DaneBramage

2027 Youth Intake >>>>>>>>>>>> The preview matches the final message. There's a lot of potential on display, but the personalities and lack of determination is a killer. You wonder how these fellas even find their way to training. At least the top-rated chap, goalkeeper Antonio Cappelletti, has both potential and determination, so he has the best chance of making it. Argentina is the only new nation represented. ----------------------------------------------

January 2027 Departures Pietro Ceccaroni had been my first-choice centre-back for a long time, but he'd just become a liability over the last year or so. I tried giving him a shot at left-back instead, and he went and conceded a penalty in the dying minutes of a game, throwing away a point we deserved. Final straw, it was time to ditch him. ---------------------------------------------- Signings If in doubt, buy another striker. Marko Klepac has come in from my Croatian feeder club, where he'd scored 10 goals in 29 top-flight starts. ----------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------- September 2026 Results From back in March. James Alves Rodrigues has played his part with 4 assists this month, and Hilmir Rafn Mikaelsson (another promoted from the under-20s) has also contributed with a goal and an assist, but other than that, the above still applies now. The defence in particular is completely hopeless. Unless my scouts magically find four good American defenders, I don't know how I can improve this. American goals: 4 (6 for the season) American assists: zero (2 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- USA Senior Squad: 0-2 v Panama, 2-0 v Nicaragua (friendlies) Under-23: 1-2 v Panama (friendly) Under-20: 6-1 v Panama, 4-0 v Nicaragua (friendlies) Under-19: 3-0 v Panama (friendly) ----------------------------------------------

August 2026 Results We should have beaten Alessandria more convincingly, but at least we avoided being knocked out of the Coppa Italia by a team in a lower division this year. We managed a good win over Udinese to kick off our Serie A campaign. James Alves Rodrigues (a Luxembourg winger promoted from the under-20s) scored his first goal for the club, before we were pegged back. In the final ten minutes we snatched victory, Leonardo Sernicola also grabbing his first goal with a 25 yard screamer. And in the dying minutes Giacomo Paciello bounced on a mistake from their goalkeeper to kill the game off. Napoli were just too strong for us. Both centre-backs had a poor day as well, subbed before half-time and each being fined a week's wages. American goals: 2 American assists: 2 ----------------------------------------------

July 2026 Feeder Club I pressured the board a bit more for another affiliate, and this time they relented. An agreement was made with Osijek, in the Croatian top tier. Their facilities are pretty good, so hopefully they'll bring through some decent young talent we can pick up. ---------------------------------------------- Departures Jayden Oosterwolde was my starting left-back, but his release fee of £6 million was met. I offered him out for a little more, and Everton won the battle for his signature. I would have liked to keep him, but there's no competing with Premier League money. Michael Svoboda had been phased out off the first-team over the last few years, and when still called upon he never performed. One poor display too many saw him transfer-listed. ---------------------------------------------- Signings I wanted another striker to give Andrija Novakovic some competition, and with these self-imposed rules options were limited. Ricardo Pepi is the man that caught my eye, 18 goals in 29 games least season as he helped Arminia Bielefeld win promotion to the Bundesliga. Leonardo Sernicola is a more experienced player, and was originally signed to provide cover across the back-line. With the departure of Oosterwolde though he may find himself as our starting left-back. ----------------------------------------------

June 2026 Poached A fifth player stolen away. Doesn't look like he'll be up to much. None of the previous poached players have yet come through elsewhere. ---------------------------------------------- Facilities The board wouldn't let us have another feeder club, despite specifically asking for an American link being one of the options. But after a bit of complaining, all other upgrades were approved. Training Facilities - £1.8 million is being spent to upgrade these from average to good, should be completed by November. Youth Training - £2 million is being spent to upgrade these from average to good, should be completed by December. Junior Coaching - Improved from adequate to good. Youth Recruitment - Improved from good to excellent. ---------------------------------------------- USA Senior Squad: 2-1 v Ukraine (friendly), 1-3 v Norway, 2-0 v Guinea (World Cup Group Stage, finished 2nd in group), 1-2 v Germany (World Cup Second Round) Under-20: 4-0 v Gabon, 2-1 v Spain, 3-1-v Japan (French Youth Invitational Group Stage, finished top of group), 1-2 v Norway (French Youth Invitational Semi-Final), 0-1 v France (French Youth Invitational Third-Place Play-Off) ----------------------------------------------

