[FM23] Taking Comune-ion - An Italian Save

Lestri · May 28, 2023

Welcome to Arsiè, Englishman

The inspiration for this save comes from my fiancée whose heritage is Irish and Italian. You know, your stock standard Australian catholic. Arsiè is a very small comune of about 2,000 people in the North East of Italy about 80kms north west of Venice. Her Italian side of the family come from here, where their family name is seen through the streets and throughout the cemetary. Along with other names of people that also moved to their small town in country Victoria. Migrant life, you love to see it.

For this save and the FM versions of ourselves, due to unforeseen circumstances, we've had to move back to her ancestoral Italian home. With my coaching badges, sunny charm and determination to not be unemployed. I put the feelers out for jobs in football. But to make things interesting, the main parameters for the save are to only sign players of Australian, Italian or Irish nationality as a nod to the reason why we are in Arsiè, my darling fiancée.

But before I begin I must thank a range of people including FMRensie for the skin, @FMStag for his wonderful statistical analysis that I have used for a while now, and all the people that I have followed over the years and those who have put up with my updates on FMSlack (looking at you @youthintake, @Oaky-FM et al.).

Note - I am on Season Two, so this is a summary of Season One before I go into full swing of Season Two.

We begin at A.C Trento in Serie C/A.

Why Trento?

Trento is 70kms west of Arsiè, or just under an hour's drive. Keeping it nice and close to our new home. Trento is the third largest city in the Italian Alps and is the capital of the automonous provence of Trento. Which fits nicely with where we actually live in Australia, in the Victorian alps in a place that is famous for a bushranger/highwayman who was anti-establishment. It also goes by Trent, so kudos to all you TAA, Trent Crimm and Trent Bridge fans.

A background

Established in 1921, the current version of Trento has been around since 2014 as it has been dissolved many times throughout its lifetime due to bankruptcy. So I assume everything is hunky dory right?

Fan-bloody-tastic.

Needless to say, things aren't great facilities wise, finances and stadium. Can't wait to get into it!

Board Vision isn't too bad, allowing me to implement a tactical style and impose my own print onto the club. Like most FMers, identifying a club DNA is something I like to do. Some people like to pick a club DNA based on the tactical style or the players they have at the club at the moment, however I take a different approach in that I want the same core five attributes in any formation/style I play. These are

Bravery - want players who don't shy away from the hard graft
Concentration - switching off is not my cup of tea
Determination - determined and hard work trumps talent always
Teamwork - collective is greater than the individual
Natural Fitness - quick turnarounds means I value players that can turnaround quickly.

Now for the tactic, I was lining up a way to play with Wide Centrebacks and wanted to play with the Regista for the first time in FM ever. So I have to give a huge shout out to @Cleon,Dan Gear and co over at View From The Touchline (https://www.viewfromthetouchline.com/) for the magnificient write up on the Regista role and also the Sheffield United formation for their save. So my formation is based on that, with a few changes to Player Instructions and Team Instruction to play with Set Pieces as I do enjoy that. I expect to amend this as I go, but yes, cannot underestimate how influential VFTT has been for this.

How things are going - Winter Break Check In

Not bad at all for a team predicted to challenge for playoffs

Results have been good - after a loss in the opening game where we got hit by two set piece plays. We responded well, as you can see our forward duo of Brighenti and Cudrig were doing wonders. But we found goals hard to come by when they weren't firing/weren't playing. We also made it through to the Serie C Cup quarters with ease.

With prize money only coming from the Serie C Cup and coming first in the league, it is a great start considering we are a bit hamstrung with our income.

Bleak is an understatement. In January we are €1.5 million in the red with projection down to €6 million by 2024/25, I am not in a good position. The good news is that we were able to lock down most of the first team that had their contract expiring on lower wages, which helped us a little bit. But extra emphasis on winning the league and the cup to get some income becomes so much more urgent.

I have been enjoying the way my Regista has played, I retrained my 33 year old attacking midfielder Cristian Pasquato to that role and he has been making some delightful assists. Some of them can be seen here and here.

As mentioned above, @FMStag is one of the greats for the use of data in Football Manager and it has enhanced the way I look at the game. I have chatted with FMStag for couple years or so now, about ways to look at data, but my work can't compare to his magnificent Player Performance Calculator and What Does Good Look Like metrics that has put together. Check out the awesome work on https://fmstag.com/statistics-what-does-good-look-like-in-fm23/ and https://www.fmscout.com/f-performance-calculator.html. I compared out of 661 players that have played minutes in the three Serie C leagues and found that:

my starting RWB playing as a WB-A, on loan Tomasso Barbieri is 9th for Creative Output
my starting LWB playing as a WB-S, Alessandro Fabbri is 5th for Creative Output
my starting DLF, captain Andrea Brighenti is 4th for Striking Threat
my starting AF, on loan Nicolò Cudrig is 1st for Striking Threat

How things are going - End of Season One Check In

Things went pretty well to be fair.

As you can see from below, we did dry up a little bit with our scoring at times, but we could rely on our solid defence ensured we kept the points coming.

We also won the Serie C Super Cup which is a little competition against the other two winners in Serie C leagues.

How my players stacked up - @FMStag style

End of season stats for Serie C players playing over 1000 minutes, using FMStag's metrics. Of note we have the best striking threat and creative output of the league. I am going to compare them with those who played 1000 minutes in Serie B as just an opening position to see where stack up, before pinpointing any specific upgrades we need. Red font are those on loan. We only kept Nicolò Cudrig from them for Season Two as the rest the parent clubs wanted them to experience "new environments". Pol Garcia is arguably our best player, and his ratings across Defensive Performance, Creative Output and Striking Threat is top notch for someone playing in the WCB-A

END OF SEASON ONE

So we won what we needed to give us some hope financially and are in a position now where we can earn some better income with better teams = more attendance, higher TV revenue and other forms of revenue I hope that will come. Shouldn't be too bad, right?

Fudge.

Next update will be a look at my approach to signings before going into the preparation for pre-season and our pre-season friendlies.

Thanks for reading, feedback appreciated!

Edited May 31, 2023 by Lestri
Grammar/spelling etc

youthintake · May 29, 2023

Great intro post!

Looking forward to an extended version of your last FMSlack update.

Cheers, Lew!

Lestri · May 29, 2023

33 minutes ago, youthintake said:

Great intro post!

Looking forward to an extended version of your last FMSlack update.

Cheers, Lew!

Cheers José! Yes that is the planned next post to deep dive into that. Hopefully can post tonight my time!

Lestri · May 29, 2023

The Summer Break - Stocktaking and Recruitment Process

Previously, we saw the Englishman in the Italian Alps finding some success like Michael Caine and his army of Minis when he led A.C. Trento to a domestic treble of sorts. Trento lifted the Serie C/A, Serie C Cup and Serie C Supercup trophies with only 2 losses across the season. Eat your heart out Sir Alex Ferguson, this is the proper Treble.

The promotion to Serie B does ease some of the pressure of the finances with about €1.3 million coming into the coffers. But as you see below, we are still in the red, and with no indication that we will be increasing our income through bums on seats.

We know there’s no chance in hell that our poor facilities will be getting any upgrades any time soon. Coupled with a fair assessment that the playoffs was arguably where we should have finished, our team needs a bit of a refresh to survive in Serie B. Off we go!

But before getting into the nuts and bolts, let's check what changes to our Board Vision have popped up.

So as you can see, possession football and signing players under 23 for the first team are preferred with set pieces and defensive solidity favoured. The under 23 signings is very pertinent as Serie B rules state that I can have a maximum of 20 players who are over 23 years old so this will be something to keep an eye on. We also were in the top 3 teams for possession last year and conceded the least in Serie C/A, so the plan is to keep the same tactic going, with a stronger emphasis on the set pieces.

How I go about my transfer business - how to Excel in transfers

Sorry for the Microsoft puns, I hope it doesn’t change your Outlook on this blog. Worth it.

I am a numbers guy, even though I have moved to more of the collection and interpretation of it in my real life. So knowing that the star rating in FM is based on the limitations of our Scouts and Assistant Managers, I was looking for a way to look at a player’s suitability for a role solely based on their attributes. Off I went, but long story short, a few years ago I found a spreadsheet that does the job. Because it has been such a long time, I have lost the name of the original creator, so I can’t credit them. But I am indebted to them.

What does this look like?

So this is a spreadsheet that contains every single attribute and role, so it is over 130 columns wide. As you can see in the image, each role contains a formula, for this one it is the Wide Centre Back in Attack duty. Essentially what it does is weight the key attributes compared to the secondary attributes for a role and turns it into a score out of 100. So a 50% essentially means they are on average a 10/20 for all the role specific attributes.

I print screen from an “all attributes” squad view, open it as a web file and copy and paste it into the spreadsheet. So you get something like the below

At the start of each save, I do this analysis and pick my first XI/Second XI based on that and then allocate training roles to those positions. You will also see that I have a DNA score for each player as well that I identified in the opening post (Concentration, Determination, Team Work, Work Rate, Natural Fitness).

This is not to say that I don’t use the scout or coach reports, these are the only ones that identify the hidden traits that become a point of differential between players (e.g. consistency, injury prone, fear of big games and adaptability).

A case study in Season One - Giovanni Terrani

Say hello to Giovanni Terrani

The attribute based search showed that my attacking midfielder/striker Giovanni Terrani was our best rated Mezzala at 60% even though he wasn’t suitable as a midfielder. So I allocated the Mezzala Attack position training at the start of pre-season and got him match experience in the friendlies. He wasn’t happy at first, but I kept at it and he ended up with 14 goals, 9 assists at an average of 7.15, the highest goal involvements of his career. As you can see now, he is considered a decent Serie B player. Lovely stuff.

One thing I haven’t done in the past is do a comparison of how they’ve progressed over the years. In season one, the older players have slightly reduced ~1% while the youngsters have grown by a couple %. I will do this each year to see how they go.

The recruitment process

As mentioned in the first blog, we were only able to retain one of our loanees from last year, but the good news was that it was Nicolò Cudrig, the best performing player for striking threat in both Serie B and C leagues based on a minimum of 1000 minutes played. A quick look at our team saw that we were light in depth across the squad, especially in the middle of the park and centre back. Off to the player search screen we go!

Noting I have put a restriction on myself to only sign players of Australian, Italian or Irish nationality, this was my opening parameter, along with only picking players that were at least ‘slightly interested’ in coming to us. With our finances pretty shaky, I made the decision to look at unattached players as well as players under 23 to ensure we keep on the right side of the league rules and our Board Vision.

So we had 155 players that met the criteria above. I used an all attribute view, print screened it and added it to my spreadsheet to see how they stacked up in the roles I played and how they compared to my current squad. I also used @FMStag's Player Performance Calculator to see how they went in Season One (Key tip - make sure to do this before the new season starts so you can have those stats, even worth having a separate save version of this to use as a point in time data point). My point here is that I use both an attribute and statistical view into identifying my targets, with the following being my points of differentials:

Personality - positive will trump negative, even if the negative has a few points over the other
DNA - particularly Determination and Natural Fitness
Injury Proneness - can’t afford to have players in the treatment room getting a wage without playing.

Summer Signings - click on the name to see their profile and attributes.

