I’ve been looking forward to this one. By now, you should know by now Andrew (KOTR) has been researching Scandinavian CM9798 players. What about a club could only recruit Swedish players? What if that club was a European giant? What if you ate Ikea hotdogs whilst you read this? Let’s hear more from Andrew…

Hello and welcome to my latest adventure. There is always a great deal of interest in the hidden depths of the CM9798 database much of which is caused by the games own limitations on the number of players a 16-bit game can handle.

The focus of this latest endeavour will be on the Swedish player database. We’re going to take a top European side (in this case Barcelona), strip the squad back to nothing and populate it with the best talent the Swedish database has to offer and look to build a legacy worthy of the club we’ve overran.

A note worthy entry to this stage would be to give an idea of the players in this area that have gone un-noticed for over 20 years. Many of you will be familiar with this diamond from 99/00 and 00/01. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the (incorrectly spelled) CM famous Sharbel Touma!

Okay, okay, enough of the introductions. You can see how this will roll-out, so let’s get down to business and get these turnips on tour!

First of all, I had to clear out the dead finest oak wood. It is a rather worrying sight, particularly with a Super Copa double header vs. Real and the Champions League 1^st round and group stage to have squads ready of in a little under two weeks.

Barcelona B are a shoe in to win a cup this season. We make it to the Super Copa with 10 players and therefore must field a dreaded grey. I’d say that’s not a bad result all things considered.

Marilyn came out the blocks flying but as ever with this heavy rock, it got him really tired really quick and Dani sent us packing. The return leg was a swede and sour affair. We but on a better show but picking up injuries is going to destroy my chances of getting far in Europe.

Due to the maximum of 5 player bids at a time, we have only 10 players available until the Champions League quarter finals…something I will probably regret. Anyway, our 10 men and 1 grey made a light snack of Ararat with grey Buyo even getting in on the act.

So, in time for our opener against UD Salamanca, we have compiled a reasonable sized squad.

The opening day arrives at Camp Nou. Despite the result, the opening period of the game tells me we are in for a long season. 0-2 down at half-time, a second half blitz sees us take the spoils. Get in sson!

We take a 3-1 hiding from Ararat but we’re into the groups. And the groups are not kind to us given our threadbare European squad of 10. I wish we’d had Dortmund’s draw…

Meanwhile back in La Liga with our preferred 11, the sson’s make real turnips of Madrid! With three cleared off the line, we really should have dished out a hammering.

We follow up with a sturdy but unimpressive away draw at Racing Santander, a result we were not banking on (budum-cha!). Despite playing half a game vs. ten men, our Swedes truly become turnips. Worth noting that La-Liga schedule games when U21 fixtures are taking place and we were 4 key players down.

With a full-strength squad we take on a decent Valencia outfit and come away with what is known in CM9798 as a ‘shock result’. Asper gets a 9 in the sticks.

The week sees us move back to Champions League duty, whereas previously stated, we don’t fancy our chances…

First up in Europe its Dinamo Moscow. The score-line flatters us, it was difficult going and we missed a number of chances. But the 3 points are a turnip for the books.

Our European squad woes just keep getting better… Larsson has been in exceptional form at both right and left wing back, this will be a major loss when we take on Porto.

Back to league action for now and another game against a top 10 side. Sociedad batter our back line, but we weather the storm as Mattias Asper has an outstanding game. The goth gets another notch on his belt.

Deportivo up next and we make things difficult for ourselves. The iron Ljung driving our midfield gets us rolling and that man Larsson pops up with a late header to sneak another win.

Mallorca visit Camp Nou but a rocking first half display makes it look like they have no ikea what hit them. Branstrom ruins my sson pun, and Moller’s injury is disappointing. Anders Prytz will get a shot at the back alongside Jansson.

We take to Europe again, and we cobble together 10 players. Lucky for us, a fellow turnip was keeping the sticks for Porto and was happy to see us win 3-0. Despite Porto eventually being down to 9 men, we couldn’t improve on our first 45 minutes.

Once the celebrations died down, the bad news came and hit us right in the swede spot…we’re down to 9 men for the next game.

Back to La Liga and relegation dwellers Merida and Oviedo are brushed aside, albeit not with the convincing swagger of the Mallorca result, but it still feels so swede (yeah, I’m being THAT guy). Sandwiched in between, Ljung and Jansson make their international bows.

19^th place Zaragoza visit Camp Nou and Mikael Moller pops up with a last minute winner. Not only was it unconvincing, Anders Prytz, the turnip, gets injured and our squad to play Monaco is down to 8!

Our 8 men are rolled over and turned into 7 men which is NOT good for our remaining group matches and doesn’t bode well for being the best runner-up. Hell, let’s make that 6 players now…

We make thick soup of Compostela who sit in the bottom 4, but as I always say my sson, a win’s a win. We close out October as we make our first appearance in the Copa del Ray (in which the worlds best B Team are still competing).

We have a complete off day. Our strikers have an absolute stinker as does Mattias Asper in the sticks. A mountain the climb in the 2^nd leg.

We close October on top of La Liga, with a 6 point cushion against Bilbao. My main concerns being the lack of squad depth for the Champions League, and that we’ve performed very average vs. a host of lower table sides.

Our turnips sit proudly on the shelf. But that’s all for now, I’ll see you again soon for the next part of turnips on tour as we look to make it through the winter.

Adios.

You can follow Andrew on Twitter @kingoftherooks