Mikal

Lazio are an odd one, they're either really good or not so good. This is how Lazio and Juventus have finished since I started. Lazio Juventus 1st 5th 7th 1st 8th 5th 2nd 5th

Just finished my 21/22 season with Fiorentina and it was a special one. Transfers Not a major spend, but a huge improvement in the quality in the team. Some screenshots below of the main transfers (all screenshots taken after the season). Franco Longo - brought in as a rotation option with Chiesa on the right wing. Very solid. Patrick Cutrone - a fantastic price and was the reason I flogged Simeone. Couldn't keep Arp out of the team but was a good rotation option. Carlos Lavin - such a bargain. Had a relegation release clause of £1.9m and just simply couldn't turn it down. Angel Alvarez - what a talent. Fully worth the price paid. Truly spectacular player. Problem with consistency, but when he's on it, he's incredible. Rocco Pompa - brought in on loan because he looked brilliant and I wanted to bolster the defence. He never put a foot wrong and nailed the RB position. We've just paid off his release clause of £32m to get him permanent. Other big teams also bid. It's probably overpaying, but young, Italian and already has a great connection with the club. No regrets. Herbet - brought and loaned back due to restrictions. Looks a top midfielder. Looking forward to having him arrive. Serie A An unbelievable season for us. Two seasons in a row we finished runners-up but it was our year this time. We were fantastic across the entire team and were fully deserving of the league win. Arp with 30 league goals was just spectacular. Here's his attributes if you wanted to see. Cup Competitions Champions League In miraculous fashion we managed to win the Champions League. It was a crazy run, but we generally never looked out of place. After the group stage we faced: Ajax: 1-1 away, 2-0 home AC Milan: 1-1 away, 2-0 home Man City: 1-1 away, 1-0 home Our sturdy away performances and impeccable home form got us through to the final. Each round was almost a carbon copy of eachother. Final: Liverpool 0 - 1 Fiorentina (after extra time). Liverpool stormed the Premier League and have won the past two Champions League, so I wasn't fancying our chances. We dominated possession (63%) and created some good chances. Equally so did Liverpool, but it was Dani Olmo in extra time to get the one and only goal. Incredible scenes. Italian Cup A very good run but a hugely disappointing final. We didn't turn up at all, a let down of a performance really. The Squad Stats for the squad over the season. As you can see, Arp was our main source of goals with Cheisa and Alvarez chipping in with double figures too. The Tactic This is the tactic I played for most of the season. It worked tremendously well. For next season I will use this as well a tactic where I drop the DMC for an AML.

So I've only just noticed this on my save, but I'm coming to end of 2020 and had a message about Euro Golden Boy potentials; thought I'd check out candidates and previous winners and noticed Gianluca Gaetano won it in 2019. Currently managing in Italy I thought he could be someone I'd look to add to my squad, but after seeing his attributes something was a little off. He spent 2018/19 on loan at Bari in Serie D, then spent 19/20 at Napoli where he barely featured. I don't understand how he's won this . Any other bizarre winners out there?

Last update Transfer window has closed, here's how we got on. Made a £14m profit and I think we've definitely improved the squad. Here's a few of the main incoming players: Antonio Barreca - our new first choice left back. I tried to sign him last season but didn't happen, this time I'm very happy to bring him in. Looks class and is Italian to boot Aaron Martin - when I was looking for a left back, and in the process of bidding for Barreca, I came across this guy who looks tremendous. For £13.5m I thought he was worth the gamble to bring in. I'm going to try and convert him to a right back as an inverted wing back. As I haven't signed any natural right backs, this could be a risk but one I'm willing to take to get him and Barreca in the same team. Roberto Gagliardini - transfer listed at £7m, and wanting a bit more depth at CM I thought this was a great deal. He looks very good and could push for a first team spot. Another Italian added to the squad. Nicolo Zaniolo - he is a young Milinkovic-Savic (comparison in spoiler). He looks so good. Brought in on deadline day for £17m which I know is going to be a steal. He will be in the first team before too long. Bagged two goals in our first game of the season after coming on as a sub; not a bad introduction. Also only noticed after he signed that he came through at Fiorentina, so a nice homecoming!