Gabriel Meli comes in on a free from Empoli to challenge my starting keeper.
Antonio De Cristofaro comes in from AZ Picerno to be my starting Box to Box midfielder. Doesn't like the big matches but hopefully that can be managed
Christian Barberini comes in from Latina to be my backup Regista, with the aim for him to replace my current one who is starting to decline
Luis Hasa comes in from Juventus on a free to be my backup Mezzala, looks handy and has some solid potential
Davide Zugaro comes in from Inter but has been sent on loan many times it seems that it doesn’t come up in his career stats. Will be my backup LWB with a plan to challenge for the first team soon
Patrick Enrici comes in on loan from Lecco that were relegated from Serie C. Shall be very handy if he performs to his potential. Have a cheapish optional future fee as well. Will play as starting CD in the cover role
Nosa Obaretin comes in on a free being released from Napoli, back up WCB-A, expecting good things from him, especially with that height and jumping reach
Samuele Spalluto comes in on a free being released from Fiorentina to be the starting AF-A. Looks very handy.
Former wonderkid Nicolo Armini was picked up after being released from Lazio. He originally wanted 9k a week but did the old get him on trial and he then wanted 3.2k a week. Still the most expensive wage we have but will be worth it. Will play in the WCD-A role
A later signing just before the start of the season was Jacopo Pellegrini who came on a free after being released by Sassuolo. He will be a starting AF-A but have him as my backup in the DLF-S role for the time being

Our squad depth looks like

I feel confident for the season!

As Roy Kent says very well "FARKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK"

Next update will be a quick look at the tactics/training and how we went for our friendlies.

Until next time!

SixPointer · May 29, 2023

Great start great idea! Love that Juve went down

Lestri · May 29, 2023

9 hours ago, SixPointer said:

Great start great idea! Love that Juve went down

Yeah they had the 15 point deduction at the start of the season and it went from there. Hasn't stopped them signing a few players for 40 million though. Looking forward to the challenge though. Have have them third game of the league season.

mtb · May 30, 2023

Excellent post :applause: would you be willing to share the role suitability spreadsheet?

Lestri · May 30, 2023

2 hours ago, mtb said:

Excellent post would you be willing to share the role suitability spreadsheet?

If I can work how to do it, will do for the next blog! I do note that FMScout has just uploaded one to their website that has a similar element in it as part of a broader spreadsheet that takes into account finances and others, so that could be helpful in the mean time.

_Ben_ · May 30, 2023

I've really enjoyed reading this, so far. Will follow along with interest.

Lestri · May 31, 2023

15 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

I've really enjoyed reading this, so far. Will follow along with interest.

Appreciate it!

Lestri · May 31, 2023

A New Season Is Dawning - Preseason

The Englishman in Northern Italy is settling in nicely and learning some of the local lingo to expand his ability to order anything other than a penne carbonara. Reports are saying his fiancee, waistline and cholestesterol levels are welcoming this move. Previously on FM23, I spent some time detailing the way I go at looking at squad depth and potential signings. Thankfully this update will be shorter for everyone’s benefit. For preseason I focus on two things; squad cohesion and getting some much needed income. Let’s take a quick look at what this means and what approach I take.

Squad Cohesion

There is a lot of focus on tactical familiarity in my preseason training approach. Considering it seems we have lost the ability to decide when preseason start (happy to be corrected if I am wrong), I adapt to how many weeks I am given from day 1 to the first competitive day of the season.

For Season Two of my Trento save I had five weeks, so my approach went as follows. As you can see the title of the schedule is a different to the week because of the shorter preseason that I usually expect.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

My approach is essentially, first week ease into it, second week really crank up the fitness side of things and finish off with the first friendly. Third week starts the two friendlies a week period as I am a firm believer in getting that tactical familiarity and squad cohesion up, and the best way in my opinion is by playing games. Usually my identified first team will play 45-60 mins with a swap to the second team for the rest of the game. Week four is similar but cranking up the longer first team minutes up to 60-70 mins. Week five had a slight change with more tactical training as we were starting our first competitive game that week.

You will see a consistent theme that every game will have Match Tactics, Teamwork and Match Preview on the day before the match, and Recovery and Match Review the day after. I am not subtle at all with my focus on squad cohesion, some would say its overkill, but a cohesive team is more important that anything else in my eyes.

Friendlies

As mentioned above, I had six slots lined up for friendlies, so off I go to the schedule screen to set them up. I always take control of my friendlies, because there has never been a time in my FM career that the staff have had any semblance of a strategy for friendlies. May not be realistic, but this is the way I do things.

As you will see when you find an opposition for your friendly, it shows the cost it will be to get them to play and the income you will receive. Now my tip here is that going for the highest income isn’t always the smartest idea, as more often than not, the cost will be higher, meaning your ‘profit’ per friendly is not the maximum it can be. So it is worth selecting a range of teams to see what is the maximum difference between income and cost. And always, always select home, the exception to this is of course if we are invited to partake in a friendly, then let them pay us for that privilege.

So how did my preseason go?

Not bad at all, being unbeaten against 3 Serie B teams, 2 Serie C teams and 1 non-playable team. Considering we had a bit of a clear out with 9 out of 25 or so players replaced as shown in my previous blog, my Team Cohesion in the Dynamics tab was in the green, but not as high as I’d like, however due to my success last year, the Club Atmosphere and Managerial Support are looking very healthy.

How we're setting up

We’re ready to lock and load for the season with our first team looking like this - once again thanks to @Cleon for the inspiration for the formation which is spoken most exceptionally at https://www.viewfromthetouchline.com/2023/03/13/the-blades-revolution/ and to fellow SI forum blogger @SixPointer and FM Rensie (@FMRensie on Twitter and on https://coffeehousefm.com/fmrensie for some great tips regarding corner routines, which is going to be significant for me with my Board’s requirement for making the most out of my set pieces.

Role Suitability Calculator Template

On a final note, here is a downloadable zip folder link to the Role Suitability by Attribute spreadsheet I talked about in my last blog, with the two views that you will need. It has instructions in there for you to use and I hope you get some benefit from it. As mentioned a few times, I am like a magpie in that I see shiny awesome things by other creators and mould them to myself. So I always want to be clear and upfront, with me crediting the person where the idea came from. This one I can’t for my life remember where I got it from, but full credit to them for it.

Role Suitability by Attributes Calculator.zip

We start our competitive season against a Serie C team we played in our first friendly of the preseason, beating Mantova 3-1. A win will see us up against Serie A team Empoli in the first proper round of the Italian Cup.

Until next time.

Lestri · June 2, 2023

Hail Caesar August-us

Meet Octavian, more commonly known as Augustus. He is considered to be the founder of the Roman Empire and arguably the greatest political leader in history. Seems apt to have a photo of him for this write up of how August went, considering he is the reason why the eighth month is called what it is. Couldn’t miss the opportunity as an Ancient Rome nerd to make that reference. Today’s blog will run through how our first month in the second tier of Italy went. Has life started well for the Englishman living in the Italian countryside? Let's find out.

To quickly recap last season, we won the Serie C Supercup, beating the other teams that were also promoted. The teams that went down were Cremonese, Torino and a small team called Juventus that never recovered from the 15 point penalty that had been imposed on them. So considering we won quite convincingly against the other promoted teams, surely the media would place us above them for their predicted table right?

Nope, not even close.

I like to think is how the conversation went between my avatar self and the Juventus coach

Photoshop is not my forte but I couldn’t help think of this scene in Avengers: Endgame.

Another chuckle for me was looking at the Media’s Dream Eleven

Or as you can call it, the Juventus starting lineup (spoiler alert, there is one change as you will see later)

We’ve doubled our season ticket membership which is lovely, but around 500 is not ideal for a solid income stream. I hope we can consolidate this season so I can keep the home attendances to a level where we don’t go too far into the red.

August Results

Italian Cup - Round One versus Mantova (Serie C)

Goal 1 - beautiful ball by my captain in the DLF role to Luis Hasa in the Mezzala role who scores a cracking goal on debut
Goal 2 - nice build up play and once again a lovely through ball by our captain to Hasa who slots it past the keeper
Goal 3 - saw us win the ball up the friend with our right wing back crossing the ball for Hasa who scores a hatrick on debut! Not bad for the second choice!

Thanks to this win we were able to meet one of our objectives in our first game of the season!

Who says this would be hard.

Italian Cup - Round Two versus Empoli (Serie A)

Goal - great ball from my RWB through to my AF-A (Spalluto) who finishes it nicely for his first goal for the club
Red Card - while the scores are level, our substitute RWB decides to go full Tekken on their player resulting in a red card
We fall short, however we do a great job up against a much stronger team on paper. Can’t help feel we had a chance here though

Serie B - Game One versus Cremonese (H)

Goal 1 - love a good set piece goal
Goal 2 - rinse and repeat! @keysi
Goal 3 - nice build up and a quality debut goal by Barberini
What a great start to the league season beating a relegated team from Serie A. Strong performance but they were down to 10 for a while.

Serie B - Game Two versus Benevento (A)

Goal - what a goal from outside the box from our Haitian squad player Attys.
A great result considering it was two days after the first game of the season, so I had completely rotated my team against a team that are predicted to challenge for promotion.

End of Month

Our backup Mezzala, Luis Hasa, who scored a hattrick in the first round of the Cup wins the U19 player of the month award with one assist in the two games so far.

The end of August comes the closing of the transfer window. Juventus shows that it still has top European money outspending us by…. well €106 million.

Goodbye Szczesny, I'm sure your back up will slot into the Media Dream Eleven easily.

We're small fry indeed, I wonder who we are up against next.

Brilliant. Happy September all. Until next time.

SixPointer · June 4, 2023

Thanks for the hit on the set plays. What’s even better nice to see your first league game feature two goals from your setups.

I feel it’s definitely an undervalued tool in the arsenal of weapons at our disposal as managers. But i do feel SI could really improve this area, I’m considering doing a feature request but think it’s way past the cut off for seeing any real change for FM24. If I do I’ll be sure to tag you to get some inputs.

13th Man · June 4, 2023

Love this writeup so far! And yes, I did very much enjoy the hack and slash photoshop Avengers thingy.

I'm just blown away by Juve going down and the money they're throwing around despite being in Serie B. I'd have to wonder about someone moving from Man Utd to Juve even with all the money if they'd just been relegated?

More on point, the system looks good - perfect for an Italian adventure - and it seems to be working quite well even with the jump to Serie B. I did a save a few years back and it seemed the jump between the leagues isn't as drastic in Italy, with so many clubs going back and forth. Obviously, the best clubs are in Serie A (other than Juve of course, ha!) but you're not guaranteed to struggle just because you're from the lower division.

Lestri · June 4, 2023

5 hours ago, SixPointer said:

Thanks for the hit on the set plays. What’s even better nice to see your first league game feature two goals from your setups.

I feel it’s definitely an undervalued tool in the arsenal of weapons at our disposal as managers. But i do feel SI could really improve this area, I’m considering doing a feature request but think it’s way past the cut off for seeing any real change for FM24. If I do I’ll be sure to tag you to get some inputs.

Yes it is probably up there with International Management as my two biggest issues with FM in general. In the past my set pieces has essentially been near post outswingers to the biggest lump on my team, but this save I've tried to provide some variety. One of yours of having the decoy and ping the other post was very influential, so once again thank you for that!

3 hours ago, 13th Man said:

Love this writeup so far! And yes, I did very much enjoy the hack and slash photoshop Avengers thingy.

