Giant Killing - The European Pentagon [FM19]

[wynter]

Giant Killing - In sport, when a weaker team or competitor beats a much stronger, well-known team or competitor,

their success is sometimes called a giant-killing.

Usually associated with Cups, everyone loves a good Giant Killing, unless you're the team that's been slain of course. While it's usually meant to reference a One-Off upset of the established order I decided to still go with it, due to the fact that over the course of this career we're going to be essentially killing the Giants of the Main Five Leagues - Germany, France, Italy, Spain and England with clubs fighting with smaller resources, lower quality players and continually fighting off relegation.

So the Rules of the European Pentagon are as Follows

Start with a Club expected to finish in a Relegation Position, usually 18-20th but Bottom 3 for the sake of brevity.

Win the European Champions League with that club, resign and move on to the next stage of the Pentagon.

The next club you join can either be predicted bottom three in the season preview, OR be in the bottom 3 after 12 Games have been played in the domestic league. Roughly a third of the season to minimise the risk of outliers/easy clubs. It's about creating sustainable, continuous success in reaching the Top 4 in your own league before you can push further, creating a Giant of your own before inevitably, you have to leave. It then becomes all the more interesting when the very giant you created can often be the team standing in your way of completing the next stage of the challenge.

So I've taken charge of Rayo Vallecano

The Unsung Madridstas

Also a team with a lot of potential

Kakuta, De Tomas, Trejo and Imbula provide very potent attacking/midfield talent going forward and while the side is challenged towards the rear of the field with an average backline, this encourages attacking play all the more. My preferred way to play Football Manager. So it's a quasi journeyman, with very specific rules about the clubs I can journey too. Hopefully it'll be an entertaining ride.

 

[wynter]

Transfers

We had  a transfer budget of $0 but over 50k in wages free after I told the board our side could definitely stay above the relegation battle this season. With it we were able to make some strong moves in the transfer market and really bump up the quality of our squad.

Iborra and Pardo partner Imbula and Comesana in our midfield with a rotation between the four. Iborra functions as the Midfield ball winner while the other three play in more creative roles. Comesana is adept at filling in for Iborra both off the bench or on occassional rotation, able to operate across any slot in midfield.

Biggest factor is Pardo though

Just an immense Deep Lying Playmaker, looking for him to sit deep and control the game while Iborra does the dirty work.

Meanwhile Sisto, adds an alternate option formation wise, allowing us to operate with a Right Winger and a skilled one at that.

With Sisto we're created three tactics to employ over the coming season. All have an attacking ethos, due to our strength going forward, really looking to outgun any side we come up against.

Tactics

Personal preference is to play Tactic #3 at home, or if we're chasing away as I feel we create the most scoring chances with it, the 4-2-3-1 gives us a lot of time on the ball, bringing Pardo's most positive attributes to the fore, while the 4-1-2-3 adds a little defensive steel away from home or up against the strongest spanish sides. So far we've been alternating between all three and they'll be selected on a match by match basis than any personal preference.

[wynter]

Strong start, back and forth game with Villareal that ended when they poached a 3rd goal late on to leave us walking away with a draw. Leganes was a disappointing result but everything else has been going according to plan, some early points to kick us off and Atletico looming in the distance as we enter the next month with confidence.

[wynter]

Crashed out of the cup, not an ideal scenario going down to a club a Division below us, but we've got the added bonus of now being able to entirely focus on the league. If everything goes well  we can hopefully maintain our form to stay far away from the relegation zone. Vigo and Bilbao are both having horrendous starts and we added to their misery while Sevilla and Atletico  were very credible results to leave us 4th after 10 Games.

Most valuable player so far has been Ruben Pardo

Controlling the midfield with a sublime passing game and has barreled in some crackers from outside the box to take the load off our De Tomas just a little. Doing everything we wanted and letting our style flourish.

[vara]

solid start. can't fault the progress considering the resources.

