El Payaso

I have had good luck with it in previous versions of the game but I have practically never used 3-man defenses before, so it takes time to get this working. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that even with comprehensice highlights our games are rather boring and lack highlights, so it is hard to pick obvious glaring errors in the system. Well, at least the defense is working like a charm at the moment. Also as I am rarely using any opposition instructions, this is a real low-block tactic instead of putting maximum closing down through OI's which I have seem some people do when they claim that they're playing defensive low block. The ME has received a lot if criticism but I actually find it really good in terms of using totally different kinds of systems.

AND SO IT BEGINS We started the season with a bit of an injury crisis as we were missing 5-6 players for the first two months of the season. The most significant was our goalkeeper Vanja Milenkovic-Savic who missed the whole of August and was covered by backup Luca Gemello who did well by having two clean sheets and having himself included in the Serie A team of the month with a 7.53 average rating. Much of this is thanks to his saved penalty against Fiorentina. We also qualified for the second round of Coppa Italia by beating Modena narrowly after being 3-0 up. Our first big test came on match day 4 where we met the then-unbeaten Atalanta at Gewiss Stadium. Even though the stats tell you that our first defeat of the season was well-deserved, I think we did well as most of the home side’s shots came from the dodgy starting positions that set-pieces often have. We were about 15 minutes away from getting a point and only succumbed to an Alessio Buengiorno bad forward pass which started a chain of errors and a Gianluca Scamacca goal. The season continued with a three-game stretch in just six days, during which we nullified 10-men Bologna, were less than a minute away from a clean sheet at Stadio Friuli, and lost Raoul Bellanova, Samuele Ricci, and Sasa Sabonov with rather long-term injuries: Our second big test was against Napoli. We started the game brightly by scoring the first goal of the season which was loyal to the style that we wanted to create the chances from: We won the ball back deep in our half, after which the segundo volante took the space away in possession. He then plays the ball to deep-dropping Duvan Zapata, who pulls out a couple of big errors from Napoli’s defense. He then links well with the attacking midfielders by releasing Nikola Vlasic to score his second of the season so far. A poorly defended situation from the Napoli defense, but this is what often happens in quick turn-overs. The party was over soon as Victor Osimhen equalized from a hopeful deep cross, Ivan Ilíc got himself injured and Osimhen also buried his second chance of the game. With Ilíc joining a long list of regular starters in the injured list for the next 3-4, the message was clear: we were running out of players and now practically forced to swap to a two-striker formation. Before the October international break, we traveled to Genoa where we fought to a bore draw. The injury crisis continued with further two absentees as Duvan Zapata and Ricardo Rodríguez fell victim to the opposition’s rather ascetic approach to the game. Both would be out for a few weeks, yet we luckily had a few returning players to rely on in the upcoming games. Another 0-0 draw followed in a home game against Sassuolo. In this game, the most intriguing battle was seen in our left flank where Jeremy Toljan and Domenico Berardi were trying to rip us apart with little success. The away team had 16 shots in total out of which only 1 was on target. We were mostly on the receiving end but came close to scoring in the 83rd minute when Adrien Tameze hit the bar. October ended with a third consecutive clean sheet as well as a narrow 1-0 victory against Monza with Antonio Sanabria’s first goal of the season. It was a scrappy game where we limited the home side to three shots in total and 0.26 xG against our 6 and 0.54. We had three of our previously sidelined players back (Rodríguez, Zapata, and Ilic) but all of them were still far away from match fit. All of them got important minutes though and this allowed us to go back to our 1-striker formation. The first quarter ended in the Coppa Italia Second Round where we were almost brushed aside by our rivals Sampdoria. A late goal and the first goal contribution of the season from Ivan Ilić saw us through. It was an important goal for the Serbian as was the brace for Pietro Pellegri. After the first fourth of the season has been played, we hold the best defensive record in the league and are still in the race for European qualification. These are still early days, of course, but at the moment things are looking fairly decent for us. IN NUMBERS 16th best team in terms of expected goals, which is to be expected 3rd least loss of possession which means that we have been playing way too safe type of football Most clean sheets in the league with 6 in total 17th best in possession-won stats, 15th in interceptions, and 20th in fouls made ( only 62 in total) in the league, which could mean that we could be more aggressive out of possession. 10th in shots against with 98 in total. Only 181 headers lost so far (18th in the league) which means we are an aerially strong team. +4.13 in expected goals against which means that we have either been quite lucky or our goalkeepers have been doing their job. FIRST IMPRESSIONS Injuries have been mixing our deck of cards a lot so far this season and I could even consider us fairly unlucky in this aspect. The biggest things that I have noticed so far are that we have been 100% loyal to our aims and gone defense first. This has also been showing in the scoreboard where our attacking play has been fairly tame as we haven’t yet found the counter-attacking phase that we have looked for. It is fairly easy to see that our centre-backs are the best players on the team as we have made it difficult for all our opponents to break us down. The starting XI also in general is generally capable but then on the other hand during the dying minutes when you would need an impact to get the necessary goal, we don’t have any players to bring on to do it. This is especially evident in the wing-back and attacking midfield areas where we are lacking squad depth. We have been given a small amount of money to play with in the upcoming January transfer window and it could well be used in a rotation option attacking midfielder whom we could throw in even as a starter if either Nikola Vlašić or Ivan Ilić is injured. Could someone like Manuel Mónaco fit the bill? Especially as Ilić’s performances have been quite dreadful so far. TACTICAL TWEAKS SO FAR We have gotten rid of the play out-of-defense instruction to encourage the counter-attacks happening. Libero has been turned to a support role to offer more movement towards the midfield. Half-back is now switched to an anchorman. The attacking-minded attacking midfielder has been changed to a shadow striker to offer more firepower and movement up-front. Both of the attacking midfielders have been instructed to roam, take more risks, and move into channels in an attempt to get more out of them. In the upcoming games, we will be trying the get stuck in instruction. I have been doing a huge amount of micro-managing so far and already used +20 hours in this save. The baseline for solid defending is already, so the thinking is now fully on how we could be more threatening and hit the opposition on a break.