I'm just blown away by Juve going down and the money they're throwing around despite being in Serie B. I'd have to wonder about someone moving from Man Utd to Juve even with all the money if they'd just been relegated?

More on point, the system looks good - perfect for an Italian adventure - and it seems to be working quite well even with the jump to Serie B. I did a save a few years back and it seemed the jump between the leagues isn't as drastic in Italy, with so many clubs going back and forth. Obviously, the best clubs are in Serie A (other than Juve of course, ha!) but you're not guaranteed to struggle just because you're from the lower division.

FM Creators. Assemble!

For Juventus it was an interesting off season - their ins and outs this season are here. Seven of their starting eleven right now have either asked to leave or are exploring their options at the end of the their contract this season so it'll be interesting to see if they can hold onto them before their inevitable promotion.

Regarding the standard of Serie B, it seems we are holding ourselves well so far, but it is still early days. The speed of play is the only difference I can see so far, but nothing too tough to handle. It seems a lot of teams are scared to attack, which could just be the old school defensive Italian ways. I'm sure when (if) we get to Serie A, the standard will get that little bit difficult.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Lestri
Spelling

13th Man · June 4, 2023

7 hours ago, Lestri said:

Regarding the standard of Serie B, it seems we are holding ourselves well so far, but it is still early days. The speed of play is the only difference I can see so far, but nothing too tough to handle. It seems a lot of teams are scared to attack, which could just be the old school defensive Italian ways. I'm sure when (if) we get to Serie A, the standard will get that little bit difficult.

That was definitely my experience. In Serie A you face some top sides that are just on another level like (usually) Juve, so I guess you’ll get a nice preview there. Otherwise, sounds like good old fashioned Italian tactical battles! Kind of miss it to be honest.

Lestri · June 6, 2023

Lovely photo of a castle in Trento from a travel blog called Almost Ginger. Lucky I am completely 100% a ginger, but what a lovely castle.

SEPTEMBER 2023 UPDATE

Game 1 vs Juventus

Knowing we were going to be up against it from kick off, I made a few tweaks to our set up to try to negate that. Firstly I changed my Wide Centre Backs from attack to defend duty, as much as I loved the overlap, I knew Juventus had the quality to exploit the space left compared to other teams. My other change was moving my Advanced Forward to a Pressing Forward on attack duty, to hassle the defenders as Juventus played from the back. If I could make Juventus have to play longer earlier in their progression, then I was happy with that, even though they’d probably have the players to make it work.

As expected, we were well beaten, with Juventus matching their xG, however I was very happy with us getting one up on them on the possession side of things. Their first came from a high press from a kick off and us trying to play from the back and our keeper misplacing it to their left wing back who intercepted and scored a cracker. The second came from good play down the right wing and a bullet header by their huge lump up front (as both an Englishman and Australian, I can’t help falling in love with a big lump of a number 9). Watching the game I could see that their defenders did take their time getting the ball forward, playing with a pretty low tempo, so with 15 minutes left in the game, I cranked up the pressing duties in the “out of possession” team instructions, moving from a mid block to a high press, and my defence to ‘Step Up More’. We then caused a bit of panic and got a goal back in injury time from a throw in set piece. Overall, I can't complain too much. Though we did have a nice piece of news from the game.

Bums on the seats, you love to see it.

Game 2 vs Reggiana

A game against one of the fellow promoted teams that we beat 1-0 last year in the Serie C Super Cup. It was history repeating itself picking up the 1-0 win here. Back to our usual style of play and we did a great job holding the ball, outpassing them by just over 200 passes. We won by a late penalty in the first half which did inflate the xG but we had the better chances. Am a little disappointed by the amount of shots we gave up and our own wastefulness, but I am not going to complain about picking up three points on the road against a team we are predicted to fight against for relegation.

Game 3 vs Consenza

A comprehensive win at home against the southern brethren from Consenza who take their long trip home without troubling the scorers. Over 250 passes more than them, restricting them to only 1 shot on target with over double the progressive passes. Lovely stuff. We got off to a flyer with some incisive passing leading our left wing back to slot a beautiful through ball to Spalluto to score his first goal for the club. We then consolidated our lead with a goal from a corner set piece, a near post header being parried straight into the path of captain Brighenti lurking at the far post.

You love to see it.

Game 4 vs Palmero

A two day break and we were down to Sicily to recent City Group acquisition Palmero F.C. Because of the short turnaround, I have swapped the whole outfield team out to the backups, risky I know, but I do often like to play my second teams I do have a soft spot for Palmero as iconic Australian Mark Bresciano lined up for them in the late 2000s who was a regular pick up for me in the FM games of that era. Brilliant in the number 10 with exceptional technical attributes. They have picked up fellow Australian Ajdin Hrustic on loan from Hellas Verona to add a bit of intrigue to it.

We had a shocker, outplayed and lucky to only lose by one goal. We didn’t have one shot on target, our pass map shows we barely got the ball forward. But considering it was our second team, I am not too disappointed, however it does shake my confidence in them a bit if they need to step up again.

Game 5 vs Brescia

We ended September with a 2-2 draw. We dominated the first half with Spalluto scoring a lovely goal that started from our keeper Marchegiani and 9 passes later it was in the back of the net. Two mistakes in quick succession were swooped on Brescia’s marksman Florian Aye, being fed in quite nicely by the Australian right back Fran Karacic and we found ourselves behind with 13 minutes to go. A change to a high press and stepping up gave us a turnover in the final third and our captain fantastic Brighenti rolling back the years by ghosting past their static centre backs with a quality finish to give us a well deserved point.

So September has come and gone with seven points from four games, which I would have taken at the start of the month with the likes of Juventus and Brescia on the fixture list. We seem to be holding our own which is great, and the high press tweak to the tactic when we are pushing for a goal seems to be beneficial, but we may see a tweak if things don’t pick up.

Our fixture list for October looks like

Hoping to pick up 5-6 points here.

PS. I have played around with how to present the update with the above match reports. Always keen for feedback if it works/doesn't work. All feedback is good feedback.

Until next time.

13th Man · June 6, 2023

Pretty good all things considered. Never going to beat Juve, but you’re beating some teams in the lower half.
Think the updates are solid, maybe show or mention the opposition shape just for tactics nerds like me?

SixPointer · June 7, 2023

I love the fact your DM seems to be performing so well average rating wise anyway. It’s always a hard position to get good ratings

Lestri · June 7, 2023

18 hours ago, 13th Man said:

Pretty good all things considered. Never going to beat Juve, but you’re beating some teams in the lower half.
Think the updates are solid, maybe show or mention the opposition shape just for tactics nerds like me?

Good point - it's been either the 4-3-3 with a DM, 3-4-2-1 or the old 4-4-2 diamond.

2 hours ago, SixPointer said:

I love the fact your DM seems to be performing so well average rating wise anyway. It’s always a hard position to get good ratings

I think because they are in the Regista role and they both take corners, the combination of the progressive passes you get from that role and the corners gives them a bit of a bonus rating.

SixPointer · June 7, 2023

3 hours ago, Lestri said:

Good point - it's been either the 4-3-3 with a DM, 3-4-2-1 or the old 4-4-2 diamond.

I think because they are in the Regista role and they both take corners, the combination of the progressive passes you get from that role and the corners gives them a bit of a bonus rating.

I used a regista on fm22 I found it a very exciting role but it definitely needs a hard worker in the mix with it.

SixPointer · June 7, 2023

Also feedback on your update style. It’s very good, has all the right info and a nice balanced feel to it.

SteinkelssonFM · June 15, 2023

Any more updates pending mate?

Lestri · June 18, 2023

On 16/06/2023 at 03:53, MattyLewis11 said:

Any more updates pending mate?

Been a slow period of FMing so hopefully have something up in the upcoming week. Was planning to get through to the mid season break and do a bumper update.

SteinkelssonFM · June 18, 2023

Refreshing to hear mate, will look forward to the bumper update.

Lestri · June 18, 2023

5 minutes ago, MattyLewis11 said:

Refreshing to hear mate, will look forward to the bumper update.

This will be a focus regarding recruitment.

Lestri · June 20, 2023

The benefit of the cricket being delayed means I have been able to get up to the winter break, meaning an update should be coming within the next 24 hours!

Lestri · June 20, 2023

OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2023 UPDATE

It's coming up to the end of wine picking season in Trento and just like the vineyards of the Trentino-Alto Adige wine region, A.C. Trento and their plucky English/Australian head coach are finding out if they are on track to have a bountiful season. Our first couple of months saw us finding out feet in Serie B. We were picking up points at home, but our away form was shocking at best.

October saw us continue our shocking away form with two losses against local team Venezia and Ascoli with us shipping seven goals over the two games. The Venezia game was particularly embarrassing for us with two of our players being sent off in the space of two minutes.

Pain

Thankfully for us our home form allowed us to pick up six points over the four games. The 3-1 win against Parma also had some very nice build up play for the goals, but what was more pleasing to see was that we restricted them to just 37% possession and two shots on target.

November 2023 will forever be known as Spalutto’s month in Trento after he single handedly dragged Trento from being in a world of trouble. Six goals in four games, including one lovely hattrick against Foggia allowed us to pick up seven points across the month. Which was especially helpful after a shocking start to the month with a 2-1 loss to Torino, though expected, came with only two of our players contributing to our xG. This hurt as we had 61% possession against one of the top sides in the league. We followed up that game with a comprehensive win against second place Frosinone where we had 72% possession and completed 860 passes. Our results were starting to show that while we were regularly outpassing the opposition, we were lacking a bit of bite upfront and leaving ourselves exposed on the break. With the injury to our captain Brighenti resulting in a necessary change, I made the tough call to drop our stalwart left wing back Alessandro Fabbri who although had been solid, was being exposed quite a bit.

Single handlely winning us games - though I've never played him as a target forward. Cheers internal FM media

December started with a chaotic game against Jose’s Ternana with Jacopo Pellegrini giving the first 10.0 match rating of the year in a 4-3 win. I don’t think I’ve experienced this type of game before where everyone else played a pretty average game except for our two strikers.

"Don't need to play well if our strikers do their job" - the other 9 players, probably

The battle of Trentino-Alto Adige - Part 1

After a bore scoreless draw against Como, which I can put down to our team enjoying the views at Lake Como a little too much, we faced our local rivals Südtirol for the first time. A 45 minute drive up north, Südtirol were placed similarly in the Serie B table and a win here would allow us to gain the upper hand against our local rival, as well as some well timed momentum. The reason why it is a pretty intense rivalry is because of geopolitical history. Huzzah. A quick google tells us that:

Trentino-Alto Adige is composed of two autonomous provinces. Trentino is almost entirely Italian speaking, while Alto Adige has a predominantly German-speaking population. The latter know their province by the name Südtirol (South Tyrol in English). This is due to the region's former status as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from which it was reclaimed by Italy in 1919. The region's population of more than a million people is divided fairly equally between the two provinces. As a whole, approximately two-thirds of them speak Italian as their first language. Looking at a map, Trentino-Alto Adige is divided almost perfectly, with Trentino in the south and Alto Adige in the north.

So Italian speaking Italians versus German speaking Italians. Shall be spicy!

The game was relatively tight but our quality up front prevailed with a two nil result. The second was a lovely finish after a gorgeous one-two between our strikers.

Chef's kiss.

