Barca's Burst Bubble

[InkyFM]

BARCA'S BURST BUBBLE SEASON ONE RECAP

 

Recently I've been watching and playing along with a Football Manager Youtube save by Lollujo. In this save a database is used which reflects Barcelona's real life financial situation which has them £1billion in debt. The way the save works is the debt is repayable over 4 years, therefore this is a save of 4 years where the goal is to rebuild the squad , become financially sustainable and win the Champions League by the end of the 4 seasons. Before writing this up I also noticed @Jimbokav1971has been posting about his attempt at this challenge as well.

FINANCES

 

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As you can see from above at the start of Season 1 the debt stands at £1.2BILLION , we are also £540k OVER our wage budget, which meant when the January Transfer Window came round we would have to sell some players to get within our wage budget. Coutinho's £400k we desperately needed off our books, Dembele at 275k a week was another I needed to shift, especially as in game his attributes aren't as good as players like Fati and Depay who can also play in his position.

TACTICS

 

 

Tactics in game have never been my strong point, I never find something that consistently works therefore I decided to keep it simple at the start and go with a 4-2-3-1 in the hope to control most games. I favoured Lenglet and Pique at the back due to their height which could also help when it comes to our corner routines. In the second half of the season we would have to find Coutinho replacement but he would feature heavily until January.  De Jong and Busquets are the perfect pairing in the middle of the park, Busquets to support 4 at the back and De Jong to roam forward and to support the 4 up top.  Depay as an inside forward to utilise his pace and goal scoring ability with equally fast Fati on the opposite wing will provide the balls needed for poacher Aguero to take advantage of ( which he did scoring 29 goals in the first season)

 

First Half of La Liga

 

 

 

Just over half way into the La Liga Season and we were struggling, A. Madrid were running away with the league and we sit in third trailing them by 11 points. Too many draws and a few unlucky defeats meant we would have to focus on Europe for some success, which you will find out was an absolute disaster

 

JANUARY TRANSFER WINDOW

 

 

     The January Transfer Window came along and we got straight to work in selling players to get back within our wage budget. Coutinho (£60m) , Dembele ( £10m), Lenglet (£60m) , Braithwaite (£5.5m) left for a combined £135.5m and this outgoing business brought us back under our wage budget, which allowed us to bring in Marcus Alonso and Suso on loan. Belotti and Bernardeschi arrive on pre contracts at the end of the season. 

 

European Competition

 

The Champions League was a shambles as we finished 3rd in our group and dropped down into the Europa League. Our final game had us playing Wolfsburg where a win or draw would have saw us qualify but a late goal from Wolfsburg saw them pip us to 2nd spot.  The Europa League came along and after aggregate wins over Antwerp and Tottenham , we went into our QF tie against Valencia with high spirits, we were quickly brought down to earth though as we were humbled over both legs and went out 2-4 on aggregate

 

FINAL LA LIGA TABLE

 

 

As you can see we finished the season a massive 13 points behind Top Spot, too many performances were not good enough, this coupled with a quarter final exist in the Spanish Cup meant our season in my eyes was a failure even though the board only believed we could qualify for the Champions League and we were not expected by the pundits to win the league . On a brighter note, at the start of the season we played Real Madrid in the Super Cup and beat them 3-0!

 

We go into the next season with a bigger budget and hopefully after a summer rebuild we can focus on Season 2 and bring some silverware to the Nou Camp, Thank You to anyone who take the time to read this and I hope to update yous all with some Season 2 content within the next day or two!

Also please follow my Football Manager Account on Twitter which is InkyFM 

Edited September 21, 2021 by InkyFM

[Northernpilgrim]

Following this as well as watching Lollujo's attempt

[InkyFM]

Summer Transfer Window 2022

 

Transfers out:

 

We had a very busy Transfer Window wheeling and dealing throughout the summer to rebuild the full squad. We did have a initial budget of around £90m but I wanted to spend as little as possible so we could rapidly reduce our crippling debts. Our Top Goal Scorer from last season Sergio Aguero left for £22m going to Liverpool, I felt that was too good a sum of money for a 34 year old to tuern down and we already had Belotti coming in on a free to replace him. Araujo is a goo young talent but we managed to get £30m from Man Utd for him. Pjanic returned from a loan spell and we sold him to Leicester for £15m, we needed his £250k wages off the balance sheet. Jordi Alba joined Inter for £14m , again he was getting on and we wanted a cheaper replacement. The major Transfer Deal of our summer involved Frenkie De Jong who joined Liverpool in return for TWO of their forwards! As you will see as well we also managed to find a good midfield replacement for him!

 

Transfers In:

 

 

 

As mentioned earlier we already had Belotti and Bernardeschi coming in on pre contracts. Divock Origi and Diogo Jota were the two players to join us in the Frenkie De Jong swap deal. We signed Jorginho in on loan as De Jong's replacement with the view of hopefully signing him on a pre contract in January as his contract runs out next summer. Akanji joined on loan to provide competition in defence, Telles was signed on loan to replace Alba. Giovani Lo Celso did also join on Deadline Day, again another loan Deal.

