Los Coladeros, Episode 1: Geezers de Diamantes
Just before we start — some info for those interested in what’s going on here. I have reinstalled the PC game Championship Manager 2001/02 (which you can also do legally for free by using champman0102.co.uk), considered by many fans of the Champ/Football Manager series to be the definitive edition, and created a brand new team in the bottom tier of Spanish football, with the goal to break the Barcelona-Real Madrid duopoly and win La Liga. It’s a whimsical football/gaming/nostalgia series for fans of late 90s football, management gaming sims, and expat Brits who are struggling to acclimatise to living in the searing heat of Andalusia.
This series is a sequel to Diamond Geezers, my previous CM01/02 adventure that saw me take the mighty Rushden & Diamonds from Division Three all the way to various arguable degrees of glory, signing all the players we know and love along the way. If you’ve got a lot of time to waste, there are 94 episodes and about 200,000 words of that for you to get stuck into. Episode One can be found here.
Further info about my game settings for those who feel like joining in with the nostalgia: I have done a clean install of the game and applied the 3.9.68 patch so that I don’t have the same pool of players to choose from as I did during Diamond Geezers. All leagues have been selected as background, with Spain active and playable down to the Second Division B leagues. I’ve also gone max database size to get as many players into the save as possible. I’m also backing up my saves with cloud storage from Apponotec, with huge thanks to Tony Weeks for his help and kindness — thank you mate. I couldn’t be more grateful. Check them out if you’re looking for IT or tech support for your business!
It’s hot. It’s really, really hot.
Stepping out from the wonderful air conditioning of my Easyjet flight and into the 40+ degree air around the Aeropuerto de Sevilla is quite a shock. I mean, I’ve been to Blackpool in July, I’m not an amateur… but this is something else. The heat is so fierce, in fact, that I wonder if I’ve descended the aircraft steps and walked straight into one of the jet engines by mistake, but upon realising that my trainers are melting into the tarmac of their own volition, I’d say it’s probably time to get through passports and into the car that my new club said they’d sent for me. I don’t know the Spanish for ice cream van, but I really hope that’s what shows up.
The queue is huge, and gives me time to think about what I’ve done here. For most people, accepting an offer to manage a completely new football club that nobody has ever heard of, based in a city they’ve never visited with no money in the bank and a stadium that football isn’t even played in would probably be a gamble, but not for me. I was heavy breathing at the prospect of a new challenge, desperate to escape the drizzle and melancholy of the UK, and not simply taking the only offer I’d received after several months of missed mortgage payments. No, Seville is the place for me… especially because I’ve already changed my address and haven’t told the bank manager where I’ve gone.
Los Coladeros are a fan-owned club that have replaced Hércules in the Spanish Second Division B3, and have been looking for a plucky new manager with radical tactics, a continental outlook, fluent Spanish, the ability and ambition to take the club all the way through the leagues to challenge the bright lights of La Liga, and excellent financial and budgetary management skills.
After some outrageous lying on my CV and having attached a photo of myself wearing a large false moustache under the name Miguel Pablo, I was offered the role by Chairman and short-form social media fan-favourite José Enrique Twiddy — and here I am.
The Colanders’ first aim is to avoid relegation and then build towards being the third major team in Seville, after Sevilla FC and Real Betis Balompié, and have moved into the vacant Estadio de La Cartuja in the north-west of the city, a former athletics stadium that someone has kindly stuck a football pitch in the middle of. It has adequate facilities and 60,000 seats, most of which will be torn out and sold as scrap so that we aren’t bankrupt by mid-September — so by the time I arrive, we will have a capacity of 13,540. Maybe we can buy them back if we get promoted.
The club have lofty ambitions, but I arrive with various things missing: a PA, an assistant manager, a team bus, my own personal chef, any sense of where the best bars are around here, and… oh yes. Players.
