[FM20] - A migrant story in Sicily

[fmonit]

Intro

 

I love journeyman saves and I always do them whenever a new FM version comes out. Even with the current version, I started with a small team in Malaysia (Kuching) and worked my way up to win the Champions League with Bayern Munich in 2036, and the World Cup with Belgium in 2038. Most of the time this is when I start losing interest in my save so I usually start a new one, which is what this save game will be about.

This time, I really want to develop a club. Get their youth working up, move up the ladder, get more income, invest in better facilities, basically become the best club of the land. Hopefully along the way, I would like to become a club legend and get a stadium named after the manager. This has never happened to me in any FM and I’m assuming it is because I never stay long with a club before I move to a new one. I usually jump within 5 seasons.

So, which club would I take over?

Because I want to bring the club up from the bottom, and my manager should also start from the very bottom (Sunday League Experience and no coaching degrees), I was looking for a database that would also start at the very bottom. I really love Dan BHTFC’s  England database (https://community.sigames.com/topic/498100-wip-fm20-e20-england-to-level-20/ ) and I have played a few games with this database over the past versions of FM. However, this time I want to manage in a different country.

I was snooping around the workshop and my eye caught this database by @Timo@: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1975799758

It brings the Italian database down to level 7. I intially loaded up the database and started playing with a club at level 7, but my computer could not handle the amount of data being processed. It didn’t crash but it went super-slow. So, I decided to start at level 6 which was much more manageable by my processor.

I also love developing players from minnow nations and seeing them do well with their respective country. A story started brewing in my head where I should maybe make my manager come from a minnow nation so that eventually some good players could be generated within the club and play for the national team of the manager’s origin. This is to check if the manager can influence the national team, and improve the ranking of their native country.

Looking at the etnic groups in Italy, it appears that 8% of the residents has a different background. Of this 8%, most of them are Romanian, Maghrebi and Arabic (Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Morocco, Lebanon and Egypt), and Albanian. (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-of-italy.html ) This is the current FIFA ranking of the nations mentioned above (April 2020):

·         Romania – 37

·         Tunisia - 27

·         Libya - 101

·         Syria - 79

·         Morocco - 43

·         Lebanon - 89

·         Egypt - 51

·         Albania – 66

So based on the lowest ranked nation, I decided that my manager should come from Libya.

I then looked at some typical Libyan names generated within FM, and decided that my manager should be called Faisal Al-Nakhli. This is his story:

 

Faisal Al-Nakli

 

“Born on 15/04/1986 in Sirt (Libya) and raised by his father Mahmoud and mother Munya, at the age of 25 Faisal arrived in Italy in 2011, escaping from the Libyan Civil War. He set foot on Italian soil in Sicily and established himself in the small town of Ispica to the south of Sicily.

During the years away from his native country, he worked in a local pizzeria to be able to survive, pay rent and hopefully one day have enough money to bring his family across to Italy.

He fell in love with football as his colleagues and friends showed a great passion towards the game. They watched the Seria A and English Premier League after hours, and even picked up a game from their local amateur club U.S.D. Virtus Ispica once in a while. Faisal loves the Manchester City style of play, and becomes a great admirer of Pep Guardiola.

After a few years in Ispica, Faisal decided to join Virtus Ispica as a player in their social team. He wasn’t the greatest player, but he showed commitment and passion which didn’t go unnoticed by the board and even the manager of the first squad. Faisal was even selected to join the first team for a few games as they were short on numbers through injuries, but unfortunately he never came off the bench.

While he was on the bench, the Chairman Edoardo Giorni noticed that Faisal was very active in encouriging the players on the pitch. The shouts he made were spot on, and the board started to believe that Faisal might actually be a better coach than he is a player. So they sat down together with Faisal and the manager and discussed the opportunity for Faisal to become the Assistant Manager for the following season. This was welcomed by both Faisal and manager alike, and the two started bouncing ideas of each other.

 

A week before the first training of the new 2019-2020 season, the manager got offered a high paying job as a wine grower in Marsala, in the West of Sicliy. As the distance between Ispica and Marsala was too great to be able to travel for training and matches, the manager decided to quit the job at the club and move to Marsala for work.

 

This put chairman Edoardo in front of a though decision: Does he urgently find a new replacement for the departing manager, or do they give Faisal a chance to manage the team even though he has no experience? Edoardo decided to take a leap of faith and put their trust into Faisal to lead the team for this season. It was going to be tricky as the team just got promoted to the Promozione Sicilia Group D (tier 6 of Italian Football), and the odds didn’t look too bright.”

“While keeping his job as a kitchen hand at a local pizzeria, Faisal took his first steps into football management at age 33. This is where his football manager career starts…”

__________________________________________________________________________________

At the end of each season, I will post a summary where I’ll highlight important events, standings, best players, transfers, club reputation, club facilities, Libya’s FIFA ranking and a few other interesting stats or stories.

I will also do a few progress updates throughout the season to keep track of where we currently are.

First season update coming soon….

Edited April 19, 2020 by fmonit

[fmonit]

Graphs of our progress below.

Skip this post if you want to read through and not know the progress just yet.

*updated with season 17 stats

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by fmonit

[fmonit]

Start of Season

With little support or understanding from his boss at the pizza restaurant, Faisal started the first training with the squad. The boss from the restaurant even jokingly said: “I’ll sponsor the club if you make it to the next division!”, knowing that it is going to be a tough task with the current squad.

Only our Slovenian winger Matej Rozman has some skill to be able to play at this level, the others look like they were here for anything else but football.

Faisal asked his colleagues and friends to spread the word that we are looking for a whole new squad overhaul.

He starts with the coaching staff, which is non-existent. Faisal knows that trust is very important, so he engages his friends as staff members, with his best mate Corrado Iacono as Assistant Manager. Most of them have no clue what they are doing, but they are passionate enough to give it a good go.

The board is impressed that Faisal managed to get a coaching group together so fast, but little did they know that they are his mates.

 

 

Virtus Ispica plays at the Guiseppe Moltisanti Stadium (or Peppino Moltisanti as the locals call it), just on the outskirts of Ispica. There is no grass on the pitch as the climate and financial status of the club doesn’t allow the growth and maintenance of grass. It’s got a standing capacity of 500 people, with half of them under cover.

Chairman Edoardo was very active on the sponsor front and promoted his club to various local businesses in a bid to get more funds for the club. He used the recent promotion as leverage, and this worked quite well as he managed to get the local supermarket “MD Discount” to sponsor the club. He’s very proud of the new jerseys.

 

While this was all happening in the background, Faisal and mates managed to talk to a fair few club-less (mostly) Sicilian players who showed an interest in joining the club. They signed a total of 12 new players on amateur contracts. These players are just happy that they could start at a new club after being released from their former club. The most notable players that Faisal will build his squad around are striker Luca Barberi (from Megara), winger Felice Zagari (from Bocale), full-back Gabriele Franchina (from Citta di Sant’Agata), defender Davide Saporita (from Igea Virtus) and midfielder Luca Marullo (from Biancavilla).

 

Libya Check

No Libyan players in the squad yet as Faisal only just took over and it will take some time to establish himself and build up a reputation. The FIFA ranking of Libya is currently a nice even 100! The game only shows 3 characters in the national team with Ahmad Benali at Crotone, Ismael Tajouri-Shradi at New York City and Muftah Taktak at Al-Masry.

[Yaz99]

Good luck! I will be the first to follow this. Seems like an interesting story in the making. 

[fmonit]

3 hours ago, Yaz99 said:

Good luck! I will be the first to follow this. Seems like an interesting story in the making. 

Thanks mate, nearly finished with the first season.

[fmonit]

 

 

Based on the influx of new players into the club, Faisal decides to use a 4-2-3-1 Wide formation with the focus on wing play. With Luca Barberi as main striker, Faisal is confident he can get the ball being fed to him through the right wing advanced playmaker position, or the defensive minded DLP down the middle of the pack. Faisal wants Zagari on the left wing to cut in and be a potential goal scorer with his right foot, while the left WB can sneak past and give a passing option to the left. The atticking midflielder can vary, but he’s leaving it as a shadow striker for now. This basically means that the attack will be mostly built up from the centre and right wing through the DLP in the middle (Marullo) or AP on the wing (Rozman), and the finishers could be either the shadow striker on the AMC position (Spadaro), inside forward on the AML position (Zagari), or the striker up front that Faisal is playing as a poacher for now (Barberi). Something along those lines (Red = passing, Blue = Movement)

This largely worked in the first game as we end up drawing 2-2 against Caltagirone who are predicted to end 3^rd. Barberi scored once, while Latelle (the other MC) scored a header from around the penalty area. Both assists came from Zagari, which is what Faisal didn’t really wanted. Their goals were from set pieces.

As the season moves along, Faisal tweaks the tactical system here and there to make it work for the players he has at his disposal. One of the tweaks was the introduction of the 2^nd striker Alessio Plutino in the 3^rd game. He immediately thanked the manager with scoring 4 goals during the 6-0 thrashing of Sporting Eubea! Faisal was impressed that he let him start for the next couple of games which he performed great as well.

By the Christmas break, Virtus Ispica was standing on an impressive 3^rd position in the league and were dreaming of promotion. Alessio Plutino was leading the league goal scoring ranking with 12 goals and was getting noticed by other clubs, in fact most players from the club were a target by a club at similar level. To Faisal’s surprise, none of the players jumped to a different club, except for one…. Alessio Plutino moved to the higher division playing Igea Virtus. Faisal was annoyed at that, but he managed to get a new striker in to replace Plutino: Fredy Guehi of Ivory Coast.

It wasn’t a seamless striker change, but it did eventually work. Faisal liked the fact that Guehi could be placed on either the AMC or SC position depending on who was fit and available.

End of Season

The wins keep coming (and the occasional loss) and by the end of the season, Virtus Ispica is in a great 4^th position. This means promotion playoff for Faisal and the boys!

First team to play in the semi-final is Sporting Eubea (who we thrashed 6-0 before). This time, the game is a lot harder and we only get a 2-1 win at home and 0-0 away. In the final, we meet Caltagirone who we haven’t been able to beat at all this season. Both teams were super defensive in both games and they both ended on a 0-0 score…. Yawn.

Then in extra-time, our right winger Rozman scored a great tap-in in the 97th minute after right back Franchina spotted his run early and provided him with a long rage pass. Celebrations erupted between the away fans! Then comes the 112^th minute where Caltagirone did a very similar goal to the one we scored earlier, end even in the same spot. At the final whistle, Faisal started celebrating but nobody joined him in the festivities… wait…. “Away goals don’t count in playoffs????” They didn’t and we moved towards penalties. Culprit in the penalty series was Virtus Ispica back-up winger Giovanni Romeo who was the only one who couln’t convert their penalty. We lost 5-4 on penalties. Faisal was gutted and embarrassed, but mostly embarrassed that he celebrated prematurely.

Virtus Ispica is staying another season at level 6 in the Italian league system.

With an average crowd of around 280 people per game and the fact that Virtus Ispica is an amateur club, the club gets in a bit of money from game day revenue and sponsorships, and doesn’t have to spend it on any wages. Most expenses go to tax, scout and travel costs. Even Faisal’s contract is an amateur contract. Faisal is positive about the end of season turnover, which stands at about €21k this season. A few more seasons like this and we can start investing it back into the club’s facilities.

