Track 9 – Stop Crying Your Heart Out

 

‘Cause all of the stars are fading away,
try not to worry, you’ll see them some day,
take what you need, be on your way,
and stop crying your heart out…

 

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2021 → 7th; 2022 → 6th; 2023 → 8th. Life hasn’t gone too badly in our first 3 seasons of this Homegrown save at Angers SCO in the West of France. Considering our recruitment and financial limitations, we have done quite well to pick up three consecutive Top 10 finishes so far in this save (click here if you would like to start from the beginning and catch up on the first 8 episodes).

 

The Angers board however, have started to get a little too big for their boots lately. At the end of last season, our Job Status was Insecure after losing a couple of games which led to us finishing 8th rather than in 5th or 6th (ridiculous considering our Media Predicted finish was 9th at the start of the season), and despite getting a new contract in the summer we entered Season 4 still Insecure in the Angers hotseat.

 

Admittedly our finances are in the sh*t – after slightly panic-buying Amine Gouri in January for €18m with €9m being paid in installments, the €7.25m prize money for our 8th place finish wasn’t enough to bring our overall bank balance back in the green. It seems the board are quite fond of positive cashflow, who would have thought it…

 

 

Who cares right? As long as the results flow, there’s not much the board can do…

  

  

Considering we can only obtain 10% of any incoming transfer revenue due to the financial situation, we are in trouble. Our backup keeper Dimitry Bertaud who we signed on a free two seasons back isn’t bad, but Paul Bernardoni has been immense for the past three years and is fundamental to our cause (also hoping to make him the first capped Angers player to meet our save objective which we set at the start of the save).

  

  

So bad is our financial situation that we can’t even afford to improve his contract…as if losing our first choice keeper isn’t bad enough, we look set to lose him to one of our rivals if we are generous enough to call Marseille a rival (they did finish two points ahead of last season, bast*rds). This season is not starting well…

  

Bernardoni throws us an unexpected lifeline as he rejects the contract offer – HE LOVES ME, HE REALLY REALLY LOVES ME. An absolute bullet dodged seeing as we are still scarred from losing Mathieu Cafaro last year under similar circumstances – here’s hoping no other bids come in for him.

  

 Dortmund Manager Mauricio Pochettino:

  

  

  

  

Absolute madness here but thankfully no more clubs come calling for him or any of the rest of our squad. I am actually happy enough with the personnel we have currently going into the new season, however with Leo Lebon returning to Bordeaux after completing his loan spell we are a bit light in terms of cover both at Centre Half and in Defensive Midfield. With absolutely no budget to play with – LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

  

  

While the elders of this club take a leaf out of the UK government’s book by continuing to make rash short-term decisions for personal gain rather than thinking of the long-term consequences of their actions – we swoop to make not one but two bargain deals, with Claudio Gomes arriving on a free transfer after his contract expired at Man City, followed by Tanguy Nianzou who returns to the club on loan from Bayern after a successful spell here in our second season. Both can play at DMC with Nianzou equally adept at Centre Back – safe to say our squad is now very well rounded and we are ready to kick off Season 4 at Angers SCO.

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Angers SCO First Team Squad 2023/2024 ⚫⚪

  

Goalkeepers: Paul Bernardoni, Dimitry Bertaud

Defenders: Evan N’Dicka, Lillian Brassier, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Enock Kwateng, Valentin Rosier, Hugo Vogel, Mamadou Doucouré

Midfielders: Ibrahim Amadou, Tanguy Nianzou, Antonin Bobichon, Theo, Enzo Le Fée, Michael Olise, Mohamed-Ali Cho, Sofiane Boufal, Mathias Pereira Lage, Claudio Gomes

Forwards: Rachid Alioui, Amine Gouiri

  

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Our season starts very, very well…I mean, really really well…

  

  

I would love to say it is down to my tactical prowess and undoubted ability as a Football Manager football manager, however the reality is that it was all down to one man…

  

  

  

After a couple of fairly average campaigns, Michael Olise appears to have finally blossomed and earns every penny of the €5.5m we spent on him back at the end of Season 1 – scoring 7 goals in our opening 8 games and catapulting us to the top of Ligue 1 for the first time in 4 seasons. WHAT IS GOING ON.

  

Needless to say it will most likely be short-lived as Game #9 is against none other than PSG who have absolutely walked the league for the past 3 years running. Important to note that one of our main save objectives is to beat PSG in a league game which we have so far failed to do in 6 attempts…

  

Angers SCO vs PSG – Saturday 7th October 2023

  

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They’ve got Neymar, Salah, Ronaldo, Kulusevski, Firmino – never mind the fact that Mbappe left for Man City in the summer for a cool €194m. BUT WE’VE GOT MICHAEL OLISE.

  

A Cristiano Ronaldo brace brings us crashing back to earth as we lose 3-0 which looks a lot worse than it is considering we were only 1-0 down with 11 minutes to go. It’s near impossible to compete with them in this league – they have spent €783m since we started the save compared to our €71m (much of which we are still paying in installments). Our quest to beat them in this league continues!!

  

Thanks for reading, it’s gonna be a good season 🔥.

Cheers,

Paul.

  

As always feel free to leave any comments or questions below, hit that Follow button and if you want to chat further you can always catch me on Twitter, Slack or Discord. You can also get more involved in the FM community by checking out @WeStreamFM on Twitter and Discord as well as some excellent FM content on WeStreamFM.com.