FM15: U.S. Sassuolo - Where talent is plentiful, but trophies are scarce

[MANUMAD]

I was inspired by this thread to start a Sassuolo save which was big fun till the first summer (won the league by a mile as well as the cup) when for a looong time I was not allowed to buy players (due to possible takeover) so I missed the chance of renewing a number of important loans AND lost the amazing Berardi (Juve bid 28.5m). And in the end the takeover broke down and I only got around 12m tranny kit plus most of the Berardi money.

Ill give you my transfers soon

[Adzke]

I'm no longer at Sassuolo (hence the lack of updates), but I thought I'd share a screenshot of Berardi as a senior member of my Juventus squad. Really did become a cracking player for both club and country.

[MANUMAD]

Yeah Berardi is a god. Best cf (and if/winger/am R) in FM15.

Actually Zaza and Sansone are not far behind

[A.McL1]

been wanting to do something different for a while in fm, im gonna get this show up & running but could someone explain to me the co-ownership in italy ?, it seriously confuses me, do one team get a player for half a season they he switches to the other ? or am i totally off target

[Adzke]

been wanting to do something different for a while in fm, im gonna get this show up & running but could someone explain to me the co-ownership in italy ?, it seriously confuses me, do one team get a player for half a season they he switches to the other ? or am i totally off target

One team owns the player. He plays solely for this team. In the summer transfer windows, the clubs can either bid or postpone the bid for one year (this depends on the duration of the co-ownership deal). The clubs can buy 100 percent of the player's rights from the other club at any point, but if no deal is struck, the clubs will go to a blind auction. Both clubs bid for the player, and the club with the highest bid wins. The losing club receives the money from the other club, the other club gains sole ownership of the player.

The co-ownership will be abolished after the first season in the game, so you only need to do anything about this once.

[A.McL1]

thanks for explaining it to me bud, it seems like an incredibly pointless way of going about a transfer, glad they finally saw sense and abolished it, it really put me off going in the italian leagues before because i didn't understand it, now i only need to understand this game called "soccer" the americans made, seems like football on the outside but it really isn't

[A.McL1]

League table after 10 games

Transfers

not too bad, my last game i beat Ac 2-0 at home

[A.McL1]

halfway through the first season - its not all rosey, was beaten in the itallian cup in my first game, i think im making up for it though

[A.McL1]

how does everyones sponsorship deals look in the second season ?

[Adzke]

how does everyones sponsorship deals look in the second season ?

Better. But your main source of income will likely be the sale of Berardi.

[A.McL1]

i dont know if im gonna sell him yet, i was considering it because i thought io had europa league football, but i managed to finish 3rd because i had a 2-2 draw with inter while roma only had a 1-1 draw

no interest from juventus in berardi yet,

[A.McL1]

i messed up with the berardi co-ownership deal only got 9.75 million

here is my champions league warriors

[AndySummers]

how does everyones sponsorship deals look in the second season ?

On this note, are there any prize money revenues available for Serie A? I'm guessing not, as it doesn't show in the competition rules, unlike The Prem or Bundesliga. I have been contemplating a Fiorentina file (and viewing this thread long-term), but their sponsorships are quite low so I wondered if there were any other forms of primary income? TV revenue? If so, what are the rough expected values? I haven't played in Serie A for years.

[A.McL1]

yeah the TV money is kinda good, 27 mil forecasted for my second season, was roughly about the same in my first and i got 11 mil for sponsorship in my first season and 12 in my second, i dont usually play in serie a, just stumbled accross this thread and thought why not its a good league to play in, i think im enjoying it more because i usually only go rangers or in the english premier league and rarely i go in spain

[A.McL1]

first 10 games into the second season, 1 point lower than i had at this stage last season although im 1 place higher

[Klajwert]

on the picture my very own Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

how fun this save is! i haven't enyojed FM so much since FM11 and my Napoli.

[MANUMAD]

Indeed - very enjoyable save.

Players like Sansone, Zaza, (Berardi - tho I had him for only one season) and Vrsaljko are GODS.

[Klajwert]

okay, season one already behind. also team copleted for second season.

here are mi signings from 14/15

schedule and table

and signings from new transfer window + my squad right now.

I will try to make this team as much like Barcelona as I can but im still not sure how I should set up roles for my midfield players as long as Samper, S. Roberto and Motta can give me some great football

[RLC]

Hi! I asked in the 'What team should I be' thread and was recomened to come here and after reading the OP I deicided to start a save myself. This was however a few days ago so pre the data update.