 

[fmonit]

End of Season Details

 

Competitions
League	Promozione Siclia grp. D (level 6)	4th
Cup	Not entered	-
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Felice Zagari Alessio Plutino	12
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Davide Spadaro	7.33
Most Assists (all competitions)	Felice Zagari	12
Best Pass Completion	Davide Spadaro	84%
Most PoM’s	Luca Marullo	5
Most Yellow Cards	Gabriele Franchina	9
Most Red Cards	Matej Rozman Felice Zagari	1
Highest Value Player	-	€ 0
Highest Paid Player	-	€ 0
Manager
Reputation	Regional	354
Qualifications	National C Licence
Wage	€ 0
Club
Reputation	Obscure	333
Stadium	Giuseppe Moltisanti	500
Corporate Facilities	Basic
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Poor
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Davide Spadaro
Goal of The Season	Gabriele Franchina	See Below
Singing of The Season	Davide Spadaro	Free
Young Player of The Season	Davide Spadaro	22
Finances
Turnover	+ € 21,353
Balance (June)	+ € 44,370
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 9
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 82.43
Season Ticket Holders	65
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 18,250
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	103
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by fmonit

[Hootieleece]

Are you playing on clay in the video? Never seen that before....team to poor to have grass field.

Good luck with this journey.

[fmonit]

3 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

Are you playing on clay in the video? Never seen that before....team to poor to have grass field.

Good luck with this journey.

Yeah, that's clay. Only a few teams have a grass pitch. Most of them are clay, gravel or sand.

I wonder at what level it's not acceptable anymore to have a clay pitch.

 

Having said that, most pictures on the club's facebook page show some sort of grass. Can't tell if it's real or synthetic.

But the Google image of the stadium doesn't show grass so I'm not entirely sure what is currently there.

Either way, I'll keep going with the story even though the database may be slightly off.

Edited April 22, 2020 by fmonit

[OTron]

Great concept. Looking forward to following along.

[fmonit]

3 hours ago, OTron said:

Great concept. Looking forward to following along.

Thanks for joining me on the journey.

[fmonit]

After the last season's penalty-debacle, spirits were high again at the first training of the season. There is an expectation to achieve a similar table position and qualify for promotion playoffs.

It also helps that almost all the players have pledged to stay with the club even though Faisal received almost an offer a day to poach player X for club Y. Note the word “almost” in the previous sentence. Two players that Faisal considers deadwood left to other clubs so that’s not a problem at all. None of them had much influence over the squad so it doesn’t break the atmosphere in the squad.

With the current sponsorship still going and a growing bank account, the future is looking bright for the club. So Faisal and mates ventured out to find some new blood to bring this club to that next level and hopefully get promoted. Faisal knew that a solid defence would bring us to that next level, even the board agreed as they made “Play defensive solid football” as one of their favoured playing style.

Not that the defence was bad last season, but there was almost no depth in the squad in that area. So Faisal managed to sign 7 new players: GK Antonio Pappalardo, DR Salvatore Maltese, DC Benito Calaio, DL Michele Scarano, DL Orazio Scimonello, MC Orazio Di Grazia and SC Giuseppe Greco.

No change to the tactical system is planned for this season, however we’re looking into dropping the AMC position into a DMC position if the main tactic doesn’t work. So we’re training for 2 tactics but only applying one at the moment.

After very promising friendly games, that start of the season was a bit underwhelming. Sure we didn’t lose any games, but we only scraped by with 1 goal differences in the first 6 games. The first big win arrived in early October with a 4-1 trashing of Pozallo with a hattrick by Guehi.

We can’t really complain in the first part of the season as we only lost our first game in late November against Sporting Eubea (last season’s semi-finalists in the promotion playoff). That was our only loss in the first half of the season and we were leading the standings in the league, closely followed by Leonfortese.

There is one amazing feature the crowd was perplexed by, and that is the quality of the goals scored by Orazio Di Grazia. He has scored four up until now, but my god aren’t they all rippers!

 

It's a bit strange as his long shots and technique are not particularly the best (see image in this post), however at this level it might just be enough to score some nice long distance goals. They would probably be saved if you have Courtois in goals.

[fmonit]

Ugh, again our main striker decided to leave us during the Xmas break. Guehi has now chosen greener pastures 2 divisions above where V. Ispica currently is. Faisal is annoyed but understands. He is now hoping that Greco would step up to become the main striker as his performance up until now has been mediocre. Guehi scored 8 up until now, closely followed by AML Zagari with 7. He’s playing great again this season.

Aside from MC Rosario Zappula, Faisal didn’t make any other moves on the transfer front during the January transfer window.

First game in the new year was a fizzer with a 2-0 loss away at ERG. I guess everyone was still finding their way without Guehi, or maybe they partied too hard over Xmas. Zagari understood that he can make a real difference now that he is becoming the main striker threat (Greco still not performing) and scored an amazing 5 goals in 4 games in January. The squad picked themselves up quiete nicely and continued to perform well in February and March. Greco finally scored again late February but doesn’t seem to get to the same level that Guehi did. Maybe he is not cut out to play at V. Ispica, or maybe he’s just a different type player in the system the club is using. Faisal is reluctant to change the system as the team and in particular Zagari are doing so well!

Sporting Eubea has again been our achilles heel this season as we lose 2-0 again (away this time) with three games to go. It’s getting close and we need to win 1 of our two last games to secure the title. First game:

Easy win and what a performance! Zagari leading the squad with a sensational 9.3 rating, scoring once and assisting twice.

Everyone at the club is stoked as Faisal managed to secure promotion! The party went to the early hours of Sunday morning…

The board is very happy the club vision has been followed and have given Faisal a “B” for his performance this season.

 

Libya Check

Libya dropped 3 places in the FIFA ranking to 106. They couldn’t win a single game in the African Nations Qualification Group and hence didn’t qualify for the Cup.

In the World Cup qualifiers they are grouped with Egypt, DR Congo and Sudan. So far 4 games played and only 1 draw against Sudan. Looks like they won’t qualify for the World Cup either.

The only win this season was a friendly against Reunion (2-0).

End of Season Details

Competitions
League	Promozione Siclia grp. D (level 6)	1st
Cup	Not entered	-
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Felice Zagari	16
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Felice Zagari	7.34
Most Assists (all competitions)	Gabriele Franchina	8
Best Pass Completion	Luca Marullo	82%
Most PoM’s	Felice Zagari	9
Most Yellow Cards	Gabriele Franchina	5
Most Red Cards	Matej Rozman Gabriele Franchina Michele Contino	1
Highest Value Player	-	€ 0
Highest Paid Player	-	€ 0
Manager
Reputation	Regional	966
Qualifications	National C Licence
Wage	€ 0
Performance this season	B
Club
Reputation	Obscure	649
Stadium	Giuseppe Moltisanti	500
Corporate Facilities	Basic
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Poor
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Felice Zagari
Goal of The Season	Matej Rozman	See Below
Singing of The Season	Orazio Di Grazia	Free
Young Player of The Season	Felice Zagari	21
Finances
Turnover	+ € 16,056
Balance (June)	+ € 42,339
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 9
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 82.43
Season Ticket Holders	68
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 18,250
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	106
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

Faisal was expecting one of Di Grazia’s goals to win the best goal of the season, but Rozman’s goal is a great one as well!

Team of The Season

Player of the Season

Legends

Faisal is now "favoured personnel"!

 

[fmonit]

Virtus Ispica received promotion to the Eccellenza Sicilia Grp. B, which is level 5 of the Italian football pyramid. Faisal remembered that his boss at the local pizzeria jokingly promised to sponsor the club if they get promoted so he queried if he is going to follow through… and he did!

A 2-year main kit sponsorship deal of € 18,250 was agreed. Faisal and boss were happy to present the new jerseys for the next 2 seasons in the local newspaper:

The club is still operating at an amateur level in this division so there are no paid contracts for anyone on the horizon. The squad seems to be happy with this as only 1 player left to a different club: Backup defender Michele Contino, which wasn’t a huge problem. He even stepped down a division. Faisal guesses that playing time was the determining factor.

There were however a few new names walking through the door: MR Gandolfo Minnone, AMC/ST Michele Pantano, AMC Santi Scibetta, MC Cristian Torchia, and Faisal has high hopes for Gambian GK Muhammed Drammeh, Bissau-Guinean ST Aladje, ST Angelo Marco Rao and AMR Francesco Orlando.

Pantano and Scibetta are born on the same day on the first day of the year!

The tactical system is still largely the same as the performance last season was pretty good. The new players probably need some adjusting to it but that shouldn’t hopefully take too long.

After an unconvincing pre-season, the start of the season was of a similar nature. Two losses and a draw didn’t get anyone excited and the style of football wasn’t pretty either. We didn't seem to have enough shots on target, and so little of them were converted to goals. Only 1 goal out of 10 shots on target spread over 3 games (third game had 0 shots on target) is not great. Faisal felt he had to do something and he remembered the other tactic that was trained last season, the 4-1-2-3 DM Wide. So basically playing a similar style of football, but moving the AMC to a DMC position. Faisal also made both wingers inside forwards while the forward position became a pressing forward and the playmaker duties were now in the centre of the pack.

It was just was the team needed as the results went from poor to fantastic: 1 draw and 9 wins in the next 10 games with an average of 6.6 shots on target per game and 1 goal per 3.3 shots on target. Big improvement compared to the start of the season.

Two big results in those games were against Giarre and Siracusa who are predicted to top the league. In the game against Giarre we even had 14 shots on target and 62% possession. We really should have won that game.

Because of this great run, Virtus Ispica climbed up to 1st position at the Xmas break, closely followed by Giarre.

Meanwhile, we also entered our first cup: The Eccellenza Sicilia Cup. We get to play a home and away game agianst Igea Virtus who are playing at the same level in group A. They are predicted to be top 2 of the group A league so they should be a good team. First game didn’t really show that as we easily wiped the floor with them 3-0, giving us a good chance to qualify for the 2^nd round.

Turns out that overconfidence is real, and that’s exactly what worked against us in the 2^nd leg. You guessed it, we got defeated 0-3 away and it was up to penalties to decide who goes through. We converted 4 penalties, they converted all 5. Out we go… The away game was a shocker: 1 shot all game and it wasn’t even on target. Terrible…

[fmonit]

Bummer, crowd favourite Orazio Di Grazia decided to move to Real Aci during the January transfer window. Interesting that he decided to drop a division even though he is playing every game in Faisal’s line-up.

No new players were brought in during the January transfer window.

Jonica the opposition in the first game back after the Xmas break and they managed to break our 11 game non-losing streak. Our striker Rao was sent off in the 49^th minute and Jonica scored in the 89^th minute, making us lose the game with a dry 1-0.

 

We win the next two games relatively convincingly before the downfall starts to happen. As if Ispica would be able to get back to back promotions… From the last 13 games of the 2021-2022 season, we draw more than half with a 1-1 score! Throw a few losses and even less wins in the mix and it does not take a mathematician to figure out that the lack of points was going to cost us the top spot we so proudly occupied around Xmas.

We stumbled down the ranking but were still surprised that we ended in a third position. Only the league winner gets promoted, no promotion playoffs at this level. We could have done more, but we didn’t expect to finish 3^rd overall anyway. So all in all, not a bad season and we certainly didn’t expect to be a contender for promotion. It sets a good vibe for next season and hopefully we can achieve a better result. We just need to convert those draws into wins and we should be fine. The fans started #oneoneseason on instagram, urging all ticket holders to post their pictures of the games where the results were 1-1.