We then followed that up with a 2-1 win over Modena with our regista scoring a cracking free kick and Christmas came a day early for us where we completed the double against recently relegated Cremonese with a 3-0 win at home. We completed an unbeaten December with a 1-1 draw against Benevento.

So after all of that, where do we find ourselves as we open a bottle of local sparkling wine to celebrate the New Years?

We find ourselves very nicely placed in fifth place, five points behind second placed Parma. As expected Juventus are running away with it, being unbeaten so far.

Player Analysis - thanks to @FMStag's Player and Goalkeeper Performance Calculators

I do love a spreadsheet.

Gabriele Marchegiani sits 6th for all goalkeepers in the Italian leagues averaging 3.6 saves a game and a designated “safe pair of hands”. For a small team who needs a strong keeper, Marchegiani has been doing great so far averaging over 7 and conceded only 23 goals so far in 21 games.
Samuele Spalluto sits at the top of the Striker Threat chart in Serie B, with him topping the golden boot race at the moment with 14 goals.
Our defence is solid, especially with our starting Wide Centre Backs of Nicolò Armini and Pol García doing well with their Creative Output numbers as well as their Defensive Performance.
Our golden oldies Cristian Pasquato and Andrea Brighenti are doing well, however Pasquato is starting to deteriorate with his physicals and Brignhenti has missed most of the last 3 months with injuries that Armini has taken over the armband.
Jacopo Pellegrini has taken his chance to be the starting DLF-S like a kid in a candy shop and has been teeing up with Spalluto quite nicely. With Brighenti’s injuries, this has given Anthony Fontana some more minutes that I expected. He is a solid allrounder who can play any of my midfield or forward roles.
Pasquato’s good set piece attributes is holding his spot in the first team, but I suspect new signing Alessio Riccardi from the unattached list will get more and more minutes as we go deep into the second half of the season.

Not rocket science with the individual metrics above, but good to see that the in game team metrics for general performance shows we have been above the Serie B average on most things.

On a personal note - I had five teams offer me interviews for their head coach roles. All been rejected of course as I will need to stay close to North East Italy, but it was nice to have unsolicited offers for interviews from Ligue 1 and Bundesliga teams.

I’ll leave you with this.

Until next time. Ta ta.

FMStag · June 28, 2023

Love this, @Lestri

Lestri · June 29, 2023

THE RETURN OF WANGBALL - Season Two January to March '23 Update

Above you is the regional Victorian town named Wangaratta, which gets it name from the local Indigenous Australian nation of Bpangerang's word for the long neck of the cormorant. 'Wanga' meaning long neck, and 'Ratta' meaning cormorant. These birds are a common sight on the two rivers that meet in Wangaratta, the Torryong (Ovens) & Poodumbia (King) Rivers. This was the place I moved to from the Australian capital, Canberra, as my partner moved for work. You can tell I didn't go too far from real life for the inspiration of the save.

While a regular player of editions of Championship Manager/Football Manager from the early 2000s, I am a relative baby when it comes to the world of FMCreators. One of the things I appreciated from that community was how they were able to play the game in their own identity. Whether it was a specific brand of football, saves based on something, or creating a whole side story to their saves, I loved it all. So while in isolation due to the good old Rona, I decided to join the world of FMSlack and started a save as Vaduz with the usual save parametres we love to impose on ourselves.

Now a little about me, I love my whisky peaty, my musicals camp and my Football Manager tactics mental. So in light of my move to the Victorian country town of Wangaratta, Wangball was born. A grossly overpowered attacking formation that lined up as four at the back, a defensive midfielder, two centre midfielders and three centre forwards. It essentially was a 3-0-7 in possession. It was high pressing, high tempo and high pressure football that essentially left anyone in my team with <15 stamina in a heap on the floor after 60 minutes, let alone 90. When it worked, it worked, taking my Vaduz team to the Europa League final after what can be called a Blitzkrieg on established teams. But when it didn’t work, it wasn’t pretty, losing 6-2 in that final. Its finest hour was being used in @FMEadsterand FM Grasshopper's MLS twitch save where Eadie used it for the first part of his MLS All Stars game where it completely destroyed the Mexican All Stars team. You can see how that went at https://coffeehousefm.com/fmeadsterblog/2022/4/12/north-meets-south-portland-timbers-bring-samba-to-mls-fm22. Some say that you still hear the call of Wangball in the air.

So why bring up Wangball now? Well because I find a good old fashioned all out attack tactic is handy to have in the armoury in the games where you want to shock the opposition. Often at the end of a game when you are going for broke, but I often find a nice change to the system at the start of the game can cause some chaos, especially if they set themselves out for your standard tactic. And what better way to introduce it then when you are up against Juventus, who as we saw above, somehow found themselves in Serie B and as expected, are running away at the top of the league this season. But I wanted to incorporate the wide centre backs into the style of play, so my updated Wangball tactic was born.

The expectation is when we attack, the Half back will slide back to create a back two, with the wide wing backs joining the Segundo Volante in pushing up. This, with the attack minded centre midfielders and the wing backs on CWB-A duties, will essentially have us playing a 2-0-8 of sorts. With the usual high press, high tempo and closing down more than the UK high street, it isn’t a sustainable formation, but it is one that has that shock value. It also is one that doesn’t involve too many players being out of their natural or accomplished positions, so we won’t suffer from tactical ineptitude. Well that is the plan anyway.

We started the game in the Wangball formation, and had some early success by breaking down their play, but you can’t keep the quality of Juventus quiet for too long, and we fell behind. The tactic was used at the start of each half and at the end when we were aiming for the equaliser, but we can’t complain too much about the 2-1 loss away to the Old Lady of Italia, ending our 9 match unbeaten streak. One downside to Wangball style is it does make my team look a bit like the Crazy Gang of the 1980s Wimbledon, with 6 yellow cards dished out. Whoops.

It was back to normal programming with the second and final game of January (thank you European leagues and their winter breaks) with Reggiana taking an early lead against us, but we clicked into gear and had arguable our most complete game of the season so far, with a 3-1 win with 70% possession and 700 passes completed. Scrumptious.

Transfer Window

The transfer window closed with three players leaving Trento, two on loan and one permanent transfer.

Outs

With our 2022 Youth Intake top prospect Giovanni Marini becoming close to first team level, I decided to promote him and let 32 year old Luca Ferri go on loan to Serie C as he was on the downward trajectory and wasn’t getting the game time he wanted. We also saw 23 year old Croatian striker Leon Šipoš leave on loan to Serie C side Carrarese to get some minutes. I’m hoping a good spell will have him challenging for minutes next year as he is quite solid, but with Pellegrini and Sapputo playing out of their skin, Sipos was way down the pecking order. Finally we said goodbye to Sergiu Suciu who left us permanently for $23k as we cashed in before he left on a free.

These departures also were necessary for our precarious financial situation, where due to the need to get our top players signed to longer contracts as they were close to being available for a free transfer. These allowed me to get our wages under budget, but not by much, which unfortunately meant that our starting CB(C) Patrick Enrici will leave us at the end of the loan as Foggia were able to offer him triple the wages we were able to.

Ins

No players were to join us for the second half of the season as I didn't have any money to play with. We were able to pick up Steffano Cella on a pre-contract from Serie A team Cremonese who will join us at the end of the season. He’ll be a solid replacement for Enrici and has bags of potential, though some of his cons regarding being inconsistent and not enjoying big matches may be an issue.

February was a field of green with four wins on the bounce, with Spalluto getting his finishing boots on scoring all five goals in the wins against Cosenza (2-1) and Palermo (3-1). We followed that up with wins against Brescia and Venezia, giving us five straight wins on the bounce. The highlight was this exceptional goal against Venezia by our box to box midfielder Antonio De Cristofaro.

Bellissimo

February did come with some sad news with our two veterans, starting Regista Cristian Pasquato and our club captain Andrea Brighenti announcing they will be hanging up the boots at the end of the season. As previously mentioned, Pasquato was essentially staying in the team due to his strong set piece attributes, and Brighenti’s body was starting to give up on them, so on the pitch it won’t be too much of a loss, but their influence is something that will be hard to replace. Knowing the Regista role replacement was already made earlier in the sesaon with the free signing of Alessio Riccardi, I went back to the free transfer market and picked up Marco Da Graca on a free transfer, who was let go by Juventus midway through the season. While he is earning a pretty significant wage, his potential, physical and mental attributes got him over the line. As always with a #fmhack, getting them on a trial first usually reduces their wage demand by quite a significant amount compared to if you offer them a contract straight from the scouting window.

March started with a wild game down in the land of the Leaning Tower, with a 3-3 draw including a cracking goal by Jacopo Pellegrini the highlight. We followed that up with a tense 1-0 win against Ascoli where we dominated possession but lost the shots and xG battle. Our next two games were against Parma in fourth and Torino in second, with us right bang in the middle in third. These two games are super important thanks to one of the many oddities in the Italian leagues that has made me fall in love with it.

So if you land third place, you are only automatically promoted if there are at least 15 points separating third and fourth. At this point, only four points separates second and fourth placed with nine games left in the season, so the likelihood of third to eighth going to a playoff is very high. And with Juventus running away with it, the battle for second place was on! We went away to Parma, a team we comprehensively beat at home earlier in the season so I was expecting a pissed off team itching for revenge.

I kept faith in our usual tactic that has been successful against the 4-3-3 DM Wide throughout the season and it came up trumps with a 4-2 win, once again dominating possession but not the shot and xG counts, something to definitely have a look at. All the goals were quite nicely made, but my personal favourite was the first goal from a throw-in routine inspired by @keysi (read more about his approach to setpieces at https://coffeehousefm.com/fmrensieblog/fm23-my-beloved-set-piece-routine-short-throw-in).

Love to see something like this pull off.

Torino slipped up against 16th placed Crotone, allowing us to leapfrog them into second place with eight games left. A win here would be crucial, allowing us to open up a four point gap and them regaining second place. So I expected a tight game, and so were the board and fans. Were we right?

Dire

STATE OF PLAY - End of March

By current positions, we have an easier final seven games than Torino, but anything can happen!

On a personal note, this period of time saw another three interview requests from La Liga and Ligue 1, with the highlight being Lyon sending a cheeky DM. But as you will see from my profile, I am a Crystal Palace fan, and a standard rule for me for all FM saves is that regardless of my imposed rules for the save, I will always apply for the Crystal Palace job when it becomes available. Which it did thanks to Patrick Viera placing them in 19th place in the Premier League with 8 games to go. Will Steve Parish and the board entertain the half English/Australian fan doing solid work in Serie B?

Decisions to be made. Until next time.

SixPointer · July 3, 2023

Beautifully written as always! Fast becoming one of my favourite threads this year.

Hows the flat front three treating you? It throws up some marvellous combinations.

Lestri · July 3, 2023

2 hours ago, SixPointer said:

Beautifully written as always! Fast becoming one of my favourite threads this year.

Hows the flat front three treating you? It throws up some marvellous combinations.

Too kind! I've used it very sparingly so far and it's been successful at causing some panic and a few goals here and there. The importance is getting the AFs to go wide and get in the channels.

SixPointer · July 3, 2023

I use a AF CF DLF combo as my front three gives it lopsided feel but great having players on different players on different lines.

Lestri · July 5, 2023

Non oggi, Palazzo di Cristallo - Season Two April to May '23

Who could say no to this?

