Bom Dia! And happy new year to you! Nick and his Portuguese Wolves are back from the festive break to give you your Friday fix of Champ once again. They were in a great position when we stopped for Christmas, but will that continue this week? Here’s Nick…
After just under a third of the season, we sit in fourth place, equal on everything with Liverpool but with a better goal difference, so not too shabby so far. Let’s get cracking…
Hello and welcome to the 2024 CM Cup! As ever, I’m not certain how much interest there is to anybody outside of the 23 participants so we’re sticking with the presentation from last year. Thank you to everybody who took part, the format was very different this year but hopefully it didn’t detract too much from the competition.
2024 CM Cup
The 2024 CM Cup is the 8th edition of the Championship Manager Cup, more commonly known as the CM Cup. Matches were played out on Zoom in December 2024 because Dave is an unorganised fool and left it too late.
The 2024 edition saw a format change away from the usual Group Stage into Knockout tournament. Instead, all 23 players were randomly assigned an entrance number and a team. The players drawing one and two would play each other, with the winner staying on and playing participant 3, so on and so forth.
The last surviving team will play a one off final against the team that clocked up the most eliminations to determine the 2024 champions.
Continue readingBom Dia! It’s Friday again, and that can only mean that Nick is back to resume his Portuguese adventure with Wolves, who have just finished 4th in their first season in the Premiership. Will European football help attract any big names to Molineux over the summer?…
I’ll start with an apology… some of you may have noticed that last week, I said I was taking a break from this adventure to bring you something special this week. Unfortunately, that something special isn’t quite ready yet, but good things come to those who wait…
So back to Molineux we go, and we start with an outgoing as Soares heads to Spain. He only played 3 games this season, but was a bit of a stopgap anyway…
Yeboah!
Hello, and welcome to the end of Season 4 for my African warriors. Last time out I left you with my charges dragging their heels near mid-table, but with prospects in the Champions League and FA Cup to whet the appetite.
Here’s where we left things in part 11 – 12 points off the top, 12 games won, 12 games lost – very apt for part 12 really.
We’ll kick off with the news that we may yet see more Thunderbastards from our terrace hero, big Tone.
It’s tap ins, injuries and red cards against Villa though. I don’t mind, this is a good win. Silly Lunt getting himself sent off like that.
Chelsea, and Richard Wright in particular are also hard work to break down. We’re starting to remind the fans of George Graham with these 1-0 wins though.
Not so in Europe though, as we do a Spurs and knock in five goals by half time against Ajax. Ajax are still a decent side, but we just blew them away with our pace and power. Dare I suggest we have one foot in the semi’s??
One semi we’re defeating sporting is in the FA Cup as we are like a rat out of a trap against Chelsea and not even Devine intervention can stop our pursuit of retaining that famous trophy.
We’ll take on Liverpool in the next round, bring it on.
Coventry have a centreback pairing of Gary Breen and Rio Ferdinand. One gets himself sent off and another scores an own goal as we triumph by three goals. The Quicker is back in a rich vein of form.
Second leg shenanigans in Holland, but we see the tie out with a Bakayoko leveller and we’re through baby
To face the mighty Bayern. They are usually quite underpowered in the game, but I have the German league running, so they might be a sterner test. We shall see.
Getting to the final four in Europe isn’t enough to tempt George
But it entices Freddie, who I know is classed as French in the game, but he played for Mali in real life, so I’m allowing it and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, so there.
I really thought we had won an epic encounter with Blackburn when Barnes scored in the last minute only for Chris Sutton to have the final say. Agali, clearly worried about his position with Kanoute on the bench takes a fine double.
Semi time and it’s a bright start against Bayern but Baron and Mick Dundee have other ideas and we have big work to do in Germany in a fortnights time.
One semi that won’t be achieving full tumescence is in the FA Cup where Liverpool beat us at Old Trafford.
We are getting better at recovering from these sort of set backs
However, Bakayoko won’t be recovering from being hacked in half by Scott Howey and that’s his season over. This is a worrying turn of events.