But I was wondering if you could help me out a bit with transfers. I have a couple of players that are transfer/contract accepted I just need to confirm them. I can't afford all of them though so wanted to know which you think I should go with.

(Not in my computer right now so can't say exact numbers).

- Balanta ~€9 mil (over 48 mon)

- Lucas Romero ~€7 mil (over 24 mon)

- Murru €6 mil (over 24 mon)

- Adama Traoré €3.2 mil (had to promised him vice captain)

- Luka Jovic €1.1 mil

- Jesús Vallejo €850k

+ Suso on loan 50% wages.

Looking forward to the save as they look like an interesting team. Cheers!

[RvN#17]

Sold Zaza to Real for 30, decided to buy out Berardi from Juventus for 18m and bought Gabbiadini for 6m. Zaza played 4 games for Real scoring 2, while Berardi and Gabbi scored 47 together.

[RvN#17]

This was the only formation I used the whole season.

[MANUMAD]

Balanta ~€9 mil (over 48 mon) - Coulda got him for slightly less

Lucas Romero ~€7 mil (over 24 mon) - He's great but if you re short of cash either of Gas Gil Romero or Kranevitter are available for at least a mil less and are almost equally good (Romero is a bit more adept than them in playing in more advanced roles)

Murru €6 mil (over 24 mon) - Too expensive to buy 1st season. Get Gino peruzzi instead who ll cost you 2m less

Adama Traoré €3.2 mil - THIS ONE. No need to buy him first season. Use your money to buy others and just loan him in. He's free/v cheap as a loan

- Luka Jovic €1.1 mil

- Jesús Vallejo €850k

+ Suso on loan 50% wages.

[MANUMAD]

Hi! I asked in the 'What team should I be' thread and was recomened to come here and after reading the OP I deicided to start a save myself. This was however a few days ago so pre the data update.

But I was wondering if you could help me out a bit with transfers. I have a couple of players that are transfer/contract accepted I just need to confirm them. I can't afford all of them though so wanted to know which you think I should go with.

(Not in my computer right now so can't say exact numbers).

- Balanta ~€9 mil (over 48 mon)

- Lucas Romero ~€7 mil (over 24 mon)

- Murru €6 mil (over 24 mon)

- Adama Traoré €3.2 mil (had to promised him vice captain)

- Luka Jovic €1.1 mil

- Jesús Vallejo €850k

+ Suso on loan 50% wages.

Looking forward to the save as they look like an interesting team. Cheers!

Balanta ~€9 mil (over 48 mon) - Coulda got him for slightly less

Lucas Romero ~€7 mil (over 24 mon) - He's great but if you re short of cash either of Gas Gil Romero or Kranevitter are available for at least a mil less and are almost equally good (Romero is a bit more adept than them in playing in more advanced roles)

Murru €6 mil (over 24 mon) - Too expensive to buy 1st season. Get Gino peruzzi instead who ll cost you 2m less

Adama Traoré €3.2 mil - THIS ONE. No need to buy him first season. Use your money to buy others and just loan him in. He's free/v cheap as a loan

- Luka Jovic €1.1 mil

- Jesús Vallejo €850k

+ Suso on loan 50% wages.

[mdougal]

Hi guys great thread about a very enjoyable team to play.

I actually only bought this years version last week and after 2 attempts at playing in the premier league decided to go down my usual route of going abroad.

I picked Sassuolo before I seen this page but have been hooked reading your stories since stumbling across last night.

A little insight I to how I've gone so far though only 6 games in to the season

I bought Lucas Romero and , Mammana, and Marquinhos for defence.

These deals were done on the basis of quite a lot of add ins so will need to do well at some point to gain that bit more money.

The rest of the squad is pretty much same as default.

I decided to go with a 3-4-3 formation with

Sweeper keeper

2 ball playing defenders and central defender

A holding defensive mid

Winger. Deep lying playmaker. And wide midfielder

raudemeter advanced playmaker

Deep lying forward

I am playing attacking mentality with fluid

I have got berardi in the raudemeter and Zaza as the forward and they have been electric so far with 7 and 5 goals in 6 games apiece and although I was worried about maybe getting done on the wings playing 3 at the back with no proper wing backs my extra pressing seems to stop most of that threat.

I have only played 6 games in the league won 5 and drawn 1 which the draw was my last game at home to a ten man lazio which was a slight disappointment but they seemed very dangerous even with 10 men so maybe a point wasn't bad after all.