You're lucky to have a club like AC Milan in the league. They seem to keep things interesting, no matter how well you do.

You're probably right. I don't really know any Italian so I just relied on Google translate. Thank you for all the kind words do far. I have only had the time to manage three games so far and it of course took me almost 7 hours to get through the pre-season so it is going slowly. Will try to get something written next week!

Thank you. It was a nice save as long as the interest lasted. I ended up losing the path that I wanted to follow, like I often do and ended up losing the interest. This is why I wanted to immediately set quite strick house rules to my new save. Those should keep me 100% loyal to the way that I enjoy playing this game. Sadly the time in my hands is almost non existent at the moment so it might take a bit of time before I even get the first mid-season update written.

Welcome back @Svenc. Been missing your content.

Started to think about, and noticed that I have had hundreds of careers on FM since 2007 and I have never been sacked or underachieved on my saves. With underachieving I mean that you would pick for example a team predicted to finish ninth and end up finishing below that or even relegated. Does this ever happen with human players?

I obviously don't have a screenshot anymore but in FM 2017 I remember winning a game 7-0 with Real Sociedad against Levante. My striker scored three, assisted 4, had 128 pass attempts and 11 key passes. And this with a standard wide 4-4-1-1 tactic.

S means stopper.

Don Claudio Having Claudio Marchisio as Torino's manager is something that isn’t realistic but in Football Manager, you start creating your world right after you have set your game up. This is why I for example like to play with the original mode where the winter transfers have already taken place in the summer and I have the final squad of the season in my hands right in the beginning. Marchisio is one of my favorite Italian players of all time, along with Anrea Pirlo and Francesco Totti who both played a major part when looking up to professional players when I was still playing in my years of youth. Claudio’s classiness and versatility as a player make him also an ideal candidate to be a manager. This is why I am a bit surprised that he hasn't at least yet taken the path of coaching in real life. I started the managerial journey with a UEFA B coaching license and also with domestic-level footballing experience to add just a little bit more challenge in the beginning. Key players Ricardo Rodriguez | Raoul Bellanova | Duvan Zapata | Ivan Ilić | Samuele Ricci I could have easily included all our three starting centre-backs (Alessandro Buengiorno & Perr Schuurs) here but as I wanted to include players from different positions, I only included Ricardo Rodríguez. I was a bit lucky with the Swiss as I asked our director of football to extend his contract on day one and just two days later Rodriguez came to me intending to explore his options after his contract expires at the end of the season. This demand did not apply to the already existing negotiations which saw the 30-year-old extending his stay at Torino until 2026. In general, there is a real mix of experience in youth in this list. Atalanta loanee Duvan Zapata has seen it all in Serie A and at the age of 32 and with a quiet season behind him, his career is close to its sunset. The Colombian who scored 23 goals in his first season at Atalanta will be looking to make an impression and force his way back to the good books of his club. For Torino, it is an expensive loan deal as we will pay both his massive €89k a week salary as well as €100k a month whether he plays or not. Ivan Ilic is a player that we look to be our main provider of goals while another 22-year-old Samuele Ricci will work as the engine of our defensive midfield, carrying and delivering the ball up to his more advanced companions. The young and promising midfielder has just signed a new contract that will keep him at the club until 2028. Raoul Bellanova is a new arrival from Cagliari. The right wing-back is the fastest player in the club and he will have a vital role as a starter and perhaps even finisher of counter-attacking moves down the right-hand side. Pietro Pellegri and Saba Sabonov are two of the main prospects within the club. The latter is a bit of a question mark for me as he has remained in Russia until the beginning of the starting season and that is something that I cannot take lightly from my players. In the under-20 squad, the main prospect is the Turkish midfielder Emirhan Ìlkhan who will spend the season on loan at Basaksehir. Tactical approach We have a fairly low defensive line and a goalkeeper whose strengths are in the penalty area’s aerial domination, I saw it as a logical choice to just use a standard goalkeeper instead of going to a fancy sweeper keeper which is more suitable in a possession-based system where the goalkeeper could also have his part in the build-up. Our main strength within the team is the quality and versatility of our centre-backs and this was also something that I wanted to try and utilize in some way. The selection of roles is done both in terms of utilizing their skill sets as well as the positional play. It would be easy to go with a standard selection but I think this could be a better answer to our board’s desire to play entertaining football. I would also see this as a balanced selection where we don’t sacrifice too much of our defensive stability. This is all of course in theory and we are yet to see how this works in practice. In midfielder, I could have easily gone with a destroyer and playmaker but I don’t want this to restrict our defenders in their attempt to try and find our more advanced players with a more direct approach which should also be one of the main outlets for our chance creation. With segundo volante and ball-winning midfielder, we have a runner and stay-at-home option available. The half-back in this instance is expected also to switch places with our libero to make us a bit harder to predict for the opposition. As both of our currently fit left-sided wing-back options are right-footed, I wanted to make this role to cover the ground that the bombing forward Segundo Volante might leave in the midfield. This should also give our defenders an easy option in the midfield when we decide to build the play patiently. On the right-hand side, we, of course, want to allow Raul Bellanova the freedom to get forward as much as he wants. His player profile should already allow this without the role being attacking. The supporting attacking midfielder should be the one dropping deep and linking our midfield together with the striker. The attacking version on the other hand is encouraged to make over and under-lapping runs inside the penalty area. The striker role was the most difficult. Advanced forward would be a logical choice in a counter-attacking system but on the other hand, we are not going to be hitting the opposition on a break all the time and we might even control the events against some opponents. I think a