2026/27 Season Review The Players Nowhere near good enough. Not a single green average rating of 7.00 or above. Andrija Novakovic top scored with 13 goals, but this was well off the pace compared to the last two years. He was also voted player of the season again, but only as the best of a bad bunch. Gianluca Busio wasn't completely useless I suppose, but everyone else was dreadful. ---------------------------------------------- History + Facilities After the sale of Malik Tillman in February we have a strong bank balance now, so I'm going to have to try and find some reinforcements over the summer to get us back on course. I think we can pinpoint our downturn to the moment he left. If we'd repeated our form from the first half of the season we'd have ended up on 54 points, taking 12th place. Our form over the second half of the season, extrapolated out over a whole year, would have seen us get relegated with just 26 points. A horrendous drop-off. We'll also look at improving our facilities again during the break. ---------------------------------------------- The Americans 28 players made an appearance this season, 14 of them were American. We signed 6 players this season, including 3 Americans. Nearly all of our goals came from American players, though we did have a first goal from a player signed from one of our affiliates. ---------------------------------------------- Malik Tillman Hope you're enjoying that German bench. ----------------------------------------------

May 2026 Results At least we ended the season with a win, just our second in the last 18 games. American goals: 5 (40 for the season) American assists: 4 (21 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A In February I was confident that we'd finish 12th or 13th, and 14th place couldn't catch us. We fell to 15th... Absolutely livid with how these last few months went. ----------------------------------------------

April 2026 Results No words. American goals: zero (35 for the season) American assists: 1 (17 for the season) ----------------------------------------------

2026 Youth Intake >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Interesting, this may be a good batch... The assessment hasn't dropped since the two preview, and two potential 5.0 star attacking players is great news. They already have 1.5 star current ability, they could have something about them. And that determination column is by far better than any seen previously. There's only a couple of players with single figure determination, and they're well down the list. All 16 being Italian is a bit boring though. ----------------------------------------------

March 2026 Results There comes a time in every save where I think I really hate this team. I am there now. All three of these matches were against sides in the relegation area. Should have been a nine-pointer, or seven at the very least. Just two, and not even a single win, is embarrassing. Andrija Novakovic did his job this month, everyone else is stealing a living. American goals: 3 (35 for the season) American assists: zero (16 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A A month ago we had an 11 point lead over 14th place. It's now down to just four. ---------------------------------------------- USA Senior Squad: 2-2 v Serbia (friendly) Under-20: 1-2 v Serbia (friendly) ----------------------------------------------

February 2026 Departures As alluded to in my last post, Titas Krapikas left for Crystal Palace. He'd been okay, but I felt there were probably better options out there. But then the big one came along. Bayer Leverkusen met the £10.25 million release clause for Malik Tillman, and he was straight off to Germany. His goals on loan in 2023/24 were a key part in helping us avoid relegation, and although I don't think he ever hit those heights again with us, he was in decent form again now and our top scorer so far this year. It was too late in the window for us to look for a replacement, he'll be a big loss. ---------------------------------------------- Results The win over Lecce was a major relief. We'd been on a horrendous run, so we really needed to snap the streak. The losses themselves weren't necessarily that troubling; there were a lot of difficult games here so the defeats weren't entirely unexpected. But the nature of the games was the problem, shipping goals by the bucketload. Rokas Pukstas has put forward an argument why he should be starting more games, and Andrija Novakovic has found his shooting boots again. But this was a rough start to his time here for Alessandro Plizzari in goal. American goals: 6 (32 for the season) American assists: 3 (16 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A We've dropped a place, but it's fine. Relegation isn't even a thought at the moment, we even have a comfortable gap between us and 14th place. ----------------------------------------------

