Pentagon Challenge - Season 4 (2026/27)

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Season 2026/27 - CS Constantine - Algerian Ligue 1

The season preview has us down as 4th favourites to win the league.

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Pre-season was mostly very good, with one draw amongst a series of wins.  We were drawn against Génération Foot from Senegal in the Preliminary round of the CAF Champions League, which we ended up with a relatively comfortable 6-2 aggregate win after winning the home leg 4-0, although we didn't look so impressive in the away leg.

We were then drawn against Mamelodi Sundowns for the First Round and as they've been the dominant force in South Africa for over 10 years, I expected that to be the end of our run.  However, we scored a shock 5-1 win at home, and followed up with a 2-1 in South Africa to win the tie quite comfortably.

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After this, it goes to the group stage which has seen us drawn in a group which looks very tough, with Kaizer Chiefs from South Africa, Red Arrows from Zambia and Al-Ahly who have dominated Egypt, which is the highest reputation league in the continent, for two decades.  Getting out of that group with giants from South Africa and Egypt seems a tall order.

October 2026

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The league got underway in October, with a whopping 7 league games to fit in.  With the first game being against USM Alger, one of the teams predicted to finish above us we couldn't have had a much tougher start, however we walked away with a narrow 2-1 win after they'd taken a 2nd minute lead.  We then went on to win every other game in the month with a less than ideal defensive record, but it seems we have the mindset we'll just outscore other teams.

November 2026

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Another packed month, but with mostly cup action.  We started off with the Supercoupe d'Algerie, which seems to pit the league champions against the cup winners as far as I can tell, and we thrashed CR Bélouizdad 4-1 and looked every bit as good as the scoreline suggested.  We also got past the first two rounds of the Algerian Cup, and had our first Champions League group game, where we edged past Al-Ahly 1-0.  We rode our luck in that game for sure, not least because we had to play the final 20 minutes with 10 men after a red card, but we defended like our lives depended on it and walked away with a win we could be very proud of.  We also managed 2 further wins in league fixtures to extend our perfect record in the league.

December 2026

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Yet another month where lots of games were crammed in.  2 more Champions League games, and 2 more wins, only these two were far more comprehensive.  I was again stunned at how good we were against South African opposition as we beat Kaizer Chiefs 7-2.  5 more wins out of 5 games in the league mean we reach the end of December with a perfect record of 14 wins from 14 games in the league, and 3 from 3 in the Champions League which gives us a fantastic chance to progress.  I've honestly never had a run like this in FM ever, so I'm kind of expecting things to collapse, although we are playing extremely well, even if we can be a bit suspect defensively.

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 January 2027

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Another solid month, which saw us progress in the cup and win a series of matches in the league without conceding a single goal, until the final match of the month where we finally lost against JS Kabylie, in a match where we simply didn't turn up.

February 2027

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Any worries I had that the match against JS Kayblie signalled the start of a decline in results and performances were soon dispelled as we progressed again in the cup with a very impressive win against ASO Chlef, followed by another good win in the league.  We dusted off the Champions League group stage with 2 wins out of the final 3 games, with only the away game to Kaizer Chiefs ending up in a loss, however at that point we had already secured qualification by that point so it didn't matter too much.

March 2027

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Back to managing a perfect month of results, with 3 wins in the league, progressing again in the cup and a very convincing win in the Champions League quarter final first leg against Primeiro de Agosto of Angola, to put us in a very good position for the home leg.

April 2027

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April started with the home leg of the Champions League quarter final, where we progressed by winning 2-0.  We saw three further wins in the league including an absolutely bonkers 7-3 win over Paradou which saw us seal the league title.  

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We also had the Semi Final of the Champions League against ES Tunis who have been the dominant force in Tunisia for some years and so I actually expected us to exit the competition here.  However, we managed to come away from the away leg with a 1-1 draw, and seeing as away goals count in this competition, that was massive.  However, they quickly took the lead in the home leg when we gave away a soft penalty, which left me worried, although the team soon shot into action with that kick up the bum and we ended up winning the home tie 6-1 to seal our ticket to the final in very impressive fashion.

Kaiser Chiefs await us in the final, who we played in the group stage and are one of only two teams to beat us this season at this point, so I knew that we were going to have to be at our best to stand a chance of winning and allowing me to move on from Africa.

May/June 2027

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Given we had already won the league, now all my attention was on keeping the team as fresh as possible for the Champions League final, which like the other knockout rounds is also played over 2 rounds, one home and one away.  I played a completely rotated team against CR Bélouizdad and as a result, they handed our butts to us, but I wasn't too concerned with the first leg of the final only 4 days after this game.  Sandwiched between the two legs of the final was the semi-final of the cup which despite again rotating the team completely and playing a completely different 11, we still managed a very impressive win.  I had kind of expected to lose, but I wasn't too bothered as for me the absolute priority was the Champions League.

We dusted off the league campaign with a win against ES Ben Aknoun, and that result condemned them to a final day relegation.  One match in June, which was the Coupe d'Algérie final, against JS Kabylie, one of only 2 teams to beat us in the league.  However, we won the game 2-0 to win the Coupe d'Algérie for the second time on the bounce.

So, what about the Champions League final?  Well...….

Leg 1

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Leg 2

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So, despite my expectation that I'd likely need to move to Egypt, Tunisia or South Africa to win this, we managed to win both legs to win the Champions League in impressive fashion.  This means that as a club, we have won all four competitions we played in this season, and we managed a record of 28 wins from 30 games in the league, breaking the league record for wins, points and goals scored along the way.  I also started my Contential A badge during the course of the season.

However, with Africa conquered, that left me with one thing to do...…

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The hunt for the next club now starts, and the start of a new continent.

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