Maybe not...Originally Posted by Gray Fox
EDIT: Nope, I was up against club icon Gio Van Bronckhorst, so never stood a chance.
Maybe not...
EDIT: Nope, I was up against club icon Gio Van Bronckhorst, so never stood a chance.
Last edited by Dan; 02-02-2023 at 01:07 PM.
Alan is a total babe.
We had £3m left before this.
FC Groningen 2026/27 Midseason Update
It's now 2027 and I am indeed still here. Things have gone pretty well so far, as they tend to do over the first half of the season, but it was the back half where we struggled last time we had European football so the real test is yet to come.
We sit third in the league, nicely slotted in amongst the big three thanks to an impressive debut season in the side for academy kid Roberto Kruiswijk, who has rotated with Florian Kruger up front & has started getting hype of a national team call up after netting 18 times in 13(11) appearances.
It didn't go as well in the cup or the Champions League, as we drew Ajax in the second round of the cup & Porto in the CL qualifying round, and were swiftly booted out by both. We did fall in to the Europa League though, and it's been a much better story there, with 4 wins from 6 games putting us in position to easily make the playoff round even if we lose our remaining two games - which we will, they're against Roma & an Aston Villa side that has Endrick (lol).
LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE | EUROPEAN FIXTURES
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I'm still applying for other jobs, and have just had interviews at Dinamo Zagreb & Sampdoria, neither of which I'm actually sure I'd take if they offered me the job, but hopefully my rep will jump up a notch soon & I'll actually be able to get a few more interviews at some of the bigger jobs.
Bayern "Munchen" Munich have just recalled a goalkeeper I had loan because he wasn't playing in the agreed position of goalkeeper.
Where were you playing him?
Certainly not at right back.
Keeper, every week. I blame Jens Mustermann.
A little mid-season update in Greece.
For some reason this game doesn't allow you to choose your pre-season start date, so for this one we only got 4 weeks and on top of that, there were internationals at the beginning of September. The group that went to them were not kept in good condition. Because of this when we did start the season, thanks to also being in the CL group stage, we had a game every 3 days for about a month with only about 13 fully fit players. Add in that there was massive squad and team dynamics upheaval in the summer. It was a slow start.
There might well be a title scrap this year. We have kind of clicked into gear once we hit November, so I hope that continues.
This did also have a knock-on effect in our CL games. Our two pretty much only winnable games were the first two and with everything being disjointed it has not gone well...
We face Porto and Atletico in our final two games who are 2nd and 3rd in the table at present. Real danger of finishing bottom of a big pile. We've just been outclassed against everyone bar Lyon.
So of course I've gone out and found a 24 year old Conor Gallagher is available on a free transfer. DoF reckons he'd immediately be our best CM so it's a no brainer. He's got what I believe is a £16.5m release clause, which on joining he is already valued higher than.
It does mean a likely £16m profit in 6 months time, but it's annoying that the agents have these locked in despite removing the stepping stone thing in the contract promises screen and them accepting it. Is there any way around this?
FC Groningen 2026-27 Season Review
Turns out it wasn't a problem at all, as we went unbeaten in the league all the way from January until April on a run that included a 1-0 win against a Feyenoord team that had a man sent off after 2 minutes, a result which ultimately proved decisive as we leapt above them to finish second for the first time in the club's history.
Well, this is a problematic, and gives me a little extra nudge towards leaving at the end of this season.
We had a decent enough run in Europe too. After finishing off the group stage we were drawn against Qarabag in the knockout playoff. We easily pushed them aside before getting Napoli in the last 16. I played a weakened team as I was trying to focus on the league, but after a 1-1 draw in the first leg we had hope of an upset, however a late goal in the return game saw them squeeze through 3-2 on aggregate.
LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE | EUROPA LEAGUE FIXTURES | TRANSFERS | SQUAD OVERVIEW
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My contract expires next season & if we manage to make the CL group stages this season I really might let it run out as i don't know that I can take this team much further without investing several more years in to building the team. My reputation is still sitting at only 35% / 2 stars, so I think I'm going to need to move on to one of the major leagues if I'm ever going to work my way up to one of the bigger jobs. I've had a few interviews at mid-table sides in France & Burnley offered me an interview as well, so I think it should be possible to get a job somewhere, it just seems like my game is a bit bugged & half of my interviews think I'm proposing changes to their expectations when I'm not - a bit of testing suggests this might not happen when you don't have a job, hence why I'm debating leaving.
