[FM13] Second Star to the Right...

[noikeee]

Looks like the kids have still quite a bit to learn. Are they progressing well in training, at least?

[deltablue]

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

Looks like the kids have still quite a bit to learn. Are they progressing well in training, at least?

They are. It's not always easy to tell beyond a few notable attributes that I might be keeping an eye on but thankfully having 'baby pictures' of players when they first sign gives me a point of comparison. 

Your question got me looking over those and the profiles of some players and there is definitely quite a bit of improvement. Even newer players have seen an increase in a number of attributes already. Mexes is already proving to be an interesting example, with a lot of increases of 2-3 (4 in the case of his strength) in just 18 months or so. When I get home I'll repost his initial screenshot along with how he looks now so you can see. 

I was never really worried about whether players would be able to develop at a club like this, especially with plenty of first team action already (which I consider to be very important). I was already getting lots of really positive reports on player development so it's interesting to have taken more of a look for myself

[noikeee]

31 minutes ago, deltablue said:

They are. It's not always easy to tell beyond a few notable attributes that I might be keeping an eye on but thankfully having 'baby pictures' of players when they first sign gives me a point of comparison. 

Your question got me looking over those and the profiles of some players and there is definitely quite a bit of improvement. Even newer players have seen an increase in a number of attributes already. Mexes is already proving to be an interesting example, with a lot of increases of 2-3 (4 in the case of his strength) in just 18 months or so. When I get home I'll repost his initial screenshot along with how he looks now so you can see. 

I was never really worried about whether players would be able to develop at a club like this, especially with plenty of first team action already (which I consider to be very important). I was already getting lots of really positive reports on player development so it's interesting to have taken more of a look for myself

I was just wondering because I never saw you write much on player development, whereas other folks around here go really out of their way to try to improve player personalities, get some tutoring done, get the right kind of staff etc. Since you're going for such a young team I wonder if you're not missing a trick? I don't know exactly how different FM13 was, and it's true that getting minutes on the pitch is the most important thing. But you can get players to develop (much) faster by tutoring them to the right personalities at least. Anything "professional" or the likes is best. Players that are "balanced" for example will tend to develop rather slowly.

[withnail316]

6 minutes ago, noikeee said:

I was just wondering because I never saw you write much on player development, whereas other folks around here go really out of their way to try to improve player personalities, get some tutoring done, get the right kind of staff etc. Since you're going for such a young team I wonder if you're not missing a trick? I don't know exactly how different FM13 was, and it's true that getting minutes on the pitch is the most important thing. But you can get players to develop (much) faster by tutoring them to the right personalities at least. Anything "professional" or the likes is best. Players that are "balanced" for example will tend to develop rather slowly.

Player personality wasn't too much of an issue with development on 13 IMO, although it made sense to use a tutor with a similar personality. If you put a model pro with a player who lacked ambition for example, they would normally just fall out.

[deltablue]

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

I was just wondering because I never saw you write much on player development, whereas other folks around here go really out of their way to try to improve player personalities, get some tutoring done, get the right kind of staff etc. Since you're going for such a young team I wonder if you're not missing a trick? I don't know exactly how different FM13 was, and it's true that getting minutes on the pitch is the most important thing. But you can get players to develop (much) faster by tutoring them to the right personalities at least. Anything "professional" or the likes is best. Players that are "balanced" for example will tend to develop rather slowly.

I don't really write about it for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, my focus has always been on the unfolding events of a career save, as that's how I experience FM, so I don't really do posts focusing on anything else (especially to the level some people do on how players are progressing) as I see it as a time-consuming distraction. It took a long time just to get used to making posts on anything else going on in the game. It also makes more sense for people doing youth careers to get into the habit of writing about these things.

Secondly, I've never been very good when it comes to Tactics and Training, though recently I have picked up a few things (including from Jimbokav1971 on youth development) and put them into practice, and I've at least paid attention to the coaching staff and facilities for a long time. I've also been getting into doing tutoring a bit more often in this career and looking at personalities (including for tutoring purposes), even if only a few of them are obviously good or bad. I know there's a post somewhere on the forums explaining the professionalism and determination ranges of different personality types but I didn't find it as helpful as I thought I would.

It's just an area best left for other people to cover since I don't think there is really that much to tell based on how I've usually done things.

[deltablue]

The strangest thing has just happened. I've just had a match that was either a 0-0 draw with Tomov getting sent off, or a 2-1 win where he was the star player. The main match view (and the bit of the post-match info screen where all the competition results are featured) says the former, not showing any goals at all, but the various info screens show the goals and Tomov having stayed on the pitch, even if I was seeing something different. The game seems to have settled on the 2-1 win but I really didn't expect it to bug out like that. Maybe on new versions there might be a few surprises but surely not older ones I've played so much of without seeing anything like that happen (not that I remember anyway).

[withnail316]

1 hour ago, deltablue said:

The strangest thing has just happened. I've just had a match that was either a 0-0 draw with Tomov getting sent off, or a 2-1 win where he was the star player. The main match view (and the bit of the post-match info screen where all the competition results are featured) says the former, not showing any goals at all, but the various info screens show the goals and Tomov having stayed on the pitch, even if I was seeing something different. The game seems to have settled on the 2-1 win but I really didn't expect it to bug out like that. Maybe on new versions there might be a few surprises but surely not older ones I've played so much of without seeing anything like that happen (not that I remember anyway).

I had a game on 13 recently that I should have won 1-0. I was given a penalty, it was scored, the scorers name appeared at the top of the screen, and a kick off followed - but the score never changed.

The game finished 0-0. Only time I have ever seen it, and I have played 13 for years.

[deltablue]

51 minutes ago, withnail316 said:

I had a game on 13 recently that I should have won 1-0. I was given a penalty, it was scored, the scorers name appeared at the top of the screen, and a kick off followed - but the score never changed.

The game finished 0-0. Only time I have ever seen it, and I have played 13 for years.

In much older versions I think I remember a few incidents of goals 'vanishing' at half time or full time, depending on the half.

[deltablue]

May 2034

After the subtle positive vibes of the last update there were already signs that the schedule was taking its toll and the Modena win was our last for a while as we were running on empty for a while. After only narrowly losing to Napoli in the cup semi-final last season it was far more one-sided this time. With those two cup defeats and multiple hammerings in the league, Napoli are turning into the team I'm most looking forward to beating when we hit our stride. The first leg was also the 100th match at Milan, which seemed to come around surprisingly quickly. The later Livorno win added the 800th career matches milestone.

We managed to wake up to win at Bologna, and while we couldn't immediately follow up against Genoa, things were far more promising after the derby win. The only league match we lost after that was against Napoli (them again) when a straight red card for Dunga while we were still 1-0 up meant we played almost all of the second half with 10 men and we were still very close to getting a 1-1 draw. It wasn't quite enough to make a late push for 6th again, which is frustrating as it would have been enough for a European place this time. 

Getting back into Europe was a 'would be nice' ambition this season, and it's going to be a stronger goal from this point, especially as Italy will how have a 4th CL place again so 6th would definitely be enough and 7th might be as well. We've been in a relatively weak place this season in terms of not being able to assert ourselves in a lot of matches and not always being able to do quite enough when we are able to get opportunities in front of goal. Even then our defensive record is actually good when you consider the pressure we've been under and our goals conceded compared to some of the teams above us. Individual performances have generally been good (though inconsistent) and as the team continues to develop, that will show a lot more . While there are still a few potential positions on my summer shopping list it's going to be more evolution than revolution, just being patient while everyone properly finds their feet and things start to click.