I'm hoping to keep berardi in the summer and will take a look at some of the players you guys have been buying and hopefully I can continue the decent start to at least finish in a European spot.

I'll keep you posted and check in here for all of your stories

Great thread guys

[MANUMAD]

Mdougal - Use Sansone also. Hes a total beast

[Klajwert]

definitely! he's my Messi, literally.

[tmason122]

Just started a save with Sassuolo last week and I'm having a great time. Currently midway through the first season and site 7th in the league and about to play the semi-final in the Italian Cup. I know I'm not as high in the league as others in this thread after the first season, but I like taking things slow in the first transfer window and I also try to avoid the "usual signings" on FM

After reinforcements arrived in January my starting 11 now looks something like this (sorry about sp):

-----------------Consigli----------------

Vrsjakso----Acerbi---Antei-----Peluso

----------------Coquelin---------------

-------------Selnaes---Margenilli-----

-------------------Sansone-----------

--------------Zaza---Berradi---------

As it stands Berradi is on 19 goals and Zaza is on 15 in about Feb time. Took me a while to settle on this formation, but its doing beastly now, including a 7-0 away win over Cesena, 3-0 over Udinese and a solid 1-1 away draw with Roma.

Looking forward to the summer transfer window to see if I can keep hold of Berrardi, Zaza and Antei..... Will be interesting to see what happens

[lmanion]

Decided to start a save with Sassuolo just started October made a pretty good start with 3 wins 1 draw and 1 loss in the league and a win in the cup. Made some good young signings and a couple of good loans as well

Transfers In

Gonzalo Piovi Free

Aleix Febas (Real 'c') 250k

Munir (Barca) Loan

Sergi Roberto (Barca) Loan

Lucas (Atletico) Loan

Saul (Atletico) Loan

Bob Vankan (Fortuna Sittard) 180k

Out

Acerbi 2.5m

Playing a tactic from another site because i am rubbish at building tactics my line up looks like this

-----------------Consigli-------------------

Vrsaljko-----Saul----Cannavaro-----Piovi

-----------Roberto---Magnanelli----------

Munir-----------Vankan-------------------

-----------Zaza------Berardi--------------

Need to offload a few players in January maybe strengthen a few spots with loans and then make some big signings in the summer. I already have Luka Jovic coming in January as well. I like to opperate with a squad of about 25-30 max and I am a fair bit over that atm struggling to not have people complain about lack of football grr

Edit**

Start of November sitting 3rd after 10 games with 20 points 4 off Juve and the board decided I need a bit of money for transfers - 31m!

[Frank Button]

I'm going to start my Sassuolo save soon...but I have a question first (even if I'm pretty sure it's already awnsered in this thread):

What do I have to do to keep Berradi after the first season? The co-ownership-thing confuses me :confused:

[Adzke]

I'm going to start my Sassuolo save soon...but I have a question first (even if I'm pretty sure it's already awnsered in this thread):

What do I have to do to keep Berradi after the first season? The co-ownership-thing confuses me :confused:

You have to outbid Juventus in the blind auction.

[tmason122]

I'm going to start my Sassuolo save soon...but I have a question first (even if I'm pretty sure it's already awnsered in this thread):

What do I have to do to keep Berradi after the first season? The co-ownership-thing confuses me :confused:

I think the secret to keeping him is to actually make sure he plays poorly in your first season... .He had a stunning season for me, which meant Juventus' blind bid for him was double my entire transfer budget (£22m), so I didn't stand a chance of keeping him.

[tmason122]

So anyway, here is my summary for my first 2 seasons. Sorry about the lack of screenshots, I haven't figured out how to take those yet as I run FM on a chromebook and it doesn't have the Function buttons

Season 2014/2015

Transfers

This season started with a small dabble in the transfer market.

IN:

Summer:

Nick Powell (loan) - £39.5k per month - Man Utd - Came into midfield and gave us a strong, direct attacking link from Midfield to attack. Was pretty-much ever present.

Tore Reginiussen - £825k - Rosenborg - Was bought as a solid and cheap alternative CB option. Again ever present in the first season

Human Tariq - £300k - Al Quwa Al Jawiya - AMC / AML came into develop for future seasons. Backup first season

Winter:

Ole Kristian Selnaes - £1.7m - Rosenborg - A creative midfielder natural at both CM and DM, came in as a regista for his first season at the club.

