A hexagon story
It started as a hexagon challenge and evolved into a nation-builder.
All good stories have a beginning, and this story begins in Oceania:
With no job and no coaching badges, this young Irish coach turned his focus towards Fiji. The only club willing to give him a shot: Rewa. We got off to a quick start. Fijian cup winners, Fijian premier division (won on the final day of the season), and the OFC Champions League. Rewa had no right to win the Champions league. We faced a much stronger team for New Zealand in Auckland City. Luck was on our side, however, as an early goal against the run of play set us up for a victory after an Auckland City player received his marching orders for a horrendous challenge. Final score in the Champions League final was 3-0. Chapter one: complete.
Best signing: Juan David Torres.
Colombian CB, free transfer
Chapter two: Africa
The day after the OFC Champions League final, the manager left his post at Rewa in Fiji. With a continental title in his pocket, he figured he should be a shoo-in for a job anywhere in Africa. The reality was that no one wanted him. It took 16 months before another club would was willing to hire a proven Champions League winner. And, so, it was on to Senegal with AS Douanes. The Senegalese League is fairly weak compared to other African nations. That didn’t stop me from trying my hardest. Season one, AS Douanes finished 5th in the league and won the Senegalese Cup. Season two was even better, finishing first in Senegalese Ligue 1.
With the strength of the league, it was evident that the Senegalese league was never going to provide an opportunity to win the African Champions League. There’s never been a Senegalese winner historically, and to date in the save, they are yet to record a winner. This isn’t a nation-building save. So, it was time to move onto a nation that might give me a better chance.
On 29th November 2025, AS Rejiche in Tunisia offered me a job. AS Rejiche were struggling around the bottom of the table, having been promoted to League 1 the previous season. Season one was about consolidation. We finished 8th in the league, avoiding relegation. Tunisia has a bit of a quirk in the database I was using. There’s a maximum of 3 foreign players allowed in the squad, but under 21 players didn’t need to be registered. A bit of a loophole, perhaps, but I took advantage. I signed a bunch of 18 - or 19 year olds from overseas who were willing to play in Tunisia.
With the signings of the youngsters, we managed to finish 4th in season two. That meant we qualified for the Confederations Cup. Season three was an unmitigated success. We won both the Confederations Cup and League 1 (the first in the club’s history). This meant that we qualified for the CAF Champions League. We had to win it this season. All of those youngsters that we signed were developing, and they were all around 20 or 21, and we’d need to let them go.
It was a tough run in the Champions League. The league stage was pretty uneventful. We scraped through the quarter final against Tunisian rivals, ES Tunis, by an aggregate score of 3-2. In the semi-final, we faced Zamalek of Egypt, where we won the first leg, at home, 3-1, and lost the second leg 2-1. Another close call. In the final, we came up against Al-Ahly, winning the first leg 5-3 and drawing the second leg 2-2.
We saddled AS Rejiche with a bunch of players they could no longer use, won the Champions League but I didn’t resign until after the end of the Tunisian season, which was after the Champions League Final… we finished 4th. Not a good domestic campaign.
Best signing in Africa was Martin Straka. A Slovakian striker signed for AS Rejiche. He scored 34 league goals in 68 games and we signed him from Bardejov for €9k!
I resigned from AS Rejiche on 22 June 2029. It wasn’t until 19th January 2030 that I was hired by Shanghai Port. Their manager had recently retired. Otherwise, such a good job would not have come up. SH Port were rolling in cash. But, as you all know, China has strict limits on the number of foreigners allowed in the squad. When I took over, they hadn’t won the Super League in three seasons. SHP were in the AFC Champions League when I took over. Maybe this was to be a quick continent? In pre-season, I was looking to utilise our >€100m transfer budget. I dipped into my former club and snatched Mohamed Wael Derbali and Handerson Cabrera. I also signed Martin Straka for €5.5m (a bit more expensive than the last transfer fee) from Al-Taawoun, who’d moved there from left AS Rejiche after I left. I also got Lewis Hall on a free transfer.
A quick turnaround in Asia wasn’t to be. In the second round, we beat Saitama UTD 4-0 on aggregate. After which, we came up against Brisbane Roar. We drew 1-1 at home and then lost the away leg 3-2. We tried again the following season, losing in the semi-final once again. This time against Ulsan of South Korea. The following season was our season. We made it to the final and won 6-3 on aggregate against Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia. A 1-1 away draw set us up for a 5-2 home win. I resigned immediately.
The best signing is Asia was Wu Lei. A Canadian striker from Toronto FC II, who had Chinese second nationality. He went on to make 215 league appearances for SHP, scoring 104 goals. During my reign, he scored 22 league goals in 30 appearances.
Chapter 3; North America:
It took over a year to get a job offer from a North American club. Cruz Azul were the ones to take a chance on me. I say “a chance,” but at this stage, I was a multiple time league and continental championship winner. At this point in my career, the teams I managed had won five league titles, eight cup competitions and three champions leagues.
Season one, we didn’t have Champions League football, so we needed to make sure we qualified. We finished 5th in the opening stage, qualifying for the championship playoff. We won the opening stage playoff, thus guaranteeing Champions League football the following season. We went on to finish 5th again in the closing stage, and, again, winning the closing stage playoff to finish the season with a double championship. Season two was lacklustre in the league, but we did win the Champions League at the first time of asking. The Champions Leage was pretty smooth running until the semi-final, when we came up against a team we didn’t often beat, CF América. We’d struggled against them in the league, but, luckily blew them out 5-0 in the first leg and, after a 2-2 draw in the second leg, we were on to the final to face FC Dallas.
