Litmanen 10 Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) C'è sempre il sole in Sicilia *** U.S. Città di Palermo, commonly referred to as Palermo, is an Italian football club based in Palermo, Sicily. The club was founded in 1900 and has a rich history in Italian football. Palermo experienced its golden era in the early 2000s when it earned promotion to Serie A, Italy's top football division, after spending several years in the lower leagues. Under the ownership of Maurizio Zamparini, the club saw significant investment, which led to on-field success. Palermo regularly competed in Serie A and even participated in European competitions, showcasing their talents on an international stage. During this period, Palermo boasted a roster of talented players and achieved notable victories, capturing the hearts of football fans in Italy and beyond. However, the club also had its fair share of managerial changes, which sometimes led to instability both on and off the pitch. In recent years, Palermo has faced financial troubles that have threatened its stability. The club has encountered issues with debt and ownership disputes, leading to administrative turmoil. These financial challenges have resulted in Palermo facing relegation to Serie C due to points deductions and other penalties imposed by Italian football authorities. Despite efforts to secure new ownership and stabilize the club's finances, Palermo has struggled to regain its footing. The team's performance on the pitch has also suffered, reflecting the turbulent circumstances surrounding the club. As of the recent updates, Palermo continues to navigate its financial difficulties and strives to rebuild its reputation both domestically and internationally. The club's loyal fan base remains hopeful for a resurgence, but the road ahead remains uncertain amidst the ongoing challenges. Former players of Palermo The Sicilian club currently finds itself competing in Serie B, a far cry from their past glory days. Reflecting on the past, it's evident that Palermo once possessed a formidable squad that, if kept intact, could have propelled them to greater heights, perhaps even contending for a Serie A title. In goal, Salvatore Sirigu stands out as one of Palermo's notable former players. Sirigu, who now plies his trade in Turkey, showcased his talents during his two-season stint with Palermo in Serie A before earning a €3.9 million move to PSG. Joining him in defense was Andrea Barzagli, who spent four seasons with Palermo between 2004 and 2008 before moving on to Wolfsburg for €14 million. Another defensive stalwart was Kamil Glik, who briefly graced Palermo's backline in 2010 before moving to Torino. Similarly, Simon Kjaer, now at AC Milan, had a spell with Palermo from 2008 to 2010 before venturing to the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg. Matteo Darmian, currently a Internazionale player, only represented Palermo in 11 Serie A games in season 2010/11. The full-back arrived from AC Milan for a €800,000 co-ownership deal. The right-back left Palermo for Torino first on a loan deal and then permanently just two years after his arrival in Sicily. In midfield, Josip Ilicic, once a key player for Atalanta, starred for Palermo for three seasons following his arrival from Maribor in a €2.3 million deal before moving to Fiorentina for €9 million in 2013. Javier Pastore, who currently plays at Qatar SC, was snapped up by Palermo for €7 million before his lucrative move to Paris in 2011. Franco Vazquez, currently at Cremonese, was another shrewd acquisition by Palermo, arriving from Belgrano in 2012 for €4.5 million before being sold to Sevilla in 2016 for €14.2 million. In attack, Palermo boasted talents like Paulo Dybala, who arrived for €11.9 million and later fetched a staggering €40 million when sold to Juventus in 2015. Edinson Cavani, now a PSG and Napoli legend, began his European journey with Palermo, joining from Danubio for €5 million before moving to Napoli for €17 million and eventually landing at PSG. Andrea Belotti, currently a Roma player, spent time with Palermo from 2013 to 2015, partnering Dybala in attack before his move to Torino for €8.4 million, where he found his scoring prowess. The experienced international has been struggling with his form for the last couple of seasons and is currently trying to find it with a loan spell at Fiorentina. Fabricio Miccoli is also a name you cannot leave unmentioned here when discussing modern-era greatness. The striker's time at Palermo was marked by brilliance, as he showcased his extraordinary talent on the pitch, captivating fans with his dazzling displays. His partnership with Amauri formed the backbone of Palermo's attacking prowess, propelling the team to new heights in Serie A and leaving an indelible mark on the club's history. Miccoli's loyalty and commitment endeared him to the Rosanero faithful, cementing his status as a beloved icon in the annals of Palermo's footballing legacy. The legendary forward spent 6 years with Palermo before moving to Lecce in 2013. The career I will be taking over at the club in July and start the save in normal mode so that the transfers of 2023/24 have already taken place when the save game starts. I will be posting an update about the progress every 3-4 months and also when something significant happens. The database consists of +100 k players and multiple active leagues across Europe and South America, which might make my progress a bit slow. In the next post, I will be talking a bit about the squad, desired club DNA, and my tactical approach. *** Edited March 19 by Litmanen 10 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogo Bonito Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 Nice intro and good luck with this. I have a soft spot for Palermo after managing them on these pages a couple of versions ago, and with Sicily being the home of the nearest playable FM clubs to my current residence in Malta. And it's hard not to adore their kit colours too of course! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteinkelssonFM Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 DNA 👀 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttley84 Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 Good luck with the career. Regarding the best former players you probably used an English source, as probably all Italians supporting Palermo would put Fabrizio Miccoli on the top of the list, and probably even Luca Toni will make it ahead of Belotti. Curious what sout-american gems you will bring to Europe. To bad FM can't replicate the madness of Zamparini. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sizeman21 Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 Excited to see how you get on in Palermo! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 20 Author Share Posted March 20 (edited) Pablo Aimar has been my favorite footballer ever since I started to follow the sport actively at the beginning of the 2000s. With him moving into management after his illustrious playing career finished in the middle of the 2010s, the former midfield mastermind has progressively continued his career in coaching with the Argentinian national team. I am not sure if he is aiming to move into club managerial roles anywhere soon or whether he would be interested in returning to Europe to do this but I see a Serie B club as a logical step in his career. The two other managerial profiles that I was interested in would have been Fernando Torres and Palermo icon Fabricio Miccoli. My playing career consists of semi-professional and amateur football in Finland but ever since my childhood when I was often playing with kids who were even 10 years older than me, I always tried to imitate players like Zinedine Zidane, Pablo Aimar, and David Beckham who were all considered as highly creative players with good passing ability. Zidane and Aimar were also great and trickery dribblers and pure number 10s that I still adore in modern football. Quite funnily, the last game of my career was in 2018 when I was living in Argentina and was invited to play one game in a local league consisting of former active players. We won that game 3-2 and I was allowed to play in an attacking role down the left flank. I also scored the winning goal after a precise through-ball from one of our center-backs. Even though Aimar in real life has completed all his coaching licences, I once again wanted to start with only the National A license. One of the reasons here was the fact that I didn't want to create a profile too powerful in the beginning and secondly, I somehow like sending the manager to coaching courses and slowly becoming a good manager in terms of attributes. Coaching Staff With Betis, I brought my staff mainly from the Argentinian national team but this time I opted to do things differently and build the backroom staff myself. I am not going to use the powerful staff search tool to do it but instead, I am going always to hire staff through recommendations and job adverts. This is what we have done so far: *** Tactical Approach Don't mind about the player selection but formations instead. I have practically never used a three-man backline in my FM days so this was something that I wanted to base my style of play on. As we are in Italy the three-man backline is going to be something quite common and also familiar as well as some of the roles that I prefer to use. Libero The libero, also known as the sweeper, is a defensive player positioned behind the main defensive line. This player typically operates in a free role, providing support to the defense by sweeping up loose balls, covering gaps, and initiating counter-attacks. The libero requires excellent tactical awareness, anticipation, and distribution skills to effectively command the defensive line while also contributing to the team's build-up play. Regista The regista, often referred to as the deep-lying playmaker, is a midfield role focused on dictating the tempo of the game and orchestrating attacking moves from a deep position. Positioned between the defensive and midfield lines, the regista acts as the team's metronome, distributing passes with precision, initiating transitions, and providing defensive cover when necessary. This player needs exceptional vision, passing ability, and positional intelligence to control the flow of the game and create opportunities for teammates. Trequartista The trequartista, also known as the playmaker or "number 10," operates as an advanced midfielder positioned behind the striker(s) in the attacking third of the pitch. This player is tasked with linking midfield and attack, unlocking defenses with creative passes, dribbles, and through balls, as well as scoring goals themselves. The trequartista requires technical proficiency, spatial awareness, and intelligence to exploit spaces, create chances, and be a focal point of the team's attacking play. They often have the freedom to roam and create opportunities for themselves and their teammates in the final third. Mezzala The mezzala is a midfield role that originated in Italian football tactics. Positioned slightly to one side in midfield, the mezzala combines elements of a central midfielder and a wide midfielder. This player is tasked with supporting both attacking and defensive phases of play, providing passing options, maintaining possession, and contributing to build-up play. The mezzala often drifts into wide areas to provide width in attack or to support the full-back, while also being able to make late runs into the box to contribute to goal-scoring opportunities. This role requires a versatile skill set, including excellent passing, dribbling, and defensive capabilities, as well as tactical awareness to effectively link midfield and attack. Main team instructions Shorter passing Higher tempo Counter-press Counter Distribute quickly Mid Block Standard defensive line Press more often Get stuck in Step Up More I haven't yet added any player instructions as those will be the ones based on how the games start rolling. I'm not going to put too much importance on friendly games as those don't tell you the whole story so the tinkering will start when we kick off the season in Coppa Italia where we will face Genoa away from home in the first round. My tactical approach in general is to play positive football and also be hard to predict for the opponent. We are predicted to finish 3rd in Serie B this season which means that combined with club vision, scoring goals and controlling games are going to be some of the main characteristics of the team. I will edit information about my club DNA in this post. Thank you all for your comments so far! Much appreciated and good to see that this save could be more interesting for the readers. @Muttley84 Miccoli was actually the first name on my list but as I wrote both of these posts during my short lunch break, I managed to make a mistake of leaving him out. Edited March 20 by Litmanen 10 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 20 Author Share Posted March 20 (edited) Some of our key players Mirko Pigliacelli - an excellent sweeper keeper for this level who has plenty of experience in this level. Has one cap in the Italian under-21 national team. I find him also very suitable for our style of play as he likes to get the crowd going and looks to start quick counter-attacks with long throws. Sadly he is only a balanced personality which means that he isn’t really useful as a mentor. Pietro Ceccaroni - a rough wide center-back who has been playing at this level since 2015. Last season he also got his first go in the Serie A when he was loaned for Lecce where he appeared in six top-flight games. Someone who we are looking to lead the defensive line and be a mentor for our younger players for years to come. Matteo Brunori - The 28-year-old striker starts his third season with us. In his previous two, Brunori scored 25 in Serie C and 17 last season in Serie B. One of our main goals for this season is that Matteo can continue this scoring form, and hopefully even take it to Serie A if we ever make it there. Jacopo Segre - Jacopo Segre moved to Palermo a year ago from Torino where was unable to find a place in the first team. The versatile midfielder had loan spells to five different Serie B or C clubs before he looked for a permanent option away. At the age of 26, he is already a great player for this level and might even make it to the Serie A level if things go well. Segre will be our first choice for Regista this season. Roberto Insigne - The younger brother of Lorenzo Insigne starts his first season in Sicily. Before that, the trickery and intelligent player had plenty of experience from this level, mainly with Benevento where he spent five of the best years of his career so far. As Insigne lacks work rate but is no short of vision and passing ability as well as the ability to score goals, he will be our main player for the trequartista role. As you might have already noticed, the main DNA of the players consists of six different attributes: work rate, decisions, vision, passing, determination, and technique. Work rate: Reflects a player's level of effort and intensity on the field. High work-rate players tirelessly cover ground, press opponents, and contribute defensively and offensively throughout the match. Decisions: Indicates a player's ability to make effective choices in various situations during a game. Players with high decision-making attributes are adept at selecting the right passes, executing intelligent movements, and reacting swiftly to changing circumstances. Decisions: Indicates a player's ability to make effective choices in various situations during a game. Players with high decision-making attributes are adept at selecting the right passes, executing intelligent movements, and reacting swiftly to changing circumstances. Vision: Represents a player's awareness of their surroundings and their ability to anticipate and execute creative passes and movements. Players with exceptional vision can spot openings, exploit gaps in the opposition's defense, and deliver incisive through balls to create goal-scoring opportunities. Passing: Measures a player's accuracy and precision in distributing the ball to teammates. Strong passing attributes enable players to deliver accurate short and long-range passes, crosses, and set-piece deliveries, facilitating effective build-up play and attacking maneuvers. Determination: Reflects a player's mental resilience, perseverance, and willingness to overcome obstacles. Highly determined players exhibit unwavering commitment, fight