2032 was an incredibly stress free year. I didn't enter the club job market and instead focussed on pushing China even higher up the rankings. 26th was good, but obviously you want to be inside the top 25 nations as opposed to voyeuristically watching them from the outside. Of course, a year of just international football in a year without any competitions isn't necessarily the biggest of challenges for a manager, but nonetheless you can only beat the opposition put in front of you and we finished the year undefeated in our nine games and reached an all-time high of 22nd in the world.
DL Yifang meanwhile had continued in much the same way as when I had left and I had no regrets. They had finished third in the league the season after I left and they were currently in second after twelve games – they had also won no cups. Sure, I could have stayed there and continued to hone my skills and slowly attempt to chip away at Beijing's dominance, but I think the time away from club football helped me recharge my batteries and by the summer of 2033 I was ready for a new club.
On the 24th July I was hired as manager of Fiorentina. Whilst I thought I was taking a slightly backwards step from my job competing at the top of China into a middling Europe club, the media were sceptical of my appointment with many eyebrows being raised. I was a little annoyed that I couldn't get a job at a league leader and was instead once again the manager of a club whose ambition was to become the 'best of the rest', but I also knew that nobody in Europe would consider me for the top jobs until I'd proved myself at this level. Also, whilst the peculiar Zebre were dominant in the league and cups, they didn't have four times our budget and so I was confident that I could compete. After all, this wasn't a new situation for me and so I knuckled down and started to mould the club to my vision.
First things first, I brought five staff with me from DL Yifang and hired Nathan Ake as my assistant manager. He had been assistant at my old league rivals Shanghai and I had long been an admirer. Also, now that I was in my 40s and had been a manager for a good length of time I no longer felt like I needed deeply experienced heads around me and was happy to work with an up and coming guy like him. It also felt great to be in a position in my career where I had friends in the industry that were willing to move with me.
As for the squad, I mainly had to focus on trimming the fat in my first window. They had three times the number of players that I like to work with. I have always aimed for two great options in each position and then a few versatile spares. More than that and it's too hard to keep everyone happy and you're just wasting money. Annoyingly, however, they were all on fantastic wages and so were a struggle to shift. It took me nearly the whole summer and took up so much of my focus that we only brought in two players compared to the twelve we got rid of. There were also some confusing rules about foreign player signing limits and registration and so I wasn't able to sign any of my Chinese stars despite my longing to do so.
We had an okay start to the season and were unbeaten in our first five games. We weren't doing anything special, but we were settling into the new system and things were starting to click. A big part of that was the Spanish right winger I had signed as our attacking flair and spark and he had chipped in with all of our assists so far. I was thrilled with him and was even considering sending him on a leadership course in the hopes of him one day being a captain for me. On the 19th September, however, he demanded a leave of absence because he was homesick. I am not saying this was as a direct result of his absence... but we didn't win a game again until late November and his return to the club and fitness.
By the new year, we were fifteenth in the league and twenty-four points behind Inter in first. To make things even worse, I somehow managed to take this form back to China with me and for the first time I failed to win the East Asian Cup with us having absolutely no attacking threat what so ever.
In January I looked to heavily invest in the squad and I spent a combined thirty million on a new defender and a new striker. The good news was that it immediately paid off as my new number 9 scored on his debut. The bad news was that Torino smashed us 6-2. And that was one of our better results for the next month as at least we managed to score...
I think we all know where this is going so I'm not going to waste our time: Before the season finished I was sacked.