Boycott Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Time is the best healer so goes the phrase. But is this really true? Our understanding of the complexity which is time remains as much philosophical as empirical. Some of the world's most profound works have been buried in time. We live in an age where what someone owns - regardless of how it is obtained - is celebrated more than what someone does. And more increasingly than ever it's not intellect, culture and work which is the pathway to pursue, but shallowness, greed and bottom feeding. This is a fundamental problem with society. But I'm not a leader, politician or activist. I'm a football manager. Football is a valuable part of society. It brings people together, brings a [brief] halt to troubles and is a bearer of community. Football has always been more of a game in a pure sense. Until money has taken over. Is there glory in spending hundreds upon hundreds every year? Is there glory in the rich getting richer? The elite are on a table of their own. But I'm going to do something about this. I'm going to resurrect the forgotten halcyon's from a different world or die trying*. *by that I mean getting the sack but that doesn't sound so cool does it...? I've chosen FM 2012 because it's my favorite edition of the more recent games as in my opinion it strikes the closest balance between a simulation and fun. I have England, Spain, Italy and Germany loaded to the lowest leagues available. These will be the set in stone nations and as time goes on we'll add some more. In the next post you'll find out my first port of call. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 THE PAST Pro Vercelli is a tale with a strong beginning, with a rapid turn for the worst leading into decades of bitter disappointment. In the early 20th Century this little club from the small region of Piedmont dominated Italian football. After getting promoted in 1907 they hit the ultimate heights. Between 1908 and 1922 the club won league titles. They embraced professionalism to the sport. Fitness and training was paramount to this little outfit reaching the top of the tree. We're not talking about laps around the field. Set pieces, defensive drills, use of tactics beyond the standard 'stick eleven fellas out there and let them figure it out'. Many of their players made up the national team. Italy's greatest ever striker Silvio Piola came through this club. He broke through after the last title win of 1922 and had to move elsewhere to win trophies but the people of Piedmont know that the man who won the 1938 World Cup with a brace in the final was a Leoni. The stadium is duly named after him.They set the standard. Others followed. The big city clubs now flexed their muscles and the limitations of being from a small area meant after that the only way was down. The advantage they held was now the norm. But this club didn't just retreat to a more reasonable mean. They came crashing down. Relegation in 1935 to the second division. They further dropped to Serie C in 1941 and spent the next four decades just dropping in and out of the lower reaches of Italian football. Up until the season just gone the club have been plying their trade in Serie C2/A for almost twenty years. THE PRESENT The club were promoted last season [2010/11]. However this promotion has a bit of a complicated back-story. Firstly before the start of the season the club merged with neighbours AS Belvedere Vercelli which helped to keep this historic club afloat. The club qualified for the play-offs but were eliminated in the semi-finals. However due to financial irregularities of other clubs Vercelli were promoted to fill vacancies. So here we are. I take charge of the team in a higher division for the first time in almost two decades and it is off a technicality! I don't know how my players fare up....scratch that. I don't know my players full stop..... This isn't a great expectation. If we have a good window and my players respond to my methods quickly then we should gain the points on the table to consolidate. After that we can aim higher but for now we must keep our heads down and get on with the work. My board also want me to guide the team to the second round of the Serie C Cup which requires playing four group games first. These games occur before the start of the league so will be a great chance for me to assess my team. By the way here's another reason why a good start is imperative. Half the league start with a points deduction! We have a head start so who knows how far we can go if we take advantage of it. We have a heavy pre-season and I'm looking to bring in a few fresh faces to add to our squad but we'll see if we get the bodies in or not next time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 Pre-Season Activity My first day in the job involved a tour of our facilities and an opportunity to meet my staff. I can't speak Italian yet but the chairman can speak English and he gave me a thorough breakdown of the club'situation. A couple of my backroom staff can also speak English so I am leaning on them while I get to grips with this job. What strikes me here is despite languishing in the lowest reaches of football for so long, our facilities are actually quite impressive. It's probably down to prestige. This is a club who were pioneers and you can't ever lose that standard once you get there. A nice 17k all seater which is excellently looked after. The Silvio Piola must be one of, if not the best at this level. Nonetheless what concerns me is despite this we only have sold 490 season tickets for the season. That's right - of a region of 50k, a ground of 17k, yet only four hundred and ninety people feel we are worth giving up their time for. Football's a cynical game and if we start winning we'll get more people. I intend to build something special to get the crowds flocking in but you don't need to be an economist to know we are falling well short in matchday revenue per our maintenance costs. Until the numbers increase I won't be able to invest into our training and academy which given our rich history in, is a paramount