for every ball, and refuse to give up even in challenging situations, often inspiring their teammates with their relentless attitude. Technique: Indicates a player's proficiency in controlling and manipulating the ball with precision and finesse. Players with exceptional technique demonstrate superior ball control, dribbling skills, and striking ability, allowing them to execute complex maneuvers, beat opponents, and contribute creatively to their team's attacking play. In general, I always want my team to be intelligent, technical, and systematic but also work hard for victory. My vision in terms of squad building Prefer Argentinian and Italian players. The backbone of the team should always consist of players from these two countries. Obviously, there are going to be some players that don’t fit into this mold but the aim is to keep this number as low as possible Development instead of signing. The long-term aim is to improve our training and youth facilities to an excellent level which would mean that we’d be able to create our talent as well as possible. Also, if we were to be promoted to the Serie A after season one or later on, the idea is not to rebuild the team completely but instead make well-thought and intelligent signings for the club. Money-ball. Related to the previous sentence, we are looking to make the maximum amount of profit for the signings that are not forever players for us. As a result-driven marketer and data analyst in real life, I am also a bit obsessed with team finances in general and it is one of the main aspects that I consider when playing the game and when I make decisions. The right types of personalities. I am a keen fan of players’ personalities and this is also going to be one of my main priorities in terms of squad building. Players who are over 20 years old, should always have at least a ‘fairly professional’ personality, otherwise, it’s a no-go. I am also a big fan of the new mentoring system which for me is way better and more realistic than the one we had for years. One of the first things I always do in my saves is check the squad hierarchies and set up mentoring groups. Not using player or staff search. Like always on my save games, I am not going to use these two tools that I find a bit too powerful. I am going to purely rely on recommendations, application processes, and our scouting team. The selection of roles. As I already mentioned in the previous post, I aim to always use 3-4 traditional Italian roles in my tactics. That is also why I immediately set our scouts to find us players who can play as registas, liberos and trequartistas. Otherwise the scouting will be delegated to my chief scout. Edited March 20 by Litmanen 10 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dothestrand Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 Palermo were my favourite Serie A team for a while, glad to see them bouncing back. And with former legends, what about Fabio Grosso, taker of the winning penalty kick in the 2006 WC final? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteinkelssonFM Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 All the fancy team roles in action, this is going to be exciting, if you can make play cohesive! A strong blend of attributes to form the DNA, along with a sensible choice in deploying more defenders, over attacking players with the Moneyball approach. We all know you can pick a defender up for significantly less money, smart from you. There is something about the 'Pink' colour scheme which is really appealing! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttley84 Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 14 hours ago, Litmanen 10 said: I find him also very suitable for our style of play as he likes to get the crowd going and looks to start quick counter-attacks with long throws When he played in Romania you will find him going up with the ball at his feet sometimes to the middle of the pitch haha. And he also took some penalties. His personality was not balanced by any means lol. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 Always had a soft spot for Italy, and - in particular - those from the southern part of Italy. I will be following this closely: good luck! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 21 Author Share Posted March 21 Pre-season 2024 When starting with a new club that is fairly unfamiliar to you, the first days of pre-season are vital for me. What I usually do first is I will check the squad hierarchy page where I can learn more about the team leaders, the general hierarchy of the club as well as different social groups. These work as the source of a good general picture as well as a platform for setting up the mentoring groups that I am a big fan of. I like to build my mentoring groups always in the same way. I have usually one suitable mentor for one group and 2-3 young players who work as understudies. Who do I consider a suitable mentor? A senior player that is high in the hierarchy and his personality is at least 'fairly professional'. Plays in the same position as the understudies or at least has some traits that I would like to pass on to the younger players. There are exceptions though: for example, with the goalkeepers I don't have one of the desired personalities at the moment which means that the two younger goalkeepers have one of our defenders working as their mentor. Here is an example of one of my mentoring groups. Pre-season friendlies Didn't see any reason to touch them as they were setup by our staff. Even though these matches really don't tell you much, I was really encouraged with our performances, especially going forward. It was also encouraging to see that we beat two other Serie B teams here. Lecco was our first friendly of the summer and Venezia who are considered one of the favorites to go up and who have possibly the best goalscorer, Finnish international Joel Pohjanpalo, in their team. Other things to mention are the fact that we continued to rebuild our coaching staff throughout the summer and it currently looks like this. As you can see, our new assistant manager is from France and he is quite famous one as David Bettoni is the former right hand of Zinedine Zidane. We also had quite a few injuries during the pre-season which will make our start of the season a challenge. The managerial debut The Coppa Italia first round was a great test for us as we visited Genoa at Luigi Ferraris Stadium. No one had given us any chances, especially when we were missing a long list of important players which meant that we were only able to name a limited amount of substitutes. We took an early lead through good link-up play between our striking duo Mancuso and Brunoni but conceded from the following kick-off as one of the opposition players just decided to pick the ball up from the restart before running through the entire length of the pitch and setting up Ékuban for a free chance inside our six-yard box. A big worry about our defensive quality! The first half was even but we had bad luck in the end when Thorsby's long-range shot took a deflection and beat Pigliacelli in his goal. I saw nothing wrong with the performance in the first half: we had 8 shots against their 7 and 1.63 xG against their 0.76. We had been the better side! It took us a long to get level but we did it deservedly in the 78th minute when substitute Soleri was released again by Brunoni who was selected as the player of the match thanks to his two assists. We had saved our substitutions until the last 15 minutes of the game and this showed in the overtime where we were the better team. We also had plenty of luck inside the penalty area as two of our three goals came through lucky deflections giving us open goals for the finishes. It was a great start for our managerial career. The next challenge is also going to be big as we will visit Sassuolo in the second round. *** Thank you so much for the comments @SteinkelssonFM, @Muttley84 & @_Ben_. Very much appreciated! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tibalg Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 How is it going with your tactic approach ? How did you finally mix the different Italian roles ? I like the way you introduced your story with the view of your tactical purpose, it gave some great taste for a Palermo's story. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 21 Author Share Posted March 21 1 hour ago, Tibalg said: How is it going with your tactic approach ? How did you finally mix the different Italian roles ? I like the way you introduced your story with the view of your tactical purpose, it gave some great taste for a Palermo's story. These are the three tactics that I have in my mind and which I used during the pre-season. As my aim is to build around the Trequartista, I would say that the two striker formation will be my number one. I would have also built one around 4-3-4-3 as it is a fairly Italian formation but as that is something that I have used so much in the past, I opted to try something totally new. Playing attacking football is also something that I have basically never done and as you can probably notice in the formations and team instructions, we are fairly attacking side. The match against Genoa was encouragin as we were clearly the better team and also defensively fairly solid despite conceding two. Next up will be the Serie B season preview. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tibalg Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 il y a 46 minutes, Litmanen 10 a dit : These are the three tactics that I have in my mind and which I used during the pre-season. As my aim is to build around the Trequartista, I would say that the two striker formation will be my number one. I would have also built one around 4-3-4-3 as it is a fairly Italian formation but as that is something that I have used so much in the past, I opted to try something totally new. Playing attacking football is also something that I have basically never done and as you can probably notice in the formations and team instructions, we are fairly attacking side. The match against Genoa was encouragin as we were clearly the better team and also defensively fairly solid despite conceding two. Next up will be the Serie B season preview. I am very intrigued about the link between the Regista and the Libero, and how they would move into the attacking phase, especially with the new match engine. With the second tactic, you must find yourself very windy at the back, with everyone upfront . But as you said, attacking is the key word there. Can't wait to read your season preview. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 22 Author Share Posted March 22 12 hours ago, Tibalg said: With the second tactic, you must find yourself very windy at the back, with everyone upfront . But as you said, attacking is the key word there. Good point. Come to think about, decided to make a couple of changes: dropped the Trequartista to the number 10 positions, changed the wingbacks to IWBs and kept the Mezzalas. This should make it way more balanced, increase positional play and also force lot of the play happen in the central areas. Thank you for noticing! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 Serie B season preview Parma are considered the biggest favorites to go to the Serie A for the first time since their relegation in 2021. The club is managed by Fabio Pecchia who has been in charge of the club since 2022. Last season the team finished 4th on the table with only 60 points but with a fairly strong end to their campaign. Palermo are quite surprisingly ranked second in the season preview after finishing 9th last year. The duo is followed by three relegated teams and the interesting Como who has both Césc Fabregas and Thierry Henry involved in the ownership. Sampdoria are also an interesting case as we have been used to seeing the traditional club in Serie A during the last decade or so. The team will start the season from behind as 2 points were deducted from them due to financial mismanagement. The club is led by Andrea Pirlo who has been in charge of the club since the end of June. Another interesting managerial name is the former AS Roma wonderkid Alberto Aquilani who is in charge of Pisa Calcio who are predicted to finish in the mid-table. Newly promoted AC Reggiana on the other hand are looking to avoid relegation under the guidance of legendary centre-back Alessandro Nesta. No less than 5 of the dream team players consist of Parma players. The former Manchester City midfielder Adrián Bernabé is widely considered the best player in the league this season and he is also the favorite to finish the season as the best player of the league. Two Palermo players make the cut here. Mirko Pigliacelli is considered to be the best goalkeeper in the league while Matteo Brunori was chosen as the starting forward ahead of Finnish international Joel Pohjanpalo who is considered as the front-runner for the Golden Boot this season. Ternana's Inter-loanee Franco Carboni is the highest-valued player in Serie B Followed by Spezia striker Francesco Pio Esposito and Bernabé. The experienced Roberto Insigne is our highest-valued player and placed eighth in the league. Our schedule We will start the season on the 19th of August with an away game against Lecco who are considered as one of the most likely teams to be relegated this season. They are a familiar opponent to us as we already beat them 4-1 in the pre-season. It will also be an interesting test for us to see how well the pre-season games compare to the real games and whether we will be as dominant as we were in the pre-season opener. The first big test of the season will be on the 16th of September when we will travel to meet Parma on match day 6. The next update will also include an away game against Venezia and a home encounter versus Cittadella. The final game of the next update will be on the 28th of October when we will host Pirlo's Sampdoria at Stadio Renzo Barbera. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 (edited) Roberto Insigne marked his Serie B debut for Palermo with two goals and three assists in an away fixture against Lecco whom we had already beaten during the pre-season. Otherwise, the start of the season was marvelous as we won all our first four games, yet some of them were tighter than we would have hoped for. Matteo Brunori's good recent form in front of the goal meant that we were well-prepared for the first big fixture of the season against Parma. Parma had disappointingly started their season as they hadn't yet won a single game. With three draws and a defeat, they were in 14th place in the league table. Sometimes you make the mistake of overthinking things and that is exactly why we lost this fixture narrowly. Instead of using one of our usual approaches, I opted to go with defense in mind for the start of the game. We didn't produce anything during the first half and also sadly conceded a goal from a precise cross in the 16th minute. A hairdryer treatment and opting to go back to one of our usual styles saw us dominating the second half of the game but Parma defended strongly despite not going forward a single time during the second 45 minutes. We had two late chances through Liam Henderson but the Scottish loanee was only able to hit the bar in the 85th minute. What often happens with one loss is that the whole form takes a dip. This also happened with us as we dropped points in three of our next 6 games, all of them in so-called big fixtures and more often than not both undeservedly and with late goals by the opposition. We have to admit though that the level of our performances has gone down a bit too and we have become too predictable for the opponents. On the other hand, we also had quite a bit of luck in two of our fixtures as we didn't deserve to win the games against Brescia and FeralpiSaló who both gave us a good fight. What is encouraging again though is that Matteo Brunori again found his scoring form in the last two fixtures and grew his scoring tally in the Serie B into 6 goals which is decent at this point, I guess. Our Trequartista Roberto Insigne has been the standout player so far though as the experienced Italian has scored five goals and provided eight assists so far this season. The new arrival was selected as the player of the month in August when he scored 3 goals and assisted another 3 in just 3 games. Tactical tweaks so far As I already mentioned in my previous posts, I start tweaking with player and team instructions only after the real games have started. This is also easier after the