Bitner Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 4 horas atrás, wesl disse: Hey now, Rueda lost in the semifinals to a Chinese team in 2024! He didn't lose the final :P But you're doing great bud. Hope Tiago Nunes emulates you Cheers, Bitner 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 13, 2020 Author Share Posted February 13, 2020 The 2026 World Cup is currently taking place in my save. We got a few players in it. We got four players in the Brazilian squad. We are trailed by City (Gabriel Jesus, Arthur, and Ederson) and Liverpool (Firmino, Fabinho and Eder Militao) as the teams with most players in the verde-amarelha. The only other player in Brazil's squad who doesn't play in Europe is Jean, formerly of SPFC and Flamengo, and now Inter's goalkeeper. From our players, Austregésilo is the only one who has become a constant starter for Brazil, he's also the youngest member of the squad. Casemiro starts some games. Kunrath and Nogueira seem to be strictly back-up options for now. Arrieta has made it into the Argentinian squad! Considering some of the Argentinian regens I've seen, this is quite the achievement. He's already made his national team debut coming on as a late sub in a friendly. He also seems to be only a back-up for now. Brazil and Argentina are among the contenders to win the North American World Cup, but it'll be hard to dethrone France. Ecuador qualified through the intercontinental playoffs and our inside forward Rodríguez is one of their best players. There's no expectations for them but with a group of Denmark and Ivory Coast they could progress to the knockout rounds. Now is as good a time as any to talk about our 2026 transfers, which I have neglected to do. Me and my DoF were quite busy poaching youngsters from all over South America. Only Roberto Carlos is a first team signing. This is Roberto Carlos, he is quite the player. Although he's quite different to Austregésilo (worse on most attributes, particularly physicals, but slightly better passing), he's been signed as a "replacement" for him. He wanted out of Fluminense after they got relegated. He got listed for a meagre R$7.25M in January. I started monitoring him back then and was planning to move for him after we finally got a bid for Austregésilo, but Grêmio and Cruzeiro forced my hand by making bids for Roberto Carlos in April. So far he's been playing in the same role as Austregésilo, but I will have to tailor this to take better advantage of his incredible passing. We sold off three first team members in Jailson, Léo Pereira and Pineda. Ángel Romero also left on a free to Mexico's América. This weakens our squad a bit, but none of them are going to a team we play against and it makes room for youngsters who have a higher ceiling. The only player I didn't want to lose was Pineda, but Guangzhou made a great bid for him and he wanted to leave. They made an even better bid for Lauro Kunrath, but he chose to stay! Just for show, these are all the players we've loaned out. José Elenilton is the best of them right now, he's spent three years on loan in Série B and done great (24 goals scored). This is his first year playing for a Série A team, Vitória. I will have to give him a chance in the first team if I decide to stay for another year. GK Rúbio, DM Dimitri Ferreira, CM Thiago and AM Ricardo Cascardo are also close to breaking into the first team. We've had four players break into the first team this year. The first is Lineker (no relation, as far as I can tell), recently labeled as a wonderkid. He's been amazing as our starting left forward. Just scored 5 goals in two games. Off-the ball, teamwork and decisions make him a great fit anywhere, he's getting carded a lot because of our high pressure but I think we can improve that with some focus on defensive attributes. César is another wonderkid. He was technically in the reserves last year, but he was my main substitute for Austregésilo and played a whooping 37 games for us. I finally promoted him this year, and his performance and attributes haven't improved much, unlike Lineker's. He also has passing as his best attribute, so the AMC role will definitely need to be reworked after Austregésilo leaves. Belao is our new option at centre-back. His average rating is over 7.5, which is too high since he's costed us a few goals. An interesting prospect, since his mentals and physicals are great, but his technicals lag way behind. He's already getting to a point with his passing where he can fulfill the BPD role, but needs to improve defensive fundamentals a lot to become an option as a starter. Finally, we have Terra. He got promoted after Pineda got sold, which was a bit of an emergency. He's been great though, he has six goals in 19 appearances and has surprisingly been as good as Pineda. He has all the right attributes and might become an undisputed starter as a teenager if he keeps this up! We have one more signing in the pipeline, and it's a big one. Like with Casemiro, we are paying really high wages for Marquinhos, but it's worth it. Just a great fit any way you look at it, and another signing which raises the bar for us! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 14, 2020 Author Share Posted February 14, 2020 Austregésilo has finally left for a team at his level. We only got R$80M, but we have a 50% clause on next transfer (he has a R$1B release clause, which is 210M euro, half of that would be 5x our profit per year). Of course, his value immediately quadrupled. Over the seven seasons in this save, no one has been sold for Neymar/Rodrygo money. Austregésilo is actually the most expensive transfer from Série A so far, at only 16M euro. It just seems impossible for player's transfer value to rise beyond that point in Brazil, and most elite players are adamant about getting release clauses in their contract. This all makes it hard to get fair value from European transfers. Oh well, it was really fun playing with Austregésilo, he became one of my favorite FM players in just a season and a half. He scored 42 goals and 25 assists in that time and became a club icon and a national team starter. 2026 Série A A good run, but our form has been uneven compared to last year. The Santos game was just... terrible. It felt like karma for our win in the state league semifinal. They had one shot in 90 minutes, which they scored, and naturally they equalised on injury time thanks to a long shot from Caxias academy graduate Gérson. It's good that he's now a starter for a big team but I'd prefer if he wouldn't score against me! We followed that with a season highlight, a hue win over Cruzeiro where Austregésilo shone with 2 goals and 3 assists against his former team. This was one of his last games for us, and a fine way to say goodbye. Our World Cup players left after the Bahia game but we got two solid wins (thanks to five goals from Lineker!) and a loss which isn't terrible against Sao Paulo. We have a month off after the Sao Paulo game while the WC takes place. Despite their humiliating loss against us, Cruzeiro have been very good and are top of the table. We would be first if we won our games in hand, but I don't think we are winning the league if Cruzeiro keeps up this pace. Copa Libertadores The group was a cakewalk. Talleres were the toughest team to face but they folded at Arena Corinthians. If I could change a thing about this save, it would be getitng editor files for every South American league and activating them. The gap between Argentinian and Brazilian teams and the rest is too wide. Despite their poor performance in Série A, Grêmio were the only team to win all games in the group stage. We will be playing Chile's Colo Colo in the second round, we should win that. If we do, we'll be facing the winner of Palmeiras/Boca. Quite a tough draw, which may have the best three teams in the continent in the same quadrant. Copa do Brasil A good second half away was enough to beat Vitória. We played a heavily rotated team at home and failed to score, but we didn't need to. We're facing the other major team from Salvador in the quarter-finals. We beat Bahia in this same instance last year, and with Palmeiras and Cruzeiro already out of the cup this could be the year we win it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 16, 2020 Author Share Posted February 16, 2020 2026 Série A Since Austregésilo left we've been generating fewer chances and scoring less, but we had an almost perfect run in the league. Ribeiro has been fantastic, some adjustments to the AMR and AMC roles have given him more room to play in, and he looks like a pure winger at times. Nogueira and Bernardo have been more clinical than usual and our defense is humming along nicely. Everton Felipe suffered a major injury and he'll be out until November, César and Nogueira also missed a few weeks, but the youngsters have performed fairly well when they stepped up. With a game in hand and a solid lead, we're back in a comfortable spot to win this thing. Cruzeiro and Chapecoense are back to normal after their great start, and it looks like our main competitors will be the other two teams from this city. Copa do Brasil We couldn't create anything in Salvador and suffered a loss. Rato, a 25-year-old Bahia youth academy product and former supporter, was ruthless and scored twice when our defenders left him unmarked. Roberto Carlos was the hero in the second leg, as he scored two goals to send us to penalties (the latter a major fluke off a corner). He missed his penalty, and just when it looked like it was over, Bahia missed their last two penalties to send us through. We'll be facing Série B's leader Fluminense, who surprisingly beat Santos, in the semifinals. Copa Libertadores We limited Colo Colo, one of Chile's best teams, to a single shot during both legs. The gap between countries in this save is just unfair. Palmeiras beat Boca on away goals, thanks to a last minute goal from Robert Piris in La Bombonera. We'll have a derby in the Libertadores quarter-finals. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) 2026 Série A We're rolling now, any offensive woes have disappeared thanks to Rodríguez and Osni. But, they both got injured during October so we need to figure something out to keep things going smoothly. The league is basically in the bag for us. We only need five more wins, and that's if SPFC don't drop any points. Copa do Brasil These were one of the few matches where fatigue and rotation really affected us. The less said about this tie the better, but we came through in the end. As always in the cup, it had to be a hard-fought tie. We were better but only won by a single goal. This is one of the trophies I'm most proud of with Corinthians. Even though we faced worse opposition than in the Libertadores, we had to overcome a lot of adverse situations. Copa Libertadores An incredible win in a Libertadores derby. The own goal that opened up the scoring in Allianz was fortuitous, but we played a fantastic second half, led by our new offensive force Casemiro. As it turns out, activating "shoots more" instruction for him leads to a bunch of goals. To add insult to injury, I played the youngsters in the second leg. I knew we werent' going to lose the lead, but I didn't expect to win. Our carioca magician poached from Fluminense in January, Ademar, blasted in a free kick to make things more humiliating for Palmeiras. He's only 16 and already had quite a few good performances in continental competition. Another Libertadores derby, another win. We got a narrow lead from a tough game in Santos' new stadium. Once again, goals from a midfielder secured the win for us, with Arrieta getting a brace at home. The final will be us facing Racing in Santiago. If we win, we'll tie Independiente's record for four consecutive Libertadores won. It's been a great run, beating two fierce rivals and not conceding since the group stage, but if we don't win it won't matter. Edited February 20, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) Brazil offered me a job. I though about it long and hard, but decided to turn it down. A job would've allowed me to keep playing elite football even after I leave for the rainforest, which I'll have to do eventually but I just wasn't that interested in managing a national team right now. Maybe in a few seasons. In turn, I've extended my stay at Corinthians. The aim of this save is "Winning Every State League", and the name of my avatar even comes from that phrase (wesl -> Wes L -> Weston Lopes). I've already accomplished this in Corinthians twice. But the truth is, it's been fun but it hasn't been that big of a challenge. I thought about what would be a major challenge for a club that is expected to win the Libertadores year in year out, and the only answer was being this dominant force for years on end. So, because I'm not entirely fulfilled by what we've accomplished so far, but I also don't want to be here for decades (I do want to go to the rainforest at some point)... I'm staying until Corinthians has the most Série A titles in Brazil. We're currently at nine and, unless tragedy strikes, we'll reach ten this year. Santos has eleven national championships, so if we keep our streak going we will top them in 2028. If we fail to win once, I'll stay for another year but I'm leaving in 2029 no matter what happens. The rainforest beckons. I was signing cheap foreign players (a Serbian forward, a South African midfielder, etc.) in future transfers for the next Corinthians manager, but roughly a month after signing my new contract a huge opportunity came along. Hurtado is likely the best player in South America since Austregésilo left. I briefly posted about him when he was in Grêmio. He was part of Grêmio's cadre of amazing regens which included Kunrath, Tshabalala (now at Porto), Joao Pedro (now Austregésilo's team-mate in Madrid), etc. He signed for Boca in 2023, and has since become a club legend there, bagging 71 goals and winning three leagues. I'll talk more about him at the end of this season, as I try to figure out the mess of a roster that I've created. Boca has signed Peruvian Inter forward Jordan Herrera as his replacement. Herrera is a tasmanian devil, one of the speediest players in Brazil and a good goalscorer. He's tailor-made to play against our defensive line. Nevertheless, he's worse than Hurtado. Inter hasn't threatened us in the league but they can be a real pain in the ass to play against. In summary, we get stronger by signing a player we didn't really need but is better than anyone on our team, while two of our competitive rivals gets weaker. This game is so easy with money! Edited February 20, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 What a wonderful career you've had, to date! Nobody can begrudge you another few years with Corinthians, given the players you've had and will continue to have. Just a reminder - how many state leagues have you won, to date? Do you, realistically, think you can do them all? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 14 hours ago, _Ben_ said: What a wonderful career you've had, to date! Nobody can begrudge you another few years with Corinthians, given the players you've had and will continue to have. Just a reminder - how many state leagues have you won, to date? Do you, realistically, think you can do them all? Only three, one at Caxias and two at Corinthians. So we're 2/27 in terms of states conquered after 7 seasons. Progress has been slow but I think the pace could pick up once I leave the rainforest. The problem is I get attached to most FM teams and even leaving Caxias was something I had to mull over. I reckon if I stick with it for a couple real-life years (and the save is never corrupted and whatnot), I could do it. Most seasons I've played in a FM save is something like 25-30, but I've been playing at a very fast pace with this save. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) 2026 Série A We closed out the season strongly. Even the loss to Vitória has a silver lining, as their player of the match was Jose Elenilton, a 23-year-old loanee from us who will have a spot in our team next year no matter what after two great seasons at Goiás and Vitória. A 5-0 win with a rotated team at Beira Rio was the perfect way to close things out, against the team that was my bogeyman with Caxias. Other teams may give us really tough games, but no one is as consistent as us. Teams 2 through 6 would all be rightful champions most years but this team is just an anomaly. Need to do this two more times before leaving. Copa Libertadores Racing was a team almost exclusively composed of home-grown players. I've never seen an AI team with so many one-club men, some of whom have been with Racing since they won the Copa Sudamericana in 2019. While we have an important share of academy graduates, most of our important players got their start elsewhere. It was strange to manage the evil empire against the young upstarts, but we were ruthless and dominated from beginning to end, even after Ayrton got a double booking. The win gets us our fourth consecutive Libertadores trophy, tying Pastoriza and Bochini's Independiente. Getting a win next year would be massive. Coincidentally, next year's final will be played in Monumental, the place this run started at when Rueda's Corinthians humiliated River in 2023. Club World Cup Fariñez was injured during the league home-stretch, which meant we had to play this with Diego Eli, a keeper with only 30 first-team games under his belt. Out of all the teams in the CWC, I didn't want to face Montreal, because they're the locals. We had one early at the back but ended up winning comfortably. Roberto Carlos was magnificent, the 22nd minute shot he sent into the top corner from the edge of the area kept this from being a nervy game like last year's semifinal against Guangzhou. Europe's champions Real Madrid predictably had no trouble with Shanggang. A win to be proud of! Like last year against PSG, we were the better team for most of the game. Real had a weakened team without Austregésilo and Joao Pedro (and they certainly cared less than us, if such a thing is possible in FM), but I was surprised by how little resistance they offered. We controlled possession with accurate passing and won the ball back easily. We didn't shoot 30 times like we do in our best matches, we outshot them 15 to 7 with most of their attempts being from long distance. While it was a great performance, it was a comical defensive mistake from Real's newly signed left-back Aaron Martín that gave us the win. He attempted a weak backpass to his keeper, which left the ball in limbo in the middle of their box. Roberto Carlos recognized this, and ran what felt like 30 meters to cooly slot it in past Courtois. I went to the 4-1-2-3-0 formation for the first time in months after 70 minutes. It led to our worst 5 minutes in this match and Real's clearest chance, a Felix Arp shot which Eli bravely kept out. Lowering our mentality and tweaking the most attacking central midfielder's instructions to make him more cautious sorted everything out. The last 10 minutes had no drama, and SCCP are world champions again! This is Corinthians' fourth Mundial, which equals Real Madrid's tally as the teams that have won it the most. I've tweaked PI a lot to keep the team from becoming stagnant like my Caxias side did. But the way we play is pretty much set, and I won't change the formation unless I figure out a way to field another forward. Galacticos ****. We had to rotate a lot, due to injuries and playing 85 games in 12 months. Only four players broke 25 Série A starts. The players depicted are the ones who started the most. 18-year-old playmaker Terra was surprisngly great, scoring 10 times and starting both Libertadores and CWC finals, after being promoted basically due to an emergency when Orbelín Pineda left for China in February. This was also the season when Osni and Edwin Rodríguez established themselves as elite forwards, leading the scoring charts with 23 and 17 goals, despite missing a lot of time. The other player I want to briefly highlight is Gabigol. He was transfer-listed when I got here and I think I'll have to sell him since we have so many young forwards who'll be back from loan and a couple incoming transfers. He's been a magical player for us in both seasons, scoring often at times when we really needed a goal. Our best player was our fearless captain, Joao Pedro Ribeiro. A classic case of overperforming my expectations based on his attributes. He just goes on great forward runs, with our set-up leading to him often arriving unmarked in the final third and getting a lot of freedom to cut inside and look for a pass, or hugging the touchline and squaring the ball. He's obviously reminiscent of Dani Alves in that role. He is also one of our best FK takers. He got six goals and 21 assists, a great season capped off by a player of the match performance against Madrid. Not much else to say, it was a fantastic season. Edited February 20, 2020 by wesl 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitner Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Great season e VAI CORINTHIANS! Finally a CWC win :P Cheers, Bitner 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bestbrother Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Cracking run with Corinthians, will be a hard pull to leave them no doubt... will be interesting if you go to another big team to win in Rio, or try your luck with a smaller team in one of the more obscure States. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) 2026 season Série A Absolute dominance. Eat your heart out, Santasticos. Naútico, Figueirense, Coritiba and Ponte Preta have been relegated. Série B Fluminense, Atlético Paranaense and Caxias (now led by Mano Menezes) are coming straight back to the top league. América Mineiro is also back after two years. América (RN), CRB, Ferroviario and Paysandu will play in Série C next year. Série C Juventude won this league for the second time. Fortaleza, Desportiva, and Criciúma will be joining them in the second tier. All relegated teams come from either Paraiba or Sao Paulo, with Botafogo (PB), Campinense, Sao Bento and Sao Caetano going down. Série D Portuguesa (RJ) are 2026 champions. Sao Jose (RS), ASA and URT are also going up. Copa do Brasil This might be the most thrilling tournament in this save. Few blowouts and lots of ties going down to the wire. In the end, Corinthias pulled through. State leagues Campeonato Acriano: Atlético Acreano (15th title) Campeonato Alagoano: CRB (33rd title) Campeonato Amapaense: Ypiranga (AP) (14th title) Campeonato Amazonense: São Raimundo (AM) (10th title) Campeonato Bahiano: Bahia (53rd title) Campeonato Cearense: Fortaleza (44th title) Campeonato Brasiliense: Brasiliense (18th title) Campeonato Capixaba: Doze (3rd title) Campeonato Goiano: Goiás (34th title) Campeonato Maranhense: Moto Club (27th title) Campeonato Mato-Grossense: Luverdense (5th title) Campeonato Sul-Mato-Grossense: Operário (MS) (17th title) Campeonato Mineiro: Cruzeiro (44th title) Campeonato Paraense: Paysandu (54th title) Campeonato Paraibano: Botafogo (PB) (36th title) Campeonato Paranaense: Atlético Paranaense (29th title) Campeonato Pernambucano: Naútico (25th title) Campeonato Piauiense: Altos (PI) (10th title) Campeonato Carioca: Fluminense (34th title) Campeonato Potiguar: América (RN) (35th title) Campeonato Gaucho: Grêmio (41st title) Campeonato Rondoniense: Rondoniense (8th title) Campeonato Roraimense: Baré (14th title) Campeonato Catarinense: Avaí (18th title) Campeonato Paulista: Corinthians (31st title) Campeonato Sergipano: Sergipe (39th title) Campeonato Tocantinense: Tocantins de Miracema (7th title) Copa Libertadores Racing and Corinthians had dream runs to the final, but Corinthians is just too strong. Copa Sudamericana Another trophy for Estudiantes, one of the most succesful teams at a continental level. They beat Botafogo on pens. World Cup The first 48 team WC had a very dull group stage so I'll just briefly recap the knockout stages. Cameroon and Nigeria shocked Belgium and Colombia respectively to make it to the third round. Meanwhile Ecuador beat Uruguay thanks to an extra time pen from Independiente del Valle's Michel Estrada. Croatia gave the world another shock, as the 2018 finalists eliminated Spain. Nigeria-Ecuador was a thrilling game, where the Eagles eventually pulled through. England got some measure of revenge against Argentina in the quarter-final. Croatia gave Germany a very tough game but the Mannschaft advanced and went on to crush Nigeria and England to reach the final. In the other side of the tournament, Jamaica and Denmark made it to the quarter-final. Jamaica has to be the biggest surprise of the tournament. They even eliminated one of the hosts, the United States. Brazil had another heart-breaking failure this time. They went out to a very good Italy team, but only in the second round. France needed penalties to get past Portugal and a miraculous extra-time goal from Odsonne Edouard to beat Italy, but they reached the final for the third time. A thrilling final between two great teams. It seemed like Germany would reclaim the Cup with 10 minutes left but Dembelé equalised with two goals as the game wound down. He then missed his penalty but France was more clinical through the rest of the shootout, and they've crowned themselves champions for the third time in a row. Edited February 20, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 3 hours ago, bestbrother said: Cracking run with Corinthians, will be a hard pull to leave them no doubt... will be interesting if you go to another big team to win in Rio, or try your luck with a smaller team in one of the more obscure States. The plan is going to a state with no clubs in the top three national leagues. Although, trying to beat this Corinthians team would be a great challenge. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