 

Finances:

 

 

Within my first year at Barca I have managed to reduce the debt by £800k, with this being a 4 year project this sets us up very nicely to being debt free by the end of this challenge. I feel like although I have spent only £1.8m, which was the loan fee for Akanji, that on paper our squad has improved and going into next season my aims will be to at least challenge on all fronts and hopefully this time win La Liga.

 

Thanks again to anyone who reads this, commets and feedback would be much appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

[Sonic Youth]

Very nice wheeling ‘n dealing!

Not sure yet what to make of that Liverpool swap, especially with having Belloti and Bernadeschi already coming in. Cheap depth I guess. I think Liverpool would love to make this deal IRL 

[InkyFM]

16 minutes ago, Sonic Youth said:

Very nice wheeling ‘n dealing!

Not sure yet what to make of that Liverpool swap, especially with having Belloti and Bernadeschi already coming in. Cheap depth I guess. I think Liverpool would love to make this deal IRL 

We needed better squad depth, we were a few injuries away from having to play inexperienced players, Origi and Jota have been superb, 6 games in and both have 5 goals, Belotti struggling to make it onto the pitch as so far these two have been irreplaceable 

[InkyFM]

Season Two Recap

 

Formation:

 

This is how we decided to line up throughout the season, though in the second half of the season, we dropped Busquets, dropping Jorginho into his role and having Lo Celso join the starting line up. Origi played as an Advanced Forward with support in the wings from Fati as an Inside Forward and Jota as a raumdeuter. This role Ive found,  just like Lollujo did in his save that it is a much better version of an Inside Forward where the player lurks in the wings waiting to receive the ball before cutting inside and driving towards goal before getting a shot off.  In midfield we would use a Box to Box midfielder on support and a central midfielder on attack. Both wing backs on support to provide cover for the very attacking minded forwards.

Season Results:

We completed the TREBLE in our 2nd season at the club, winning both Spanish Cups before securing the La Liga Title with 2 games to spare. A fantastic season apart from our poor display in Europe where we finished 3rd in our Champions League Group before losing on aggregate to Inter Milan in the Europa League Quarter Finals.

La Liga Table:

 

Conclusion:

We go into the summer with a big recruitment drive needed to further lower the wage budget while recouping big transfer fees to further reduce the debt. Perreira and Jorginho's loans ended but they were out of contract at their clubs so they were signed on pre contracts before a very busy summer transfer window is needed, Our aims for next season are to remain strong domestically but once again try and improve our shocking performances in Europe

 

Thanks For Reading!

 

 

 

 

[Sonic Youth]

Congrats on the treble 

Real Madrid 

[Northernpilgrim]

[Jimbokav1971]

No idea how you managed to persuade Leicester to pay Pjanic's wages. How much of his £1.1M or £1.2M per month did you have to pay for them to afford him. (Still better than I managed though). 

Swapping FdJ for 2 Liverpool strikers is a good move in 1 sense, but it also means that you're replacing 1 big wage with 2 presumably smaller one's at a time when you're desperately trying to lower the wage bill. Still good business though to strengthen the weakest area of the squad. 

Araujo became a key player for me as I cashed in/got rid of more expensive options, (and he can also play more defensive roles in midfield). Not sure it made sense to sell him when he was on such a relatively low wage for his ability/potential. 

Getting that much cash for Aguero at that time was smart. You've had the best of him. Now get some cash for him and get him off the wage bill. 

Congrats on the treble. It really is a tough balancing act getting the wage bill down while still doing the business on the pitch. I know that Busquets is on a lot of money but you look to have got rid of most of the other big earners and getting £120M for Coutinho and Lenglet was much better than I managed so well done. No mention of Trincão, (who is on quite big wages). 

Interestingly, my Barca side collected 85 points in season 1 when finishing 3rd, but your 79 points got you 2nd. I went 1 point better in season 2 and 86 points was enough to win us the title, but in your game R.Madrid seem to have completely imploded and finished Season 2 on only 69 pts. . In season 3  we really kicked on and finished on 100 points as the youngsters really came good and we finally got something out of all the money we had paid Pjanic. 

Looking forward to season 3. 

[InkyFM]

On 30/09/2021 at 12:54, Jimbokav1971 said:

No idea how you managed to persuade Leicester to pay Pjanic's wages. How much of his £1.1M or £1.2M per month did you have to pay for them to afford him. (Still better than I managed though). 

Swapping FdJ for 2 Liverpool strikers is a good move in 1 sense, but it also means that you're replacing 1 big wage with 2 presumably smaller one's at a time when you're desperately trying to lower the wage bill. Still good business though to strengthen the weakest area of the squad. 

Araujo became a key player for me as I cashed in/got rid of more expensive options, (and he can also play more defensive roles in midfield). Not sure it made sense to sell him when he was on such a relatively low wage for his ability/potential. 

Getting that much cash for Aguero at that time was smart. You've had the best of him. Now get some cash for him and get him off the wage bill. 

