FM11: Granada CF Thread - Campeón, campeón, El Granada es por bravura y corazón

[JEinchy]

2012/2013 - End of Season Review

La Liga

After a fourth place finish this season, the hope for this season was to do the same again. As it turns out, we did much better than that with a second place finish and only two defeats all season. It's because of this inability to lose that we managed to sustain a title challenge until the penultament game of the season.

The title race really heated up when, on week twenty-eight of the league, we went away to Barcelona, who were top of the table with the same amount of points we had. We drew the home game and we had to get at least a draw out of this game to maintain any sort of challenge to the title. With our 5-4-1 formation and a plucky performance, we escaped with a 1-1 draw. I thought it was pretty impressive considering our leaky defence and David Villa having an outstanding 31 goals in 28 appearances.

In the end, it wasn't that leaky defence that cost us, but my usually reliabe attack. Just two games after that all important result at the Camp Nou, we drew 1-1 away to Real Socieded which gave Barcelona a lead they just weren't going to squander. Three consecutive wins kept us in touch, but a lucky 0-0 draw away to Atletico Madrid and their fearsome strike partnership of Edin Dzeko and Sergio Agüero significantly lessened our chances. Another 0-0 draw at home to Getafe just a week after opened up a six point lead for Barcelona and effectively ended our title challenge. At the very least, we won our final three games.

All things considering though, second place is outstanding and way above my expectations.

Champions League

Qualification for the Champions League certai was difficult. A 6-4 aggregate win over Stuttgart in the qualfiers got us to the group stages, where we would play Bayern Munich, Manchester City and Trabzonspor. Can you say group of death?

We did really well, though. We beat Munich at home 1-0, and Trabzonspor 6-1 at home. We drew those games 1-1 away from home, as well. Qualification from the group came down to the last game. At home to Manchester City, who had defeated us at Eastlands, we threw everything at them and had a 1-0 lead going into the last ten minutes. Needing at least a point to qualify, City scored twice towards the end - Mario Balotelli with the winner in the very last second - and we lost the game 2-1. It was immensly disappointing, but I can't fault our performance in the group overall.

Europa League

So that meant playing in the Europa League. Perhaps fortunately, we didn't last too long in this competition. We played PSV Eindhoven in the round of thirty-two and won the first leg 2-1, but lost the away leg 3-1 where one of the goals was blatantly offside. I felt a bit hard done by, but in the end not having to play on a Thursday and not having the extra games helped us in the league.

Copa del Rey

Having won this competition last year, I was looking to do well in it again. And we did, by winning it for the second year in the row (incidentally, the first team to do so in over a decade).

Our route to the semi-final was relatively straight forward, with games against Atletico Beleares, Almeria and Espanyol. Then, in the semi-finals we played Real Madrid. We won a hard faught home leg 2-1 thanks to a late winner from David Albelda. The away leg was made even more difficult when several of my players were called away for international duty (much to my extreme displeasure), but we still managed to get a 1-1 draw, seeing us through to the finals.

In the final, we were up against Atletico Madrid and in a fairly even contest, we ran out 2-1 winners. Lorenzo Crisetig scored the winning goal.

The Players

Top Goalscoers

Carlos Vela - 32

Cristian Rodríguez - 12

Fernando Cavenaghi - 12

Fabían Orellana - 10

Andrea Esposito - 8

My most expensive signing delivered. Vela started off the season brilliantly and although his form did suffer a little after Christmas, he did very well to end with 32 goals, 20 of them in the league. Vela has been in no-mans land in terms of club football for a while now so it's nice for him to have an excellent season. Hopefully he continues like this.

One thing I always like in my teams is for all the other main attackers to chip in with a good number of goals and they have done here. Rodríguez and Orellana are my two starting wingers, while Cavenaghi is my main backup striker.

Esposito is the surprise here, and it just illustrates how good we are from corners. The delivery of Sigurðsson and Rodríguez being the main reasosn for this.

Top Providers

Christian Rodríguez - 21

Fabían Orellana - 16

Gyfil Sigurðsson - 13

Carlos Vela - 12

Fernando Belluschi - 10

All four of my attackers got a substantial amount of assists, which is very pleasing. Rodríguez started off slowly but really came into his own towards the end of the season, even to the point of being considered for player of the year. Conversely, Orellana started excellently but had his injury interrupted by injury.

Sigurðsson did well in his first season for us. Belluschi had a couple of bad injuries but helped us out greatly by producing a couple moments of class.

What's Next?

