*Read The Pentagon Challenge — Part I here*
*Read The Pentagon Challenge — Part II here*
Last time we were here, my Jiangsu Suning side had made it to the Asian Champions League — and looked pretty well-placed to have a crack at it.
Duje Caleta-Car and Patson Daka stayed, and Alex Teixeira was still effective despite his advancing years.
Mubarak Wakaso didn’t exactly respond well to being left out of the Champions League squad, but what else could I do? You can only have three foreign player spots in the Champions League, so Wakaso was sadly the odd man out — and that sparked more than 20 players being unhappy with me. A great way to start the season.
Fortunately, it didn’t really impact results. We started the league season with six straight wins, racking up 20 goals in that time whilst conceding just once before a shock 1–0 defeat away at Henan Jianye.
In the Champions League, we were handed Suwon Bluewongs, ‘Okayama FC’ and Ryomyong in our group. The lack of Japanese licensing in the game means Okayama are not a real side, but they still posed a threat.
The goals were flying in during the first three games, as a 3–2 win over Suwon was followed by 4–0 and 8–0 thumpings of Okayama and Ryomyong respectively. The run came to an end with a dreadful 1–0 home defeat to Okayama, in which the visitors scored with their one shot on target.
The real kicker through all this was that we weren’t able to register Ilaix Moriba. Our new star playmaker had joined after the final registration point, so we had to navigate the group stage without him.
We did that pretty comfortably, winning five games from six in the group stage. League form was great alongside all this, as we won five of the next six after that Henan defeat, with an aggregate score of 14–1.
The Champions League second round threw up Hebei China Fortune, and we coasted past them with a 5–1 aggregate win before heading into the June break — and oh how things changed there.
Leicester City swooped in with a big offer for Patson Daka, but we were able to negotiate that £19.25million up to £25million. Not a bad price at all, but left us with a gaping hole to fill despite teenager Xu Tiancheng being in great form.
Fellow young striker Long Wentao shot himself in the foot here, as he kept missing training because I couldn’t get him a loan move away. In the end he was sold for just £2.5million to Shanghai Shenhua, a staggering £5.5million loss but I literally didn’t care. Get rid.
Alex Teixeira was raging about Daka’s exit. He felt I had allowed the Zambian international to leave too easily, despite me attempting to persuade him to stay. Teixeira was convinced that we couldn’t replace him with anywhere near the same quality.
We used our links with Inter Milan to negotiate a deal worth £19.75million for Victor Osimhen, luring him over to China to become Daka’s replacement in a huge coup for the club. Teixeira still wasn’t impressed.
Just over a week later, we lost Duje Caleta-Car too. Paris Saint-Germain swooped in to pay his £12million release clause, a fee which was so low because he wouldn’t agree to stay otherwise.
This left us with a careful balancing act. Wakaso, Moriba, Teixeira and Osimhen were our foreign players, but with only three able to play in the Champions League, was it worth bringing in another to replace Caleta-Car?
We had Li Ang, who was solid enough, then Jin Haoxiang as well as youth graduates Cao Wenbo and Chen Kai. It was a gamble, but I chose not to replace Caleta-Car at all and save myself a headache when it came to Champions League registration.
Yet here’s the kicker; whilst we were able to register Moriba into the Champions League squad over the summer, Osimhen joined after the deadline so we had to play through the knockout rounds without our star striker, and that lack of quality told in the first leg of the quarter-finals as Guangzhou Evergrande beat us 2–1.
Our defending really took a hit after selling Caleta-Car, which I should have expected really, but clean sheets suddenly became a thing of the past.
This split shows our defensive record in Caleta-Car’s final 12 games, and the 12 games following his exit. On the left, we conceded twice in those 12 games with the Croatian manning our defence, with 10 clean sheets in there.
On the right, Caleta-Car has gone and the holes are appearing. We leaked 16 goals in 12 games without him, and could barely keep a clean sheet. Suddenly, my decision not to replace him felt like it could really break the season.
As you can see though, we bounced back against Guangzhou with a 3–0 home win, taking us into the semi-finals of the Champions League. We used Alex Teixeira as a makeshift forward in that game with no Osimhen, but it was the midfield triumvirate of Wu Xi, Nebijan and that boy Moriba who scored the goals.
There are always results that have you screaming and shouting, and this was one of them; a heavily rotated side went away to Hebei China Fortune, and were 3–1 up as hot prospect winger Mei Feng bagged a goal and an assist. Late goals appeared to have robbed us of a win, but Gao Tianyi stepped up to bury a 95th-minute free-kick into the roof of the net and send limbs flying in Jiangsu and at my desk.