Not seen this message for a while. Got this guy on trial and just offered him a contract, fortunately this appeared before I confirmed with him
Palamós CF 2035/36 Season Update:
Transfers Out:
Mihajlo wanted to leave and as he was a backup who was seemingly at or near his max potential I let him go. Decent offer and we get 20% of any profit.
Barbato got a lot of minutes with us last year but most were off the bench and he was not happy so I cashed in for £58m with 20% of any profit. He's done really well at Hamburg so it seems we could still make a decent amount on top of the initial payment. Shame to lose him though as I did like him but I was worried I wouldn't be able to make him happy to sign a new contract.
Petrazzuolo was one of my starting CB's (although my third choice was right behind him) but he wanted to leave last season but I kept him. He wanted to leave again this season and I didn't think it would happen as the bids were far too low. By January the third choice CB had jumped above him and Villarreal came in with a good enough offer for me to let go.
Vargas was bought for £60k during our first ever season in La Liga and had been a backup for his whole career with us but he was happy with this. Teams were making low offers this season and he was fine when I was rejecting them but then Gladbach came in with an offer which met his release clause. A bit sad to lose him but £60m is insane for him.
Transfers In:
Bastos was someone who was on my radar for a while but we never had £70m+ which was what Man City were looking for prior to this Summer. They dropped his price tag and I swooped in. I see him as potentially our new starting AMC at some point who can also play on either wing too, which is what he did this season.
Another year, another keeper. Malo is the most expensive but he's also got the most potential according to my scouts/coaches. I even gave him some quite a few games when my first choice keeper had a wobble.
When Mihaljo left I needed a backup LB and so I chose Cleocir, he needs some work on his technical ability but I like him a lot. He's also Portuguese so doesn't take up a non-EU spot.
Soucase has been on my radar since he was 15. When he was 18 he went to Arsenal for £5m which broke my hear but he was still interested. In January the board made a thick amount of cash available so I swooped. He doesn't look as exciting as he did when he was 15 as his progression hasn't been amazing but I still think he could be mega.
Needed a new CB with Petrazzuolo leaving so in came Javier Catalan who can play across the entire back line. I like him a lot and he's quite good on the ball which is great as I play one BPD and, other than the starter there, no one else is well suited to it.
With Vargas leaving I needed a new CDM. My first choice was a 18 year old at Real Madrid but he signed a new contract rather than come to us for £50m (he's interested again but his new release clause is £85m...) so in came Zaid Hassan, he's not amazing but he was cheap and he added a new nationality to my team (we're up to 24 different nationalities in the first team squad including those out on loan).
League:
We had a big wobble in December where we couldn't score (I moved the Scot to ST and he struggled at times) and I thought we might struggle to finish in the top 4 let alone win the league. Thankfully we turned it around and no one else really pulled away from the pack. Madrid seem done as their squad is really old and regressed a lot and Barca had a bit of a resurgence for some reason but again, struggled near the end due to the age of the squad.
Back to back titles (both won with 92 points) and our third season in a row with 90+ points. We're doing well.
Cups:
Reserves ended up winning the shitty Supercup which seems to exist to annoy me and we got to the final in the actual cup before being battered by Barca.
Europe:
Struggled a little bit in the league for some reason but it was enough to see us through.
Round of 16:
I was a little worried in the second leg as they wouldn't roll over but we got the job done.
Quarter-Final:
We started both legs really fast and they then grew into the game as it went on but the damage was done and West Ham, thankfully, just aren't strong enough.
Semi-Final:
Our first trip this far and really we should have won. Liverpool were lucky in the first leg as we were by far the better side, even after going down to 10 men. In the second leg we were again the better side but they went all out in the final 10/15 minutes and we just couldn't cope and the ratty cunts got the two goals they needed in the final moments to send them through.
Squad:
I'm a big fan of this squad, I think it's great and I do think it's a potential CL winning squad. There is some deadwood (mostly those on loan) which I'd like to chop away. In terms of upgrades it's a bit hard to do as we don't seem to have the rep to pull away genuine stars from other clubs which is the only thing that would improve us.