Silva being called up (and playing) for Mexico at the World Cup wasn't a surprise but Nogara making Italy's squad certainly was, especially as he hadn't made a senior international appearance and at just 19 he was 4 years younger than anyone else. He made his debut in a warm-up against... Mexico. A 5-1 win for Mexico makes it clear which one of our players had a better time Still, he managed to recover from that and it looks like he's had some game time in the tournament itself. That's much earlier than I expected for anyone to feature in a major tournament for one of the big nations, and perhaps a few of the players who had to settle for the Euro U21 tournament this summer will break through in time for the senior version in 2 years time.

Star Player: Why did Empoli let us have him for just 1.1M? My first signing (though Gilson was technically the first deal made) had a slow first month as shown in his initial screenshot, but he very quickly started putting in some very strong performances and he just dropped below 7.40 at the end of that season. He only managed 7.30 in his first full season but he set a new record this year.

Squad Stats

[deltablue]

World Cup 2034 - Japan

OK, so that happened! The last World Cup was pretty dull in terms of surprise packages, but this time it was anything but. When I first reviewed the draw I was rather pessimistic about Mexico's chances with Germany and Colombia, then they lost their opening game to New Zealand, the supposedly easy team, and they looked set for a 3rd group stage exit in a row. However two wins saw them through, then they knocked out a very strong French team who had cruised through their group, and which would have caused split loyalties in the family. Argentina were beaten in the quarter-finals (sounds familiar) before reaching the final with a win over Iran. Spain were looking to retain their title and still looked devilishly strong but Mexico somehow survived to penalties and sealed an incredible victory, the second time in a row that the holders have been beaten finalists. Since it was on penalties Spain technically continue a record unbeaten run in the finals of 20 matches and counting, as they also went out on penalties in 2026 and 2022, the opening match in the latter tournament seeing their last 'proper' defeat in the competition. To Bulgaria. The game moves in mysterious ways.

Iran are also worthy of mention. They're were a very strong side in the 2020's but not so much now. Moradi took a long time to break into the side back then with a lot of competition but even as a 30yr old shadow of his former self (still at Bucaspor by the way) he's clear first choice now, which makes it interesting that this happens to be when they finally make it past the second round, having just squeezed past an admittedly tough group. Hosts Japan are another regional giant from last decade who look a lot weaker and their home World Cup must have been something of a disappointment, just squeaking past the Czech Republic and Senegal in their group before defeat to Brazil.

Going around the continents, we get to Egypt. They were African champions 3 years ago but hadn't made it past the quarter-finals in the game otherwise, and had previously just registered 3 group stage exits in the World Cup. They had a few stars (including an injured Arsenal forward, shocking I know) but were very weak beyond that, with a lot of domestically-based players. They did well to qualify from their group ahead of a stronger Serbia side before surprisingly knocking out an Italy side who just can't catch a break. Somehow beating England on penalties in the quarter-finals wasn't that much of a shock but while they were torn apart by Spain in the semi-final, they at least secured 3rd.

The tournament did have a few notable underperforming teams that haven't been mentioned at all. Turkey (with Leonardo Robert and Falcao) probably would have hoped to qualify ahead of Norway. Morocco and South Korea (to a lesser extent) would have seen themselves as part of a group of death along with Spain and Portugal but the Iberians found it surprisingly easy. Reigning African champions Ivory Coast were the losers in an otherwise open group with the USA, Russia and Peru. After so few talking points last time it's nice to see the World Cups in this save return to being full of surprises, though we haven't seen an African or Asian winner yet. Maybe one day. As a recap, the winners so far are Wales (yes really), Ecuador (ditto), Colombia, Netherlands, Spain and now Mexico, with Uruguay, Romania and Morocco among the beaten finalists.

Silva played every single minute, in fact aside from a few times last Autumn when he was taken off, he's done so since his debut just after signing for us. Back then Mexico were just ranked 32nd, though it was up to 15th pre-tournament. Nogara did get a couple of appearances in the group stage, though neither was a full game. Surely Simonetti isn't going to be far off joining him in the senior squad.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Just caught up with this, shame you couldn't retain the title in your final year Turkey but you did well stopping Gala for a season, the decision to wait for the Milan job was a good one for you as I remember you loved being there on FM11 (I think it was?) I hoped you could improve on your first full season but can also see yo are trying to bring your own players in still and a few of these need to grow so with that in mind a slight backwards step short term isn't bad if it improves you long term. 

[deltablue]

7 hours ago, Dexter_Morgan said:

Just caught up with this, shame you couldn't retain the title in your final year Turkey but you did well stopping Gala for a season, the decision to wait for the Milan job was a good one for you as I remember you loved being there on FM11 (I think it was?) I hoped you could improve on your first full season but can also see yo are trying to bring your own players in still and a few of these need to grow so with that in mind a slight backwards step short term isn't bad if it improves you long term. 

Bucaspor have certainly done fine without me, winning the following 2 titles and missing out on a 3rd on head-to-head results (with slightly superior goal difference, but that's not how it works in Turkey), along with a stadium expansion to 15,000, shortly followed by a new 25,000 stadium, whereas the capacity was just over 10,000 originally.

I've mostly finished with trying to overhaul the team but as for a few still needing to grow, try ' pretty much all of them' I've done this a few times before so I know what to expect, including the fact that it will take a while for things to click.

[deltablue]

Summer 2034

The goal of European qualification was strengthened by the fact that it was the board expectation, as well as an achievable promise (and I don't make them otherwise) to make to Fagner when he started making noises about wanting to go a more successful club, always a danger in this situation with some players developing faster than the club, especially as Fagner was a more established player to begin with. Still we can now boast a World Cup winner in the team so how hard can it be? This reminds me of the time I got promoted to the Premier League with Ipswich (it was the first stint of the three on 'Thunderbird Delta') with a keeper who had won the World Cup with Japan the previous summer.

Anyway despite scouting almost 2,500 players (like last year) it took a while to good potential signings to surface again. Whenever I go for young players in a big league, I always end up knocking on Boca Juniors' door eventually and while not top of my positional list, Salazar still looked worthwhile, especially as a potential new first-choice right-back. The next two were to fill gaps in the squad. Finding a star winger can be surprisingly hard sometimes on this version, having had to wait a while before uncovering Andronov in the Ipswich career, and now I need to find a backup/alternative for Silva. Dunga was now trained for the wing and while looking for midfielders to help cover in case he ended up being deployed there as a 'Plan B' in the absence of any standout potential winger signings, I found young Trabelsi who was already competent on the wing (and in central midfield and up front), helping make that a training focus, and a Model Pro helping to give me confidence in his potential. Marco Aurelio was a more straightforward 'squad depth' signing, helped by being a Model Pro as well and the fact that neither cost very much, especially compared to Salazar which fits their contrasting squad statuses , at least for now.

The hunt for any more potential signings led to van den Hoogenband, providing competition for Gilson (who isn't as reliable right now as I'd like) as well as being potentially an excellent poacher indeed, even if he wouldn't be much good at anything else. Despite having quite a lot of budget left I felt satisfied after that, especially in the absence of anyone else I was strongly interested in.  With 4 signings in various positions, I felt confident about having made more decent investment the squad without changing too much this time, and hopefully we can benefit from a more settled team that keeps improving with experience.

It is still an incredibly young and inexperienced squad, with a lower average age (a little under 20 years old) than last season. Mexes is still considered the league's youngest player having just turned 17. Not sure why it's not Trabelsi but maybe it has to do with squad selection or having actually made appearances. However with Salazar being the only signing likely to feature in the short-term, hopefully the lack of big changes and the extra year's experience and development of everyone else can make enough of a difference. This is also probably the 'low point' in terms of the extreme youth of the squad (at least as a whole with the first 11 mostly just getting a year older) and from this point on we should start to see the benefits of the team starting to mature, even if that's going to be a long process.