[wynter]

A near flawless run in. We went away to Barcelona and were horrifically outclassed. Otherwise we've played some terrific football and the results vs Betis and Girona were emphatic. The Girona one was my personal favourite after fearing a slight drop in form following the outcome of the Barcelona match only for us to completely dominate our opponents.

Third place and ready to kick on for the second half of the season.

 

Transfers

Not many changes I'm really willing to make to the side, but we did have a huge issue with Mario Suarez

125k a week for a low end Spanish Side was single-handedly a financial black hole. Assume it was a remnant of his stint in China that wasn't updated, but  6million a season alone for a Bench player I wasn't even using was steep, so over the last 6 months I've driven him out of the club with a lack of gametime and calculated upsetting.

With his wages freed we were given a  small amount to spend, getting a 7mil budget out of his wages. We were already 4mil in the Red though so I've kept some of the budget and splureged on two propsects that were both cheap and ones I was incredibly interested in. 

Pelayo

Looks fantastic, technically average but at 17 all the time in the world to grow. Will immediately slot into our AMC position and we'll look to accelerate his development.

Barrenetxea

Long-Term prospect, I love my Raumdeuters, looking for him to gradually usurp Kakuta over the next 2-3 years with gametime mainly from the bench and continual focus on his development.

[smp20]

Cracking start with Rayo and well done on managing to get rid of Mario Suarez - thought it would have been more difficult! Also, lollololol at Real's start

[optimusprimal82]

Sounds like my sort of challenge - everyone loves an underdog!!

Great start, hope the trend continues! 

[wynter]

17 hours ago, smp20 said:

Cracking start with Rayo and well done on managing to get rid of Mario Suarez - thought it would have been more difficult! Also, lollololol at Real's start

Yeah was happy I got rid of him so early, bigger laugh is Solari still hasn't been sacked yet. He's got to have something on the board 

17 hours ago, optimusprimal82 said:

Sounds like my sort of challenge - everyone loves an underdog!!

Great start, hope the trend continues! 

Cheers! 

23 hours ago, vara said:

solid start. can't fault the progress considering the resources.

Thanks, also long time no see 

[wynter]

Closing out the Window

Made some big sales, losing players that were gradually being replaced and I decided to cash in while they still had money attached to their name. Moreno and Trejo were valuable rotation players, but they were being phased out. The sales had the idea of securing the budget in mind, but then I decided to take a gamble on Europe and shore up our biggest weakness in Right Back.

Omar Elabdellaoui

Solid Attacking Wing Back, at the peak of his career, looking for him to hold down the role for the next 2-3 years as we grow in stature.

Gennaro Ruggiero

Replacement for Iborra when his loan expires, Ball Winning Midfielder to a T and added depth option for the back end of the season.

[wynter]

We aren't letting up. Atletico was a bit of an unfortunate result but the draw at Real was great. We've kept the pressure on the Top 4 and haven't given Real any ground in the race for Europe.

With 2 games in hand we could conceivably open up an 11 point lead between ourselves and 5th place. 15 Games left for the season and the title is a foregone conclusion at this point but I'm more than happy to settle for third.

Player of the Month

Lucas Lima

One goal and 4 assists over the past few weeks have been crucial in keeping the positive flow of results. Exploded into form after a solid season and hope it continues.

[wynter]

Horror gauntlet of Away matches and we came through in convincing fashion. The one game we had at home is the only one we didn't win!

Honestly, the season's surpassed all my expectations and with it we have 9 points on Real with 2 games in hand. The gap keeps widening and I have no interest in taking my foot off the pedal just yet. We can breathe once we're in the CL. Speaking of Real though, somehow Solari still has his job. It's amazing.

Player of the Update

Has not missed a single tackle over this stretch of games and gotten further forward to provide two assists. Locking down the Right Flank which is vital since he's the only wide player we have on that side in our primary tactic.

 

[wynter]

Youth Intake

Earlier in the year, as in the day I started out we did a full staff cleanout and the HoYD I picked up was Dominic Grau

Technical, Attacking Style with the same Formation preference as me were all great signs and his first batch would be interesting given we had decent but not great facilities.