season has started as I manage pre-season games with only key highlights and change back to comprehensive when the campaign has begun. The first thing that I immediately noticed was the fact that giving our defenders the freedom to choose their passing option was a mistake. As we do not have defenders who are good on the ball, all the longer balls ended up being a waste and we were just gifting away the possession needlessly. This is why I immediately applied the play-out-of-defense instruction to all our tactics. The second big thing that popped up quick quickly was that our three-man defense did not step up enough to close down the opposition’s wide and center forwards dropping into pockets, which meant that I have changed our wide center-backs now to center-backs on stopper duty while the libero and sweeper keeper is responsible on dealing with the through balls. This has been good for us as the movement is now much more like I desired and so far we haven’t conceded any goals from the opposition getting through on goal. The third bigger change was changing the half-back role to an anchor as I felt that we didn’t have enough numbers in the midfield during our buildups as the libero’s movement was quite inconsistent and also because I wanted to utilize Claudio Gomes’ ball-winning abilities higher up in the pitch. The fourth one is recent as I have changed our short passing to direct which has looked good against both FeralpiSaló and Sampdoria. The idea behind this is to become less predictable and also encourage the team to hit the opponents more on breaks. The good When starting the season, I didn't know much about the team, and playing games with key highlights in the pre-season didn’t help much. After three months I am now much more familiar with the team and know how each of the individuals performs. I’m going to exclude our key players from this part as I have already talked enough about them. Chaka Traoré - The 18-year-old was set to start the season in our under-19s team but I immediately promoted him to the senior side. The winger has been playing as a striker, attacking midfielder, and even as an attacking wingback and he’s done well so far. The promising Milan loanee has scored 4 goals and contributed 2 assists in just two starts and seven sub appearances, which is a fantastic result for the young man. Simon Graves - The 24-year-old Dane has solidified his place as our right-sided centre-back. In terms of his defensive performances, he has even been better than Pietro Ceccaroni who was supposed to be our best defender with quite a big margin. Leo Štulac - The Slovenian international started the season in rotation but has since been promoted to the starting eleven thanks to the injury of Jacopo Segre. In his 10 appearances so far the 29-year-old has been solid in terms of his passing and he has also contributed with two goal assists so far while Segre still has zero in the league. And the bad The Insigne & Brunori partnership - It might seem odd, especially considering Insigne’s form. But the duo is still not functioning in a way I would have hoped for. The passing combinations between the two are still quite rare and Insigne has so far only assisted two of Brunori’s six goals which are both disappointing numbers. Brunori is an excellent can-do-all but I have many times thought about changing his role to something else than a complete forward who seems to participate too much in the build-ups as well as drifting too far from the goalscoring sectors. Mirko Pigliacelli - The experienced sweeper keeper’s average rating is for some reason above 7 so far this season. So far he has only saved 1 shot every 90 minutes which is an extremely low number. When needed the most, the 30-year-old has not been able to make that one game-saving save for us and secure us some vital points. The only really good performance so far was the clean sheet against Feralpisaló where he had to make 4 saves in total and turn their xG of 0.88 goals to zero. The specialists in failure? Even though we are currently on top of the table and doing above expectations, we cannot be totally happy about how the first three months have gone. Above are the stats from all four games where we have dropped points so far. All of them have come in these so-called ‘big games’ against teams that were predicted to finish in high positions and even fight for promotion. When we take a look at the stats, there is a clear pattern and an even clearer reason for not being happy. In my opinion, we have dropped way more points than we should have so far. In practically all of these games, we have (in my opinion) been the better side but managed to concede from practically all the chances that the opposition has created against us. Parma scored from a close-range header, Cittadella from their only shot of the game, and both Venezia and Sampdoria from late corner kicks. There are two clear patterns: conceding from low goal expectations and throwing the lead away with late goals. It was extremely frustrating to watch practically all the highlights coming our way and when we finally scored one after all that hard work and control, we ended up conceding from all the chances that the opponents were getting. Sometimes it even feels like we could just play without a goalkeeper to control the games even more. After all, what do you do with a keeper who is not making a single save? What also worries me is the fact that especially Roberto Insigne has almost totally disappeared in our big games so far. He has zero goal contributions in these four games and three of his four performances have been marked as below 7.0 rating. The lowest were against Parma and Sampdoria where he recorded 6.3s. Our next big test is already on the 1st of November when we meet Sassuolo in Coppa Italia’s second round. Edited March 29 by El Payaso 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shep1920 Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 Hi, what skin are you using mate ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogo Bonito Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 Loving the graphics, looking great. Enjoying the story so far too. Good start in the league and the win over Parma could be significant later in the season Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 16 hours ago, Shep1920 said: Hi, what skin are you using mate ? 10 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said: Loving the graphics, looking great. Enjoying the story so far too. Good start in the league and the win over Parma could be significant later in the season Thank you. I enjoy the save too so this is pleasure to write. A win against Parma would have been good but we lost. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogo Bonito Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 5 hours ago, El Payaso said: Thank you. I enjoy the save too so this is pleasure to write. A win against Parma would have been good but we lost. I'm an idiot, sorry! Pleased to see it hasn't affected you anyway. Will pay more attention next time 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 Building around the Trequartista, or Fantastista more accurately was one of the key points of this save game along with 2-3 other important roles that I am practically always trying to utilize in my tactical approach. Luckily with Palermo, I had a player like Roberto Insigne who seemed to be a perfect fit for the job. Technically talented, creative, able to produce the end product in terms of goals too, and as a team player just a little bit lazy. An ideal candidate to fill this role. Insigne has been the standout player for us so far in the season. The 29-year-old Italian was rewarded with the Player of the Month award in August and he currently leads both the average rating and assists chart in Serie B after 11 rounds have been played. So far he has contributed 14 goals in 12 appearances for us. The Napoli graduate has played most of his career in Serie B where he has become well-known as an influential wide player. In his 295 appearances so far in three different levels of Italian football, he has scored 60 goals. His best season was in 2018/19 when he scored 10 Serie B goals for his longest-term club Benevento. With his 5 goals already, it looks likely that the experienced Italian is going to have his best season so far at Palermo. Insigne vs Lecco (Click the image to open the .gif) Insigne's best performance so far came in the season opener against Lecco where he scored 2 goals and assisted a further 3. As you can see from the gif above, his movement, dribbling, and final passes were causing the home side a lot of trouble. This is also what I am looking for from him: to be able to bring in the surprising factor and to be able to contribute in many ways to our attacking play. Even though his stats look convincing so far this season, the start hasn't been perfect. Insigne tends to fall into the shadows for large parts of the games and he has been rather poor so far in bigger games if you don't take into account the season opener against Genoa. He also has a habit of still trying to find a pass from the easiest chances, and there have been a lot of challenges with creating a good combination between him and Matteo Brunori. Where I want Insigne to finish is that he would win the Player of the Year award with us and could also hold the highest average rating throughout the first season as well as getting the most assists in the league. The forever player One of the main things I enjoy in all of my saves are long-term players and club legends. This is also why we have been since the beginning looking for our forever player to fill this role. At the age of 29, Insigne of course has 2-3 good seasons left in his career but he isn't going to be our forever player in this save. We have set a scouting focus to find one but with little luck so far. In our squad, we have one interesting player who could fill the void: The young Serbian U-21 international looks like an interesting prospect. Even though he hasn't featured a lot so far this season, he seems to tick most of the spots in our club DNA. We still need to work a lot to improve his mental stats as well as heading ability which could become an asset when he joins the attacks inside the penalty area. Could Aljoša Vasić do the job for us? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 11 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said: I'm an idiot, sorry! Pleased to see it hasn't affected you anyway. Will pay more attention next time Haha, it's fine. Could have easily won though and looking to get a revenge in the reverse fixture. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 November & December 2023 Our Coppa Italia journey came to its end in a fairly familiar manner. We controlled the first half of the game against Sassuolo and should have scored 2-3 times to be honest with no luck. In the second half the team became tired and the hosts quite deservedly scored one after a poor clearance. If we had been unlucky often so far this season, the match against Modena was one that we escaped in a bit of a Rocky Balboa manner. The home side’s narrow 4-4-2 diamond seemed unstoppable during the first 45 minutes of the game which saw us reverting to a 4-3-3 for the first time this season. Some good finishing and a solid defensive display in the second half saw us through. The game against Spezia was the first big game of the season which we won. It didn't come easily though as we had to wait until the 77th minute for our substitutes Traoré and Mancuso to get one over the goal line. Matteo Brunori scored once again twice but was ruled offside which had already made his tally four offside-goals strong this month. The month finished with a narrow victory against 18th placed Südtirol where we tried out our new away style of play which is still under construction. This was probably our best performance of the month which was almost ruined by yet another howler from Pigliacelli who vacuumed in a long-range shot from Simone Davi that was directed straight toward him. Mirko Pigliacelli was dropped to the next game where 20-year-old Sebastiano Desplanches had a clean sheet. It was a tight game between two top-tier teams where the hosts controlled for the first 60 minutes but where in the end we had a couple of good chances to snatch the 3 points. This was also a game where Roberto Insigne injured his knee and was forced out of the team for the next 4-6 weeks. Aljoso Vasic wasn't able to do much for us in his first game replacing Insigne and things seemed to get even worse with Brunori when he even missed a penalty in the 30th minute. The experienced forward responded magnificently though by scoring with a confident finish just ten minutes later. This also set us off to beat the team that was placed 16th on the table. Ivan Marcano, playing as a libero, scored the goal of the season so far by taking a powerful long shot from 25 meters out. Emil Krafth joined the club soon after. The 29-year-old Swede, who Newcastle had released had been on a trial at the club along with Felipe Caicedo, André Gomes, and Yann M'Vila for the last four weeks. As both of our starting wingbacks Alessio Buttaro and Giuseppe Aurelio got injured in the same training session, we had to act quickly to fill in the void. The Swedish international had featured in one Premier League game this season after his horrific knee injury that had kept the defender out of the pitch for 14 months. Krafth does not fit into our squad building principles but he is probably going to be a player that we look to move on in the coming summer with a bit of profit. Välkommen till Sicily Emil! We finished the year with a mixed bag of results. This was due to a bit of an injury crisis and the team getting tired. The only victory was against Reggiana where we again reached the level of performance that we wanted, especially in terms of finishing. During this period we were constantly missing 5 to 6 players due to injuries and suspensions and that of course shows. League table 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Season 1 - Part III Start of the transfer window The start of January means also that the transfer window is now open. This, on the other hand, will allow us to think a bit more about the club's finances. This is even though I don’t feel that the club manager should be responsible for the money. The biggest howler that Palermo had done for this season, in my opinion, was the loan deal of Leonardo Mancuso. The 31-year-old forward was signed for a season-long loan from Monza and the club is paying his full €50k contract for the duration of the season as well as €1.2M extra if we get promoted. Quite an expensive deal for a player who has played 9 games so far, scoring two goals. And of course, this is a deal that we cannot terminate. This is also a significant number in our total wage budget which is less than 250 thousand a week. We have been given €1.2M to spend in the transfer window and even after the arrival of Emil Krafth last month, we have more than €30k per week to use in our wage budget. Former goalkeeper Morgan De Sanctis was hired to work as our Director of Football. His attributes tell me that he could be a really good addition to the club. The first signals The first dip into the transfer window has told us that we might be on the losing end here. Of our regular starters both Claudio Gomes and Simon Graves have been targeted by bigger clubs from Germany and England. We have also received the first bids. The first player to leave the club was 36-year-old Fabio Lucioni, who only featured in 2 two games for us after his arrival in the summer. The centre-back has joined Greek side Atromitos on a six-month loan deal and as his contract will not be renewed by us, he has played his final minutes for the club. Losing Gomes would not be a disaster for us as we would then be able to use the former Juventus midfielder Filippo Ranocchia a bit more. If Graves is going to leave the club, we will probably have to seek for a new centre-back though as the Dane has been almost ever-present for the club this season. Who are our transfer targets? Even though we have scouted actively throughout the autumn season, we don’t have any real targets. The interest from bigger clubs towards our players means though that we have to stay alert as especially in defense every player that we lose also has to be replaced with a signing as we are already pretty short on options. This transfer window is also going to be exciting in terms of difficulty as the early signs are showing