diogos Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 Austregésilo :~~ following your topic. great achievements! it will be interesting when it goes to the Amazonas state league haha 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 21, 2020 Author Share Posted February 21, 2020 (edited) These are my outgoing transfers for next season. Highlighted are former first team members. Al-Hilal overpaid for Ayrton Lucas, he was very good as our starting left-back but he's 30 and we have 21-year-old Panda who is already a proven player, and was only slightly worse than Ayrton. Everton Felipe had one of the higher reputations when I got here, as he was one of Reinaldo Rueda's marquee signings in 2024. He suffered a major injury during last seasons and I just decided to sell him. Al-Hilal came in paying his full value. 22-year-old Marcos Vinicius was very solid for us, and his high passing and creativty in a midfield destroyer mold made him fairly unique. Our staff didn't think he would improve further and we have two midfielders who are a couple years younger and already as good as him (Vinicius' transfer value was 20x higher), as well as a new signing who is much better. Gabigol is the one player I would've liked to keep for another year, but we have too many forwards as is. Saint-Etienne is a great landing spot, and the game has him scoring a goal per game after six appearances in the greyed out Ligue 1. As customary, we've loaned out a lot of players. Argentinian forward Godoy is the highest rated by potential. 21-year-old Godoy was a free transfer brought in by the DoF from Second Division side All Boys last July. He started some league games during our injury crisis, but he was fairly poor despite his attributes indicating he should be good. He has ridiculous pace, but the impossibility of scoring one-on-ones makes that less valuable for a striker. Maybe he's just a bad fit for us. Either way, I won't sell him so he's an option for Corinthians' next manager. I finalised this year's incoming transfers months ago, but here they are. Quite happy with what we've paid for Tutalchá, Martinovic and Mohlala. All of them are starting calibre players, and they've costed us a tenth (maybe less) of what they could be sold for. Hurtado was obviously more expensive, but he's a world class player. The problem is, these are all transfers I made based on their relative value, not on how much we needed them. We've promoted 4 players who were previously on loan or part of our youth teams. We could've made no signings and still had a full squad this year. At Caxias, I worked with squads as small as 17 players, and used youth players to fill out the 12-man bench. I had between 21-23 players in my past two seasons in Corinthians. Now, I have 26 + a handful of U-20 players who I'd like to keep playing. It's a good problem to have, but I'll have to figure out a way to spread out playing time. I'll do a squad overview soon, focusing on the new arrivals/promoted players. Edited February 21, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 23, 2020 Author Share Posted February 23, 2020 This is our squad. As I said, we have too many players. Most of them are young and could be sold for big bucks, but it's still too many players. I'll try to fix this the way I try to fix every problem, with a spreadsheet. Here are some words on our players, with screenshots of the new ones. Goalkeepers Our #1 is Wuilker Fariñez. He's an incredible shot-stopper, we don't concede many shots but a number of them are high percentage shots, due to our high d-line. Fariñez excels in the area we need him to. There may be better-rounded keepers with better attributes/ratings we could get, but few match him in that aspect and we would need to pay a lot to get them. His back-up is Diego Eli, a decent keeper. He won us the CWC against Real Madrid so he's gonna have a place as back-up as long as I'm here. Full-backs On the right we have our captain, Ribeiro. Spoken enough about him, I think. He's only 26 which means we have no concerns here. His back-up is Tevez (no relation), a 19-year-old academy product who's entering his third year as a first team member. Tevez's development stagnated a bit in the past year but he's always been quite good going forward. The Ayrton Lucas sales leaves Panda as our definitive left-back starter. He's great defensively, which with the right-back often going on forward runs is of key importance. We needed a new left-back for depth (we've been playing 80 games per year). Luckily, one of the brightest prospects from the 2025 intake is a left-back. Cléber has already appeared in 13 first team games between '25 and '26. The glaring weakness is his workrate, which with our defensive line makes me a bit uneasy to play him. Another side of his game that I would like him to improve upon is crossing. Even though our left-back is more defensively minded than Ribeiro, Ayrton and Panda have picked up many assists with timely deep crosses or beating one man quickly and squaring the ball. Cléber is much more limited going forward. But he's only 17, getting 20 starts this year would be good enough. Centre-backs The lion's share of starts here should be split between Marquinhos, Paulo Marcelo and Lauro Kunrath. All of them are national team calibre players. All of them have different strengths, which is an advantage in important games. Marquinhos/Kunrath is the better pairing for sides where we expect high possession and not much of a counter-attacking threat, because of their passing, Marcelo/Kunrath is best for sides like Santos who counter very quickly, etc. The wrench in this is Eduardo, a 23-year-old from Embu das Artes who was listed when I got here and I decided to keep on as our 4th option. The "problem" is that through the last 2 years, he's been our best DC performer by average rating. He's another one who just outperforms his attributes through some magic combination of numbers or sheer luck. Part of it is he plays fewer games, and is thus less fatigued. But he rarely makes mistakes, and his percentage of won tackles is an outlier compared to others. The problem is his passing, since he hoofs the ball up the field a lot, which doesn't impact his rating but is something that makes us a bit worse. Obviously, it's still great to get this from a back-up but he might ask to leave soon for more playing time. The 5th option is Belao, a 20-year-old who started last season in the first team but was sent out on loan after Marquinhos arrived. He went to Inter, where he wasn't good but he played a lot. He still needs to develop so he should go out on loan again, but with him here I can keep a closer eye on his training and I already have an Excel sheet to track playing time, after all. Central midfielders Nicolás Arrieta is entering his third year here. He's been the linchpin of our midfield, and he can now play as a right-back and centre-back too. Casemiro's physical attributes are completely gone, but I resigned him for a year because he was quite good last year. We are paying him half of his peak salary of R$30M, and he'll be gone after this season. 19-year-old Terra was surprisingly good last year and may be our nominal starter at this point. Hopefully he develops into a more offensively adept version of Marcos Vinicius. Mohlala was overrated by our scouts, but he still looks like a fantastic defensive midfielder and we paid less than R$5M. He comes from South Africa's Sundowns, who were very succesful continentally. He has great physicals, work rate and teamwork so he should be good covering a lot of space in front of our defense. Maybe our second best midfielder going only off his visible attributes, behind Arrieta. I needed to give a Thiago a shot in the first-team. I quite like his mental attributes, and he's already a Série A player. He was loaned to Fluminense, where he won Série B and contributed with 7 league assists. The problem lies in his low PA rating according to our staff, but he may already be good enough to play for us. Marcos Vinicius was only a bit better than him. Ferreira is much more defensive minded than the rest of our midfielders. I don't know how playing him with our current roles will work, but he's also not the calibre of player that I would spend in-game weeks tweaking the tactic for. He also may be more suited to being a central defender. He was a rotation player at Cruzeiro on loan last year, which is a bit of an accomplishment for a player as young as him. Like with Thiago, in the worst case scenario we raise his value by giving him 20-25 starts and sell him at the end of the season. Forwards Osni and Nogueira were the offensive stars for us last season, they aren't clinical goalscorers since the goals are very spread out in our side. What they have is great technical attributes, and they link up with everyone on attack very well. Rodríguez is a classic inside forward, starting from the left and having great pace and dribbling. Roberto Carlos was another good option, playing in the AMC spot, formerly Austregésilo's. I never figured out a way to get him more assists, and he lacks Austregésilo's overwhelming physicality, but he was good and scored the winning CWC goal. Our last option remaining from last year is César, he's become a reliable player and will soon be play any position in the front four. He's labeled as a wonderkid but he's rarely performed to the level of other "wonderkids" that have gone through our ranks (Rodríguez, Osni, Lineker, etc.) This is Hurtado, like the rest of our strikers, he's rarely been an out-and-out goalscorer. But he scored 15 goals in 21 games in his last 6 months with Boca, just because he's amazing. Rounding the keeper may help score one-on-ones which is a real problem in this game, but I don't think we're lacking in the goalscoring department. Instead, with the high dribbling and physicals, I feel inclined to play him in the AMC spot to see if he can perform at a level closer to Austregésilo. There are no weaknesses, it would be good if he could shoot penalties (like my Caxias squad, we suck at this) but it doesn't really matter. I couldn't pass up on signing Tutalchá for under R$4M. He was the runner up for Best Player in South America, while playing in Ecuador. His high determination means he will still improve if he hasn't maxed out his potential. And he's already fantastic as well. Martinovic is another unnecessary signing, but the Serbian wonderkid from Radnicki was a bargain for R$7M. Hurtado is a natural striker who I'll try to play as an attacking-midfielder, and Martinovic seems like someone who to me should be retrained as a striker. Either way, he's already made a great impact in 4 state league games. He's capable of scoring aerially, from direct free kicks or from open play. Few players have hit the ground running like Martinovic since I got here. 23-year-old José Elenilton came to Corinthians from Fortaleza at the age of 16, and he has been out on loan for 3 and a half years. He spent half a year on loan at América (RN), where he did fine but it wasn't until he spent his next season at Paraná where he started standing out, with 7 goals and 8 assists. He then went to Goiás for 2025, where he scored 14 goals. He made his Série A breakthrough last year with Vitória, netting 16 goals and 14 assists in all competitions. His attributes aren't great for a side like Corinthians, but someone who keeps improving every year like that deserves a chance. If he steps us, we get a solid rotation player for nothing. He's also ambidextrous, which makes him a more natural performer at AMR than... everyone else have, since all other forwards are right-footed. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted February 29, 2020 Author Share Posted February 29, 2020 Keeping track of playing time to the level of detail that I am doing is making gameplay much slower. I think this would get very tedious over the course of more than one season. However, things had to come to a head at some point with how much talent I've hoarded, and ultimately this will all lead to me leaving the club in a better position when I leave. Campeonato Paulista Everything went very smoothly during the group stage. Massive wins over Palmeiras, SPFC and Santos are great to have early on in the season. Nogueira and Martinovic were great during these games, scoring six goals each, despite very heavy rotation. Clearly the best team in this state. We got to play Guarani, a team which we beat 5-1 last year. A very easy win over two legs. We were drawn against Oeste, who upset Sao Paulo in the quarter-finals. They're the first non-big four team to make this instance and should be easily beaten by us. Two more good results. It's all been fairly easy so far and we've had a perfect season with 16 of 16 wins. We will play Santos for the trophy, who beat Palmeiras in the semi-final. Well, our perfect season comes to a poor end. Gérson, my former player at Caxias, has only scored six goals for Santos but two of them have been against Corinthians. He took the lead in Arena Corinthians, and we couldn't equalise. We shot 23 times, but only six on target. Hurtado recovered a poor backpass in Santos' box early on at Santos' building. We got 9 bookings during the second leg, Eduardo got two of them. Osni got a penalty in the 83rd minute and it looked like we were gonna steal this from Santos, but he missed it himself. We couldn't make it to a shootout with 10 men. I didn't field my strongest team in either leg, as I tried to keep up with what each player "should" be playing, and that costed us a title. Recopa Estudiantes keep winning continental titles, we faced them in 2025 in this tournament and we faced them again. Both were very easy wins for Corinthians. Very good to get six goals from six different players. Copa Libertadores We got another draw with no Argentinian or Brazilian teams. Nevertheless, UC proved impossible to break down in their stadium in the first group game. We got 16 shots on target and nothing to show for it. The next four games were easier, but La Cato gave us another scare in the last game, as they went to half-time up 1-0. The team woke up and scored 5 in the second half, before conceding another goal in injury time. The gap between teams from Argentina and Brazil and other countries keeps widening. But UC are a pretty interesting team, before the last game they'd only conceded once. Boca is the only team to win six out of six. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 7, 2020 Author Share Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) Serie A I still think we look less impressive offensively than last year, but we've been amazing on defense with only two goals conceded. Fariñez has worked much less, because our defensive line is under less pressure. The only change is asking the AMC to chase the ball and tackle more, which gives us a stronger midfield. Pretty normal tweak, which I hadn't even considered when Austregésilo was with us because he carried our offense. Hurtado has six goals from seven games, including an injury time winner against Cruzeiro. Osni also has six goals from nine games. The only blemish comes from a draw at Flamengo away, which will always be a tough game. The equaliser came from poor transition defense following a corner clearance, which is a constant problem. I think I haven't really moved anything from the corner routines since I took over, but I can remember a lot of goals and scares from there. I obsessed over set pieces with Caxias, not because it was one of our strengths but because our margins were much smaller. I'll fix this soon, Corinthians is making me softer. The win against Inter is very good, they are shaping up to be our pursuer this season. It was an easy game, Osni gave us the lead off a great counter-attack and deep cross by Jose Elenilton. After that, our forwards missed some solid chances, but Martinovic came on as a sub and scored a free kick to seal the win. We could have a chance at breaking Cruzeiro's 100 points record. That was accomplished in 2003 over 46 games. It'll be difficult to match it in 38 games, but we haven't been that far off in the past and this might be our best start. Copa do Brasil Once again we started our cup run against a Série D team, Sao Raimundo EC from Amazonas state. The result was an easy win. I was hoping to play against Jean, who was a defensive stalwart for three years at my Caxias side before being sold for a whooping R$100K to Sao Raimundo in 2023. Sadly, he retired two years ago and now coaches Jacioba in Alagoas. We'll be facing Chapecoense in the quarterfinal. It's a tough draw and we always struggle in the cup. We drew Talleres in the Libertadores second round. We actually faced them last year in the group stage, we beat them easily at Arena Corinthians but we drew in their building. Edited March 7, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 8, 2020 Author Share Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) I knew the odds we had of keeping everyone through the transfer window were slim, but at least we have no important players with release clauses so we can get something close to real value for our players. Casemiro was leaving at the end of the season, but Leicester, Roma and Galatasaray made offers for him and we have a surplus of midfielders, so this was a perfectly fine sale. We save a few million reais of his wage and get a minor fee for someone who came in for free. I expected Casemiro to be the player that made us a juggernaut. We've become even better than I expected but Casemiro wasn't ever a key player for us. As our most defensive midfielder, he had to cover too much ground to ever be the rock I wanted him to be, and his physical attributes are much reduced at this point. Nevertheless, he was competent and had a few very inspired games in that role. His best stretch was as the most offensive of the central midfielder pairing last year. He was a really good playmaker for Série A. I used him as a DLP next to a more offensive midfielder for a few games. This year I wanted more pressing and intensity from the midfield three, I reverted to the original pairing and he went back to being an average performer. Despite all of this, he was a starter for almost exactly two years and won 9 trophies with us. The second transfer hurts a bit more but it's for an in-game South American record fee. We couldn't convince him to stay, so it's a passable deal. Osni went on loan to Seattle in 2024, scoring 19 goals for them. My first year here was also his first year as an important player for Corinthians, With 59 goals since then, he's been our most consistent goalscorer since (Austregésilo left a year and a half ago and Hurtado just got here). He was never as good playing in the wings, but I used him there a lot. This was being his best year, as I let him loose as a poacher or advanced forward chasing goals in deadlocked games. To his credit, it worked almost every time. He leaves as the top Série A scorer and will meet former teammate Austregésilo in future Madrid derbies. I used Osni's sale to promote the returning Carlos Godoy to the first team. We now have 25 players, 9 of which are forwards. I offered Godoy out on loan after his spell at Racing ended on July 1st, but the only offer was from Boca. I wasn't going to let someone with Godoy's pace go to our biggest continental rivals, when that's the trait in strikers we struggle the most against. He played a bit last year but was very poor, maybe this year he impresses enough to earn a spot going forward. It's only July 11th and many players are being tracked by European clubs, so perhaps there will be more moves in the next few weeks. Edited March 8, 2020 by wesl 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 12, 2020 Author Share Posted March 12, 2020 Serie A We got a great win over Santos. We lost to Botafogo while playing Eduardo and Belao as our centre-back pairing. Both goals came in plays where Botafogo linked up through the middle. The game cemented my thoughts that Eduardo and Belao aren't good enough to rely on them too much, even if they have really good stats. Osni missed a penalty here, and we are in the middle of a five penalties missed streak. Everything after that was smooth sailing, with the exception of the Chapeconse game where Jose Elenilton tied it late after an even game. Santos looks like the clear #2, with Palmeiras getting worse. We lost the state league final to them, but I'm confident with a 10 point lead halfway through. We're also right on pace for the 100 point record. Copa do Brasil Osni won it for us in the first leg, coming in as a sub in what was his last Corinthians game. We got Cruzeiro in the semifinals, they're a good team but we beat them more often than most teams in their tier. Copa Libertadores We played a great game in Cordoba, and that was enough. Diego Eli was rotated into the side for the return leg, and he had a bit of a mare. We will play Sao Paulo in the quarter-final. Last year we beat Palmeiras and Santos handily in this competition, getting past SPFC would feel like some sort of achievement completed. I said before that we probably wouldn't be able to keep everyone and sure enough, another one of Spain's big clubs came in with an offer for Edwin Rodríguez. I've decided I won't keep any players who want to leave so I negotiated to an acceptable offer. We bought him from Emelec for R$23.5 M, and sold him for R$128M, which is good profit. Rodríguez was a natural inside forward, he spent a lot of 2026 injured but was consistently one of our most dangerous offensive players. He was our second top goalscorer this season (with 18 goals). With him and Osni leaving, we lost our top two goalscorers. Hurtado will have to pick up a lot of the burden going forward. I once again used the sale to promote a youth player. One of our best passers and FK takers already, and he's also got great pace. I've grouped together everyone who plays in our front 4 as "forwards", but we've lost a lot of versatility since Ademar and Godoy only play in one position. I don't think Ademar would fit in as one of our inside forwards so we'll have to adjust in some other way. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitner Posted March 15, 2020 Share Posted March 15, 2020 Selling our best players cheaply? This is so real that i'm blaming Andrés Sanchez, Cheers, Bitner Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 15, 2020 Author Share Posted March 15, 2020 (edited) I'm currently handling a playing time squad mutiny, so I feel justified selling off whoever threatened throwing a tantrum if their bids got rejected. Edited March 15, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 16, 2020 Author Share Posted March 16, 2020 Série A Everything was going smoothly, with 4 straight wins where the highlight was a dismantling of Cruzeiro. Then, we hit a skid as Marquinhos and Paulo Marcelo revolted over broken promises over playing time. Every player has roughly been playing the games I assigned to them in the spreadsheet at the start of the season, but those two expected more. I got the promise status to green at some point but it wasn't enough as when the period elapsed they hadn't played enough games. We should've beat Fluminense, but Fariñez had a mistake playing the ball with his feet in the 82nd minute. It was his first such mistake since I took over. Backup Diego Eli had a similar one a couple months ago as well. After that, we went on a three game winless streak, with which our recent exploits is akin to the sky falling. It seemed like things were going to get really bad after the Bahia game, where our defense looked completely helpless. Despite their constant disarray, we "only "allowed 6 shots on goal, but Fariñez was also sub-par since he shipped three goals from those. We've lost three of five games at Salvador in the last two years. Last year, Bahia beat us in the cup and Vitoria beat us in the league. Bahia's forward Rato scored four goals in his team's wins. I'm tempted to poach him just to keep this from happening. Luckily, we stole a win against Flamengo thanks to a goal from Hurtado (who has stepped up and become our best player after the July departures). Two more great wins against America and Inter fully steadied the ship. I think we have this under control now, and should be able to keep both Marquinhos and Paulo Marcelo for next season. A reason for this downturn were morale issues, but we also have a weaker squad and I need to be quicker to adapt in adverse games. The gap between us and Santos actually shrunk by a point during this stretch. Our very next game will take place at Santos' Coutinho Park, with 8 players on international duty for us. I don't expect us to win that, and if we don't we might actually have a title race this year. Naturally, the dream of reaching 100 points is basically over. However, as far as meaningless records go, we're still unbeaten at home in Série A since I took over. Our only two losses at Arena Corinthians have been against Inter in the 2025 cup semifinals second leg (where we won the tie), and in the first leg of this year's Paulistao final against Santos (which we lost). Copa do Brasil Our hegemony over Cruzeiro continues. The return leg had some drama after Luizao's goal but we shut them out in the second half and Hurtado's goal put it beyond doubt. Santos humiliated Grêmio to book a place in the final. We had to play Diego Eli due to Fariñez's injury. First game felt unlucky. We outshot them 28-4, but Pizarro scored a free-kick and César (playing as a right winger) conceded a nonsense penalty in the right edge of the area. He redeemed himself with a winner minutes later, but we went into Coutinho Park only one goal up. The return leg was the reverse, we only shot 8 times but scored three goals. This is one of the few games where I've actually outcoached the AI recently. We gave up the ball and they were willing to keep possession but couldn't break us down (although Eli did have another major save in a final), and we were more efficient. Terra created two assists on top of his goal. Destroying teams in auto-pilot is fun but it felt great to have this challenge again. This came right in the middle of our tiny league crisis, and it was great to see the team function like this. Copa Libertadores Our other rivals didn't present much of a challenge. We had the tie won after leg 1, where we outplayed them easily. I rotated the side for the home leg, and young left-back Cléber got his first senior goal. We play Vélez in the semifinal. They've just sold three players for R$50M+ each. The best of them, Domingo Gordillo, might the best AMR inside forward in the world and was a transfer target but PSG swept in for him so he'll never play for us. They're very irregular, and currently sit 15th in the league. Nevertheless, they still have several good players. Centre-back Rafael Borriello might be better than all of our central defenders, which is saying a lot. The other semifinal is Santos-Bahia, both of whom have beat us. I would like to play Santos, for rivalry reasons, but I know of them would be trouble in a final. We were lucky to get a draw. They carved us open twice early on, so I tried to switch it up to hoard possession. That didn't work, so I decided to drop deeper to play it safe. This got things under control but also stifled our offense. This might be the less creative game we've ever played. We didn't really have any good chances to score. I hope the return leg at home unfolds differently. