Bonjola and welcome back to Gijon for the 22nd and likely penultimate time. Season 8 is upon us and it will be a season like no other. Why you ask? Well, Gijon have won the league several times now and retained the Champions League, so that’s less important. The B Team won the Copa del Rey, which means they’re in the Cup Winners Cup. They must win it. We must win the Champions League, we can meet in the European Super Cup and confirm that we are the greatest club, possibly of all time. I don’t know. Let’s proceed.

Last time out I explained I had to leave without doing Euro 2004. Portugal won it, beat Norway in an entertaining final.

One signing straight away, on a free transfer, is Jamie Day. He got capped during the Euros but he is going to the B Team.

Klinsmann regen wins the journo award. We won the Fair Play award, as if it prove a point that we’re going to win everything.

Can’t help but laugh at this.

4th seeds but to have Inter and PSG in our way is a problem.

We’ll nab Djetou from one of the rivals and, yes, send him to the B Team.

The clash with the Bees goes with seniority at home.

We just about sort things out away. Phew.

The league season starts with a comfortable win over Mallorca.

Followed up by a comeback win at Barcelona.

Real Madrid in the Champions League group…that’s awful news.

Our promising start continues at often-irritating Real Sociedad.

Compostela are brushed aside.

Now, you may recall at the start of this episode I called it the penultimate. The still awake among you will note we usually do 3 posts for a season, but it is very apparent that our league form and position ultimately doesn’t matter. So it’ll be European competitions and other interesting fixtures from here.

Steaua are our first opponents on the road to the finale we crave. They are not very good.

Copenhagen aren’t much better but we really labour to the 3 points, Freund needing to net a late winner to keep us going. We need 12 points from the jobbers as Real Madrid could go either way.

The Bees were handed a very tough assignment in a competition that has so many poor teams, but they nudge their way past PSV thanks to the ludicrous Ortega.

Oh whaaaat. The Bees over 2 legs.

Valencia in the league are becoming my most hated team. They have a goalkeeper called Mortecano who is an Italian and presumably a regen of one of the many Italian nuisances who don goalkeeper gloves…Peruzzi, Marchegiani, Pagliuca, those sorts.

Anyway we draw 0-0 against Real Madrid which isn’t massively helpful.

The meeting with the Bees has a sting in the tail. That’s awkward.

The Romanians are little better at home as they were away.

The Bees make light work of Grasshopper.

That’s them done until March where they will head to Georgia. At least one of Inter or Everton will go out. PSG will not lose to Dnepr, who are in need of vowels.

We’re out of the Copa del Rey. The board are livid.

Results like this do not help. The players almost know I’m not interested in their league form.

The problem is, financially we are screwed. Due to our success, all the players are on hideous wages and the stadium of 32,000 doesn’t bring in enough money. Every major sale we’ve had has almost exclusively gone through the B Team to keep them afloat, as their 3,000 strong stadium can barely support Ortega’s £50k a week, let alone the other 20 odd.

Nevertheless, we just about defeat the Danes again and that should get us through, regardless of what happens in Madrid.

I’d be surprised if 13 points is not enough.

The league form isn’t atrocious, we are only 4 points odd the top but it doesn’t really matter.

We’ll finish with some good news and bad news. The good news…we’ve on the World Club Cup.

The bad news, Paulinho Santos’ season is over. At 34, I’m not sure how many more times he’ll play for the first team. Djetou will be promoted to the big leagues, after all the Bees won’t need him until March.

It’s not like we can throw money at the problem in January as we have £1.4m to our name. It feels like getting to the Gijon Superbowl scenario before the building crumbles to the ground is where we are now.

Anyway, that is where we shall leave it for now. All that needs to happen is…we need to win the Champions League whilst the Bees win the Cup Winners Cup. Join me next week to see if we can complete the mission. Bye for now!