Fantasista10

Yeah I’m pleased with how it went, challenge now is to at least match what we did last season without our best player in Koopmeiners! But like you say, a good fee and it has a touch of realism about it - signed for 12m and sold for 55m is about as Atalanta as it gets!

La Dea - Season 1 Review: I wasn’t planning on skipping to the end of the season, but I ended up getting pretty hooked on the save and breezing through it, playing on Extended Highlights. February and March 2024: We picked up where we left off from January, with some great results, especially the 3-0 victory over Jose Mourinho’s Roma. Unfortunately, our unbeaten run ended at 29 games at the hands of table toppers AC Milan, who beat us convincingly. But, we were able to bounce back from that defeat and went on an impressive winning run which saw us keep six clean sheets in a row in March. Youth Intake I forgot to take a screenshot of the youth intake back in March, but it was marked as ‘Average’. I was left feeling frustrated because we have excellent youth facilities, coaching and recruitment and also a really good Head of Youth Development who has great attributes, suits my 4-3-3 playing style and boasts a Determined personality. I suppose not every year can produce a Golden Generation, but hopefully next season brings an improvement in that regard. I’ll keep a close eye on how they develop, and as usual tailor training plans for them and look to give relevant game time and create pathways to the B Team and First Team where appropriate. Without doubt, the most exciting prospect is 16yr old Leonardo Gilardi, who is already attracting interest from the likes of Inter Milan, but I have no fears of losing him at this time. Most suited to a Deep Lying Forward role, he has the potential to be retrained as a central midfielder too, perhaps as a playmaker. April and May 2024: April was easily are worst month of this save so far. I mentioned earlier about the fear of a sudden drop in form, and the those fears became a reality. I’m still not completely sure as to why, but all of a sudden we could not defend. Teams were tearing through us, and everything I tried to do to counteract it, seemed to make it worse. The four goals conceded away to Marseille was a low point, even though we were able to reverse the deficit in the second leg. We went toe to toe with Inter, picking up a good draw away to our rivals who were putting pressure on us in the battle for second place. Juventus at home was really disappointing however, we had no answer to their attacking quality. Strange, because in the reverse fixture we won comfortably (2-0) limiting them to just 0.40xG Early in the season I removed all Opposition Instructions as I think I had selected too many, and it reached the point where I no longer see what benefit they were bringing. So we stripped that back, and results improved. When things started to go wrong defensively, I started using them again, but in conjunction with either Trapping Inside or Outside. This didn’t really have the desired effect. In the end, I realised that the best thing to do was to change very little, as tweaking too much would only harm our tactical familiarity and worsen our fortunes. One of the changes I did make which seemed to help, was increasing our pressing intensity. By essentially ‘maxing’ it out, we created good chances by winning the ball high up in transition, but also limiting time on the ball for the opponents to play through us. With the trigger press being set to ‘More Often’ previously, I was disappointed at how often teams played through us, with very little resistance. I’ve only used ‘Much More Often’ sparingly, so time will tell if this tweak will benefit us in the long run. On paper, it suits us well as we have players with good work rate, teamwork and stamina to press. Anyway, our results improved in May, and we managed to reach two cup finals come the end of the season… First Taste of Silverware Our first cup final was a success, and there was to be some much welcomed silverware in our first season. We defeated Napoli 2-0 in the Coppa Italia final, which was strangely held a couple of games before the league season had finished. It was to be Atalanta’s second triumph in the Coppa Italia, with their last victory coming 61 years ago in 1963! We got lucky in this game, newly appointed Ernesto Valverde set Napoli up in a 4-2-3-1 shape with Osimhen (up front) and Kvaradona (on the left) looking much more like the Napoli who won the league last year, rather than the five-at-the-back long ball Napoli which beat us earlier in the season under Walter Mazzarri. They beat us on xG, quite comfortably too, but it was our clinical finishing (and some great goalkeeping by our number 2, Carnesecchi) which ultimately made the difference. Regardless of the xG, we lifted the trophy and it was nice to get a piece of silverware in Season 1, especially as Atalanta have endured so many baron years. Europa League Final Weirdly, we had another cup final before the Serie A season had finished. It was not much of an issue however, as we had already secured a top four finish at this point, so our focus was solely on the final against outright favourites, Liverpool. The result was pretty much to be expected, however we gave them a real good game. I actually started this game with a back five. Unimpressed by our recent defensive record, I was terrified of the prospect of