January 2026 Signings We made a couple of signings this month, both from Serie B. We've had an offer from Crystal Palace for our goalie, so we've brought in a replacement for him. And even if that falls through (currently going through the work permit process), this fella looks like an upgrade. Admittedly, signing the goalkeeper from Pescara when they sit bottom of Serie B doesn't look like the smartest idea, but Alessandro Plizzari has only conceded 25 times in 21 games, so without him it could have been much worse. He has 50 clean sheets over the last three and a half years, including a couple of seasons in Serie C. I thought we'd pulled off a bit of a coup, agreeing a deal with Bologna to sign Ethan Ampadu for £3.3 million. He decided to go elsewhere though, joining Norwich (for £6k a week less than we offered). We'd looked at another Bologna player as well though, and brought in his team-mate Luis Binks instead. Not as good as Ampadu, but pretty much on a par with what we already have at the club, so offers strength in depth. I did have a bit of a brainfart, completely forgetting about Brexit. We already have four non-EU players, so I thought we wouldn't be able to register Binks. But luckily you can still register them if they're coming from another Italian club. ---------------------------------------------- Results Can't argue with this. We lost to the team considerably higher in the table than us, drew with the team in a similar position, and beat the two teams below us. There was a scare against Salernitana, but Gianluca Busio came off the bench to rescue the result. Andrija Novakovic is on a stinking run of form, now 8 games without scoring. American goals: 4 (26 for the season) American assists: 3 (13 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A Still hovering around midtable. ----------------------------------------------

December 2025 Youth Preview We were also told 4.5 star excellent this time last year, and it turned out to be 1.5 star below average. So probably best to assume this means nothing. ---------------------------------------------- Results The draw with Torino was a solid result and made it six games unbeaten, by far our best Serie A run to date. But the defeat to Spezia was appalling. Both centre-backs had a horrendous evening. And let's just pretend the Atalanta game never happened. Tanner Tessmann got sent off after 15 minutes, and from there we got destroyed. We bounced back with a win over Fiorentina, Malik Tillman getting the only goal of the game. He's already bagged more than he did last season. American goals: 4 (22 for the season) American assists: 2 (10 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A We've dropped a couple of places, but have still won more games than we've lost. A comfortable 14 point gap over the relegation area. ----------------------------------------------

November 2025 Results Absolute banger of a game to start the month, goals flying in all over the place against Cagliari. After 90 minutes the score was level, but Malik Tillman added another to complete his hat-trick, before Gianluca Busio killed the game off with the last kick of the evening. The next couple of matches were against tougher opposition, but we held on to get a point from each. An element of luck went our way when Roma had a 93rd minute goal ruled out for an offside in the build-up. American goals: 6 (18 for the season) American assists: 3 (8 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A Still flying high, and bizarrely we're closer to the top than we are the bottom three. ---------------------------------------------- USA Senior Squad: 1-1 v Paraguay, 2-3 v Turkey (friendlies) ----------------------------------------------

October 2025 Results Two wins makes this a good month, but one that should have been even better. Monza and Palermo were two of the sides promoted this season, so beating them was expected. But Lecce were bottom of the table at this time, so losing at home was a big disappointment. American goals: 2 (12 for the season) American assists: 1 (5 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A I'd be amazed if we ended the season in the top-half, but it's a good start. ---------------------------------------------- USA Senior Squad: 2-0* v Ireland (friendly) Gianluca Busio played in this game. Under-23: 2-1 v U.A.E. (friendly) Under-20: 5-0 v U.A.E. (friendly) Under-19: 3-0 v U.A.E. (friendly) ----------------------------------------------

September 2025 Results Doesn't look like the best sequence of results, but I'm happy with this. Beating Genoa was the priority and we managed that, and Andrija Novakovic snatching a late point from Milan was just a bonus. After six games we sit in 9th place. American goals: 4 (10 for the season) American assists: 3 (4 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- USA Senior Squad: 3-1* v Croatia, 0-0* v Switzerland (friendlies) Gianluca Busio played in both games. Under-20: 5-3 v Nicaragua (friendly) Under-19: 3-0 v Switzerland (friendly) ----------------------------------------------