FC Groningen 2027-28 Midseason Update
We've hit the winter break & it's been kind of a strange season so far.
TRANSFERS | LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE
We didn't do much business in the summer, and we started well domestically before getting our first win over Ajax in the whole save, which we then wasted by losing the next three. It's all much tighter than usual, but we're in a decent position to push on if we can avoid the injuries that have plagued our season so far.
EUROPEAN FIXTURES | EUROPEAN TABLE
We entered the Champions League in the third qualifying round once again, however this time we've been able to fight through to the league phase, and after getting a horrific looking draw we've actually done way better than I expected, racking up 10pts with two games to play. Those are against PSG & Porto though, so I think we'll have to cross our fingers that 10pts is enough, which it does seem to have been so far.
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I haven't extended my contract yet, and I think I'm going to make the decision after the season at this point. I don't think there's much else we can achieve domestically without winning a trophy, but we have a really promising young team that does seem to slowly be inching closer towards Ajax, it's just a question of how much longer it will take & what other options are out there.
I don't have the effort or skill to do proper updates but I'm absolutely loving my Livorno save. I absolutely save scummed important games when I was a kid but these days I almost get more motivation out of near misses. have now lost the final of the serie b playoff finals two seasons on the trot, and other than the massive anticlimax after staying up until 3am to finish the season I feel like it was probably for the best.
to be fair, my team has been massively overachieving, even the mid table dweebs like Perugia are pissing away £10k/week on players and my highest earner is on 5k. each season I've missed out on promotion (I also lost earlier in playoffs the year before) I've improved the team a significant amount. I am also acutely aware that I should appreciate this before I finally go up and inevitably get battered most weeks
FC Groningen 2027-28 Season Review
Well, it turns out we were inching closer to Ajax faster than expected.
We continued our strong form into the new year & actually managed to do the double over Ajax, who have fallen off massively this season compared to the rest of the save, but are still Ajax. In the end, we got to the final five games with us, Ajax & PSV all within five points of each other, and it was us that had the advantage, with a four point lead over PSV & the easiest run in of the three teams.
Both Ajax & PSV decided to turn on champion mode though, crushing everyone in their path on the way to a head to head showdown on the final day, whilst we dropped a couple of careless points at home to ensure that all three teams went to the last game of the season able to win the title. Shockingly, Ajax blew the doors off PSV 6-0, but could we finish the job?
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LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE
As for the Champions League, the loss to Celtic proved decisive as we proceeded to lose our final two games & finish 25th, the most painful place to end up as we watched every result go against us on the final day.
CL FIXTURES | CL LEAGUE TABLE
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This is going to be the end of my time at Groningen, at least for now. My contract runs out in the summer & I'm going to try to get a job elsewhere - preferably in France or Germany - to try to start the project over again at a higher level. I'm going to keep a save point here though, so I can always come back & continue to build things up here.
I did get a job offer from Feyenoord, which would've been double the budgets I've been working with, but I don't really see the point in moving within the Netherlands, so I've turned them down.
SQUAD OVERVIEW | SEASON TRANSFERS
I've gone back for another go in England and it's just as stressful an experience as before (doing a sort of short-term fireman journeyman effort - been at Palace, Bolton and now at Bristol City in the third season). No matter what tactics you play, your centre backs get turned by a straight ball hoofed over the top for a pacey forward (or often three pacey forwards, in the absurd 3-4-1-2 favoured by every Championship team) to rush onto and score. It makes trying to manage the team almost pointless. I'm mid table (which is about where we should be) but every game is an end to end tear. Last four games finished 6-4 (win), 1-1, 3-4 (loss) and 3-3.
I think I was able to avoid it in South America because there is far less pace on the field. Anyone with pace just gets 50 yards of clear turf to run into because the defenders turn like steamships. My centre forward (AF) Soonsup-Bell has 20 goals in 24 and he's been really poor at times, should have easily had 35. In the 6-4 game he had his shooting boots on and had five goals before half time. Just endless, endless chances and goals at both ends.
Yeah, I've definitely found that too. Doesn't matter how deep you defend or how fast your CBs are, they just leave thirty yards of space in behind at all times, which is great.
