The arrival of the Beta version of Football Manager 2024 means that, as is now customary, we're heading back to Italy for the fourth year to begin our FM stories for the season. Having managed Sampdoria, Milan and Roma, we're doing something a little trickier as we take the reigns at Empoli FC.
Our Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge went well beyond what I expected as we ended up staying at Nottingham Forest for 26 years to play out the career of the great Luís Pereira to its conclusion. In that time, we firmly established Forest as the best team in the world, lifting an absolute armoury of trophies.
Back-to-back Premier League titles and six in the last seven seasons and seen us well and truly establish Nottingham Forest as the dominant force in English football. But this season's big challenge was to complete the cup, league and European treble that Sir Alex Ferguson managed in his 13th season at Man UFC in our 13th season at Forest.
These were exciting times at Forest as the board's long-planned vision of a new stadium came to reality. The 61,155-capacity Brian Clough Arena, which has an expansion capacity of 73,703, was officially completed on 26 June 2033 and puts us in a really strong position alongside perfect facilities and a bank balance over £500m for the first time.
The Nottingham Forest takeover of English football had seen our exciting young team rack up four consecutive Premier League titles - a feat the great man Sir Alex Ferguson never achieved at Man UFC - and reach a maiden Champions League Final in 2031.
Nottingham Forest bagged back-to-back Premier League titles as they lifted what was probably one of the worst seasons in terms of quality but certainly delivered final-day excitement. That said, I was worried about a lack of attacking threat, which I prioritised addressing in the summer of 2029.
An exciting May 2026 saw Nottingham Forest win both the FA Cup and the Europa League against fellow English sides. That takes us to a total of three trophies in four seasons, leaving us 35 short of the 38 that Sir Alex Ferguson won with Man UFC. We also now have three seasons to win the Premier League with Forest.
Early in June, we got the announcement that our 5th-place finish would mean the two-times European champions would play in the new-look Champions League format! However, we were nowhere ready to compete in the Champions League.
In the first part of our attempt at the Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge, we took control of Nottingham Forest on 6 November 2022 and just about kept them in the Premier League in an exciting final-day relegation fight. Now a big rebuild was required to strengthen an under-par and bloated squad.
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