August 2025 Poached That's now four players poached this summer, and the second by Genoa. ---------------------------------------------- Results Perfect start to the season that. Going out of the cup at the earliest stage possible, somehow conceding four times from a 0.99 xGA against a Serie B side. Great work lads, well done. On the plus side Adrian Gill scored on his debut, but at the other end of the pitch Diego Kochen should consider himself lucky he wasn't immediately transfer-listed. While the second-string may have disgraced themselves, at least the first-team have performed in the league. It's always good to get an opening day win, and an away point will do nicely. American goals: 6 American assists: 1 ---------------------------------------------- USA Senior Squad: 3-0 v Jamaica (CONCACAF Gold Cup Final, winners). ----------------------------------------------

I'd gathered that you were probably American, but hadn't picked up that you were a Venezia fan. I've just checked this year's Serie B table, and yeah, that's pretty miserable.

July 2025 Departures A few players left at the end of their contracts. Facundo Zabala, Dennis Johnsen, and Ottar Magnus Karlsson all had important roles at varying times, but all had outlived their usefulness now. ---------------------------------------------- Signings We made four signings this month, none over the age of 20. Three were Americans on free transfers, while the other was an Italian from a feeder club. We started off with a mini-raid on Barcelona, taking a couple of players from them. Adrian Gill doesn't look too far off being a regular starter, his attributes are looking pretty good already. The only issue is making sure he plays enough, as competition for midfield and wing roles is tough. He is 100% American. Coming with him was Diego Kochen. He turned down our advances a few times over the months, eventually agreeing to join when his contract had only a few weeks remaining. He has Peruvian and French as his second (and third) nationalities. Pretty sure he had 5.0 star potential when we scouted him, only 3.5 now is a shame and perhaps indicates why there wasn't much competition to sign him. Evan Rotundo has already been halfway around Europe. He has a French second nationality, but is now moving to Italy after coming through Schalke's youth set-up in Germany, and then spending three years in Belgium with Genk. During that time he made 12 top-flight appearances, and another 80+ second tier appearances with their youth team. Giacomo Paciello is a cheap-as-chips signing from one of my feeder clubs. Doesn't really look up to much but had the highest potential there. No risk at this price. ---------------------------------------------- United States Senior Squad: 2-0 v Canada (friendly), 4-2 v Guadeloupe, 0-0 v El Salvador, 3-2 v Trinidad & Tobago (CONCACAF Gold Cup Group Stage, finished top of group), 1-0 v Haiti (CONCACAF Gold Cup Quarter-Final), 2-1 v Mexico (CONCACAF Gold Cup Semi-Final) ----------------------------------------------

June 2025 Poached Two more academy players stolen away in quick succession. ---------------------------------------------- Facilities + Feeder Clubs Upgrades all round! Training facilities - Due to technological advances these have been re-classed as adequate rather than average. Spending £950k to bring them back up to average, should be completed in November. Youth facilities - Spending £1.6 million to bump these up from adequate to average, should be done by November. Junior coaching - Improved from adequate to good. Youth recruitment - Improved from average to adequate. Apart from feeder clubs. I wasn't allowed a new one. Trento were relegated last season (from Serie C to Serie D) so now I'm left with no affiliates in active leagues. And the link with Union Pro (Serie D) was terminated. ---------------------------------------------- New Stadium A loan has been taken out for £45 million to build a new stadium, which should be completed in time for the 2028/29 season. Funding is being helped by a sponsorship of £21.5 million. Repayments will be £350k per month. Our current capacity is 11,150, which we sell out on a regular basis. The new capacity will be 22,000. ---------------------------------------------- United States Senior Squad: 2-1 v Ghana, 3-0 v Chile (friendlies) Under-23: 3-1 v Ghana, 1-2 v Chile (friendlies) Under-22: 2-1* v Chile (friendly) Rokas Pukstas and Jack McGlynn both played in this game. Under-20: 0-1 v Ghana, 1-0 v Chile (friendlies) ----------------------------------------------