I think I might have to create a new manager with better rep to carry on this save, as apparently taking Groningen from 14th to 1st in six seasons on 10-25% the resources of the big three isn't a good enough resume to even make me worthy of consideration at midtable clubs in the major leagues like Fiorentina & Bilbao, who seem like exactly the kinds of teams that would be taking a shot on someone like that. It's also great when half the teams refuse to consider you because you don't score enough goals from set pieces, which nobody would actually give that much of a shit about.
This was part of the big graphics debate by the FM 'influencers.'
Is it the match engine deciding this is what is actually happening, in which case this needs rebuilding. Or more likely, the graphics engine doesn't have a better way to display a pacey striker getting in behind so this is the best it can come up with.
How often in a high level professional match does a pacey striker get in behind? I don't think it's this often.
I think it's more that they can't manage to make defensive attributes (such as game reading, positioning etc) cancel out pace and power in the way they do IRL.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 13-02-2023 at 04:54 PM.
After not playing FM for most of January due to being ill I finally returned to my save after accepting the job at recently relegated Lazio following 3 titles in 2.5 years at Newport (taking them from the National League into the Championship but leaving them before the championship season started). On paper this was a piss easy job... massive team who didn't belong in Serie B with a lot of money to spend..... and so it transpired.
Despite the club being in a fair chunk of debt they still gave me a nice transfer budget and I immediately used £17.5m of it so sign Luca Guilarducci, a 19 year old regen winger/striker from Juventus. Aside from him, it was the defense I noticed needed improving the most and so we spent another £8m on Tyrell Malacia who had been fucking about at Crystal Palace after 1 season at United. Aside from those 2, most of our serious business was done in the loan market where a ridiculous calibre of player was happy to join us, presumably because of our club rep. This meant I went into the season with a starting 11 of:
GK- Provedel, 35 years old and here when I joined, he was more than good enough for this level.
LB- Malacia as above
CB- Mario Vuskovic, one of our key loan signings, and Nicola Casale who was already here.
RB- Despite spending £2.5m on the supposed best RB in the division, a guy named DelPrato from Parma, we ended up using someone who was already here, Nicolo Armini.
DMC- Marcos Antonio, already here and one of the best players at the club, partnered by Nico Schlotterbeck, another loan signing.
AML- Gianni Martino, regen, youngster, club captain, highest earner..... this was his spot and no amount of £50m bids from Inter were taking him away from it.
AMR- Luka Romero- here when I joined and an absolute hero.
ST- The previously mentioned Ghillarducci partnered by loanee Thiago Almada.
This team was overpowered for Serie B. We set all the records. Most points (106), most goals (98), most goals by one player (36 from Ghillarducci), most wins (34), longest win streak (12 and we later beat it, not sure what we ended up with) and most importantly.... first ever team to not lose a single game.
Every member of my starting 11 got more than 7 as their AR for the year. Ghilarducci was the highest with 7.66 to go with his 38 goals in all competitions and 5 assists. Almada chipped in with 24 goals and 20 assists and Luka Romero had 23 goals and 13 assists. He achieved hero status with a 90th minute equaliser against Frosinone in our 3rd from last game of the season (with the last 2 being against relegation fodder). Not only did it save the invincible season, it also denied Frosinone promotion (unless they win the play offs).
All in all, the easiest season I've ever had. Roll on the next one where they want conference league football.
Well, I wrote that on 30th June, and then July came along, the Euro & the Copa America ended & everyone suddenly remembered me. I had job offers to take over the Turkey & Denmark national teams, as well as offers for interviews as Torino & Aston Villa, none of which I'd applied for. Villa became extremely interesting when they told me they'd give me a £62m transfer budget, but I didn't end up getting an offer, unlike Torino.
There was one other job that I did actually apply for, though. When I saw it had opened up it immediately struck me that it's pretty much the exact club that would take a chance on a manager with my profile...
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I've not hit continue yet since taking over, so I'm going to have a bit more of a look around to see where we can strengthen & who we can get. We don't really have a huge amount of time until the season starts, but I should have enough time to make a few moves & figure out the team a bit.
i've changed my mind
Lost the playoff final. Fucking hell.
That's a special effort. Playoffs can be infuriating. Currently 0/2 in my FC Eindhoven save.
Leagues that use H2H as the first separator are just scumpits.