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 17, 2020 Author Share Posted March 17, 2020 Série A There was no drama in the end, we beat Santos thanks to a great long shot from Jose Elenilton and an injury time breakaway from Godoy. With all our internationals back, we won the derby against SPFC. We secured the titlte against Caxias. We missed a lot of penalties down the stretch, but more on that in a bit. Santos were the best runner-up we've faced since I took over. But we beat them twice in the league, which all but secure the league for us. Caxias stayed up, which is good to see. Copa Libertadores Elenilton won the semifinal for us. Bahia beat Santos on away goals, with a goal from our loanee right-back Wellington Thiago. We'll face them at Monumental. We were slightly better but had terrible finishing. Bahia won the tactical battle as they put pressure on our defensive line and got a handful of chances out of it. Rato once again beat us, winning a 50/50 ball against Paulo Marcelo and slotting it in past Fariñez. We got a penalty in injury time. Hurtado took it (only his second in the season)... and he missed. Bahia are the last team to win Série A and Libertadores that's not named Corinthians. We end the season with 13 goals scored from 26 penalties. It's shameful but I'm not signing someone only for one attribute (and we rotate too much for anyone to be guaranteed on the field to take important penalties), and I already have half our forwards on penalty individual training. I don't know, we still won four Libertadores in a row and reached the final this year. This loss sucked but I think we're fine. I used the spreadsheet til the better end. These are the 11 players that started most games. The big surprise is Elenilton, who scored 14 goals (5 in Libertadores and 6 in Série A). Most forwards were out injured, but he didn't miss a single day, so he stepped in and did a good job. Hurtado scored 29 goals and was our best offensive player, he stepped up massively after Osni and Rodríguez were sold. Other players who did well were centre-back Paulo Marcelo and forward José Tutalchá. Our player of the year is Ribeiro once again. He broke his record, with 23 assists total this year. He's amazing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 17, 2020 Author Share Posted March 17, 2020 2027 season Série A Third in a row for Corinthians. Another season with no title drama, although a new contender seems to have emerged in Santos. Sport, América-MG and Atlético Mineiro are relegated. Série B CSA, Coritiba, Tombense and Vila Nova have been promoted. Ceará, Naútico, Sampaio Correa and Desportiva were relegated. Série C América-RN won the title. They are promoted alongside Jacobina, Sao Jose (RS), and Vitória da Conquista. The teams relegated are CSP, ASA, Cianorte and Portuguesa (RJ). Série D Ypiranga (AP), Sao Raimundo (AM), Guarani (MG), and Brasiliense win promotion. Sao Raimundo is the first Amazonas state team to be promoted from Série D. Copa do Brasil Second in a row for Timao. Red Bull were this year's surprise, reaching the quarter-final as a Série D team. State leagues Campeonato Acriano: Rio Branco (AC) (33rd title) Campeonato Alagoano: CSA (44th title) Campeonato Amapaense: Santos (AP) (10th title) Campeonato Amazonense: São Raimundo (AM) (11th title) Campeonato Bahiano: Vitória (33rd title) Campeonato Cearense: Ceará (46th title) Campeonato Brasiliense: Real (DF) (1st title) Campeonato Capixaba: Desportiva (23rd title) Campeonato Goiano: Vila Nova (GO) (18th title) Campeonato Maranhense: Sampaio Corrêa (41st title) Campeonato Mato-Grossense: Uniao Rondonopolis (6th title) Campeonato Sul-Mato-Grossense: Comercial (MS) (12th title) Campeonato Mineiro: Cruzeiro (45th title) Campeonato Paraense: Remo (47th title) Campeonato Paraibano: Campinense (22nd title) Campeonato Paranaense: Coritiba (40th title) Campeonato Pernambucano: Sport (47th title) Campeonato Piauiense: Altos (PI) (11th title) Campeonato Carioca: Flamengo (39th title) Campeonato Potiguar: América (RN) (36th title) Campeonato Gaucho: Grêmio (42nd title) Campeonato Rondoniense: Rondoniense (9th title) Campeonato Roraimense: Sao Raimundo (RR) (13th title) Campeonato Catarinense: Chapecoense (12th title) Campeonato Paulista: Santos (25th title) Campeonato Sergipano: Sergipe (40th title) Campeonato Tocantinense: Tocantins de Miracema (8th title) Copa Libertadores Bahia won their first continental trophy, with the upset over us. Their run was amazing, they beat Brazil's top 2, Santos and Corinthians, and before that Argentina's champions, Boca. It hurts but they are deserved champions. Copa Sudamericana Last week, there was a brawl in an Inter-Grêmio Libertadores group stage match. Naturally, the game gives us a Gre-nal final! It went all the way to pens, with Grêmio winning thanks to an Evaldo Campos miss. El Nacional are the rare team to make it far in South America without being Argentinian or Brazilian, but they got destroyed in the semifinal. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 18, 2020 Author Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) With most Brazilian teams being unwilling to sell blue chip prospects (or perhaps the last couple year have yielded poorer intakes?), I've focused the youth signings on cheap low-risk gambles. This is all going to be reaped (or not) by whoever Corinthians' next manager is. I did make one major first-team signing. César Leal is Brazil's third-choice keeper at 22. He has five years of first-team experience at Fluminense. He's obviously very good and has upside. His composure is quite bad, but I don't know if the low volume of shots he'll face with us will make that matter more or less. Wuilker Fariñez has been a mainstay for Corinthians since before I arrived, he was a huge plus for the team my first two years here but he dropped off in 2027. He actually costed us a handful of points and while he is still good enough to start at Corinthians, he is 7 years older and won't improve while Leal could. Leal would surely go to Europe if he improves any further, so it was a matter of getting him while he was still at Fluminense. The difference between the two is negligible, but will widen as years go on. Fariñez will be listed, and we will keep Diego Eli as our backup. The other new player in our first team is Adriano. He is an academy product from the 2025 intake with a high PA rating. He's already got good enough ratings in every area expect for most passing-related attributes and positioning. Fariñez finds a home in Atalanta, which is good for us since he won't come back to haunt us. Eduardo and Ferreira are sold off, as I whittle down my squad to be more manageable. We currently have 23 players in the first team. I tried to sell Mohlala but got very shortchanged by European teams. His value stands at R$40M, and they were trying to pay R$5M, slightly less than what we bought him for. He's still useful and if we don't sell him it's not the end of the world, the next manager might make him an important part of his team. When I got here, Gabigol, Eduardo and Jailson were listed and I ended up using all of them. As is now customary, we have a long list of outgoing loans. The youth and reserve teams are stacked with potential rotation players, which should help Corinthians be dominant for a few years at least. Mardones was the best of the lot, and could've broke into the first team as a centre-back. I chose to keep the Paulo Marcelo/Marquinhos/Kunrath triumvirate, with Belao (who was developed very nicely) as back-up. I usually ignore all friendlies, but I scheduled a special one this year. As in the CWC final against Real, we were the more offensive team but this time we only got a draw. Diego Eli couldn't repeat his heroics from our prior encounter with Real. It was a fun game, Austregésilo is still a devastating player and set up Miguel's goal with a through ball. Elenilton is becoming one of my favorites, as he's capable of scoring against literally any team in the world from the left wing, despite his poor attributes for our standard. Edited March 18, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 19, 2020 Author Share Posted March 19, 2020 Our U-20 team has won the Libertadores Sub-20! This is the equivalent to the UEFA Youth League. They won all games fairly easily, except for a semifinal clash with Deportivo Cali, which went to penalties. Unlike the senior side, they had no trouble with their pens and scored 4 of 4. Neitzke was named as the best player in the tournament. He's a good prospect and quite well rounded, although he doesn't excel in finishing or playmaking, so he's stuck in no man's land between AM and ST. He should get a first-team chance within a couple of years but after seeing what happened to the generations of promising youngsters at Caxias, I doubt an AI manager will give it to him after I leave. This competition is quite hard to win, since it takes place every two years and only one team per nation qualifies, along with the host and the defending champions. We earned our ticket by winning the U-20s cup. It's also quite difficult to win this thing, as it has 256 teams in 8 single-game elimination rounds. As you can see a couple small teams have won it, in América (RN) and Comercial (MS). América has become a constant Série B team, and they keep several academy products in their first team. Comercial on the other hand, have barely ever progressed past the group stage in Série D, despite winning their state league regularly. As far as I can tell, only one of Comercial's winning generation went on to amount to anything. Playing in Portugal, Ederson José could start for about half of Série A sides. It seems like he won the youth cup single-handedly. This is a meaningless tangent but falling down these rabbit holes is half of what I do in FM. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 22, 2020 Author Share Posted March 22, 2020 (edited) The Paulistao bled over well into the Brasileirao season, so I'm mixing the first two 2028 updates together. I still have half a dozen games to play before publishing that. I can say that our start in Série A has been lackluster for our standars, but not disastrous. But there's a huge roadblock coming up for us. We have eight players leaving for Copa América (and Martinovic for the Euro). This may come off as a humblebrag but my heart sunk when I saw this screen. I've fully gone from wide-eyed pride at having players called up when I took over this team, to absolutely hating international football because Série A never stops during international breaks. It's not a problem for most Série A sides, who may have one player called up by Brazil and a couple South American internationals. At the same time, we've gone from only having Austregésilo called up by the seleção to having 5 players in Brazil's team. This is our schedule for this stretch. That's eight league games which we'll have to play without most of our best players, add in two possible quarter-final cup matches in early July, if we make it past Santos in the fifth round. The only precedent for this is the 2026 World Cup, where we sent off five players if I'm not mistaken. But Série A actually stopped during that time, because it's the ****ing World Cup. If we don't keep up with whoever the leader is during this time, we're not winning the league this year. This has made me question what's the next step for this save. My goal was becoming the winningest Série A team, which seemed easy enough based on the past three years. We're currently tied at 11 titles with Santos. If they win, I'm leaving (defeated and exposed as a failure). If Corinthians wins, I'm also leaving (triumphant and as a Corinthians legend). If someone else wins, I'm staying another year. Edited March 22, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 25, 2020 Author Share Posted March 25, 2020 This update will be too long, it covers six months 2028 Campeonato Paulista Perfect march through the group stage. Narrow wins over our three traditional rivals, but we beat everyone else comfortably. Santos and Palmeiras nearly matches our goal difference, which seems to indicate the gap between us growing smaller. On the other hand, SPFC were very poor and were bested by Oeste in their group. We will face Red Bull Brasil in the next round, they seem to be improving to the point where they should get promoted to Série C soon. Only needed one half to win this match, we rotated at home and got only a narrow win. The draw pits us against Palmeiras, with the other semi-final being Oeste/Santos. Same result as we got against Red Bull. Comfortable win away followed by a rotated side edging the return leg. This was gratifying, with the win including a goal from youngster Neuza. Oeste upset Santos, reaching the Paulistao final for the first time in their history. The final got crammed into a stretch where we had 7 matches in 15 days. This year, we had a couple weeks off, but the game still couldn't schedule the matches at the right time. The other semifinal still took place a week later for no reason. We won away. I fielded a strong side at home, but we couldn't break Oeste down. We're still champions but I would've liked to win every match! Copa Libertadores We always seem to get drawn with the same teams, and we've faced all of these clubs during my stint here. We've faced Talleres four years in a row! They beat us for the second year going, this time in their building. They also edged us out in goal difference, and I think this is the first time we don't win the group. That said, qualification was never in doubt and we didn't draw Boca so it's all good. We got drawn against Racing in the second round, we beat them in the final two years ago. The quarter-final draw for the winner of this tie is the winner of Bahia/Colo Colo. I would love to get some sort of revenge on Bahia. 