that signing players might turn out to be quite difficult for us. January 2024 We started the year with a Matteo Brunori first-half hat-trick. Things didn’t go smoothly though as we lost Brunori himself, Giuseppe Aurelio, and Leonardo Mancuso through injuries. Venezia also almost FM’ed us again by scoring with their two goals from 3 shots on target. The rest of the month went with familiar trends: a simply awful away performance against Brescia was followed by a convincing home victory as our most important player Aurelio was back in the lineup. The Italian of course got sick soon after which would keep him out for the next half of February. Matteo Brunori’s four goals were enough to reward the Italian with the Player of the Month award. The deadline day Departures Claudio Gomes - The Frenchman had been injured at the beginning of the year and thereby missed almost all our January matches. West Ham came in knocking with a €1.3M bid first which we were able to negotiate up to €4.5. Gomes had been a reliable servant to us and he seemed to have the potential to become a good Serie A player. His age of 23 years and balanced personality probably means that he would never have reached this level with us even though he had been one of the best performers in training throughout the short career update so far. He was also a fairly big earner with €21k per week, which is almost one-tenth of our wage budget in total. A good player, but also someone that we could easily replace with someone better. We tried to immediately loan him back for the rest of the season but he had no desire to return to Sicily. Arrivals Nahuel Estévez - I was quite surprised that Parma wanted to sell the 28-year-old Argentinian to us as he had been a regular starter for our rivals. We paid €1.3M up-front as well as €1.7M in installments. The former Estudiantes midfielder is a slightly better option than the younger Gomes and he should be able to fill in for all the roles in our midfield. He is also the first signing that fits our approach quite nicely with his nationality, personality, and attributes. Jon Pachedo - Thanks to our bad luck with injuries, I wanted to make sure that we would not be running out of central defenders during the spring season. The 23-year-old Spaniard was someone that our scouts suggested even though we are not allowed to scout in Spain. As we only had a minimal scout report available for him, we signed him like a pig in a poke. The first impression is that we made a big mistake here as his mental side doesn’t fit into our philosophy at all. The former Spain U-21 international has not been able to reach his potential so far and this might all be down to the mental attributes. There are also positives as he is quite a traditional product of Real Sociedad’s youth system which means that he will be the first centre-back in this club suitable for playing the libero role. We are also doing our best to develop his mentals here: I have asked Matteo Brunori to welcome him to the club and we also found a mentoring group for him where the effects should be ‘significant’ for him. This signing could also fit into our moneyball approach as we should be able to sell him with a profit if things don’t pan out well with him. We were also just one click away from confirming Matteo Brunori’s departure from Sicily with a fee of 10 million euros as Leicester came in for the club captain. Clicking continue would have been good for the club's finances but it would have also taken the joy out of this save game. So I took the risk of him getting upset which never happened. February Jon Pachedo marked his Palermo debut with three big errors which saw Patrick Cutrone scoring twice against us. Otherwise, we were more than equal against the rather big club with yet another away game with zero bit of luck on our side. The second debutant Estévez came in from the bench and almost scored twice for us. The defeat started a downward spiral and saw us doing our best to throw away the league title. There isn’t anything else to say but that we are poor at the moment. I would claim that the narrow 1-0 victory is quite a good storyteller here. This was the team that we had beaten 6-0 in our season opener as well as in the pre-season. I don’t know if we should accuse individuals too much here, excluding myself, but Pachedo seems to be someone who has only brought us misery. His only good contribution so far was the assist in the winning goal against Lecco. Estévez on the other hand has been good but he also had two short sick leaves due to a minor injury and illness. What went wrong? We are currently doing our best to throw the title away. I think Parma are feeling sympathetic towards us as they also started to struggle after they had caught us. Away form - the last away game that we won was at the end of November. We are still able to match our opponents quite evenly in terms of stats but we make mistakes and cannot score from our chances. Tight games are turning to draws or defeats. Injuries - throughout the start of the year, we have been blessed with a constant amount of 6-7 injuries within the squad. I’m not going to go behind this though but for example not being able to play Filippo Aurelio, who has been the most consistent player for us so far this season, is leaving its mark. Defending of the wide areas - the opponents have learned to exploit our flanks which only consist of one player on each side. I was looking for Emil Krafth to be a dominant force for us down the right-hand side but the Swede has not really been up to the level. It might be wise for us to change the stopper duty centre-backs to wide centre-backs instead to try and balance things up. Another option would be to try and make the midfield more of a hard-working one with the change of formation and roles. Mistakes - I think Pachedo’s debut summarizes this quite well. We matched Como quite well but were punished by two horrendous errors from long balls. Signing and especially playing the young Spaniard has proved costly for us so far. The lack of creativity - our style of play relies heavily on the Libero, Regista, and Trequartista to be able to deliver. Roberto Insigne has disappeared completely after his injury, getting only one assist this year, Jacopo Segre has one assist and the libero role has been quite inefficient in terms of producing anything so far. We have multiple players in the tactics that are allowed to deliver the goods and probably the best striker in the league to finish the chances off. The sad fact is that we are not good enough in this area at the moment and haven’t been for a long time. A new tactical idea? Makes you wonder if something like this could work for us. Even though we might do better in terms of results if we simply just ditched some of the permanent roles, that would also mean that we would throw our philosophy out of the window. The aim of this system could be looking for the lost balance down the flanks as well as creating a more optimal environment in the middle of the park for both our Regista and Trequartista. With Stulac, Estétez, Ranocchia, and Segre, we should have the right selection of players to be able to pull this midfield trio off. We are going to throw this new system immediately to the deep end when we clash against Cremonese at the beginning of March. The third-placed team is currently on top of the form table while we have dropped to 14th. Feel free to give me opinions about the tactical idea! Rest of the season schedule *** Sorry for the lack of graphics in the latest post! Might add some of them later on. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fantasista10 Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 This is a brilliant thread, I love your graphics and presentation. Your tactical ideas and principles around using the Libero, Regista, Mezzala, Treq really are interesting, and quintessentially Italian On your new tactical idea, have you thought about perhaps ditching the Libero for a BPD, and maybe using a WCB on Support or Attack on one side to add a bit more variation, and create some more overloads on the flank? I’ve used that to good effect in previous FM’s as I was inspired by Gasperini and his attacking centre backs. However I completely understand if the use of certain roles like the Libero are set in stone from what you laid out at the beginning, and it can certainly still work. The Diamond in midfield that you’re proposing is exciting and should bring more balance to the midfield especially as the Treq is a bit of a lazy role. I’d imagine the defensive shape would remain as a 5-3-2. Keep up the good work! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 2 minutes ago, Fantasista10 said: This is a brilliant thread, I love your graphics and presentation. Your tactical ideas and principles around using the Libero, Regista, Mezzala, Treq really are interesting, and quintessentially Italian On your new tactical idea, have you thought about perhaps ditching the Libero for a BPD, and maybe using a WCB on Support or Attack on one side to add a bit more variation, and create some more overloads on the flank? I’ve used that to good effect in previous FM’s as I was inspired by Gasperini and his attacking centre backs. However I completely understand if the use of certain roles like the Libero are set in stone from what you laid out at the beginning, and it can certainly still work. The Diamond in midfield that you’re proposing is exciting and should bring more balance to the midfield especially as the Treq is a bit of a lazy role. I’d imagine the defensive shape would remain as a 5-3-2. Keep up the good work! Thank you so much! Not going to spoil too much before the next update but the system above was basically thrown out the window quite soon. Your ideas are good and definitely something worth trying in the future. Why I have opted to go with one entertaining role and two basic ones is the fact that the main problem with the squad is how technically limited our centre backs are. Ceccarelli and Graves have both been really good but I basically have to force them play as basic style as possible for their passing not to cause us conceding from loss of possession. I think this season could have been really smooth sail for us if I didn't stick to the roles mentioned in the second post. Mezzala has been the only one that I really haven't been able to use as mezzala, regista, libero and trequartista in the same system is way too wobbly, at least for my tactical skills. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 I've really enjoyed the work you've put into telling this story! As a lover of that old time Palermo squad as well as Italian football, in general, I wish you the best for the rest of the season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaySunshine Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 Just had a read through of your save so far and am really enjoying it. Hope you find a way to get all your dream roles working! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 13 hours ago, _Ben_ said: I've really enjoyed the work you've put into telling this story! As a lover of that old time Palermo squad as well as Italian football, in general, I wish you the best for the rest of the season. Thank you @_Ben_. It's an honor to get this kind of feedback from a great storyteller like you. I also have a bit of history with Palermo as I won my only Champions League final on FM 2007 with them. 1 hour ago, RaySunshine said: Just had a read through of your save so far and am really enjoying it. Hope you find a way to get all your dream roles working! Thank you. That is the aim. And even if I don't, I'm going to remain stubborn and keep trying. Would be easy to switch to a 4-3-3 but that ain't the aim of this career. And if it ends in a failure, then it does. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 March 2024 I firmly believe that things don’t just automatically fix themselves when you are in a bad form. That meant that in the big match against Cremonese, I wanted to do everything all over again. We took quite a lucky win here with two deflected goals but what was convincing was our low-block defending. Jacopo Segre had kept his first goal of the season on his sleeve but the finish from the edge of the penalty area was well worth the wait. Insigne also appeared for the first time in a while as it was his shot that took the deflection just before half-time. The away side that had comfortably beaten us earlier this season recorded their first shot of the game in the 61st minute from a corner, where they got two shots on target. Keeping them in 0.41 xG means that we deserved the clean sheet. After the important win, the team seemed to bounce back quite nicely as we took our first away victory since November in a match against Bari. The story was quite familiar as we got a goal quite early on but were not quite good enough to score the second even though Roberto Insigne did hit the crossbar inside the last ten minutes. The second big game of the month Ternana were already out of the promotion battle but as they were earlier in the season one of the most difficult sides that we had faced, I had to include this game also as one of the big matches. They ran over us in the first half an hour but with some tactical overhaul, we turned out to be the more dangerous side from then on. The game became a show of Jacopo Segre who scored once and assisted two of our other goals after he had taken the segundo volante role alongside Stulac and Estévez. Both Filippo Ranocchia and Roberto Insigne scored their goals from through on goal type of opportunities that have been rare for us even though these are the type of chances that we are looking for. The tactic that we applied after the first goal was something that we wanted to try to build on. It is a 100% low-block system relying on quick counter attacks and sturdy defending as well as playing the passes into space. The biggest change seemed to happen with Insigne who always seemed to be in the right place to collect the ball and start attacks for us. Also, the movement between the lines was way better than we had seen in a long time. The third big game of the month There are three teams still in contention for the league title and Spezia are one of them. We started quite brightly here but in the end, had to be satisfied with just defending the 0-0 draw. Two saves were enough to secure Mirko Pigliacelli his first Player of the Match performance. A draw meant that Spezia's hopes for the Serie B title had taken a big knock. April 2024 It took us 33 rounds to finally lose the league lead as we drew against Modena. I think we deserved this point drop when you consider the fact of how lucky we were earlier this season against them. Both of the goals were strange errors and the two shots on target were the only ones they got but that’s football for you. The game against Samprodia was once again spiced in a quite common fashion as two of our important defenders got injured before the matchup. Pietro Ceccaroni’s leave will be 2-3 weeks long while Filippo Aurelio’s sixth injury of the season might keep the left back out for the rest of the season. Based on the circumstances the team did fantastically well. After all, we have to remember that despite their woeful season, Sampdoria still are a great team for this level. The great defensive effort was followed by a couple of more injuries as well as yet another Mirko Pigliacelli special which saw us 2-0 down at home with 0.29 xG for the opposition. Fifteen clean sheets and a Player of the Match award against Sampdoria or not, I had had it with the error-prone goalkeeper. Sebastiano Desplanches came in from the bench, woke up the whole team and we saw ourselves cruising into a comfortable victory with two long-range goals from our libero Jon Pachedo. The game was marked with a big injury though as Matteo Brunori’s season ended with a broken toe and 16 goals in total. The aim was not to use Pigliacelli ever again but by accident, the 30-year-old was once again included in our starting lineup against Cosenza. We played a comfortable away game until the home side finally recorded their first shot of the game in the 70th minute which Pigliacelli again managed to deflect even though the long-range shot was directed straight at him. Those were the final 90 minutes for Pigliacelli in the pink and black shirt. Chaka Traoré scored his first goal in months to earn us the vital three points. May 2024 We played probably our best game of the season against Catanzaro but that wasn’t enough as we hit the woodwork