Adam Chabukiani: Defying All Odds

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After their 2-0 home win against Liverpool in the Fourth Round, Bradford Park Avenue will face their Lancashire cousins Manchester United in the Capital One Cup Quarter-Final.

United struggled to make their way through this far with an extra-time victory over Premier League strugglers Derby County.

However a comfortable 2-0 win at Horsfall Stadium saw Bradford through against Liverpool with goals from Luis Farina and Jack Hallahan.

'It's a good draw against a very talented side but I'm sure that we will be able to pull through and go further in the tournament.' said the Bradford PA manager Adam Chabukiani, who has just signed a new three year deal with his club.

It is unlikely that the tie will make it onto the television, with a London Derby taking place in the same round with Tottenham playing Chelsea at the New White Hart Lane.

Avenue lost to Man United earlier in October as they fell down to a Memphis Depay goal at Old Trafford - the venue for the later tie.

Manchester United invested heavily into their squad in the summer, purchasing two new players in the form of Benfica's Riechedly Bazoer for £35million and Atlético Madrid's Yannick Ferreira Carrasco for £11.5million.

However, so is the case for Bradford Park Avenue, who have also spent over £40million this summer reshaping the squad that had them promoted last season. They will be hoping the likes of Jack Grealish and Rémy Cabella would turn up for the Quarter-Final.

In other Bradford-related news, Avenue have formed an affiliation with Bosnian Premier League side Olimpic Sarajevo. It is the first international agreement that Bradford have had and have already sent summer signing Abbes Bouchouk out on loan to the Bosnian capital. Bradford will pay an annual fee of £50k until 2025.

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Adam Chabukiani has increased the amount of international experience within his backroom staff today by hiring Oliver Kahn as his new Director Of Football.

Der Titan was his nickname back in Germany because of commanding presence in goal and aggressive style of play, but now he must lead the transfer side of things in the background at Horsfall Stadium.

He made 429 appearances for Bayern Munich in a spell spanning from 1994 up to 2008 after joining from boyhood team Karlsruhe.

Following his retirement in 2008, the 6'2" giant took a seven year spell out of the running of the game for his own enjoyment before starting a spell as a coach at Liga BBVA in 2015.

The 86-time German international left his post in Spain last year and was a free agent for eighteen months before his call to service from Adam Chabukiani.

"I was delighted to receive the call from Mr Chabukiani. In Germany there is a lot said about the man because of his story at Leeds and now at Bradford Park Avenue. It is very inspiring and I am delighted to be given a job as Director Of Football here." said the 51-year-old.

The German joins a side full of international experience in their backroom staff. Joey Barton, Joleon Lescott, Ben Foster, Shay Given, Maik Taylor, Jon Goodman, Jermaine Jenas, Craig Bellamy, Teddy Sheringham, Robbie Keane, John O'Shea, Scott Parker, Gareth Barry, Sylvain Wiltord, Kingston Nkhatha, Jermaine Easter, Lomana LuaLua, Steven Pressley and Elano already flood the backroom staff with international experience.

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November 2020 has been possibly the worst month in my memory as manager of this club. We were brought to our knees every single game we played during the month. Perhaps the most embarrassing is the fact that we were 4-1 up against Spurs in the 62nd minute. However, an 11-minute demolition led by Paco Alcacer saw us lose all three points in a 5-4 loss.

Internationally, we end the year failing to beat Russia in our Division in the Nations League as we finished 2nd, six points ahead of relegated Republic Of Ireland. The only win I had in the entire month (club & country) was against Egypt, through a 76th minute penalty.

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It's a real shame to be looking at the league title this month as we have fallen even further down the table and now sit riskily one point above the relegation spots. In terms of form, looking at the table is even worse as we are bottom of the form table with five consecutive losses (taking into account the 1-0 loss to Man United last month).

Internationally, the UEFA Nations League has finished its Group Stage and we are left behind in neutral ground (typical Swiss!) as Republic Of Ireland are relegated to Division B and Russia go through to the Semi-Finals of the tournament. However, that seems to be the final international action until 2021.

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In a month of horrible performances, Lieblein has put in another good shift this month as he scored three goals this month, including a brace against Tottenham in the 5-4 loss. He also created one goal.

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Not the best of months mate but at least your heads are still above the water in the league!

15th December 2020

Dear Adam Chabukiani,
You will probably never read this because there must be loads of fans trying to reach out to you.
My friend Liam told me that José Mourinho is the best manager in the world but I was soon to correct him on that by saying that you are!
Anyway, I don't care whether you read this or never reply to me because I just wanted to write down how amazing you have been as manager of my football team. When I watch Bradford Park Avenue it makes me so happy. Some of your plays are so wicked. You are my football hero, so I wanted to know, who is your football hero?
Please write back even if it's only in ten years time (after you have read all the other thousands of letters that you must get every day).
From your number one fan (I know everyone will say that but I really mean it. I am your biggest fan).
Alex Riley (aged 13)
P.S. Do you think that they will ever make a film of your life? And if they do, who would you like to play you?