That’s painful. Surely a runaway title win is incoming though - can’t keep finishing third without building up a strong team, just need to get the final piece to click then you’ll steamroll the league
The goal difference going up each year is a good sign. Needs hammering home that you need to break 73 points though. Throw some water bottles.
Lads, don't worry about it
much better than promotion
That qualifies you for the Conference League, I think.
I won that with Lazio. My fans considered it meaningless.
Atalanta 2028/29 Midseason Update
Having fallen into the perfect job following my departure from Groningen, I had a few weeks to overhaul a decent looking but not inspiring squad & see whether we would be the team pushing for Europe suggested by their Europa League qualification last season or the mid-table nobodies suggested by the board expectations.
TRANSFERS
We only had a transfer budget of about £12m to work with, but there were plenty of players who could be moved on to help create more funds, and through a combination of identifying the bargains already on my shortlist, sniffing out some release clause/transfer list steals & calling up some of my Groningen boys, we actually ended up able to make some significant upgrades. The question was, how well would they work?
LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE | EUROPA LEAGUE FIXTURES | EUROPA LEAGUE TABLE
Turns out the answer was immediately, as we went all the way to the end of October without dropping a point in either competition, beating current Champions League holders & winners of the last 5 Serie A titles Milan 3-0 at their place in the process. We've come back to the real world a bit since then, but we're still massively outperforming my expectations & in a great position to have a very successful season.
I do still need to put some work in to the squad depth, moving some players out to get game time & finding some others to bring in/recall from loans, but we have more than twice our initial transfer budget available to spend now, so there's definitely room for us to make some more upgrades if we can find the right players. We're also struggling for home grown at club players, but that should be solved in a season or two as there are some decent looking youngsters who aren't far away from the first team squad.
following season I'm currently in 11th after 15 gamesffs
Such a shame we didn't get another glorious bottle.
Absolutely wonderful nominative determinism for my new signing, the hard tackling...er, hard tackle.
Our first season back in Serie A was both beyond our wildest dreams and incredibly, incredibly frustrating....
Transfer wise our first move was to make the loan signing of Thiago Almada permanent for £14m rising to £18m. This transfer however counted against the Serie B campaign as it was agreed so early and took our net spend for that season to a lowly £4m (52 out, 48 in). With the club over £100m in debt, it was about the best I could do.
For our Serie A campaign, there was no money to spend. My first signing was a regen striker from Liverpool on a free named Taylor Hatton. He had played 3 times for Liverpool, scoring once, and spent most of his career on loan to the championship, most recently at Bristol City where he netted 8 times in 28 games. Sexy I know. He wasn't quite ready for us so he was loaned out to Spezia for the year and would end up scoring 15 goals in 37 Serie A games for them.
Next order of business was to find a Goalkeeper as Provedel had retired as an invincible. We agreed a deal with Marsielle so sign Evan Huriez for £4.3m (rising to 5.5m) despite the fact he'd never played a professional game in his life. Towards the end of the summer that fact started to scare me so we chucked £3.5m (mostly on installments) at Leicester for their experienced Italian keeper Guglielmo Vicario. Vicario started the season as number 1, played 4 games, got injured and never got the job back from Huriez.
Elsewhere we renewed the loans of Scholetterbeck, Vuskovic and Korosec who was a Slovenian DM who was genuinely class but only started to show it towards the end of our Serie B campaign. We also bought in Orkun Kokcu on loan from Spurs who looked like a revelation before he broke his leg and we sent him back in January. I sold off a bunch of players I wasn't using to offset some of the transfer business but no one notable. We also signed Christian Pulisic on a free, but he was a sub option only at his age.
In January, we had the funds for one player and as both my starting CBs (Schlotterbeck and Vuskovic) were on loan I used to to bring in a CB, Pedro Henrique a 23 year old Brazilian from Flamengo who cost me £8.5m (again largely on instalments). This took our net spend to a massive £11.25m when all was said and done.
This meant the line up was now:
GK- Huriez- not trusted to begin with but following the injury got the job and never gave it back. Called up to the France squad as a result but never capped. This summer we turned down bids in the region of £14m for him.
LB- Malacia
CB- Schlotterbeck and Viskovic, until Henrique arrived in January. I intended to introduce him gradually but long term injuries to both our starters meant he basically played every minute once he arrived.