four times. The away team was top of the form table but barely were able to touch us in the day. Not even Jari Vandeputte who has been topping the Serie B assists table throughout the season. The title race came by the wire as we took a comfortable away victory against Cittadella and Parma quite surprisingly lost their own home game against Südtirol: A draw would have been enough for us in a home game against Parma,l and as we were only missing Brunori from our squad, there was not much room for explanations. Sadly it wasn’t meant to be. Just like throughout the last three months, the team played well against the eventual title winners but we were taking shots way too early to score goals. Then at the beginning of the second half, we made two big errors that cost us the game. One of our better performers this season, Leo Stulac was the culprit for the first one, losing the ball at the edge of our penalty area and the second one was a weak defensive effort from Kristoffer Lund who allowed an easy cross into the far post. Parma beat us twice this season, without conceding a goal. I can’t blame the team. During the final push, we won 8 of our 11 games and we were often playing the best football that we had played the whole season. Individuals like Jacopo Segri, Emil Krafth, Alessio Buttaro, Kristoffer Lund, and the man from the shadows Francesco Di Mariano stepped up their game when needed. If we had had Matteo Brunori fit for the last games of the season, I do not doubt that we would have been crowned as the champions. The tactical idea that I had in the previous post only lasted for the first two games of this post as even though it got us two victories, I wasn't happy with the style of play in general. I then opted to go with this for a while: The new systems were not any kind of a pathway to happiness which eventually led me to go back to our 3-4-2-1 which saw us playing probably the best football of the season. Our first season in Serie A is going to be interesting in terms of tactical approaches. Even though we played well against both Genoa and Sassuolo in Coppa Italia, it is more than okay to assume that we will be forced to adapt to a more defensive approach next season. This means that at the end of the season, we will probably have only one approach that could be usable next season. Five of our players made the team of the year and Mirko Pigliacelli took the Golden Glove award even after I didn’t vote for him in the election. It’s quite ironic that the man whose personal errors probably cost us the title and who spent most of the games drinking cappuccino took the trophy just because the players in front of him played in a such way that the journeyman didn’t have to save a thing. Two Player of the Match awards were enough to make most of the Serie B managers blind. The first youth intake The first youth intake was underwhelming for us but that was to be expected. It will probably take a few seasons and a lot of work with the finances for us to be able to produce our own talent regularly. Marcello Lieto is probably going to be the best of the bunch but we have a long road ahead, especially with his passing ability and personality. Even though he is a centre forward, I am going to try and train him to become the academy’s trequartista. If Luca Favasuli and Luigi Lo Porto are going to surprise us positively, we might even have a full midfield triangle in our hands. One of them looks like a technical destroyer type of player while the other should probably get the training as a regista. Not expecting much to happen with these three but on the other hand, they are all going to be probably better than the U-18 and U-20 sides had to offer before. I think our money-ball approach is going to be good for youth development. At this point we are not even looking for forever players but instead individuals that can keep the team in Serie A and whom we can later on sell with profit. The club DNA and nationalities are still brightly in my mind but the time isn’t right yet for a strict policy. The next post will be about squad assessment and team building for our first season in Serie A. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
warlock Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 Unfortunate to lose the title with the last game but a tremendous season anyway. Good luck with the preparation for life back in the top flight 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 (edited) When managing a team that has just gained promotion to the top flight through a good league finish, the first thing I like to do is a thorough squad assessment to see which of the current players could potentially play a role also in a more competitive league. After all the aim is not to become a big team immediately and I also feel that the players who have won the promotion have the right to get a proper chance to show what they can do in the bigger league. In the image above, I have included those players that either already fit the bill of being able to play in Serie A or go into my list of players that I am going to try and use in the upcoming season. In terms of goalkeepers, the situation is such that we are looking to sign two new keepers. I have mentioned Mirko Pigliacelli a few times already and even though the journeyman keeper did win the Serie B Golden Glove award, we are actively looking to ship him off. His backup David Desplanches had a good season when called upon but his maximum potential seems to be Serie BKT which means that he cannot feature in our plans. Defense is an area which I am rather happy with. But with Ivan Marconi’s contract expiring and him only being a Serie C level centre-back, we might be looking to bring in one experienced defender who can both play in Serie A as well as take over Marconi’s place as one of our primary mentors. You can also already see one new name, 21-year-old Polish Patryk Peda who spent last season on loan at SPAL. The promising defender is still a raw case but I am going to include him in the first-team squad and try to give him as many minutes as possible. The youngster is predicted to have the potential to be the backbone of our defense for years to come. Dario Saric is the second new name in the image. The 26-year-old midfielder spent last season on loan at Antalyaspor and now returns to the team and is on paper one of the best players in the team. Otherwise, the bottom of midfield is also in a good state at the moment. The only change that needs to be made this summer is that we need to get rid of Leo Stulac who is on his final contract year and is now also the biggest earner of the club with his whopping 33 thousand euros per week salary. Luckily the Slovenian international has already attracted some interest abroad and he should be fairly easy to sell. Our biggest problems lay in the attacking area where Matteo Brunori is the only real striker in the club. The sad case of Leonardo Mancuso is still there as the team was forced to sign the experienced striker with 1.3 million euros after our promotion. The worst piece of business I have seen in a while but we need to wait until January at least to get rid of him. At least we now only pay €14.75k per week for his services. As you can see, we opted to offer Roberto Insigne a contract extension which will keep the experienced Italian here until 2027. This might be a big mistake as he is now on €20k per week and already declining as a player. A good first half of a season could make it possible to sell him at least with some money. Otherwise, this area is almost shockingly bad for us. Aljaro Vasic got a lot of game time at the end of last season but he hasn’t developed and he is also still a ‘balanced’ personality which isn’t promising a lot in terms of reaching his potential. I am anyway going to give the young man lots of responsibility also this season. In an ideal world, both Federico Di Francesco and Francesco Di Mariano would be sold this summer. This might turn out to be easier said than done. This duo isn’t going to bring us a lot of money either. I'm hoping to get these done as well as finding at least one suitable player who would like to join the club and carry the number 10 shirt. What do we need? Two goalkeepers: an experienced starter and high potential backup One experienced centre-back One high-potential central midfielder to add quality and depth 2-3 new signings to AM and ST positions. With Palermo, we also have to take into account the current financial situation which means that we only have 2.3 million euros to use for new transfers. Luckily the wage budget has almost been doubled compared to the one we had in Serie B. What eats a part of this away is the fact that many players will be getting a 10-15% pay rise thanks to our promotion. It is also highly likely that many of our first-team players will be demanding new contracts this summer. For example, vice-captain Pietro Ceccaroni is only paid €1.8k a week at the moment and last season's loanee Dario Saric earns just 675 euros per week currently. The summer is going to be an interesting one, and it will consist of bargain chasing as well as an attempt to build a team that can survive in Serie A. If we manage to be the least worst promoted team in the league, we should already be in a good position. Edited April 14 by El Payaso 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 1 hour ago, warlock said: Unfortunate to lose the title with the last game but a tremendous season anyway. Good luck with the preparation for life back in the top flight Thank you warlock! Going to be an interesting summer and upcoming season for sure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaySunshine Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 On 07/04/2024 at 07:40, El Payaso said: Thank you @_Ben_. It's an honor to get this kind of feedback from a great storyteller like you. I also have a bit of history with Palermo as I won my only Champions League final on FM 2007 with them. Thank you. That is the aim. And even if I don't, I'm going to remain stubborn and keep trying. Would be easy to switch to a 4-3-3 but that ain't the aim of this career. And if it ends in a failure, then it does. Rather the opposite of my present plan which is keep a high-passing 4-3-3 going but in lower-league Scottish football at the moment! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 1 hour ago, RaySunshine said: Rather the opposite of my present plan which is keep a high-passing 4-3-3 going but in lower-league Scottish football at the moment! I've done the 4-3-3 so many times that it's nice to try something totally new for once. It's highly likely that this will turn into something else than success but I'm going to keep trying. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogo Bonito Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 A real battle for the title, unlucky to lose out but promotion is all that really matters. A great story and really loving the graphics and artistic representation so much. The best visuals I can recall seeing on here and the views of the city add a really strong Sicilian flavour to the save. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 12 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said: A real battle for the title, unlucky to lose out but promotion is all that really matters. A great story and really loving the graphics and artistic representation so much. The best visuals I can recall seeing on here and the views of the city add a really strong Sicilian flavour to the save. Yeah, it was really a worthy battle. I think we had the first place in our hands for 35 or 36 rounds last season but have to give some credit to Parma's end of the season and how well they defended against us. If you lose twice to your title rivals in one season, you could say that they deserved it. Thank you for the positive feedback. As the FM interface, even with a custom skin, is a bit meh, I decided to try use something else instead. And as graphics are something that I enjoy a lot when reading other people's career updates, decided to add some of that to mine too. Luckily with the paid version of Canva, these are really quick and easy to create. It's also funny to always watch the first graphics of the update and notice how ugly they were. Tells you that you also improve by time when you get the basic framework done. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 (edited) PRE-SEASON 2024 We have now completed the pre-season of summer 2024. The preparation for our first Serie A season turned out to be both challenging and interesting. Once again, I had a summer where there were no holidays used by the manager as we had to keep awake and do our best to be able to strengthen the squad. Departures On the departing side, we were able to move two familiar names away from the club as Greek side AEK signed our unreliable first-choice goalkeeper Mirko Pigliacelli for 2.5 million euros. I was happy with the business as the 30-year-old had the nerve to ask for a new contract after an error-prone season in Serie BKT. The amount of money was something that I was expecting and was happy with. The second big departure was also a good one as Leo Stulac made a surprising move to Spain. Real Betis were placed 19th last season in La Liga which saw the Andalusian giant falling to the Segunda. A 4.4 million euro bid was something I was immediately happy with and with the Slovakian’s departure, also 33 thousand euros per week were lifted from the wage budget. Arrivals Alberto Brignoli is a familiar name for Palermo fans from season 2018/19 when the Italian played 28 games for the club. For the last couple of years, the 32-year-old has earned his living in Greece where he played 34 top-flight games last season. Despite his history with the club, he was once again a player from whom we had minimum data available. The 1-week scout reports showed that he should be a much better player than Pigliacelli and this is the thing also, even though he is only considered as a good Serie B goalkeeper by our staff. Gian Marco Ferrari played 32 games for Sassuolo last season which added to his Serie A experience that he has been piling up ever since 2016. At the age of 32, Ferrari is a player in his prime years as a central defender and he should be an ideal addition to our squad both as a player as well as mentor. This is exactly what we were looking for when searching for a new centre-back. Edoardo Corvi will work as our backup keeper this season. This is again another arrival from our last season’s rival Parma who had three or four good goalkeepers at their disposal but were relying heavily on the experienced Leandro Chichizola who also got a contract extension for the upcoming season. As Corvi practically didn’t play last season, at the age of 23, we need to give him enough game time for him to be able to reach his good Serie A potential. Like Ferrari, Corvi is also a player that suits our squad-building strategy almost perfectly. Mikael Egill Ellertsson is an interesting name that popped up in my scout reports last spring. The Icelandic international also now holds an Italian passport which makes him fairly suitable for our club DNA. His player profile is really interesting and well-rounded which sees him capable of filling in for multiple roles in the midfield: both in DM and AM positions. Even though his personality is not the best possible and he is a player that probably will not benefit a lot from mentoring, I could very well see him as one of our forever players. Kacper Urbanski is another interesting name. The Polish U-21 international will turn 20 in September and is now looking to break into the Serie A level after an abysmal season last year at Genoa. He came into the club as an ambitious personality but already after just a few weeks at the new club, he has become ‘fairly professional’. His personality was well-shown in the contract negotiations where Morgan De Sanctis was forced to include a minimum fee release clause of 6.75 million euros. This is something that we need to fix in the upcoming months as this price is way too low for the player that we are looking to develop into a fine and versatile player. Like his Icelandic companion, Kacper can also play in both attacking midfield and defensive midfield positions and why not even as wing-backs? Franco Minerva is probably the most exciting name. The thing with him was kinda of mysterious as even though the club is only able to still scout South Europe, we are constantly receiving these minimal scout reports, especially from Argentina. I have no idea why but this added a really