El Payaso

I don't know if this only an issue with me but in the tactics screen I'm having a really difficult time in moving players to other positions. This is because when you try to move the player icon around, the circle where you need to place the player is almost exactly the same color as the whole tactics screen. At times I have to try even 5+ times to hit the correct spot.

Arguing? And in bad faith? I don't follow. I don't tend to study these kind if things but hadn't ever heard or thought that the AI would cheat on AOE 2. With a quick googling I found just some declarations that this is not the case. As this is a football manager forum, I didn't pay much attention to the things you wrote about AOE. Just wanted to correct you on the statement about FM's AI. And I do apologise if you understood my writing as some kind of arguing.

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.

I think FM 2007 was a fantastic game in terms of transfers. The AI worked so that if you placed a bid for a player that was listed as wanted by AI clubs, they would immediately also bid for the player. For years it has been such that even if a player had ten AI clubs interest in him and when you place a bid, none of them competes against you. Not even if it would be a bargain if a century. I remember also that in this version in small countries like Finland it was very difficult to improve the squad. Practically no one wanted to come from abroad and if you managed to get a newgen, Norwegian and Danish clubs would soon come after them. Some better players even won the Champions League with Finnish clubs (usually by signing some of well-known starlets in the game) but I even found it difficult to make it to the group stage. The last time I played in Finland was on FM 2019 where I guided RoPS from Rovaniemi to the Europa League groups and to Finnish championship in the first season while in real life that season's team was the worst in history of the Finnish top-tier, only winning two games the whole season if I remember correctly. Yeah, and I also signed Maicon to that club by paying him a bag of peanuts a week. Such amount of money that you wouldn't even pay a rent in Finland.

And so it should be. And also the importance of tactics should go down in my opinion and the quality of players should on the other hand matter more. If you have a limited quality in players, you should not be able to fix this with just the right tactic.

That isn't true. For example, Rashidi has mentioned several times in the past that SI has been able to produce way more challenging AI in the beta phase of the game that the testers had difficulties beating. So, this is not down to a limitation as far as I know.

I'm dearly hoping that in the future the game would have at least two different mods which would cater both long-term and new players of the game. And of course those kind of long-term players that like the non-league to legend type of save games that are quite popular I think. This would be because these kind of "winning the league in season one with Everton" or "taking my local non league club to the Premier league" don't have anything to do with being challenging or somewhat realistic simulation. But I do accept the fact that some people actually do enjoy this kind of gameplay. Currently this is the only mode of the game and this makes it a bit difficult for players like me to play long-term saves or even stay interested after just one season. Winning virtual trophies or always knowing that I am going to be overachieving don't apply to me at all. It was maybe appealing for a couple if first years of the game but I think this repeating record has already been spinning long enough. Even though we talk about quite different kind of games, look at what for example the developers of Age of Empires 2 are doing. They are catering all levels of players and making the game all about skill and different skill levels. I for example am not able to beat the hardest AI in campaigns or random maps while some players do it quite easily and trying to achieve that level and losing to the AI is making the game interesting to me. On FM I have never been sacked for example and this should actually be the likeliest scenario that you face. I hope that the game developers would also see the bigger picture like this.

Definitely another season. And if you end up changing clubs, I would rather see a new save game and maybe Italy... This is of course just my opinion.

One tiny detail and a question too: has anyone seen a single poor delivery from corner kicks or indirect free kicks? For me it seems that the deliveries are always spot on.