complete forward is a good option here as he can both link up with our more advanced players as well as being our main goalscoring threat. This is also a role that is suitable for our best striker Duvan Zapata who really has no weaknesses and who also likes to play with his back towards the opposition goal. With the team's instructions, I have once again chosen to keep things as simple as possible. A counter-attacking system in general doesn’t mean that you are going to be looking to attack quickly through the whole 90 minutes. It might even be that the buildups are slow and consist of short passes for 90% of the time and there are only a few quick breaks during the game as that is how things in general work. This is why I for example have kept the passing style mixed as I want my team to be able to decide what is the right kind of approach in a specific situation. Team instructions I have only added a few team instructions to encourage the team to look for a specific style of play when the opportunity arises. I want the team to mainly win the ball back deep in our half before launching a deadly counter-attack or slowing the play down if the opposition is well-organized. As we have only played through the pre-season and managed just a handful of matches, this is just the moment where the real work with observing and tinkering starts. Friendlies can of course give you some kind of picture of the system but I trust the real games way more. I also have another system in my back pocket which consists more of generalist roles and doesn’t rely a lot on positional play. This system is easy to take into use if and when the plan A turns out to be unsuccessful. In the second system, our inverted wing-back turns into a regular wing-back in support duty, the centre-backs are regular ball-playing defenders and the second defensive midfielder is a ball-winning midfielder instead of a half-back. Otherwise, the tactic is the same. As we have both Sanabria and Duvan Zapata to use when the season progresses, it is also possible that we will add a two-striker version with only one attacking midfielder. More about that perhaps in the mid-season update. Club DNA The DNA in the club is of course closely tied to the style of play that we are playing. The main attributes that we will be looking at both within the squad, as well as in recruiting, are the following. Concentration. Counter-attacking football is often about soaking pressure and avoiding hits. This means that there is no real room for errors and this is why concentration plays a key role in success. Decisions. Successful counter-attacking is all about making the right choices at the right times. Whether it is a decision to try to break quickly or clear the ball instead of trying to play out the defense. Making the right choices plays a key role in a successful counter-attacking approach. Pace. Speed kills, especially in a counter-attacking system. When hitting teams on a break, it is vital to be able to play balls behind the opposition defenders as well as be able to beat their players in one-against-one situations. Pacey players play a key role, especially in the transition phase where we are looking to catch the opposition off-guard. Work-rate. Everybody needs to work hard in the pitch for us to be solid throughout the whole 90 minutes as well as being able to win the ball back in the right places. If I look for example my most advanced trio on the pitch, I expect both the striker and two attacking midfielders to do their part in terms of winning the ball back and getting us the turnarounds we need. Teamwork. A successful defensive style of course demands a good team effort and this is why teamwork is a key attribute. We cannot afford to approach things in a way that for example, PSG did a couple of years ago when they had a clear teamwork unit as well as Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe minding their own business. All our players simply need to work as a unit Determination is one of the most important singular attributes in football and I see this especially important in a style of play that demands grit and will to win. General rules for the save Sign players only when needed. The limit per season is three new signings in total (including summer and winter transfer windows). If the club loses one of the key players, mentioned above, these can be replaced with an immediate effect. All the senior team signings should be also strongly based on stats: so data should be the one justifying the signings. If for example, we want to upgrade our left wing-back area, data should clearly show that our current option for that position is performing below the league average in that position. This is where the pizza charts, provided by the Mustermann skin, come in handy as we will be easily able to detect these statistics in just one view. Invest most of the income in youth development. When the club has money to use, I want to invest most of this in improving our facilities, youth coaching, and recruitment. In the long term, I want Torino to become the best producer of Italian talent in the country. In about ten years, the starting eleven of Torino FC should consist mainly of our local players. Sign mostly Italian players. The aim is to progressively grow the percentage of domestic players in the first-team. The aimed percentage is 80% and we should be able to reach this number in just a couple of seasons. The current number in first-team is 28% as 8 of 29 first-team players (including loaned in and out players) are Italians. Our Director of Football will be taking care of all contract negotiations. This means that if he cannot agree to a new contract with an existing or a new player, then the deal is going to be off. The manager will not be able to interfere in these negotiations in any way. The players that we sign should always come through our scouts’ recommendation. All the staff that we sign come through job adverts or staff recommendations. This means that we will not be using the player or staff search, which have both been deleted from my skin. Winning trophies has no major significance in this save but as the story banner tells you: beating Juventus means everything. This means that we will be focusing a lot on the local derbies. What is even more important is that we will keep loyal to the rules that we have set: play counter-attacking football and rely on youth development instead of buying players. These two main cornerstones should keep the career update interesting, hopefully for years to come. Aims for season one Top-half finish in the league Conceding less than 40 goals Backroom staff overhaul First improvements to our training and youth facilities At least one good prospect in the yearly youth intake Extending the contracts for our important players The next update will be a mid-season update where we will be checking how we have been doing so far, how the tactical approach has evolved as well as some of the youth development results. Thank you so much for all the comments so far! Please keep them coming and especially criticize my tactical approach if you see it suitable.

