Adam Chabukiani: Defying All Odds

mgriffin2012: With Champions League qualification and our recent history, winning the league is the next step!

BeanyUnited: Thanks mate, it's a big pay rise which of course I ain't gonna argue about

Justice: I did feel like he is getting too big for his boots, but hey, I'm Adam Chabukiani

ninjaskill: Certainly a nice deal, but a big chunk of expectation that comes with it

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Six points out of nine in the Premier League and a victory at last in the Champions League Group Stages makes this month slightly more presentable. Despite an early loss against Bayer Leverkusen in Europe, we bagged our first points against Swedish side IFK Goteborg with a 2-0 win in which defender Ian Byrne got his first goal for the club. The month finished with a highly entertaining 10-3 win against Fulham in the Capital One Cup which came to the surprise of many packed in at The Avenue.

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A considerable lack of matches in the Premier League in October meant that not many points were on offer and the chance to push further up the table was limited at best. We moved past Manchester United who had a disastrous month in the Premier League this time around, losing three matches before salvaging a 6-0 win over Leicester City at the end of the month (clearly lacking John Taylor in goal for them ).

At the top, Arsenal are certainly within touching distance in second place, however Manchester City are currently enjoying a rich vein of form and lead us by seven points at the top of the pile. Besides Man United and Sheffield United level on points with us, hardly any other competition for our spot is there at the moment.

But at the bottom it is currently Leicester, Leeds and Aston Villa languishing in the depths of uncertainty of the relegation zone with only a combined total point tally of twenty between the three of them as things stand.

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Another big month from the 6'0" left-winger as his involvement in eight of our goals this month led him to October's Player of the Month award. His performances since joining on a free transfer last season has been absolutely impeccable and must go down as one of the signings of my reign at the club.

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7 points behind but with 28 games still to go is not too bad! Could this be the year!

Dina has no chill.

mgriffin2012: Certainly a long, long way to go from here! Lots of ups and downs from here on in I'm sure

Justice: He just doesn't give a f*ck

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21st November 2023

This was decision time. Earlier tonight concluded the UEFA European Championship Qualifying stage. We won 5-0 against Latvia, yet failed to qualify for the competition next year.

The Swiss FA called me straight after the match had finished, with the knowledge that it was Croatia and Romania had qualified for the EUROs. They allowed me to retain my position as manager of the nation, but unless results begin to pick up again they will start searching for my replacement.

This leads to me drowning myself in alcohol tonight after such a horror show during this campaign. I'm in some Swiss bar and I am contemplating my future as manager of the country.

About an hour ago, I had some supporters come up to me, mocking me, laughing at me, shouting me down for the underachievement in this campaign with the common statement being "You're heart's not in it Chabukiani!".

It was a strange feeling as well, just two years ago the same set of supporters were chanting my name in the stands as I led this country to their first ever FIFA World Cup in a shocking over-achievement.

My contract under the Swiss FA is £15,000 per week, despite only working for the national team a few months per year. It's good money for such little work, but I know that I can do better. Switzerland was a nation that was barely recognisable as a good footballing country before I won the World Cup for them in 2022.

But on the other hand, the fact that I had only won the World Cup with Switzerland gave me the impression that I had unfinished business here in Central Europe. I have been able to nurture several young players into my way of playing football, in one tournament it had worked. In this qualifying campaign it really hadn't.

I sunk another pint of the gut-rot I held in my palm, before being spotted by another group of fans who shouted a series of obscenities towards my lonely self. They had made my mind up for me. I was no longer wanted here anymore. I will tender my resignation tomorrow.

Gutting man, absolutely devastating

2016-09-24 18:28#237349 mgriffin2012 : Gutting man, absolutely devastating

As the saying goes, 'you can never have too much of a good thing'!

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Shortly after his resignation from the Switzerland National Team last month, Adam Chabukiani has hit back at critics by leading his Bradford team to the top of their Champions League groups.

Grouped with SL Benfica (Portugal), Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) and IFK Goteborg (Sweden), Bradford Park Avenue had a tough task ahead of them in their Champions League debut this season following their third place finish in the Premier League last season.

Bradford's progress in the competition started horribly, losing the first two games in Group E to SL Benfica and Bayer Leverkusen in ruthless defeats to the established European giants.

But back-to-back wins against the Group's lowest seed in IFK Goteborg got the morale up in the Avenue camp as 2-0 and 6-0 wins saw Chabukiani's men back in with a shot at qualifying for the next round.

With four games played, the final two matches were must-wins for Bradford PA against the leading teams in Bayer Leverkusen and SL Benfica.

The first fixture was against Benfica in what was a extremely entertaining 4-3 victory in the hands of Bradford, pushing them onto nine points and a strong challenger for the qualifying spots going into the final match against Bayer Leverkusen.