Although the Palace job would have been a great challenge, what’s the fun of bailing out of a challenge with a small broke club in North East Italy? I walked away from the contract negotiations and put my head down into seeing if we can achieve something that has never happened before for A.C. Trento, promotion to Serie A. Seven games left, seven games from those sweet TV rights. Let’s get to it!

Our first two games against Frosinone and Foggia saw us do what we do best, pass the bloody ball around. Over 1570 passes over two games, with a 2-1 away win against Frosinone and 3-0 home win against Foggia. Foggia was an interesting game where we had them at 0 shots up until the 60th minute where a change to their pressing game led to them having a spell on top. I immediately pushed our WCBs back to Centre Defenders, which gave us more numbers at the back, and with our passing style, we were able to play through the press while maintaining some defensive stability. Two assists and 13 progressive passes from our left wing back gave Federico Simonti the PotM. The press considered it to be a game of contrasting styles, and the six yellow cards given to Foggia encapsulated that nicely. We then had a disappointing 2-2 draw away at Crotone where we had more clear cut chances, progressive passes and more possession but couldn’t put the game to bed.

YOUTH INTAKE

Late April also saw our annual Youth intake come in, with not much to write home about. Which to be honest, isn’t unexpected considering we have 1* or “Basic” Youth Facilities and “Fairly Basic” Youth Recruitment. At the start of the season, we lost our Head of Youth Development to divisional rivals Modena who was a handy coach as well. We replaced him with ex-Swindon and Sunderland assistant manager Fabrizio Piccareta who was similar with the HoYD attributes, but with less coaching attributes and a balanced personality. Which did show with more negative personalities in this year’s intake. As you can see below, we have four players considered “Top Talent” but with a 3.5* Potential Ability, we shall see how they go. We signed all the Top and Good Talents mainly to see if we can get up bolstering up our youth team.

Golden Generation my arse.

But now we come to the fun (not fun) final four games of the season.

So unless points dry up for Venezia like the Venice Canals have done a few times recently, the third promotion spot will go to a playoff. Signs are good for us in that we have the points advantage and the easier run in, but anything can happen. Especially when some of your squad starts to have an extended stay in the physio room.

Match day 35 vs Ternana (H) - nothing like conceding a soft goal from a corner and then one of our players deciding that on the pitch in the 40th minute was a great time practice his audition for a new action movie by what I can only call a half rugby tackle/two foot lunge. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Wangball came up trumps getting us a well deserved point thanks to a brilliant throw in set piece leading to the below goal from Christian Barberini.

Above us is a lovely indication of the domination we had even after the red card. Definitely more chance conversion training though!

Lucky for us Cremonese who are in danger of back to back relegations, decided to get their act together and get a draw against Torino, meaning we were still in the pole position for automatic promotion to Serie A. Take a moment to feel for former Wonderkid Sebastian Esposito, who due to agreeing to a loan-to-buy from Inter to Cremonese, could be playing Serie C football next season. Venezia also lost, meaning with three games to go, there is a nine point gap between third and fourth.

Match day 36 vs Como (H) - Como have underperformed this year and found themselves in that mid table position where they can’t be in the playoffs or relegated so I was hoping for a response from my players to take advantage of any apathy. Boy did I get a response. 4-0 up within 20 minutes with some gorgeous play, resulting in a 4-1 win. Pol García received the PotM with a goal and an assist.

Coming into the penultimate match, Juventus did us a great favour by beating Torino 2-1, meaning that if we were to win, we will be confirmed runners up of Serie B and more importantly, promoted to Serie A. What a great moment it would be. Our opponents? None other than our closest rivals, Südtirol at their home ground, who are an outside chance for reaching the playoffs. Positive sign right?

Why have the FM Gods forsaken me?!

Remember, he was the sixth best keeper in all levels of the Italian leagues at the winter break by statistical analysis. Two games to go with promotion to Serie A on the line? Nothing like the present for a debut eh, Gabriel Meli? So I decided to follow this up with something that totally never goes wrong, a Team Meeting.

Maybe the FM Gods do like me?

Match Day 37 vs Südtirol (A) - Everyone was feeling it, especially the board and supporters. It seemed to rub off on both teams, with a scoreless game at half time with a grand total of four shots on goal in the half. But more worrying for us was that we had zero shots at all.

Oh I love a derby.

My usual approach to move to a high press and a higher defensive line at half time did little to change this. So with 25 minutes left on the clock, it was time for a bulk substitute change and a move to Wangball. 10 minutes later.

Our retiring club captain Andrea Brighenti, who had only played 190 minutes of football in 2023 due to injuries and what I can only assume is joints made out of metal, came off the bench and headed home the winner to give us back to back promotions and our entry into the promised land of Italian football. Trento, in Serie A.

Against the local rivals as well. You love to see it.

Matchday 38 vs Modena (H) - We finished off the season with a pretty tame 1-1 draw to relegated side Modena. But who the hell cares!

Only one way to celebrate this.

Join us next time for the end of season review/squad analysis/Initial Planning for Serie-Bloody-A!!

SixPointer · July 7, 2023

Serie A here we come!!! Congratulations! Love the goal from the throw!!

Any new tactical plans with promotion?

Lestri · July 9, 2023

On 08/07/2023 at 02:09, SixPointer said:

Serie A here we come!!! Congratulations! Love the goal from the throw!!

Any new tactical plans with promotion?

The plan is to keep the same formation but I suspect my regista days may be numbered if I can't get the same possession numbers.

Lestri · July 21, 2023

Will be quiet on here for a bit as I'm going to a bunch of games for the Women's World Cup, so my time on FM is pretty much nonexistent.

SixPointer · July 22, 2023

Enjoy! Get scouting for Fm24

Lestri · September 4, 2023

SEASON THREE - TRENTO IN THE BIG TIME - OFFSEASON REVIEW AND PLAYER SIGNINGS

Apologies for the delay, this fella was enjoying the FIFA Women’s World Cup, going to nine games over four cities across the tournament. Highlight was watching Sam Kerr’s goal against England. I must say, what a player. Highlight was seeing England get to the final, not a highlight was seeing the "kiss" live. It was also interesting to see England switch from a 4-3-3 to a 3-4-1-2 during the group stages, and seeing how they used Alex Greenwood as a Wide Centre Back and moving Lauren Hemp into a Centre Forward role. Standard was very impressive.

But back to Football Manager! We left the save with our loveable Englishman taking A.C. Trento to Serie A with back to back saves from Serie C. A truly chaotic, but momentous occasion. He was rewarded with two Manager of the Year awards; the Serie B and Serie B “Scopigno” Awards. Our best signing of the season, Nicolò Armini, was rewarded with the Serie B Defender of the Year. A great year for Armini, where he was one of only three non-Juventus players to make the Serie B team of the year. We were also able to tie him down to a new contract and appointed him as captain after he indicated he was looking to explore his options at the end of the season.

Still can't get over how Juventus got relegated, even with the 15 point deduction. They'll probably do the back to back.

With the promotion sealed we got the old runaround about a takeover occurring, only for that to run its course. We also had some good news regarding our coffers, as recently we were like the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, broke but without the incest, I hope.

The State of Play

So this is good news I’d say, with realistic expectations from the board, we’ll be lucky to stay in Serie A. Italian football has some interesting rules around minimum wages and squad restrictions, so I wanted to have a look at what Serie A has in store for us before I started my recruitment strategy.

What does this mean? We’ve got flexibility with transfer rules, however with those with promotion wage increase clauses and those over 25 getting a wage hike. We will need to be savvy with our finances, even though I suspect with TV rights and such, our bank balance should be a little less precarious than it has been in the past, even though our ability to rake income is a bit tiny.

SIXTY-TWO TIMES SMALLER THAN INTER'S!?!?!?!

Player Analysis

So it is time to look at how our players stacked up in Serie B and how they compared to their counterparts in Serie A, to get an idea of how many may have the ability to stack up against the giants of Italian football. As always, we will use @FMStag's Goalkeeper and player performance analysis, with 1,000 minutes as the metrics for this.

12 outfield players played more than 1,000 minutes, showing that I had a core squad of players, but also didn’t have a lot of weeks where I was playing two games. I would say this contributed nicely to our form, as more often than not I play the equivalent of a first and second team when we have multiple games a week. Samuelle Spalutto was both the second best striker based on this performance analysis in both Serie A and B, with only Juventus striker Gianluca Scamacca outperforming him. To put it in context, he had a better season as a “Striking Threat” than Lautaro Martínez, Victor Osimhen and Ciro Immobile. Not bad at all for the Serie B Golden Boot Winner.

Gabriele Marchegiani ended up the third best performing goalkeeper of Serie B and 13th out of both Serie A and B, so I don’t have any pressing need to replace him. I may need to pick up a keeper to be a solid backup though in case of any injury or he leaves as the back ups are average at best.

Most of our players placed in the top 10% in their most important metric, so those are good signs for not having to go too hard at replacing them in the transfer window. Our depth at a Right sided Wide Centreback, Wingbacks, Regista and Deep Lying Forward is low, so that’s where I’ll be focusing, especially with the retirements of our starting Regista, Pasquato and Deep Lying Forward, captain Brighenti from last season.

So where to go from here?

Getting more cash in the kitty has given me a bit of a pickle. Our training and youth facilities are rubbish, and if we want to be a long-term sustainable team that is attractive for players to come to, we need to make them better. But that costs a lot of money. At the same time, our staffing levels do need a refresh and upgrade, and the promotion has given me new staff for the first team. We averaged around 6th best for coaching and 14th for scouts, but I haven’t focussed on this as I have been relying on external analysis for my signings, so it is less of an interest. So I will take the opportunity to improve my coach and physio staff as that shouldn’t be too painful on the finances, because I’d rather have good coaches at crap facilities, than crap coaches at good facilities in the short term. After a discussion about it with my seven different personalities and some of my fellow FMcreators, I decided that my best use of the money would be to minimise transfer fees, focus on using it as a wage budget and get into the free transfer market. So off we go!

Transfers

Recapping from first post, my main restriction of the save was to only sign Italian, Australian and Irish players, so those are constants in my search parameters. Because of the increased revenue and prize money, I was able to have our scouting range to be Worldwide, which allows me fully pick up players who meet my criteria. Yes, a bit of an additional expenditure, but I feel this would help, especially as my approach to player signings in this save is based on stats and attributes, rather than using the scouts.

An issue I found was that before 1 July came along, there was limited interest in players coming to Trento because “They do not want to sign for a Serie B team”. This is a gripe of FM for me - how players treat a promoted team when you are trying to sign them. So I went back to a favourite approach of mine, searching for unattached players that fit the bill, offering trials, and then offering contracts. This gave me zero players to sign, as they either said no because of my standing, or wanted too much money when I offered a contract. So I followed this up with looking at those on the transfer and loan lists that met a specific search of World Reputation of one and above and determination of 13. Long story short, here are the players that I signed in chronological order.

Marco Sala comes in from recently relegated to Serie B Empoli for an initial €75k and will be our starting left wing back in the wingback-support duty. While not great in the air, his work rate and teamwork attributes were very appealing. Also loves a big match, which could be all 38 games of the season. Looks like a great bargain.

