[FM23] From the ports of Funchal, Madeira - CS Maritimo

[Kealu121202]

Intro

Bem-vindo to my first FM23 Blog, I have been debating in my head to do a something that can push me out of my comfort zone personally and inside the game, and what else that start posting my own content.

I plan to do a few short updates throughout the season, mostly updating month by month, keeping things short.

Why going with Maritimo? I just felt like it, I´m no fan of the portuguese League, I mostly follow Porto since it has been a good team for my fellow Mexicans (I´m mexican also and thats why I support them lol), Diego Reyes, Hector Herrera, Miguel Layun, Jesus "Tecatito" Corona and Raul Gudiño are the names I recall of being in Porto. So I recently discovered that Maritimo had Xadas a past FM wonderkid I used to like, uses my favourite color (Red) on 2 kits and has a Lion on it´s badge (Who doesn´t like lions).

The club has won one major trophy, the Campeonato de Portugal, in 1926. Since then, Marítimo have been present for 40 seasons in Primeira Liga, have been runners-up of the Taça de Portugal twice, runners-up of the Taça da Liga twice, and have participated nine times in the UEFA Cup/Europa League. The club have won the Segunda Divisão twice.

Oh yeah, IFFHS ranks us as the fifth best Portuguese club of this century; the highest ranking of any club from Madeira.

Save Goals:

• Finish above CD Nacional and C.F. União.
• Establish as a top half team in Liga Bwin.
• Try to win a National Cup.
• TRY to use statistics for transfers (My laptop is a potato so idk if using game statics would burn it  )
• Win the Champions League.

Board and Supporters Vision & Culture

The Manager

I used Creating Your Own Newgen Faces Using Midjourney – Strikerless to create a manager of my liking.

We have here Alexandre Guerreiro a young and inexperienced 27 y/o Portuguese-Mexican manager, borned in Funchal, Madeira, who is a diehard fan of CS Maritimo. (Yeah, I sneakily throwed there my country).

Game Set-up

[Kealu121202]

Meet the squad

We have a pretty decent squad, we have a 28 man squad, having an average age of 25, so we are not old but we are not young either, and that is good, since balance is key for everything, We have 12 contracts that are ending by the end of the season, but 6 of them are loan players at our club, so we may have work to do at the end of the season, the personality of the squad is mainly balanced so we are good also at that deparmetn, finally, the wage bill is not broken, we only have 2 wages that are higher that our wage cap, 250,000, one is on loan and he will go when we have the opportunity and the other one is a newcomer.

I like to have a small squad, mostly composed by 3 player per position, 2 for the first team and a younger one from the B team or u23/19s.

This is the squad:

GK. Loanee Matouš Trmal will be starting under the goal. Miguel Silva will also have gametime.

RFB/WB. Claudio Winck will be starting by the right hand side of the defense, hoping he will be key for our attack this season, Zainadine Junior will be our backuo but since he can´t play as a wingback the vice captain will be having little to no gametime in the season. We need to prioritize this position at the transfermarket.

CB. Leo Andrade, Matheus Costa and Goncalo Cardoso will be the 3 starters at the moment, they can help us in both ends since the 3 of them are taller than 1.85m, Moises Mosquera, Rafael Brito and Joao Alfonso will be the backup but will have a good amount of playtime.

LFB/WB. Vitor Costa and China will both compete for the starter spot, both of them will have plenty of game time this season.

CM. Diogo Mendes and Stefano Beltrame will both be the starters, we have Bernardo Gomes as their backup, hoping the youngster can get a fair amount of playin time and develop really good.

W. We are stacked here, Xadas and Andre Vigidal will be both the starters down the flanks, but will rotate with Pablo Moreno, Joel Tagueu, Joel Soñora, Edgar Costa, Percy Liza, Geny and Antonio Zarzana.  

ST. One of the weakest areas, since only Jesus Ramirez and Leandro Cardoso are natural players in this position, Tagueu, Moreno and Liza can also play here, We need to look deeper at the transfermarket for this position.

[Kealu121202]

Tactical Style

Yeah i´m a fan of Johan Cruyff/Pep/Xavi principles, but i´m no a stranger for counter-attacking style of play, I like Total Football style but also I´m not afraid to change my style if it is needed.

For these team I decided to do a mix of both styles, we are not going total football, but we will look to have the ball posession and try to replicate the movements of it, so after all I decided to do an approach of someone who isn´t afraid to have the ball but also isn´t afraid to counter attack in the recent years, I decided to go with the 3-4-3/3-4-2-1 style that Antonio Conte used during his time at Chelsea and is now using at Tottenham.

In possession

So I´m a sucker for my team to always Play out of defense, stretching all the pitch having a really Wide attacking width, using that to our favour, looking for passes into the space for both wingers that cut inside, using quick transitions in a Slightly higher tempo, trying to be disciplined and do not overdo things and finally I like my teams to not shoot at every sight they have and if possible take the ball to the box.

In transition

So yeah, we would Counter, after we recover the ball we can do it with our high tempo, and the goalie will always take short kicks and distribute to the CB so we can mantain possession during our buildup.

Without Possession

I play with a High press and more often pressing, with our players Preventing a short distribution by the GK, with this we can suffocate the opposition and they can give us the ball easily, to end we Step up more looking to push the lines without compromising to much and Trap inside the opposition, so we can have a nice defense solidity.

[Guest]

Absolutely fell in love with Maderia when I was there and although I'm a Nacional fan I will keep a close eye on this one.