The result itself didn’t particularly matter; we were still favourites for the title even with a draw, but a last-gasp winner just can’t be beaten.
The Champions League semi-finals were on the horizon, with Ulsan Hyundai waiting for us. Given that the Chinese Super League title was close, I began resting players to get them ready for the big games — but a 3–0 hammering at the hands of Changchun was a reminder that the league job wasn’t done yet.
Off to South Korea we went, and it looked like being a pretty miserable trip. I had set up to counter-attack away from home in the first leg, using Moriba as our main playmaker behind Xu Tiancheng.
A first-half penalty from Matheus Alessandro had put Ulsan on course for the win, but I switched back to our normal possession-based 4–3–3 and changed the game. Lia Ang scored from the spot before rifling home a free kick just three minutes later, completing an unexpected turnaround.
We only managed five shots in the entirety of the game, but still came out with the win and merely had to hold on at home to make it to the final.
The home leg wasn’t quite so easy though. We reached half time at 0–0, going through on aggregate, no real cause for concern.
And then Football Manager decided to do that thing it loves to do, and hit you with a quickfire brace. Suddenly, the tie had been turned on its head and Ulsan were heading through. Maybe I shouldn’t complain, as I had benefited from the quickfire brace in the first leg but it’s somehow just more annoying when it’s against you. Weird that.
Moriba did what Moriba does and brought us back into the game late on, which would have sent the game to extra time — but Alex Teixeira had other ideas.
The Brazilian picked the ball up on the halfway line with seconds to play, skinned one defender and drove all the way through to slot home a last-minute winner, sending us into the final in remarkable circumstances.
Three straight wins over Shanghai Shenhua, Guanghzou Evergrande and Beijing Guoan sealed the title, meaning the focus was turned to the Asian Champions League final with Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia.
They notably had a 37-year-old Bafetimbi Gomis as their number 10, whilst the likes of Andre Carrillo, Gustavo Cuellar and Carlos Eduardo were also in a very dangerous side as we made the trip away for the first leg.
Omar Kharbin’s long-range piledriver had them in front, only for Tao Qianglong and Li Ang to put us ahead. Salem Al-Dawsari equalised in the second half, but as had been the case on many occasions this season, there was late drama; Wang Jiahao hit the post, and Qianglong was first to react to score.
The home game wasn’t anything particularly wild, as we played out a 1–1 draw with Nebijan’s 79th minute strike proving to be the goal that clinched the Asian Champions League trophy for us and the first part of the Pentagon completed for myself.
Our season ended in frankly disastrous fashion as we lost the CFA Cup Final 7–1 on aggregate to Shandong Luneng, with the players seemingly done for the season following that Champions League win; who can blame them, really?
When I started this challenge, my planned route was Asia → Africa → Central America → South America → Europe. With Asia boxed off, the attention turned to the next destination.
For a while though, no jobs emerged in South Africa. At least any good ones anyway, as I certainly wasn’t heading into their second tier after winning the Asian Champions League. I gave strong consideration to staying at Jiangsu for another year and building my reputation, even signing Japanese left back Koki Anzai from Portimonense having realised far too late that you get an extra foreign spot in the Champions League for other Asian players.
Eventually, jobs became available at Ajax Cape Town and Wits, and I interviewed for both. Ajax came back saying that they couldn’t agree a fee with Jiangsu for me, and instead of asking for a lower fee to leave, I simply resigned and headed to South Africa…
I inherited a side sitting ninth in the South African Premier Soccer League. We had won one of the last eight, which is ultimately why Peter Ndlovu was sacked.
One point in my first three games had me worrying a little; this was a side short of confidence and lacking a striker who could put the ball in the net.
Two keys to my system are a deep-lying playmaker and a pressing forward, so they were the first transfer priorities; Keletso Sifama joined from Kaizer Chiefs for £50k as the holding midfielder, with Lungelo Ngema arriving from Chippa United up top.
Once we got our first win — ironically over Wits, the other team that wanted me — we were excellent. We dropped just four points in the final 15 games of the season, making a staggering run to second place at the end of the season.
I had brought back exiled veterans Keegan Ritchie and Knox Mutizwa, and both chipped in well. Star midfielders Morne Nel and Haashim Domingo are top-tier players for this league, so having them fully fit for the final stages really helped, whilst our brilliantly-named, exciting regen Doctor Masinga impressed on the right flank.
We had somehow sneaked into qualifying for the African Champions League, with our late-season charge taking us above Kaizer Chiefs by two points.
A strong platform was there, but we still seem some way off challenging for the Champions League crown — especially as we still don’t really have a prolific striker.
Maybe in Part IV, I’ll have found one.