goal of mine. For now we have to make ends meet. Transfers We had a lot of loanees in the squad I took over. Some of them were proper ****. Needless to say I immediately terminated those deals. I've no idea the club took on two 16 year olds who are no better than our own youth players. So I told those two they're best of going back where they came from. I think I was nice enough in conveying it to them. I did tell a couple of older lads to **** off but that's only because they didn't get the message the first time around. There were however three loanees who I feel can be really good for us. They were already at the club before I joined so I'm quite lucky. Solid, experienced striker who I like the look of. There's nothing that screams out about him but at this level a mixed array of 12s and 13s in three compartments is very useful. For a kid he has impressive leadership qualities and is someone who I can count on in different positions. A 'baller. Fantastic technicals - He's going to pull the strings no question about that. As for my own transfers, the coaching staff compiled a report which clearly showed defence was our weakest area. In the heading, marking and strength areas we were either the weakest or one of the weakest which left me with a serious headache. This is Italy. Defending is an art here yet by the sound of it my defenders are a bunch of pussies. I spent the whole of pre season working on defensive drills so they can improve but there's clearly a limit at how far they can improve so I had to bring in reinforcements. Six players in, none out [apart from those useless loanees who were sent packing]. I will let players who aren't featuring to leave in January but for the time being I want all the Pro Vercelli players here so I have options. You never know who can surprise me. I didn't sign this lad to start a lot of games. He is an option. What enticed me is he is good in the attributes we badly lacked and at his age he will provide good cover and experience which in these leagues count for a lot. Really good blend of attributes. Another seasoned campaigner and he's got a bit of quality on the ball to get us ticking over. Technically he is sound so the way I envisage it going is Passoni is our conductor. I don't want him moving too much. I want to get the best out of his strengths and minimise his weaknesses which are evidently - at his age - physical. For that I need a strong unit behind him. Heading of 17 made me snap him up pretty quickly. He's not just some mad hatter either. Influence is high so again I see a leader here. Pagani along with the next signing could form a robust partnership. Comazzi has all the important attributes a center half should have. I think while Pagani excels in being a rugged ball winner, Comazzi is a bit more rounded. Just another solid player. You can see a theme in these signings.... Carbone slots straight into the right back position. He is the pick of my transfers. If you look at the other defenders I brought them in purely to be defenders. I'm not asking them to play from the back, I'm not asking them to push out. As a matter of fact I don't want them high up because just look at their physicals. They're dreadful! The dynamism comes from wide and Carbone has great stamina and fitness to get up and down the flank. He's got good defensive attributes so I trust him to be able to look after himself. In many aspects he's probably the best type of right back I could find in Italy for this level. Even in the top flight there is a dearth of attacking full backs so the best you can get is a sound defender who can run. I've got one here. Antonio Grippi is one for the future. My scout suggested him to me saying he can become a leading Serie B player. Given his age and that I don't expect to be in Serie B for a while I've taken him on because if he does match his potential I don't want to regret letting one slip. My scout isn't too highly rated in judging potential but from a naked observation of his attributes...the kid has something about him. Nothing to lose really. The theme of my transfers is defenders. Hopefully my signings prove themselves and build a platform from the back for our creative players like Carraro to work from. There's no good being great on the eye if you can't keep a clean sheet. I think we've done well but time will tell. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 11, 2017 Author Share Posted November 11, 2017 PRE SEASON FRIENDLIES Apart from the last game we won all our friendlies but the main exercise of course is fitness and getting to know my players. We scored in every game and my three first team strikers [Martini, lemmelo, Malatesta] bagged a few. Competition for places is crucial so that's good. I don't have much to say here as these are just friendlies. My real assessment will come when we begin the campaign with the Serie C Cup. The first phase is a group stage of four teams [play each other once]. Given this includes sides from Serie C/2 there is an opportunity to get to a winning start. I expect to win my group. The group games are finished before the league season kicks off so I want to see good performances from my team. The cup is a nice bonus but the league is where I am focusing on. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 12, 2017 Author Share Posted November 12, 2017 A Good Start My first official match as Pro Vercelli manager came against Renate in the opening game of our Serie C Cup campaign. This tournament is essentially the Coppa Italia for us lower league - aka- **** teams. My side is the only Serie C2/A side in our group with the other three sides coming from Serie C2/B. This means we should certainly qualify from the group [top two go through The game against Renate was comfortable but this followed a shock defeat in our next game. I was furious how at 1-0 up with 70 on the clock we somehow lost the game. We didn't create many chances but had most of the ball and scored a good goal right after half time. However two lapses late on cost us. Their equaliser came from a throw in and their second a corner. Clearly I haven't versed the lads in defending set plays well enough so after the game I upped the intensity in training. A win and a defeat set up the third came against Valenzana clearly. If we lose we would not be able to qualify. But this time the boys showed their quality and gulf in class. Cararro who I have mentioned as being a really technical player got his first for the club, as did my own signing Dario Passoni. So we secured qualification and this rendered the final group game against Neapolis Frattese meaningless. By the way what a name! Neapolis Frattese. We played ok but didn't take our chances and they equalised late on from a corner. This meant we finished on 7 points from 12 and take second spot. We're now into the first knockout round and the board expect us to reach the second so we've almost met that target. Our league season kicked off with an emphatic home victory against Sorrento. Martini scored two lovely poacher goals before Francesco Battaglia headed home from a corner. You can see Battaglia has scored four goals in the opening games. He is a center halve who I didn't really take much notice of until Comazzi injured himself in the last game of pre season. This gave Battaglia an opening and at the moment he will stay in the team. The Avelino game was an incredible turn of emotions. We went 2-0 up in eight minutes and at half time were brimming with confidence. However maybe I made a mistake of gushing the players rather than urging them to keep focus as Avelino came back at us strong and deserved their equaliser with 15 minutes to play. Truth be told we were chasing shadows in the second half. However with just four minutes of the 90 to go, we win a corner and that man Battaglia powers home to give us the three points! The home defeat to Spal was very disappointing as we were never in the game. They're one of the better teams in this league and completely overpowered us. We only had two shots on goal in the whole game and this was a fall back to Earth. Fortunately we bounced back with a rearguard defensive display in our last game of September to pick up an important away win. With many teams starting with a points deduction, our early return of three wins from four puts us in 3rd place. With qualification to the first round of the cup in the bag too I am very satisfied with our start. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 12, 2017 Author Share Posted November 12, 2017 Back to Reality? Lets start with the positives. We have surpassed the board's expectation of making it to the second round of the Serie C Cup. Firstly we defeated Portosummaga in a 2-0 away win to get there, then we scraped through Borga a Buggiano. The performances and results in between definitely meant we found it tough going against a Serie C2/B side but that man Battaglia added another goal to his tally. So we're now into the next phase of the tournament. A second group stage, this time with only three teams in the group with the top placed team qualifying for the semi finals. Given our league form the cup might well be a happy distraction. Our league form was really shocking. We scored in all but one game but thirteen goals conceded in one month is embarrassing. Maybe I was too confident in my defensive recruits but God knows where we'd be if I never signed them. If this is ***** then what would have happened if I had to rely on those useless feckers I inherited who couldn't head the ball for the life of them. If only Battaglia showed so much prowess clearing balls from corners as much as he loves scoring from them. On the plus side we did end the month with a good win against Foggia. In this game we got off to a blitzing start which raised the belief and morale of our players. Hopefully this will kickstart the team heading into November. I want to point out one player who summed up these run of results. Meet Alessandro Armenise. He's left back. A **** one at that but it's not like I've got much better. Motelli is injured so it's either this twit or a kid. I should have picked a kid. Armenise delivered a true disasterclass in our 2-1 defeat to Viareggio. Gave the ball away for the first goal, Conceded a penalty, missed a penalty...then the bastard had the nerve to complain when I fined him for that performance. **** off! He won't last too long. Here's the league table after ten games: Hit and miss.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 12, 2017 Author Share Posted November 12, 2017 A DOWNWARDS SPIRAL We're now at the period of the season where there is a winter break. Part of me wishes we carried through as the away victory against Pavia was an emphatic and much needed victory to halt this horrid run of form. After waiting so long for a league victory we now have to wait the best part of three weeks for another game. One league win in the last seven paints the story. Three consecutive games without a goal. My players worked hard against one of the better teams in the league in Tritium to look like we would get a good away point. But then our right back lost concentration in the 92nd for them to net the winner. Against Taranto we conceded in the first minute and never looked like scoring. I just can't seem to find a right balance in keeping clean sheets while maintaining a threat up top. We can draw against the best team in the league in Carpi by not committing men forward yet when the games that determine our season come and we need to play for the win we shoot ourselves in the foot. Oh and we are out of the Serie C Cup. The game against Alessandria was a knife edge victory with us overturning a 2-1 defecit but we ****ed up at home to Cuneo. A completely limp, passionless and infuriating performance. I let rip after the game. A chance of reaching the semi finals was over and with that this season is going down a slippery slope. Here we are at the midway point: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 13, 2017 Author Share Posted November 13, 2017 #WELCOMEDELCOURT The club are delighted to announce the signing of Begium U21 international Jean-Phillippe Delcourt. The twenty year old center back has signed a three and a half year contract and arrives to the club on a free transfer. Manager Robert Terrace had this to say about our new Leoni: "Jean-Phillippe is a player we have been monitoring for a while and we are very happy to bring him to the club. He has very good potential and is among the wave of Belgian talent who have a lot of hype surrounding them. For him to commit his development years with us is a great statement about our club but I also brought him in because he can contribute in the here and now. He offers us a lot more speed at the back which will compliment our other defenders who lack in that discipline but are better in others." Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 14, 2017 Author Share Posted November 14, 2017 ***** Look at that. Just look at it. The 0-0 at home against Avelino may as well be a defeat as they're bottom of the ****ing league. I've never felt so drained watching a game of football. Every corner the opposition gets feels like a grenade is going to be launched into our box. And on the other side of the field we seldom have the numbers to make much in way of our own chances. I'm trying as much as I can to get some energy from this group but they're ******** themselves. It will take hard work and a lot of luck to stop this horrid fall. A good starting point is telling Andrea Marconi to stop with the ****ing long shots. He can barely kick a ball in a straight line yet the dumb fella thinks he's Serie C's Robben. The good thing is the board are still fairly content at the job I'm doing. I feel safe for now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 14, 2017 Author Share Posted November 14, 2017 BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD I thought we turned a corner. A good fighting victory against Benevento lifted us a place. Morale soared after the game when the players could look at each other and smile. High fives, fist bumps, Italian shows of *embrace*. It only takes one moment to change your fortunes and when Pietro Iemmello, our loanee striker from Fiorentina, swiveled in the box from a cross and tucked it away....I thought it was it. The boys deserved that victory but maybe just maybe we treated it too celebratory. As manager I am responsible for preparing a team to get the best results but I refuse to be responsible for the sheer collapse that my players delivered against Pisa. Now they're a good side in the playoff positions so we were always up against it. But at 2-1 going to half time I made a concerted effort to rev up the lads. Instead they retreated and retreated and got blown away. Pisa turned 2-1 to 5-1 in the space of fourteen minutes. Ternana again was men against boys. In between the goalless draw against Viareggo made me seethe too. On a rare occasion we keep a clean sheet we fail to score. Our fans booed us off at the end and I don't blame them. They aren't watching their Leoni. They're watching a team of mice. Right now we occupy the last relegation playout spot. We are now in a battle to stay afloat in the league. I need men, cojones and a new formation.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycott Posted November 14, 2017 Author Share Posted November 14, 2017 THE MASTERPLAN It has become very evident something has to change. We've only picked up three victories in the last fifteen league matches. We went four games without a goal. We got completely rinsed in two of the last three games and the third was a rubbish 0-0 at home to a relegation struggler. So what's the problem? My diagnosis is I made a mistake in my recruitment. We left ourselves seriously short of athleticism at the back and while the January addition of Delcourt has addressed this on paper [we're yet to see improvements in results], the lack of mobility means we're always susceptible on the break. For that reason I cannot play a high line nor can I ask my players to press. Because someone gets caught out of position then we're screwed. And when we play so deep and retreat how the hell can we get men forward to hurt the opposition? Aside from the 6-1 and 4-1 losses recently, we don't get thrashed. But our inability to get the ball forward in attacking areas with verve and numbers makes it doubly hard for the defence and goalkeeper. If you go into games believing you can't score creates a negative vibe where the first sign of trouble causes chaos. We do have a very good play-maker in Federico Carraro who is at the forefront of all the good things we have done. And in Pietro Iemmallo and Marco Martini we have two decent strikers. So in that area of the pitch we have quality. My work is to facilitate the rest of the team in order to get the best out of them. Therefore we will play a classic three at the back. The idea is with three center halves instead of two in a back four, we have that additional cover to mop up balls in behind. For most of the season we have played a pairing of Battaglia and Pagani. Battaglia has won us points with goals and overall I don't think Pagani has been a bad signing so they retain their spots. Joining them is my January addition, Jean-Phillipe Delcourt who has speed and youth on his side. These three in theory should work well: Delcourt [pace], Battaglia [heading] and Pagani [ball winner]. With five across the midfield we have packed that area of the field to congest the field of play. This should reduce the space our opponents get when they have possession. We're going to be rugged, we're going to be compact and we're going to be Italian. Carraro plays in the number 10 role. He is a really gifted footballer and I've no doubt of his quality. He's the guy who unlocks opponents defence but to do so we have to lock our own. There is no time to experiment. We need results immediately. Here is the line-up for the first game coming up: Antonio Grippi, the seventeen year old free transfer starts. Big call but I've had enough of the older players in that position. If you're good enough you're old enough. If you're good enough you'll win. Are we good enough.....? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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