 

On a positive note, Faisal was happy to see Zagari is joint top scorer of the league this season! Magnificent achievement for a player who keeps performing at high level for our club.

 

What was great is that the club was lauded with the best defence of the Eccellenza Sicilia Grp. B

 

Probably thanks to our new goalie, but Faisal also believes the defence which we fortified last season is still playing well together and helped keeping lots of clean sheets.

 

 

Libya Check

 

Libya dropped one more spot on the FIFa ranking and are now 107^th. As expected, they didn’t qualify for the World Cup, but also didn’t end last in their Qualifying Group. Libya managed to beat Sudan 2-0 at home and ended up third in the group.

A couple of friendlies were also played in March that were both won convincingly: 4-1 away against Mauritus and 6-1 away against Botswana.

The draw for the qualification for the African Nations Cup 2023 has also been done and Libya is in a though group with Cameroon (25^th), Egypt (54^th) and Liberia (154^th). Top two qualify for the tournament so aside from beating Liberia we’ll also have to beat Egypt or Cameroon. Not easy.

 

 

End of Season Details

 

Competitions
League	Eccellenza Sicilia grp. B (level 5)	3rd
Cup	Eccellenza Sicilia Cup	First Round
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Felice Zagari	17
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Felice Zagari	6.99
Most Assists (all competitions)	Francesco Latella	6
Best Pass Completion	Angelo Marco Rao	87%
Most PoM’s	Felice Zagari	4
Most Yellow Cards	Gabriele Franchina	13
Most Red Cards	Angelo Marco Rao Michele Scarano	1
Highest Value Player	-	€ 0
Highest Paid Player	-	€ 0
Manager
Reputation	National	1206
Qualifications	National C Licence
Wage	€ 0
Performance this season	B+
Club
Reputation	Obscure	686
Stadium	Giuseppe Moltisanti	500
Corporate Facilities	Basic
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Poor
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Felice Zagari
Goal of The Season	Felice Zagari	See Below
Singing of The Season	Gandolfo Minnone	Free
Young Player of The Season	Felice Zagari	22
Finances
Turnover	+ € 25,364
Balance (June)	+ € 65,529
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 9
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 77.79
Season Ticket Holders	70
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 18,250
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	107
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

Team of The Season

Legends

Deservedly so, Zagari is now an icon

Edited May 8, 2020 by fmonit

[fmonit]

I just noticed that there are players in the development squad with a value different to € 0. I only checked the main squad intially so my tables of previous season are actully incorrect.

So I went back to the first season to check if I had missed that as well and it turns out development players are worth more compared to first team players at this level. Just so that my data would be complete and accurate, I added them below.

Season 01:

Matteo Zanellati: € 550

 

Season 02:

Francesco Di Giacomo: € 2,100

Season 03:

Luca Di Giovanni: € 2,200

[fmonit]

Tumbleweeds tumbled through the dressing room when Faisal announced the expectation for this season is that we end up in the top half. No one paid much attention to what Faisal said and the motivation of several players dropped as they suddenly feel a huge pressure on their shoulders. Faisal is sticking to his guns and believes a similar result to last season can be achieved.

Even new players were a bit worried about the new season. New players DC Massimiliano Rinaldi, DR Giovanni Mariani, Gambian MC Omar Manneh and ST Lorenzo Mari all look at each other confused.

 

 

Faisal believes that the new players can adapt to the current system, and he has no intention to change anything to the current system. The players already in the team should be able to pick up where they left before the break.

In the first league game, they kinda picked up where they left. It is probably a wrong term to use as last season’s end was terrible with only 2 wins in the last 10 games. Faisal was happy to see the first game was won with 0-1 at Santa Croce. It was a though game and we only managed to score in the 92^nd minute.

The following games were a bit easier and we’re actually off to a flyer, 6 wins in the first 7 games. For some reason, Jonica is the spanner in the works... again. Faisal seems to have bad luck against these guys even though the game is relatively balanced. They just seem to get the win every time.

Terrible results again in November and a few better ones in December makes us jo-jo between places 2 and 6. So we’re in the running for the title still, but we’ll have to lift our level and get a run of good games to really break through to the first spot. At the Xmas break, we’re ranked 5^th.

Faisal and sponsor are treating all first team players to a free Xmas dinner at the pizza shop in a bid to lift the spirits and get motivated for the second half of the season. It was also a quiet “I told you so” towards the players for achieving a top half ranking at the break.

Forward Angelo Marco Rao is currently leading the goalscoring tally with 5 goals in the league and 2 in the cup.

The Eccellenza Sicilia Cup is really not our cup of tea. A very similar scenario compared to last season. We win 1-0 at home vs Geraci and lose 2-1 away. Away goals don’t count for anything in the cup so we head to penalties. At least this time the away game was a more equal game compared to last season. We just can’t seem to convert penalties that well so we get kicked out in the first round again.

 

Luckily the board doesn’t consider the cup as important enough to care. So Faisal is not too worried of not progressing past round 1. Maybe one day we'll get there.

Edited May 11, 2020 by fmonit

[fmonit]

(I already had played a full season and failed to post a mid-season update, hence why this post is in quick succession to the previous post)

 

The pizza dinner didn’t work as we lose our first two games after the Xmas break. Not surprisingly against Jonica…. again…. Even new promising players DL Ferdinando Raucci and DM Alfredo Saba couldn’t prevent the two losses. Faisal is quite excited about the free kick skills Raucci has and hopes he can score a free kick here and there.

And again, the game against Jonica should really have gone the other way if you look at the stats.

Faisal will think twice about giving perks to this lot of indulgent wastrels again.

Our back-up striker Aladje is making noises that he wants more playing time. In all honestly, he’s now acually demoted to 4^th striker as both Assistant Manager and Faisal find Greco and Mari better.

Faisal is thinking of offloading Aladje at the end of the season, but he’ll give him a run in the first team to see if he performs. He is now 29 and Faisal prefers to work with youngsters. Faisal made a promise to himself that Aladje will only be able to stay at the club if he performs well in the games where he is getting his chance. Just as Faisal draws up the team sheet for the next game against Ragusa, Aladje gets injured and can’t play. That makes the decision for starting striker easier and it turned out to be a good thing for the club as we set off to a 6 game winning streak.

As he has done so many times before, Zagari lifted the level of the squad by performing at a consistent high level, but he never got PoM in those games. He was always the 2^nd best player after the one player who had a great performance for just one game. Faisal didn’t mind that and still found Zagari the best performing player even though he didn’t get the award for it. Even in the game where he was the only scorer, Franchina received the PoM award for supplying the assist, keeping a clean sheet and providing 2 key passes.

We are now 8 games from the end of the season and ranked 3^rd, behind Marina di Ragusa (1^st) and Citta di Sant’Agata (2^nd). We actually just beaten Citta di Sant’Agata, closing the gap to 2^nd by 2 points and 1^st by 7 points. Everything is still possible but we need to get some results in key games as we play Marina di Ragusa in 2 games.

Our next game was a roller coaster 3-3 draw against Leonfortese (7^th). Again we had most possession, shots on target and best chances, but just couldn’t win…

We feel that the next game against Marina di Ragusa is a must win as it would be very hard to still catch up and win the league if we lose. It would mean that the points difference between us would be 12 points while there are still 6 games to go.

The result:

The missed penalty was a bitter pill to swallow. Especially because it would have brought us back in the game.

Aladje was convinced he would have scored that penalty. But with his slipped disc he was forced watching the game from the stands.

The mood dropped and the prospect of promotion was now a only a dream. The team didn’t give up just yet as there is still a small chance of getting to the top spot. The dream was however soon crushed by a shock 0-1 loss at home against Kamarat (2^nd last and already relegated). The fans all went to the pub after that game as the season was well and truly over.

The result is still good as we finish third again, but the club is really pushing for promotion to the Serie D and hopes it happens soon.

Funnily enough, Marina di Ragusa got pipped by Citta di Sant'Agata on the last game of the season to claim the title.

Faisal is also quite happy about these stats:

And just to show the inportance of Felice Zagari to the club:

League top scorer 2 seasons in a row

With some impressive stats in the league:

(I have been quiet about the youth intake because at this level even the best youths don’t seem to be able to break into the first team squad. There are also no Libyan players generated for the club yet. Fingers crossed this happens soon!

The best player of this season’s intake is Davide Dell’Isola, but it’ll take a while before he would be somewhere near first team material.)

 

Libya Check

Libya move up a few positions back to a nice and even 100^th position on the FIFA ranking.

They failed to qualify for the African Nations Cup, but they gave it a good go. They lost to Cameroon twice and won twice against Liberia. One of the most notable results was a 1-1 away draw against Egypt, while they lost 1-3 to them at home. So Libya ended third in the qualification group and didn’t qualify for the African Nations Cup.

Furthermore, a couple of friendlies were played which were easily won: 3-0 vs Eritrea, 5-0 vs Lesotho.

End of Season Details

Competitions
League	Eccellenza Sicilia grp. B (level 5)	3rd
Cup	Eccellenza Sicilia Cup	First Round
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Felice Zagari	17
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Felice Zagari	7.16
Most Assists (all competitions)	Michele Scarano	10
Best Pass Completion	Cristian Torchia	85%
Most PoM’s	Angelo Marco Rao	6
Most Yellow Cards	Cristian Torchia	9
Most Red Cards	Gabriele Franchina	1
Highest Value Player	Calogero Inserauto	€ 850
Highest Paid Player	-	€ 0
Manager
Reputation	National	1327
Qualifications	National C Licence
Wage	€ 0
Performance this season	B+
Club
Reputation	Obscure	726
Stadium	Giuseppe Moltisanti	500
Corporate Facilities	Basic
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Poor
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Felice Zagari
Goal of The Season	Alfredo Saba	See Below
Singing of The Season	Giovanni Mariani	Free
Young Player of The Season	Felice Zagari	23
Finances
Turnover	+ € 16,092
Balance (June)	+ € 81,797
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 9
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 77.79
Season Ticket Holders	75
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 18,250
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	100
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

Team of The Season

Legends

[fmonit]

The pizza shop stopped sponsering the club, but luckily the chairman found a new sponser (local furniture shop Mobili AB). These are the jerseys the club will be playing in for the next 2 seasons:

 

The standing of the club over the past 2 seasons in the league has been very promising. It motivates Faisal to seek out a few new talented players and really push for promotion this season. There is no shortage on midfielders and strikers but good defenders seem hard to find unfortunately. Even this season it was hard to find a top notch defender (for our level) willing to play for us. Faisal attracted one player who could play in defence, but really is a defensive midfielder: Albanian DM Kloert Doda. Other new faces in the dressing room are Moroccan DM Zakaria Daqoune, MC Mattia Cama, MC Giuseppe Lenoci, AML Devis Raimondi (finally a good backup for Zagari) and ST Nicolas Magnavita.

 

No one willingly left the club. Considering the first team is constantly growing and hardly anyone wants to leave, the squad has grown quite big. Faisal knows that it doesn’t cost the club anything as they are all on amateur contracts, but he feels sorry for the guys that never even make it on the bench. So he decided to either move them to the under 20s, or let them go if they are over 20 years old. With the arrival of Magnavita up front, Aladje was the first one to be shown the door as Faisal wasn’t too impressed with him last season and he was already planning this for a few months. Five others followed him out the door and were thanked for their support to the club. Most of them played a few games in the first or second season, but never made the cut at our current level.