going up against Mo Salah and co. And it worked. That was until Alexis Mac Allister scored from a direct free kick just after the half hour mark. We went in at half time a goal down, so I reverted to our 4-3-3 which made us more threatening but alas, pushing too many players forward we allowed Darwin Nunez to seize on an error from my cup keeper Carnesecchi to clinch it for Liverpool. Still, we can hold our heads high after reaching a European final for the first time in the club’s history. UEFA Champions League Return Despite a shaky end to the season, we managed to clinch a top four and UCL finish with several games to spare. We ended the season second in the league, but 12 points behind the champions, Milan. However we did finish 7pts clear of Inter, who will no doubt lament the fact that they could not convert enough draws into victories. A look at the xG table tells us that we were worthy of our second place finish, despite conceding 8 fewer than we should have. Nevertheless, we had the best defensive record in the league, conceding just 26 times in 38 matches. Juventus rounded up the top four, with Roma in fifth and most likely going into the UCL courtesy of the Serie A’s coefficient rating gaining them an additional place in Europe’s elite competition. After securing Champions League qualification, the board set the initial budgets for next season. Sure, I would have liked a bigger budget, and probably expected a bit more, but Atalanta is not the wealthiest club in Italy by any means, and it may take several years of consistent UCL football before we start to see larger budgets. However, once I saw we had a budget of over 20m, I only had one thing on my mind… I said from the beginning that triggering the option to buy on CDK’s loan was a top priority of mine, and his performances and excellent development over the season made it a no brainer. £20.5m for a player of his quality, with his potential, is not to be sniffed at - even if it has consumed almost all of my budget. £100k p/w will make him the highest earner at the club, a little more than the £98k p/w Scamacca currently earns, but this is the price you have to pay for top talent. Hopefully Charles will help propel us to Scudetto glory in the years to come. Breaking Records It was a record breaking season in the end for La Dea. Our second place finish will go on record as the best ever performance in the club’s league history. We also set a record for the number of wins, and points. It doesn’t mean much, but it was nice to also be named the best team in Serie A (not sure how Milan will feel about that…) Planning for Next Season The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed I’m already at the start of pre-season (1st July 2024), and therefore a couple of transfers have already been completed - only outgoings thus far. First out, was a player who had requested a transfer due to not enough playing time. We reluctantly parted ways with Zappacosta, a player whose personality and mental attributes I valued highly, but he did not fit the current system as either an Inverted Full Back or Inverted Wingback. Still, £11.75m for a 32yr old in his final year is not too bad. The big news, however, and it may not come as a huge surprise given his quality and interest in him, is that Teun Koopmeiners has left Bergamo. Man United came in with an initial bid of £47.5m, but we managed to negotiate a slightly better fee of £55m which was enough for me to part with a player who was keen to move on, with a year left on his deal. As you can imagine I was incredibly reluctant to let him leave, but he had no interest in signing a new deal so it was either take £55m and try to replace him, or keep an unhappy player for a year and lose him for nothing. He will, without doubt, prove incredibly difficult to replace and looking at his attributes more closely, it’s clear that he is world class and one of a kind. More on any potential replacements and squad planning in the next post, which should wrap up pre-season of Season 2. I still aim to release a tactical post at some point in the near future. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed Season 1! #GoAtalantaGo

Look, man, I’ve had enough. I know that’s a rubbish pun for the title of this post, but I think it sums up the situation perfectly In this update I’m going to run through the results from December and January, highlighting the crucial game against Juventus, before summarising the ins and outs from the winter transfer window. The Game of the Season (So Far) Picking up from where we left off in my previous post, the next game was a trip to Turin to take on rivals Juventus. There aren’t many bigger games in the calendar for Atalanta, an away fixture against the biggest team in the country. This would be a true test of our levels, and we would have to do so without Koopmeiners and Ederson, who were both injured. It would be a very difficult game on paper given the quality they posses, and although we sat three places above them in the league there was just the single point separating us. With Zerbin out with a short term injury, I’ve had to turn to the disinterested Lookman for the past few games. He has been really poor, perhaps due to the fact he doesn’t want to be here, and has failed to contribute a single goal or assist in 7 games (he hit the 007). So naturally, in perhaps the most important game which he has featured in thus far, he