I plan on consilidating this existing squad mainly, but I will be trying to strengthen my defence by adding a left back and centre back, probably a goalkeeper as well. Hopefully, I can get Crisetig on a permanent deal (or loan, at the very least) since Albelda is retiring. If not, then I'll be in the market for a midfielder, too.

With some shrewd signings, we should be able to compete for the title again next season.

[heathxxx]

Very pleasing to see Orellana doing so well for you.

IRL he's finished his loan with Granada CF and it doesn't look like he's coming back for another season. I think he fancies his chances of cementing a place in the Udinese team, with Alexis Sánchez moving to Barcelona. Obviously with Champions League football on offer there, I can hardly blame him.

In my save, after the first season with my Granada CF side, he went back to Udinese, who immediately sold him to Russian side Rubin Kazan. He's consistently been their best performing player for the last two seasons. I liked his flexibility, given he's at least "accomplished" in any of the midfield positions, bar defensive midfield. Very handy player to have in a squad.

Not sure how you're getting on with the structure of the club itself and building a youth system, but that's been the biggest strength of my own save. I've been lucky with the board agreeing to my infrastructure improvement requests and now facilities are pretty much maxxed out. I've a huge scouting network, via feeder clubs and 21 scouts, who are always out on assignments around the world. I rarely miss spotting a talented youngster and always try to grab them whilst they're cheap. That's been the mainstay of my success, given that regens form most of the key components of my midfield and attack. I've also got good defenders breaking into the squad.

Even if they don't make it into the first team, I've got "assets" that have value. I reckon I can make at least 10 million a season selling youngsters that I've had for a year or two and won't make it with my club. That's a great source of revenue for the club. I now even bring in a few youngsters who I know will never feature in the first team, but I can develop them for a year or two, loan them out for a spell, then sell for a huge profit.

[JEinchy]

Unfortunately I've not improved the structure of the club one bit since taking over. The training facilities were in the progress of being upgraded but the development was cancelled because of a lack of funds - a result of me spending a bit too much on transfers, I believe. I've just gotten that restarted.

The board are being a bit tight, though. They won't let me upgrade the youth facilities or network at the moment, and they don't think we need a feeder club. Stadium upgrade are out of the question at the moment.

This is why I'm trying not to spend so much this summer. I want to devote most the clubs finances into the infrastructure, although with me needing two backup wingers and a centre back that might be difficult.

I've already spent £11,750,000 on three players: Diego Alves from Almería, Igor Denisov from Zenit and Lorenzo Crisetig from Inter. Hopefully Roberto Canella will come in from Malaga for £5,500,000, which leaves me about £20,000,000 to spend on a centre back and two backup wingers (right and left, of course). I only want to spend less than half of that, though, and finding a good quality centre back for that amount is proving difficult. Arsene Wenger has influenced me too much.

[heathxxx]

That may be the key difference between our two saves so far, even though you're still doing very well.

From the very start, I looked to develop the club from the ground up. It's something I try to do with any save, with the belief that the early efforts will begin to pay dividends a couple of years later. That's certainly been the case for me, especially with the younger players and regens.

It's worth looking around for bargain youngsters who your scouts suggest have good potential. Even if they don't make it at your club, you can sell them at a healthy profit. For example, what I gained selling two or three youngsters that weren't good enough for me to keep, covered the cost of signing Angel Di Maria from Real Madrid, his fees and his wages for a year. All three of those youngsters cost me a combined total of no more than 250k when I first signed them. Certainly worth a punt on even half-decent looking young players.

Get as many scouts employed as you possibly can. Get as many as you can of different nationalities and country knowledge. For example, there's no point having more than one or two with Spain country knowledge. Keep them busy always. All my scouts are continuously on assignment and as soon as I get the inbox message they've finished their scouting assignment, I immediately send them somewhere else. Others I leave permanently scouting regions or countries.

When it comes to facility upgrades and improvements to staff numbers, whenever an option is available, ask for it. It's sometimes easy to forget, but in the first couple of seasons, I made a point of checking the board room options at least once a week. If for example, an option wasn't greyed out with "scouting network", I'd ask for it. If my request was rejected, I'd wait until it was available once more, then ask again. You've just got to be persistent. Obviously having money in the bank goes a long way towards being successful with some of the requests, especially to training facilities.

As for a centre back, I signed Alberto Botía from Sporting (Gijon) for 7m in the second season, which was a big outlay at the time. He's been outstanding as Central Defender "Cover" for me and has started to become a regular fixture in the Spanish national team. I'd rate him as having been one of my best signings in this save.

Mamadou Sakho was a bargain for me on a free transfer last season, but he seems to blow hot and cold when it comes to his form. One match he'll be outstanding, then the next he'll be average or poor.

