Life has changed a lot for AIK Manager Patrik Maddsson these past few years. Before taking the reins at AIK Fotboll in early 2023, he could stroll down the streets of Stockholm without a care in the world, completely unrecognisable and living as normal a life as anyone in the Swedish capital. Fast forward to 2026 and things have changed drastically; three consecutive Allsvenskan titles, one Svenska Cupen trophy, back-to-back qualification from the Champions League Group Stages and a new wave of superstars gracing the 50,000 seater Friends Arena. Safe to say we are not in Kansas anymore ..read more

  Stockholm, Sweden – Thursday 20th March 2025. A well-dressed middle-aged man sits aboard a Stockholm metro train carriage, taking the relatively short journey from his 11th floor penthouse apartment over to AIK Fotboll’s newly renovated Karlberg IP training ground for what will be his first training session since being eliminated from the Champions League 2nd Round Knockout Playoff at the hands of Brighton & Hove Albion. “Obviously the boys are disappointed” AIK Manager Patrik Maddsson thinks to himself, “but look how far we have come; back-to-back league titles; wins over Man Utd ..read more

  Stockholm, Sweden – Thursday 1st February 2024. It’s the first day of pre-season for Swedish football clubs including league champions AIK Fotboll, whose manager Patrik Maddsson has just risen at dawn for his daily 10k run along the Söderström river with a deep sense of apprehension and pensiveness as he attempts to separate last season’s success with the challenge of the upcoming new season and the prospect of Champions League qualification if they can catch a break in the qualifying rounds.      “The transfer window officially opens in two weeks and still no sign of t ..read more

  Patrik Maddsson is as usual the last to leave the AIK training ground as the sun sets over the Solna city skyline, a familiar sense of accomplishment after a high-octane training session, yet a sense of yearning burning in the back of his mind knowing that these players and this club are capable of so much more. “They need time” he says to himself..”they know they are good, but they don’t yet know they can be great”. Things have been going well – five wins from their first five games, their new signings fitting in well and things have clicked almost immediately to put AIK top of the ta ..read more

    Solna municipality, Stockholm. 6.00am. A man in his mid-to-late thirties rises from a deep slumber, a familiar twinge of pain in his right knee as he slides a thick heavy curtain along it’s rail to reveal a golden sun rising majestically above a slowly awakening city, a mammoth silhouette of a 50,000 capacity sporting arena towering in the distance like a silent noble sentry keeping watch over it’s principles below. He takes a deep breath, a sense of ambient relief to be back in the city of his birth, mixed with a hint of apprehension and trepidation in the knowledge that this d ..read more

    I started playing Championship Manager games around the year 1996. After spending countless hours with my brother playing Sensible World of Soccer (which was way ahead of its time as football management simulation games went back then), I discovered Championship Manager 2 at a friend’s 10th birthday party. Within hours we had swapped games (a wise decision seeing as to this day I have never returned it to him), and the rest as we know is history; 27 years later I am still playing what is now Football Manager, racking up more hours than ever before and better still (or worse depe ..read more

    Welcome back – Il Regionnaire continues as we embark on our third season at a fully revolutionised AC Milan squad that now contains only players and staff who were born or produced within 50km of the city of Milan, having finished second in Serie A last season behind neighbours Atalanta to guarantee our return to Champions League football after a yearlong absence caused by our 5th place finish in Season 1 at the Rossoneri.   Poch knows   When we last left off, we were heading into the summer transfer window with a glorious €93m transfer budget available, with the obvio ..read more

    WARNING – THIS BLOG CONTAINS MANY MANY REFERENCES TO CESARE CASADEI’S GREATNESS     Hello again . Welcome back to Milan – a place where one of it’s longest-term residents are going through one of the biggest transformations a football club has ever witnessed as we convert AC Milan to a domestic/local-only club culture and transfer policy where only players & staff born/produced within 50km of the city are permitted to sign for and play for the club. If this is all new to you, feel free to jump back to the start and pick up from there.   In my last post we d ..read more

    Welcome back to Italy where the Regionnaire save continues as we proceed with transitioning AC Milan to a local-only club culture and transfer policy in Football Manager 2023. When we last left off, we had narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification on the last day of the season, finishing 5th in our first Serie A campaign at the helm of the Rossoneri which all in all was a decent finish considering we had already sold the likes of Fikayo Tomori, Theo Hernandez, Rafael Leão and Ante Rebic as part of our Regionnaire project. The board didn’t seem to be in agreement howe ..read more

    Two blogs in two days – you are welcome! When we last left off, we were sitting in 2nd place in Serie A after 22 games in our first season at the helm of AC Milan as we attempt to transition the club to a local-only club culture and playing squad within two seasons. The bad news however (in addition to being knocked out of the Champions League Group Stages) is that our star man and Segundo Volante extraordinaire Sandro Tonali has been ruled out for two months with a thigh injury meaning he will miss all of February and March, a crucial period as we look to continue our good form ..read more