Signings

 

[noikeee]

On 22/03/2017 at 17:55, deltablue said:

I've mostly finished with trying to overhaul the team but as for a few still needing to grow, try ' pretty much all of them' I've done this a few times before so I know what to expect, including the fact that it will take a while for things to click.

You're far, far, far more patient than I am. I'd have either hired a boatload more players or rage quit into another club already.

Don't think I ever managed such a young team though! You Wenger! 

[Benjoe]

Some huge and very interesting talents you've got on here!

I also like the avg. age at under 20! Now they just need some hair on the chest and you've got yourself some future team. Mexes and Simonetti are obviously huge but I like Eddy Bouwhuis very much too. 

[deltablue]

15 hours ago, noikeee said:

You're far, far, far more patient than I am. I'd have either hired a boatload more players or rage quit into another club already.

Don't think I ever managed such a young team though! You Wenger! 

I don't think it's quite my record for a young team, but it's probably the youngest team I've ever had where I've had a choice, lets put it that way

14 hours ago, Benjoe said:

Some huge and very interesting talents you've got on here!

I also like the avg. age at under 20! Now they just need some hair on the chest and you've got yourself some future team. Mexes and Simonetti are obviously huge but I like Eddy Bouwhuis very much too. 

I reckon World Soccer could do a whole special Milan edition of their 'Talent Scout' feature Looking at Bouwhuis makes me wonder why I didn't buy him the first time, especially as he would have been half the price that Taylor was. Maybe I'd already bought the Englishman and needed to focus my relatively limited budget on other positions. Still I ended up getting him for nothing so it all worked out. He made his full international debut in August, joining a list of senior internationals that's growing surprisingly fast, as we're currently up to 9. As expected, Simonetti got called up after the World Cup and seems to be a regular already, and surprisingly so has Cardia, with Nogara becoming more established (more than he is a club level actually with Salazar's arrival), though interestingly enough having made his debut in a 5-1 defeat to Mexico just before the World Cup, exactly the same thing happened in September (Silva assisted one in each match).

[deltablue]

Oct 2034

After a strong finish to last season I had hoped for better to start off this season. An opening day draw at Bologna wasn't too bad as they finished 5th last year, but the other two were more disappointing. We managed to beat Roma though very unconvincingly before a more deserved win at Genoa (eventually) seemed to wake us up a little. We managed to get an unlikely win over Juventus on the break, before just about besting Napoli. Gilson hadn't shone as much as I expected after his first season, though I partly chalk that down to seeing the veteran Kassel replaced as his partner with Mexes, under half the American's age and so green he could summon the Dragonzord, so it was great to see him burst into life. That set up an unlikely top of the table clash at Pescara where we took the lead but failed to take the opportunity to regain it early in the second half after their equalizer. We've had a few short-lived false dawns but we're at least up where we want to be for the time being.

[deltablue]

Dec 2034

I had a feeling the October form was only a blip, not least as I'd already played the Crotone match (a missed opportunity to win) when I posted that update. It didn't help that in November we lost 3 players to injuries in consecutive games, Bouwhuis and Tomov for 5-6 weeks, followed by Salazar for about half that. It may not look like much has changed on the surface but at least we've 'upgraded' the problems we're having.  Early on we often had to fight hard for results and resist a lot of pressure even against the weaker teams. Now we're having more games where we're able to show some genuine attacking threat but not doing enough to bury really good chances on a consistent basis.

At the moment I'm still seeing a lot of draws as a positive thing, keeping our loss column down, as well as managing to have a better defensive record than some of the teams above us again despite conceding 3 against Cesena and Inter. This is helped by the last minute comeback after being 2-0 down at half time against Lazio, and as well as getting a draw from a 3-0 disadvantage in the derby. However there's still a feeling of what might have been in a few of the closer games, best shown by the Fiorentina match where Gilson missed a penalty with 15 minutes left and the score at 1-1, with the cup defeat to Sampdoria (though I can think of worse things to happen) being one of those with a single decisive moment making the difference.  With the league poised the way it is in relation to the battle for the European places it feels like we could be a few places higher and in a much better position. However the final two opponents we haven't faced yet are Cremonese and Atalanta which should give us 4-6 points before we reach half way, which could really help, along with the fact that with the AFCON and the Asian Cup early next year, rivals and opponents might be weakened while we have no African or Asian player at all.

Mexes sums the team up pretty well at the moment. Aside from an unsurprising lack of consistency (though he has been much better in the last two months), he's not doing that badly for such a young player (and he only turned 17 in August) in a big league, but its too early to expect him to really make an impact, not for 2-3 years in his specific case. There is also an issue with some players being too well developed already. I know that sounds like an odd thing to say as a negative but it means that they not likely to grow as much as I expected them to. There are always going to players who don't make it in the long-term and I'm already starting to think of those who we might be able to upgrade on given the opportunity.

[deltablue]

AFCON 2035 - South Africa

The Ivory Coast put the disappointment of the World Cup behind them with a 3rd African title in the last 4, Nigeria being beaten finalists for the second time in a row, and the 5th in just 16 years. Algeria had been 3rd for the past two tournaments, Tunisia for the two before that, and the Tunisians retook their 'title' against their neighbours this time. Gambia were surprise group winners, along with Angola, but the both fell in the quarter-finals. Hosts South Africa fell in the group stage.

[deltablue]

Asian Cup 2035- Bahrain

Finally we have a change in Asia, with an end to the Japan/South Korea duopoly. Iran have long been the favourites to do so but having made the World Cup semi-finals last year, they failed to make it that far on a continental level, losing to hosts and surprise package Bahrain. Usually Japan and South Korea only went out to each other, and with Japan having had the upper hand in recent years, the Koreans got revenge in the Quarter-finals over a Japan side who had already looked like a shadow of the former selves as recent World Cup hosts. However it was the Chinese who surprisingly swept all before them, having only made it out of the group stage once since 2004, lifting the trophy after a rematch with group stage opponents Bahrain, who had knocked out the previous beaten finalists Qatar in the semifinals.

[deltablue]

Mar 2035

Not perfect but still a lot better. As expected we started the year with 4 points from the two games that took us up to the halfway stage, then took advantage of a comfortable run of games after that to build up some momentum. It's painfully obvious that we have two people to thank for this, well the second may not be quite so obvious. The first is Gilson who has been rather a patchy player (though his goal scoring record is still good given he really does rack them up when on form) but has hit some consistency so far this year, to devastating effect. It's wonderful to watch him regularly make a break and fire a low shot home past an advancing goalkeeper. Speaking of goalkeepers, Cardia is the other key player, leading the clean sheet rankings with 12, despite going through a dry spell, or would that be a wet, muddy spell? Looking around the statistics, Dunga is joint-top for distance covered per match, Mexes was clearly leading the pack on key passes though he's dropped to second, Gilson has surged up the scoring rankings to be a few goals clear (having been clearly trailing in second place for a while) with 25, and oddly enough the rest of the top 5 are made up of players from Crotone, Cagliari, Pescara and Atalanta respectively.