 

Decent Intake overall, on signing a New Contract Lozano went straight to 5* while Osuna became our only cover at left back due to a minor recruitment issue in January.

The first 3 were signed and the rest let go, hopefully one of them makes the grade.

[wynter]

Unbeaten month, 3 draws and 2 wins, of those draws a very creditable one vs Barcelona. At this point it's all about dropping as few points as possible and while we did drop some, 9/15 is never a bad haul.

Wider view of the table featuring Player Stats, Player of the month is currently 2nd in the goal haul with 6 of the 8 goals over this spell coming from his boot, De Tomas hitting his straps at just the right time.

Enough that I renewed his loan for another season.

[wynter]

End of Season Update

Three wins in 5 matches meant Real Madrid couldn't catch us and so we finished with Champions League Football in our first season. Also pipping Valencia at the finish meant we finished just that little bit higher albeit still miles away from Atleti and Barcelona.

Squad Info

Stellar season by Pardo, Kakuta and De Tomas, together they were responsible for over half the goals we scored and dominated on the offensive end. While De Tomas won the Golden Boot award, player of the season for me is Pardo just to the sheer dominance he displayed in turning our relatively average midfield into a well-oiled machine.

Despite Champions League Football the budget is low.

6 mil for Transfers and I've already spent it all 

Invested in a new backline, I'll introduce them once they arrive at the club.

[wynter]

Pre-Season - Transfers

So while we have almost no money in way of a budget, what we do have are Good Facilities and the allure of Champions League Football. With that in mind I shopped around, looking to secure cheap loans (No monthly fees just wages) and was able to put together a pretty well-balanced side if I'll say that mildly.

Permanent Signings

Our big splurges, Martinez and Senesi from the new Centre-Back pairing and an immediate improvement on their predecessors. Martinez in particular looks deadly.

Classy BPD or even a Libero if I decide to expand into a 3 man backline. Perhaps a bit small for a Centre-Back, but I don't think I've seen someone so well-rounded in an age and he's worth the 50% of our TB he basically took up.

Senesi is slightly less impressive but still workable.

Being Argentinian they also get Spanish Nationality in 2 years, so quickly working their way into helping us recruit more foreign talent soon.

While L. Martinez makes me giddy inside. I see a ****ton of potential in  Jose Martinez.

17 years old and incredibly well-balanced. My AssMan flits between rating him at 3.5/4* PA but I disagree completely. Looking to make him part of my side long-term.

Meanwhile Palavecino is a steal and a huge recommend for anyone who doesn't know about him in the game yet. Can play any position feasibly and will be our ready-made replacement for Pardo.

Blesa's just a very good long-term prospect I noticed in the Scout reports who was available for a great fee as well. Calculated gamble.

[wynter]

Loans

We Went Big.

Of the ones we got in I'll focus on 3 

Miranda, Gomez, Pellegri

Already begging Barca to let him stay at the club for 2 seasons. At 19 he's monstrous and a natural LB and LWB almost brings tears of joy for the flexibility. Major aspect of my systems are unleashing my WBs down the flank and this boy is born for such a role.

Centrepiece of our side in the AMC slot whilst Kakuta stays out left in the Raumdeuter role. I'm giving Pelayo another season of 50/50 Football to aid his development, which means this guy is the one I'll be bringing out vs the big guns in the Champions League and La Liga.

Entirely for free, and the moment he arrived he's done nothing but develop. Sharing duties with De Tomas and he could quickly force our highest scorer from last year out of the side if he plays to his potential.

 

Links to the rest that matter

Valverde - Santon - Eudes-Aholou

Rest are just depth/numbers in case of crisis.

[scarp]

Great first season but I have to say I am not really a fan of loans.

[wynter]

1 minute ago, scarp said:

Great first season but I have to say I am not really a fan of loans.

