Os Panteras Negras | Season Two

Welcome back to “Os Panteras Negras”!
This time, I’ll give you a quick overview of our first full season in charge of Boavista FC.

Expectations, Finances, Transfers

Last season, we went on a good run of form following my appointment as the new manager of Boavista FC in February 2032 but missed out on a promotion play-off place at the final hurdle. This season, the board wanted us to finish in the top-half and do okay in the cups.

The club’s finances told a different story as the overall balance was at -3.8M€ in July 2032. Combine that with 6.2M€ that still needed to be repaid from a previous bank loan and promotion to Liga NOS quickly becomes the only real option from a financial point of view, so that’s what I was aiming for.

Hint: You can click underlined player names to open a screenshot of the player.

To further support the finances, player sales were inevitable, too. In Aderito Andrade (28) and Najib Rodriguez (24) we had to sell two regular starters for 450K€ each. However, the main departure was Henrique Antonio (20). The club’s talented academy graduate joined Bundesliga side Augsburg for 1.4M€ and a 50% of next sale fee.

In the end, we made 3.3M€ from player sales this season. Naturally, we couldn’t sell half of our squad without bringing anyone in. Rafael Tavares (18) is the only player who was signed for a noticeable fee as he was priced away from Liga NOS side Nacional da Madeira for 400K€ (pot. rising to 600K€). Next to him, Fernando Ortiz (27) was our key signing in hindsight. The Spaniard was released by Braga and ended up scoring 18 goals and 20 assists in 33 competitive matches for us!

Fernando Ortiz at the end of the 2032/33 season.

On-Pitch Performance

We were dreadful in the domestic cups and exited them early on. Thankfully, we saved our form for the league campaign. Despite a number of lengthy injuries to regular starters, we mananged to win 24 and draw 5 from 34 games. This was enough to get us promoted to the promised land that is Liga NOS.

Final league table of the Portuguese 2nd division at the end of the 2032/33 season.

We actually finished in second because Porto’s B-team is just far too good for this league. If you take a closer look at things, their title win isn’t too surprising. Their annual wage spend was at 6.2M€ this campaign which is almost double of the team who rank second in the wage expenditure table and around five times of the team in 16th place – us.

Marco Fidalgo (29) was our top scorer in the league with 22 goals, academy graduate Gerard Nicolas (20) kept 13 clean sheets and the aforementioned Ortiz assisted 18 times. In total, we had five players hit double digits for goals scored during this league campaign, which is quite a statement if I may say so myself.

I’m looking forward to next season and am aiming to avoid an immediate relegation from Liga NOS. It’ll likely be a challenge as we are probably going to be the side with the least spending power in the division but that’s what I’m here for.

Thank you for still following me on my journey, see you next time! ~ Oaky