Last update Last update was at the end of September '19 and I've now finished the season. Serie A An awesome season for us saw us push from 7th place last season to title challengers this season. Juventus did drop some points toward the end to make it look closer than it was, but they wrapped the league up comfortably. There were a few ropy moments where I thought we were going to get caught by the chasing pack, but we ended the season with an unbeaten run of 13 games, 12 of those wins. Europa League Winners! A mix of fortune and domination saw us progress through the tournament and pick up a good 2-1 win over Gelsenkirchen Schalke in the final. I thought it was going to be an all Italian final vs. Juventus, but Schalke picked up a 4-0 win in the second leg! From the above, you can see the tightest affair was against City with two 2-2 results (we threw away a 2-0 lead in the second leg) and a penalty shootout to secure our route to the semi's. Simeone keeping up his fantastic record of missing penalties. Player Stats Chiesa is absolutely amazing. Extremely happy with that return, 27 goals and 14 assists in all comps is spectacular (we'll ignore the most yellows across the team as well!). We penned him down to a new 5 year deal and his current value is £63m, so it's going to take a lot to prize him away now. Benassi coming in strong with the passing % which is exactly what you want from your main man in midfield. Here's all the team stats sorted by appearances. Stand out performers for me were Lafont, Sensei (bought for £9m), Palacios (what a steal at £12m), Mauro Junior (heavy rotation but really impressed when played) and Biraghi (who you won't see in the above because at this point I had *spoiler alert* sold him - but very consistent player). I couldn't get a striker to nail the position down full-time, between Arp and Simeone they rotated based on who was in form, with Arp coming heavily out of form at the end of the season allowing Simeone to take all the limelight in the final stages of the season. Tactic On my last post I had a 3-4-1-2 on the go, but after a couple of months I changed to the above, mostly because I simply couldn't get my two strikers scoring consistently, so I decided on only having one and we performed excellently with this tactic, albeit some of the weaker teams were hard to break down. It's how I'll be going into next season as well, but I may look at a 4-2-3-1 against the weaker opponents to see if it helps in breaking them down. Transfers A few faces have already left us: As much as I liked Biraghi, there's no way I'm turning down that sort of money for him. A shame to see him go, but I was looking to replace anyway. Ramiro was good for us but wanted a new deal, and at 27 I didn't think he was worth the expense, so to receive up to £36.5m for a player we purchased for £1.2m is an impossible sum to turn down. Saponara also makes way, he was never going to get into the squad and was best to get him off the books. That does leave us almost empty in the full back positions with Kevin Diks as our only RB and Kevin Rodrigues and Hancko at LB. I don't think any of these players are good enough so full backs are priority for us this window. So by position here's what I'm looking to do: GK - Lafont #1, but need to bring in back up keeper as my last backup fodder has just retired RB - need a first choice. Diks to play backup LB - need a first choice. Rodrigues backup CB - Sensei and Pezzella will remain first choice. Magnani and Tonelli (free from Napoli) will be backup DM - Ivan Sunjic first choice. Murgia as backup MCL - Benassi first choice. Veretout as backup (if he stays). Mauro Junior and Murgia can also fill in here. May look to strengthen this position MCR - Palacios first choice. Same backups as above, may look to strengthen for depth AMR - Chiesa first choice of course. Mauro Junior can play back up, but may look for a natural winger as back up AML - Olmo first choice, but currently out injured again for 3 months - his second major injury in quick succession. Mina or Mauro Junior can play there, have also promoted Koffi to first team as backup. AMC (if played) - Olmo, Junior, Murgia, Mina can all play there ST - Arp or Simeone for first choice. I just don't know who. I may also keep Vlahovic in the first team squad this season unless a good loan opportunity comes around (first teamer in a top league). Current transfer budget (with the sales above): £117m Wage budget remaining: £141k p/w

43 league goals! How did you play him?