stepped up to become the match winner for us: We were on top for virtually the entire game, and despite starting well we couldn’t make the breakthrough and went in level at half time, although definitely the happier of the two sides. We came out the blocks in the second half with more of the same relentless attacking style from the first 45 and it was Lookman who broke the deadlock for us just three minutes into the second half. He then sealed victory for us from the penalty spot with around 20 minutes to go. An excellent solo goal epitomised everything I want my wingers to do. He picked up the ball and stretched the defence by going wide to the touchline, before cutting inside his fullback and scoring what should only be described as a ‘Thierry Henry finish’, opening his body up and placing it into the far corner. (I’m struggling to create GIFs to upload, if I can find a way to do it I’ll post the goal at a later date). If that was to be Lookman’s parting gift, then at least he leaves the club on a high. As the stats show, it was a dominant performance against Juve, in their own patch no less. Without a doubt our best game so far in this save, it was more or less perfect. We limited them to just 8 shots worth a measly 0.40xG whilst we had the lions share of possession and creating an abundance of chances with it. If I could rate this game I’d give the team 10/10. What’s more impressive is that we did it without our best player, Koopmeiners, and first choice Mezzala, Ederson. So that’s 2/3 of my first choice midfield missing and we were still able to get a result like that. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come as the tactical familiarity increases across the squad. Here is the rest of our results for December and January: We continued our fine form, extending our unbeaten run to 27 games and counting! We set a new club record on the way, beating the previous record of 24 games, which we’ve now already surpassed. We currently sit 2nd in the table, time will tell if we can keep this up! As we’ve discussed in the comments prior to this post, sticking with the system and ‘trusting the process’ has paid off. I’m now waiting for the inevitable FM dip in form because it seems too good to be true at the moment! January Transfer Window The January window has now closed, and I thought I’d give an update on how the first team squad is looking. I’ve highlighted in yellow, our transfer business for the month. A host of departures but the majority were B Team players who I deemed to have no future at the club, or U20s who needed some game time on loan. In regards to the first team, it was essentially two out, two in. Out: Ademola Lookman -> Valencia (£20m) The Saudi’s came knocking for both Koopmeiners and Lookman earlier in the summer window, but I rebuffed both offers as they were a little insulting (worth less than £20m) given the calibre of players, and knowing the wealth of these clubs, I felt we could get more. However, no more offers came in, and since they were both key players, we chose not force a move. Koopmeiners didn’t take it too badly, he was initially ‘Unhappy’ for a short while but is now showing a ‘Perfect’ morale and appears to be enjoying his football. Lookman on the other hand, became somewhat of a mercenary. He had thrown his toys out of the pram towards the end of pre-season and following low training ratings, an ‘Abysmal’ morale, and with a handful of poor performances, I decided to drop him entirely. I then proceeded to lower our market valuation and offer him out for sale. His agent was happy with me setting a £20m asking price, and we immediately had bids from Nottm Forest, Palace, Celta Vigo and Valencia. Interestingly, the Saudi clubs, although showing some interest, did not return with a bid. The Premier League clubs only offered £15m, and refused to go higher, meanwhile, somewhat unrealistically, it was the cash strapped La Liga sides which met our £20m valuation, and so Lookman agreed a move prior to the opening of the January window: Naturally I was disappointed, as I viewed him as a key player in this team, particularly as we don’t have an abundance of wide players. Unfortunately, after he’d agreed a future move away (back in December) he started to bang the goals in, leaving the club with a tally of 4 Goals and 2 Assists in 10 appearances - with all those goal contributions coming in his final three games! Turns out a few players in the dressing room, led by club captain Toloi, were disappointed that we sold him. I wasn’t really left with much choice, and felt like keeping an unhappy player would also hurt the morale of the squad. In: Armand Laurienté <- Sassuolo (£11.9m guaranteed, £14m after bonuses) With Lookman’s departure on the cards for a while, I had ample time to eye up a replacement. Since we only had one player who is ‘decent’ at Serie A level, Alessio Zerbin, an upgrade on him was the priority, but without breaking the bank. The 20m fee received for Lookman is good, but I didn’t want to blow that all on a replacement since I would like to trigger the option on Charles De Ketelaere if possible, in the summer. So with that in mind, the best option (and for the best price) that our scouts identified, was a target which I’ve kept an eye on since we played against him in the first game of the season: Armand Laurienté from Sassuolo. He’s 25yrs old, which is great because we need someone in or approaching