He’s been worth every penny of that £6.75m transfer fee
We almost get our revenge on title chasing Liverpool, but Kanu equalises with 2 minutes to go. Adrian Mole’s hat trick only earning us a point in the end. I can’t complain too much as it is only 2 days since we last played.
Annoyingly it’s also 2 days before our trip to Germany to try and reverse a 2-1loss from the first leg. Iorfa is stepping in for the injured Bakayoko and his two goals would be sweet were it not for the three that we conceded
It’ll be a Barcelona and Bayern Munich final then…
So, our only way back into Europe for next season will be via a high league finish, so shedding the midweek hangover, Spurs are ably dispatched despite late efforts by Disco Des.
Derby are next up to taste defeat at the hands our lads
But we stumble against bottom of the table WBA
And then again against ten man City
It’s better times at Hillsborough though and 3 second half goals has the chairman checking passport renewal dates for next seasons european adventures
But which competition will we be in?
To get back in the Champions League, we need to win and hope Newcastle do us a favour and beat Liverpool, but not by like 20 goals or something stupid.
We do our bit against Wimbledon, which for some reason is on the Friday night when everyone else will play on the Sunday
Could Kanoute and Yeboah have fired us back to the promised land?
Well, no. Robbie Fowler spoils it all for us.
Still, we lost no league games in part 3, which is something
So UEFA cup exploits beckon for us next season
Horrendous middle of the season there
Goals not flowing quite as much as previous seasons
A team newly promoted to Division 3 try to turn my head, but I have unfinished business here.
Besides, I’m also managing Nigeria and that’s been slowly improving ahead of next years world cup
Awards time and nothing for us to shout about
Tears flow though as we say goodbye to two genuine Leeds Legends
Oh, and our reserve goalie
These twats still won’t retire though
So, that’s a wrap for season 4. I said at the start I would give myself 5 seasons to be successful, so next season I need a tilt at the title and glory in Europe, so hopefully you’ll join me in the New Year for part 13 and in the meantime, Merry Xmas and thanks for reading
Bom Dia! and welcome to the finale of Nick’s first season in the Premiership with his entirely-Portuguese Wolves squad. They’re in a great position, but have some tough games coming up. Can they hold it together until the end? Here’s Nick…
Whatever happens over the next 15 games, I’m proud of the boys. I’d have bitten your hand off if you’d offered me relegation survival, but we now find ourselves in contention for European football, so let’s see what we can do.
Good morning and welcome to the sticky middle of season 4 with my all African Leeds United team. We’re playing our first season in Europe and despite a tough group, we’re still in with a chance of qualifying. In the league however, midweek Champions League hangovers are a very real thing, stunting our progress
Bom Dia! and welcome along to another Friday of fun and games with Nick and his Portuguese Wolves, who have made a good start to life in the Premiership so far, including a win at Old Trafford. Can they keep up the good work? Here’s Nick with the latest from the Estadio Molineux…
After taking three attempts to get into this division, my aim before a ball was kicked was to merely stay up, so you can imagine my pure delight at sitting 8th in the table after 12 games. Let us see what this week has in store…
Hello to you – I’ve named the first part of Season 4 as ‘Africa Enters Europe’ as last season we won the FA Cup, which would allow Leeds to compete in the Cup Winners Cup, but we managed to pull a second place finish in the league out of the hat, giving us a shot at the Champions League. It is not about cans of Xmas favourite aerosols being inserted into the orifices of 80’s power ballad rockers, Europe. If you were expecting the latter, this is not the blog for you.
Anyway, Season 4 is about to start and we find out who stands between us and at least 6 games against Europe’s finest. It could have been worse with Monaco, Inter and Dortmund lurking.
Bom Dia! and welcome along to season four, where Nick and his men have finally made it to the Premiership at the third attempt! They’ll need to step it up a gear to survive though, so what can Nick do with his squad to make it capable of staying up?
I’m straight to work after losing the FA Cup final, releasing Carlos (one of my keepers), and Eduardo’s contract was almost up, but at least I manage to get something for him…
Morning blog readers. You join me as we enter the final furlong of season 3 of our African odyssey. We’ve not really had much to shout about so far, we’ve scored a lot but also conceded a lot. Here’s how we stand however, with 11 games left to make a push to European qualification.
