Malmö FF — Background and Current standing…

Club Information
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Malmö Fotbollförening (Malmö FF)

Formed: 1910
Chairman Status: Happy to stay
Rivals: IFK Göteborg, Helsingborg, IFK Malmö
Finances: Okay
Continental Competitions: None
Captain: Jackson Mashaba
Vice Captain: Jorge

Media Prediction: 9th
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So here we are, a new chapter in the Varbergs BOIS story! In my heart of hearts, it was always going to be either Malmö or IFK Göteborg (or Varbergs GIF..) and luckily the former were sliding down the league. With the threat of relegation they binned their manager and hired me! Much to my pleasure as it had been nearly a year without a job… This though means I start in the Premier League so my aim is clear, win the Champions League.

Malmö’s history speaks for itself really..

17 League trophies, 15 League Cups. Domestically they are the Liverpool of Sweden and I guess this giant needs to be boosted back up to it’s former glory! As they have already surpassed my trophy cabinet success with the BOIS, there is no need to domestically challenge myself to better them. Although, it won’t stop me from trying now will it? ;)

We have to sort this domestic disaster first though…

I mean we have to at least challenge a little?! Lying 12th out of a possible 16, Malmö really need some work in the later part of the season if they are going to finish in the top half. I guess this is where I come in though and with 16 games to go, I can hopefully drag them to safety and build a platform on which to progress next year.

Their squad is at least half the quality of the squad I had in Varberg. I mean even the reserves are better than this lot. Plus what worries me even more is that they don’t have many ‘Home Grown Players’. Now if you have been following this story since I got into the Premier League with Varberg, you will know how much of a pain in the arse this is to deal with. This is my predicament:

That’s right, I can’t even have any subs on the bench due to the lack of ‘Home Grown’ players! There are 6 players injured, one of whom is my best player (Out for 2 Months). A very, very grim situation.. No wonder they were doing so badly. Hopefully with the upcoming transfer market I can buy young and get some very talented players to come to Malmö, rather than having to get guys on frees who are frankly waaaaaaay past their cell-by-date. With the current situation though I might have to do just that, which rather spoils my plans..

It’s not all bad news though! Hurray! Check this out..

Ok, so it isn’t exactly great news but at least we aren’t starting from scratch as we have the second highest value in Sweden. £91 Million is the figure I will have to improve by so I keep my promise and do better than Varberg. This is going to take a while…

Before the transfer window opened though, there was chance to squeeze in a game against Gröndal. They were sitting below us, so we should have a good chance of winning…

Well that sucked. Lapse in the defence cost us the goal, and it only got worse after the game as two of our players got suspended. Not the start I had in mind as Malmö manager but there you go. The tougher the better I guess ;)

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Now, I am still the manager of France and as it is now the summer of 2030.. It’s the world cup!

There was a preparation match against Romania to keep the lads motivated for the tournament..

Completely smashed it too.. Renard is a beast of a striker and he scored a hat-trick to grab the win and more importantly, boost morale!

The morale did need a good boost too as we were drawn against Portugal, Morocco and Chile in Group H. No easy games there I can tell you, as all of them are ranked in the top 16 in the world with Portugal being ranked the highest at 10th. We are the highest ranked team in the group (7th) so I hope this give us a little advantage going into some of the games..

Here is the look of the group after the last match:

Three wins out of three without suffering a goal against and averaging over 3 goals a game! Couldn’t have asked for better from the French really. Started off with a 1-0 win against a great Portugal side after one of their men got sent off after 30mins which was followed by a 3-0 win against Morocco. By that time we had qualified anyway so I played around with the players and gave others a rest. You know, they didn’t disappoint as the hungry reserves absolutely mauled Chile in a 6-0 rout with Lecomte bagging a hat-trick. Wouldn’t have expected it but there you go. Chile went home without scoring a goal! Ouch..

Round of 16 then and this was the line up..

Unfortunately no big names knocked out of the competition, although I guess you could count Mexico as one? Anyway, this pitted us up against Nigeria!

Lovely jubbly! Looks tight on paper but we hit the post countless times and had over 60% of the possession. Happy days :)

Quarter Finals..

Again it was all the big names coming through again, with the exception of Brazil. Guess who beat them? Yeah Italy.. So much for an easy run to the final. Would we make it though?

We did, in style! A rampant France on the day who completely dominated the match form start to finish. I owe it down to that man Onguene though, what a shift he put in! He is my fourth choice striker and honestly I took a massive risk with him. His ability was there, and boy did he show it :D

Semi Finals..

Drawn against Argentina in the Semi Finals which is very tough! Not that I wanted to get in the way of Spain who are joint favourites, so I was happy about that. Although we just beat Italy who were the other favourites so anything is possible. Could we get through and have a chance at the trophy?

Just was not our day unfortunately. It looks like a rampant win, but it was a case of 8 shots on target each, 5 goals for Argentina and 1 goal for us. We deserved a lot better but it wasn’t to be..

Still, we could settle for third place with a game against Spain who had just been beaten 1-0 by England..?

Bummer. Still, we did better than expected having come 4th with a ranking of 7th? Not bad I guess, although I would have loved to get into the final :)

Eventual winners?

Ahh, curse those Argies!
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So that’s it for this episode boys and girls. Thanks for reading, the next one will take you through Malmö’s season end. Hopefully I can install some belief into these lads so they can avoid relegation.

Untill then, Hej då :D