2009/2010, Championship and Burkina Faso.
As the title says, I got offered the Burkina Faso job, which I took since I've never done International management on FM. Sadly Burkina Faso had been knocked out of the main group qualification to the World Cup so I had to wait til the following year where they were gonna play Africa Nations Cup where we were expected to uphold the honour of Burkina Faso!
The Weymouth board expected a brave battle against relegation, as did the fans. Luckily I had a neat £850k transferkitty this season, which I would need since some of my older guys were getting, well, really old. Also! Finally! My training facilities got upgraded to basic! Rejoice! 9 players were brought in for £625k in all, including a new goalkeeper for £400k and a new defender for £200k. 2 real gems arrived on a free, and a Portuguese midfielder arrived from the Swansea reserves for £6k. Why he was there I had no idea, that player is class! Only 4 people left this season, for £350k in all.
The team looked solid, really. Thanks to the new signings my midfield was quite amazing, my new defender should sort out my defense, and my new goalie would hopefully change the trend that my England U21 goalie had taken on. Apparently the opposition, no matter their quality, would always score on their first attack. It happened so often that I was actually surprised if they didn't. I had high hopes, new and improved defense, new and amazing midfield, and there never was anything wrong with my attack. I just needed to find the right partner to Scottie McYoungblood who would no doubt do his to secure a decent league position. Our start was a bit shaky, but after about a quarter of the season gone the team had gelled nicely. We were able to keep pace with early pace-setters Wolverhampton.
As the season drew to a close I found myself in 5th place having to win the last game against 2nd placed Wolverhampton in order to secure a play-off spot. They ended up getting mauled 5-2. Play-off secured! Thanks to Wolverhampton's loss they dropped down to 3rd and had to seek promotion via the play-offs as well. Sheffield United won the league. Weymouth scored 109 goals, which was a record, yet still my defense needed fine-tuning (putting it mildly) since I conceded 78 goals and only managed a bloody 5th
Final position: 5th in the Championship. Promoted via play-offs and a 4-1 victory over Ipswich in the final. League Cup: Knocked out in the 4th round. FA Cup: Knocked out in the 4th round.
Top goalscorer: Scottie McYoungblood with 35 goals.
Fans Player of the Year: Scottie McYoungblood
(You might begin to see a trend starting here
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Burkina Faso
No friendlies had been arranged so I didn't really know what I had to work with. Still I had to make the most of it. Turns out that out of the 5 goalies I had at my disposal, only 1 could get in the team of a League 1 team, all the others weren't good enough for Conference football. Still, excellent strikers and a brilliant holding midfielder, that's what I had to build my team around. I figured I could do it nice and easy, sadly it turned out that Burkina Faso was reigning Africa Nations Cup Champions which put a dampener on my mood since I honestly had no chance of making that happen again. "Luckily" for me I got drawn in the same group as media-favourites Ivory Coast, the one's who are always favourites, Nigeria, and whipping boys Niger. To make matters worse my brilliant holding midfielder was brilliant in training 1 week before the tournament started and broke his leg...
First game against Ivory Coast was lost with a very respectful 2-1 defeat, followed up by a meager 2-0 victory over whipping boys Niger, followed by an amazing 2-2 draw with Nigeria. I say amazing because my goalie got injured in training before the game and had to be replaced by a guy with goalkeeping skills equivalent to a torso with a head. Since Nigeria also lost to the Ivory Coast, but beat Niger 3-0 I got knocked out on goal-difference. I resigned immediately after - Gutted
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