I have been in a search, not a Holy Grail, but instead a long-term save throughout the FM 2024 process. This has proved to be a difficult task even though in general I enjoyed the game more than ten years ago when I played my last long-term save with Real Oviedo on FM 2015. The reason why this has turned out to be difficult has often been due to my own doing. With Chelsea, I signed too many players and started winning, with Real Betis the big winter update messed up my whole gaming world and the latest save with Palermo was once again because I had started signing too many players. It is now time to start a save where I stay more true to myself and to the gameplay that I tend to enjoy. And for this, I found a perfect club to begin with. This also aligns well with my thinking that I wasn’t yet done with Serie A which seems to be one of the most interesting big leagues in the world. There are a couple of real giants in the league and in total more or less 7 teams that can compete for the Scudetto. The starting point When starting with Torino, I was really happy to see the objectives that the board set for me. In terms of squad building, the club wants to heavily rely on our youth academy which is at a good general level, yet still quite far away from the best clubs in Italy. In terms of tactical approach, the board wants us to be both defensively solid and play attractive football. This for me means fluid counter-attacking football which is also the approach that I have always liked the most. Both in real life as well as in Football Manager. This tactical approach from the board will allow me to revisit the world of 5-man defensive lines as well as use more generalist roles compared to the specialist that I used with Palermo. It will also allow me to build a different kind of club DNA which of course now will consist of totally different kinds of attributes that are suitable for counter-attacking football. The starting post for this career update is a bit dull and doesn't provide a lot of information. In the next one though, I am going to be talking a bit more about our imaginary manager Claudio Marchisio, the squad, our tactical approach and squad-building, desired club DNA, pre-season, as well as rules and aims for this save game.