Francis Coquelin (loan) - no fee - Arsenal - Strong defensive midfielder who's arrival finally coinceided with a upturn in the teams form.

Alex Martinez (loan) - £10.5k per month - Real Betis - Emergency LB brought in when I suffered injuries to Peluso and Longhi

OUT:

Only youth players on loan

Tactics

Tactics alternated between 2 formations, a home and away. The home formation being a narrow diamond, and the away formation being a a form of 3-5-2 to offer more on the counter whilst being strong at the back.

Home:

------------------Consigili---------------------

Vrsalijko-----Antei-------Acerbi-------Peluso

-------------------Coquelin-------------------

Selnaes/Powell/Taider--Magnanelii---------

--------------------Sansone------------------

---------------Zaza---Berrardi---------------

Away

-----------------------Consigli-----------------------

----------Regnuissen---Antei---Acerbi-------------

Vrsalijko-------------------------------------Peluso

-----------------Selnaes----Magnanelli-------------

------------------------Sansone--------------------

------------------_Zaza-----Berrardi--------------

Season Summary

Well we finished a solid 7th in the table in our first season, substantially higher than 14th as predicted. We also reached the final of the Italian Cup, though were humbled 3-1 in the final by Juventus. Rather frustrating, as the week before we just beat them 2-0 in the league! The team was voted the Team of the Year in Serie A. A nice accolade.

Berrardi finished our highest goalscorer with 32 goals. He was also not surprisingly the highest goalscorer in Serie A (27 in the league), winning the European Golden Boat, and the Supporters Player of the Year.

Zaza finished the season with the highest number of assists, 13, primarily from partnering Berrardi in attack

It was really this strikeforce of Zaza (24 goals, 19 in the league) and Berrardi that was what carried the team throughout the season.

2015/2016 Season

Transfers

The biggest departure was Berrardi to Juventus for £22.5 M in the blind bid auction. That was twice the amount of my entire transfer budget, so I never had a chance of keeping him. However the money was well-used to bring in other players. Central Defened Balanta joined for £6.75m to strengthen defence, whilst Kranevitter came into CM for a sum of £6.5m. Powell made his loan transfer from Man Utd permanent for £3.5m and we welcomed back Kurtic from his loan spell at Fiorentina. Kristofer Ajer also came into CM for a bargain fee of £1M. Alan Nyom (£4.5m) and Emanual Insua (£775K) were bought for extra strength down the flanks as I decided to fully switch to a wingback formation (a first for me!). Stefan Strandberg joined on a free to add more strength to our CD.

The money we reinvested from the Berrardi sale was used to make the squad stronger overall, rather than find a natural replacement for Berrardi, however that made our striker options limited for the first half of the season with the only recognised strikers at the club being Zaza and Sansone.... Though that didn't matter as both found form and avoided injury. In the Winter transfer window Ciro Immobile joined for £4.5m from Dortmund and scored a solid 11 goals in 22 games and Juka Jovic joined for £7m and also made a strong contribution.

The only other player of note to leave during this season was Roman Chibash, who didn't really fit into my first team plans.

Tactics

It took us a while to settle on tactics, but in the end an Asymmetric 3-4-3 formation was chosen which looked much like this:

-----------------Consigili--------------------

---------Strandberg--Antei--Balanta------

Nyom---Kranevitter------------------Insua

------------------------Kurtic---------------

---------Tariq-------------------------------

----------------Zaza---Sansone-----------

The tactic was strong both home and away with some minor adjustments depending on who we were playing.

Season Summary

After a poor start to the season where we didn't get past the EURO Cup qualifiers, after being knocked out 4-2 on aggregate to Mainz and some dodgy results in the league I was actually odds on to be sacked in early November. However, after finally settling on the above formation things really started to kickoff. Over the course of season we climbed the table from 13th in the table to peaking with 3rd in the table, a position that we clinched on the final day of the season, by beating Sampdoria away from home and leapfrogging them into stealing the last Champions League position available! It was a great way to finish the season. In the Italian Cup we reached the Semi-Finals before being well beaten by Juventus over two legs.

Our players of the season were the two wingbacks, Nyom and Insua who averaged 7.28 and 7.29 each, as well as chipping in with 9 assists and 1 goal (Nyom) and 9 assists and 4 goals (Insua). Insua was voted the fans player of the year, whilst Nyom made it into the Serie A team of the year as first choice RB. Zaza finished the season on 23 goals and 8 assists and an avg. rating with 7.19, whilst Kranevitter also averaged a 7.18 as a dominating CM. Mid-season reinforcements Immobile finished the season with an avg rating of 7.20 and 11 goals in 22 appearances, and Jovic with 5 goals from 18 appearance (mostly from the bench).