Anyway our run of form gave us more of a safety margin in the European places, which was useful as we had some of the tougher games in quick succession. After snatching a late Roma draw, it was disappointing to fall to a first league defeat in 12 against Genoa ahead of trips to Juventus, but having stayed in the 4th place we had risen to even after losing to Juve as well, a narrow win at Napoli actually took us above the reigning champions into 3rd! We build up a 10-point gap over 5th before stumbling a little, failing to beat 10-man Fiorentina and having a shocker against bottom side Livorno, slashing it to 5 points. However the remaining fixtures aren't that terrible on paper. The home derby stands out but otherwise Cesena and Sampdoria are the only remaining opponents in the top 12, and they're at home as well. It would be great to do enough to clinch Milan's first top 3 finish for 22 years (in the first season of the save) but it's a warm enough feeling being in such a strong position to get back into Europe at all, especially with Champions League qualification being a strong possibility, and that would be utterly huge at this stage.

 

 

[noikeee]

Great breakthrough this season, the kids are coming good. Don't want to jinx you but surely this is the year for Champions League football.

[deltablue]

12 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Great breakthrough this season, the kids are coming good. Don't want to jinx you but surely this is the year for Champions League football.

If it helps, I've finished the season so I think you're safe from jinxing me Will post later to reveal all.

[deltablue]

May 2035

That didn't go too badly. I was hoping to do well enough to hold on to 3rd, certainly not make up a 7-point gap to Inter and absolutely leave them in the dust by the end. Even with a fantastic 8 wins out of 8 (which I really wasn't expecting), we were greatly helped by how badly Inter and Napoli finished the season, getting 17 point and 15 point swings over them respectively in just 8 matches! It didn't take long for our Champions League place to seem secure, and we had already overtaken Inter by the time the derby came around, just getting further and further ahead from that point.

That shouldn't take anything away from how good we were, especially since some idiot (me) thought we were stumbling in March. I mentioned earlier in the season that we had made some progress in creating more of an attacking threat but not been able to help things tip our way. However now not only were we winning consistently, we were also doing it far more convincingly than before, which is a very positive sign even considering the relatively unchallenging run of matches we had, as previously we had only shone in very short bursts. Even in February/March our league position seemed to have a lot more to do with a good defensive record than with an ability to get a lot of goals at the other end but our goal difference really rocketed later on along with our points tally.

Gilson remained in hot form. He had 10 goals in 17 league games going into the break, which sounds less impressive when you consider a majority of those came within the space of a few September/October games, and I had mentioned how he had seemed to be that sort of player, but he was unstoppable from January, getting 27 goals in 2035 so far, not just sending him way ahead at the top of the scoring charts (though he only won the European Golden Boot by 2 points), but he set a new all-time Serie A goal-scoring record as well, and I'm talking about a historical record here, going back to the 1920's, not just within the time-frame of the save.

Mexes decided to chime in with some more later on as well, weakening our reliability on the Brazilian. Being in the secondary forward role I don't necessarily expect him to bag large amounts of goals each year (though he probably could end up scoring plenty once he hits his peak), especially not when he's still just 17, but it's still nice to see him show what he can do on that front already. 30 goals in 2 and a bit years (76 matches in total so far) doesn't sound that great, especially as they've come in waves (like Gilson until recently) rather than being consistently spread out, but how many goals did you score for A.C. Milan before your 18th birthday? Exactly. It also means he's already weighing in at having cost under £1k per goal, and is worth over 100 times as much as what we paid for him.

I'm still a little cautious about next season. Firstly, as mentioned before, we had poor form by rivals work in our favour to an insane degree. I also doubt we'd been able to turn up the pace the way we did in January/February with a few tough cup games thrown in there, not to mention all the extra European games coming, which will take time to adjust to. After just one year of getting it back, Italy has lost its 4th CL place (and 7th European spot) making that battle tougher again for the time being. However it's such a big boost both in terms of standing and money, especially with a wage bill still clocking in at around 350kpw, plus we go straight into the Group stage, quite a relief having endured so many summer European games in Turkey.

Star Player: No surprises here (even though Bouwhuis beat him to set a new average rating record). Not bad given I was considering his long-term future as our main goalscoring threat beforehand.

Squad Stats

[deltablue]

Gold Cup 2035

I had high hopes for Mexico completing a continental/world double, but they failed to get anywhere near it (meaning Colombia are still alone in managing it during the save so far), missing out on top spot in the group to Costa Rica before falling to penalties against the USA. The USA firmly bounced back from their humiliation against St Lucia last time to comfortably win, with the Canadians having another strong tournament, taking the final to extra time.

[deltablue]

Copa America 2035 - Paraguay

Argentina seem to have very much got their international mojo back, retaining the title (and making it 5 wins out of 7 so far) having already broken out of their run of 3 World Cup group stage exits in a row, as they seem to have made 2nd place in the World Rankings very much their own in the past couple of years, and as that's as far back as the graph goes, probably a lot longer. Maybe they'll have a strong shot at the next World Cup in Morocco in 3 years time. Venezuela also stood out as having a good tournament, in contrast to Chile.

[Keano16]

That's what you love to see, a fixture list full of green to finish the season. Great step forward! 

[deltablue]

Summer 2035

You'd think that with all the extra Champions League money coming this would be a summer of some big reinforcements coming in, and you'd be half-right. Eventually. Having managed the short-term overhaul of the squad that was so badly needed, new signings are unlikely to be regulars right away. With left-back remaining a weak spot (especially with the 31yr old Ferraguto still first choice) that added an incentive to make an earlier move than in recent years, though aside from his potential in a position that badly needed someone to come good eventually, Chlup didn't seem to be the most exciting signing.

For a while, it looked like other good players were thin on the ground, and occasionally there are dry spells in terms of obvious top class young talent, but sales had helped boost a starting transfer budget of 30M (and over 100kpw wage budget spare). One of the good things about getting in young players is that if they're not working out they're not too hard to sell, often at a profit as Taylor was the only player sold at a loss out of the mini clear-out. I was especially happy to get rid of the players who were constant targets for co-ownership bids, especially from Juventus and Napoli, and as they were doing it all season long (not just in the windows) it was driving me nuts.

Both Xuxinha and Winkler changed everything, especially in terms of reshuffling the midfielders. Silva was only really a stop-gap on the wing, while Dunga could now play there, and Tomov was better suited as a playmaker than central midfielder I originally bought him to be, along with Milinovic already looking good in the latter role in a couple of seasons as a semi-regular, so there was a slight domino effect, and actually Milinovic-Tomov-Dunga had worked last season during the brief periods I was able to try it, with Trabelsi already looking like he'd end up being an excellent wide man (so was promoted to second choice so he could have a few opportunities, Silva being ditched altogether) , with the new signings making it possible squad-wise.

I'd say Winkler is the signing I'm most excited about, probably relegating Tomov to second choice eventually, and a clear squad upgrade on Bazzani. The Carranza signing was made on the same basis, pushing out Taylor. After that I didn't really need anyone else for now, but going for young players does encourage making a few 'extra' signings sometimes as low-risk investments (if they're not too expensive) and to help cover for instances of players failing to become genuine stars, as well as there being a more pragmatic motivation of making sure that if they do make it, they'll be doing so for us and not a rival Cetinkaya gives us a reliable backup keeper, though not one who is likely to challenge Cardia for the No.1 shirt, and while Peric could end up easily besting Salazar for the No.2 shirt, even though that would mean leaving Nogara high and dry. It helps that I really wanted to get him in last season but couldn't. Serbian is his second nationality in case you were wondering.

Signings

[deltablue]

29 minutes ago, Keano16 said:

That's what you love to see, a fixture list full of green to finish the season. Great step forward! 

It is indeed wonderful to see, but we have already made a habit of ending seasons strongly and not being able to build on that the following year, even the first half of last season, so I'm waiting to see if we can hit the ground running this time.