Faisal doesn’t like to think that we are a 1 star player kind of club, but the first games of the season made him think otherwise. For some reason, Felice Zagari had a bad start to the season with performances averaging 6.6 in the first 5 games. His first game was 7.6, while the next 4 games he struggled to get above 6.4 average rating. The fans started murmuring “When Felice plays bad, the results are bad”, and they weren’t wrong. The club only got 4 points out of the first six games, which is far below our usual level.

 

The cup on the other hand was very different to the league. We actually went past the first and second round this time and made it to the quarter finals where we got kicked out by Libertas 2010.

 

 

Once we were out of the cup, the results seemed to get a little better. A notable result was a 2-6 victory away against Giarre (who were promoted 2 seasons ago and dropped to our league again last season). They hadn’t lost a home game yet and we were stoked to have smashed them 2-6! Two notable goals also happened in that game with one of them a contender for goal of the year:

 

 

Even though our first games this season were terrible, the league hasn’t got a clear favourite yet as most teams at the top have lost a few games so far. Good for us, as it allows us to catch up and hopefully over take them at some point in the new year. We’re currently 5^th, 3 points behind the leaders.

 

 

Our youth intake doesn’t look too promising either. No mention about a Libyan player yet…

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by fmonit

[fmonit]

Our change of form in the end of December kept going for a little while in the new year as well. Zagari was still playing ok but not to his usual high standard he was playing before. Luckily striker Rao and playmaker Torchia stepped in and lifted the team’s level. We were getting good crowds and it motivated the team to keep performing. Just look at these results until the end of march:

The only blip on the radar were a couple of people moaning about the lack of game time. Which was totally understanding as Faisal promised them to be star players, but in fact they mostly made appearances from the bench. Faisal knew that a bad dressing room atmosphere could disrupt the current form so he took action before it could happen. He released DL Michele Scarano, DM Alfredo Saba and AML Devis Raimondi. Devis was the toughest decision to let him go as he really is the only backup for Felice Zagari and could actually become a better player than Zagari. But Faisal couldn’t risk not playing Zagari as he has been the rock for the club for so many years. They are big shoes to fill and Devis didn’t seem to have the patience to wait for his chance… so off he goes…

We were lacking another solid defender and a couple of days before the end of the free transfer period (end of march), the scouts found the clubless DC Dario Conti. Faisal quickly offered him a contract as he believes he can walk straigth into the starting eleven. And so it happened…

Four games to go, and we were sitting first with a difference of 5 points to the 2^nd placed team Nissa. Anything can still happen, especially because 3 of our 4 last games are against direct competitors: Nissa (2^nd), Paterno (3^rd) and Giarre (4^th)… scary times.

First game, away to Paterno:

Close game, but we were happy we stopped them from getting the 3 points.

Next game was at home against Giarre:

Faisal and fans were absolutely stoked with the result and way the team played in the first half! Definitely a highlight in the season and more importantly, Giarra is out of the title race and we still have 5 points ahead of the number two. Meaning we need to win our next game to win the title. A draw is potentially also good, providing we lose our last game with max 2 goals difference. Faisal doesn’t want to tempt fate so he’s focusing on delivering a good result at home against 14^th placed Rosolini:

We win the title! Rao scored the winner with a close range header, supplied by right back Franchina. What was interesting is that Rao won the aerial duel against a 192cm tall defender (Cordaro) with jumping reach somewhere between 11-17 (haven’t scouted him). Rao is 176cm and has a jumping reach of 8, so he would usually lose that aerial battle. It actually looks like Cordaro missed the header all together as the ball zooms past his head while he reaches for it.

Who would have guessed that after such a bad start to the season, we would still come out on top! Just look at the progress this season:

We also finally won a game against Jonica, who always managed to get a win against us.

A couple of positive stats at the end of the season:

Next season Serie D! The board has now switched to a Semi-Professional status so Faisal can give his players and staff contracts. The board even offered him a contract of € 3,000/month.

Libya Check

Libya dropped slightly to position 102 on the FIFA Ranking. They played a lot of friendlies of which most of them were lost. The only friendly win was a 1-0 at Namibia.

They did have a few good results, notably the CAF World Cup Qualifiers 2^nd round. They won to Kenya in both home and away games 2-1 (4-2 aggregate), which made them qualify for the third round: a Group Stage where the winner is placed for the World Cup and the runner up has to play a playoff.

The group draw is pretty good and there is an opportunity here to potentially qualify for the World Cup: Ethiopia (153^rd), Zambia (63^rd) and Mozambique (92^nd).

The qualification for the African Nations Cup 2025 has also taken place and Libya is in a group with Senegal (13^th), South Africa (72^nd) and Burundi (148^th). Top two qualifies for the African Nations Cup. This one will be tough, although Libya already won 4-0 at home to Burundi and had a narrow loss in South Africa 1-0.

For the record, Libya never qualified for a World Cup, but they have been to 3 African Nations Cups before with the best result in 1982 as runners-up.

End of Season Details

Competitions
League	Eccellenza Sicilia grp. B (level 5)	1st
Cup	Eccellenza Sicilia Cup	QF
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Angelo Marco Rao	15
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Cristian Torchia	7.48
Most Assists (all competitions)	Cristian Torchia	9
Best Pass Completion	Muhammed Drammeh (GK)	92%
Most PoM’s	Angelo Marco Rao & Cristian Torchia	6
Most Yellow Cards	Gabriele Franchina & Davide Saporita	8
Most Red Cards	Gabriele Franchina	1
Highest Value Player	Agan Miftari (u18 squad)	€ 600
Highest Paid Player	-	€ 0
Manager
Reputation	National	2264
Qualifications	National B Licence
Wage	€ 0
Performance this season	A-
Club
Reputation	Obscure	1061
Stadium	Giuseppe Moltisanti	500
Corporate Facilities	Basic
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Poor
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Cristian Torchia
Goal of The Season	Gabriele Franchina	See Below
Singing of The Season	-	-
Young Player of The Season	Cristian Torchia	22
Finances
Turnover	+ € 18,100
Balance (June)	+ € 114,448
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 9
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 77.79
Season Ticket Holders	77
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 18,250
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	102
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

Player of the Season

Team of The Season

Most promising player from the youth intake

Legends

[Hootieleece]

What a season....from depths of despair you arose like a phoenix to Victory! Ave!

[fmonit]

On 22/05/2020 at 04:24, Hootieleece said:

What a season....from depths of despair you arose like a phoenix to Victory! Ave!

Thanks, it was an intense season. Did not expect to get to the top after the first games.

[fmonit]

Exciting times, here we are in the fourth tier of Italian football. The board converted the club from amateur to semi-professional status which has Faisal worried as now players and staff are actually going to cost money! Luckily the club built up some reserves and hopefully we get some good attendances so that we get some money in the till.

Faisal got offered a €3,000 / month contract which he gladly accepted. He decided to quit the work at the pizza shop and go full-time manager of the club. He currently only has a National B Licence, but he is eager to achieve more. His attributes have developed nicely.

He also put a few players on a semi-professional contract. Luckily, these players are happy with an appearance fee as opposed to a monthly wage. That gives Faisal the opportunity to put them on the bench if he wants to save some money. Not everyone got a semi-professional contract, only the players that Faisal finds crucial to retain (Conti, Daqoune, Lenoci, Torchia, Magnavita, Zagari, Rao and Orlando).

As we are in a new division, some new blood is required to help us survive the first season. Considering that the club would now have to pay the new players coming in, Faisal was really picky on who would join the club. They had to be a big improvement on the position they are playing. Because of that, he only was able to sign 1 player: DR Igor Aliperta (also the first newgen capable of being a starting player). What Faisal loved about this player is that he is not only a good player, he is also a natural leader and we need a strong captain as our previous captains did not really score high in the leadership department.

Even though Aliperta was made captain, his mood went down fast at the end of the transfer window as he felt the promise made at his signing was broken. Faisal was meant to strengthen the defence area, but he just couldn’t find the right players. So Faisal is hoping he can find them along the way and sign them as he finds them. Maybe that would lift his mood down the track.

So with an unhappy captain and no other players signed, we kick off the new season. Luckily Aliperta is not the only influential player in the team and he is not in any social group at the moment so his unhappiness should not reflect on the squad by a great amount.

August and September were great months for the club in terms of the games played. We seem to cruise past most opponents and score a nice 16 points out of the first 6 games! That was very unexpected as we were listed as one of the weakest teams in the league according to the press, yet here we are in 2^nd position behind one of the favourites: Gubbio.

The unhappy captain is actually playing quite well and averages 6.98 over the first 6 league games and even assisted once! He even scored a goal in a Cup game.

Speaking of Cup games, we are now enlisted in the Serie D Cup and score an easy 5-0 win over Progresso in the first round. The 2^nd round was a bit trickier as we meet Chieti away and they are a strong team. Luckily they play in Girone F and we don’t meet them in the league.

We get close to beating them but ended up drawing 2-2. Penalties has never been our strong point and that hasn’t really changed. We only score 1 out of the first 3 penalties so the shootout was wrapped up pretty quickly. Chieti moves to the next round.

We had a couple of mixed results in October, but things looked positive again from mid-November onwards. We’re looking pretty strong and had a clean sheet 6 games in a row! Still 2^nd on the ladder!

The reason for this good form is because Faisal did manage to find some good players in November and signed them up for the team. They are all free players so they can be signed outside the transfer windows. New players are: DL Francesco Vaccaro, GK Salvatore Barbieri, Ivory Coast AML Adamzaki Ouattara, DC Riccardo Mansueto and probably the biggest catch DMC Filippo Dusi. Mostly defenders so this should make our captain happy.

[Hootieleece]

Good Luck with the new season.

[fmonit]

3 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

Good Luck with the new season.

Thanks!

[fmonit]

The captain’s morale remains poor even though Faisal did fulfill his promise to him. It’s a pity the backup DR is really not up the same level or Faisal would have started him once in a while. Even good results and a league standing to be proud of seem to not have an effect. So we’ll have to motor on with a good, but unhappy captain. He has now made friends with some other people (all defenders and GK) so that should help our defence.

 

Only one player joined in January, AML Ferdinando Dell’Oro. This signing turned out to be a surprise to a lot of fans. With Zagari and Ouattara on the left flank, why do we need a third one? Especially because the level that Dell’Oro plays at is below the other two. Faisal had to explain that Ouattara has had major injuries in the past so it was really making sure there is enough depth on the left flank. Zagari on the other hand never had a serious injury in his career so far. A tight calf or bruised ankle which kept him out of action for a few days, but nothing more than that.

 

January was a great month where we played 3 games and won all three of them, while February was a bit slower. We only managed to score 5 points out of 4 games. No reason to panic as we are still well above relegation zone, but a couple of more bad results in the next games would leave us out of the title race. To think of it that we are actually talking about the title race while we only just got promoted to the Serie D. It just shows what a positive mentality between the players can do, coupled with a few skillful players as well of course.

 

The club got some new youth prospects in the dressing room. There are two that could eventually make it into the first team, but it will be a long process. Their names are quite similar so Faisal has got to make sure he is calling out the correct player if he calls them up for the first team: MC Mario Luongo and MR Mauro Longo. This could get confusing.

Still no Libyan player in the youth intake.

 

March and April were good. Aside from 2 draws, we won every other game.

Six games to go in the season, and the title race seems to become a two horse race with Virtus Ispica and Gubbio both on 64 points.

We have a good run and have 3 convincing wins in a row while Gubbio’s engine stutters a little and got 2 draws and a win. Suddenly we are 4 points clear and favourite to win the title! They now face Rocella (3^rd) while we play Marsala (10^th) away.