Adam smiled. If he ever got down or depressed, reading a letter like this was all he needed to get him back on top form. Although he had to weed out the weird letters (one woman in Birmingham had started sending him pictures of her cat) Adam had time to appreciate the nice ones. Like the letter from Alex.

Immediately, Adam picked up a pen. It was his special yellow FIFA pen that they had sent him from Zurich, Switzerland upon taking the Switzerland national team job.

He made sure that he wrote in his neatest handwriting, as he had a feeling that Alex would be showing this letter to all his mates, especially Liam!

Dear Alex,
Thank you so much for your letter, which made me very happy.
It actually reminded me a bit of myself, I used to write letters all the time to the Leeds United players and when I got a letter back from them it was a brilliant feeling, so I hope you like this letter from me.

To answer your question, my football hero is someone who you won't have heard of, but that doesn't stop him being a hero. It's a man called Archie Fairclough, who was an assistant manager at Bradford City. He was a great motivator. He got me back into the game after my injury and made me the man I am today.
As for who would play me in a film of my life, that's a great question! I think that

But before Adam could write down his answer, he suddenly became aware that the postman had dropped his next delivery at Adam's door, he rushed over to pick up the letters.

'Dominoes promotionals, window cleaning, religious bollocks...' Adam mumbled to himself. Adam's hands fumbled and dropped his letters on the floor. He saw a letter with scrawny handwriting, reading his name on the envelope.
He slowly placed the letter down on the table in front of him.

Adam,
I don't know any other way to say this.
I need your help.
I've gat got myself into some problems here in Georgia. And it's not looking good.
I owe a lot some money to the wrong kind of people, and if I don't pay them back soon ... well, it ain't gonna end pretty.
Can you send me some money? Just a couple of thousand. I'll pay you back, I promise. I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate.
I know there's no reason for you to help me. I guess I'm just hoping that you might want to help out your old man.
Please, Adam?
Yours,
Dad
P.S. Here's my new number: 07212 456 982.

"He's lying," said Adam, angrily crunching up the letter and chucking it in the bin. "He's not in trouble, he just can't be bothered to work. Seen it a thousand times before." he said to himself.

A little bit of conflict between Adam and his father perhaps? I wonder if it'll play out in to a bigger situation that Adam believes it will

That game against Tottenham... wow

An interesting development here, hopefully it all works out!

Excellent few updates there man

Justice: We'll have to wait and see, won't we?:P

Griffo: Kinda goes to show how bad we are playing atm to score four and still lose =))

mgriffin2012: And it may just keep on developing

MJK46: Thanks man

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Well I have to say, the month following on from the November shit-show was a lot better than I thought and we have seemed to gather a bit more momentum in what was a rough month of fixtures last month. It started off well with a 2-0 win against Swansea City but ended in a calamitous 3-0 collapse to title-chasers Man City. We were finally knocked out of the Capital One Cup in the Quarter-Finals by Manchester United in a highly entertaining match which ended 4-3.

Internationally, Switzerland didn't have any fixtures due to the UEFA Nations League ending for 2020 and no friendlies taking place. Our focus is now set on the World Cup 2022 Qualification Phase in 2021.

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Now almost reaching the exact middle of the season, we enter the New Year in a lot better shape than we were in November. In November, we were in 15th place and only one point in safety before the relegation zone, but we finish this year in 13th place, now eight points ahead of 18th placed Everton. We also boast one of the best goal differences in our part of the league as we are surrounded by minus goal differences, we show a +6 figure.

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Despite plying his trade in the number ten role, Cabella has staked his claim for a striker spot with five goals in six matches this month! Obviously I will probably now place him up-front but Cabella has shown his goalscoring ability brilliantly well as he finishes the year with eight goals in the league so far.

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This update is just a sidenote to every single person who has read this story this year as my adventure with Bradford Park Avenue as Adam Chabukiani hits 50,000 views.

This is an amazing achievement for me as I have put all the effort I possibly could into making this story as good as it can be.

The story was the first actual FM16 story on the forum this year, starting the thread on October the 5th, around a month before Football Manager 2016's release.

In the gap of time between the beginning of this story and the release date, I made sure to let you all know the story behind Adam Chabukiani, through his early days as an Abkhazian War refugee from Georgia up until leading Bradford Park Avenue into the Premier League in 2020.

There is still a lot more to come from this story (hopefully!) and I am hoping that you will all keep reading on with interest as you have been all of this year, which I can't thank you enough for.

So yeah, keep tuned into this story until the end of Football Manager 2016 and maybe I will have another good story up my sleeve for the next installment of the game!

But a final note just to thank you all for keeping in sync with the story this year and giving me praise beyond what I believed that I would receive when starting this story back in October - it's been incredibly overwhelming.

Cheers,
Jack.

Congratulations with all you have achieved with this story Jack but be warned ... I am coming for you haha!

50,000 views is a tremendous milestones, many congratulations! This story is a shoe-in to be included in the Story Of The Year poll, and I certainly believe it'll be one of the front-runners, if not the favourite!

50,000 views is no less than you deserve my friend Not long until 100,000 eh All in all a fantastic story and I am enjoying it very much!