I was also voted Manager of the Year, woop woop and our team was voted the biggest over-achievers in Serie A. Overall a good season.

2016/2017 Season

I've just started this season, so it's still early days, but here is a quick summary of whats happened so far.

My initial thoughts were, hurah! We've made the Champions League, I'm going to be given so much money to spend on transfers..... That was not the case. With the club struggling with some debt, I was only allowed to keep 30% from sales and was given a budget of £13m to achieve Champions League qualification through the league.... the same amount of money I was given last season to achieve mid-table security..... This was going to be a difficult ask with the stains of Champions League on my squad, I had to spend wisely....

Transfers

A lot of players left the club in the summer, including players I would have liked to keep, but who wanted more playing time, Peluso, Selnaes and Longhi.

With such a limited budget I looked to strengthen the depth of the squad and avoid more debt via 48 months deals, rather than spend big on any player. Our biggest signing was Gaston Gil Romero for £5.5m to strengthen our CM. I'm really happy with my CMs now, having a choice of Kranevitter, Gil Romero, Ajer and Kurtic vying for 2 places between them. Oviedo joined on a free from Everton and Mandi for £3.6m to replace Longhi and Peluso as I continue with my wingback formation. Bogdan joined for £3m from Bolton as I looked for a dependable backup and Martin Odegaard joined on loan from Real Madrid as backup to Tariq in the AMC position. Finally we signed as young 16 year old regen for £1.5m to strengthen our CB in the future. I suppose the best part of business was keeping hold of Zaza, Consigli and Nyom who were all attracting envious states from bigger clubs. However none have left (though there is still 6 days of the transfer window remaining).

The season has started well, having beaten CSKA 2-2 (away goals) to carry us through the to the group stages of the Champions League, though we have drawn a tough group of of SLB, Arsenal and Galastasry. Our first league game was a 2-0 routine victory over Verona..... So lets see how the season will go, I think my starting 11 is relatively unchanged from last season, though Jovic has replaced Sansone in attack.

Wish me luck! Hahahha.!

[Frank Button]

You have to outbid Juventus in the blind auction.

Did i get it right that I have to use the Transferbudget of second season for this?

Is it possible to buy the 50% from Juve right from the Start?

[tmason122]

Did i get it right that I have to use the Transferbudget of second season for this?

Is it possible to buy the 50% from Juve right from the Start?

In theory that should be possible! Whether it is affordable is another matter

[tmason122]

Holy cow! Just won the Champions League at the end of my 3rd season! Never expected to get out of the group stage, let alone win the thing. Will do a proper update soon... There has been some pretty big changes in my squad due to our successes in the Champions League!

[heron]

So, I started a game with Sassuolo last week after I became bored with my ManUtd save. Wanted a challenge in a league I don't know that much about, playing a mid-to-lower table team with great potential. Sassuolo seemed to fit that bill perfectly. And they are also quite well stocked to play the 4-3-1-2 formation I wanted to try out, so off we went.

Since I didn't know their players, we didn't sell anybody and only got in 2 players on loan: Saul from Atletico Madrid to play a deep lying playmaker role and Munir to have some extra speed and agility up front. Saul quickly became a key player, while Munir was more of a bit-part one, providing cover for Zaza or Berardi and playing the easier games. The tactic I set up was rather successful. We managed to stay in the top 6 for the better part of the year, with patches of great form and other patches where our form was all over the place (e.g. winning 6-0 against Roma but losing to Empoli the next game). Juventus are in a class of their own, but a batch of six teams was fighting it out for the European qualification places.

A very good end to the season, combined with Inter imploding, finally propelled us into third spot! So we have Champions League football to look forward to next season.

League Table

Transfers

Best Eleven

Next season will be very hard. Sassuolo has a lot of (very) old players who aren't good enough for the level we're aspiring to. There are also around 39 loanees coming back to the club who are probably also not good enough. So a clear out will be necessary this summer. And having to play extra European matches, a lot of new faces have to come in to make sure we have enough bodies. Finally, there are two co-ownerships which have to be decided, and I really want to keep both of them. Especially Berardi. There's hope there however: he hasn't really set the world on fire, having not played that many games (with his 6 match ban at the start of the game and a lengthy injury), so maybe Juve won't be interested in him.