What surprised everyone is that Gubbio won their game while we lost in Marsala… Back to 1 point difference and the title is not secure yet.

Next up is an away game at Palmese (8^th) and Gubbio plays away at Vibonese (9^th). We had a fantastic game and have beaten Palmese 0-3! This gives the squad a good feeling, especially because Gubbio drew 2-2! Three points difference and we just need a draw at home against Imolese (6^th), or Gubbio cannot get the three points at home against Campobasso (12^th).

Faisal gives one last motivational speech before the last game, that got appreciated by most players, but some are now feeling more pressure. Faisal didn’t care… he felt the key player in the squad can take the extra pressure so he wanted to ensure they understand the result if we get a point today. In front of a jubilant crowd of 476 people (nearly a full house), Angelo Marco “Chairman” Rao kicks off for what is sure to become a spectacle.  

First clear cut chance was for Imolese in the 10^th minute where a corner was booted into the pack and somehow landed in front of their winger Mamona who booted it outside of the goalframe… phew… It turned out to be an aggressive match with players from both teams picking up yellow cards.

Then in the 33^rd min: Aliperti crosses after receiving a throw in, the defence cleared it poorly and the ball lands to the feet of Daquone just outside the goal square. He strikes it with fury but the goalie was able to push the ball away… right into the feet of Ouattara who just needs to tap it in…1-0!!! The defence complains about offside but the replay clearly shows Ouattara onside when Daquone pulled the trigger. The goal stands.

Nothing else notable happened in the first half so we have a 1-0 lead at half time. Looking at the Gubbio game, they were also up 1-0 so we definitely need to keep our lead.

The second half starts with the crowd attempting a Mexican wave, which is not very succesful as there are no stands at the goal ends so it lacks continuity.

Imolese seemed eager to get the best out of the game and went on the offensive straight away. This resulted in a goal from their left winger wo was now able to find the target from close range: 1-1. We are still good clinching the title with that scoreline, but we should really maintain it.

We got a few chances afterwards, but none were really clear cut. Meanwhile in the other game, Campobasso came back to 1-1, so we are still good to win the title.

Then came the 87^th minute… We’re on the attack and lose the ball on their half, which quickly gets them on the counter along the left wing. The wingers gets passed our defender Conti and crosses the to just the outside of the goal square where opposition midfielder Multari receives the ball, controls it and unleashes a devastating shot beating all my defenders, including goalie…. Goal… 1-2…. The crowd was stunned and silenced. Silence turned into disbelief because 4 minutes earlier, Gubbio scored a goal and were now leading 2-1, meaning that they win the title. We got 3 minutes to score and still win it…. It was difficult to bring to ball forward but in extra time, Daquone tried his luck from distance but the goalie was able to parry the ball, preventing a goal. The final whistle goes and we lose 1-2. The crowd is angered…. But suddenly a cheer starts from the far end of the stands..

Campobasso scored to make it 2-2! This results in Virtus Ispica winning the title and getting promoted to the Serie C! The players took note of it as well and all ran towards the fans to celebrate the outstanding season. Faisal’s name is being chanted as he walks past the stands, applauding the fans for their support.

 

Faisal was happy to get promoted, but is really worried about the finances. Serie C means you have to go professional and we don’t have a stadium that satisfies the requirements. So we either move stadium or build/expand our own. We had a nice cash reserve at the start of the season, but that has nearly completely disappeared so we’re starting a new league with barely any money…. Hopefully some more sponsorships come in and we get more revenue from games to balance out the expenses. So far we have been in the black for 5 season, but that may start to change soon….

 

A couple of positive stats at the end of the season:

 

 

 

 

Looking at the stats above, Faisal doesn't get that Aliperti is still annoyed for not strengthening the defence. We've got the best bloody defence in the league!

Libya Check

 

Libya is now ranked 105^th.

Two friendlies were played in June and both won against Reunion and Somalia, 2-0 and 3-0 respectively.

As expected, qualification for the African Nations Cup was a tad too hard for Libya with Senegal, Burundi and South Africa in the group. Both games against Burundi were won, but Libya was not strong enough to even get a point in the games against Senegal and South Africa. Libya ended third in the group.

Anything is still possible in the World Cup qualifying though! Only 2 games played and Libya had a win against Ethiopia and a close loss in Zambia. Four more games to play and still in the running…

 

 

 

End of Season Details

Competitions
League	Serie D, Girone I (level 4)	1st
Cup	Serie D Cup	2nd Round
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Angelo Marco Rao	15
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Cristian Torchia	7.24
Most Assists (all competitions)	Angelo Marco Rao	8
Best Pass Completion	Salvatore Barbieri (GK)	95%
Most PoM’s	Cristian Torchia	5
Most Yellow Cards	Dario Conti	7
Most Red Cards	-	-
Highest Value Player	Giovanni Andriani (u18 squad)	€ 1,700
Highest Paid Player (monthly) (assuming 4 games/month)	Filippo Dusi (€ 275 per game)	€ 1,100
Manager
Reputation	National	3054
Qualifications	National B Licence
Wage (monthly)	€ 3,000
Performance this season	A-
Club
Reputation	Local	1618
Stadium	Giuseppe Moltisanti	500
Average Attendance	403
Corporate Facilities	Adequate
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Poor
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Cristian Torchia
Goal of The Season	Filippo Dusi	See Below
Singing of The Season	Riccardo Mansueto	-
Young Player of The Season	Cristian Torchia	23
Finances
Turnover	- € 106,852
Balance (June)	+ € 7,596
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 9
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 87.08
Season Ticket Holders	96
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 18,250
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	105
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

 

 

Player of the Season

 

 

 

Team of The Season

 

Most promising player from youth intake

 

Legends

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by fmonit

[Hootieleece]

Congrats on the Title. 

Tight finances will be a problem for a long time, because the real money in Italian Football is in European Football for Serie A.

[fmonit]

3 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

Congrats on the Title. 

Tight finances will be a problem for a long time, because the real money in Italian Football is in European Football for Serie A.

Thanks mate.

There is actually some good TV money coming in that I didn't anticipate. So we may be ok for next season.

[fmonit]

Virtus Ispica is now a professional club! That means more staff, more supporters, more sponsors, more money, more contracts and more headaches….

Faisal was worried about the finances but there have been few positive news items he didn’t factor in before:

·         The club got TV money: a nice sum of € 825K! That’s 8x more money we ever had in the bank!

·         New shirt sponsor at € 75K annually (Soda company based in Modica)

·         New general sponsor at € 12.25K annually

·         We should also get increased attendances and associated gate receipts.

The finances might actually be ok as the projection is looking quite good: € 454K at the end of the season and € 1.4M in three seasons!

Faisal probably has to go easy on the signing of players and not put everyone on contracts. Speaking of contracts, he made the tough decision of releasing most of his staff. They were still his friends that joined 6 seasons ago, but they haven’t really developed together with Faisal. At this level, we’d also need some more experienced coaches and backroom staff. So he decided to release them gradually over the next season or two, while he is adding some professional people. He signed a new coach, fitness coach, physio, two scouts and a data analyst.

Meanwhile, the club offered Faisal a contract for € 300/month less to what he was currently earning. He decided to pass and re-negotiate at the end of the season.

As the club is now in a professional league, we need to have a stadium with a minimum capacity of 4000 people. We only have 500 at Giuseppe Moltisanti so we need to do something about it. The board decided to rent out neighbouring Giovanni Palatucci Stadium in Noto, which has an all seated capacity of 5000 people. And we’ll be playing our home games on grass!!  

The stadium is shared with USD Noto, who is currently playing in the Eccellenza Sicilia Grp. A (level 5). Noto is only 25 min away from Ispica so the fans and players should be ok to travel to the games.

As the scouting team has increased, so has the number of players scouted. This pleases Faisal as there are plenty of free players that were released from their club that would be starting players for Virtus Ispics. Faisal finally gets better reports and more information about a player so he can be more targeted to who he signs. So the club was able to sign DC Andrea Medico, DLC Matteo Zupperdoni, MC Gabriele Barcellona, AMR Giovanni Nannelli and SC Davide Caruso.

Our captain has also finally come to terms with how we roll at Virtus Ispica. He stated that he is no longer worried about the promise that was broken and is happy to stay at Virtus Ispica. Hell, he even listed Faisal as his new favoured personnel!

The season is going to be a hard one as we’re listed at the bottom of the table in the season preview at 32-1 odds. Bottom team gets relegated while the four places above last place play a relegation playoff to determine the other two teams to relegate. The mission is to at least to reach the relegation playoff.

Up until mid-October, we really had some mixed results. League standing is not great (2^nd last) and we are still finding our rhythm with the new players and our standard tactic 4-1-2-3 DM Wide didn’t seem to work that well. The press is getting anxious and wondering why Faisal is reluctant to change his approach. He took wind of this and it got him thinking… The new striker Davide Caruso isn’t really scoring, the AML Zagari used to be great in that position but his replacement Ouattara hasn’t been performing that well and it seems our best players are now in defence, or defensive midfield. We only scored 5 goals so far and 3 of them are from defenders from set pieces. That is an indication we’re not getting the supply to our finishers.

Faisal decided to mix it up a bit and try a different system. Caruso should be our main goal scorer but isn’t really getting the goals. He’s a bit too isolated, with minimal support from the AML who he really should be playing with. So how about we try to get two strikers up front, keeping it solid at the back, allowing the wingers to move up, basically a 4-4-2 wing play. This means that the assists should come from the wings, while the central midfield supports a bit deeper up the pitch. This would be good for MR Nannelli as this is his natural position, and Caruso can play as an advanced forward next to a deep lying forward. The only problem is that we don’t have a DLF. Faisal may have to sign one soon. Basically something like this:

Because we don’t have a ML, Faisal decided to bring crowd favourite Zagari in again, but with an inverted winger duty while the left wing back overlaps and gives the width on the left side.

The new system was tested at home against Monopoli (9^th) and the impact was immediately visible. A nice 2-0 victory, with Zagari back in a main role.

It worked against some teams, but not against others. Faisal constantly switched between the two tactics to try and get the best results and it worked! Up until the Xmas break we haven’t lost a single game (but lots of draws) and we climbed to a safe 10^th position. We’re now even in promotion playoff territory.

Caruso is still not scoring and Faisal has warned him about losing his place in the first team. Faisal is looking for some new blood up front (a DLF or PF would be nice) and a left winger with a right foot. But anyone who is better than our own player in that position will be looked at. The finances turn out to be quite good (profit of €350K so far) so the club can afford a few new signings to bolster the squad.

Faisal also sneakily asked for upgraded youth facilities and this was initially rejected. But since Faisal’s standing with the club is quite high, the board finally caved in and approved an upgrade:

Speaking of youth, again not a great preview and no mention of a Libyan player.

Faisal is getting noticed in the football world as both Reggina (Serie B) and Alessandria (Serie C) offered him an interview which he politely declined. His heart and soul lies with Virtus Ispica and they will have to sack him if he is to split from the club.

[fmonit]

In closer inspection of the Virtus Ispica logo, I noticed the club was established in 1927. I'm currently in season 2025-2026 in my savegame, so next season is exactly 100 years of the club's existence.

To celebrate the centennial next season I'll be creating three new logo's for the club that I'll let you (the reader of this topic) decide on which one to adopt for the club from next season onwards. I'm currently designing the logo's and I won't continue with my savegame until I have all three of them online and ready to be voted for. Keep an eye out for the next post from me with the logo's!