[deltablue]

CL Draw

I knew we'd face a tough draw, especially as 4th seeds, and that certainly looks like a challenging one. However it could have been worse, as I feel we have a chance of qualifying ahead of PSV and Shakhtar, though like with a lot of groups I had at Bucaspor, it's a tough one to predict with relatively closely matched teams. At the very least I hope we can make 3rd and build up experience with a Europa League run, and at this point I feel it's a bit of a win-win situation in regard to Europe with both competitions potentially providing benefits until we feel more established.

[deltablue]

Sept(-ish) 2035

I think we're really starting to click, starting off the season with 3-0 victories against decent teams who would have been much more difficult before, and ending up taking our winning run from the end of last season to a new club record 14 matches. I knew the real challenge would be when the European games started, not just because of energy levels (though that hasn't been an issue so far) but also since often teams tend to take it more slowly even without instructions ahead of a big midweek cup of European match, and indeed we seemed to have a much tougher time of it at Genoa before van den Hoogenband came on to save the day, setting up Mexes' opener and scoring the winner.

I was looking to give van den Hoogenband and Gomes more of an opportunity this season, as they were potentially far too good to be wasting away on the bench most of the time behind Mexes and Gilson, and had done well whenever they had gotten a brief opportunity, so I decided to start the Dutchman against his old club in the Champions League, helped by the fact that he already looked very similar to Gilson despite being 4 years younger, and he repaid the faith with two great goals, bagging a 4th in just 1 and 2 half matches against Lazio before a broken arm prematurely ended his run in the team, but he'd certainly fired a strong warning shot that he was after the No.11 shirt in the long-term, and he might actually take it in a couple of years time.

The winning run came to an end at Torino, though away draws (especially with a clean sheet attached) aren't the worst of results to get ever so often, even against a struggling team like Torino, and that still made for a very strong start to the season, even if we were far from alone in that. The second Champions League game didn't start so well, with 2 early Shakhtar goals (the first direct from a free-kick) meaning that this was the first time since the mid-March Livorno defeat (our last in any competition) that we've conceded multiple goals in a game. We hauled it back to 2-2 and even took the lead from Gomes, taking his turn to benefit from a poor Gilson performance, and while they still equalized to make it 3-3, I felt it was a decent away European result. Milan were knocked out at the group stage both times they were in the competition previously (the first two seasons of the save) but at the moment we're looking good to avoid that fate.

The team is working beautifully together. Cardia was already starting to establish himself as a (mostly) safe pair of hands as well as Italy's first choice at the age of just 21, Simonetti and Bouwhuis are an incredible centre-back partnership, Fagner's extra experience is really showing in the more dynamic ball-playing role, the full-backs are managing to get themselves pretty far up the pitch when attacking while still giving us the numbers when defending. Milinovic and Tomov are bossing the midfield, aided by the full-backs or Mexes (who can drop seriously deep) depending on the situation, Dunga has taken to playing on the wing like a duck to water, Mexes has really stepped up so far this year, with 8 assists already (compared to 10 for the whole of last season), and a peach of a goal from distance against Lazio that I never expected him to even attempt, while Gilson and van den Hoogenband have been racking up the goals alongside him.

There is definitely even more to come especially when we finally have a world-class pair of full-backs (though Peric is probably the long-term solution on the right at least, we'll see about Chlup on the left). I'm also more comfortable about changing things around (like with van den Hoogenband, and keeping Marco Aurelio in for a while after Bouwhuis started the season with a suspension) to give other players a chance (though things have gone so well those have mostly been a sub appearance or two so far) because the depth is so much better than before, and like I mentioned regarding the forwards, I really don't want to waste good.

[noikeee]

Decent form. 

Milan seems to really be going places now.

[deltablue]

1 hour ago, noikeee said:

Decent form. 

Milan seems to really be going places now.

Yep, we've got quite a dream team developing

[deltablue]

Dec 2035

We just kept on going for a while, but one thing that stuck in the back of my mind was that we had avoided the toughest games until much later on. Cesena were the closest we'd come until December, along with Fiorentina and Bologna but those were all at home. That gave us Roma, the 'away' derby and Juventus as the last 3 league matches before the Christmas break, and Napoli away afterwards, which I knew had the potential to bring us crashing down to earth. The heavy fixture schedule didn't seem to be as much of a problem as I thought, with a few midweek league games as well as the European matches, and it wasn't until Atalanta that I needed to rest a few 'A team' players, though in a way they're almost all A's, even if some are A+.

While we made it to December with just a single league goal conceded, there were already signs in the previous few matches that we were slowing down, and performance levels were clearly dropping. That didn't make what happened against Roma any easier to bear. Worse was Milinovic going off with a torn calf muscle that would rule him out for almost 4 months. While the 19yr old Croatian midfielder may not seem to be the biggest loss on paper, he was arguably our most reliable player, in fact that was the first match of the season where his rating was beneath the 7's. Xuxinha is already decent enough but he just doesn't have that level of consistency in him, at least not yet.

Things continued to look like they were taking a turn for the worst against Inter when we quickly went 2-0 down. Mexes fought hard to make it 2-2 before a penalty condemned us to defeat anyway, having been denied one of our own earlier. Having been top between the Cesena and Roma games, we were now 5 points adrift of Juventus, and given how high the bar was for us to have any chance of challenging them, I knew we couldn't afford to slip further away and a narrow 1-0 win improved my spirits immensely, however we'll probably lose those points again at Napoli in January, especially with Mexes suspended and Cardia out with a virus.

Cardia (along with Fagner) was at the center of a storm that added to our December troubles. Earlier last season the two came to me wanting to move to a bigger club, which didn't surprise me as we were struggling to break into the European places at the time and I had a feeling a few players would potentially 'outgrow' the club in the short-term. I very rarely make promises in that situation but with a decent chance of Europa League qualification (which was the target anyway) I felt safe telling them we'd be in the Europa League next season. Unfortunately making the Champions League instead counts as having broken that promise, which I guess is true in a literal sense but logically they should be more than satisfied that we're at least matching their ambitions right now.

To make matters worse, this happened during contract renewals, including Fagner's, with the result that he refused to sign and we'll probably lose him on a free in the summer, unless the broken promise unhappiness goes away fairly soon, especially with the general situation otherwise being very favourable. Cardia has an extra year (which is just as well as he'd be a far bigger loss) so I'm more hopeful about him. I understand why players' 'minds' operate on such limited lines, especially on older versions, but it still feels like such unnecessary drama, especially if it means losing a player.

Anyway to Europe. Sevilla looked like the toughest team in the group so I was surprised to get what was admittedly a smash and grab win in Spain, followed by a win at home where we looked a bit more convincing, giving us one foot in the next round. We just needed a point from the trip to PSV to do it (and would secure top if we won) with a match spare which seemed easier when they went down to 10 men early on. However this was when I already felt we had dropped out of top gear, and we needed two Gilson equalizers to do it. We now just needed a point at home against Shakhtar to clinch top spot and for a lot of the match it looked like we were strolling to it, especially with Sevilla leaving it late against PSV. It was disappointing letting it slip like that, especially the second goal which was one of those 'keeper leaves an open goal and makes a poor clearance' situations. Shakhtar seem to be our defence's kryptonite as at that point, they had scored half the goals we had conceded in all competitions. Still we managed to get the job done and finish top, something I really wasn't expecting, especially going into the draw as 4th-level seeds and imagining a very tough CL baptism of fire whoever we got.

And our next opponents are...

Well that could have been a lot easier! However while Chelsea are obviously a good side, they don't actually look as scary as I thought they'd be, and their record bears that out. They were runners up in the Premier League last season but have rarely been higher than 3rd in recent years, and were 4th at the time the draw was made. It'll probably be a close one and we'll still be missing Milinovic at the very least, but I feel we could potentially beat them.