Tommaso Milanese became our record signing from relegated to Serie C Cremonese for an initial €700k. SImilar to Sala, his teamwork and work rate attributes, combined with his Serie A potential, made this a worthwhile signing. He will be our starting Regista, utilising his “Dictates Tempo” trait.

My personal favourite signing of the save so far, Australian cult hero Jackson Irvine comes in from St. Pauli for €400k to be our go to player off the bench as a squad player. In fact, his attributes are pretty handy for all of our positions, so I will be turning to him for that calm, experienced head when we need it. I suspect he will be our Vice Captain by the end of the year.

We got our first Irish signing of the save with Alex Murphy coming in from Newcastle for €375k. While very left footed, he will be our starting right sided Wide Centre Back with his pace and height a very appealing combination. Assuming we can keep hold of him with a relatively low minimum release clause of €750k, I suspect Murphy will have turn out to be a good piece of business.

We turned to an Australian who grew up close to where I live in regional Victoria for our striker depth for the season, with Alou Kuol coming in from Stuttgart for a very cheap loan. Unfortunately his younger brother, Garang, is on a long term loan from Newcastle in Mexico, but Alou comes with his own strengths, with his speed and consistency was enough to get over the line for me, knowing he isn’t the most skillful of players. His goal record in Stuttgart’s second team also bodes well for him to be handy as a backup to my starting forwards of Spalluto and Pellegrini.

We managed to pick up Luxembourg born, Swedish and Irish citizen Ryan Johansson on loan from Sevilla for the season as our final signing of the off-season. Ryan will be our back up Right Wing Back in the Wing Back-Attack duty, however with his versatility and his potential, I suspect he will become our starter as the season progresses. In fact, nothing really concerns me at all, with the natural fitness, consistency, big matches combination making me very excited. We have a €1.4 million optional buy clause as well which could come in handy.

We backed this up with getting most of our core first eleven from last season to sign new contracts who only had one year left, which tied them down, but did end up causing our wage expenditure to double and include some generous minimum fee release clauses.

How we shape up

We have kept faith with our tactic that has taken us from Serie C to Serie A in two seasons. Our pre-season wasn't ideal, with most teams not being available for games, so I had to play our Under 18s and Under 20s. We start the season with a Coppa Italia Round One match with Reggina, who came bottom of Serie A last year, a good test to see how we are set up for our first crack at the big time.

Until next time.

SixPointer · September 5, 2023

What a journey!! Planning to stick with the tactic once again? Or tweaks for the raise in level?

Lestri · September 5, 2023

10 minutes ago, SixPointer said:

What a journey!! Planning to stick with the tactic once again? Or tweaks for the raise in level?

A few games in and so far it's been this and the 3-4-3 "Wangball" formation I included in a previous update when I've needed to go for the jugular. Do hope to stay with the formation though but I suspect a change will occur!

SixPointer · September 5, 2023

2 hours ago, Lestri said:

A few games in and so far it's been this and the 3-4-3 "Wangball" formation I included in a previous update when I've needed to go for the jugular. Do hope to stay with the formation though but I suspect a change will occur!

few tweaks may just be enough! Can’t be to harsh with the step up

Lestri · September 10, 2023

Season Three - August to October '24 Update

With the speed that I play that, I’d be surprised if I get another season done before FM24 Beta comes out, so I have decided to blog Season Three as three chunks, so apologies in advance for some long updates. As said previously, I am still getting my flow/style sorted for these blogs, so I know each one has been a bit different in presentation, so I appreciate each and everyone of you who reads them.

To be brutally honest, the moment we were promoted from Serie B to Serie A, I had very low expectations for our chances. We have a formation that is allowing us to be very strong at the back and giving us enough opportunities up top, but the step up to Serie A is, in my opinion, a bridge too far for Trento. To put it in context, our weekly wage was less than 5% of the Inter who topped the chart, and less than 20% of the second lowest teams. Commercially, we took in 2.1% of Juventus’s commercial revenue, but at least we were less than half as low as Spezia’s revenue. At least we sold five times more season tickets than last year! All about taking the wins where we can. We still have the ongoing “will they/won’t they” takeover saga going on, adding more intrigue to the usually quiet life in an entry point to the Dolomite mountains.

More twists and turns than a bad soap opera.

August

GAME 1 vs Reggina (A)

As mentioned in the last update, our first competitive game of the season was against recently relegated Reggina, and we started very poorly, going into the break 2-0 down. I put it down to a mix of a poor pre-season where we didn’t get a chance to play much quality opposition and nerves, so a change of formation to Wangball and a reminder of our quality seemed to galvanise the team, with loanee Ryan Johansson being influential off the bench and Giovanni Terrani, who I mentioned in my second blog as coming to life after being retrained into the mezzala role, scoring a late winner after throwing him into the deep lying forward role.

GAME 2 vs Spezia (H)

Our first game of Serie A saw us welcome Spezia to Briamasco for a sellout crowd of 4,227. Our home form will be crucial to our success, considering we were 17 games unbeaten at home in all competitive games. So of course a gritty game with a lot of shots for both sides, but not a lot on target. Once again Terrani was there to save the day with an injury time penalty to give Trento’s first Serie A point in history.

We finished August with a deadline day loan signing, bringing in Alessandro Cortinovis from Atalanta for the season. My scouts raved about him, and with an expiring contract at the end of the season and a low salary, this could turn into a very accessible free transfer. I plan to play him as a centre forward in the Deep Lying Forward-support duty, but I suspect he’ll also spend some time in the Mezzala role.

SEPTEMBER

GAME 3 vs Atalanta (A)

Away to Atalanta is always a tough game in football, and we got a huge result with a 1-0 win where we weren’t at all troubled. To be fair, neither did Atalanta until we scored with a quality goal, but we do have to thank our superstar captain Armini for this goal line clearance just after we scored.

GAME 4 vs Verona (H)

We went 20 games unbeaten with a 2-1 win at home to Verona where Terrani continued his excellent start to the season with a brace. Once again we had a sellout crowd, giving me some thought about asking for an expansion, if I was going to continue the save. Not a bad way to score an injury time winner.

GAME 5 vs Lazio (A)

Unfortunately our unbeaten start to the season ended with a 1-0 loss to Lazio where we were outshot, outpassed and outperformed. I wasn’t too disheartened as you can tell from the picture we still had chances, and wasn’t too far behind on xG. The change to Wangball did put Lazio under pressure, which confirmed to me that it was a formation that can cause the best of teams some trouble, so I took that as a big positive.

GAME 6 vs Torino (A)

This game came only three days after the Lazio game, so we had to rotate and because of this, it was a bit of a shocker where even on comprehensive highlights there was barely anything shown. We controlled the ball but lacked any incision and were lucky that Torino didn’t bring their shooting boots. As we haven’t had much need to rotate so far, I’m not too disheartened, however my back up players will need to step up much better in the future.

GAME 7 vs Genoa (H)

We finished September strongly with an efficient 2-0 win against Genoa. Two shots on target, two goals from Pellegrini and Garcia from a set piece corner. While I’d love more creativity, I am very happy with our defensive structure and performance, where we are being very hard to break down. While I don’t pay too much attention to match ratings, I can’t help enjoying seeing all the green colours across my defence.

OCTOBER

GAME 8 vs Internazionale (H)

Our first game of October saw us entertain Internazionale in front of our rowdy small crowd, which I’ve decided is the reason why we are chugging along with our unbeaten home record because once again we draw 0-0 with not much to write home about. What was even better was it came with our backup goalkeeper Melli starting as our starting keeper picked up an injury What is quite interesting is my strikers who scored 37 goals between them last year, and as mentioned in the last update, rated statistically very high compared to Serie A strikers, have struggled to get going this year. I had started Pellegrini as the Advanced Forward and Spalutto in the Deep Lying Forward roles, which was opposite to last year. My reasoning for this was because it matched their attributes better, however as we could see, their output wasn’t the same. So I decided to switch them back, hoping that we’ll see an increased output.

GAME 9 vs Fiorentina (H)

Well as you can see, every other member of the starting XI got a greater than 7 rating, except for our strikers, so it wasn’t instant success. Fortunately for us, our right wing back Di Cosmo scored the winner after a lovely throughball in a deserved 1-0 at home to Fiorentina, continuing our excellent unbeaten home record. Another clean sheet for our backup goalkeeper.

GAME 10 vs Brianza/Monza (A)

Brianza, aka Monza, set up a little differently to our previous opponents and came out swinging, making me change our starting formation to a asymmetrical midfield with our usual Box to Box Centre Midfielder dropping back next to our Regista as a Segundo Volante in attack duty. We also pushed our Wide Centre Backs back into a defence duty and pressed higher, enabling us to get control of the game and apart from a lack of concentration early in the second half, control the game with a 2-1 win with goals from Pellegrini taking full advantage of a shocking error and Terrani with what is becoming a trademark first time volley winner after a gorgeous through ball from Milanese.

GAME 11 vs Bologna (H)

Our final game of this update saw us finish how we started, with us going down 2-0 early in the first half to my favourite city in the world, named after the dangerous bolognese. Fortunately for us, Spalutto ended up finding his shooting boots and scored a brace, the first being a commanding header from a ball from the left wing, and the second a cracking first time volley from a great through ball from the right wing. Not a bad time to score your first goals in Serie A this season. Another example of a rotated team not clicking. Considering we were able to play a lot of friendlies with our Under 20s last year, allowing them to get match fitness throughout the season. I may need to organise some of these, as although I haven’t been burnt yet, I don’t want to risk it.

STATE OF PLAY

Absolutely over the moon with the start to our maiden Serie A season. We’re holding our own, however we haven’t played the likes of Juventus, Napoli/Parthenope, Milan or Roma/Capitoline yet, so we need to keep things rolling. Joint third for goals conceded and scoring more than a goal a game (just), great signs.

I'll leave you with our upcoming fixtures for the next update. Until next time.

Edited September 10, 2023 by Lestri

SixPointer · September 10, 2023

Omg what a start to life in the Serie A. Atalanta, Fiorentina, and a drawn with inter. Beating the historic Genoa!! Punching well above your weight

Lestri · September 10, 2023

8 minutes ago, SixPointer said:

Omg what a start to life in the Serie A. Atalanta, Fiorentina, and a drawn with inter. Beating the historic Genoa!! Punching well above your weight

I've never been more proud of a bunch of 0-0 draws in my life.

Lestri · October 3, 2023

SEASON THREE - NOVEMBER '24 TO JANUARY '25 UPDATE

Spoiler alert, a lot of buses were parked by us and our opponents in this update

The first three months of Serie A life saw the mighty Aquilotti exceed all expectations, with A.C Trento sitting fourth after 10 games. Playing a 3-5-2 formation that utilises Wide Centre Backs that push forward but set up in a mid block, the opposition were struggling to break down Trento, with Giovanni Terrani excelling in the Mezzala role and captain Nicolò Armini marshalling the troops from the Centre Back position. But the next period sees us come up against the giants of Italian football, so it is time to see how this small club in the North East of Italy goes.

NOVEMBER

November is a big month for our coach, not just because it is where his birthday falls, but we saw Richards come up with his century of games managed. Our coach also found out he was very popular in Germany over this period, with offers from 1. FC Köln, Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg coming in and rejected.

Look out Hoff, there's a new popular man in Germany.

So how did we go?