[fmonit]

Allright, as per my previous post, I made a few logo's to celebrate the centennial of USD Virtus Ispica in my savegame next season.

I based myself on the colours of Ispica and Sicily, the crest of Ispica and the flag of Sicily. Reading through the history of Sicily, I now understand that the colour red and yellow are sicilian colours. Red represents lava (from the Etna vulcano) while yellow represents fertility (crops), referring to the fertile land in Sicily. I have no intention to change the colours of the club so I will stick with the yellow and red scheme.

I'll give a brief desciption of the elements of each logo.

Option 1 (the Juventus Style):

I wanted to do something modern like Juventus. A few simple lines or a letter, making the logo unique. In this design I used the letter "V" (Virtus) as a basis, but swapped to right side of the "V" with an italic "I" (Ispica). This way, it displays both V and I in a single gesture. I added the red and yellow colours to the left part of the "V" to reflect the club's and Sicilian colours.

Option 2 (the traditional style):

A little more traditional with the addition of the branches to the base of the logo. The shape itself is simple and displays the club's name on the top, the Sicilian triskeles symbol (as seen on the Sicilian flag) to the left and the red and yellow stripes to the right. The shape is crowned with the same crown as on the Ispica crest.

Option 3 (the slick style):

In this option, I've introduced a "V" and "i" again, but this time following the curvature of the base shape. I used red as a background and yellow letters to represent the club colours. This design also features the centennial 1927-2027  to suggest the completion of the mirror of the "V" shape. I do like the crown on top of the Ispica crest so I added it to this design as well.

I'll leave it open for a few days while I complete the second half of the 2025-2026 season I'm currently playing.

I tried doing it as a poll, but it doesn't seem to allow pictures as part of the poll so please respond as follows:

Please leave a comment which logo design I should continue my save with.

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by fmonit

[zethani]

All three options seem great to me. However, I'd say that the second one looks too much a coat of arms and I'd rather not have it on a jersey.

It is a close call between the first and the third one. I'd go with the first one, but only because I don't like the crown on the third one, it ruins the minimalist look imho.

Cheers for the very nice save so far, great job.

[fmonit]

9 minutes ago, zethani said:

All three options seem great to me. However, I'd say that the second one looks too much a coat of arms and I'd rather not have it on a jersey.

It is a close call between the first and the third one. I'd go with the first one, but only because I don't like the crown on the third one, it ruins the minimalist look imho.

Cheers for the very nice save so far, great job.

Thanks for the feedback zethani. I see your point about the crown for option 3. I had it without crown at first but it felt a bit plain. Maybe a more modern vesion of a crown might work better.

[zethani]

Also, since now you are a professional club, you may want to get rid of U.S.D. in the logo, which means Unione Sportiva Dilettantistica (Amateur Sport Union), or just drop the "D" 

[fmonit]

59 minutes ago, zethani said:

Also, since now you are a professional club, you may want to get rid of U.S.D. in the logo, which means Unione Sportiva Dilettantistica (Amateur Sport Union), or just drop the "D" 

Cheers for the info. I didn't know that.

[anubi_ita]

6 ore fa, zethani ha scritto:

All three options seem great to me. However, I'd say that the second one looks too much a coat of arms and I'd rather not have it on a jersey.

It is a close call between the first and the third one. I'd go with the first one, but only because I don't like the crown on the third one, it ruins the minimalist look imho.

Cheers for the very nice save so far, great job.

 

I agree  
The third option in "Jagiellonia Białystok" style could be another option

Edited June 3, 2020 by anubi_ita

[fmonit]

 

Time to reflect a little and map out the plan for the next couple of months. The biggest issue with the team at the moment is the lack of goals. We have moved up to 10^th and haven’t lost in a while, but the wins were with not much goal difference.

As we recently shifted to a 4-4-2 tactic with a focus on wing play, Faisal felt that we were lacking a good support striker to our poachers Caruso (or Rao). He found Isacco Favaretto who was recently released from Chievo Verona (Serie A). Favaretto suits the Deep Lying Forward role quite nicely and Faisal is hoping he would link up with Caruso so he can finally start scoring some goals. Faisal is also happy we finally have someone who is actually good at taking set pieces as making the most of set pieces is one of the board’s requirements.

 

Other players joining on a free in January: DC Luca Stanga (who will help with scoring goals from set pieces) and AML Maicol Cecchi (also the new Zagari with his right foot on the left wing).

 

This comparision shows that Cecchi (green) really is the improved version of crowd favourite Zagari (blue).

 

Our good form from before the Xmas break was broken in January… 2 losses and 1 draw with just 1 goal scored. On top of that, we only managed to hit the target an average of 4 times and only 1 clear cut chance out of 3 games (which was missed). That is not good enough if we want to avoid relegation and stay at professional football in Italy.

 

Faisal moved towards the tactic 4-1-2-3 DM Wide that was so succesful for us over the past seasons. This also because Cecchi should fit in that AML slot that Zagari couldn’t play anymore as Zagari really can’t keep up with the level of Serie C. That means Favaretto is either benched or lined up in an MC spot as we really need him for the free kicks and corners.

February didn’t bring much improvement either.

 

We mostly play along in all games, but fail to make the difference. The opponent outclasses us in pretty much every aspect, except yellow cards. Cecchi looks lost on the left wing, Caruso has only scored one and we only had 3 goals in 8 games since the new year. Do Caruso and Cecchi need more time to gel with the other players? Is the tactic wrong? Or are the players just not good enough at this level? Faisal feels that the tactic was right as we’ve done so well with it in the past number of seasons. So he believes they need more game time together, but also get improved players in key positions. Rao is too weak to play as striker in Serie C, Caruso should be ok in Serie C but he’s just new and still needs to find his place in the squad. So we’re basically screwed if the main striker doesn’t perform as our backup striker (Rao) is not cut out to play at this level.

At about the same time, the scouts found Gianmarco Mancarella who was realeased from Lecce and played 2 games in the Serie A. Surely he will be a great improvement to the squad!

 

Mancarella’s debut game was sealed with a goal and a victory straight away! Running onto the ball delivered from a free kick, he slided the ball in between the far post and the goalie. He showed great composure and Faisal was really happy with what he saw as it gave him confidence that this may solve our lack of scoring goals.

The results improved a little and Mancarella proved he can be lethal up front with scoring another goal against fellow relegation contenders Trapani. It’s looking better and Faisal is giving him a lot of game time with the hope that he will connect with the other players and become the main outlet up front. Maybe not this season, but definitely next season.

 

So with the plan laid out for the next season, we still had to survive this season. We’re not doing as bad as other teams in the league and with 3 games to go in april, we are standing 17^th in the league which means we’ll have to play a relegation playoff unless we can get to 15^th position. We have yet to play Sicula Leonzio (14^th), Taranto (15^th) and FC Messina (5^th) so anything is still possible.

We got lucky against Leonzio as the game was fairly equal, but we brought home the game with a belter from the edge of the penalty by Lenoci, 1-0.

Away against Taranto was another one of those trigger happy players shooting at every opportunity even though there are opportunities to pass to players in better positions. This happened for both sides so in the end no one scored and the game ended a bore 0-0.

Two good results against direct competitors made us jump to 14^th position and safe from relegation playoff providing we snatch a point at Messina and/or the other games have favourable results.

Messina was just too strong for us. Their left winger is really good and just waltzed through our defence, breaking it up and supplying lethal passes to teammates. He’s actually the leading player in the assist table of the league and Faisal can see why. We lost 3-1.

Luckily results elsewhere were in our favour and we just landed on 15^th position, equal points but better goal difference to Taranto. We’re safe!

After relegation playoff, Monopoli and ACR Messina join Fidelis Andria to Serie D.

 

As expected, we picked up most yellow cards in the season:

 

It turns out that Faisal didn’t have to worry about finances that much. It would have actually been a nightmare if we were still stuck in Serie D as our finances have sky-rocketed since getting promoted to Serie C. TV revenue was by far the biggest income.

 

Youth Intake

 

Not a great intake, but Orazio Nicolosi is one of the ones to keep an eye on. No Libyan again this season, but we did get Dutch/Colombian Gabriel Rodriguez through the ranks. A bit of a strange one as we don’t have affiliations with Dutch or Columbian clubs and no one at the club has either of those nationalities. He’s actually ok and may get to the first team if he develops well. 

 

 

Libya Check

 

Libya is now 102th on the FIFA ranking.

World Cup qualification was a real posibility for Libya, but unfortunately they didn’t get there. In a group with Zambia, Mozambique and Ethiopia, Libya had way too many draws where there should be wins and lost both games against Zambia. Zambia goes through and Libya ended third in the group behind Mozambique but in front of Ethiopia.

The qualifying group for the African Nations Cup 2027 looks ok: Cameroon (21^st), Togo (85^th) and Kenya (135^th) are the opponents. Libya already won against Kenya and had a fantastic 2-2 draw at home against Cameroon.

End of Season Details

 

Competitions
League	Serie C, Girone C (level 3)	15th
Cup	Coppa Italia Lega Pro Cup	1st Round
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Angelo Marco Rao Felice Zagari Giuseppe Lenoci Adamzaki Ouattara Riccardo Mansueto	3
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Dario Conti	6.89
Most Assists (all competitions)	Filippo Dusi Giovanni Nannelli	4
Best Pass Completion	Giuseppe Lenoci	85%
Most PoM’s	Riccardo Mansueto	4
Most Yellow Cards	Igor Aliperta	12
Most Red Cards	Felice Zagari Frencesco Orlando	1
Highest Value Player	Gianmarco Mancarella	€ 93K
Highest Paid Player (per month)	Giovanni Nannelli Matteo Zupperdoni	€ 2,400
Manager
Reputation	National	3377
Qualifications	National A Licence
Wage (per month)	€ 2,900
Performance this season	B
Club
Reputation	Local	1660
Stadium	Giovanni Palatucci (Noto)	5000
Corporate Facilities	Adequate
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Poor
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Dario Conti
Goal of The Season	Giuseppe Lenoci	See Below
Singing of The Season	Isacco Favaretto	-
Young Player of The Season	Dario Conti	24
Finances
Turnover	+ € 185,306
Balance (June)	+ € 157,007
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 7
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 80.11
Season Ticket Holders	146
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 75,000
General (Annually)	€ 15,250
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	102
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

 

Player of the Season

 

 

 

Team of The Season

Legends

 

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by fmonit

[fmonit]

As we are now moving into our centennial year, the board has approved a new logo as determined by the fans. The board announced the new logo at this morning's press conference and stated they particularly appreciated the modern style the club is moving forward with. They are proud of the new logo and wished to thank the fans for their involvement in the growth of this club. They further invited every Sicilian to jump on board and support Virtus Ispica as our ambition is to become the best club of the island.

 

 

The club also re-printed their jerseys with the new logo:

The new jersey's have been made available to the fans, with the number "100" printed on the back, celebrating the club's 100 years of existence.

Edited June 9, 2020 by fmonit

[fmonit]

Faisal thinks it’s a pity the board can’t find additional sponsorship for the centennial year as it would have been great to be able to afford one or two top quality players. It would give this club a good push to become a real force in the Serie C and maybe even become the best club in Sicily. This is actually possible this season as there are no clubs from Sicily playing in Serie A or B. Palermo is arguably the best club in Sicily, but they have just been relegated from Serie B and are now playing in our division. Other clubs from Sicily in Serie C are Catania, FC Messina, Trapani and Sicula Leonzio.