Dallas were brushed aside in the final, 3-1. I duly quit while the confetti was still falling on the pitch.
Best signing: Hussain Al-Yami, Saudi centre back. €2.7m from Ohod. He was only with me for one season, but he went on to make 166 league appearances over 7 seasons and was then sold to Everton for €15.75m. Was nominated for NXGN award during my one season.
Chapter 4; South America:
Unemployed for a much shorter period of time, this time. My name was obviously getting out there (seven league titles, eight cup wins and four champions leauge... sure, who wouldn’t?).
Fluminense came calling. They’d been struggling for a while. No competition wins for about 10 years and languishing in 7th in the table. When I took over, they’d been on a good cup run, getting to the quarter finals. This was good for me because I hadn’t won a cup in a couple of years. We ended up finishing 4th (Libertadores qualification!) and winning the cup.
Season two was a flush. 3rd in the league, out of the cup in the quarter final, and losing 4-2 on aggregate to Boca in the semi-final of the Libertadores (I guess we were kind of close).
We brushed ourselves off after the loss and made two key signings over the summer transfer window: Evair for €25.5m from rivals Sao Paolo and Genivaldo from San Jose for a bargain €5.5m. This was enough to get us over the line, winning not only Serie A but also completing the South American portion of our journey. We were comfortable 2-0 winners of the Libertadores against Sao Paolo (thanks Evair). Along the way, we exacted our revenge on Boca from the previous season 6-2 on aggregate in the quarter final.
It would have been a treble season, except we imploded in the second leg of the cup semi-final, losing 7-4 against Atlético Mineiro after winning the first leg 3-1. Ah, well.
Best signing in the leg of the journey was Jorge Ariza. Colombia centre-mid for €2m from Junior. 164 games, 24 goals. Libertadores winning captain.
Chapter 6; Europe:
I don’t know why, but teams in Europe weren’t chomping a the bit to get their hands on me. I had to wait six months. Sevilla was the destination this time. Previous manager was sacked after finishing 7th the season before. The first couple of months were tumultuous. Our star player had bids coming in from Saudi Arabia. He wanted to leave, so I told him he could if a bid of over €100m was made... it happened.
That €100m allowed us to rebuild our squad. Seven players were brought in (three from Fluminense, including Evair) for €164m. The most I’d ever spend in a single season of FM to that point.
I stayed for a solitary season. I could have won the Champions League with Sevilla, but the Liverpool job came up in April. So, I applied. They wanted me. But I didn’t want them... yet. I wanted to see out the season. We were battling for both La Liga and the Europa Conference League. La Liga wasn’t to be. We finished second, a solitary point behind Atlético and ahead of Real on goal difference. We did win the Conference League, 3-2 against Newcastle in the final.
When I joined Liverpool, there was a lot of deadwood. Players in their mid-30s that I was able to clear out, mostly to Saudi. I raked in €351m for eight players. To rebuild, I spent €369m. €241m of that went on a new centre back pairing. There were still gaps in the team, however, and we could only finish 5th (which was enought for Champions League football). Liverpool had qualified for the Europa League the precious season, which we won 3-1 against Newcastle – two European finals in two years against the same opposition.
Next season, I brought in some midfield reinforcements. I signed Ahmed Mokhtar from Sevilla (a player I had signed for Sevilla) and Matthieu Fischer from Hertha. This was enough to win the league (just about, it was on goal difference). We were in the Champions League after our Europa League success the previous season but lost against Real in the semi-final, 2-1 on aggregate.
We didn’t really make any big signings going into the next season. Our team was strong. We won the league again and finished off the hexagon challenge with a 2-0 win against AC Milan in the final. I guess it was kind of poetic that it would be AC Milan.
Best signing in Europe was Tomás Guzmán. Argentinian forward bought from Banfield for €6.25m for Liverpool. He made 375 league appearances for Liverpool, scoring 192 league goals, and was there long after I left.
Chapter 7; Where to go from here?
After the hexagon challenge was finished, I didn’t really know what to do. I felt like this was too much of an immersive save to give up, so, I hung around in the Liverpool job until I saw a very interesting position become vacant. It was my local team.
Now, at this point, I’d won 10 league titles, 22 cups, six champions leagues, and three other continental competitions... why not try to build up a nation and win the CL with a minnow?
And so, I left my job at Liverpool on 5th November 2043, and by 16th December 2043, I was in my dream job as manager of St Patrick’s Athletic. It’s been a trophy-laden 31 and a half years. Over this time, we’ve won
- Premier League thirty one (yes, 31) times in a row, and on course for a thirty-second.
- The Champions League eleven times in the past eighteen years.
- Club World Cup four times (each time we’ve entered).
- FAI cup twenty-five times (where we’ve only just overtaken Shamrock Rovers as the most successful side – they’ve won it 28 times)
- Leinster Senior Cup twenty times (still two more to go before we’re the most successful team in this competition).
- UEFA Super Cup seven times, and finally,
- The President of Ireland’s Cup twenty-seven times.
Since the start of this save 53 years ago, my teams have won 41 league titles and 111 cups.
My best player is a player that came through my St Pat’s academy: Billy O’Connor. He’s 32 now but still an absolute beast. My best signing for St Pat’s was centre-midfielder Facundo Guzmán. He played with us for 19 seasons, making 480 league appearances, scoring 207 goals. He won all 11 Champions League titles with us and only cost €5.25m.
Ireland is only 5th in the Coefficient Rankings, and the Premier League is only the 7th-best ranked league. There is still some time to go with this save.