interesting twist to the transfer window. I had about 5 different Argentinian attacking midfielders lined up for signing but opted to cancel all of them until we came across Minerva who is currently a U-20 international for the country. We took the risk with him and it seems like this could be a good one. He still needs a lot of work with his physical and mental attributes but I would say that this signing already fills one of the biggest dreams of this career: finding a young Argentinian to fill in for the number 10 position. Despite his profile showing him with the number 22, I am going to give Di Mariano’s number 10 shirt to him. What made the transfer window interesting to us was the fact that about 9 out of ten players that we were interested in, had no desire to join Palermo even on loan. I loved this fashion, and in general, I am quite happy with how we did in the transfer market. Many of our last season’s key players came in to demand new contracts in the summer, and I had nothing against it. All of them also got what they needed and the negotiations were handed to Morgan De Sanctis who came to terms with the players with no exceptions. Even though I am fairly happy with how the summer transfer window has gone for us so far, the fact is that only three of our players are considered Serie A level based on our backroom staff. These two are our captain Matteo Brunori, midfielder Jacopo Segre, and new center-back Gian Marco Ferrari. They are all considered ‘decent Serie A players’. I would be surprised if anything more than a battle against relegation would happen this season. Tactical approach for the upcoming season The tactical approach has changed a bit from last season. This is because we will be huge underdogs compared to most of the teams. The 3-4-2-1 was the one that worked the best for us last season and this is where we are going to be building around this season too. The main idea is to try and stay as compact as possible, win the ball back close to the halfway line, and try to hit the opposition with the counter. This, and also the three roles that I won’t be changing. I want to once again try something very simple by minimizing the amount of team and player instructions. The additions and removals of instructions will again happen based on my observation. The things that have changed from last season are the striker role which is now more supporting. The aim in terms of this is to allow Brunori to link up better with the attacking midfield duo as well as to help us a bit more in terms of defending. As we still have a trequartista in the team, the rest of the pack has to work just a tiny bit more. My main worry is going to be the wide areas where we were the most vulnerable last season. One of the biggest goals is to find a way for our wing-backs not to allow themselves beaten by the opposition’s wide dribblers and let in too many crosses. I have added the ‘trap inside’ instruction to encourage the team to try and guide the opposition to the middle areas of the pitch, where we have the most players. Last season we also played mainly with the higher defensive line which we cannot do this season. I have no doubt that despite us manning the middle of the park with five players in total, especially the better opponents are going to find ways to play one-twos which could easily lead to through-on-goal type of scoring opportunities that tend to be deadly in football. The mid-block and standard line are combined with a ‘step up more’ instruction. The idea behind this is the aim of winning the ball back in the channels between our midfield and defense. That area must be a place where the opposition will find themselves something else than comfortable. I am a big fan of mixed passing as this will allow the players to decide what kind of pass is suitable for the scenario. I think this thinking also suits the counter-attacking style of play. After all, you are never going to be playing quick and direct passes into space for 90 minutes. Sometimes a counter-attacking system is going to be spending most of the time playing safe passes, and it only gives the killing strike when the opportunity arises. What remains the same compared to last season is the ‘play out of defense’ instruction. This is because the defense is still quite bad in possession which means that most of the more direct passes are going to go to waste. Only Jon Pachedo is a player who would be comfortable with a more direct approach. Pre-season friendlies We had a training camp in Italy and six friendlies with domestic clubs. Unlike last year, the results were not as good but I am not putting too much importance on these. Aljoša Vasić was the pick of players here as the young attacking midfielder scored five goals as a trequartista. The 21-year-old Serbian is now only considered a leading Serie C player which means that his development has been going in the wrong direction. Ensuring enough game-time and continuation of mentoring could be considered vital in an attempt to reach his ‘good Serie A player’ potential. Our new goalkeepers continued where Pigliacelli had left off. A shot on goal seemed to mean a goal for the opposition. Thoughts about player development Vasić is not the only one whose progress hasn’t been going in the right direction. The situation with training has been confusing as many of our players seem to have declined a lot starting last spring. This is odd as we were doing well at the beginning of last season when players like Roberto Insigne, Jacopo Segre, and Matteo Brunori took leaps forward and were at some point considered to be good players for Serie A level. I would say that we have an okayish coaching staff at Palermo but something isn’t clicking well for the team, and this is something that we need to sort out. I have asked many times for more coaches to be added to our rather narrow backroom staff but the board is not willing to budge. The good thing in terms of pre-season was the fact that we didn’t suffer from any injuries even when having the workload quite high since the first week. Not even the man made of glass, Giuseppe Aurelio, managed to get himself injured this time. Mentoring is a really important part of training for me and setting up mentoring groups can be interesting. I think we currently have a good mix available, and even important players like Kristoffer Lund and Alessio Buttaro have found groups where the effects should be significant. I tend to build these groups based on both squad hierarchy and social groups. The process is usually slow but I have no doubt that things are happening under the hood, and we are slowly also seeing some visible changes in players' personalities. Financial improvement The TV money came into help with a hefty addition of over 20 million euros. This has made our financial situation stable once again. I think we are doing good things with the money in hand. Investing most of this in youth recruitment, coaching, and facilities. This should in the long run mean that we will be able to both produce our talent and make these players reach their potential. Kicking off with Coppa Italia Even though it was only Bari that we faced, I have to say that I am a bit encouraged. We only had 36% of the possession when playing at home but didn't give them even a sniff in our area. To add to that, we scored all our goals through counter-attacks where we won the ball back close to the halfway line. All three goals were also simple through-balls played with quick combinations against unorganized opposition. The Icelandic midfield dynamo could not have gotten to a better start and Aljosa Vasic continued his strong scoring form. Could this be the season for the Serbian talent? In the second round of Coppa Italia, we will travel to Salernitana to look for revenge for our pre-season loss. Next up is a brief Serie A season preview before we kick things off at Serie A. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Would love to hear some thoughts about the tactical approach as well as insights on training! I have no idea what I am doing wrong with the team. Edited April 14 by El Payaso Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 (edited) Serie A season preview Last season's domestic double-winners Inter Milan are thought to be the frontrunners for the upcoming season. In terms of the title race, it is thought to be a Milan derby as their local rivals and Coppa Italia runner-ups AC Milan are predicted to finish second like they also did last season. The traditional Italian big-7 are manning the top spots of the table, followed by Atalanta who have been the biggest losers in the transfer window so far this summer as they lost both Gianluca Scamacca and Teun Koopmeister through big-money transfers. The three promoted teams have been ranked as the favorites to go down. Last season Udinese were the final team to avoid the drop with 36 points and that is where we are aiming at this season. The chart above shows you only 19 teams in the league but it gives you a good general picture of the league. This Palermo side is not built with big money and the only realistic aim for us is to stay up. We have quite a kind starting schedule which we need to be able to make the most of. The media dream team features players mainly from three different teams: Inter, AC Milan, and Juventus. The only one making the team outside the Italian giants is Fiorentina's 20-year-old Michael Kayode who is thought to be the best right-back in the league. Lautaro Martinez, who scored 23 goals last season for Inter is thought to be the front-runner for the Golden Boot Award for the second consecutive time. What tells a lot about the fire-power of the Nerazzurri side is the fact that Marcus Thuram, scoring 18 goals last term, is ranked fourth. The forever young Olivier Giroud is predicted to have his word to say as well as Lazio's veteran striker Ciro Immobile. Lautaro is also the favorite one to win the Best Player award. He is followed by already familiar names from the previous image but this prediction also includes some players from other positions. One of the most interesting ones is AC Milan's trickery winger Rafael Leão looking to set the world on fire with his dribbling skills. The Young Player of the Year trophy could well drop in the hands of a defender this season if this prediction is anywhere near the truth. Fiorentina's Sávio who had a rather poor season last year at Girona is one of the most interesting new names in the league alongside AC Milan's Emile Smith Rowe. The commercial income in the league takes Palermo up to tenth place. This alongside the likely growth in average attendance, more expensive ticket prices, etc could see the club having a profitable year in Serie A. Edited April 14 by El Payaso 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
warlock Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 On 09/04/2024 at 18:56, El Payaso said: Would love to hear some thoughts about the tactical approach as well as insights on training! Can't help much with training - I leave it up to the backroom staff, unless I want a player to learn a new position/role. I do have some concerns about the tactical system. I'd want someone in central midfield to hold position and break up opposition attacks; right now, it looks like you have the back three defending and everyone else either attacking or wandering about being creative. A Top 6 team - or a side with three world-class centrebacks - might be able to make that work but I have doubts about a newly-promoted side doing so. But I'll be happy if you prove me wrong Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 12 hours ago, warlock said: Can't help much with training - I leave it up to the backroom staff, unless I want a player to learn a new position/role. I do have some concerns about the tactical system. I'd want someone in central midfield to hold position and break up opposition attacks; right now, it looks like you have the back three defending and everyone else either attacking or wandering about being creative. A Top 6 team - or a side with three world-class centrebacks - might be able to make that work but I have doubts about a newly-promoted side doing so. But I'll be happy if you prove me wrong ' Yeah, the training is something that I don't get at all. Especially during summer, you get these huge dips in the progress, after which it takes months for the players to reach the same level and then the summer comes again and the same cycle starts all over. I don't understand how you're supposed to develop players if there are dips like this. It's confusing and doesn't make much sense that a short summer holiday has a drastic effect like this. That is a good insight on the tactics for sure. And something that I also thought about a lot during the first half of the second season which I have now completed. Will be publishing an update about it either today or tomorrow as the text part is already ready. Just need to create visuals for the post and that is going to be a bit of a pain in the butt as I still don't have a clear idea how I should present the results. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
warlock Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 8 minutes ago, El Payaso said: Especially during summer, you get these huge dips in the progress Generally, I wouldn't worry too much. Summer is a short break, but it's still a month with little or no football (internationals excepted) so fitness and - especially - match sharpness will take a hit. Bear in mind, the three players you show are a bit older and I think it's harder to develop players over the age of 24/25. Your coaches seem happy; that would be enough for me. The Lazy Manager's Guide to FM, coming soon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 4 minutes ago, warlock said: Generally, I wouldn't worry too much. Summer is a short break, but it's still a month with little or no football (internationals excepted) so fitness and - especially - match sharpness will take a hit. Bear in mind, the three players you show are a bit older and I think it's harder to develop players over the age of 24/25. Your coaches seem happy; that would be enough for me. The Lazy Manager's Guide to FM, coming soon Could well be so. But definitely these graphs make you confused. Really hard to know what they are on about and sadly they also apply in the same way to our younger players. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 (edited) 23 hours ago, El Payaso said: Yeah, the training is something that I don't get at all. Especially during summer, you get these huge dips in the progress, after which it takes months for the players to reach the same level and then the summer comes again and the same cycle starts all over. I don't understand how you're supposed to develop players if there are dips like this. It's confusing and doesn't make much sense that a short summer holiday has a drastic effect like this. But also remember that this line graph shows their current ability, which also fluctuates with comparisons against players in your team. If you’ve recruited well and brought in stronger players, I find that this often does have sharp dips - even for youngsters. It’s the singular attribute development that you really want to be using as a calculator of progress in my opinion! Edited April 14 by _Ben_ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 18 minutes ago, _Ben_ said: But also remember that this line graph shows their current ability, which also fluctuates with comparisons against players in your team. If you’ve recruited well and brought in stronger players, I find that this often does have sharp dips - even for youngsters. It’s the singular attribute development that you really want to be using as a calculator of progress in my opinion! Thank you. That explains a lot. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 (edited) The last signing Antonio Raimondo - the fact is that we would have been in a deep swamp if Matteo Brunori ended up injured. This is why we brought in the 20-year-old striker to fill the void. Raimondo played last season at Ternana scoring six goals for them in Serie B. He is currently ranked only as a leading Serie C player but he should have loads of potential. With his player traits “winds up opponent” and “argues with officials”, I imagine him as a new Antonio Cassano who was a different type of player type but anyway. That is also why he was given the number 99 shirt at Palermo. A fairly determined personality is not the worst one but I think there is something underneath it as it was really hard to find the young forward a mentoring group where he would benefit from. Anyway, I love personalities and this is one. We’re hoping to get some scrappy late goals from him and celebrations in front of the opposition fans. August 2024 As mentioned in the season preview already, we had quite a kind schedule for the start of the season which we needed to take advantage of. I was still surprised at how well the team was playing straight from the start as there were no signs of that insecurity that we saw in the pre-season. We did concede two unnecessary goals in our two first fixtures, yet we were also lucky with a big deflection in our season opener against Lecce. Our defensive midfielders had a fantastic month both winning the ball back as well as moving it forward. Tactically the team is looking exactly like I would liked to. The movement of the most advanced trio seems fluid, and we are winning the ball a lot close to the halfway line. The opposition is quite often close to getting those dreaded through-on-goal chances after mistakes in closing down but so far these have turned into narrow offsides. The biggest difference has been seen down the flanks where we have been way more solid than last season. After three rounds of Serie A, the team was sitting in third place. Transfer deadline day We didn’t manage to do anything in terms of transfers. I was trying my best to both sell and loan out Federico Di Francesco, Francesco Di Mariano, and Edoardo Soleri but had no offers whatsoever. Antonio Raimondo’s arrival meant that we probably won’t need to make any real signings even in the upcoming summer. The only ones we are looking for could be some mentoring options with good personalities and enough influence to make a difference. Someone like Mattia De Sciglio for example who Juventus released in July. September 2024 At the beginning of the month, we finally beat Parma at home by totally nullifying them and making good use of our chances. The right-footed Messi made it two in three games while the Polish Kacper Urbanski also got off the mark in a dominant performance. After the international break things started to go wrong in terms of defending. Sassuolo first punished us for our big mistakes three times inside five minutes and we also gifted two cheap goals to our rivals Frosinone whom we luckily managed to beat. We were not giving away many chances as Albero Brignoli had quite a torrid start to the month, conceding four out of five shots that were toward his goal. This tells you that we were giving away easy chances for the opposition to utilize. Either this was showing our tactical frailties or the real level of our team, which still is full of players suitable for playing Serie B or even Serie C football. Against AC Milan we did ourselves a lot of justice. We faced a lot of shots here but about 75% of them came from set-pieces from which the home side always seemed to win the first ball. It’s not a big surprise that the second goal from the league leaders came from one of them. October 2024 The honeymoon was officially over with a really poor performance against Torino where we didn’t create absolutely anything going forward. Except for that one hit of a crossbar which also led to a narrow offside goal from Antonio Raimondo. We expected nothing in the next two games but somehow managed to extend Fiorentina’s run of losses into three as Raimondo scored the winning goal in the 94th minute. The biggest upset was the fact how well we were able to match them away from home. Probably not that well-deserved victory but we weren’t the weaker team either. AS Roma were the first Seria A team who took us to school and showed the difference between a mediocre and a great team. We weren’t run over but they struck ruthlessly to the mistakes that we had been doing both in possession and with our passing throughout the last couple of months. All the four goals came from quick turn-overs. Simply a fantastic display of quality from the visitors. We continued our tactical experiences also against Cremonese and managed to add to their misery with a rather sub-par performance. 4 shots against 10 wasn’t great but one precise through-ball to the struggling Matteo Brunori was enough to seal the deal. We finished the month in eighth place which is way above where we should be. Still waiting for us to run out of luck. November 2024 The level of our squad is often quite easy to see in these matches against bigger sides. Jon Pachedo’s goal-of-the-season candidate and quite convincing performance in the first half turned into shocking marking errors in the second half where the opposition hit our lower defensive line with three lofted balls and no defenders to be seen when the finishes were applied. These kinds of errors should not happen but it is hard to come up with a solution when the team is just all over the place at times. Antonio ‘Baron’ Raimondo’s third late winner of the season gave us the vital points against 15th-placed Monza. This was once again a much more solid defensive effort after some changes to the system. And again a game where we won the rather lucky deflections two to one. After 12 rounds played, we had 10 points cushion to the relegation zone. The month ended in agony once again as two horrendous marking errors late in the game saw us throwing away three important points against Bologna. December 2024 The final stretch of the year started with fixtures against two of the bottom teams of the league. Against Udinese, there was once again very little to be happy about. Matteo Brunori had injured himself keeping the experienced striker out of the lineup for the next couple of weeks. Antonio Raimondo answered the call with two beautiful goals but otherwise, the team was once again far from their best which saw us escaping with yet another lucky draw. When we traveled to face the 19th-placed Cagriliari, I had only two things in mind: a solid defensive display and a clean sheet. We fared well against them and probably should even won the game based on stats. The closest we came though was Alessio Buttaro hitting the crossbar in the 91st minute. Against Lazio errors once again destroyed all the hopes for points even though otherwise we were able to match them. The weak form then continued in a Coppa Italia exit against Salernitana where 3 of the 4 goals came from corner kicks and one from a throw-in and the home team managed to turn 1.45 xG to 4 goals scored. Such a performance that I for the first time thought about resigning. Facing Inter was always going to be an uphill battle but I think that we did ourselves proud here. An early goal didn’t shake the team but luck was now truly against us as Matteo Brunori crowned his woeful debut with a missed penalty in the 38th minute. The striker now has 0/3 penalties converted since my tenure started. Expected nothing from San Siro but should have gotten a draw for sure. We ended the year against Juventus who had been behind us in the table almost throughout the season and who were once again led by the newly appointed Antonio Conte. We fared well against them, had an excellent chance to score in the 77th minute through Antonio Raimondo, and then lost in the 95th minute through a shocking mistake from Jon Pachedo. The defeat made it seven without a victory in Serie A and our cushion to the relegation zone has narrowed to six points. General thoughts about the first half of the season After the rather promising start to the season where the team was even close to the European spots for the next season, we have been hit hard to the face. 11th place is way above what our performances would merit us. We have been one of the worst teams in Serie A both going forward and defending. Most of the time the performances have been really painful to watch as we don’t do many things well in the pitch. We are an error-prone team that doesn’t produce anything going forward. Even though we don't score any goals, we are still overachieving in this department. The reason why we do not score goals is on the other hand just because we don't create chances. To add to this, we have also been quite lucky in terms of defending as we are facing the second most shots in the league. We also let the opponents dominate the games in terms of passing. The ten-point cushion that we had at some point is slowly dripping away and if something dramatic doesn’t happen in terms of performance, I would say that we are the likeliest team to go down. Tactically we have tried many things so far but at any point haven't ditched the three important roles that are hard-coded to our tactics. A bit of Ancelotti's Christmas Tree, Antonio Conte's direct counter-attacks at Chelsea, Simeone's new 3-3-2-2 system, and other quite hopeless attempts but nothing has been working for us. We aren't really beaten down or hammered in any of the games but the big errors that we make have become regularity and we are quite deservedly losing games. The board seems to think we are in a crisis at the moment which has led to them inviting me to an emergency recruitment meeting, even though there isn't any money left in the budget. I would personally rather manage the team in Serie B but obviously, we are not going to purposely get ourselves relegated. The kids aren’t alright Developing our younger players was considered crucial at the start of the season. When your players’ level of quality is one or even two levels below where you are playing, the individuals need to step up and fill that gap as soon as possible. Sadly this hasn’t been happening so far. Antonio Raimondo has quite surprisingly been our best performer both in training and in terms of scoring goals. The young forward came into the club with a bit of a reputation as a rebel but a good goal tally, successful mentoring, and enough game-time have seen him grow a lot as a footballer. His fairly determined personality has now changed to resolute, the same as Matteo Brunori, which is good. At the age of 20, the temperamental striker can well be on his way to becoming a club legend. He was also quite surprisingly the third-best U-20 player this year in Italy. Franco Minerva was the player we had the most hopes for this season. The Argentinian has been a key player for us in terms of minutes but his weak performances and still just a balanced personality have seen his development stall. He finally seemed to kick off a bit in November and December but an ankle injury against Inter might hinder these steps. The thing with the young Argentinian might be that he has been thrown in too deep as a key player in Serie A and he would probably be the main beneficiary if we get relegated. As you might have noticed in his profile, we are also training traits with him to make him perfectly molded to the trequartista role. I'm probably going to talk about my thinking about this in the next post. Kristoffer Lund is getting there too. He still hasn’t reached the peak where he once was based on the charts but he is regularly our best trainer of the week. His mentoring has been a bit of a challenge as he has been an influential member of the squad straight from the start. The effects of mentoring can for a moment be significant for him in a new group but this usually changes to slight or none which makes it difficult. His personality now is fairly determined instead of balanced so there has been slight progress in this area. Even though Lund has only the United States and Danish nationalities, he is someone we would like to keep throughout this career. Alessio Buttaro has continued playing a big role for the club, mainly as a centre-back where he seems to be better than at wing-back. I consider him one of our own even though this is only his fourth season with the club after joining from AS Roma. Sadly his progress is also a bit weird here: a huge summer and autumn slump where he is only just starting to recuperate. Even though he has been in mentoring groups with average to significant influence, his personality has remained as driven, which isn’t the worst but neither something that creates a forever player for us. He should have the potential to be a good Serie A player which means that he is among those last ones that we would like to shift away. New signings Kacper Urbanski and Mikael Egil Ellertson have both done well in this regard. The Icelandic has also been by far the best player for us this season and the only one who regularly seems to be up to this level. Urbanski has struggled a bit on the pitch even though he started the season well but this hasn’t hurt his development. Both work in the same mentoring group with Jacopo Segre and the effects should be significant for them. If we manage to change their personalities to something else than ‘fairly determined’ and 'fairly professional' these two will be forever players for us. The changes that mentoring has had on Urbanski are the biggest reason I like this feature. We also have a few lost causes on our hands. At the age of 22, it is probably too early to give up on Patryk Peda but to be honest, his development has been disappointing. Just five games in Serie A so far is a bit too little and this is something that we have to change in the second half of the season. With a resolute personality, he should be all good to go on reaching his potential. In January we need to think about whether should we just throw him in the deep end and hope for the best by making him a starter or maybe loan him out to Serie B. This current style isn’t working for him and at that age, all the time is vital for his development. With Filippo Ranocchia it is hard to say if he is a fish or a bird or what. He simply hasn’t found his place in the team and this also shows in his development. He is a fairly professional personality and should have Serie A potential but is that going to materialize in Palermo? I’m highly doubtful that it will. There seems to be something under the hood with him that I haven’t yet figured out. If and probably when we are going to get relegated, I could easily give it another go and make him a key player for the team in one of the midfield roles and see what he can do. Giuseppe Aurelio and Aljosa Vasic are the two names that I have given up on already. Aurelio’s journey with my guidance started brightly as he was even clearly ahead of Lund as our wing-back. Injuries and Lund’s progress have changed things and the 24-year-old is now mainly a backup and with a balanced personality so far from reaching his potential that we might even let him go in January. Rather than developing he has more likely declined even though he is getting quite a good amount of minutes in Serie A. Vasic was a starter for us in the first ten or so games, did nothing on the pitch, and didn’t develop either. At the age of 22, he is still far from his ‘good Serie A’ potential and with his personality remaining balanced, I have no hopes for him anymore. His development has recently started again but when the summer comes, his ability is once again going to drop to Serie C level and during the season he is not going to be reaching anything else than Serie B level. The former Serbian U-21 player is more than likely to be shifted away either in January or the upcoming summer. The last one worth mentioning is Jon Pachedo. We signed the Spaniard at the age of 23 and as a balanced personality, which we didn’t know about then. The progress has been quite minimal and he still is only a good Serie B player, and despite mentoring still having a significant effect on him, he isn’t going to reach the Serie A level with us. He has been a decent player for us and not as shockingly bad in Serie A as we were afraid of. The Spaniard has been drawing some attention from his home country and it could well be that we cash on him here if the opportunity arises. To be honest, he was never going to be a long-term option for us, and with the cards we got with him, I am fairly happy with how we have done in terms of business. It should be fairly easy to sell him with a profit. Edited April 14 by El Payaso 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cloud9 Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 11 hours ago, El Payaso said: The last signing Antonio Raimondo - the fact is that we would have been in a deep swamp if Matteo Brunori ended up injured. This is why we brought in the 20-year-old striker to fill the void. Raimondo played last season at Ternana scoring six goals for them in Serie B. He is currently ranked only as a leading Serie C player but he should have loads of potential. With his player traits “winds up opponent” and “argues with officials”, I imagine him as a new