The club was able to invest in some new players, but they’re not top players in Serie C. They’re improvements to our current squad as we intend to stay clear of relegation again this season.

Three players left this season as they felt they wouldn’t be able to break into the first squad: Kloert Doda, Nicolas Magnavita and Filippo Dusi. Faisal was surprised Dusi wanted to leave to a different Sicilian club as he played most games last season, but he then realised he forgot to give Dusi a professional contract. New players are MC Enrico Di Gesu, GK Willam Rovida, talented AMR/SC Giulio Alberti, DR Mattia Martedi and DMC Rosario Costantino.

 

Faisal purposely picked a few players in their late twenties as he felt we needed to increase the amount of experience in the squad.

The start of the season felt awkward. We didn’t play well and had to really fight to get points. August and September were a bit mixed. We started with 1 point out of three games before we got our first win against recently promoted Casertana, and even that was a hard fought battle.

 

There was however one game that pleased everyone and will be a topic of conversation for the next few years:

 

A total of 1340 spectators watched history unfold as we had beaten the “best” club in Sicily in our first encounter ever. Nobody expected that! It wasn't one way football either, both teams played well and either team could have won it:

 

Then this happened in October:

A new board on a centennial year! Are they bringing in the cash? Is he a tycoon? Faisal doesn’t think so as there is no investment in the club as yet. It would have been great to have a new chairman who isn’t afraid to spend a few Euro’s on our facilities. A new stadium would be nice as we are currently still renting the stadium in Notto considering our old stadium doesn’t meet the league requirements of minimum 4000 capacity.

October, November and December was a mixed bag again with 3 games won, a couple of draws but mostly losses. What stood out again is that the strikers fail to score. Most goals again this season come from set pieces. While this is a requirement from the board, it shouldn’t be the only way we score our goals. Top goalscorer is Favaretto on 5 goals, but he takes our penalties and free kicks so these are set pieces as well.

 

Even though the results have been mixed, the club is actually doing quite well if you look at the table. We’re hovering just above the relegation playoffs in 14^th place.

 

Faisal reflects on the players and tactics, and sees that the supply to the strikers isn’t great. Maybe we need to get a player that has excellent distribution skills so he can take control of the midfield and supply the strikers. Faisal now knows what to look for in January.

 

Edited June 12, 2020 by fmonit

[Hootieleece]

Great work coming up from nothing. 

It will be tough to beat Palermo because they are actually a sleeping giant.

[fmonit]

16 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

Great work coming up from nothing. 

It will be tough to beat Palermo because they are actually a sleeping giant.

Thanks mate. I feel like I'll be in Serie C a little while. Just because there are some big teams in there that really dominate the league (Palermo, Foggia, Juve Stabia, Catania, Bari). It'll take some time to build my squad to be able to compete with these guys. But that's ok, I just hope that we'll be ok financially and not have to fight for relegation every season.

[fmonit]

It looks like we are heading for a season safe of relegation, but we can’t get too relaxed. Faisal picked a few fights with players who have been demanding more playing time. The problem is that these players were listed as “Star Players”, which they were 4 seasons ago when we were playing 2 divisions lower. These players are still on amateur contracts so Faisal keeps them as they are cheap and still occasionally feature in the squad. He’s let them go as he doesn’t want to upset the other players (Cristian Torchia, Gabriele Barcellona, Zakaria Duqoune, Salvatore Barbieri, Francesco Orlando and Riccardo Mansueto). With our second GK Salvatore Barbieri leaving, Faisal had to find a new GK to either sit on the bench or play as main goalie. The u20 goalies are not good enough to get promoted to the first team.

So the new players are GK Mattia Cicino and MC Tommaso Odasso.

Faisal is happy with Odasso as he is a really creative player and is convinced he’ll do well in midfield, dishing out key passes to everyone. He’s got him to train on killer balls now.

The difference is noticable, the first game that features Odessa results in a 2-1 win at home against Taranto. It’s not so much the result that pleased Faisal, it is more the fact that the wingers and strikers are now scoring! In particular this lovely team goal finished by right winger Nannelli pleased Faisal as this type of passing didn’t used to happen. And of course it was Odessa supplying the assist.

The next couple of games were good as well and we start to play quite good football. Cecchi on the left wing also now finally seems to find the net with Odessa in the line-up. The rest of the season is looking quite positive.

We had a tough run in February with losing matches against Palermo (3^rD), Messina (4^th) and Potenza (8^th). But we picked ourselves up again in April with two wins against teams also battling against relegation. We seem to have a squad capable of finishing in a solid mid-table position. We were safe from relegation playoff after our 0-1 win against Sicula Leonzi in mid-april, three games before the end of the season.

We proudly finish 12^th in the league, which is a great achievement and reason to not only celebrate the centennial, but also the best ranking of the club ever! We’re not the best club of Sicily unfortunately as Catania, Palermo and FC Messina are above us in the league ranking. Neither of them are promoted to Serie B.

Also sad to see that two Sicilian clubs are relegated to Serie D.

As the season just finished, the board suddenly announces this:

Faisal is over the moon! This is exactly what he wanted from the new chairman, and he didn’t even have to ask. It might take a while but Faisal is happy we can bring the club back to Ispica. Faisal is silently hoping the stadium will be named after him, but this might not happen as he hasn’t achieved legendary status with the club yet.

 

 

Libya Check

Libya is now ranked 108^th on the FIFA Ranking.

Libya qualified for the 2027 African Nations Cup! In their qualifying group, they ended up 2^nd on equal points with Togo but with a better goal difference.

They are drawn into a group with Zambia, Guinea and Ivory Coast. Unfortunately they lost all three games and couldn’t progress to the 2^nd round. Nigeria ended up winning the Cup!

Our youth intake still doesn't have a player with Libyan nationality.

End of Season Details

Competitions
League	Serie C/C (level 3)	12th
Cup	Serie C Cup	Group stage
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Gianmarco Mancarella	9
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Isacco Favaretto	6.92
Most Assists (all competitions)	Isacco Favaretto	7
Best Pass Completion	Giuseppe Lenoci	87%
Most PoM’s	Isacco Favaretto Gianmarco Mancarella	3
Most Yellow Cards	Maicol Cecchi Enrico Di Gesu	10
Most Red Cards	-	-
Highest Value Player	Tomasso Odasso	€ 140K
Highest Paid Player	Giulio Alberti Rosario Costantino	€ 3.1K
Manager
Reputation	National	3414
Qualifications	National A Licence
Wage	€ 2.9K
Performance this season	B
Club
Reputation	Local	1722
Stadium	Giovanni Palatucci	5000
Corporate Facilities	Adequate
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Basic
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Isacco Favaretto
Goal of The Season	Matteo Zupperdoni	See Below
Singing of The Season	Tomasso Odasso	-
Young Player of The Season	Isacco Favaretto	23
Finances
Turnover	- € 120,700
Balance (June)	+ € 63,046
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 7
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 82.43
Season Ticket Holders	153
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 75K
General (Annually)	€ 12.25K
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	108
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

Goal of The Season

Player of the Season

 

Most promising player from youth intake

Legends

 

[Hootieleece]

Good work with your players. Consolidation is always good.

[fmonit]

7 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

Good work with your players. Consolidation is always good.

Thanks, I just hope that the stadium isn't going to ruin us financially as it's going downhill at the moment. The board may decide to park the idea until finances improve again.

[fmonit]

The centennial year wasn’t bad, but Faisal is keen to keep moving higher with the club as he has done so every year. He knows that he needs to build the squad with better players so he can challenge for a promotion place in the next few seasons.

He’s identified that Odasso was really the key in changing our furtunes and is on the lookout for a similar type player, but a bit younger so he can grow as the club grows.

So far, Faisal wasn’t able to find a similar player, but he was able to sign these players: MC Francesco Paolo Gabriele, DC Francesco Moretti, pacey SC Leonardo Musso and Samuele Picone.

We also received our first transfer fee ever as Latina was willing to pay € 5.5K for the services of DC Matteo Zupperdoni. Faisal didn’t mind Zupperdoni leaving as he already signed a new replacement for that position (Francesco Moretti).

There has been a few changes on the staff front as well. All of Faisal's friends who were hired as staff back in the first season have now gone and replaced by professional coaches. Faisal was particularly picky about who was going to be his next Assistant Manager as he wanted someone with a similar outlook on football, and also following how the board wants the team to play. The board wants the team to play a high-tempo pressing game with a focus on making the most of set pieces. Set pieces has always been a strength of the club and that is something Faisal got covered, Faisal just wanted someone who has at least an urgent pressing style football preference, and also likes to use the 4-1-4-1 DM wide formation as that has been so succesful for the club thus far. Fabio Benedetti was hired as he ticks all those boxes and has decent attributes for an assistant manager.

The cup is still nothing to mention as we get kicked out in the group stage.

The first couple of games in the league are quite hard. Our first 5 games are against Palermo, Cosenza, Catania, Bisceglie, Bari and they are predicted to finish 3^rd, 8^th, 2^nd, 14^th and 4^th respectively. We didn’t win much at the start (only against Bisceglie), but we played well in those games so it gave Faisal hope that we’ll do well against weaker opponents. The mood was still ok after these first five games so it was looking good for the rest of the first half of the season.

The next couple of games were great! We won a lot and the style of football we played was quite enjoyable. A little blip against Rieti who are bottom three, but the other games we played were either won or drawn.

Without realising it, the club rose up the ranking and are now ranked 8^th at the Xmas break. This was unexpected, but definitely deserved. It would be great to qualify for the promotion playoff, as it would celebrate the fantastic progress the club is making under the guidance of Faisal.

Leonardo Musso turns out to be a great catch! With his pace, dribbling and agility, he is a worry for any defence. Faisal calls it the “Dandic”-effect. This is because Faisal used to play Football Manager before he became a manager of a real club. He had some great success with Southampton because of a Croation player called Damir Dandic.

Damir’s skill was that he just ripped up any EPL defence with his lightning pace, top notch agility and was even able to score or set up a teammate for a clear cut chance. As a 23yo, he scored 25 goals and assisted 12 times in his first season in the EPL.

Musso is not of the same level, but at Serie C level he does exactly the same as what Dandic used to do in the EPL on FM19.

It is no secret that our youth facilities and recruitment are crap. Faisal is thinking that it will take a while before an Ispican born player would feature in a professional game of football. However because of circumstances, 4 youth players were too old to play for the u20 squad so they got automatically promoted to the first squad. They are terrible for Serie C level so they won’t play at all and Faisal tried to offload them. The board however intervened as it would cost too much money to pay out their contract, so we’re stuck with 4 duds on the bench this season. It turns out that one of these four players made it’s professional debut, to the delight of the numerous fans who joined us to watch a game between V. Ispica and Avellino. In the 86^th minute, the score was 1-1 and our right winger Giulio Alberti was signalling the bench to come off as he was exhausted. Twenty year old local boy Federico Privitera made his professional debut as the first Ispican born player to feature in a professional game for the club. It’s also probably his last, but that doesn’t spoil the atmosphere amongst the crowd as they are proud of their local boy.

[fmonit]

Faisal made no attempts to sign new players for the first team in the January transfer window as he is pretty happy with the squad. He did sign 2 players for the youth squad as they could potentially improve and get promoted to the first squad, but considering our youth training facilities are pretty basic, it might be best to put them up for loan.