2028 Série A Although still unbeaten, we're far from the unstoppable force of previous years. The Cruzeiro and SPFC matches were thrillers, but we couldn't win them. After that, we won the next three matches, but we sort of controlled the match without creating much, and limped over the finish line with game management and possession control after scoring deep into the second half. We got properly FM'd by Vasco, who only needed one chance to score while we were limited to 19 shots, most of them from long range. The Grêmio scoreline flatter us, thanks to late goals, but it was largely the same. We actually controlled Chapecoense thoroughly but couldn't score. Finally Vila Nova's keeper, put on a great first half (even saving a pen), before we broke them down in the second. The last few games have been encouraging but we're now losing 10 players to international football for a month. It's all very tight, and surprisingly none of the teams close to us presented a challenge in previous years, with Bahia, Santos and Palmeiras closer to mid-table. Flamengo beat us in the 2025 cup final. Other than that, they have been spending their money poorly since the start of the save, but they're still rich and they seem finally have put a league contender together. Chapecoense always start very strongly but fizzle out. Oeste have improved year by year and after qualifying to the Libertadores last season and winning their group, they seem to be one of the best teams in Brazil. Fluminense were in Série B two seasons ago, and we've poached their two best players and best youngster since, but they've somehow started very strongly and have the third best goal difference. Bahia were in the lead after 5 games, but they've lost the last four. They are still Libertadores champions, and their striker Rato is unstoppable. Santos and Cruzeiro perhaps should be higher than they are, I think they may have better squads than at least half of those above them. They're very capable of going on a run. Being in the lead at this point doesn't matter. I would like to get a one game lead over second place by the mid-point, but without half the first team for a month, we're gonna be lucky to stay in the top. Copa do Brasil We got a very difficult draw. Losing wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world since this is the least important competition we play, and we've won it twice in a row alreadt. Roberto Carlos gave us a narrow lead in Arena Corinthians. I played a weakened team away, but they managed to do the job with a great performance from Terra and some tweaks after the second goal to manage the game. We will be facing Palmeiras in the quarter-final. They are much worse than they were a few years ago, and we've routinely beat them recently, but it's a derby so they will surely upset us eventually. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 25, 2020 Author Share Posted March 25, 2020 So Serbia is crashing out after the Euro group stage, but Martinovic will be out until August. I hate international football. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 26, 2020 Author Share Posted March 26, 2020 On 18/02/2020 at 15:21, wesl said: Brazil offered me a job. I though about it long and hard, but decided to turn it down. A job would've allowed me to keep playing elite football even after I leave for the rainforest, which I'll have to do eventually but I just wasn't that interested in managing a national team right now. Maybe in a few seasons. This was after the 2026 World Cup. Since the 2020 Copa América, Brazil haven't won anything. Their last three WC finishes are two quarter-final losses and a third round exit. They failed to get past the semifinals in Copa América this year. So the CBF offered me a job again. I've accepted this time! I believe I'm leaving Corinthians this year after all, and I might have to wait for a job in the right state to turn up. This is Brazil's Copa América squad. You can see that it errs on the older side, and there's also a lack of world class wingers. But it's still Brazil, which means you can probably field a team of 11 world class players with the right tactic. The country's best player is exactly who you'd expect. This is our schedule for 2028. Debuting against Argentina is far from ideal, but we should qualify for the World Cup easily. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickh92 Posted March 26, 2020 Share Posted March 26, 2020 Great read this! I'll be following your progress closely - one hell of a challenge you've set yourself but looking forward to seeing how you progress! The sheer amount of games in the Brazilian league amazes me with all the state championships, continental competitions and the main domestic league and cup. It's such a tough place to manage from my experience. Great to see you progressing well! Best of luck with Brazil! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 26, 2020 Author Share Posted March 26, 2020 2028 Série A We were unbeaten through the stretch without our international players! Despite the perfect record, it's become clear that I'll have to get creative (and lucky) to meet expectations. We are just not performing as well as in previous seasons. This is partly down to our squad being weakened thanks to world class players leaving and no direct replacement for them. I've stocked up on blue-chip youngsters but haven't made many marquee signings in the past two years. To make matters worse, our forwards have all been quite disappointing. Hurtado has been a non-entity for most of the season, and no one else has picked up the goalscoring slack. Part of this comes down to form. I've seen several players miss chances they would've scored in previous years. But I've also noticed teams playing two low blocks almost every game against us, which comes down to our increasing reputation. Since our defense is already threadbare, I don't feel comfortable throwing even more men forward. The solution has been playing a more patient possession game, since the spaces needed for the neckbreak pace we used to play are just never there anymore. 19-year-old Ademar has become a starter in this setup, thanks to his elite vision and flair, but most of our forwards were better suited to our previous style. Ribeiro has been another constant. He probably won't reach his 2028 tally of 23 assists, but he's up to 13 so far and still our best perfomer. The winning stretch involved much more micromanaging of games. It's been tough, like someone turned up the difficulty setting. Even CSA limited us to one goal. We had to claw back after an early goal by Oeste, but we broke through in the 64th minute to tie it up and won it down the stretch. I went to the 4-1-2-3-0 tactic from the outset against Santos and we played one of our best games all season. We went ahead with a penalty scored (thank god) by Elenilton. Eli made a couple key saves in the second half, but we shut out Santos after a mentality change and Ecuadorian forward Tutalcha secured the win in injury time. The match against second-place Flamengo may be the most important of our season. There was a 2-point gap between us and them. We played very defensively by our standards, conceding possession and shooting less than our rivals at home (a rare occurence). Substitute Roberto Carlos won it late after a great through ball from Tutalcha. It was Caxias-esque robbery. We went into the game against Bahia with a similar defensive gameplan. I was content to get a draw, with our lead having widened to 5 points. Bahia is also a team that breaks really quickly and has been a headache since Osmar Loss took over. We got even less chances against them than Flamengo, but we also gave up nothing on defense.... until the 94th minute when Palhinha beat Marquinhos to a cross. Bahia is our bogey-team. We're up to 3 consecutive losses against them. We closed out the first half with a draw at Allianz Parque and yet another hard-earned win against Vitória. We've only scored 30 goals, still the most in the league but about one goal per game less than last year. Five points is a fantastic lead, but the second half will be a grind. We'll have less fixture congestion, but I don't expect that to help much since all our players are performing at a similar level when called upon. Caxias look set to compete for Libertadores football for the first time ever, which is great to see. Copa do Brasil We lost the first leg on a goal from a corner. The second leg could've been a disaster, Hurtado missed a penalty 2 minutes in. And after that, he got on the end of every cross but he could barely even get a shot on target. Elenilton came through to tie it up with a half-volley from a Ribeiro cross. Hurtado scored the winner, thanks to our high pressing! Him and Ademar pressed Palmeiras' keeper and Hurtado stole the ball to get us through to the semifinal. In the semifinals we'll be facing... Bahia. Copa Libertadores We played very well at home. One of the few matches where we've looked like 2026 Corinthians. Hurtado scored again at Racing's stadium. Racing got a late goal, but we're through to the quarter-final. Naturally, we'll be facing the bastards at Bahia in the next round. We'll face our bogey-team four Wednesdays in a row, and losing the Libertadores to them twice in a row would be dreadful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 26, 2020 Author Share Posted March 26, 2020 This was not the best time to get rid of our best midfielder, but letting players who want to leave go has been my policy so far and I don't want to change it in what's hopefully my last year here. Arrieta was pretty great, a rock in midfield. He evolved into a national team player in his time here. We make a large profit and sell him off for about as much as we can get European clubs to pay us in this save. It still feels wrong. With this transfer, I've unlisted Mohlala, as he's no longer surplus to requirements. This also frees up a foreign player spot, which can be used to have one of the foreign teenagers I've signed as an option off the bench. Additionally, Sevilla signed several of my shortlisted players for big money. It would be interesting to see how they would fare if I had Spain loaded but, I do not. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 Good luck in your new venture with the national team - are you planning to stay for a while and then move to a club or go for a new club at the same time? I've not managed in Brazil for a few years but I feel that my next long term save, be that on FM20 (with all of this isolation time, I'll have done what I needed with time to spare!) or on FM21 will be in Brazil. I think the cup competitions give a massive scope for player development and the relatively low economic standard means that you're always a conveyor belt for the best talent going to Europe. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 27, 2020 Author Share Posted March 27, 2020 31 minutes ago, _Ben_ said: Good luck in your new venture with the national team - are you planning to stay for a while and then move to a club or go for a new club at the same time? Thank you. I plan to stay at least through the 2030 World Cup, but I will try to go for a new club at the same time. My intended destination is a club in one of Brazil's poorest states. Those clubs usually only play their state league, which means they have no fixtures for 7-8 months. Taking over Brazil will help up break some of the monotony of just pressing continue for that stretch. 35 minutes ago, _Ben_ said: I've not managed in Brazil for a few years but I feel that my next long term save, be that on FM20 (with all of this isolation time, I'll have done what I needed with time to spare!) or on FM21 will be in Brazil. I think the cup competitions give a massive scope for player development and the relatively low economic standard means that you're always a conveyor belt for the best talent going to Europe. Said it before but can't recommend it enough, especially starting with a club in Série D. It seems like MRT90 won't make more editor files, so hopefully someone picks up the slack for FM21 and beyond. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 2 minutes ago, wesl said: Thank you. I plan to stay at least through the 2030 World Cup, but I will try to go for a new club at the same time. My intended destination is a club in one of Brazil's poorest states. Those clubs usually only play their state league, which means they have no fixtures for 7-8 months. Taking over Brazil will help up break some of the monotony of just pressing continue for that stretch. Said it before but can't recommend it enough, especially starting with a club in Série D. It seems like MRT90 won't make more editor files, so hopefully someone picks up the slack for FM21 and beyond. Will winning the state league increase the chance of getting them into Serie D? That would be my perfect starting point for a game in Brazil - especially a few years of just regional football before joining a national league. I've only ever managed in the top flight there - I had a great save with Gremio that lasted about three years (which was over 200 games!) and a return is overdue. Thanks to the detail of your save, I think it's now completely sold to me! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 27, 2020 Author Share Posted March 27, 2020 2 minutes ago, _Ben_ said: Will winning the state league increase the chance of getting them into Serie D? That would be my perfect starting point for a game in Brazil - especially a few years of just regional football before joining a national league. I've only ever managed in the top flight there - I had a great save with Gremio that lasted about three years (which was over 200 games!) and a return is overdue. Thanks to the detail of your save, I think it's now completely sold to me! Yes, actually the top finishers (who don't play in higher tiers) from each state league qualify for the following year's Série D. If a "non-league" team wins their state league they are surely qualifying. This also means sometimes teams that were perhaps a goal away from getting promoted get effectively relegated if they performed poorly in their state. It can all be very dramatic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 1 minute ago, wesl said: Yes, actually the top finishers (who don't play in higher tiers) from each state league qualify for the following year's Série D. If a "non-league" team wins their state league they are surely qualifying. This also means sometimes teams that were perhaps a goal away from getting promoted get effectively relegated if they performed poorly in their state. It can all be very dramatic. Sounds amazing! Are you Brazilian? Any clubs you'd recommend getting to know ready for a game there in future? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 27, 2020 Author Share Posted March 27, 2020 2 minutes ago, _Ben_ said: Are you Brazilian? Any clubs you'd recommend getting to know ready for a game there in future? No, but I'm a native Spanish speaker which has helped me read about Brazilian football since I started this. I think what's best about playing Brazil in FM is you can find something intriguing about almost every club. I think ABC would be very interesting, they're the biggest club from one of the 2014 host cities. They have 55 state league titles, which I believe is the most in Brazil, but they've never achieved much nationally. Amazonas' Nacional has a similar case. Sao Caetano is another interesting one, they came close to winning the Libertadores early in the 2000s, but they've fallen hard since. Unlike the former two, they wouldn't start the 2020 season in Série D. They're actually in the Sao Paulo 2nd tier, which is playable in the MRT90 file. Sao Paulo has a state cup for lower division teams starting in July, which makes the "offseason" shorter but can be annoying when you're in Série C. I had a similar competition with Caxias. Another option would be starting as a club from one of the smaller states (Tocantins, Rondonia, Roraima, etc.). These states didn't have professional leagues until the 90s, so most of their clubs can be a blank slate, a bit like your Guadalajara. There's also very compelling "fallen giant" clubs like Guarani in higher tiers. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shimera Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 Oh yeah, there's also former Copa do Brasil winners Paulista and Santo André and Portuguesa, a very traditional club that recently got relegated. Brazil has a lot of clubs with history. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 28, 2020 Author Share Posted March 28, 2020 Brazil national team - September 2028 (squad selection) We're facing Argentina and Uruguay at home. I agonised over squad selection for a couple hours, so it will get an entire post to it. I've even rebuilt the national pool from scratch, to give overlooked players a real shot. From there, I narrowed it down as much as possible before comparing players (attributes and form) head-to-head. This is what the end result looks like. The aim is deploying a similar style to Corinthians (something gegenpress based) but I didn't want to copy that tactic wholesale, in order to truly pick the best players available. This makes the process harder, but I pretty much knew from the start we're playing a 4-1-2-something, with a defensive midfielder to increase defensive solidity. Goalkeepers: Alisson will be our #1, he's still amazing. César Leal seems to be next in line, which means he should debut as soon as we get a friendly or an easier fixture. I omitted Ederson, Man City's #1. He's fantastic (clearly better than César) but he's never been better than Alisson and is of a similar age. Instead, I've called up 22-year old Carlos Augusto from Flamengo. He leads Série A in clean sheets and isn't too far behind César in his development. Right-backs: We have too many options here. I had to pick two from Porto's Wallace Azevedo, Shakthar's Dodô, Benfica's Totó and Ribeiro from Corinthians. Going by performance, Ribeiro is far ahead from the rest (albeit in weaker competitions), but he has the weakest attributes. I'll use a WB(A) in this tactic. With this role, Ribeiro has been among the best players in the continent for a few years going, so he's earned a call-up for now. Totó already looks like the best of the group, and he's also the youngest. He'll be our starter. Dodô has the best attacking attributes, so he can be a valuable option in future fixtures. Azevedo is obviously incredible, but I don't see him having any major advantages over the rest. Left-backs: I narrowed my options for the starting position down to Sevilla's Guilherme Arana and Santos' Renan Lodi. There isn't much to separate the two, I ended up going with Lodi because he's a year younger. Arana has been the national team starter for a long time, but he's gonna be 33 when the Spain World Cup starts. I've omitted him entirely from the squad as Panda seems like a stronger defensive alternative, as well as the best player under 28 in the position. I'm not sure Panda is good enough to be a long term starter compared to the rest of the team and there don't seem to be many more options. Azevedo could end up playing here. Centre-backs: Militao and Luiz Felipe were locks here. They're also narrowly on the wrong side of 30, but they are world-class and should be good enough for the WC. The two back-ups had to be decided between Roma's Lyanco, Lille's Thiago Maia, Benfica's Felipe Daniel, Jiangsu's Léo Santos, Paulo Marcelo and Santos' Amaral. Seeing how this is a huge group and none of them are unseating the two starters (for a while, at least), I took everyone over 28 out of the question. This left us with Felipe Daniel, Paulo Marcelo and Amaral. Felipe Daniel is a cut above the other two, which leaves us with one spot. Paulo Marcelo may have the best physical attributes out of the group, and Amaral has amazing mental attributes. I couldn't decide based on this, but Paulo Marcelo has just not played enough for Corinthians. I think he's the best of the lot at Corinthians attribute-wise, but he's been outperformed and I pick heavily based on form. Amaral has been key at Santos for years, so he gets this spot. Defensive midfield: I narrowed it down to two out of Benfica's Edilson, Lazio's Iago Gallo and Guangzhou's Victor Bobsin. They can all be playmaking midfielders from the DM spot. 22-year old Gallo is an exciting player in this regard. I think he can be a long term key player with the right role. I picked Edilson over Bobsin because of his better physical attributes. Central midfield: I had three locks here with Joao Pedro, Lucas Paquetá and Arthur. The remaining spot came down to Benfica's Lorenzato and Jiangsu's Matheus Henrique. Like at centre-back, the choice came down to age, so Lorenzato got the call-up. Attacking midfield/strikers: This was the hardest group to pick, because of the wealth of options. I know Austregésilo and Luan Zilio (a Grêmio academy product, and formerly a nightmare at Caxias) have to start, as they might be the best players we have. Zilio not being capped yet might be the reason Brazil is underperforming. Either way, both of these are playing as central attacking midfielders, which is an awkward starting point. I had 4 remaining spots, and after a few cuts I managed to narrow it down to.... 15 players. It was untenable to narrow it down just by comparing head-to-head, so I made a crude spreadsheet based on what I want to see from whoever plays in these positions. I'm pleasantly surprised that Corinthians' Roberto Carlos topped this list, which makes him a lock as back-up to Austregésilo and Zilio. Guangzhou's Lincoln also scored highly, and will get a call-up. The natural thing would've been calling up the top 4, but Everton and Gabriel Jesus made me balk. They can still be useful but as they're older, their physical attributes are slightly weaker than the rest of the group. Since the spreadsheet didn't take into account this at all, I decided to call up the next two, Paulinho and Rodrygo. This choice makes the team less versatile as Rodrygo (as well as Roberto Carlos, Austregésilo and Zilio) can only play in one AM position. I realized eventually that the only shape that made sense was the one used by @ManUtd1's 'shadowganche' tactics. So I'll take that and build a much inferior tactic. This is what I'm starting with against Argentina, developing the DM role into something exciting is on hold for now. I'll have to tweak heavily on the fly given the importance of the match, but I think it looks good enough to not concede 3 within 10 minutes or whatever. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManUtd1 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 Looks delicious! Keep us posted! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 28, 2020 Author Share Posted March 28, 2020 Brazil vs. Argentina. September 1st, 2028. Beira-Rio. WCQ. I was worried about Argentina's offensive prowess, which made me play Edilson at DM, but they showed up to park the bus. The rest of our starting XI basically picked itself. There was a definitive lack of space for us, with Austregésilo, Paquetá and Paulinho drifting towards the same places. The best chance for us came 34 minutes in, with a deep cross from Totó to Paulinho which the latter crashed into the crossbar. Argentina created some danger with left-winger Gordillo. We created one CCC (the former, I believe) and four half chances, but there was no clarity in our offense, and Argentina fielding two low blocks made it hard. Lodi was subbed out at half-time due to lack of fitness. Arthur was subbed in looking for more offense from our midfielders. It seemed to have a chance to help create more until the last substitution. Lincoln came in for Zilio, and I placed him as a striker. After that, we didn't do anything. So it seems like playing with no striker is the way forward. Brazil vs. Uruguay. September 5th, 2028. Maracana. WCQ. Perhaps there were too many changes to the starting XI. It started with me changing the AML role to raumdeuter, which I hoped would give Austregésilo more space as the AML could drift wider. Rodrygo seems better fitted to this role than Paulinho. In turn, Panda started at left-back because he's stronger defensively. I also went with Arthur over Paquetá, because I liked how he looked against Argentina, and he seems more capable of making game-changing passes. With me less worried about Uruguay's offense, I picked Gallo in the DM spot. He will start as a vanilla DLP(d). Finally, I went with the younger Felipe Daniel at centre-back, because we might as well. The raumdeuter change worked immediately, as Rodrygo beat Uruguay's left-back on the outside and got fouled to get a penalty. Austregésilo converted it 90 seconds in. At the 11th minute, Rodrygo did the same thing and squared the ball to an unmarked Austregésilo for the second goal. Totó got subbed out at half-time, he's completed a shameful 1/28 crosses in 135 minutes. I thought maybe Ribeiro would be able to replicate his Corinthians form, but he went 1/8 in the second half. Zilio scored a third goal from a corner, after a header from Felipe Daniel. With us up by three, I decided to give Lorenzato and Amaral their debuts. Arthur and Lorenzato had close calls with shots from the edge of the area down the stretch, but we didn't score more goals. I would like to create more but it's a great result, all in all. It appears that qualification will be fairly painless. Peru quailfied with 19 points in 2026, so we might already be in. This is what my tactic looks like after two games. Already quite happy with how we looked against Uruguay. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted March 29, 2020 Author Share Posted March 29, 2020 (edited) 2028 Série A Close to perfect! We were fantastic during August, where we looked like last year's team. We faced three teams which we tend to beat handily at home and it was just what we needed. Hurtado flipped a switch and scored six league goals during this stretch (his first in Série A this year). September was more complicated, but aside from a thriller at Arena Grêmio which ended in a draw, we won every other game. Our goalscoring rate has gone up. We have 54 goals in 28 games, much closer to last year's output. We've also almost matched our first half tally in these 9 games. Nine points is a good lead over Flamengo, we just need a few more wins to secure this title. Copa do Brasil We played a great second half at home and that was enough to get past Bahia in the cup. We mostly gave up the initiative away, to avoid any surprises, but Mohlala got off two long shots which ended as goals. The second one bounced off the post and then off their goalkeeper's back. This was a nice win over a team that was unplayable in our three previous encounters, but I cared more about our Libertadores matchup. We played Série B team Atlético Paranaense in the final. They are a yo-yo team, too good for the second tier, but unable to stay up. Nevertheless, they beat three Série A clubs in the cup this year. Paranaense's goalkeeper Kieza was heroic in the first leg but he still shipped two goals. We didn't have much trouble in the return leg, as Paulo Marcelo scored a penalty in the first half. Diego Eli (a back-up keeper who's played at least three finals for us!) had some heroics, as he kept out two tough shots later in the match. This is our third consecutive cup title. Copa Libertadores So much for our bogey-team! Although I approached these matches in the same manner as the cup tie, they were much harder. The first game was very even and we were lucky to get a two goal lead, but Martinovic won a poor clearance early and Hurtado was just clinical during this month. Bahia didn't have clear chances but they made our goalkeeper César Leal work to keep his clean sheet. At the second leg, I set out to frustrate Bahia. This worked, but Rato still found a decent chance on a breakway in the first half which could've changed the game. We play Cruzeiro in the semi-final. The other tie is Talleres-Boca. With this being my last year at Corinthians, I would like to meet Boca again in a final. Edited March 29, 2020 by wesl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted April 1, 2020 Author Share Posted April 1, 2020 Brazil - October 2028 We're facing Paraguay away and Venezuela at home. The plan was cycling out 10 or so players, to call up those who were in-form and try out alternatives in certain positions. But between injuries, and those in last call-up often being more in-form than their competition, there were only four changes in the squad. Luiz Felipe, Renan Lodi, Paulinho and Lincoln were dropped. Léo Santos is a very solid BPD, he was meant to replace Amaral, but Luiz Felipe got injured so they're both acting as back-ups. I didn't plan to call-up Guilherme Arana yet, but he replaces the injured Renan Lodi. I have yet to decide if him or Panda are starting against Paraguay. Neymar has every Brazil national team record, but sadly his dwindling career didn't amount to many international trophies. He was still a starter for Roberto Cavalo's national team up until this summer. I never considered him for the last squad, but I feel compelled to see what he can do. I put him in the spreadsheet I used for last call-up and he scored much higher than the rest of that group, but his physical attributes are... terrible. I think he can be of use as a fringe option, but he's retiring before the World Cup so I'm not sure what to do with him. Everton was one of the players I discarded last before the previous call-up. He's on the older side but he's one of Brazil's best attacking midfielders. He also gives me a natural option on the right wing, should we need it. Paraguay vs. Brazil. October 6th, 2028. Defensores del Chaco. WCQ. In the same tone, I picked the XI from scratch but ended up with largely the same starters as our Uruguay game. The one change is Arana starting over Panda, who was not fit as the Corinthians manager (whoever that is) started him two days prior. Paraguay is the third team in a row to field a double pivot against us. I'm not pleased with this! My main focus for this match was getting the right-back to be productive offensively. This was the perfect game for it, as Paraguay played very narrowly and allowed our full-backs to do whatever they wanted. I tried getting Totó to aim for the far post and hug the touchline (so he would get more space), but he still went 3/27 in crosses completed. This is a miserable number to look at, but there's a positive! He's getting into favorable positions as often as any full-back I've ever had. The crosses completed stat can be misleading since a good cross can end on a poor clearance/rebound for another attacker to pounce on (more on that in a bit). The problem is Totó crashes most of his crosses into the first defender, failing to even get them into the box. While his crossing stat is decent (13), his dribbling isn't good enough (10), which checks out with what I'm seeing on the pitch. He's 21 and Brazil's future in this position, but.... that just means he might not be ready. I say all this, but it was Totó himself got the assist on the first goal. He received the ball in a central position near the edge of the area and cut inside to pass to Austregésilo who blasted it in, 5 minutes in. It must be said that Totó has great vision (15), decisions (14) and anticipation (14). Perhaps him cutting inside would be more productive? The second goal came minutes later, as Zilio cut inside from the right and gave Rodrygo a lovely through ball inside the box, which he put into the top corner. The third goal was created by a Totó cross which the defenders failed to clear and Austregésilo pushed in. With the game basically settled, I experimented on a handful of things in the second half. I subbed in Everton for Rodrygo and mirrored our formation to use him as AMR, I deployed Lorenzato as a BBM, and I used Zilio in the shadow striker role (subbing debutant Roberto Carlos in for Austregésilo). Lorenzato as BBM definitely didn't work, as we gave up our possession stranglehold since our pressing was less effective. This allowed Paraguay to control the last 15 minutes and create one good chance, with Walter getting at the end of a through ball before our centre-backs did. Alisson made the dramatic save. Everton didn't create much from AMR and Arana didn't get forward as reliably as Totó with a whole side of the pitch to himself. The one positive takeaway is Zilio looked good in the shadow striker slot, but he also looked good as AMCL before Austregésilo was subbed out and in his original AMCR position. Brazil vs. Venezuela. October 10th 2028. Arena Pantanal. WCQ. I started Ribeiro and Paquetá. This looked like the most offensive XI we could field against another double pivot team, who (despite becoming the '28 Copa América runner-ups by beating Cavalo's Brazil in the semifinals) should be weaker than us. Arena Pantanal in Cuiabá is a 2014 World Cup stadium, but whichever club chooses the size of the pitch has made this thing 55 meters wide and 115 meters long. This is horrible for us, since we play a high defensive line and have thus far heavily relied on width to break teams down. Rodrygo scored early on, shooting from the edge of the area into Fariñez's top corner. I used the dribble less instruction fairly early, going against type for Brazil, because I saw our forwards crash into defenders often. After the instruction change, our possession skyrocketed but it was a lousy first half, where Venezuela actually got more highlights. I expected Venezuela to park the bus but they exceled at advancing the ball and beating our pressure. We did better in a second half for no discernible reason. Former Corinthians goalkeeper Wuilker Fariñez showed out, stopping a very difficult Austregésilo long shot and a point-blank Paquetá header, among other chances which I thought were gonna increase our lead. I subbed Neymar in with a bit over 20 minutes left. We had our best offensive stretch after this, which has earned him at least one more call-up. It was a very atypical game. Venezuela is a tough team and the pitch dimensions played a part. I really value this win, even if FM thinks we should've won by more. I think we could seal our ticket for Spain during November's fixtures with the right results! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManUtd1 Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Solid results, especially against Venezuela! I hate being on smaller pitches when playing strikerless, the bigger the better. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted April 2, 2020 Share Posted April 2, 2020 On 27/03/2020 at 21:02, wesl said: No, but I'm a native Spanish speaker which has helped me read about Brazilian football since I started this. I think what's best about playing Brazil in FM is you can find something intriguing about almost every club. I think ABC would be very interesting, they're the biggest club from one of the 2014 host cities. They have 55 state league titles, which I believe is the most in Brazil, but they've never achieved much nationally. Amazonas' Nacional has a similar case. Sao Caetano is another interesting one, they came close to winning the Libertadores early in the 2000s, but they've fallen hard since. Unlike the former two, they wouldn't start the 2020 season in Série D. They're actually in the Sao Paulo 2nd tier, which is playable in the MRT90 file. Sao Paulo has a state cup for lower division teams starting in July, which makes the "offseason" shorter but can be annoying when you're in Série C. I had a similar competition with Caxias. Another option would be starting as a club from one of the smaller states (Tocantins, Rondonia, Roraima, etc.). These states didn't have professional leagues until the 90s, so most of their clubs can be a blank slate, a bit like your Guadalajara. There's also very compelling "fallen giant" clubs like Guarani in higher tiers. Sorry - completely missed this! I think a club far away in the rainforest may be where I want to head. When I've managed in Brazil before, I've always stayed away from the stacked State leagues of Rio and Sao Paulo because I've always wanted to win them and play youth players. I'd rather be stuck in Serie B but smashing my state league that having two battles per season! I'm really looking for a club with absolutely no ambition to do well in the short term, a poor first team but a great academy in either Serie B or Serie C. From there, I want to play a solely youth only game whereby the results at the club just tick by and I create a steady stream of academy prospects ready to move on to bigger and better things. Any ideas?! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesl Posted April 3, 2020 Author Share Posted April 3, 2020 5 hours ago, _Ben_ said: I think a club far away in the rainforest may be where I want to head. When I've managed in Brazil before, I've always stayed away from the stacked State leagues of Rio and Sao Paulo because I've always wanted to win them and play youth players. I'd rather be stuck in Serie B but smashing my state league that having two battles per season! I'm really looking for a club with absolutely no ambition to do well in the short term, a poor first team but a great academy in either Serie B or Serie C. From there, I want to play a solely youth only game whereby the results at the club just tick by and I create a steady stream of academy prospects ready to move on to bigger and better things. The thing is about two thirds of the Série C, Série B and Série A teams are concentrated in six or seven states. The only playable rainforest club is Atlético Acreano. That's why the editor file opens everything up. I think ABC are the closest Série C club to what you described. The others probably have too many major rivals in their state. At the same time, I don't think any of the second and third tier clubs have great academies. But, I did have a series of very good intakes at Caxias with average/above average YR and JC. I think that happened because of a growing reputation and Brazil's youth level (and luck). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted April 3, 2020 Share Posted April 3, 2020 6 hours ago, wesl said: The thing is about two thirds of the Série C, Série B and Série A teams are concentrated in six or seven states. The only playable rainforest club is Atlético Acreano. That's why the editor file opens everything up. I think ABC are the closest Série C club to what you described. The others probably have too many major rivals in their state. At the same time, I don't think any of the second and third tier clubs have great academies. But, I did have a series of very good intakes at Caxias with average/above average YR and JC. I think that happened because of a growing reputation and Brazil's youth level (and luck). It seems that MRT90 has taken his file down but that's ok - an initial look has given me an interesting club, Manaus. I know of them due to the World Cup stadium and they appear to be a new club with very little in the way of league aspirations in Serie C (when I load the game to start for the 2020 season). They also play in Green (I'll need change from purple!) and play in the Amazonas state which is weak but they've only won it a few times. There is 14 games (plus a semi final and a final, maybe) so I've got plenty of scope to explore my 'development squad' and 'league squad.' Definitely one for consideration - especially with the lockdown meaning that I'm likely to complete a lot more with Guadalajara in a much shorter time frame than expected. Any thoughts on them? How have they performed in game for you? --- Back to your thread - the Brazil job still looks a top job with quality in all areas. Any sign of the club job yet? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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