Greetings and welcome back to a new season of Brits Abroad. Season 7 might be our last, if we can win everything. There’s obviously no guarantee of that and it’s really cool how many of you read this every week, so let’s just keep enjoying it and see how it goes. Real football returned this weekend and although I have missed it, I haven’t missed the feeling of defeat or kicking myself for picking the wrong fantasy players. Probably some lessons in there somewhere but today is not the day to pick that apart. Let’s wheel and deal.
More teams want Stephen Glass and the best deal on the table is from Arsenal, who offer me Robbie “chicken dance” Elliott in exchange. I’m absolutely ok with that, so welcome aboard.
Another full back option for England, of course.
I’m going to have a bit of a clear out. I’ve been loaning these players out for years and I think it’s just time to cut our losses. Goodbye Gifton.
Hello, Nicky Butt. After handing in his Class of 92 badge and gun to ditch Man Utd for Liverpool, he’s keen to add to his 28 England caps and I’m keen to have some competition for Southgate. £1.8m is a great price.
Another one bites the dust. Lots of interest in Fitzy allowed me to drive the price up, not that we’re short of a few quid.
The third choice keeper is off. Never really kicked on.
He’s replaced by one of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Richard Wright is also asking for a move so he may end up being second choice.
This is the squad as we embark on a new season. Gallen is out for a month.
The Super Tictac first leg sees us lock horns with Sporting for the first of probably about 6 occasions. It’s a typically tight affair is settled by Leandro, who really should retire or something. He has an annoying trait of scoring against us. We’ll get a chance back at our place in a few weeks to turn that around.
The league season gets underway with a fairly routine win at Bessa. Not really the name for a stadium, is it?
Our Green pals are in ominous form.
The Champions League group could be a lot worse. We avoid any of the “super powers” but Rangers are usually pretty handy and Man City are English Champions, which is quite remarkable.
Portugal sacked Jupp Heynckes and put Roy Evans in. The opposite of what I’m doing, basically.
Academica are such a struggle. McManaman gets the decisive goal.
We lose Southgate for four months, which would have been a disaster last season but with Lauchlan and now Butt to cover that position, it could be worse.
A reminder of where we are on the road to Euro 2004. That big win over Holland gives us every chance, three wins would be more than enough.
One is easily achieved in Georgia. Fowler is unreal in an England shirt.
Oh, hello! This loss for Holland basically has us qualified.
Back to the day job and an easy home win where the returning Gallen nets and Fowler continues to his good form.
Probably our toughest Champions League fixture is up first. Tricky Trev is out for 6 weeks so Tom Youngs gets an opportunity which he grasps with both hands. Firstly by giving us the lead and despite an Andrew Mainwaring master class, it’s another wonderkid who has the last word as Youngs smashes in from a corner to win the game. Get in.
A bad tempered affair in Tirsense sees Youngs score another double before the teams exchange red cards. Anderton’s starting to live up to his name and get more and more injuries, he was surprisingly healthy for a few seasons.
Ahhh I remember now. The Super Tictac second leg eventually takes place and the Green gimps do their usual and play everyone behind the ball. We have to throw everything at them but eventually McManaman breaks the deadlock and forces extra time. Naturally, we score a minute into extra time and have to see out 29 minutes. Thorpe and Youngs are the latest two to be injured.
McManaman is having to play in his more natural attacking midfield role rather than wingback and he thrives against Chaves with two goals. We’re in great form.
The injury problems are so bad we have to rely on Matt Le Tissier, who is pretty old and no less insane. Anyway we manage to tough this out after Niemi keeps us out for 68 minutes. Gallen’s set for another month out.
Back to England duty and Austria will be reinvigorated after their win over Holland. They can’t handle Robbie Fowler, not many can, and we’re 2-0 up at the break. Richard Rufus makes it interesting with a red card and Purk halves the deficit, but we hold on for an important three points.
Nearly there. We’ll just need a point in Macedonia or a loss by less than 9 goals or something.
Off we go to Feirense and it’s another handsome victory. We’ve refound the mojo of two seasons ago where we can steamroller most teams. We’d lost that a bit last season.
Fowler! Leca are the next to feel his power. We keep on keeping on.
Inter Bratislava are really not very good. Bridges’ missed penalty is a mere footnote in what turns into a thrashing and a resting players exercise.
At the half way stage, we’re on 9 points and I’m very confident we’ll go through.
A few league games to finish the week. McManaman is becoming a key player, when all around him are getting injured. It’s not an easy win but Owen is the latest to step up and on we go.
This, though, was perfect. Varzim finish with 9 and we get 5 but it could have been so much worse for them. That makes it 9 out of 9.
A 7 point cushion already and an average of 3 goals per game. Tougher days ahead, we haven’t played Porto and Sporting in the league yet so that gap could easily disappear.
We finish with a quick look down memory lane. Obviously if we do a 100% season that’d be our best ever but beating the total of 87 from season 4 would be just splendid.
Next week is when things start to get spicy. There’s World Club, European Super Cup, the last three Champions League ties and fitting in a load of league games around it. The Portuguese Cup will also start. We’re in great shape so I hope you have a great week and join me again next Sunday for more Brits Abroad. Toodles.