Fair. I prefer having a side full of permanent players too. Figured in the end though, I was better off buying 2-3 high quality players a season and slowly building a permanent side/starting XI that could compete for Europe in 3/4 seasons 

[wynter]

Solid start to the 2nd season, still gambling with formations, alternating between a standard 4-3-3 with Wingers vs my usual Assymetrical roles. That and Squad Cohesion is still building. 

I was surprised that we lost to Porto but it's the first game in the Group and with Porto, Lokomotiv Moscow and Inter I think we've got a solid chance of progression. 

[wynter]

October

Mixed month. Slightly brought back down to earth with a run of tight losses. Shining star in all of this so far is Pellegri's solid form running at 7 goals from 7 games. Excellent hat-trick vs Lokomotiv.

Two losses in the group, but both were away from home so we have a favorable second half. Lokomotiv away could be tricky, but our first match-up gives me confidence.

Smooth sailing in the league though, Barcelona are setting themselves apart from the pack unfortunately. Top 4 remains the dominant aim though.

[wynter]

November

Horrid in the league, fantastic everywhere else. 7 Points to close out the Champions League group and we overturned a 1-0 deficit in the 2nd Leg of the Spanish Club to prevent a massive upset. While these are good though, form in the league is disturbing and needs to be remedied soon. Hopefully over the course of January before we go into the Knockout Rounds of the CL.

Porto fell off the face of the planet and didn't get another point which was relatively surprising. Meanwhile Moscow regained an element of respectability.

Down to 7th and 6 points off the Champions League, not sure what needs to be fixed given how good we're doing elsewhere so it's a difficult conundrum.

[wynter]

Winter Break/January

Turns out the solution was just more gaps between matches so our squad was able to remain more consistent. We crashed out of the Spanish Cup to Athletic which was unfortunate. I played a 50/50 squad vs Valladoid to try and launch a comeback in the 2nd leg against Athletic but we just failed to get a result in the league and were then disappointing at home with a 3-3 draw. We  claimed glorious revenge just two weeks later though, bloodying Bilbao 6-0 away from home.

Back in and amongst the Top 4, Real will likely win their game in hand though so we have more work to do. With January in mind though I decided to add a third option at Centre Back, conving the club to splurge on Aly Camara and with Barrenetxea disappointing in his appearances so far and failing to develop, we moved him to Napoli for 4mil and brought in Christian Capone on loan, with 7mil available for a Future Fee.

Aly is a more traditional CB vs Senesi and Lopez who serve as playmakers from the back. He adds height and defensive steel that both arguably lack.

And with a moment just want to praise Pellegri

23/24 scoring ratio and he's dominating everywhere as the Top Scorer in La Liga and the Champions League.

Arsenal First Up.

[wynter]

February/March

I got a little carried away and played into mid-april  This team is just incredibly fun to play with.

Great patch of results, the only major blemish was a tight loss to Atletico Madrid after an all-attacking epic where we took them to their limit. Otherwise it's been relatively smooth sailing and we're very comfortable coming up to the finishing leg of the season.

Ruben Martin was the only Youth Intake player of note

Champions League

Arsenal was tricky but we managed to emerge relatively unscathed. Into the Quarter Finals we go.

[wynter]

Champions League

After Arsenal we drew two Spanish giants. Both were tight clashes with a single goal in both ties. In the case of our semi-final vs Barcelona we held off an extremely late surge to enter as first time finalists on the away goal rule.

Guardiola in the final.

[wynter]

End of Season Update

6-2-0 to close out the season. Balancing our European surge with strong form.

Ultimately we finished in 3rd place and as the overview will show. It was the year of Pietro Pellegri.

40/47 in all appearances we'll be hoping for him to fire in the Champions League Final and drag us to an early victory in Stage 1.

[wynter]

Champions League Final

Rayo Vallecano vs Manchester City

Formations

Key Highlights

2nd Minute

Aholou picks up a Manchester Clearance in midfield and lays it off to Morilla. Morilla plays a lovely drifted ball over the head of Hector to Elabdellaoui who crosses in from the byline...

