and created loads of quality scoring chances – all while our defence barely allowed the visitors a sniff at our goal.
So, let’s play one of Football Manager Reddit’s favourite games. Look at these full-time match stats, and see if you can “Guess The Score”.
Obviously, Landskrona scored from the only attack they could produce in the entire game. But how many goals did we score?
Have you made your guess yet? Okay. Here’s the correct answer…
WE SMASHED THEM 4-1! Mulahasanovic and Venditti scored two goals apiece to finish the job, and crown Nacka FC as the new Allsvenskan champions!
We had won the title with three games to spare – and before we had even played our first match against Hammarby!
Having completed our incredible 15-year journey from the 4th tier to the very top of Swedish football, we could now bask in our glory as the Lennart Johanssons Pokal was presented to our brilliant captain Dragan Ljubenović…
What? No league trophy presentation?
FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, FOOTBALL MANAGER! This stupid bug has been in this stupid game for YEARS!
Well, that’s put a damper on our celebrations, hasn’t it?
Three days after clinching the title, we gleefully tormented Hammarby by beating them 3-1 at their place. A heavily-rotated team were then soundly beaten by eventual runners-up Göteborg – our first league defeat since May – before we met Hammarby again at home on the final day. Sadly, we conceded an injury-time equaliser and had to settle for a draw.
Not that I was complaining. We had absolutely been the dominant team in this year’s Allsvenskan – scoring the most goals, conceding the fewest, and finishing at least 10 points clear of everyone else.
Our 68-point tally was just one point shy of the all-time Allsvenskan record, set by Häcken when they claimed 69 points in their 2024 title-winning campaign. If it hadn’t been for that late Hammarby goal on the final day, we would have set a new benchmark. Shame.
We also finished the year having not losing a single league match at home. Only Kalmar, Halmstad and Hammarby had taken so much as a point away from Gröna Dalen. Considering this was our first full season at our new(ish) stadium, that’s a pretty impressive record to have.
And let’s not forget that we had already lifted the Svenska Cupen, becoming the first club to win both major Swedish trophies in the same calendar year since AIK in 2009. But having enjoyed so much domestic success, how would we fare on the continent?
EUROPE
Our Europa League qualifiers started brightly enough, as homegrown midfield starlets Aleksa Markićević and Hamdi Aslan helped to roll over Swiss side Servette. After a resounding 7-0 aggregate win, I expected the next round to be a lot tougher. I wasn’t wrong.
Raków’s narrow 5-2-3 formation was a nightmare to contend with – even when switching to our 4-4-2 ‘Plan B’. We had to come from behind twice simply to salvage a draw at home, before Fouad and Paulsson got us over the line in Poland.
Unfortunately, we came a cropper in the Playoff round against Molde. Ronnie missed an early penalty in Norway, and we never recovered – failing to score a single goal over the two legs. One flukey deflection was all Molde needed to qualify for the Europa League proper… and relegate us to the Conference League.
We began the league phase in style – thumping four goals past Finnish champions TPS, with Dino netting a hat-trick. A couple of dominant home victories over Domžale and Astana effectively sealed our presence in the Conference League knockout stages once again.
We also had a couple of away draws at Aalborg and Fulham, despite taking the lead in both matches. I’m already sick of us playing Fulham after they knocked us out of Europe in the past two seasons, but at least we managed to leave Craven Cottage with something this time.
Unfortunately, our League Phase – and my time at Nacka – ended with my heaviest ever home defeat. Ljubenović got himself sent off after just four minutes, and although our defence held firm until half-time, Espanyol overwhelmed us by scoring three goals in the second half.
This was not the note I wanted to go out on… but that’s Football Manager sometimes. An imperfect career does not need to have the perfect ending.
That heavy loss meant we missed out on a bye to the Round of 16. Nacka finished in 10th place and must prepare for a Playoff tie in February… but that won’t be any of my concern.
SEASON REVIEW
2038 was a truly unforgettable year for Nacka FC. We scored 122 goals in 55 matches, completed a domestic double and continued to make solid progress in Europe.
Our league campaign had started in such mediocre fashion, but changing the Deep Lying Playmaker into a modified Central Midfielder made a huge difference to our performances. For one thing, we became much more potent in front of goal – hitting the target with 51% of our shots, and recording a solid 15% conversion rate.
We didn’t have an overpowered goal machine – Paulsson was our top scorer in all competitions with 14 goals, while Venditti led the way in the league with 8. Then again, we didn’t need one, as we shared the burden around and got six different goalscorers into double figures. I do wonder, though, how many goals Mama Diop would have netted if he’d been fit for the second half of the season.
After an up-and-down first season at Nacka, Samuel Koné became a much more consistent creative threat this year. Sam provided 15 assists in all competitions and was deservedly voted as the Fans’ Player of the Year – the FIFTH different right-winger to win that award.
David Koné continued to flourish at centre-half and even scored six goals – most of them set up by his namesake Sam. And while Lazarevski was not quite as reliable in the big games as he had been last year, he still kept 14 Allsvenskan clean sheets – the most in the league.
Three of our champions were recognised by the Allsvenskan, with right-back Hassan Msengi and midfielders Pérez and Markićević all being named in the Team of the Year. A further three were on the substitutes’ bench.
Pérez in particular has truly been a revelation. Although the Uruguayan playmaker has generally been more solid than spectacular, he has come up with some crucial assists at important moments, and his long-range shooting is also a useful weapon. Joel will surely play for a top European club one day, but I hope Nacka can keep him for a year or two longer.
Both Pérez and David Koné were both nominated for Young Player of the Year, though they were pipped by Robin Billborn – the 21-year-old Brommapojkarna striker who was also the league’s top scorer. Joel (5th) and Dave (6th) were also in the Allsvenskan’s top 10 average ratings, along with Venditti (8th).
To be honest, this Nacka team isn’t quite the finished article. Markićević has provided plenty of goals and assists this year, but the mezzala still needs to work on his dribbling and off-the-ball awareness. We will also need a long-term solution at left-back, as although João Pereira has done some brilliant work during his loan spell, he will probably be too expensive to sign from Benfica permanently.
Even without further improvements, we already have THE strongest team in the Allsvenskan. Most of the Media Dream XI consists of our players now… and because of all the money we’ve made through European runs and Nasser Mutambe’s sell-on clause, we are also far richer than everybody else. We have gone supernova, and I expect us to dominate Swedish football for years to come.
We will also have the chance to underline our dominance next summer by qualifying for the Champions League. As Swedish league champions, we only have to win one Playoff tie to get into the League Phase… and even if we lose that, we are guaranteed Europa League football at worst.
But as much as I’d like to stay on and complete that final challenge, I think now is the right time to take a break. I am quite happy to leave Nacka FC as a league champion, and with my legacy fully secured.
Having finally brought the Allsvenskan trophy to Nacka FC, I am now ready to return home.
But before that, there will be one final chapter of “Nacka’s Yard” next Monday. I will post a quick summary of my 15 seasons at Nacka, take a closer look at our title-winning squad, and then deliver my final thoughts on how this save has gone. I hope you will join me for that.
And now, to sing us out, give it up for the Ivory Coast’s number 1 soul music double act – Sam and Dave Koné!
Fuller FM 