The Prodigal Bear Returns — To Portugal?

Hello everyone, I hope this finds you all doing well. First and foremost, I’d like to apologize for my lengthy absence. Between my FC United save going bust, and some real life health issues in my family (not me, I’m fine), I lost a lot of my motivation and free time. To his eternal credit, Johnny is as patient as a saint, and is allowing me to return after such a long time (thanks friend!).  With free time AND motivation back, it’s time to begin anew!

Of course first I needed to figure out where to play. I couldn’t go back to England, it was just too painful and I wasn’t up for another potential heartbreak there. Wales was out of the question, as was Scotland. I entertained France and Germany to lengthy extent, even going so far as to make saves in each of those respective countries. Ultimately though, something was missing. Finally, I looked at Portugal and found everything I wanted: good league setup, terrible lower division teams, and a playing schedule that wouldn’t have me playing 64 games a season.

So where did I land? The one, the only:

Sociedade União 1º Dezembro!

While the founders were perhaps the least creative club founders in the 19th century world (they were founded in 1880, on December 1st), the club was everything I was looking for. It had an interesting name, no history, no money, no players of any note, and was projected to finish 15th out of 16 teams. Excellent! I have my work cut out for me though. Here’s the squad I inherited:

There are a few bright spots in that list, but a lot of players that will likely be shown the door as well. Samir will be the first to go. He’s a decent striker, but my wage bill is barely over $1000, and he’s taking up a nearly half of it at $425. The staff is also fairly rubbish (my physio has a physiology stat of 3…3!), and the stadium is, well, this:

So yeah, we’ve got a journey ahead of us. My main goal, of course, is to simply last longer than two seasons this time! Assuming I can manage that, I have the typical goals of wanting to work up into the top  tier and maybe make a name for ourselves in Europe. Here’s to hoping we can succeed!