The game used to have that "feature" in the past and it was further away from reality as all the high potential talents were already really good players before they turned 18, especially if they were managed by human players. This has been nowadays balanced with more balanced attributes (especially in terms of physical attributes) at the beginning as well as more realistic mentoring system.

The Italian Serie A is super interesting even in long-term saves as there are so many teams that can compete for the title. Even though my Palermo save went a bit stale and I abandoned it, this wasn't down to the competitivines of the league for sure. I also like the approach where you only sign players when you really need them. That is practically always how I want to play the game and when I don't, I quickly see myself losing interest. Largely down to this career update, I have decided to once more find a long lasting save with Torino. Should be an interesting club to manage.

I have had a really good time with this version of FM. This, even though I have once again failed to find an interesting long-term save. I can quite easily get bored with the save even if I start to feel that I have signed too many players or if I think that I am doing better than I should. This is of course not fault of the game but more my own mind-set. I'm general, I don't see anything game breaking and even some parts of the match engine are probably better than ever. A challenge is still quite difficult to find but using attributeless skin, increased realism mod and certain house rules can help.

Thank you for your insight. Not my type of save that one but already found an interesting idea with Torino. Playing defensive style and utilising youth development both suit my own style of play quite nicely.

Nope. Always either low or mid-block.

Generally yes. Just tend to get bored when I start to overachieve. This also happened with my latest save with Palermo.

I wish I had the knowledge to do this. And I already know that @Daveincid is doing a fantastic job with his mod that I am already using. I'm not able to do his job better than he already does. If you have read my career updates, you would already know that I am doing my best to sabotage my own gameplay already as well as using attributeless skin.

I don't think that we are doing anything wrong while discussing things and views, so no mod should have anything to say about this exchange. The only reason why I am so strong in my own views is the fact that there is only one gaming mod available and if this mod can successfully be played in a way that I don't appreciate much (as you moght have noticed already) then how is the game going to be for players like me who play slowly, pay lot of attention to features and details etc. The only gripe I have is the fact that players like me don't have that "hard-core mod". How I tend to counter this is that I will use my best knowledge to limit my own success artificially but even that doesn't always do the trick, which is sad. So, I still don't have anything against it how everyone plays the game but I am a bit frustrated with the fact that it is really hard to find a realistic challenge in the game as it can be mastered with casual game playing. This affects us all.

So, why are you allowed to tell your opinions but me doing the same thing is somehow wrong? I'm snot telling anyone to do anything or play the game in the same way as I do. I'm only asking questions here. Doing well is understandable but basically if you set an aim and end up achieving that and probably way more, no matter what you do and this happening time after time and things do become a bit boring and predictable. And it also makes the game look a little bit bad. And this once again: just my own opinion and not a way that everyone else should think. Just bringing my own tiny piece to the conversation. Some of my opinions of course might be strong and suggestive and that is fine. In my opinion for example FM should not have the option to manage the games with key highlights. Why? Because this is not managing but instead just autopiloting and hoping for the best to happen. This is once again just my opinion but it has clear reasons behind it and also this view is 100% loyal to the idea of the game which is managing a football club (not just watching things pan out).

Two questions to this. If you don't have time, which is fine as I don't have time either, why do you need to play more than 1-2 games a day? At least in my opinion that is the perfect pace to play the game. And secondly: why does the team have to be successful?

I don't want to force everyone to use but instead I would like to see a more serious mod in the game which forces you to pay attention to details and different features of the game. For me it is absolutely fine to have the current state of the game as one of the modes but there should also be a more difficult and realistic mode to cater those who want to have a challenge.

There are plenty of tools, yes but due to the lack of difficulty, you are not "forced" to learn how to use them or even use them at all. Something like data hub sounds really interesting but how many of us are actually going to try and master it when you are going to be successful without ever using it? Something like the rather new mentoring system is a fantastic feature in the game and it works like it should be but most of the game features are not up to this level.

I know and that is why something should happen to also cater the players that want to play attention to detail and maybe manage 1-2 games per day. I don't mind if the game has this current autopilot mode also but would hope that there is at least a plan to also develop the game to satisfy the needs of the players that actually want to spend time on details. The problem currently is that the game only has one "mod" I it which is not loyal to the main purpose of the game which is a realistic simulation of football management. So it's not just my thinking of how the game should be played. Even though it's not the same, at least in the past we also had FM Classic(?) which was a more concise version of the game with less features.

Also toning down the effectiveness of gegenpress, or more like: if the system would work realistically, this would practically force people to use some other highlights mode than key or extended as you would have to keep on eye how fatigue affects the team or who might be in danger of getting injured. Personally I would love that but this would also force people to actually play the game instead of being just on autopilot.