Congrats on the treble. It really is a tough balancing act getting the wage bill down while still doing the business on the pitch. I know that Busquets is on a lot of money but you look to have got rid of most of the other big earners and getting £120M for Coutinho and Lenglet was much better than I managed so well done. No mention of Trincão, (who is on quite big wages). 

Interestingly, my Barca side collected 85 points in season 1 when finishing 3rd, but your 79 points got you 2nd. I went 1 point better in season 2 and 86 points was enough to win us the title, but in your game R.Madrid seem to have completely imploded and finished Season 2 on only 69 pts. . In season 3  we really kicked on and finished on 100 points as the youngsters really came good and we finally got something out of all the money we had paid Pjanic. 

Looking forward to season 3. 

Thanks for your feedback!

 

I have to pay £42.5k a week of Pjanic's wages until the summer of 2024.

The wages of Origi & Jota were less than those of FDJ so it made financial sense while also improving our strike force, espeically with Aguero leaving.

Spoiler alert, Busquets leaves at the end of season 2, Trincao has been difficult to get off the books, I do not use wingers in a new formation I have been using so he has also had no playing time, I have tried to loan him out to Southampton and Roma, he keeps rejecting them and has his eyes focused on Tottenham who have not came in for him.

Real Madrid were a shambles throughout the season, at one point they were in 13th and closer to the relegations spots than the top of the League!

I am going to do the season 3 update later on today / tomorrow and then I will read your updates and catch up with how your save is doing!

[InkyFM]

Season 3 Recap

Transfers In:

 

We did the bulk of our transfer in during the start of the window, we turned Jorginho and Pereira loan deals into permanent deals as they were out of contract. Kieron Trippier and Aaron Ramsey were signed on free transfers, as was Alonso who returns to the club after a season away. Konate joined on loan from Liverpool as Garcia was injured for 4 months, Transfer fees were spent on Tyrone Mings and Akanji who turned his loan into a permanent deal.

 

Later on in the window we signed Greenwood and Arthur on loan BUT I had not realised you could only register 3 non european players in the squad and now I had 4, I decided to not register Ramsey and only play him the Champions League games but then I was rocked with a 4 month injury to Greenwood, so I did not register him and did register Ramsey, I then had a space for a European national to sign and therefore on deadline day I brought Thiago in on loan 

Transfers Out:

 

 

Origi departed the club after only one season, he was demanding more than £200k a week and this broke our wage restructure so I declined, He was furious so I accepted the £70m bid from Inter, We sold quality youngster Gavi for £30m as I believed we had stronger alternatives to play in midfield, Puig and Nico also left as there was an abundance of midfielders at the Club

 

La Liga & Cup Competitions:

 

 

 

After finishing last season in 1st we have dropped to 2nd this season, two many draws and defeats left us 7 points adrift from Real Madrid, I do hope that next season we win La Liga for a second time but after each summer chopping and changing the team I do feel this will be a challenge!

 

 

EVENTUALLY WE MAKE IT OUT OF THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP STAGE AT THE THIRD TIME OF ASKING. We did do it the hard way though having to go into our last game and win and hope SLB dropped points against bottom Trabzonspor which is exactly what we did!

 

These are our Champions League Results, we were drawn against Chelsea for the first knock out tie, after a fantastic 3-2 win at home we lost 1-2 away meaning we knocked out on AWAY GOALS!

We yet again won the Super Cup but this does not really matter as our board does not judge our performances in this competition. There is not too much to report on the Spanish Cup as after 2 easy ties we were given the El Classico in the 5th Round where they dispatched of us with ease!

 

Finances: 

 

 

 

At the end of Season 3 we have GOT RID OF THE DEBT! We have done this one full season before the challenge of 4 seasons which is a good achievement but the second half of the challenge is to remain competitive which I feel we have done but next season we will need to have a much better run in the Champions League to have remained fully competitive throughout the save!

This concludes season 3 and next season I will be keeping pretty much the same squad to make sure our finances stay debt free by the end of season 4!

[Northernpilgrim]

Great work so far. Looking forward to seeing you finish the job in season 4

[InkyFM]

Season 4 & End of Challenge recap

 

Right everyone this is the final update of this challenge and it has been mixed results. It will be a very brief update as I want to fit in one more save before the FM 22 Beta comes out! We sold no players in the summer window but did sign two quality players on loan in Paredes and Milik to replace players whose loan deals had ended such as Greenwood and Thiago.

The season was a poor one where we failed to win a single trophy, missing out on the La Liga Title by 2 points. We fully cleared the debt in season 3 which was a season earlier than the target of 4 seasons but did we remain competitve? Id say we were competitive domestically winning La Liga once and remaining around the summit of the table each season with a couple of Spanish Cups added to the Trophy Cabinet but in Europe we were a shambles, very poor in the CL rarely making it out of our group but when we did we repeatedly got knocked out in the early rounds.

Overall this was a very fun challenge but I will definitely be looking at something different as my last save before FM22