Now, as I’m a highly professional and well-prepared manager, I happen to know that the Spanish transfer window is only open until about the 17th of August or something. You might have noticed that I’ve landed in Seville on August 4th, and the season starts on August 19th, so in other words, I’ve got either 13 or 15 days to sign an entire first-team squad capable of challenging for the Second Division B3 title. It’s a tall order. Thankfully, the money situation isn’t quite as desperate as it could be, although it’s going to be a real test for my BA in Money and Football from The British University — honestly, I can’t believe they hired me.
Yes, while a budget of £0 would mean our finances were randomised, somebody has set the club’s balance to £1, not even enough to open a bank account in Spain — I imagine it’s kept in a jar on someone’s desk. However, in their wisdom, the club has bestowed me with an £800,000 war chest, and actually, I’m excited. Usually when you take over a club there are a bunch of no-hopers on nine-year contracts that you don’t have any chance of shipping out, so the prospect of starting from scratch and making loads of my own awful mistakes fills me with something that might well be joy.
Considering our puny balance, I decide it’s best to aim for free transfers in the first instance. There are bound to be plenty of them. I go to the list of Interested free agents in the Player Search to see what we’ve got to work with.
…right. It’s okay. Ivica Beljan is actually quite good, so I offer him a player-coach deal since we also need a couple of those, tell my scouts to have an actual look around Europe for some players, and then go off to do a bit of my own perusing. I’ve got no idea what the rules are for non-EU players in the Spanish Second Division B, but I’m going to go ahead and assume I can have at least a couple. Beljan would be one, and I reckon a cheeky bid for Maxim Tsigalko isn’t a bad idea.
Otherwise, I go full red passport and search for some of my non-WP-requiring long-lost heroes to see what they’re up to. I’ve upgraded to the .68 database so the player list is quite different to what I’m used to, with most of my previous favourites unobtainable: Byron Bubb, Peter Møller and Cristiano Ronaldo are all at unwilling clubs rather than on free transfers, and most of the rest are far too expensive for my paltry budget. João Paiva is with Ronaldo at Sporting, so he’s also out for the time being. Hugo Pinheiro, our legendary lower-league keeper, is my only former flame that’s within spending or interest range — valued at just £5,000 by Marinhense, and obviously desperate to get out of there. I submit a bid, along with free transfer contracts that are fired out towards big Neville Southall as a player-coach; Ben Zevenbergen, a young Dutch MRC; Wigan Athletic legend Roberto Martínez; and a Swiss/Italian centre-back called Daniel Puce. None of them are really signable with their wage demands, but hey — I’ve got one pound, and I plan to spend it.
The biggest problem I’ve got is that I’ve no idea how good my players will need to be in order to compete in this division, since I’ve never managed in it before — and with no existing ones to refer to, all I’ve got is my finely-tuned instincts for a bargain and sheer dumb luck. Barcelona, Valencia, Espanyol and Mallorca all have their B teams in our division, so there’s going to be plenty of quality floating around. In an attempt to boost my scouting network and also give myself some people to have a warm pint with, I fire up all 100 of my international minutes and call my old friends Dean Gripton, Spencer Field, Rob Campkin, Dave Colley, Kevin Keelan and Richard Money to come join me as scouts. A couple of the incumbents, Raúl Pascual and the mysterious Galán, aren’t actually that bad, so I invite them into my office and try to explain that I want them to scout youth players and our next opposition, respectively. Almost 40 minutes later, I’m still not sure they understand. I need a bilingual personal assistant… and I know just the lady.
I’m also going to need some killer tactics to live up to the colossal lies I told the board on arrival, and after much, much consideration, I’ve decided on one that I never thought I’d use. I want to have a back four, but with very attacking full-backs. I want to have a DMC, but I also want to have an AMC and a single striker. After much deliberation and consulting with other extremely reputable managers, I fiddled my players into a shape that looked a bit like a fighter jet, and thus: the Typhoon was born.
Pretty ambitious for a team with no players, but hey. You can’t hate a guy for having unreasonably high expectations.