RB- Armini
DMC- Antonio and Korosec
AML, AMR and ST- Unchanged- Martino, Romero, Ghillarducci and Almada.
And we fucking nailed it... but not quite enough. We got a ridiculous 93 points.... and Inter got 96. Fuming. At the start I'd have taken CL, obviously, but we had a number of results that looked like significant moments for a title challenge- including:
- Beating AC Milan (2-0) and Juventus (2-1) in our first 2 games.
- Beating Inter Milan twice, including thumping them 3-0 in the home game.
- Beating Bologna 4-2 after being 2-0 down and coming off a terrible run (where we got 1 points from 3 games against Atalanta, Pisa and Frosinone).
- Beating Juventus 5-0 in the 2nd meeting.
- Beating Empoli 4-2 after being 2-0 down at HT, lead by our captain (Martino) returning from injury at HT.
A really fun season but ultimately heartbreaking. Still, with the finances we have we shouldn't be competing with Inter who spend triple our wage bill and spent £200m on new players.
I played through the next summer and it was.... eventful.
We had a few deals lined up already, namely signing Cher Ndour on a free from Monza and Zeng Xianglong on a free from Arsenal. Zeng looked like an absolute beast of a DM and at only 23 was an ideal replacement for the outgoing Korosec. Unfortunately, due to the non-EU players rules, I couldn't register him. I thought I could register one per season and he would be my 1, but we also agreed deal for a Paraguayan striker from AC Milan named Claudio Meza and despite coming in later, he took the spot. After looking into it I think it might be because he had player international football whereas Zeng has not, but I'm not sure. Either way it meant we had a player who was valued at £50m+ when he was at Arsenal who couldn't play unless we sold one of Henrique, Antonio or a shit Colombian who AVB was mindlessly giving £80k a week on a 3 year deal (making him the 2nd highest paid player at the club when I arrived). Selling the Colombian lad was the obvious answer but he turned down anyone and everyone who came in for him, presumably because they wouldn't give him £80k when he was shite. I ever offered him + £500k to Man City for a shit youth player to try and get rid of him and he snubbed Man City.
Anyway, it turns out selling him to another Italian club doesn't count..... so now we had to sell one of our starters if we wanted to register Zeng. Marcus Antonio, however, was 31, out of contract in a year and didn't want to stay. We accepted bids of around £28m from Watford and West Ham and of course he snubbed them. £17m from Brighton.... snubbed. On deadline day I lost my patience and sold him to Wolves for £5m once again agreeing to cover part of his wages. For fuck sake. But at least Zeng was registered now. We filled his spot in the team on deadline day by signing Dale Ford on loan from Liverpool and Denis Zakaria from Juventus for £375k. Earlier in the summer we'd made our one big purchase of the year, raiding Sampdoria for Gianluca D'Agostino another young CB for £7.5m. We also signed another Striker from Milan for £3m with the intent on loaning him out for the future, but that hasn't materialised yet so he's rotting on the bench.
Line up wise we're very similar, with the only changes being:
Both CBs are gone- replaced with Henrique and D'Agostino
Both DMs are gone- replaced with Zeng Xianglong (who is a CM I'm retraining) and a combination of Dale Ford/Denis Zakaria/Cher NDour
Taylor Hatton has also carved out a role for himself playing either on the wing or up front when we want to rest someone and has started very well goal wise.
We've actually made a net profit on transfers by selling Hjulmand to Sporting for £7.5m and Antonio to Wolves for a pathetic £5m. That is due to change in January though because we have a deal arranged with Stoke to sign Hungarian international RB Balazs Kiralyvari who is better than Armini and is only 22 so a long term replacement.
Start of this campaign has been.... OK. We opened with 6-0 and 6-1 wins over Lecce and Spezia but once Antonio left our midfield we slipped up to draw with Pisa and lost to Empoli either side of a 5-2 win in my first ever Champions League game against Trabzonspor. Since then though we've won 4 league games, the most recent being beating Juventus 3-1 despite going down to 10 men inside half an hour. We also beat Ajax 2-1 away from home in my 2nd CL game. We currently sit top of the table, but only on GD above Milan after 8 games. I doubt we'll win the league, but this season the focus really needs to be going as far as we can in the Champions League to start clearing the massive debts AVB and his predecessors left for me. Getting rid of the shit Colombian is a big start, but there are still 2 other absolutely shite players on the wrong side of £50k a week that I need to be shot of. Thankfully, all their deals expire this year.