their prime to make an instant improvement to the side. You can see from the below graph how similar his profile is to Lookman, something which I wanted to maintain. I’m pleased with the finances on the deal, we managed to prize him away from another Serie A club, who were initially reluctant to sell mid season, for just £2.9m up front. A further £9m will need to be paid in instalments, and some bonuses, if triggered, will take the deal up to £14m. I did come close to moving for Gabriel Veron from FC Porto, but he would have cost around the same, and although just 21yrs old, he fell some way short of Laurienté in terms of current ability and DNA fit. I’ve probably shown a bit of short-term bias here but I’m quite big on mentals, and Veron, probably due to his age, was severely lacking in that regard - especially in the three important attributes of Determination, Teamwork and Work Rate. New signing Laurienté comes in with a really good DNA score of 256, actually a slight improvement on Lookman’s score of 253. Out: Mario Pasilic -> Al-Ittihad (£14.5m) There was to be another high profile departure from the first team squad. I had no intention to lose Pasilic, especially as he was in fine form for us. However, an offer from Saudi came in, and like others before him, nothing could convince him to stay at the club. Who could blame him when he’s been offered £550k a week! The offer wasn’t great, and I negotiated several times but this was the best I could do. The board were not pleased with the fee received, neither was I but as I found with Lookman, the Saudi’s don’t seem to want to pay big fees, rather big wages - which is terrible news for selling clubs. They did, however, allow me to ‘Sign a replacement first’. My scouts had found another diamond in the rough from FC Nordsjælland: Mohammad Diomande. However, it wasn’t to be: He had a release clause of just 6m and looked to be a perfect replacement for our Mezzala role, but alas, he chose to join Chelsea over us. In: Yacine Adli <- AC Milan (£4.5m) Losing Pasilic was unplanned, and I did not find it particularly easy to replace such an attack minded #8 as he is. So when looking at a replacement, I needed to think about what my first choice midfield looked like: DLP(S): Koopmeiners / De Roon MEZ(S): Ederson / Pasilic MEZ(A): De Keteleare / Cortinovis I’d come to realise over the first half of the season, how vital Marten De Roon is to the side - rewarding him with a new contract, with his current deal due to expire in 2024. I initially wanted Koopmeiners at the base instead of him, due to his far superior technical ability. The DLP at the base of midfield, in the #6 role, is arguably the most important player in the team. Think Rodri at Man City, Busquets at Barcelona, Xabi Alonso at Bayern/Real Madrid. However, what De Roon lacks technically, he more than makes up for both defensively and mentally. So with that in mind, and his good form, I decided I would not replace my backup #8, Pasilic. Instead, I will shift Koopmeiners further forward with De Roon at the base, and simply move to sign a backup DLP. Step forward, Yacine Adli. I was surprised how easy he was to prize away from Milan, given he is having an outstanding season for them IRL. For just £4.5m (and a further £1m in bonuses), we were able to get our man. He’s very capable technically, but also boasts the mental and defensive attributes you want from a sitting midfielder. At 23yrs old, he’s got 9 years younger than De Roon and I expect he will make that position his own in good time. One for the Future: Stanis Idumbo Muzambo <- Ajax (Free/Pre-contract agreement) Another player I’d had on my radar for the left wing, Stanis is certainly one for the future. I thought it made sense to sign him on a Bosman upon his contract expiry with Ajax in the summer. Technically and physically he’s superb for an 18yr old, and can also play in a variety of positions. He’ll have some development to do in terms of his mentals but he’s blessed with 16 Determination and a great Personality which I hope will help his development. Not Today, ‘Super League’ On Deadline Day I practically laughed off a pathetic loan offer from Arsenal for my best player, Koopmeiners. Never in a million years. You may notice his transfer value is at £66m, this is a figure which I have set as the ‘asking price’ since a number of clubs have been interested in him. £66m is the maximum his agent would be happy with, and for a player entering his final 18 months of his contract, a fee I would accept. However, I’d much rather keep him and tie him down to a longer deal which I will be working on. Although the initial conversation with his agent hinted at wanting around 100k a week, a bit above what we can afford right now. Roundup: At the closing of the window, we were apparently the highest spenders in the country, with a pretty low figure of £16.5m quite accurately depicting the financial perils within Italian football at the minute. We also had the most players out, but just 2 of those 12 were from the first team. A big goal of mine has been to reduce the player count at the club. We currently have four squads (First Team, B Team, U20 and U18) and I’d like to trim those squads down to a maximum of 23 players in each. ———————————— I will touch on squad planning/player development in a future post. For now I’ll leave it here, and hope to dive into a tactical analysis piece next. #GoAtalantaGo!