I go to Cheltenham Town for Mike Duff and Jamie Victory, neither of whom I expect to get, and then check in on an old flame with a little look around that team from Irthlingborough. Rushden have got a hella start in .68, with star striker Onandi Lowe set to take them all the way to the top — but remembering how good Paul Underwood and Tarkan Mustafa were in my other life, and considering my Typhoon formation needs proper wing-backs, I bid extremely small amounts for them both. I also chuck a good 50p in change towards them for Brett Solkhon, who looks very average, but has AC Milan in his list of interested clubs, so I’m happy to assume they know something I don’t.
A click of Continue brings my transfer budget up to £1.2m — balance still £1 — and I start to feel a bit frisky. I bid £300k over 24 months for a Betis forward called Adolfo who would be amazing in that AMC position, plus he can show me where all the good tapas bars are around here; and £30k for Sergio Sestelo, a striker currently at Real Madrid B. Both are accepted and they only want very reasonable contracts, which is great news. A glance back at my Player Search list indicates that I could get a lot of joy from robbing La Liga “B” teams of their most promising youngsters. I bid and bid in the hope that something comes off soon — we’ve got a friendly in four days’ time against a bunch of Portuguese lads, and currently, we haven’t got anyone to put in front of them. Bizarrely, as I start to scan over my roster of grey youth players for scapegoats to blame for losing to a bunch of farmers, Cheltenham accept my £16k offer for Jamie Victory, and I offer him a really, really cheap deal. I almost can’t believe it, but I hold my breath, and press continue…
…oh boy.
The first three players to ever sign for Los Coladeros are Jamie Victory, Adolfo and Sergio Sestelo. Victory, in particular, is going to rip this league a new one with all his 20s, I’m certain of it. Still can’t tackle, the lad, but I’m not sure you need to be able to tackle in Spain. It’s all about Anticipation.
I’m excited, but not satiated. Two days until that friendly. Still can’t put a five-a-side team out. I need more news, and I need it fast.
A cascade of new players enter my Interested list — I assume because they now realise we’re a real club and they will actually have other people to play with — and further contracts are launched all across the continent. I also go back to my old trick of turning off all the filters and searching by International Caps, just to get a look at who’s on free transfers. They’ll never come, but Rushden stalwarts Richard Gough, Paulo Sousa and Paul Gascoigne are all hanging around unattached. I offer them £1,000 per week, they each want more like £20,000, but you never know. With Gazza, especially. He’s an easy man to incentivise.
There are pages and pages of world-renowned names on the list, and I offer contracts to all of them — including the likes of Guillermo Amor, Jorge Cadete, Efan Ekoku, Kennet Andersson, Jocelyn Angloma, Abel Balbo, David Ginola, Patrick Mbomba and Juan Antonio Pizzi, to name just a few. All of them wanted somewhere between five and 25 times the weekly wage budget I actually have, but interestingly, none of them said they flat out weren’t interested. All were willing to negotiate. I suppose the draw of the Sevillian sunshine is stronger than I thought.
Other teams are vying for the players I want, which is going a long way towards delaying most of my transfers, the selfish fucks. However, while Rob Campkin signs on as my de-facto chief scout, another unchallenged transfer slips into my back pocket…
Having stepped down from the dizzy heights of Woking, Zevenbergen looks like a handy midfielder for my ridiculous new system, playing on the right of the three — plus he can take the corners. Welcome, lad.
I cancel our friendly, since it’s about to happen and the only way we’ll have enough players is if Dean Gripton and I pull on the kits ourselves, and nobody wants to see that. However, my tactic pays off, as being in the office allows me to confirm the deal of the summer, and a familiar face arrives at the front steps of La Cartuja. Worst case, we can at least enter a local fives league.
Having Hugo on board for just £8,000 is a huge boost to our chances of doing well this season. I also sign an assistant manager, Jimmy Graham — he’s a 31-year-old Scot, who brings with him excellent attributes, zero experience, and seventeen bottles of single malt whisky in his hold luggage. I have a feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship.
