“Plazas de soberanía / Strongholds of sovereignty” - a term for the collection of overseas Spanish territories that have been part of the modern country since the 15th & 16th Centuries.  They are closer to Africa than mainland Europe.  

Ceuta - a semi-exclave Spanish autonomous city, on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.

Intro

There are pockets of geopolitical spaces that have always fascinated me.  Often they're weird borders, like how Norway wraps around Finland to have a border with Russia.  Or how a narrow slither of Namibia, a South Atlantic coastal country, pierces so far east into the heart of Africa that it almost touches the Victoria Falls of Zimbabwe.

Then there are enclaves + exclaves, settlements surrounded by another state OR detached from their political mainland.  There are interesting enclaves such as Lesotho and San Marino - countries consumed by a single greater country.  Then there is the Kaliningrad Oblast standing out as one of my favourite exclave examples; fractured through multiple empires and wars to be separate from modern day mainland Russia.

My FM23 adventure begins in a semi-exclave.  A territory with a sea border, but with no land border to its mainland: the Spanish territory of Ceuta, which sits on the African mainland bordering Morocco.

Why AD Ceuta FC in FM23?

1. Geographic Parameters

Mixing geography and FM is something a few Bloggers have done [very well] recently.  The last time I did it was probably in FM19, where I put a strong emphasis on recruiting African players in order to continue FC Lorient’s recruitment strategy (read more here).  This year in FM23, I want the focus to be a bit tighter, but also realistic, and I believe AD Ceuta is perfect for this.

AD Ceuta’s location in North Africa will see me place a strong focus on recruiting and nurturing North African talent.  I will therefore be recruiting from countries known as ‘The Maghreb’...that’s Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.  The most famous player from AD Ceuta is probably Nayim (as much as I hate to be reminded of him), he is an example of a Maghrebian player and one of my aims in this edition is to see if a homegrown Ceuta player can bask in continental glory…just like Nayim did back in 1995.

But the save would become very difficult if I only recruited from those North African countries…that’s why I am also allowing myself to recruit Spanish players.  I think having permanent signings limited to just Spain and the Maghreb is the perfect balance of challenge Vs realism.

2. Twinned Cities

I know what you’re thinking: “FM Grasshopper is going to struggle without any Argentines in his squad!”...and you’d be 100% right in thinking that.  But fear not…I’m stealing the ‘Twinned Cities’ approach from FM Rensie’s FM22 series by justifying the use of 1 loan signing each year from AD Ceuta’s twinned cities of Aci Catena, Italy / Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santarém, Portugal.  These affiliates will be set up in the Pre-Game Editor as Regional Academies, in the hope that I also get a Newgen from there too.  This means I am linking up with clubs that are relatively modest in size:

• Aci Catena is a suburb of Catania in Sicily.  So, that’s a nice club to link up with having seen them fall on bad times recently and admitted into Serie D.

• Buenos Aires is probably the City I am most excited to link up with.  The obvious choice is Estudiantes de La Plata…although I am surprising even myself by opting for Club Atlético Platense.  The reason is that it’s within the metropolitan area of BA (whereas Estudiantes is not) and it’s a small enough club with a great legacy of producing good players outside of the big five Buenos Aires clubs.  See Platense graduates: River’s Agustín Palavecino, Journeyman Striker Gonzalo Bergessio and World Cup winner David Trezeguet as examples.

• Lastly, Santarém in Portugal has a really small football club: UD Santarém.  I’m not expecting much from this club…having seen them drop to the 4th division of Portuguese football…but you never know!

3. Recent Events

Beneath Spain’s Primera División and Segunda División lie a mixture of 130 semi-professional and professional clubs in a revised 3rd and 4th tier. AD Ceuta FC find themselves newly promoted in the third division (Primera Federación) having beaten AD Unión Adarve away from home in the promotion play-off earlier this year. 

Before any philosophy and grand plans come into effect…the primary objective in FM23 is to remain in the league.  It will be quite a challenge too, AD Ceuta in real-life are bottom of the division (at the time of writing) and are quite reliant on one or two elder statesmen of the squad like 32-year-old Pito Camacho upfront and 34-year-old central defender José Carrasco.

4. ‘The Symphony’: flair, fight and fitness

When you think of players of North African descent, what kind of player do you think of?  To me, they are often heavily flair based like Mustapha Hadji, Rihad Mahrez, Hatem Ben Arfa, Samir Nasri and Zinedine Zidane.  On their day…any one of those players could be the 10.0 MOTM performer!  Unpredictability (by doing the unexpected, duh), is what made these guys special players.  A priority in this save will therefore favour players who are high on flair in the attacking positions of the side.  The formation and tactic I use will also look to support this kind of player by helping them flourish, whether that’s a guy recruited into the 1st team externally OR a homegrown player from the youth setup.  I plan to write about it post-release, and how training, system and recruitment all interconnect with one another in terms of this philosophy.

It doesn’t stop with flair, I also need some fight in the side too. From my deep-dive into statistical fibra a few months ago, I came to the realisation that fibra works best when it is in moderation - place it into your team in the roles that matter.  Hardly ground-breaking stuff from me, I know, but I wanted to go through the motions to get to this conclusion with evidence.  It's why in FM23 I will only focus on fibra in the key roles that matter i.e. the positions in the side where there are more frequent battles to be won: that's the central defensive areas.

Underpinning both the flair & fight is the fitness.  I'm going to need fit players to replicate the Spanish pressing system that dominated club and international football a decade ago.  Again, a focus will be placed on high stamina players, looking to work hard for the team.  Some bits can be trained, some bits are inherent in the player…regardless, it will be a focus of mine.

So, over time I would like my: attackers to have flair…defenders that can fight and everybody to be relatively stoic by showing a willingness to work hard for one another..  This all comes together in what I'm dubbing 'The Symphony'…mainly because I could not think of a better title.

My FM23 Aims

Now it’s time to share my FM23 ambitions with you…

I hope that the entirety of my FM23 time can be spent with AD Ceuta (we call this a One Club Save).  However, I’m wise enough to know that my 1st hurdle is not to get sacked, so this is my first aim. From there, I’ll then look to challenge for La Liga within 5 years.  I guess this sounds totally absurd, but I figure that if I can get into La Liga within this time…then why not try to win it once you’re there?

Throughout the save I’ll be looking to see if a North African alumni of mine can achieve International stardom whether that’s with me or at another club (like Nayim did) and I’ll also see if I can get a bigger stadium.  Either through expanding the current collection of bricks (currently 6,500 capacity) OR by building an entirely new home.

My final aspiration is winning the Champions League.  It would be nice to be the first African based side to win European honours…and it would be even sweeter if I did it in the FM edition that has the new headline feature of UCL branding.

It’s time for the champions. It’s time for AD Ceuta FC.

Tony / FM Grasshopper