Juventus will probably be far too strong for everybody else in the league, so I'm setting myself the target of getting UCL qualification again. Second target is to overhaul the team and bringing down the average age significantly. As for the Champions League, not finishing last in the group stages will be a realistic target. Really hoping the qualification match we need to play isn't against one of the 'big boys'. Playing the goup stages of the UCL will bring in a lot of cash for a small club like us.

[tmason122]

@Heron\

Nice effort on getting Champions League in your first season! How big is your transfer budget for the second season? I only got 13million GBP when I made the Champions League in my second season.... Wasn't much, but there are some bargains out there to be found. What positions are looking to strengthen?

[heron]

Transfer budget for the 2nd season is 30M Pound Sterling with a wage budget of 628k/week.

Already secured Carlos Fierro (young Mexican striker), Nicola Leali (22 year old backup goalie from Juventus) and Maxi Moralez (AMC playmaker from Atalanta who performed rather well last season) on frees. Looking to strengthen every part of my squad, since I want to rejuvenate. So a lot of the 30+ year olds will need to leave.

Liverpool have bid 13.5 Million for Zaza. That's a lot of money for a club of our stature, so I'm probably going to accept. Will see which transfer listed or cheap and young players I can get in.

[tmason122]

I think you can get more for Zaza! I'm in my 4th season now and he is still with me.... he is worth 25million GBP! So who knows what I could sell him for. Did you manage to keep hold of Berrardi?

[heron]

I know I can probably get more for him if I keep him longer and he plays well. Problem is, I have around 14 players earmarked as deadwood. Players who are either too old or on too high wages for Sassuolo's reservers squad. Also, I don't know whether Juventus will outbid me for Berardi. This 13.5 Million for Zaza is almost 2 times his valuation: I can acquire 3-4 players for that amount of money, also taking into account the wages.

I'm aiming to get around 8-10 new players in this summer, next to the 3 freebies I posted earlier. With the 30M transfer budget and the 13M from Zaza, that leaves about 4-5M per player, if wages don't get out of hand. So I'll be aiming to get transfer listed, out-of-contract or reserve squad players in. Hope to make a posting tonight how the summer transfer window unfolded. Spoiler: for now, it seems to go quite well :-)

[tmason122]

I know I can probably get more for him if I keep him longer and he plays well. Problem is, I have around 14 players earmarked as deadwood. Players who are either too old or on too high wages for Sassuolo's reservers squad. Also, I don't know whether Juventus will outbid me for Berardi. This 13.5 Million for Zaza is almost 2 times his valuation: I can acquire 3-4 players for that amount of money, also taking into account the wages.

I'm aiming to get around 8-10 new players in this summer, next to the 3 freebies I posted earlier. With the 30M transfer budget and the 13M from Zaza, that leaves about 4-5M per player, if wages don't get out of hand. So I'll be aiming to get transfer listed, out-of-contract or reserve squad players in. Hope to make a posting tonight how the summer transfer window unfolded. Spoiler: for now, it seems to go quite well :-)

Good to hear......Yer, hopefully you're lucky with Berrardi not performing so well, in my save he was on fire on his first season so I lost him to Juventus for 22million Gbp. I'm actually writing about how my last season went right now... Also a pretty good one! Should have it up tonight.

[heron]

The summer transfer window is over, and I've been lucky! While Berardi scored 10 and assisted 11 in 28 games in his first season (rating 7.15), my bid of exactly half his value was higher than Juventus' bid of zero euros. So, he's mine for 4.4M euros. Let's hope they will regret this.

Apart from Zaza, the only other player leaving against my will was Sansone (12 goals, 12 assists in 34 games) for 7M euros to Lille. But this was also a bid over his value, so I took the money.

I've managed to offload all other players I deemed too old or on too high a salary for what they'd bring to the team. Combined with the sales of Zaza and Sansone this brought in 25.4M euros in cash and freeing up 290k/wk in the wage budget (that's around 15M per annum). On the incoming side, the big buys were Eder Alvaraz Balanta and Matias Kranevitter. All other players were either transfer listed or good be acquired for a good price according to my scouts.

Right now, I'm still tweaking my tactics, since some of the new personnel dictate that I change my style of play. The draw in the UCL qualification has been kind, pitting us against Lille, who we beat 6-5 on aggregate. The group draw wasn't that kind, putting us in a group with reigning English Champions Liverpool, Porto and Atletico Madrid. So, Europa League is the best we can hope for.