August 10th arrives: one week until the Spanish transfer window closes. We’ve got about 40 transfers still active; between that and the weather, I’m sweating like a cucumber in a nunnery. I click Continue. It’s good news. We could do with some defenders, definitely, but still — it’s good news. We’ve officially got goals, and my Brits Abroad approach is paying dividends.
And we’ve got a DMC. He’s not exactly Marcel Mahouvé, but it’s a start. Remember: we don’t need Tackling. It’s all about Anticipa… er, Technique. It’s all about defensive technique.
I’m getting a little bit desperate now, as you can probably tell. I simply cannot complete any deals for centre-halves; they either reject the move, the club spurns my advances, or other teams enter into a bidding war that grinds everything to a halt. I do manage to sign a couple of young midfielders that were recommended by my youth search, one who looks decent and the other who appears to be awful, but in the meantime, I’m struggling to agree terms with Karl Ready, and there are just four days of the window left. We might be about to live up to our name when the season starts in just six days’ time.
We manage to get a backup keeper in Oscar Sidro, whose surname is Spanish for ‘cider’, which is good news — though he might end up as an emergency defender at this rate. Then, suddenly, there’s a key development. As well as missing both centre-halves, we also didn’t have a right wing-back… until now. After his heroics in Division Three once upon a time, I have no doubt he’ll be a huge success in Andalusia. Welcome to sunny Spain, Tarkan!
I’m on my hands and knees in my office. Praying for some defenders to come through, obviously — get your heads out of the gutter. And, with a swift click of Continue and so much sweating that I’ve relocated to the bath so I don’t ruin the upholstery, they’re finally answered. They are both rubbish, but they are technically centre-halves, and that means we finally have a starting eleven for our first game of the season, with just three days to spare until the window shuts. Thank goodness for that. Jesús María Bastida is a man-marking machine, and Antonio, well… Antonio is Influential. You can’t put a price on that. He was free.
Thankfully, the following day brings further reinforcements, and two are defenders: former Leicester City and Grimsby Town stopper Richard Smith, who is rubbish at Marking but can at least head the ball, plus Francisco Cobo, a backup right wing-back for Tarkan. They join along with Lionel Tarachalski, a versatile but pretty awful midfield/forward player recommended by my youth search who can also head quite well, but despite that will enjoy most of his season riding the bench. I can only hope he evolves into an Alex Farnerud-esque wonderkid.
And then, as if I never had anything to worry about, the following day finally sees the completion of a loan move for Terrasa’s CB Jordi Navas, who can really head the ball, plus the free transfer arrival of former Arsenal youth defender Brian McGovern, who’s probably just going to have a nice holiday for a couple of years before being shipped back to the UK. That’s fine. I needed bodies, I got them, and now I just need to hope that all the other teams in the league play direct, long ball football so that all my excellent headerers can just thump the thing back down the pitch. It feels pretty likely. I’m sure Spain is renowned for it.
Right as the transfer window is about to chop the ends of my fingers off, I manage three more final pieces of business: a young French D/DMC by the name of Nicolas Saïu who I sincerely hope I never need to call on; a reserve striker to back up Michael Dunwell, Eduardo Benito; and the jewel in the crown, Jamie Victory’s new understudy: Paul Underwood! Reunited with Tarkan, Hugo and me, my third signing from the Diamonds glory days is here. Lovely stuff.
So, with my squad complete and the transfer window closed, Los Coladeros are ready for action. The Rainmakers are going to bring the storm to the Spanish Second Division B3. With Hugo, Tarkan and er… Brian by my side, surely nothing can stop us. Plus, I’ve just had a text that confirms my most important signing of the summer so far: Susan is on her way, and she’s bringing her phrasebooks.
Now it’s all up to me. I have to call on all my nous and flair to prepare my young charges for our opening game, and it’s the big one: Palamós at La Cartuja. Nope, never heard of em.
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