With a big win desperately needed for Avenue, their team certainly delivered. Dinaburskij and co. showed no sign of nerves going into the match at BayArena, as Avenue floored their opponents in a 4-0 win in Germany with Jack Hallahan, Jurij Dinaburskij (2) and Matthew Fletcher grabbing the goals for Avenue.

Group E finished unbelievably close as a result of this match - with Benfica defeating Goteborg 6-0 in the other fixture - the top three teams all finished on 12 points, with the results between the three teams sorting the Group out into two entrants into the Knockout Stages.

Bradford finished top of the Group at the end of the six match period with 12 points and a +11 goal difference. The other team who qualified for the next round was SL Benfica who also finished on 12 points, with a +7 goal difference, closely followed by Bayer Leverkusen who missed out on qualification because of the results between them and Benfica working in Benfica's favour. Meanwhile IFK Goteborg miserably finished bottom of the Group with zero points and a -27 goal difference. The Swedes failed to score a single goal in the Group Stage.

The result of the Group Stage puts Bradford Park Avenue in the pot for the Knockout Stage alongside the likes of Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain. The holders of the competition - FC Barcelona - still have to play their last match against Basel as the Catalans sit third in Group A, one point behind A.C. Milan in second place.

Sad to see you decide to call time on Switzerland, but good to see Bradford move to the knockout stage of the Champions League!

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It's been a marvelous end of the year in the past two months at The Avenue. We head into 2024 in 2nd place in the Barclays Premier League. During November and December, a lot happened it's fair to say. I failed to lead Switzerland to European Championship qualification, leading to my resignation from the international job, however took Bradford into the 1st Knockout Round of the Champions League before our training facilities completed their upgrade.

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A good two months in the Premier League has put us up into 2nd place, however there is a long way to go if we are to catch up with leaders Manchester City who are eight points ahead of us in first place.

Man City are the first team to reach the 50-point mark this season after nineteen matches, meanwhile we are eight points behind them on 42 points. Man United follow up behind us on 40 points, with Sheffield United rounding off the top four on 39 points. Sheffield have shocked pundits all over the place with resounding performances in the league so far.

Heading further down the table, the gap between fifth and sixth place is always growing as Arsenal lead Chelsea by six points - the biggest gap of points between corresponding teams in the league apart from the gap between ourselves and Man City.

At the bottom, it is Leeds United boss Paul Lambert who has faced the axe at Elland Road as the club is stuck to the foot of the table on ten points. The Whites would still be in the relegation zone even if they didn't have the five points deducted at the beginning of the season. Aston Villa and Leicester City also remain in the relegation zone along with Leeds.

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It's been a great couple of months for our man Jurij Dinaburskij, who is solidifying his status as one of the greatest players in the world at the moment. The Russian scored 16 goals in thirteen games during the period of the past two months. He has bolstered our offence in all competitions as we reach the Capital One Cup Semi-Final and the First Knockout Round of the Champions League.

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As we enter the year 2024, the results of the annual FIFA Ballon d'Or are in, and it is Bayer Leverusen's Gabriel Barbosa who has taken the spoils this year.

The FIFA Ballon d'Or is an annual association football award given to the world's best male player by the sport's governing body, FIFA, and the French publication France Football since 2010. It is awarded based on votes from international media representatives and national team coaches and captains, who select the player they deem to have performed the best in the previous calendar year.

The award was presented on Monday evening (1st January 2024) during a 90-minute show at Zurich’s Kongresshaus that was hosted by former Oasis member Noel Gallagher and British journalist Kate Abdo.

The first decade its inception in 2010, the FIFA Ballon d'Or was dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, as part of their ongoing rivalry. Barcelona's Messi won the inaugural Ballon d'Or, before reclaiming the title the following two years and again in 2015. Ronaldo, who plays for Real Madrid, won two successive awards in the intervening years. Messi won the award three times in a row between 2015 and 2017.

However, the big change came in 2021 at the start of the new decade as Real Madrid's James Rodríguez bagged the award with 18 goals and 16 assists in 42 games on right-wing for Los Galacticos.

2022's FIFA Ballon d'Or was the first year that neither Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo were in the top three runners for the award (with Messi coming 2nd to Rodríguez in 2021). Last year's award went to James Rodríguez for the second consecutive time, followed up by AS Monaco's Memphis Depay and PSG's Stefan de Vrij.

But this year, for the first time since the award began running again is completely different to any other year. This year's award went to a player that didn't play for either FC Barcelona or Real Madrid for the first time ever. It was Bayer Leverkusen's Gabriel Barbosa who bagged the award this year.

The Brazilian superstar scored 35 goals and created 12 during 2023 in 51 appearances for the Bundesliga outfit.