[tmason122]

2016/2017 Season Summary

Well the season turned out to be a damned good one. We finished 2nd in the league, a position higher than last year, though Juventus were still runaway champions. Nobody seems to be able to touch them at the moment.

In that Italian Cup we were knocked out by Juventus over 2 legs in the Quarter-Finals.

However, in the Champions League this happened:

The journey to the final was easier than expected.... We finished top of a group containing Arsenal, Galatasary and SLB. We then played Shakatar Donestk, Ajax and Monaco in the knockout rounds, convincingly beating all before meeting Bayern in the final. As the screenshot shows, Bayern dominated the game, however a resolute defensive performance with a poached effort by Immobile after Zaza had been put through on goal from Sansone won us the game. Our success in the Champions League has done the club well, boosting our reputation and finances no end.

Going into the 2017/2018 season we made the following transfers:

I was disappointed to see both Kranevitter and Consigli leave, however I got good money for both which was re-invested back in to the squad. I am very happy with my team now, and we have real squad depth now in all positions apart from maybe central defence.

The current tactics and strongest starting 11 looks like this:

With the squad looking something like this.... Many of the palyers are pretty highler valued now, so if they do decide to move on some good profit can be expected to be made.

AS things stand, we sit second in the champions league (on GD) behind Man Utd, who we're about to play after winning our first 2 games. We're also sitting 2nd in the leauge after 7 games in the league, again just behind AC Milan on GD. Juventus are down in 13th!!! Great news, hahaha.

[heron]

Very, very nice result in the Champions League. A bit lucky in the draw maybe, and as for the statistics from the final: only the score counts in the end. Great teams create their own luck!

A rather unorthodox formation you're playing by the way. Do you go more defensive/counter when away from home or against bigger clubs?

In my second season, 17 games in right now, Juventus is untouchable and already far ahead of the chasing pack. Good to see that they seem to be struggling a bit in your fourth (?) season. Gives me a bit of hope that a Scudetto is possible with Sassuolo in the coming years.

[tmason122]

Yep, was very lucky, especially as I finished with only 10 men as well, hahaha. But, no doubt, we deserved it :o hahaha

Yer, the formation is an odd one... its an evolution of the formation I used in my first season (a more conventional 3-5-2). I've been using this formation pretty much exclusively with minor tweaks depending on opposition since the beginning of season 2 really. Yep, when away from home I play generally play counter though.

I built the tactics around the fact that I wanted my best players playing in their best positions.... and that required a DM role for Kranevitter (who has now been sold). So whilst the midfield looks a little unbalanced and light in the middle it actually works pretty well. Depending on how the game is going this formation is flexibly enough to evolve into the following formations:

5-3-2 (Wingbacks drop back to create 5 man defence and AMC drops back to create 3 man midfield)

3-5-2 (Wingbacks and AMC overload the midfield)

3-4-3 (Wingbacks play in midfield with AMC joining the ST's)

3-2-5 (Wingbacks join the AMC with boosting our attacking options)

The wingbacks, as you have probably figured are key for the formation to work... they usually cover around 15km a game! Which is the highest avg. amount of distance covered per game by any player I've ever had in football manager. They also chip in with usually around 10 assists and 4 goals each over the season. Also Tariq as AMC is also pretty key when playing away from home as he has a tackling attribute of 13, which is obviously pretty high for a natural AMC. So it means when he drop back into CM he's not completely useless, hahaha.

[Mikal]

Alright gents, been a good read this thread and I've started my Sassuolo save now too. Currently just finished the friendlies and next match is in the Cup. Little update of pre-season:

U.S. Sassuolo – 2014/15

Summer Transfers

The biggest name joining us this transfer window is Javier Saviola from league rivals Verona. Big coup for the club given his experience, and his attributes are still impressive for this level if we can use him right. I think he’ll be a solid edition and his experience will certainly come in handy when it’s needed. Not too expensive either, and on £15k p/w. Yet to feature in any friendlies so will likely be a bit rusty going into the season.

We also signed Munoz from Palermo for around £5m but he doesn’t join until next summer unfortunately.

Not many names left us. There were a few high earners I tried to ship out to no avail. I at least have some depth in case we need it.

Friendlies

Just to pick one of our friendly results, against arguably our most difficult opponent (which goes to show the level of friendlies my assistant arranged). We actually didn't play that well, and were dominated for parts of the match. We did simply just have the better players who were able to make things happen, which is what it came down to. Berrardi has been banging them in throughout these friendlies and added a brace to his tally in this friendly. Can't wait to see what he can do in the league (before I inevitably lose him next season to Juve with our co-ownership deal).