Yeah you are bang on, can definitely feel the rewards for sticking with it now as players become familiar with the tactics. I didn’t want to tinker, but I still think the temporary switch was ideal in playing certain players in more familiar positions and making us harder to beat. However, we’re now at full tactical familiarity and the system is playing out exactly how I envisioned. I agree, it’s not something I really thought of at the time but players definitely suffered with morale and obviously there is a lack of cohesion early on. I’m glad it worked for you, it’s nice to know the theory behind it works too. Interesting use of a much higher line, I’m always a bit nervous doing that unless I have really rapid defenders! I’ve also stopped using OIs completely. I think I got lost in them, was selecting too many instructions and you kind of lose sight of what they were supposed to be doing. I’ve been really happy with the Libero in our new 3-2 base. I actually think it forms a midfield ‘double pivot’ much quicker, and hence more effectively than using an IWB, because it starts from a more central position. You can see #42 Scalvini (circled in pink) has stepped into midfield to form the ‘2’ with De Roon. Since the player next to him is a DLP and a bit of a ‘ball magnet’ you can often see them swapping positions/sides whilst maintaining the double pivot. It certainly helps having a player of Scalvini’s calibre. He often picks the ball up and drives past a few players even grabbing a goal and the odd assist! I plan to do a more in depth tactical analysis at some point in which the Libero features heavily.

Thanks, it's been a good turnaround for sure! Defensively we have been good, boasting one of the best XG against per game, but it's not the highest in the league which might suggest we've been a bit lucky or that Juan Musso has been superb in goal! Time will tell if our defensive numbers are sustainable.

The Story So Far FYI - From now on I am making use of Gyazo for most screenshots, so please click on the hyperlinks to view images. Pre Season: I had a decision to make at the beginning of the campaign, whether to continue forcing players who aren’t a good fit for my 4-3-3 system and hope that it works, or do I opt for the easy choice and play a 5-2-3 of sorts. I have used back three/five formations many times in the past, so if I did decide to go with a back five here, at least I have some experience with it. However, the 4-3-3 is my bread and butter, and as I have detailed in one of my earlier posts, that is how I intend to set the team up in this save - I will try to stick to that religiously. I used pre-season to try out my 4-3-3 with these players, and see how the team shaped up. It went pretty well, as you can see by the results below. The only defeat came against Inter, in which we outplayed them, losing narrowly curtesy of a great strike from the edge of the box by Calhanoglu. So naturally, I went into the season feeling quite confident after beating Juve and producing a really positive performance against Inter. The team was also showing signs of progress in terms of tactical familiarity, which would only improve over time. The Serie A Season Kicks Off: Despite the positive trends of pre-season, when the competitive season kicked off, the team’s technical shortcomings, not helped the shock transfer request from Ademola Lookman (more on that in a later post), meant results flattered to deceive. I don’t think I will go into this much detail for every game throughout this save, but I feel it’s important to add a bit of context early on, and our first four fixtures proved quite key, tactically at least. So, here is how we got on in our first four games: Not great. We managed just 1 win from 4 (a total of 4 points from a possible 12). Let’s get into the bones of each game… Sassuolo (A) 1-0 Defeat: We kicked off our Serie A campaign with a trip to Sassuolo. I expected a tricky game given the technical quality in their team (boasting the likes of Domenico Berardi), but I have to say the result shocked me. We were the better side to be fair, but were punished for not taking our chances. The winner came curtesy of a 78th minute goal by attacking midfielder Nedim Bajrami, after a swift counter attack, set up brilliantly by winger Armand Laurientè - a player I am keeping tabs on as a possible Lookman replacement. You can see from the stats just how unfortunate we were. They scored with their only shot on target, whereas we failed to convert any of our seven. The xG also points to us being hard done by. Still, in terms of attacking statistics, I was pleased. The metrics told me we were unlucky, and it was just one game, right? Bologna (H) 2-0 Win: After a disappointing opening day, we bounced back in great fashion with a convincing win at home to Bologna. In fairness, we had just taken their star player, Orsolini, so they were considerably weaker in attack. Nevertheless, you can only beat what’s in front of you, and given that they are flying high IRL under Thiago Motta, I was surprised at how dominant we were. If you look at the stats from the game, we didn’t give them a sniff and probably should have scored a few more! Napoli (A) 1-0 Defeat: After picking up our first win and points of the season, we went away to the Champions. It was always going to be a tough ask to get a good result here, but our task became even harder after our skipper Rafael Toloi saw red in the 34th minute. As the stats might suggest, we got lucky that the scoreline stayed at 1-0. With Osimhen out injured, Kvaratskeila played as a striker alongside Raspadori in Mazzarri’s 3-5-2 shape, and they always had a threat in behind with their pace. I dread to think how much worse it could have been if Osimhen, last season’s top goalscorer, was available. Cagliari (H) 1-1 Draw: We wanted to