Last edited by Browning; 23-02-2023 at 12:40 AM.
Palamós CF 2036/37 Season Update:
Transfers Out:
Niko Andersson was bought for £525k 6 years ago and he never managed to become a starter. It didn't look like he ever would become one so I cashed in. We also get 20% of any profit.
This one stings a little Jorge Sanchez has been a magnificent servant for the club after signing for just £30.5k. Sadly last year he became a real after thought and barely played any minutes and he was struggling to score so I decided to move him on. £48m was a little on the low side considering how many goals he scored for us but I wanted him to play more games.
Transfers In:
I felt like LB might be our weakest position right now so I decided to bring in Roko Leko. He's pretty raw so will probably have to go out on loan again but I think he could be decent. He did get quite a lot of game time at Real Oviedo in La Liga this season which is good.
I'm stunned how cheap Jaume Fontan was as I think he could be special. He spent the season on loan with the club I bought him for which is probably a level too low for him (the 4th tier in Spain), not sure if he'll stay here next season or go on loan to another La Liga club.
Alberto Real is our record transfer ever at £85m. I tried to buy him in January when his clause was £50m but he chose to re-sign with Madrid upping his clause to £85m which, after some umming and ahhing, I decided to activate.
League:
That's three in a row now and also our most unconvincing. It was the lowest points total to win the league in the save and I really thought we were going to fluff it at one point. We had a lot of games where the team would just stop scoring and then let in a late goal to take away the win/draw. Madrid were sloppier though.
Cup:
We had a lot of suspensions going into the final which is a shame but oh well.
Europe:
After we beat Man City I thought this might be our year finally but to then struggle so much against the others was a real shitter which caused us to finish outside the top 8 for the first time.
Knockout Playoff:
No real trouble here which was to be expected.
Round of 16:
We had a shocking first half but responded well in the second half and had a good chance at the death to tie it up.
In the second leg we were horrendous and I'm not sure we even had a highlight, it was painful. What also stung was Renato Augusto, a man I tried to sign as my LB in the Summer (he's a natural LB/AML) but was beaten to him by Arsenal.
Our joint worst showing in a Champions League which came off the back of a semi-final last season. The board were not happy and neither were a core group of players in the team who I had to promise a quarter-final place next season.
Squad:
The squad, including all loanees, is pretty damn large. I wanted to trim it down some more in the Summer but was unable to do so and had to settle for loans, I will try again to shift some weight (I'm looking at Reinertz, Corradini, Parenti and Zaid Hassan). In terms of incomings I'm not sure what I'll do, it seems the players who would improve the first 11 all cost £150m which we don't quite have.
Well we've hit the "long term goal" of the save before winning the Champions League.
I guess I'm done as soon as I win the CL as we are officially BIGGER than Barcelona.
Still gotta pass Real though
Bayer Leverkusen are after this chap:
On the 26th of July they made an offer:
They came back on the 30th:
The 3rd of August:
The 7th:
The 11th:
Why is the AI so shit at making bids for your players?
Isn't that pretty much exactly how Man UFC tried to sign Bruno Fernandes the first time around?
Is his contract running down or something?
He's got 5 years left as I had a 2 year optional extension in his contract which was activated as soon as he got the hump about wanting to leave.
Atalanta 2028/29 Season Review
Well, we're going to break this one down competition by competition...
Coppa Italia:
We'll start with the one nobody cares about. We get the perks of not having to enter until the third round, and a draw against Cagliari was decent enough. Parma followed in the quarter finals & were also sent packing, setting up a semi final against Roma. They gave us a game at our place in the first leg, but only had 80mins in them & we proceeded to blow them away in the final 10mins, before finishing the job to put us in the final against Juventus.