I have been tinkering with tactics throughout pre-season to see what has been working. I'm mostly decided on an asymmetric 4-3-3 which I'm hoping will get the best out of my 3 main (and best) players in the squad.

Anyway, until our competitive fixtures.

[heron]

Finally had time to finish my second season at the club. After the summer overhaul of the squad, this season was about getting all new players integrated and trying to cope with all the extra European matches. After defeating Lille in the UCL qualifying round, we were drawn in a group consisting of reigning English Champions Liverpool, Porto and Atletico Madrid. Thankfully, we managed to win all our home games, and coupled with another away draw and some other results going our way, we managed to sneak onto second place in our group! In the first knockout round we were pitted against Dortmund, where the difference in quality between the clubs became very apparent: At home we drew 2-2 after going 2-0 up. My players were getting knackered and in the final 15 minutes of the game, Dortmund carved through our defense to draw the game. Away from home we tried and tried but only managed a 1-1 draw, meaning we lost on away goals. Too bad, but given the group and this being our first year in Europe, I'm actually very proud of the boys!

As for the domestic competition: I've been changing my tactics to fit some roles better suited for all the new players. Also, a 4-1-3-2 counter tactic was tried for the though away games. With this latter version, I managed to defeat Juventus for the first time, but my main tactic didn't 'click' that well, meaning we drew far too many games. But maybe the quality of my defense also was to blame for this. In the latter parts of the season I reverted back to the tactic I've been primarily using in my first season and this brought back a bit of form. And maybe the players themselves were better adapted to my tactic and each other at that stage. We were never in with a shout for the title, but at least this rise in form meant a final surge on the table, propelling us from 5th to 3rd place. So, UCL qualification again. Hopefully the draw will be as kind as last year!

Below you can see the players' stats for the Serie A. Berardi was top scorer in Serie A and I was very pleased with my captain, Peluso who is in his thirties, but still my first choice left back and one of the top performers in the team. It's also worth noting that Gabbiadini was very good in the cup competitions for some reason, getting another 12 goals in these competitions. Probably my best signing value-for-money wise.

Also, the player stats overview for the Serie A. Four of my players in the average rating top 10. That's so nice to see. And take a look at the number 1 position these: by far the best player in the league is Isco, who signed for Juventus at the start of the season! That guy is tearing up the league with 19 goals and 20 assists! And a ridiculous average rating. It's going to be hard to stop Juventus from winning the league again next season this way.

Finally, the Italian Cup competition. Juventus was defeated by Torino in the first round, so this competition became ours to lose. Which we didn't. A final against Lazio was won comfortably, getting the club its first silverware!

[Wilson7]

Is there a way to remove this buy back clause that Juve have for Zaza? I already lost Berardi to them & don't fancy losing 22m valued player for 11m

[Dexter_Morgan]

2014/15 Review

After looking for a mid/lower table side with potential and seeing this thread I didn't think twice about giving it a shot.

Transfers were minimal as I was hoping to save any cash for Berardi the following season. John Hou Sæter was our only cash signing and he's grown immensely already, i'm going to loan him out this year with any luck and have him in the first team next year if he continues to grow at the same rate.

The season went better than planned with a 3rd place finish mostly thanks to Zaza, Beraldi and the loan signings.

To top off what was already a great season we won the Coppa Italia beating Juve and Lazio along the way

I knew this was going to be a busy summer as it was because I kept all of my backroom staff on as many were out of contract this summer so inbetween players I have to sort that side out (in the 3 hours i've had the game on i've gone through about 2 weeks in total as i've been wheeling and dealing ). In terms of players i've lost Berardi (£21M) and kept everyone I wanted. I had £15M to spend without the Berardi money and £34M after it and even turned down £32M for Zaza without him causing a fuss. These are my dealings with £10M left in the pot

I do expect a few to ask to leave still but with the rest of the squad much improved as you can see and some potential brought in too I can probably afford to give in if my hand is forced. Unless an absolute bargain comes along then the £10M is staying in the bank for the time being as we've brought a lot of players in already for the places that needed strengthening the most.

[heron]

Some very nice free transfers you've got there. I'd keep the 10M in the bank and wait until some good players pop up on the transfer list and get them for a bargain price.

And congrats on winning the cup!