 

[deltablue]

Jan 2036

As expected, Napoli didn't go at all well, not the first time anyway, though a less mediocre performance might gave given us something. It didn't help that we were starting to rack up injuries and suspensions. Gomes was injured against Napoli (in place of the suspended Mexes), soon followed by van den Hoogenband, meaning we had no backup up front. Xuxinha joined Milinovic (though only for a few weeks thankfully) putting us in the same position in midfield during hectic period of matches.

We needed to get back to winning ways but threw away the opportunity (well, Cardia did with a poor clearance to an opposing forward) against Parma in the league, and only just avoided the same fate at Modena, benefiting from a late own goal from a very messy goalmouth scrap, but I didn't care. The cup game against Parma had to be played in defensive and low tempo mode to save energy which still allowed us to pull off a win but didn't do us much good back in the league with a disappointing home defeat to Cagliari dropping us to 4th. We did at least enjoy what would be our only free midweek in January or February before beating Pescara (despite suspensions to Salazar and Bouwhuis adding to our list of absences).

I wasn't too optimistic for a rematch with Napoli in the cup, but like with Parma in the last round we managed to do better than in the league, making our chances count in a very even game (the shot stats were equal) to avenge our back-to-back semi final defeats and setting up a Milan derby semi-final, with the winner playing Cesena or Bologna, who make up a very closely matched final four in the cup. That win certainly did a lot to lift the spirits, though with the fixture list remaining hectic (we only have one free midweek until mid-March) it won't be easy building on that and getting back up to speed in the league, even with a relatively generous run of league matches, Fiorentina away being the exception.

[deltablue]

May 2036

A season that was going so well up to December had seen things get a lot tougher. This is best exemplified by a defence that had only conceded one league goal before December (to the point that a 2-0 defeat to Roma was a shock) but had turned into a complete mess, maybe partly due to the Fagner/Cardia drama, the former set to leave for Atletico Madrid while the latter at least got over his unhappiness in late March and signed a new deal. We were still able to take advantage of a run of weaker league opponents to keep winning but we were making it harder for ourselves, and we were sitting ducks for the stronger teams, with our ties against Inter and Chelsea being all but over after the first legs.

We remained in 4th but were in a 3-way tie for 2nd after Empoli. Unfortunately drawing a blank against Torino was followed by a disaster at Cesena. Gilson gave us the lead but Bouwhuis conceded a penalty, scored an own-goal, then got sent off before half-time, with Simonetti soon following with a straight red, and while Gilson had pulled it back to 3-2 by that point, I knew we were set for a hammering after that, though we only lost a single point over Roma, who we'd be battling with for 3rd until the very end. Things seemed to have picked up with the Palermo and Bologna wins which gave me hope we could at last recover some pride against Chelsea but it's fair to say that quickly went down the drain, with perhaps the worst performance of my Milan reign (especially considering it remained 11 vs 11 this time).

It didn't help that we ended up giving up 6 penalties between Torino and Sampdoria, with Cardia saving 2 of the first 3, technically saving the last as well (though they scored from the rebound), and that proved especially costly against Crotone, where one of them was the only goal until near the end. With the tough fixtures returning, I was worried we were missing our chance to get ahead of Roma but when we faced them we were able to pull off a win to give us the advantage. That didn't last as we drew the next three, which I couldn't complain too much about aside from Napoli were we were 2-0 ahead and still had the lead when Milinovic got sent off. 

We won our penultimate two matches but still trailed Roma narrowly on the head-to-head record (thanks to a late consolation in our second clash that went in off the crossbar then Cardia, though they would have had a slight goal difference advantage anyway) meaning we needed to beat their result on the final day. It looked good when Tomov gave us the lead at Cagliari and Roma went behind against Crotone. Unfortunately Bouwhuis' attempt at heading the ball behind the goal ended up putting it in (probably giving him the opportunity to learn some new Italian curses from Cardia) and they took the lead immediately afterwards, while Roma equalized. It was all out attack later on as it looked like we needed a win, but as it turned out an equalizer would have sufficed as Roma went on to concede again and lose 2-1 as well, still enough to beat us to the last CL place by a very narrow margin. I guess I couldn't complain too much as we had thrown away just too many goals and results.

While I wanted to stay in the Champions League to stop too many instances of players wanting to make a step up in club, it wasn't the end of the world, especially as I hope a good Europa League run or two could be very useful in boosting our coefficient and reputation. We had made a massive £80M profit during the season, taking us up to almost £100M in the bank, a far cry from my first couple of seasons when it took a lot of work to scrape together any sort of a budget. It helped that even with players starting to get pay rises we still finished the season with a wage bill that was only the 12th highest in the league, so we'd still be on a very strong financial footing.

Star Player: From the moment I signed him (though I kept mistakenly saying his fee was 28k instead of 45k, not that it makes him any less of a bargain) it was clear that Mexes was potentially the golden boy of this team, and he had easily his best season yet,ending up with his full international breakthrough at the Euros in Portugal (I usually keep on going to the reset date before stopping after the end of a season, if there is time). He racked up a lot of early assists (as noted in the early season update), and while he didn't get too many of those afterwards, he made up for it by scoring on a more regular basis, giving him stats appropriate to his 'all-rounder' role, with a respectable 18-goal return (understandably trailing Gilson), and only a narrow second to Dunga in terms of assists. Hopefully he's still got some room to grow even further but even as he is he's pretty good already.

Squad Stats

[withnail316]

That Chelsea tie was brutal...

[deltablue]

15 hours ago, withnail316 said:

That Chelsea tie was brutal...

No doubt. The league seemed to be a lot more packed I'm this season, with only 15 matches played before Christmas instead of 17 in previous years, despite a few midweek games, and despite the rare luxury of a midweek off, we still played twice the number of matches between the legs as they did, so they were much fresher.

With the defence having fallen apart we were sitting ducks for the stronger teams, as the results from that period show. Maybe Milinovic was a critical loss during that period as well. Against Roma in particular, even before his goal to give us a surprise lead, I was already nicknaming him our 'Duracell bunny'. (Other battery brands are available)

They didn't look exceptionally tough when I looked through their team after the draw was made, though there was still a reaction of 'seriously?' when I first saw they would be our opponents. They ended up making the final so I guess they were just a lot better then they looked. 

 

[deltablue]

Euro 2036 - Portugal

Our representation wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. Bulgaria and more surprisingly Croatia failed to qualify, so no Tomov or Milinovic, while the likes of Trabelsi and Winkler are still too young and inexperienced. Mexes scored 3 goals in 2 group matches, as well as playing in France's last-16 defeat to the Netherlands, Bouwhuis only played a bit part in the Dutch campaign, while Simonetti and Cardia have been consistently good at international level even though that didn't save Italy from a first round exit, though they were in a tough group with Slovakia having a core of genuinely strong players.

Spain were the headline act, and while the world ranking graph only goes back 2 years, they've clearly been 1st for some time, much like Argentina have been consistently 2nd. This is actually their first European title of the save (I hate it whenever 'Premier League' or 'Champions League' era is used when talking about football history, as if nothing else before the early 90's counts, however in my defence all I can do is chronicle the happenings of this save as an alternate timeline) and only the second time they've made it past the quarter-finals, but they only missed out on retaining the World Cup on penalties 2 years ago, and you have to go back to the group stage in 2022 for the last time they lost a World Cup match outright. They had a slow start, failing to top their group, but had an easy time of it after that. The Czechs were surprise finalists but didn't have the trickiest path after the group stage.