There seems to be surprisingly much love toward FM 2017 here. As I am not willing to reinstall that version myself, have to rely on YouTube. I think this video and the goals quite well summarize the horrors of the match engine even though the take is of course small. In short: the defenders completely ignore the deep-dropping striker when defending and this leads to constant short passing moves at the edge of the penalty area. This is even when the opposition has a clear man advantage when defending. I think Rashidi also has a lot of videos from this version which shows how the middle of the park works. It looks like football being played in an airfield as there is so much time and space and the defending side is all the time running around and trying to chase the ball way too late. It's a bit like little children playing football. I think that especially Tottenham and Harry Kane especially broke that match engine. Decided to give it a go anyway: This is an away game against Manchester City. Created a regular 4-2-3-1 tactic with Kane playing as a DLF(A). Those stats and the highlights were just crazy. Kane was about 10-15 times unmarked in front of the defensive line and freely able to feed the overlapping inside forwards and attacking midfielder. Those stats look more like a deep-lying playmaker's stats but when he always operates in dangerous areas, the amount of damage that he is doing is huge. Won the game 4-0 and even though Kane didn't get any assists, he was working like an attacking anchor for us: always available for passes and able to feed his teammates. One game with this match engine was more than enough. Can't even imagine how the striker would work against a weaker side and at home. Or with a narrow tactic that exploits the match engine... Or if I would have used more than 15 seconds to set up the tactic. Have to once again give SI a lit of credit on how they have managed to be able to balance these kind of things in the newer versions of the game. I rest my case: FM 2017 had a shockingly bad match engine. I guess so many people enjoyed it because it was so easy to exploit and to make your attacking players to perform unrealistically well.

Why not do it in the first place? Of course it is dependant on where you want to manage but in general there are really good data updates available for the game. If I would start a game in Finland, for example, then I would definitely use a data file that has been created by someone domestic. The data in those much more accurate than the general database.

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.

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.

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.

Thank you warlock! Going to be an interesting summer and upcoming season for sure.

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.

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.

I think I clocked most hours with FM 2008 which was also the biggest reason for my final high school year being only okayish. I had a journeyman save with it with KSV Hessen Kassel which i took to the Bundesliga. After a poor start to the season, I continued to Spain with Recreativo and finished with Udinese. I think about 5-6 seasons in total which is a big number for me. I also had separate saves with Chelsea and Udinese. The main annoying thing with this version was the quality of finishing which could be really badly off. Also the lack of aggression compared to FM 2007 was really easy to notice and this led to some crazy amount of goals especially in smaller leagues such as Finland. In general I would say that FM 2013 was the best. If you look at videos on YouTube, you can still see that the match engine was really well balanced and I think that this was also one of the last versions where all good newgens didn't have crazy physical attributes straight from the start. Honorable mention could go to FM 2009 where it was quite difficult to make your team play well. I had enjoyable international saves with both the Finnish and Mexican national team. Would have played this version way more if I had a better computer and I wasn't in the army that year. And the worst ones? FM 2017 was by far the worst and FM 2010 takes the second place. Neither of these games had very little to do with real football, especially in terms of the match engine.

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.

Interesting tactical thinking. 4-4-1-1 with CMs has always been my favorite tactic when managing in Spain. Don't really follow international football that much anymore but at least ten years ago the 4-2-3-1 variations were more of a Spanish style while 4-3-3 was considered Italian. Those are also still the "traditions" that I like to follow in my saves. It is also nice to see that FM simulates the big three quite well nowadays. Like you said, in Spain it is actually really hard to break the big three. I noticed that with Betis too. In the older versions it was quite easy to win the league in season 2 with a team like Athletic Bilbao for example. Of course this is also a lot down to how you approach the game. Your approach with this career update is fantastic and it has kept me really interested, even after the newgens started to appear. Obviously replacing the newgen faces also deserves some credit.

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.

Good question. Hard to answer though. I have found this version of FM quite difficult but it might be because I am just playing with low block and purposely doing many things to limit my "success potential". If I would compare it to something about ten years ago, I was more successful. On FM 2014 I promoted Boreham Wood to the Premier League by getting promoted every season, except during the first season in the Championship. Next year I played with Real Oviedo, got them promoted from the third level of Spanish football in two years and overtook Real Madrid and Barcelona in my second season in La Liga while mainly still using same players I had in season 1 and 2. In my opinion FM shouldn't be an easy game as it is supposed be a career type of simulation which should include a very big chance of getting sacked for example. Also if a career can last even for hundred years, why should we start winning immediately?

Hopefully I won't do that badly with Palermo, if I ever happen to get promoted. Really interesting read once again. Just have to try and avoid seeing the player attributes too much to keep things hidden in my own save game.

I don't do that kind of 'research' as for me it doesn't matter if I do as well as possible in a computer game. Also when we talk about a football management game and simulation, most of the time you should be failing and struggling.

If you approach the tactical side of the game like you would do in real football, you never have to worry about something not working after a patch. Sensible approaches always work, no matter what. I have never had to alter things just because of an update.