bounce back from another away defeat with a win, and up against newly promoted Cagliari, I thought we’d do it. In the end, this result was a real kick in the teeth. I expected a similar performance as the Bologna game, at home to a weaker side. Instead, we blew a 1-0 win late on, conceding right at the death. It was a frustrating result, particularly when you factor in all the chances we had to kill the game. A lack of concentration at the end perhaps, cost us all three points. ————————————————— Up next was a chance to put the poor start to the Serie A season to one side, as we kicked off our Europa League campaign in a pretty straightforward group containing Panathinaikos, Molde and LASK. The dropped points against Cagliari and our poor start to the season left us in 11th place, and I was becoming increasingly aware of how quickly our season could unravel if this form continued. Despite the media predicting us to finish 7th this year, I have loftier ambitions of pushing for the top four spots. Conscious of trying to stop the rut, I thought I would use the Europa League as an opportunity to try something different. We’d only played four competitive fixtures but I could see patterns emerging, which were not present in pre season, that I did not like. We were creating chances, maybe not enough, but crucially, we weren’t taking them. That is fine, and I did not think this was entirely a systemic issue, and it could be a matter of luck which can resolve itself over time. What we needed to address however, was how easy the opposition broke through our defence - or more accurately, our entire team. Most chances conceded tended to be on the break, so we needed to sure things up in that regard. As I discussed previously, this squad is inherently used to playing in a back three/five. So you might have guessed it, I decided to try a 3-4-2-1 (or 5-2-2-1) for our game against Molde, with the two big games coming up against Roma and Milan in mind. Here is what the tactic looked like: The 3-4-2-1 shape enabled us to keep our same build up structure with a 3-2 base, but this time the width was created by our wingbacks, who are of course very well suited to performing this task. It also allowed me to play CDK in his natural #10 position and it took him just 49 minutes to score his first Atalanta goal from there in our 2-0 victory over Molde. And as you can see above, the temporary change worked a treat. I did not expect much competition against Molde, but still for a European away game we were exceptional and totally wiped the floor with them. ——————————————— Roma (A) 1-1 Draw: We returned to Serie A action with a difficult to trip to the capital. Roma were set up in a 5-3-2 with Argentine talisman Paulo Dybala alongside the big Belgian Romelu Lukaku, and we continued with our 3-4-2-1 experiment with the hopes of containing them. It was all going brilliantly, until an 85th minute strike from Dybala levelled things up. We can’t be too disheartened though, as the stats suggest it was a fair result. Still, our tactical experiment earned us a hard fought point away from home against a top 6 rival and I’m pleased with that. Milan (H) 1-0 Win: This game was heart attack material. We started pretty well, but midfielder Marten De Roon saw red in the 27th minute, leaving us in a perilous position. It was also our second red card in what is just our 6th league game. I had to dial a few things down, such as our high press and counter press but we dug in, and curtesy of a goal from our supporting Mezzala, Ederson. It was backs against the wall stuff for the majority of the game, but we managed to limit Milan to just three attempts on target with 10 men. Obviously the xG against and general stats in both these games does not look great, but we got the results we wanted. Therefore I think the tactical switch served its purpose for a couple big games, and equalling our points tally from the previous four games in the process. ———————————— Speaking of process, I was reminded that I should trust in mine. So after that difficult Milan game, we restored faith in the 4-3-3. It’s safe to say that it was the correct decision. We’ve playing some great football and the results have picked up massively: We went on an incredible EIGHT game winning run between October and November in all competitions (excluding that friendly). Granted, the fixture list was a lot kinder to us, but we then had a couple of big tests with Lazio away and Inter at home and managed to secure four valuable points. This recent upturn in form has seen us propel up to 3rd place in the table after 15 games, and we also boast the leagues best defence with 11 goals conceded. We also sailed through our Europa League group with minimal fuss. Let’s see what sort of challenge the Knockout Stages bring! Slight Tactical Tweak: I will go into more detail in a later post, but I made a small tweak to the 4-3-3, swapping out the IWB for another IFB-D and using either Scalvini or Toloi as a Libero on support. The reason behind this was because none of my wingbacks are good enough (Zappacosta is reasonable) at playing the IWB role, but both Scalvini and Toloi are excellent ball players, so it made sense to utilise their skill set and maintain our 3-2 base albeit from different roles. Our pass map shows this shape in action. I really like how clearly you can see the front 5 spread out across the vertical channels I talked about in one of the opening posts. You can also see the re-worked 3-2 build up, with the two IFBs flanking the CD, creating our ‘3 base’ and #42 Scalvini is positioned slightly higher in his new Libero role. I plan to write up a revised tactical post in the future, hopefully with some clips too. For now I’ll focus on the daunting trip to the Allianz Stadium to play Juventus and the upcoming January window. #GoAtalantaGo!

