miguel.pardo

Napoli is one of the most exciting teams in the league, they debut against Man United. Napoli is one of the top contenders to lift the trophy at the end of the season, with a team full of stars like Diego Armando Maradona, Ciro Ferrara, Fernando de Napoli or Careca. On the other hand, Man United will be missing Bryan Robson through injury but will see the debut of Armando, the right back on loan from At. Madrid. The Italians gave no chance to the Red Devils in San Paolo. By the 11th minute, Diego Maradona had scored a brace and had sent a penalty kick to the right post of Jim Leighton's goal. Man United had no response to the runs down the right by Ciro Ferrara and Napoli extended their lead when Giovanni Francini met another cross from Ferrara on the 32nd minute. With the match controlled, Napoli lifted the foot off the accelerator and let the minutes go by. Carnevale sent the ball to the crossbar but the amount of chances decreased dramatically in the 2nd half. Man United's only shot on goal came on a run by Gordon Strachan but it was saved without problems by Giuliano Giuliani.

Sunday 18th of August was the day that saw all the English teams make their debuts in the Super League. The first of them was the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool at White Hart Lane. Liverpool had a lot of players missing through injury in their back line: Barry Venison, Steve Nicol, Alan Hansen and Gary Ablett. Meanwhile, Gary Mabbutt was the only player missing for Spurs. There was only one team in the field as Liverpool trashed Tottenham at White Hart Lane. The visitors didn't seem affected by all their players missing in defense. John Barnes was a constant threat down the left hand side of the attack and he completed a brace, with the third goal scored by Ray Houghton. Tottenham could not keep posession at all and the midfield with Paul Gascoine and Chris Waddle didn't work at all in closing down attacks. Only when they were replaced in the midfield by Vinny Samways and David Howells showed Tottenham some consistency and could get a couple of chances.

The last game on Saturday was an all-Italian affair between Inter and Sampdoria. Both teams had everyone available for today's match. It would be important for Inter to start the season with a win to mount a challenge to win the Super League in this first year. The expectation was for Inter to dominate the match but nothing further from reality. Sampdoria managed to generate much more from their attacks than Inter but had a problem converting their many attempts on goal. Inter however was very effective and managed to get ahead twice in the scoreboard. It looked like the second goal from Alessandro Bianchi would be the one to give Inter the win but an injury time equalizer from Moreno Mannini meant that the two teams had to settle for one point each after the first game of the season.

Atletico de Madrid and AC Milan will start their seasons playing at the Vicente Calderon stadium in downtown Madrid. Atletico and Milan have no important players missing, the only one to be in doubt being Marcos Alonso, who will be in the bench for the locals. AC Milan is one of the top favorites to take the first title of the Super League so they will be keen to start with an away win. The first half was balanced with both teams relatively cagey. It all changed at the start of the 2nd half as Atletico found the lead through a set piece goal from Tomas Reñones. From then on AC Milan piled on the pressure but it wasn't until the 78th minute that Pietro Paolo Virdis could give Milan the goal they were chasing and drew the match.

Second game of the day takes us to northern Spain. The Super League starts for Sporting and Juventus in the north of Spain, at the stadium of El Molinon. Juve will start this match including the recent loanee from Real Madrid, Esteban. The former Sporting player will face his former club for the first time since leaving. However, the Italians won't be able to field Michael Laudrup as he got injured during pre-season training. On the other side, Sporting have a clean bill of health. The game was surprisingly not one sided towards Juventus as Sporting had a few chances, especially in the first half. The Italian team had to wait until the 83rd minute, when subsitute Renato Buso put them ahead to scrape a narrow win. It was a good impact for the 18 year-old who is looking forward to being an established player in the Juve squad.

First game of the season was upon us! The Super League starts for Valencia and Oviedo at the Luis Casanova stadium in Valencia. The hosts have one important player missing in Quique Sanchez Flores, who should be their regular starter in right-back. The only player missing for Oviedo is the loanee from At. Madrid, Carlos Aguilera. He suffered a minor injury in training and the staff did not want to risk a more seriuos injury. The game itself turned out to be quite disappointing. Valencia mostly dominated but lacked the punch in the final third to make it count. A draw will leave Oviedo satisfied but it was not a great spectacle for the vieweres in a game that finished with no clear cut chances at all. I'm linking the Youtube video for the matches, just in case you want to see how this plays out but there is no commentary or anything like that. I do this mostly for my own benefit:

Welcome to my little experiment. I know... FM20 is already a bit dated but here we are. This is one for the nostalgics as I will be basing it on the 1988/89 season. I reproduced the squads of 16 teams (6 from Spain, 5 from Italy and England) and let them fight in a Super League format (plus national trophies plus a cup competition) Some rules / edits: - I removed all current players with a CA of 118 and above. Also removed the top 100 managers (or so). This is so that these teams stick to vintage players. - The players I added are the squads for the 16 teams and some futures signings that they did in real life, those will be playing in the teams they were in 1988. - I added 48 managers that coached these teams in 1988 and subsequent years. The rest of the staff is modern day. - The stats for the players depend on UEFA rankings, the teams they played on and their classification during the years they played and the amount of games they played. This is going to hurt for the English teams because they were banned from European football during these dates. - I am unemployed and won't be managing a team. I like to see how the AI fends for itself. I have compiled a few screenshots from the season preview for you to get an idea of the setup. DISCLAIMERS: - The pace that I take with FM is normally quite slow as I watch every game (and possibly will report them). I hope you are interested. - I support Real Oviedo and that's why I got them and Sporting (our rivals) in. As I followed a set method to produce the player's rankings and the money clubs make, rest assured the game will not suffer any bias. - I am compiling a Facepack for the save but it's a work in progress so you will see some pictures / videos with some images. I will be completing them with time.