[deltablue]

Summer 2036

This wasn't exactly a summer full of action. This is probably partly due to the bar for potential signings having always been pretty high, though that hasn't stopped a lot of activity before, or made every signing a sure-fire success, far from it. There is also the failure to make the CL again, and it's surely no coincidence that I managed to do a lot more last year, especially with Peric who wouldn't come the previous year. While I still see room for improvement in certain areas, in the short-term I'm satisfied enough not to see a need for new blood in some positions anyway, with a bunch of potential first-team players already here, Winkler for Tomov, Trabelsi for Dunga, Chlup for no one in particular, van den Hoogenband for Gilson, and Peric for Salazar, and only in the last case is the younger option still clearly the weaker player. I definitely expect the younger 'B Team' players to feature a lot more this season, even if they won't properly take over from the established players quite yet.

Ferraguto had done well as a short-term left back, but he wasn't that impressive and in his 30's now so I let him go, anticipating being able to get a replacement to be able to let Ciganek go and not be reliant on Chlup. That left Gilson and Simonetti as the team's veterans at 23, with Cardia as captain. In defence, Carranza had the ability to take Fagner's place and another central defender wasn't crucial. I even was able to sell Nogara to Porto, which was a pity but he wasn't that well suited either as a central defender (due to his lack of aerial ability) or on the right (where pace was his main qualification) so there wasn't really a place for him any more. Ciganek was saved due to a lack of potential options on the left, with a signing only being made very late but he was only slightly better than Chlup with a 6 1/2 year age gap so he was never likely to be a serious option.

No one jumped out enough as the scout reports were rolling in, but trawling through the shortlist later on did reveal a few players who I felt might be worth it in the long-term, even though I otherwise rarely go for players in potential alone, without looking vaguely decent already. That included a late Colombian left-back, who was a very close call but I had a suspicion my best scout was underrating him at just 2.5 stars, and given it's still our weakest position for the time being I felt he was worth it as an option in between the 'never will be good enough' Ciganek and the 'not good enough yet' Chlup.

Signings

[deltablue]

Europa League Group Draw

Facing Kryvbas in the Europa League playoff round encouraged me to blood the younger players, as mentioned above, and we won both legs by an aggregate score of 8-2. We were second seeds for the group draw, which helps explain being with a strong Fenerbahce team, but we could still come out on top of that battle, while Lyngby and Zeljeznicar seem like easy enough opponents, so I doubt qualification will be too challenging. In case anyone is wondering why the first game is on a Wednesday, ourselves and Inter obviously can't play at home at the same time.

[noikeee]

Shame that a season that started so well ended with a slight step back. Anyway 4th is already pretty good considering where the club was when you took over. It could very well be a small temporary glitch, one step back before two steps forward.

[deltablue]

13 hours ago, noikeee said:

Shame that a season that started so well ended with a slight step back. Anyway 4th is already pretty good considering where the club was when you took over. It could very well be a small temporary glitch, one step back before two steps forward.

Yes. When we made 2nd the season before I knew it might be a few years before we did it again, especially as the team continues to evolve with younger players getting a lot more of a break this year. I did make a start on the season after the pre-season update but EU3 continues to be a bit of a distraction so finally continuing a little this morning.

[deltablue]

Oct 2036

The season didn't get off to the best start as we lost to Fiorentina on the opening day, but then with Tomov getting a very early straight red card it's not that surprising. One of the things counting against the Bulgarian as he's already under pressure from Winkler is that he's quite the card magnet, getting the most yellows of anyone on the league two seasons ago, and not being far off last year though he did manage to avoid any reds, however there was at least one occasion where I took him off because he got an early yellow and I didn't trust him to got the whole match without getting another, and he's already set for another suspension at the time of writing.

However after that things have gone surprisingly smoothly, including an early win over Juventus, though it does come with a qualification of not having had the tougher opponents aside from that. The one blip has been Atalanta. With a bunch of midweek domestic games as well as European fixtures I've gotten into the habit of going defensive when having a comfortable lead (or late on with a narrow lead and facing a lot of pressure) and while it's worked very well, that was the one game where it didn't, then again if you truly understand FM you know nothing will work every time or anywhere near. They got a goal back just before half-time (when I was going to make the switch), and it was frustrating that having stopped them getting a second goal until the 80th minute, they still got an equalizer. 2 of their goals came from Ojeda, the Chilean forward who I signed than quickly discarded at Bucaspor.

The Europa League has been easy so far. As mentioned before I took advantage of an easy draw with Kryvbas to put in all the younger players I was planning to give an opportunity to, which especially worked in van den Hoogenband's favour, with Gilson watching on helplessly from the bench until the Dutchman went off late in the Pescara win with a ligament injury that rules him out until January. We still won easily enough, and despite Fenerbahce looking strong enough to potentially be some challenge, a 2-0 home win in the first match already put us in a strong position to top the group unless we have a terrible time in the return. Lyngby and Zeljeznicar were never going to be a problem and we racked up a total 10-1 scoreline over both despite going defensive at 3-0 (which proved to be unnecessary against the Danes as I didn't realize we had the international break afterwards instead of a weekend league match) or we might have gotten a few more. Their goal came in stoppage time so it didn't bother us in the slightest.

I'm glad I kept Ciganek around having only signed a potential replacement very late one, as we quickly had both Salazar and Peric injured, though he wasn't registered for European games so Simonetti stood in for a bit. We had the same problem in the playmaker position with Winkler and Faasse out while Tomov was still serving his suspension from the opening game, and out of that quartet of players covering just two positions, only Winkler is back in action. I've mentioned it before but this career I've not been anywhere as much of a 'squad' manager as I traditionally am (though I need to have a squad with the depth I'm happy with for that to work), however we have young players already worthy of being treated as roughly equal with the existing 'A team' players as well as the fixture schedule meaning players need a rest sometimes anyway, opening the door to players who will stay in the team if they do well enough. Already 21 players have made an appearance and out of those, only Alex hasn't made a start.

I can't complain too much, especially after the disappointment that was last season from December onwards. We still haven't recovered the strong defensive record we used to have but that doesn't matter so much with goals a lot easier to come by. I still feel this is a team whose time is yet to come, especially with a lot of young players only starting to make their mark, and Juventus still looking like a side who will be devilishly difficult to beat to the title, so at this point I'll be happy with a comfortable return to the Champions League and not being too far off the top. Let the success come later, right now I'm interested in firing a serious warning shot to show we mean business.

[noikeee]

Bloody hell that's some run. Great start to the season!

[deltablue]

On 17/04/2017 at 11:03, noikeee said:

Bloody hell that's some run. Great start to the season!

Thanks, but things are getting tougher so I'm still not really thinking of a potential Scudetto yet.

[deltablue]

Dec 2036

Well, the headline news is that we've managed to keep hold of top spot (which I wasn't really expecting), but only just. Juventus was clearly the toughest match we'd faced at the point of the last update and I knew that was about to change, though we've still faced all the bigger sides (including a few that are definitely underachieving) at home, leaving the biggest tests to the second half of the season when we might not be in as good a shape to deal with them, even if we don't slump anywhere near as badly as last season. We were helped by being a match or two ahead of Juventus, who were as consistently strong in chasing as I expected them to be, though they lost to Napoli before they had caught up on matches, keeping them behind even after they won their remaining game in hand.