SI are aware of the issue - here. Believe it's to do when choosing long throws and having players come short. Mods should move your post to the bugs forum so they can review your pkm's.

Yeah he was good through the middle, I think he'll perform in most positions to be honest. I did move him back out wide because of injuries. I'm in the process of looking at a new formation as I simply can't get my strikers performing anymore so probably going to ditch the two up top. Can't remember how Arp came so cheap, I assume he was transfer listed but I'm not sure. HSV got promoted first season as well. He's developing really well, but hasn't performed.

Hi, Not sure if this has been raised but a quick search didn't find anything. On the tactics screen when going into the player instructions for a defensive winger I'm able to select "Sit Narrower" as an option when "Stay Wider" is a fixed option. This only happens on a support duty, the defend duty only allows you the option of one or the other. I can't imagine this is intentional?

On the back of my last post I finished the season in 7th picking up some huge wins in the final few games, with Lazio winning the league. This season sees a busy transfer window with the following ins and outs: Milenkovic being sold (for release clause) pretty much funded our entire transfers in. Pretty happy with who's come in, but time will tell, and I think the only payer I over paid for was Magnani, but I really wanted some younger Italian players and I think he's good enough for a rotation role this year and will get plenty of games. Which now sees us with a new tactic which looks something like: I'm still tinkering with a few of the roles and some of the instructions. Our European qualification went well and as you'd expect we qualified into the group stage. Our group consists of Sevilla, Trabzonspor and Astana. Would expect to finish 2nd at worst. League has gone well, too, considering the teams we've faced in the first 5 games: It would have gone even better if Lafont didn't cost us the 3 points vs. Juventus with this mistake in the 86th minute:

Thanks guys. I opted to cancel in the end as I couldn’t find any suitable replacements and Italy’s Jan window closes early (18th I think) which left me little time. I was close to signing Cutrone as a replacement for cheaper but his contract demands were just absurd. I will see how it goes end of season. @macca72 we’re certainly in the European hunt (more Europa than CL) but won’t be title contenders. Without Simeone I’d fear we’d slip outside of Europa or at least would be very touch and go, which is another reason to cancel.

Quick question as I may be missing something, but is this right? So I'm near end of December in first season and received the below message saying Milenkovic is now classed as home grown as he's been here for over 3 years. Then I look at his history and he's only been here now for about 18 months, certainly not over 3 years Looking at his info page as well, he's only been in Italy for about 18 months. Basically, I don't know why he's classed as home grown.

Not too far into the game, but really liking some of the smaller additions like the quick key attributes comparison on the tactics when dragging a player over another. Very useful

Hi guys, quick question about the match engine and using the Target Man role (at STC). What I'm curious about is what "happens" to my style of play by selecting this role, e.g. will my team now always float crosses to this guy regardless of what I have my instructions as or if there are other players available to aim at (do they focus on the Target Man as first priority)? Or always look to play to feet instead of in behind etc.? What I was interested to do was set my lone striker as a Target Man almost by name only (as he doesn't really have standard TM attributes; think Aguero, Wilson, Lacazette over Giroud, Lukaku et al.), i.e. he is the main target when players receive the ball for all through balls and low driven/whipped crosses etc. instead of them employing conventional TM tactics (high balls/to feet). Would I achieve this anyway by selecting an Advanced Forward, Poacher, Complete Forward?

Quick question for you guys. I'm looking to get stuck into a save soon and I enjoy writing up and putting update posts together etc., and while I have some ideas of how I want to display the content, I thought it'd make sense to tap into all the resources here for maybe some additional inspiration and ask who's content you enjoy reading? Be it their layout, graphics, writing style, post size etc. I'm keen to give them a read.