It was put into question though, as the competition's runner-up this year: Jurij Dinaburskij of Bradford Park Avenue was statistically better than Barbosa in almost every category. Despite receiving 99 votes more than the Russian striker, Barbosa scored 25 less goals, created 3 less goals and had an average rating that was 0.20 lower than Dinaburskij's rating (as well as playing less games).

Dinaburskij's manager Adam Chabukiani - who could have voted in the competition had he stayed on at Switzerland national team a month longer - called FIFA out for corruption.

Adam Chabukiani on the FIFA Ballon d'Or:
I think the result is absolutely abominable and deeply offensive to my player, who statistically and visually did miles better than the ultimate 'winner' of the award. It has been proven many times just how corrupted FIFA is in the footballing world, and once again it is shown under the gleaming lights of the awards ceremony last night. Jurij [Dinaburskij] was the hands-down winner of that award, I don't care what FIFA or anyone else says. That was Jurij's award.

The extract from the pre-match interview against Arsenal has come to a shock for many, with Chabukiani previously coming across as a very calm and composed interviewee in the past.

Despite Chabukiani's claims that Barbosa didn't deserve the award, it was the same player that finished Bradford's Europa League dreams last season in the Final at De Kuip as the fixture ended in a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Bayer Leverkusen, with Gabriel Barbosa scoring both the goals for his team.

With the key battle of the award being between Gabriel Barbosa and Jurij Dinaburskij, the player who finished third this time around was FC Barcelona's own Brazilian winger in Neymar.

You can close this gap! Believe!

2016-09-25 20:13#237376 mgriffin2012 : You can close this gap! Believe!

Literally begging for a Man City blip as we head into 2024!

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It's a case of one in, two out at Bradford Park Avenue this winter time as the January Transfer Window slams shut in England.

It turned out that Premier League giants Manchester United stepped up their push for a return to Champions League football as they spent £51M this window - the highest total amount spent in this period.

José Mourinho's side, currently sat in 3rd place behind Bradford Park Avenue splashed out £31M on Torino left-winger Andrea Faraoni as their marquee man this time around.

It was Vanarama National League side Yorkshire Amateur who signed the most players in England this window, snapping up seven new players as they head unchallenged into the Football League next season.

But in January, it was all about the full-backs for Bradford Park Avenue. Besides Aleksandar Todorovski's loan move to PSV until the end of the season, the only other two players that left the club were full-backs on either side.

The first to leave was unhappy Scottish left-back Andrew Robertson. Robertson joined Avenue in their first ever season in the top-flight and played in 37 league games in his debut season when Chabukiani led Bradford to Europa League football for the first time ever.

Robertson was a loyal man to the club, sticking with Bradford for 142 appearances throughout the four seasons he spent at The Avenue/Elland Road. But after appearing only three times this season, the 29-year-old Glaswegian has made a continental move over the English Channel to join Avenue's Champions League First Knockout Round opponents Olympique de Marseille in a £3.6M move.

Robertson will be unable to partake in the tie between the two teams as he has previously played in the competition this season with Avenue.

Next up was the man that added £10.5M onto Man United's £51M spend this window. Silvan Widmer - the last Swiss man standing in Avenue's squad - has finally left the club. Widmer joined Avenue at the peak of Chabukiani's reign at Switzerland for a fee of £8.75M from Bayern Munich after the Bundesliga giants transfer-listed the right-back.

Widmer was part of the same Bradford team that won the F.A. Cup and Capital One Cup double in 2022-23 and the F.A. Community Shield at the beginning of this season. His departure may be down to the Swiss breakdown Adam Chabukiani faced in November 2023, but nevertheless he has left the club for an initial £10.5M, which could potentially rise to as much as £13.5M.

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The only player to join the Yorkshire side this window is one of Adam Chabukiani's fellow Georgian countrymen. Tbilisi-born left-back Tornike Maisuradze joined Bradford after Chabukiani activated his release clause of £2.4M at Málaga. The ten-time Georgian international is a replacement for the outgoing Andrew Robertson as back-up, yet cannot play Premier League football until next season as he was on loan at AS Nancy Lorraine before Bradford signed him.

The 18-year-old made his name at big Georgian outfit Dinamo Tbilisi between 2022 and 2023. Maisuradze made nearly 50 appearances for his boyhood team in the senior ranks, with ten assists and four goals to his name, he was snapped up by Liga BBVA's Málaga for £185K. After playing for Tbilisi, Málaga and Nancy Lorraine in the same season, the left-back can only play in the Champions League this season for Avenue.

In terms of a replacement for Silvan Widmer's transfer to league rivals United, it is reported that Chabukiani is looking to draft promising young right-back Sumali Walton up from the development team into the first-team. Walton is only 17 years old and has been at Bradford since he was a child.

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