We seemed to be slowing down at the start of November, though a draw with Roma was still an improvement on the defeat in the same fixture that sent us crashing down. It didn't help that Gilson was a very poor shadow of his goalscoring self from the past couple of years, as if he had mentally given up against van den Hoogenband already, in contrast to his compatriot Dunga who has really raised his game to see off the challenge from Trabelsi so far. Aside from the European troubles we were having, we also took a while to finally make a breakthrough at Crotone before eventually managing a convincing win at Genoa, who were 4th at the time.

The defence essentially lost us the Torino match before half-time (though it was our first and so far only league defeat since the opening day) and we missed the opportunity to win the home derby under some frustrating circumstances. Tomov (for once) was on the receiving end of a bad challenge from an Inter player and as he needed to go off for treatment (though the culprit at least had the decency to put the ball out) and I didn't want to be man short even temporarily as we tried to defend our 1-0 lead (and he wouldn't be in great condition anyway even when he came back on, especially as I hoped he'd be fit for upcoming games), I subbed him off for Xuxinha... who conceded a late penalty. That was scored by the very same Inter player who knocked Tomov in the first place!

We had to fight surprisingly hard to hold on to a 1-0 win at struggling Livorno but we seemed to otherwise recover our form, seeing off Parma in the cup before easily beating them away in the league a few days later, following it up with a comfortable win against Napoli that I really wasn't expecting, securing top spot going into the christmas break, though I'm still just enjoying it while it lasts rather than expecting to still be there in May.

We seemed to be throwing away what was looking like a comfortable top spot in the Europa League (with a 2-0 win over Fenerbahce in hand), being caught on the break by Zeljeznicar not just once but twice, and needing to be partly bailed out by Mexes both times. That meant we couldn't afford a narrow defeat in Istanbul any more and that's precisely what happened. It was a tight game which was essentially decided by poor defending (and it's probably no coincidence that was right before Torino). Having fought back from being a goal down twice (with a draw being to our advantage) it was agonizing to still lose right at the end. I thought we had thrown away top spot (though qualification had been already been mathematically confirmed) so as we were easily beating Lyngby, I was amazed to see Fenerbahce go down to Zeljeznicar, giving us the group win after all.

While we had drawn Chelsea after being Champions League group winners last season, surely something similar wouldn't happen in the Europa League, right?

Porto definitely have the quality to be genuinely tough opponents, especially if we're not at our best. Once again almost anyone else would have been easier, and I still haven't forgotten that the first European tie of the career, in the Europa League second qualifying round, was against CSKA Moscow. I definitely keep drawing some very short straws, arguably including the Turkish cup group stage. We could face a rematch with Fenerbahce in the next round if we beat Porto and they overcome Stuttgart.

[deltablue]

AFCON 2037 - Algeria

Africa definitely decided to go for something a little different this time. The Ivory Coast had been dominating with 3 wins out of the previous 4, with Nigeria as regular runners up and Tunisia or Morocco in third, though only Nigeria made the semi-finals this time, after beating the Ivorians in a rematch of the previous final. Tunisia couldn't even manage 3rd in their group (with hosts Algeria joining them in going out early with a single point) while Morocco... they missed out altogether for the second time in a row.

This is especially bad as they prepare to host the World Cup next year and aren't exactly doing much to inspire a home crowd, sitting in 71st in the world rankings, just above Mauritius and Armenia, and as the 21st highest ranked African team they can count the likes of Malawi and Namibia (neither of which qualified either) among the teams above them. I know hosts tend to take a bit of a ranking blow due to the lack of competitive matches through qualifiers but in Africa that shouldn't be a problem with a 2-year continental tournament cycle. To think that they dominated in the early years of the save and were even World Cup finalists just over 10 years ago. Their team remains pretty good so they may have the ability to restore some pride on the big stage.

Instead DR Congo claimed their first title since they were Zaire in 1974, beating South Africa after denying Nigeria the chance to fall at the final hurdle again, as well as having beaten Egypt. I thought the South Africans would do a lot better, especially as the only playable league and with their players often being a decent presence in the game anyway (I think it was FM10 in particular where you seemed to encounter them in all sorts of places), but they've struggled to make an impact with one win out of 13 tournaments so far (and being hosts 4 times) and this year being their only other top 3 finish.

[deltablue]

Mar 2037

It was a bit disappointing to start the year off with a cup exit to Roma, a tale of two penalties. I also suspected that Porto would be strong enough to punish us for any under-performance and that's precisely what happened, as they quickly raced into a 2-0 lead in the first leg. We recovered enough to get a goal back and keep the tie open, but could easily have levelled the match as well. At home we were looking for a single goal that would give us an away goals lead but that was before they hit us with a goal direct from a free-kick. Van den Hoogenband got a goal back (his 10th in just 5 European games this season) with just enough time to give us hope but in the end a narrow 3-2 aggregate defeat seemed about right, as we just weren't good enough. Discounting the Kryvbas qualifier, we've lost all 5 2-legged knockout ties we've played, all to teams who play at least partly in blue (Napoli twice, Inter, Chelsea and now Porto).

However by this point the league was looking rosy enough that it didn't matter so much. Juventus lost their first league game of the year so the Udinese win allowed us to extend our lead to 5 points. It slipped a little after Bologna (when we conceded a penalty when 1-0 up) but soon got it back, and only then did I start to think that maybe we could be champions. I scented Juventus blood when they got knocked out of the cup with a 4-0 home defeat to Napoli so abandoned any plans to take it easy when we went to Turin (especially since that was just before the first Porto game but we did have a 5 day gap), though our critical goal to give us a 8-point lead actually came when they were finally putting us under a lot of pressure later on.

A first-half red card for Winkler against Cagliari potentially cost us the chance to make it a 10-point lead (Juve had played the day earlier and dropped yet more points), and that was followed 2 games later by a waste of a beautiful opening goal from the German to lose at Palermo, by which point Juventus were winning again and suddenly we looked less secure, especially with some tough away games still to play. However we didn't have to wait long for the opportunity to open the gap back up to 11 points, overcoming the tricky tests at Roma and Cesena (who have been a consistently strong side the entire time I've been in Italy so I'm used to seeing them as a big team, though they might be fading now) as we look capable of claiming the club's first title since 2011. 

[deltablue]

May 2037

Champions!!!!

We weren't at our best in the final games of the season, with Juventus gaining 5 points over the last 8 matches, but we only had ourselves to blame. After a strong win at Genoa, we had a red card in each of the draws against Torino and Inter. After beating Livorno (which we could hardly fail to do) we missed the chance to clinch the title with a shock defeat against Bologna, and when going down early on against Parma it looked like we were struggling before we turned it around in style. Against Napoli, Tomov's season ended how it started, with a straight red card in the first minute which led to a big defeat but a big final day win over Udinese recovered some champions pride.

I wasn't quite expecting a title win at this stage. My first Milan team only won their first title when the core of the team as 23/24, whereas we only have a handful of players around that age. There was also the fact that despite being excellent until December last season, we still missed out on CL qualification altogether, but with the same number of games played, we were able to keep on going with only the occasional blip. Juventus were still consistently strong against the other teams as in the end it was only the fact that we beat them twice that made the difference. It might still be a bit too early to be the start of a long run of titles but I certainly intend it to be the first of many. We need to do better in Europe but it's exciting to think how good we'll be with a quality set of full-backs and a team at its peak.

Star Player: It's only right that van den Hoogenband and Gomes share this, especially as they tied on average rating. The Dutchman had scored 12 goals in 18 appearances (and just 9 starts) before this season, a sign that he couldn't be kept on the bench for long, and he ended up just racking up the goals once he got his chance this season. Gomes had been in the shadow of the 'golden boy' Mexes for longer but was starting to take his chances as well and ended up keeping his compatriot out of the team altogether in the final months of the season.

 

Squad Stats