After a short foray in the Europa League (which although included a 7-1 home win against Montenegrin team Lovcen, ended in the 3rd Qualifying Round with defeat to Scotland's Falkirk), the Knights immediately set to continue the impressive run of eight consecutive wins with which we finished last season, winning the first round of the FA Trophy, and then the first three matches in the league.
This form was continued all season, losing just twice, drawing twice, and winning the rest, winning the league with 5 games to spare and breaking both points and goals records (which stood at 60 and 62 respectively), and the FA Trophy; conceding just 15 times in 28 league matches, and only once in the Trophy (a 92nd minute penalty in the Final).
Following such successes during the season, the board decided to upgrade my training facilities, and to build a youth academy, with the hope of nurturing young Maltese talent, hopefully to start competing with foreign players.
The Maltese Premier League climbed 49 places to 191st in the Competition Rankings, whilst Mdina Knights moved up 12 places to 305th in the European Club Rankings.
Having only qualified for the Europa League this season following last year's success in the Champions League, it is unnecessary to say that I was quite disappointed to be eliminated in the first qualifying round to Flamurtari.
However, with every cloud comes a silver lining, and I saw this as an opportunity for us to focus on the domestic league this season, and ensure that come next season we would be competing in the Champions League again. But this was seemingly not to be; another disastrous start to the campaign, which again saw us being eliminated from the first round of the FA trophy, this time to Floriana, and inconsistency in the league saw us occupying a lowly 5th position at the start of February, 14 points off the pace.
Something really had to be done. The squad which had traveled far and wide in the Champions League the previous season was growing old, and the new recruits which I had brought in since did not have the impact I was hoping for (although one of them had proved to be a gem).
To show the extent of our troubles, it is enough to mention that by the start of February, my top scorer was a central defender, with just three goals. Thus I kindly asked the board to eliminate any restrictions on our scouting range, and after complying, I was then free to scout the world for talent.
In the January transfer window 7 new players were brought in, six of which were Nigerian, and the other Libyan, amounting to £850K (one of these players was attracting interest far and wide, and had offers from Barcelona and Real Madrid, amongst others, rejected!) After training facilities were improved the previous summer, several new coaches were brought in, the highlight of which was Michael Carrick.
After undergoing so many changes, I was afraid results would, if possible, turn even worse. However, it was not so, and we went on a great run of form, finishing the season on a run of eight consecutive victories, which saw us run Sliema close to first place, finishing just one point behind in second.
The new signings had clearly worked their magic, with six of the seven finishing in the best 11 for the season (and the one that didn't was because I bought two left wingers), and one of them scoring 9 goals in 13 appearances to finish top scorer (the central defender Akanji went on to score an impressive 7 goals). Note that 13 goals were scored in the first 15 matches of the season; 33 were scored in the last 13 matches!
This influx of foreigners however, brought with it a moral, if anything, problem; my team at the start of the 2019-20 season (just after the summer transfer window opened) comprised of 10 Maltese players, 11 Nigerians, a Brazilian, a Libyan, and an Uruguayan. This meant my team was more foreign than Maltese. However, the positives here far outweigh the negatives, and I am certainly not going to wait for Maltese talent to catch up with the quality of my team, I will just simply ensure that my scouts are correctly placed to catch any budding Maltese talent, until then, I will only buy the best possible players for my team.
Mdina moved 18 places up the European ladder following the 18-19 season to 315th position, while the Maltese Premier League also rose, by 73 places, to 240th place.
A season which started in such well-documented success in the Champions League could, and really should have carried on to end with success at the local level.However, football rarely ever follows logical paths, and that is exactly what happened this season.
For several possible reasons, one of the most probable being the increased amount of games played during the season, performance in the domestic league was, to say the least, a shambles. The traditional opening of the domestic season, the first round of the Maltese Cup saw us bow down to St. Andrew's, who would eventually finish the season last in the bottom league.
This was followed by losses in the first two Premier League Matches, and then by four straight victories, a taster of the inconsistency which would characterize the season to come. Perhaps low morale due to several losses in the Europa League group stage also played their part, as this was clearly a team capable of big things on the local stage, with more and more foreigners interested in plying their trade in Maltese football.
This posed yet another problem however, rather than increase the team's capabilities. These new signings barely seemed to want to gel in with their team-mates, and with the language barrier posing a real hindrance to this process, I had to resort to play as much of my Maltese contingent as possible, after which results gradually started to improve again, although it was then too little too late, and I finished the season third, which meant I missed out on the Champions League, and another great windfall.
The end of the season brought with it, however, some good news. The board announced they would be increasing the stadium capacity by 3200 (at a cost of £2M) and also that they would be improving training facilities (at a cost of £1.4M). Furthermore, they decided to turn professional again.
Mdina Knights obtained quite a good European coefficient for this season, rising up 108 places to 327th in the Club Rankings, whilst the Premier League dropped 75 places to 313th.