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COPPA ITALIA FIXTURES
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Europa League:
We'd put ourselves in a strong position over the first half of the season, sitting 5th after 6 games, and we did enough to narrowly hold on to a top 8 spot & a place in the last 16. We ended up being drawn against Monaco, losing the first leg 2-0 before running wild on them at home, winning 5-0 to seal a quarter final spot. In a poetic turn of events, we were drawn against our former Dutch rivals Ajax in the last eight, and after seeing them off 1-0 in both legs we got another Dutch team in the semis in the form of PSV.
We should've taken the initiative in the first leg, but a 92nd minute equaliser sent us back to Italy with it all to play for, and we capitalised on home advantage with a 3-0 win that put us in to the final. The only problem was that our opponent was going to be Chelsea, who beat Braga 6-0 on aggregate in the other semi & won the Premier League this season...
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EUROPA LEAGUE FIXTURES
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Serie A:
After flying out the blocks at the start of the year & positioning ourselves for an unexpected title push, the battle for glory on three fronts took it's toll a bit down the back stretch. The games started stacking up & we had a run of injuries that thinned out the squad in some key spots, and we started having to look over our shoulders at Lazio, Napoli & Inter, who were all threatening to pip us at the finish line.
In the end it came down to our result in the final game of the season, with only a win giving us Champions League football.
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SERIE A FIXTURES
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KEY PLAYERS:
I was going to go over the whole first team squad, but I can't be arsed, so here's a speed version.
Kenneth Jorgensen - signed from Brondby for £4.9m in the summer, he's come in & immediately established himself as a quality goalscorer, breaking the club record for goals in a season & finishing as the top scorer in the Europa League.
Alessandro Plizzari - signed in the summer before I arrived, he's been by far the best GK I've had in the save, and he's also a beast at saving penalties. He's just earnt a call up to the national team, and it's fully deserved.
Ilie Mihaescu & Matteo Cancellieri - our two wide players both chipped in with plenty of goals & assists. Mihaescu was signed for £9m in the summer & has proven to be a bargain, whilst Cancelleri broke the club record for assists in a season
Giorgio Cittadini - we have a bunch of good CBs, but our club captain has combined good defending with elite corner cheesing, scoring a hilarious 10 goals this season. He's had Man Utd & PSG sniffing around him, and has said he wants to go, but we've agreed that he's not leaving for less than £49m, so hopefully that's enough to price him out of a move & he can stick around for a while longer.
SQUAD OVERVIEW
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I have a few areas that I'm looking at for the summer, although we do seem to be consistently losing money every month, so I'm not sure we can really afford to go chucking our £22m transfer budget around on just anyone. I've already identified a few players who might get moved on, and I'll be looking at some of our young players to see if they can help plug some gaps without us needing to open the chequebook.
I'm not sure what the aim will be for next season yet, but if we can consolidate & keep on tuning the squad we should end up in a good spot.
Well Leverkusen have stopped with the offers for the CDM.
Instead they came in and met the release clause of one of my backup AMC's:
£71m.
I like the kid and he's still got room to grow according to my coaches/scouts but that seems a bit excessive.
In an unexpected turn of events...
The Italy job opened up after they won the Nations League & Lucien Favre retired. I had a look at the WC2030 qualifying group & they have Austria, North Macedonia, Luxembourg & Belarus, which seems like a cruise but they've already lost once at home to Austria. I figured I could probably live with some of the issues that come from managing a club & international team at the same time for a year & then quit after the World Cup, but it will give me the chance to get in the good books of some of the young Italians I can then tempt to Atalanta.
The squad is mostly around 30, so I'll be trying to mix in a few younger players here & there, but considering I'm only here for a year it'll be veterans galore when the real games come around.
Anyone playing this on console? Don’t think the idea of using a joypad appeals to me though especially with this game.
Not this year but I have in the past. It’s pretty decent if you use the mode that basically makes the controller into a mouse.
Last edited by Browning; 28-02-2023 at 07:18 AM.
Can't remember who was asking but this version runs nicely on Steam Deck, although if you don't have a massive SSD version might have to sacrifice the custom logos and faces.
Last edited by Lofty; 01-03-2023 at 08:05 AM.
I played 22 on console & then 23 for a bit. It’s much quicker to get through a season as a lot of the faff has been removed, and I’m convinced it’s easier than the full game. The controller is a bit janky to navigate the tactics screen in particular, and I found myself switching between the mouse & pad settings for the cursor, but it’s actually fine once you get used to it.
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