Antonio Cassano who was a different type of player type but anyway. That is also why he was given the number 99 shirt at Palermo. A fairly determined personality is not the worst one but I think there is something underneath it as it was really hard to find the young forward a mentoring group where he would benefit from. Anyway, I love personalities and this is one. We’re hoping to get some scrappy late goals from him and celebrations in front of the opposition fans. August 2024 As mentioned in the season preview already, we had quite a kind schedule for the start of the season which we needed to take advantage of. I was still surprised at how well the team was playing straight from the start as there were no signs of that insecurity that we saw in the pre-season. We did concede two unnecessary goals in our two first fixtures, yet we were also lucky with a big deflection in our season opener against Lecce. Our defensive midfielders had a fantastic month both winning the ball back as well as moving it forward. Tactically the team is looking exactly like I would liked to. The movement of the most advanced trio seems fluid, and we are winning the ball a lot close to the halfway line. The opposition is quite often close to getting those dreaded through-on-goal chances after mistakes in closing down but so far these have turned into narrow offsides. The biggest difference has been seen down the flanks where we have been way more solid than last season. After three rounds of Serie A, the team was sitting in third place. Transfer deadline day We didn’t manage to do anything in terms of transfers. I was trying my best to both sell and loan out Federico Di Francesco, Francesco Di Mariano, and Edoardo Soleri but had no offers whatsoever. Antonio Raimondo’s arrival meant that we probably won’t need to make any real signings even in the upcoming summer. The only ones we are looking for could be some mentoring options with good personalities and enough influence to make a difference. Someone like Mattia De Sciglio for example who Juventus released in July. September 2024 At the beginning of the month, we finally beat Parma at home by totally nullifying them and making good use of our chances. The right-footed Messi made it two in three games while the Polish Kacper Urbanski also got off the mark in a dominant performance. After the international break things started to go wrong in terms of defending. Sassuolo first punished us for our big mistakes three times inside five minutes and we also gifted two cheap goals to our rivals Frosinone whom we luckily managed to beat. We were not giving away many chances as Albero Brignoli had quite a torrid start to the month, conceding four out of five shots that were toward his goal. This tells you that we were giving away easy chances for the opposition to utilize. Either this was showing our tactical frailties or the real level of our team, which still is full of players suitable for playing Serie B or even Serie C football. Against AC Milan we did ourselves a lot of justice. We faced a lot of shots here but about 75% of them came from set-pieces from which the home side always seemed to win the first ball. It’s not a big surprise that the second goal from the league leaders came from one of them. October 2024 The honeymoon was officially over with a really poor performance against Torino where we didn’t create absolutely anything going forward. Except for that one hit of a crossbar which also led to a narrow offside goal from Antonio Raimondo. We expected nothing in the next two games but somehow managed to extend Fiorentina’s run of losses into three as Raimondo scored the winning goal in the 94th minute. The biggest upset was the fact how well we were able to match them away from home. Probably not that well-deserved victory but we weren’t the weaker team either. AS Roma were the first Seria A team who took us to school and showed the difference between a mediocre and a great team. We weren’t run over but they struck ruthlessly to the mistakes that we had been doing both in possession and with our passing throughout the last couple of months. All the four goals came from quick turn-overs. Simply a fantastic display of quality from the visitors. We continued our tactical experiences also against Cremonese and managed to add to their misery with a rather sub-par performance. 4 shots against 10 wasn’t great but one precise through-ball to the struggling Matteo Brunori was enough to seal the deal. We finished the month in eighth place which is way above where we should be. Still waiting for us to run out of luck. November 2024 The level of our squad is often quite easy to see in these matches against bigger sides. Jon Pachedo’s goal-of-the-season candidate and quite convincing performance in the first half turned into shocking marking errors in the second half where the opposition hit our lower defensive line with three lofted balls and no defenders to be seen when the finishes were applied. These kinds of errors should not happen but it is hard to come up with a solution when the team is just all over the place at times. Antonio ‘Baron’ Raimondo’s third late winner of the season gave us the vital points against 15th-placed Monza. This was once again a much more solid defensive effort after some changes to the system. And again a game where we won the rather lucky deflections two to one. After 12 rounds played, we had 10 points cushion to the relegation zone. The month ended in agony once again as two horrendous marking errors late in the game saw us throwing away three important points against Bologna. December 2024 The final stretch of the year started with fixtures against two of the bottom teams of the league. Against Udinese, there was once again very little to be happy about. Matteo Brunori had injured himself keeping the experienced striker out of the lineup for the next couple of weeks. Antonio Raimondo answered the call with two beautiful goals but otherwise, the team was once again far from their best which saw us escaping with yet another lucky draw. When we traveled to face the 19th-placed Cagriliari, I had only two things in mind: a solid defensive display and a clean sheet. We fared well against them and probably should even won the game based on stats. The closest we came though was Alessio Buttaro hitting the crossbar in the 91st minute. Against Lazio errors once again destroyed all the hopes for points even though otherwise we were able to match them. The weak form then continued in a Coppa Italia exit against Salernitana where 3 of the 4 goals came from corner kicks and one from a throw-in and the home team managed to turn 1.45 xG to 4 goals scored. Such a performance that I for the first time thought about resigning. Facing Inter was always going to be an uphill battle but I think that we did ourselves proud here. An early goal didn’t shake the team but luck was now truly against us as Matteo Brunori crowned his woeful debut with a missed penalty in the 38th minute. The striker now has 0/3 penalties converted since my tenure started. Expected nothing from San Siro but should have gotten a draw for sure. We ended the year against Juventus who had been behind us in the table almost throughout the season and who were once again led by the newly appointed Antonio Conte. We fared well against them, had an excellent chance to score in the 77th minute through Antonio Raimondo, and then lost in the 95th minute through a shocking mistake from Jon Pachedo. The defeat made it seven without a victory in Serie A and our cushion to the relegation zone has narrowed to six points. General thoughts about the first half of the season After the rather promising start to the season where the team was even close to the European spots for the next season, we have been hit hard to the face. 11th place is way above what our performances would merit us. We have been one of the worst teams in Serie A both going forward and defending. Most of the time the performances have been really painful to watch as we don’t do many things well in the pitch. We are an error-prone team that doesn’t produce anything going forward. Even though we don't score any goals, we are still overachieving in this department. The reason why we do not score goals is on the other hand just because we don't create chances. To add to this, we have also been quite lucky in terms of defending as we are facing the second most shots in the league. We also let the opponents dominate the games in terms of passing. The ten-point cushion that we had at some point is slowly dripping away and if something dramatic doesn’t happen in terms of performance, I would say that we are the likeliest team to go down. Tactically we have tried many things so far but at any point haven't ditched the three important roles that are hard-coded to our tactics. A bit of Ancelotti's Christmas Tree, Antonio Conte's direct counter-attacks at Chelsea, Simeone's new 3-3-2-2 system, and other quite hopeless attempts but nothing has been working for us. We aren't really beaten down or hammered in any of the games but the big errors that we make have become regularity and we are quite deservedly losing games. The board seems to think we are in a crisis at the moment which has led to them inviting me to an emergency recruitment meeting, even though there isn't any money left in the budget. I would personally rather manage the team in Serie B but obviously, we are not going to purposely get ourselves relegated. The kids aren’t alright Developing our younger players was considered crucial at the start of the season. When your players’ level of quality is one or even two levels below where you are playing, the individuals need to step up and fill that gap as soon as possible. Sadly this hasn’t been happening so far. Antonio Raimondo has quite surprisingly been our best performer both in training and in terms of scoring goals. The young forward came into the club with a bit of a reputation as a rebel but a good goal tally, successful mentoring, and enough game-time have seen him grow a lot as a footballer. His fairly determined personality has now changed to resolute, the same as Matteo Brunori, which is good. At the age of 20, the temperamental striker can well be on his way to becoming a club legend. He was also quite surprisingly the third-best U-20 player this year in Italy. Franco Minerva was the player we had the most hopes for this season. The Argentinian has been a key player for us in terms of minutes but his weak performances and still just a balanced personality have seen his development stall. He finally seemed to kick off a bit in November and December but an ankle injury against Inter might hinder these steps. The thing with the young Argentinian might be that he has been thrown in too deep as a key player in Serie A and he would probably be the main beneficiary if we get relegated. As you might have noticed in his profile, we are also training traits with him to make him perfectly molded to the trequartista role. I'm probably going to talk about my thinking about this in the next post. Kristoffer Lund is getting there too. He still hasn’t reached the peak where he once was based on the charts but he is regularly our best trainer of the week. His mentoring has been a bit of a challenge as he has been an influential member of the squad straight from the start. The effects of mentoring can for a moment be significant for him in a new group but this usually changes to slight or none which makes it difficult. His personality now is fairly determined instead of balanced so there has been slight progress in this area. Even though Lund has only the United States and Danish nationalities, he is someone we would like to keep throughout this career. Alessio Buttaro has continued playing a big role for the club, mainly as a centre-back where he seems to be better than at wing-back. I consider him one of our own even though this is only his fourth season with the club after joining from AS Roma. Sadly his progress is also a bit weird here: a huge summer and autumn slump where he is only just starting to recuperate. Even though he has been in mentoring groups with average to significant influence, his personality has remained as driven, which isn’t the worst but neither something that creates a forever player for us. He should have the potential to be a good Serie A player which means that he is among those last ones that we would like to shift away. New signings Kacper Urbanski and Mikael Egil Ellertson have both done well in this regard. The Icelandic has also been by far the best player for us this season and the only one who regularly seems to be up to this level. Urbanski has struggled a bit on the pitch even though he started the season well but this hasn’t hurt his development. Both work in the same mentoring group with Jacopo Segre and the effects should be significant for them. If we manage to change their personalities to something else than ‘fairly determined’ and 'fairly professional' these two will be forever players for us. The changes that mentoring has had on Urbanski are the biggest reason I like this feature. We also have a few lost causes on our hands. At the age of 22, it is probably too early to give up on Patryk Peda but to be honest, his development has been disappointing. Just five games in Serie A so far is a bit too little and this is something that we have to change in the second half of the season. With a resolute personality, he should be all good to go on reaching his potential. In January we need to think about whether should we just throw him in the deep end and hope for the best by making him a starter or maybe loan him out to Serie B. This current style isn’t working for him and at that age, all the time is vital for his development. With Filippo Ranocchia it is hard to say if he is a fish or a bird or what. He simply hasn’t found his place in the team and this also shows in his development. He is a fairly professional personality and should have Serie A potential but is that going to materialize in Palermo? I’m highly doubtful that it will. There seems to be something under the hood with him that I haven’t yet figured out. If and probably when we are going to get relegated, I could easily give it another go and make him a key player for the team in one of the midfield roles and see what he can do. Giuseppe Aurelio and Aljosa Vasic are the two names that I have given up on already. Aurelio’s journey with my guidance started brightly as he was even clearly ahead of Lund as our wing-back. Injuries and Lund’s progress have changed things and the 24-year-old is now mainly a backup and with a balanced personality so far from reaching his potential that we might even let him go in January. Rather than developing he has more likely declined even though he is getting quite a good amount of minutes in Serie A. Vasic was a starter for us in the first ten or so games, did nothing on the pitch, and didn’t develop either. At the age of 22, he is still far from his ‘good Serie A’ potential and with his personality remaining balanced, I have no hopes for him anymore. His development has recently started again but when the summer comes, his ability is once again going to drop to Serie C level and during the season he is not going to be reaching anything else than Serie B level. The former Serbian U-21 player is more than likely to be shifted away either in January or the upcoming summer. The last one worth mentioning is Jon Pachedo. We signed the Spaniard at the age of 23 and as a balanced personality, which we didn’t know about then. The progress has been quite minimal and he still is only a good Serie B player, and despite mentoring still having a significant effect on him, he isn’t going to reach the Serie A level with us. He has been a decent player for us and not as shockingly bad in Serie A as we were afraid of. The Spaniard has been drawing some attention from his home country and it could well be that we cash on him here if the opportunity arises. To be honest, he was never going to be a long-term option for us, and with the cards we got with him, I am fairly happy with how we have done in terms of business. It should be fairly easy to sell him with a profit. What Tis are you using w your tactic? 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El Payaso Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 4 hours ago, Cloud9 said: What Tis are you using w your tactic? https://imgur.com/itdEuS1 This is the full tactic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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