POST

Pellegri drills a header off the upright and Manchester City scramble it away. Europe's leading goalscorer missing by a hair... A statement of intent by Vallecano.

26th Minute

A throw in from Otamendi leads to an ubrupt chance as Gundogan plays in Hector who skins Elabdellaoui and fire a shot just over the crossbar... Goalkick to Vallecano and both teams fullbacks are getting in on the action.

45th Minute Stoppage Time

Gundogan goes near with a curled effort from outside the box. Just wide and with that both sides go into the sheds after a tense first half.

51st Minute

Throw in down the right, Elabdellaoui's cross is cleared out to Ahodou Morilla plays in Pellegri!

SAVED AND BLOCKED

Pellegri is stopped by Ederson and pounces on the rebound only for Stones to stop the 2nd shot with a lunging block. 0-0.

112th Minute (Yes, this game was ****ing boring bar this one minute)

Goal Kick to Manchester City, Ederson finds Jones. He launches a ball forwards that finds Gabriel Jesus, he's in the box...

SAVED, Corner to Manchester City.

Corner is cleared. Morilla picks up the clearance and runs into the opposition half, Varane heads the cross, De Tomas picks up the header and plays it back, sliding tackle from a City player spills the ball to Feibas.

SAVED

End to End Football as we near the climax of this match, neither side hitting the back of the net.

[wynter]

We lost the Shootout...

Apparently we controlled the game/were the more attacking but the utter lack of highlights suggests it was a dire affair.

[kidthekid]

That formation is beautiful.

[wynter]

Season 3

New signings in: Robertone adds flair to the midfield, making up for the absence of Valverde. Badiashile is going to work with Lisandro Martinez and the two of them have the potential to be a monstrous backline, adding his height and ability off the ball to Martinez's playmaking as well. Raya is an immense goalkeeper, especially for the Sweeper role. This side is going to be big on playing out and he's just a massive upgrade over our previous keeper. Capone meanwhile impressed over the past year and I activated his Release Clause.

Changes made feature a BPD and a Sweeper Keeper role change from a pure CB and GK. Both enhance our passing tendencies.

And with that a team report given our updated side.

Player Photos

Raya

Elabdellaoui - Martinez - Badiashille - Mendyl

                                                                                                                                                             Robertone

Feibas - Palavecino

      Gomez - Capone                                                                                                                                                          

De Tomas

Palavecino can play BWM and is likely to slot there for now... But he shouldn't as he's more useful as a Regista/Mezzala. We lack a true ball winner for our midfield and De Tomas is a major downgrade on Pellegri. On the flipside, the majority of the team is permanent signings as Europe proved very lucrative. If we get a good budget next year first port of call will be buying a ball winner and improving our wing-backs since Mendyl is a major downgrade on Miranda and Hakimi/Elabedellaoui just aren't the level I need for a consistent CL contender.

[Deisler26]

Great work so far!

[wynter]

September

"Aah fate, that flightly temptress that leads you down a heavenly path, one you follow blindly until it leads you right into a truck."

Bad enough they beat us on Pens, now they're in our Group. The FM Gods are mocking me.

Good month, toughed our way through the opening few matches and hopefully the Villareal game will kick start our firepower and help us barrel a few more goals into the net.

[Ronaldo Beckham]

@wynter Great idea for a save, I never thought of doing this before, also Rayo have a really good squad.

I might start a save with Rayo soon or choose a team predicted to be bottom in Italy or Germany.

One question I wanted to ask was what is your player database as you have found some really good players.

[wynter]

18 hours ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

@wynter Great idea for a save, I never thought of doing this before, also Rayo have a really good squad.

I might start a save with Rayo soon or choose a team predicted to be bottom in Italy or Germany.

One question I wanted to ask was what is your player database as you have found some really good players.

Thanks man, 

Just loaded the 5 leagues I'd be travelling to on a Large DB + Argentina because I just like scouting the league. That way I could also relatively speed through it/enjoy a quick pace. Rest was just manic scouting since it's my favorite aspect of a save.