The club is playing really good football. It’s enjoyable to watch and even former players have made statements that watching players like Odasso is worth the entry fee alone. It’s amazing how the addition of 1 player made all the difference cmopared to how we played last year. We are finding the space much more and creating so many more chances for the finishers.

January and February run relatively smoothly. We mostly win against the teams below us and mostly lose against the teams above us.

A slight difficult patch again in March with games lost against Top 5 teams Avellino, Latina and Foggia, but we have a good run again in april.

Faisal meanwhile gets attention from several clubs in the Serie B and even a club in the relegation zone of Serie A (Benevento). The media goes wild and keeps shoving a microphone under Faisal’s nose to get him to comment which he always refuses. He only did an interview with Lecce (top of Serie B) just to see if he could get in. He got rejected eventually as he didn’t agree with some of the requirements of the club.

Anyway, the club finishes 6th in the league and qualifies for the promotion playoffs. There are a lot of rounds to be played and each Serie C division supplies 9 clubs so the chance of us getting promoted is quite slim. Nobody really believes we’ll get promoted, but it’s great nevertheless to have qualified for the playoffs.

First game (Round 1) is at home against Cavese (11th). We should be fine but we’re slightly worried as they smashed us with 3-0 in the very last game of the season. To play them again next is either going to be a great revenge, or an embarrasing defeat.

It was a close game but because of the game at home, we make it through to the next round:

Paganese (Round 2) at home is next. We haven’t lost to Paganese all season so we should be fine for this as well…. And we are…. A straightforward 2-0 win with Musso showing off his great form with scoring twice.

The third round is against Bari for a home and away game. Bari is pretty strong and has better players compared to us so they should win this. As a comparison that highlights the level difference between both clubs: Highest paid player for Ispica: € 3.7K monthly, and for Bari: € 15.25K monthly. None of the starting eleven at Bari earns less than € 3.7K monthly.

Both games turn out to be mostly one-way football and we don’t stand a chance. We firstly lose 0-1 at home and are facing a 2-0 in Bari already in the first half. We come back but end up losing 3-1. Pretty proud of our achievements, the club treats the players to a day off in Bari and a nice dinner the night after the game before heading back to Ispica.

Bari later wins the playoffs and gets promoted to Serie B.

 

Odasso had a fantastic season. It was so good he is even ranked as 3rd best player of the Serie C/C and had most PoM’s and chances created:

The youth intake this year is nothing spectacular either. Again no Libyan player.

Faisal noticed that most clubs don’t even sign the u18 players for the club. We won the u18 division 2 this year this is because we actually had players (as opposed to greyed out men). So Faisal decided to sign nobody from the youth intake. He was considering to sign anyone with a professional attitude as they ar elikely to grow into better players but considering they need to be put on a  € 650/month contract Faisal decided to save some money and reject all of them as it is very unlikely that they would ever feature in the first team.

Libya Check

Libya is now 109th. They just played a few friendlies in the first half of the season and qualified for the qualification of the World Cup group stage. In this qualification group they are drawn with Ghana, Algeria and Eq. Guinea. Only the first of the group qualifies so there is little hope of qualifying.

In the qualification for the next African Nations Cup, they are drawn in a group with Mali, Tunisia and Burundi. Libya already lost 2 games in this group so it’s looking unlikely they will qualify for the Cup in 2029.

End of Season Details

Competitions
League	Serie C/C (level 3)	6th
Cup	Serie C Cup	Group stage
Players
Top Goal Scorer (all competitions)	Leonardo Musso	15
Highest Avg. Rating (all competitions)	Tomasso Odasso	7.25
Most Assists (all competitions)	Tomasso Odasso	7
Best Pass Completion	Mattia Cicino (GK)	89%
Most PoM’s	Tomasso Odasso	9
Most Yellow Cards	Rosario Costantino	19
Most Red Cards	Tomasso Odasso Mattia Martedi Francesco Paolo Gabriele	1
Highest Value Player	Tomasso Odasso	€ 105K
Highest Paid Player	Leonardo Musso	€ 3.7K
Manager
Reputation	National	3738
Qualifications	Continental C Licence
Wage	€ 4.4K
Performance this season	B
Club
Reputation	Local	1817
Stadium	Giovanni Palatucci	5000
Corporate Facilities	Adequate
Training Facilities	Poor
Data Analysis Facilities	None
Youth Facilities	Basic
Junior Coaching	Basic
Youth Recruitment	Basic
Awards
Fan’s Player of The Year	Tomasso Odasso
Goal of The Season	Giulio Alberti	See Below
Singing of The Season	Leonardo Musso	-
Young Player of The Season	Giulio Alberti	22
Finances
Turnover	- € 136,176
Balance (June)	- € 2,749
Avg. Ticket Price	€ 8
Avg. Season Ticket Price	€ 84.75
Season Ticket Holders	162
Sponsors
Main kit (Annually)	€ 75K
General (Annually)	€ 12.25K
Libya
FIFA Ranking (June)	109
Libyan players from manager’s club	-

 

 

Goal of The Season

Player of the Season

Most promising player from youth intake

None signed this season

Team of The Season

Legends

[fmonit]

And just as Faisal is thinking of taking a 2 week holiday, two positive news items popped up in his inbox:

Thats an extra € 35K of sponsorship money per year. That'll help with the finances that went briefly into the red this season.

And the other news item.....

Faisal is really happy about this! Not only will we have a new stadium for the start of the 2029-2030 season, we'll also have a manageable loan and new sponsorship for the stadium as well! 4000 seats is the minimum requirement in Serie C so Faisal is also happy the board didn't decide on bigger stadium that would cost more money and probably would never be at full capacity. Our highest attendance ever is our last home game against Bari where we had a full house of 5000 people! This was a once off as other home games range between 750-2000 spectators.

Also cudos to the Chairman for securing stadium sponsership and a grant from the authorities. Although based on this additional funding it sounds like a € 1M loan for the project is overkill. If Faisal calculates correctly: € 1.9M build cost, minus sponsorship and grant, we are left with only € 100K. Does this mean the other € 900K from the loan goes into the club's coffers? Or somewhere else?

A bit pity about the naming of the stadium, but there is no club legend yet so Faisal understands.

[Hootieleece]

The other 900k should go in the coffers and be used to pay day to day expenses and possibly transfers.

[fmonit]

12 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

The other 900k should go in the coffers and be used to pay day to day expenses and possibly transfers.

Let's hope so. Just got a new messige in my inbox that there is a possible board takeover for "cash strapped" Virtus Ispica. Interesting we also turned from "secure" finances to "insecure".

[fmonit]

Everybody is happy that the club will play their games back in Ispica next season when the new stadium is completed. The stadium has a capacity of 4000, of which 1000 are seated. This suits the club really well as the 1000 home seats will most likely be sold out every game giving us more income to convert some of the standing areas to seats in the future as well.

Aside from a nice € 190K/year of sponsorship for the stadium for the next 5 years, the board was also able to secure a new shirt sponsor for € 110K/year and some general sponsorships for € 12.25K/year. Faisal and fans are starting to like the new chairman as he seems quite adept at securing sponsorships and conducting business in general.

The new shirt sponsor is local organic vegetable growing company Moncada, just south of Ispica.

Chairman Emanuele Benini presents the new shirts for this season.

As the club now has a loan and finances are still in downwards motion, Faisal decides to offload a lot of players that are likely going to be benched for the coming season. A total of 11 players left the club, including Favaretto and Mancarella. But Faisal knows there is better talent out there that can replace these guys.

Because of the large amount of players leaving, Faisal had to bring in lots of players as well. A total of 8 players joined: DC Raffaele Amodio, AML/S Lorenzo Ferrari, MC Alessandro Gaggiano, AML Daniele Toninelli, DMC Claudio Porciello and a few teenagers who Faisal believes can develop into quality players for the club: GK Paolo Mosele, DR Jonathan Babboni and DL Mariano Pasella.

Faisal is excited about left wingers Ferrari and Toninello. The reason being is because he can see a beautiful tactical plan unfold that can hopefully elevate the club to a promotion contender. Playing with a line-up as per image below, Faisal would love to play Toninelli on the left wing as winger, Musso as main goalscorer and Alberti as inside forward. Alberti is right footed, but he’s got a great aerial presence and scored 10 goals in that position last season (mostly headers).

(Blue = passing, Red = Movement)

So the plan is that Toninelli uses his speed to run past the defender and cross the ball to Alberti at the far post or pass short to Musso. As a second supply option: Odasso can pass the ball into space for Musso or Toninelli to run on to it. This is plan A, but there is also a plan B. Plan B is the exact opposite where the right flank will be used for running past the defender, and the main goalscorers would be Musso and whoever is on the left wing. This is where Ferrari comes in handy on the left wing as he seems to be a clinical finisher that can cut in from the left. He’s also not too bad in the air so he could potentially score goals with the head. He is also back-up striker in case Musso gets injured or has a bad day. Alberti is ok in terms of speed on the right wing, but there is a youth prospect that was signed last season that is lightning fast and is half decent at crossing a ball. That youth prospect is Alex Sassi.

So the plan is that Faisal would identify which opposition defender is slowest and least agile (DR or DL) and then adjust the tactic so that the faster winger is matched up with the worst full-back. Both Toninelli and Sassi have the “Knocks ball past opponent” trait so in theory this should work.

DR Babboni is a good inverted Wing back so the idea with him is that he moves forward towards the middle while the MC Gabriele plays as a Mezzala to give a bit of coverage to the right wing when Alberti cuts inside. Babboni has a relatively good pass in him so he will use that to pass the ball amongst the midfielders and wait for an opening.

Faisal was testing out the tactic in pre-season with amazing success (11-0 and 7-0 wins to clubs playing 2 divisions lower), and also the group stage of the Coppa Italia Lega Pro was fantastic. A convincing win against both Palermo and Taranto (both 2-0) made us qualify for the first round. The fans were excited about the new tactic and couldn’t wait for the season to start.

The first results in the league were good! 3 wins and a draw in the first four games, with the draw being against Reggina who just dropped from Serie B. We then lose to recently promoted Monopoli, which was a bit of a surprise but they actually play well and rank 3^rd at the moment. We’re hovering around 5^th place which is very good for us at the moment.

But then it happens…. from mid-September and in the space of three weeks, three of our key players pick up a long term injury. Toninelli first with a lower back stress fracture (2-3 months out), flavour maker Odasso next with a hip injury (5-6 months) and finally inside forward Giulio Alberti out for 3 weeks with a pulled calf muscle. Looks like September to November are going to be tough months.

Mid-september was a bit of a struggle, but we actually did ok in October. We had some high scoring wins, but also a massive loss against Palermo which will take a while to recover from. Their striker Gianni Rocca was in the form of his life against us as he netted 5 goals! He’s now top scorer in the league with half of the goals he scored were against us…

The 6-0 win over Nocerina made us forget the loss against Palermo as everything went according to plan in that game. With no Odasso, Alberti or Toninelli, left winger Ferrari and MC Gaggiano stepped up and played fantastic that game. 8 of our players were listed in team of the week that week!

We’re a bit hot and cold at the moment and even the games in November and December were sometimes a struggle, and sometimes a breeze with another 6-0 win and again 8 of our players in the team of the week! Alberti is back and Toninelli is recovering but not good to play a full game yet.

We’re happy to see that Musso is scoring goals like there is no tomorrow. What a difference 2 years make as 2 seasons ago we struggled to find the net and now scoring 3 goals in a game is becoming a standard. Musso is now top scorer of the league, next to that guy from Palermo who we don’t like…

We're now 6th in the league