Our first game saw us go to Sassuolo, who have a couple of FM players who usually overperformed compared to their real life counterparts in Domenico Berdadi and Julian Draxler. We were outshot, outpassed and out xG’d, but thanks to some lovely interchange on the counter between our Deep Lying Forward, Pellegrini and Right Wing Back, Di Cosmo, feeding in our marauding Mezzala Terrani for the equaliser in a 1-1 draw away.

We followed up with our last game before the November international break with a scoreless draw against Salernitana. We dominated the game, but couldn’t get the ball back in the net, finishing with a disappointing 0-0 draw. Frustratingly my Advanced Forward, Spalutto, only had 0.1xG for the game and 0.5xA, something I’d rather have from my creative players. You know when you’ve struggled when your Right Wing Back has your highest xG for the game.

We finished off November with a far from routine 2-1 win against former Italian giants Sampdoria. After a relatively quiet first half, we fell behind, so it was time to rally the troops, demanding more passion. How did we respond?

Madness from the fella from Down Under

Fortunately for me, we rallied and scored two late goals to take the win, with Pellegrini equalising after a great give and go with Fontana, and then following it up with a poachers effort after a deflected cross from the right. A deserving win based on the stats, but can’t help feeling that we got away with one.

December

December saw us come up against the likes of Capitoline/Roma, Juventus, Udinese over a space of 8 days, then A.C Milan, who was doing very well, sitting in a continental spot, as well as cellar dwellers Verona and Salento. If we could pick up seven points over the month, I’d be content, knowing that this is the month where we find out if we deserve to hold our own in the top half of Serie A. So how did we go?

What. A. Month. Arguably my greatest of this save, if not recent memory of playing FM. Our first game saw our manager come up against the man, the myth, the legend, Jose ‘Mind Games” Mourinho who was still at Capitoline/Roma. And boy did they start, stating that we aren’t overperforming. Well I don’t really buy into the mind games, but could I outtactic the special one? You betcha, with a 1-0 defensive masterclass win, with my back three and goalkeeper all scoring above 7.3. Although we had more possession, a lot of it came in our defensive third, as both teams didn’t really play a high press. Our winner came in the first half with a magnificent through ball from our Advanced Forward, Spalutto, splitting the defence with Mezzala magician Terrani delightfully chipping the keeper. You love to see it.

Four days later, nothing big, just the full might of Juventus who battered us last year with their shock season in Serie B. No biggie, with another 1-0 defensive masterclass win with the back three and keeper in the 7s once again. Our goal came in the second half with an opportunistic ball from the left flank causing confusion, with our Deep Lying Forward, Pellegrini slotting it into the bottom corner. So that was six points from six. What a start.

Unsurprisingly, our third game in nine days was a little less exciting, and even with a missed penalty, we had our third 1-0 win in a row, but in a more convincing manner against Udinese. Once again our Mezalla Magician, Terrani slots the winner after a beautiful build up of play, though an interesting shape was made, some may say a deal with the devil was made by our manager?

Five days later, practically a holiday after the last three games in nine days, took us home to entertain A.C Milan where I expected another 1-0 defensive win. Oh how I was wrong. Six goals from 12 shots on target, with Trento coming up with the 4-2 win, a nice change seeing more than one goal pop up in the comprehensive highlights. After going behind to a Rafael Leao worldie, we equalised just before the break scoring a lovely goal by Spalluto from a throw in. After giving the squad a bit of a bollocking to keep them on their toes, we scored from a free kick set play, with two of our centrebacks combining in the box for Pol Garcia to score. We followed that up with a third that originated from a throw in but involved two of our players deciding to take the **** and passing between themselves for a while before a beautiful through ball leads to Spalluto scoring his second. Milan, or Leao, responded with another worldie, making things tight, but a quick transition, involving our right sided Wide Centre Back, Alex Murphy at all times, ended with Murphy smashing it in from just inside of the box. You love to see it.

We're in the thick of it in the lead up to a short winter break, and we had our second round of the Italian Cup against Verona. Considering we had met our objectives for the cup and four games in two weeks with little rotation, I gave some game time to squad players, and needed extra time to get the win into the next round. We equalised around the hour mark with a beautiful shot from about 25 yards into the top corner from backup Box to Box midfielder, Barberini. After falling behind in extra time, the call for Wangball was made, and we scored twice in two minutes, with Regista, Milanese scoring a stunning curling goal into the top corner and Mr Reliable Terrani slotting it in from close range.

We finished off December taking on bottom of the table Salento who were dispatched quite comfortably with Trento starting their short winter break with a 3-1 win. A highlight being 70% possession and over 700 passes. Pol Garcia started us off with a glancing header from a corner set piece in the first half. We followed that up with a lovely play finishing with Pellegrini taking his chance in the penalty box, with Murphy keeping his goalscoring form up from centreback with a poachers effort from a free ball in the sixyard box.

January

Considering we're doing bloody well, it wasn't a surprise that the board came to me with an offer to change our season expectations. While I think we are going to do so much better than what I selected, there was no budget increases between "Avoid a relegation battle" and "Win the Title", I went for the lowest one, leaving us with $0 in the transfer budget, but $50k a week in the wage budget to play with. So that in mind, here are my transfers that occured throughout the Winter Transfer Window, noting my ongoing save restriction of signing Irish, Australian and Italian players.

Transfers Out

We said goodbye to Davide Viturrini, who had their contract expiring in the summer. Calgliari came with a reasonable offer of €105k. Viturrini, although was listed in our best eleven in the previous two seasons, was out of his depth in Serie A so it was mutually beneficial to let him go to get some first team football at a level he was comfortable at.

We also said cheerio to Anthony Fontana who we picked up as a free agent midway through our first season. Similar to Viturrini, his contract was up in the summer and was out of his depth in Serie A, so we took the opportunity to make a small profit, selling him for €21.5k to Pro Vercelli.

Transfers In

Sam Curtis comes in from the Irish Premier Division where I pulled the trigger on his minimum release clause of €550k after my scouts and my own attribute/position calculator showed he has bags of potential. Sam will fill in as the first cab off the rank substitute in the Wide Centre Back role, knowing he can also play in the Right Wing Back role and the Right Back position when I play four at the back.

Christian Dalle Mura is someone that I've been keeping an eye on, who also came up nicely on the @FMStag Player Performance Analysis when I was in Serie B and my own attribute/position calculator. I initially signed him on a free from Fiorentina, but I decided to pay €180k to get him earlier. He'll be my backup Centre Back in the Central Defender Cover role.

We pulled the trigger on Transfer Deadline Day on Tommaso Barbieri, who you may remember we had on loan from Juventus/Zebre U23 in our first season. He's been playing well this season, and arguably Right Wing Back has been a weak spot for us, so I signed him for €90k.

I also took Antonio Raimondo on loan from the city that invented my favourite thing, Bologna, to be a backup striker as we were light there.

So how did we go in January?

Our first game after the winter break was nothing significant, just top of the table Parthenope/Napoli with Victor Osimhen being his overpowered self running riot at the top of the Serie A goalscoring chart. I expected a tough day at the races, and saw myself go down 2-0 within 18 minutes. I changed things to the 4-1-4-1 used by @Oaky-FM in his FM23 save at Sparta Rotterdam and got one back quickly, with our Milanese finishing off a lovely move that started from our keeper. Unfortunately we conceded a third just before halftime. We were being outplayed and I knew we were unlikely to get a result, so I went for broke and threw in the Wangball formation and sent the players out with a rocket up their backside. We scored immediately, which I forgot to capture, with Spalluto scoring a quintessential Wangball goal that moved us fast and direct up the pitch. Once again Osimhen came up trumps bullying our defence and scored his second, essentially putting the game to bed. We scored a consolation goal with a back up centre back Semprini scoring a scrappy goal, pushing up our xG to something reasonable, however we were no match, losing 4-3, our first loss in a while, which lets be honest is still good news.

We then welcomed Atalanta to our fortress and they went home empty handed with Trento keeping another clean sheet at home, winning 2-0 in a game that would have been a welcome chilldown compared to the chaos of the Napoli game. Two goals in each half from that man again, Terrani who has made the Mezzala position his own. The first goal came from a passage of play that had our players playing in tight areas before opening the space up for Terrani to receive the through ball to slot it past the keeper. The second was a perfect execution of how well the Mezzala and Regista roles work together, with a beautiful ball over the top from Riccardi into the path of the deep run from Terrani who nods it past the outrushing keeper.

We then had a midweek third round of the Italian Cup game against fellow Serie A opponents Udinese where I took the opportunity to rotate the team, and just like last time, it takes us to extra time to get the victory, with a 1-0 win coming thanks to our striker Spalluto taking advantage of a goalkeeper howler to slot it into an open goal.

We then travelled the nearly four hour coach down to the seaside to take on Spezia who were struggling in the bottom half of Serie A. From my pre-game analysis, I could tell they were a better team than 17th, so I expected a tough game, which we got, and we were lucky to go home with a 1-1 draw. Our goal came from a lovely throw-in set piece with our striker Spalluto rising highest to head us into the lead, but we were outshot, outpassed and out played.

Our final game of this update came against Verona, who you may remember we beat in the second round of the Italian Cup in extra time. Once again, this was a team that I knew had the potential to damage us, so I expected a tough game. What I didn’t expect was to be down 2-1 at half time with an injury time goal from our right wing back Johansson after a nice build up with eight of our players. Now I don’t like to throw the bottle, but bottles were thrown, and Wangball was deployed. It took time but we broke Verona down with an equaliser from Riccardi who was deployed in the Advanced Playmaker role, nodding it in after a lovely piece of play down the right wing by De Cristofaro. We then finally got the win in the 87th minute with Pellegrini’s first time effort from Sala’s left wing cross. Finishing off the period on a high with a 3-2 win, It was a tale of two halves, perfectly shown here.

How things stand at the end of January

It’s very congested at the top, but I can’t be anything but proud for being second with 22 games of the season played. And with a relatively good Youth Intake preview for the absolute crap youth recruitment system we have in place, things are looking very promising in Trento.

Until next time, for the final update of FM23.

SixPointer · October 4, 2023

On 03/10/2023 at 12:30, Lestri said:

SEASON THREE - NOVEMBER '24 TO JANUARY '25 UPDATE

Spoiler alert, a lot of buses were parked by us and our opponents in this update

The first three months of Serie A life saw the mighty Aquilotti exceed all expectations, with A.C Trento sitting fourth after 10 games. Playing a 3-5-2 formation that utilises Wide Centre Backs that push forward but set up in a mid block, the opposition were struggling to break down Trento, with Giovanni Terrani excelling in the Mezzala role and captain Nicolò Armini marshalling the troops from the Centre Back position. But the next period sees us come up against the giants of Italian football, so it is time to see how this small club in the North East of Italy goes.

NOVEMBER

November is a big month for our coach, not just because it is where his birthday falls, but we saw Richards come up with his century of games managed. Our coach also found out he was very popular in Germany over this period, with offers from 1. FC Köln, Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg coming in and rejected.

Look out Hoff, there's a new popular man in Germany.

So how did we go?

Our first game saw us go to Sassuolo, who have a couple of FM players who usually overperformed compared to their real life counterparts in Domenico Berdadi and Julian Draxler. We were outshot, outpassed and out xG’d, but thanks to some lovely interchange on the counter between our Deep Lying Forward, Pellegrini and Right Wing Back, Di Cosmo, feeding in our marauding Mezzala Terrani for the equaliser in a 1-1 draw away.

