Bom Dia! and happy Friday to you. Capping another full week of Blog Squad adventures is Nick with his Portuguese Wolves, who are in with a sniff of European football with just five games of the season remaining, so how will it all unravel? Over to Nick…

Here’s how things stand. After last season’s 4th place finish, I was quietly confident going into this campaign, but it’s been a bit of a topsy-turvy season, and we’ve never really properly got going, so if we do manage to sneak a European place, I’ll be over the bloody moon.

We start this week with European action, and we manage to beat Real Madrid in the second leg of our UEFA Cup semi, but their one goal is enough to see them through to the final to face Bordeaux, who edged Napoli on away goals. A valiant effort by my boys nonetheless…

If this team could be as consistent at winning as this bloke is at getting injured, then we’d be doing alright…

Back to the league. Let me get this straight… The same team (apart from one forced change) goes from beating Real Madrid one day to getting hammered by Bolton days later. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand this game…

They say that form goes out of the window when it comes to local derbies, but not for us, we’re just as shite as ever against rock-bottom Birmingham and it’s another walloping. Please can the season just end now?!

A win over Arsenal isn’t much to shout about these days, and our 4-2 win against a team containing Bergkamp, Overmars and Owen compounds their dismal season and sends them down to the first division. Sorry, Arsene!

After that winning blip, we’re straight back to losing ways away at Coventry after having to play almost two thirds of the match with ten men following Rui Miguel’s red. JP tried, but in the end we were well and truly Hucked…

The season ends at Bramall Lane. We’re 11th and can’t finish any lower, so I revert to the trusty old 2-3-1-2-2. It makes no difference, and we end up losing after leading 1-0. I’m just happy that the season’s all over if I’m honest…

I actually forgot to get a screenshot of the final table on this occasion, but we finished 11th, and £7.5m does little to soften the blow…

This however, was a big plus. He was out on loan, but will play more for me next season…

Portugal announce their World Cup squad, and just three of my boys are on the plane to Japan, two of which probably won’t play…

I have a good old chat with Jorgey Boy, and he shares my disappointment at this season. We agree that the failings could partly be down to the formation being too defensive, so some full backs are on the summer shopping list to allow us to deploy the 2-3-1-2-2 if need be.

But we start with a young forward for £1.5m. Again we’ve bought potential, and the stats and ratings look promising…

I finally run out of patience with Miguel Bruno and release him on a free. He showed glimpses of brilliance, but was never consistent enough.

The first fullback through the door is Rui Jorge on a free transfer. That’ll do nicely…

Seeing that there hasn’t been much match action this week, I thought it would be fun to follow Portugal at the 2002 World Cup, and they start with an underwhelming goalless draw with Australia in their first group game.

The struggle against the Aussies is quickly forgotten however, as they win a fiercely contested encounter with Germany, which contains no less than seven yellow cards…

A 1-1 draw with Norway in the final group game is enough to see both teams progress to the knockouts, where Portugal will face the host nation…

With the home crowd behind them, I’m expecting Japan to put up a real fight, but it’s a one-sided affair, and Portugal stroll through with ease to face the USA, who shocked the footballing world by knocking out Brazil…

Back to transfers briefly, and this guy looks to have all the attributes of a decent fullback, so in he comes for £240k from Genk. I’m nervous of that injury proneness stat of 19 though…

Meanwhile, Portugal march on after making light work of the USA as Nuno Gomes makes it 4 goals in 3 games. They’ll play France in the semis…

And that’s where the story ends, as the much-fancied French crush our adopted nation’s hopes with a 4-0 hammering. Third place is still up for grabs though…

France went on to beat Italy 3-0 in the final, while Portugal beat Nigeria to take home the bronze medal. Woohoo!

It’s always a nervous wait to see how much of my transfer budget the board steal to spend on new seats for the stadium, but on this occasion it’s just 198 of them priced at £424.24 each. Should have looked on Temu…

More youngsters join for free. Cajuda is the regen of Domingos, but I have no idea about Ramirez. Hopefully they develop well though…

With fullbacks coming in, some of the centre backs have to go, and first out the door is Nuno Mendes…

I can’t help but feel partly responsible for this, but it doesn’t really surprise me. I think I might have stuck with him for an immediate Premiership return though…

I thought we were doing well to have gone four months without a long-term injury…

I won’t waffle about all the youngsters going out on long, so here they all are in one hit…

And just like that, we’re ready to roll again. This is the squad to kick off season 6. I’m expecting more from some of these lot after some of the dross served up last season, but until any of the top players are interested, this is about the best bunch available to us…

So that’s it for another week. Join me again next time as we kick off a new season, with games against Leeds, Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool sprinkled in amongst our opening set of fixtures. See you soon. Adeus!