2024/25 Season Review The Players Andrija Novakovic was again the star man, top scorer with 20 goals and voted the fan's player of the season. It feels a bit harsh though that he was the only player to finish with an average rating above 7.00, given that we ended up six positions higher than we were expected to. Luca De La Torre was the next highest contributor, with 7 goals and 10 assists. Titas Krapikas kept a respectable 11 clean sheets in 33 starts. ---------------------------------------------- History + Facilities Our league positions are progressing nicely, improving each season so far. We had our first sets of facilities improved this season, and I'll be asking for more over the summer. We received £2.4 million for the league finish. Our bank balance has doubled, and that's even with spending nearly £5 million more on signings than we received on sales. It's still not massive mind, we can't yet go out spending big cash on new players. ---------------------------------------------- The Americans Nearly all of our goals came from Americans. That's not surprising given that all of our attacking positions are filled up by them. Our strongest line-up generally includes seven Americans, a Lithuanian goalie, Dutch left-back, Italian centre-back, and a Danish midfielder. Of the eight signings this season, six were American. 31 players made first-team appearances for us this season, 13 of them were American. ----------------------------------------------

May 2025 Results I wanted to punch thing after the Cagliari loss. I was resigned to the fact that we wouldn't get anything from this final month. Indiana Vassilev had other ideas. He hadn't done much so far since arriving but he turned on the style against Roma. We were 4-2 down, then Roma were reduced to ten men in the 62nd minute. Vassilev was subbed on in the 79th minute, and 20 minutes later he'd made himself a hero. He terrorised the Roma defence, grabbing two goals within five minutes of entering the pitch, then kept his nerve to clinch his hat-trick and the win with a 97th minute penalty. On the final day Indiana Vassilev scored again, but Taylor Booth took the MotM award for a pair of assists. The final two games were the first time we'd won consecutive Serie A fixtures. Incidentally, I'd adjusted the tactic for these matches, going from vertical tiki-taka to gegenpress. It was just a punt to see if it would have any effect, but it seems silly not to stick with it a bit longer now (or the start of next season anyway). American goals: 7 (44 for the season) American assists: 5 (30 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A We were in 13th place a lot of the season, and we eventually finished there. Can we call this midtable? I think it's borderline, but might just get away with it. After the losses at the start of the month I was worried we'd drop a few places, but the wins to end the season stopped that from being the case. That away goals conceded column is appalling though. When we lose, we often lose big. ---------------------------------------------- United States Under-20: 2-0 v South Korea, 1-3 v Colombia, 3-2 v Germany (World Cup Group Stage, finished 2nd in group), 0-1 v Saudi Arabia (World Cup Second Round) ----------------------------------------------

April 2025 Poached This is the first player we've had stolen away from our academy, and it's to another Serie A side. Hopefully it's a sign that our intakes might be starting to get better, although the 0.5 star potential isn't particularly encouraging. ---------------------------------------------- Results I wanted at least seven points from this month, so six isn't a disaster. We took our customary loss from Hellas Verona, but I was more disappointed by the home defeat against Genoa. Next time out though we battled away to just our second away win of the season. A 91st minute penalty was a pretty sweet way to do it, though lots of the travelling fans were already in the carpark at this point. American goals: 5 (37 for the season) American assists: 2 (25 for the season) ---------------------------------------------- Serie A We dropped a position after the losses, but rebounded back up to 13th with the win over Benevento. And we can't be caught, safety and another season is Serie A has been confirmed. ----------------------------------------------

2025 Youth Intake >>>>>>>>>>> What happened?! Can only assume my HoYD was drunk when he e-mailed the initial preview. Personalities and determination look a lot better than the previous intakes, so that's something at least. And Paraguay is the fifth different nationality we've seen come through. ----------------------------------------------