We followed up with our last game before the November international break with a scoreless draw against Salernitana. We dominated the game, but couldn’t get the ball back in the net, finishing with a disappointing 0-0 draw. Frustratingly my Advanced Forward, Spalutto, only had 0.1xG for the game and 0.5xA, something I’d rather have from my creative players. You know when you’ve struggled when your Right Wing Back has your highest xG for the game.

We finished off November with a far from routine 2-1 win against former Italian giants Sampdoria. After a relatively quiet first half, we fell behind, so it was time to rally the troops, demanding more passion. How did we respond?

Madness from the fella from Down Under

Fortunately for me, we rallied and scored two late goals to take the win, with Pellegrini equalising after a great give and go with Fontana, and then following it up with a poachers effort after a deflected cross from the right. A deserving win based on the stats, but can’t help feeling that we got away with one.

December

December saw us come up against the likes of Capitoline/Roma, Juventus, Udinese over a space of 8 days, then A.C Milan, who was doing very well, sitting in a continental spot, as well as cellar dwellers Verona and Salento. If we could pick up seven points over the month, I’d be content, knowing that this is the month where we find out if we deserve to hold our own in the top half of Serie A. So how did we go?

What. A. Month. Arguably my greatest of this save, if not recent memory of playing FM. Our first game saw our manager come up against the man, the myth, the legend, Jose ‘Mind Games” Mourinho who was still at Capitoline/Roma. And boy did they start, stating that we aren’t overperforming. Well I don’t really buy into the mind games, but could I outtactic the special one? You betcha, with a 1-0 defensive masterclass win, with my back three and goalkeeper all scoring above 7.3. Although we had more possession, a lot of it came in our defensive third, as both teams didn’t really play a high press. Our winner came in the first half with a magnificent through ball from our Advanced Forward, Spalutto, splitting the defence with Mezzala magician Terrani delightfully chipping the keeper. You love to see it.

Four days later, nothing big, just the full might of Juventus who battered us last year with their shock season in Serie B. No biggie, with another 1-0 defensive masterclass win with the back three and keeper in the 7s once again. Our goal came in the second half with an opportunistic ball from the left flank causing confusion, with our Deep Lying Forward, Pellegrini slotting it into the bottom corner. So that was six points from six. What a start.

Unsurprisingly, our third game in nine days was a little less exciting, and even with a missed penalty, we had our third 1-0 win in a row, but in a more convincing manner against Udinese. Once again our Mezalla Magician, Terrani slots the winner after a beautiful build up of play, though an interesting shape was made, some may say a deal with the devil was made by our manager?

Five days later, practically a holiday after the last three games in nine days, took us home to entertain A.C Milan where I expected another 1-0 defensive win. Oh how I was wrong. Six goals from 12 shots on target, with Trento coming up with the 4-2 win, a nice change seeing more than one goal pop up in the comprehensive highlights. After going behind to a Rafael Leao worldie, we equalised just before the break scoring a lovely goal by Spalluto from a throw in. After giving the squad a bit of a bollocking to keep them on their toes, we scored from a free kick set play, with two of our centrebacks combining in the box for Pol Garcia to score. We followed that up with a third that originated from a throw in but involved two of our players deciding to take the **** and passing between themselves for a while before a beautiful through ball leads to Spalluto scoring his second. Milan, or Leao, responded with another worldie, making things tight, but a quick transition, involving our right sided Wide Centre Back, Alex Murphy at all times, ended with Murphy smashing it in from just inside of the box. You love to see it.

We're in the thick of it in the lead up to a short winter break, and we had our second round of the Italian Cup against Verona. Considering we had met our objectives for the cup and four games in two weeks with little rotation, I gave some game time to squad players, and needed extra time to get the win into the next round. We equalised around the hour mark with a beautiful shot from about 25 yards into the top corner from backup Box to Box midfielder, Barberini. After falling behind in extra time, the call for Wangball was made, and we scored twice in two minutes, with Regista, Milanese scoring a stunning curling goal into the top corner and Mr Reliable Terrani slotting it in from close range.

We finished off December taking on bottom of the table Salento who were dispatched quite comfortably with Trento starting their short winter break with a 3-1 win. A highlight being 70% possession and over 700 passes. Pol Garcia started us off with a glancing header from a corner set piece in the first half. We followed that up with a lovely play finishing with Pellegrini taking his chance in the penalty box, with Murphy keeping his goalscoring form up from centreback with a poachers effort from a free ball in the sixyard box.

January

Considering we're doing bloody well, it wasn't a surprise that the board came to me with an offer to change our season expectations. While I think we are going to do so much better than what I selected, there was no budget increases between "Avoid a relegation battle" and "Win the Title", I went for the lowest one, leaving us with $0 in the transfer budget, but $50k a week in the wage budget to play with. So that in mind, here are my transfers that occured throughout the Winter Transfer Window, noting my ongoing save restriction of signing Irish, Australian and Italian players.

Transfers Out

We said goodbye to Davide Viturrini, who had their contract expiring in the summer. Calgliari came with a reasonable offer of €105k. Viturrini, although was listed in our best eleven in the previous two seasons, was out of his depth in Serie A so it was mutually beneficial to let him go to get some first team football at a level he was comfortable at.

We also said cheerio to Anthony Fontana who we picked up as a free agent midway through our first season. Similar to Viturrini, his contract was up in the summer and was out of his depth in Serie A, so we took the opportunity to make a small profit, selling him for €21.5k to Pro Vercelli.

Transfers In

Sam Curtis comes in from the Irish Premier Division where I pulled the trigger on his minimum release clause of €550k after my scouts and my own attribute/position calculator showed he has bags of potential. Sam will fill in as the first cab off the rank substitute in the Wide Centre Back role, knowing he can also play in the Right Wing Back role and the Right Back position when I play four at the back.

Christian Dalle Mura is someone that I've been keeping an eye on, who also came up nicely on the @FMStag Player Performance Analysis when I was in Serie B and my own attribute/position calculator. I initially signed him on a free from Fiorentina, but I decided to pay €180k to get him earlier. He'll be my backup Centre Back in the Central Defender Cover role.

We pulled the trigger on Transfer Deadline Day on Tommaso Barbieri, who you may remember we had on loan from Juventus/Zebre U23 in our first season. He's been playing well this season, and arguably Right Wing Back has been a weak spot for us, so I signed him for €90k.

I also took Antonio Raimondo on loan from the city that invented my favourite thing, Bologna, to be a backup striker as we were light there.

So how did we go in January?

Our first game after the winter break was nothing significant, just top of the table Parthenope/Napoli with Victor Osimhen being his overpowered self running riot at the top of the Serie A goalscoring chart. I expected a tough day at the races, and saw myself go down 2-0 within 18 minutes. I changed things to the 4-1-4-1 used by @Oaky-FM in his FM23 save at Sparta Rotterdam and got one back quickly, with our Milanese finishing off a lovely move that started from our keeper. Unfortunately we conceded a third just before halftime. We were being outplayed and I knew we were unlikely to get a result, so I went for broke and threw in the Wangball formation and sent the players out with a rocket up their backside. We scored immediately, which I forgot to capture, with Spalluto scoring a quintessential Wangball goal that moved us fast and direct up the pitch. Once again Osimhen came up trumps bullying our defence and scored his second, essentially putting the game to bed. We scored a consolation goal with a back up centre back Semprini scoring a scrappy goal, pushing up our xG to something reasonable, however we were no match, losing 4-3, our first loss in a while, which lets be honest is still good news.

We then welcomed Atalanta to our fortress and they went home empty handed with Trento keeping another clean sheet at home, winning 2-0 in a game that would have been a welcome chilldown compared to the chaos of the Napoli game. Two goals in each half from that man again, Terrani who has made the Mezzala position his own. The first goal came from a passage of play that had our players playing in tight areas before opening the space up for Terrani to receive the through ball to slot it past the keeper. The second was a perfect execution of how well the Mezzala and Regista roles work together, with a beautiful ball over the top from Riccardi into the path of the deep run from Terrani who nods it past the outrushing keeper.

We then had a midweek third round of the Italian Cup game against fellow Serie A opponents Udinese where I took the opportunity to rotate the team, and just like last time, it takes us to extra time to get the victory, with a 1-0 win coming thanks to our striker Spalluto taking advantage of a goalkeeper howler to slot it into an open goal.

We then travelled the nearly four hour coach down to the seaside to take on Spezia who were struggling in the bottom half of Serie A. From my pre-game analysis, I could tell they were a better team than 17th, so I expected a tough game, which we got, and we were lucky to go home with a 1-1 draw. Our goal came from a lovely throw-in set piece with our striker Spalluto rising highest to head us into the lead, but we were outshot, outpassed and out played.

Our final game of this update came against Verona, who you may remember we beat in the second round of the Italian Cup in extra time. Once again, this was a team that I knew had the potential to damage us, so I expected a tough game. What I didn’t expect was to be down 2-1 at half time with an injury time goal from our right wing back Johansson after a nice build up with eight of our players. Now I don’t like to throw the bottle, but bottles were thrown, and Wangball was deployed. It took time but we broke Verona down with an equaliser from Riccardi who was deployed in the Advanced Playmaker role, nodding it in after a lovely piece of play down the right wing by De Cristofaro. We then finally got the win in the 87th minute with Pellegrini’s first time effort from Sala’s left wing cross. Finishing off the period on a high with a 3-2 win, It was a tale of two halves, perfectly shown here.

How things stand at the end of January

It’s very congested at the top, but I can’t be anything but proud for being second with 22 games of the season played. And with a relatively good Youth Intake preview for the absolute crap youth recruitment system we have in place, things are looking very promising in Trento.

Until next time, for the final update of FM23.

What a season you’re having dude!! That December is incredible, and it’s not like it’s a flash in the pan you’re sustaining it. Top 6 finish looks assured.

Lestri · October 6, 2023

On 04/10/2023 at 22:45, SixPointer said:

What a season you’re having dude!! That December is incredible, and it’s not like it’s a flash in the pan you’re sustaining it. Top 6 finish looks assured.

Cheers! Have enjoyed playing this save. Tempted to carry it over to FM24 but I think a new start will be nice.

13th Man · October 7, 2023

That is some absolutely crazy form for a tiny club just promoted to Serie A! I could have seen that happening coming from Serie C to B, but not from B to A!

However the season finishes it’s a crazy achievement. Looking at those tiny transfer fees really gives a sense of how tiny that budget is, and yet Trento just keeps rolling!

Lestri · October 8, 2023

3 hours ago, 13th Man said:

That is some absolutely crazy form for a tiny club just promoted to Serie A! I could have seen that happening coming from Serie C to B, but not from B to A!

However the season finishes it’s a crazy achievement. Looking at those tiny transfer fees really gives a sense of how tiny that budget is, and yet Trento just keeps rolling!

Too kind! I've been very fortunate to experience that there wasn't too much of a difference between Serie B and C, though A has been a big step. Regarding the budgets, it's been helpful in a way as it's allowed me to focus on using statistics to upgrade any players that I need to do as I went up the leagues and focus on tactics that play to my team's strengths. I suspect there will be some corrections, but it's been a very good FM23 for me to be a bit more flexible regarding my approach compared to my usual "play an overpowered tactic and get all the wonderkids" style.

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[FM23] Taking Comune-ion - An Italian Save

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