Alou Diarra I signed on a free from Bordeaux this summer and although he's only "competent" in the DC position, he's been exceptional when called upon to play as a Central Defender or Limited Defender "Stopper". I would actually consider his attributes place him amongst the best suited for a "Stopper" in the game.

As for the rest, Phil Jones cost me a whopping 25m from Blackburn, after I'd been tracking him for two seasons. He's clearly one of the best central defenders in the game and can comfortably perform as either "Stopper" or "Cover". Iliasu Shilla was my very first signing in this save and has been an excellent servant to the club. He was a free transfer and plays best as a "Stopper". Even though he plays less now I've much better players, I've kept him and he's never let me down when called upon. Finally, last season I signed Kara for 1m from Tromso in Norway. A bargain price for a player who's primary position is DMC, but is "accomplished" at DC and MC. He actually plays very well as a Limited Defender "Stopper" or Defensive Midfielder "Anchor Man".

[JEinchy]

My aim for the beginning was to establish the club in La Liga first and then slowly build towards better things, but unexpected success kind of accelerated the process a bit. Now, though, the club is getting richer all the time and I don't need to spend that much money to improve the squad, which is good and young enough to last me for another three or four seasons. So I should be able to improve the clubs infrastructure now. That's going to be my main focus.

Usually I only sign young players if I know I can give them playing time. I know developing youth is a good source of revunue, but I find it a bit of a waste to sign a promising talent but not give him the time he needs to develop. Maybe when I get a good feeder club I'll buy more youngsters, but for the time being I need to stick with players who are the finished product in order to ensure Champions League football.

I did get the players I needed in the end. Osmar Ferreyra for £500,000 from Osasuna to cover both wings and Yacine Bahrimi from Stade Rennais for £5,500,000. Slightly expensive but he's a promising talent who can cover all midfield positions bar defensive midfield. I also got Kyle Bartley on loan, mainly because of his outstanding physical attributes. He'll be able to cover both cover and stopper centre back positions.

Season has started well, despite losing the Super Cup to Barcelona 3-2 on aggregate (last minute Bojan penalty ). Then there's probably the best result in my whole career so far:

[heathxxx]

There's just something about Real Madrid, that I've always found pretty straightforward beating. Arbeloa, Albiol and Marcelo seem to have stinkers when they play my team. Probably because I instruct my team to put them under pressure. Love it when Garay is playing at the back for them too, as he's most certainly a weak link for them.

Just going into my first encounter with Barcelona of this season, season 4. They're the team I really want to gain some dominance over in matches. Our record is pretty good, but the games are always tight, with the exception of the Champions League final last season, where they had two men sent off and we ran out 4-1 winners, the only other comfortable "looking" result was a 3-1 win in the second leg of the Super Cup at the start of last season, having lost the first leg 1-0. The score belied the fact that they were much more dominant in the match. We were lucky but more clinical in the finish, plus my keeper was most certainly deserving of his MoM award.

So, I like to think of Barcelona as the barometer of the quality of my team's progress...

[JEinchy]

I just entered January. This is the table at the moment:

Already five points behind Barcelona, though we've yet to play them. The team has a been a bit inconsistent this term; they go from brilliantly beating teams by four or five goals to drawing against weaker teams and conceding stupid goals. It's a rather annoying problem that's resulted in us drawing far too many games for my liking.

On a more positive note, I've managed to qualify from my Champions League group which had Chelsea, Dortmund and Ajax in it. We actually won the group, winning three, drawing two and losing the last game away to Chelsea. Not bad at all. We've got CSKA Moscow in the first knockout round and I fancy my chances of getting through.

I'm not planning on making any major signigns this January, but I have secured the signigns of four talented young players that my scouts had found:

Rafael Cruz - A striker from El Salvador. Looks like he may turns into a good poacher in the future.

Jay Gimpel - An English striker of Danish descent who plying his trade at Brondby. Another potentially good poacher.

David Belloti - Has the makings to become a good target man striker, which is something I haven't had since Geijo was at the club. Might prove useful in the future.

German Siqueira - A right footed left winger. Might become a good inside forward.

On a slightly unrelated note, I am now the manager of the Belgian national team. Should be an exciting endeavour given all the young talent they have.

[john1]

Good youngsters you've signed (Y) surprisely you're doing well

[JEinchy]

Talk about smash and grab:

Can't believe we managed to get through in the end.

[AcidBurn]

My game is in 2030 and after travelling around a lot I have been offered the chance to manage Granada who have been a top division team for 15 seasons but are currently bottom. The side is only 3 points from safety with 5 points separating 20th to 14th after 14 games.