Thank you @SixPointer appreciate the kind words! I was a keen follower of your Gasperini thread actually, I hadn't seen anyone replicate his style as closely as yourself, it was a great read! I gave it a go myself too a few years ago and it's a really fun system. I was tempted to revert back to it simply because it's Atalanta, and as you say the new roles and match engine, but I feel it's a bigger (and more enjoyable) challenge to mould the squad into one that's capable of playing a 4-3-3! I guess Gasperini takes a lot of influence from the Dutch Total Football too, so it's not a complete shift in style either. Thanks @rich ruzzian, I was also really surprised by Miranchuk - I might have to consider giving him some more game time now. I'm pleased with the transfers too, neither have set the world alight yet but they're doing okay enough for the moment. I'll post a more detailed update in the coming days hopefully, but it looks like we may need to dip into the market again, this time to replace Lookman who's kicking up a fuss about leaving...

Part 3 Cont. - Creating our ‘DNA’ 🧬 Creating a Club ‘DNA’ As I touched on in the previous post, Determination, Teamwork and Work Rate are the core mental attributes I like to prioritise. If a player ranks badly in any of those three, chances are I will overlook them. It should be pretty clear why Determination is important: how does a player carry themselves, do they strive to be the best? How do they react when the chips are down? Low Determination results in a player with a lax attitude to the game, and for me, that simply won’t do. Teamwork reflects how well a player is able to follow instructions and how they function and work with their teammates. This is an undervalued attribute particularly for a team which wants to Press High. Most people look at Stamina and Natural Fitness (and Work Rate) as the key attributes for a high pressing side, and they are important, but to execute a good press, you need your players to work together and hunt in a pack - as one unit. Having a High Teamwork rating ensures that players are working in tandem, not as individuals. Above is a great image showing how Atalanta, under Gasperini, press from the front - together. It also works in possession too, and this is a particularly important attribute for your creative players to have. It’s no good having excellent Passing and Vision if you’re selfish and going for goal yourself instead of playing others in. I briefly touched on Work Rate above, this is important in regards to pressing, and tracking back. I want my wide players to help out defensively, so I look for a minimum of 13 here, potentially a little lower if they are of exceptional technical ability. A high value is also a good barometer of how hard these players will work in training, pushing themselves to their limits. I feel it works in tandem with Determination and Teamwork in that respect. The other attributes, Technical, Mental and Physical are vitally important for the style I want. First Touch, Passing, Technique and Vision are essential for a possession based side, but without good Decision making and Composure, players will often make the wrong pass or get caught out. Physical attributes are something that I’ve often overlooked in previous years, and I still think they are less vital than being strong mentally and technically, but ultimately if you have Speed and Strength, it should serve you well at any level of the game. Luckily, I’ve inherited a squad which might be the tallest I’ve ever managed on FM, with some quite physically imposing attributes. Time will tell if I can make the most of that! A Look at the Data: Those of you who love a good old spreadsheet, will enjoy this next part! I have taken great inspiration from @MattyLewis11 excellent blog, The Ajax Way, in which the measuring of a players ‘DNA score’ (via Google Sheets) becomes an efficient way of determining how well suited a player is to our ‘DNA’ which I have chosen. You might be able to make out from the screenshot of the Squad DNA view, but there are 19 attributes which I’m looking to measure. I’ve exported this data into a spreadsheet, and this is a snapshot (taken from early in the season) of where our players rank in terms of their DNA score: Our highest scoring player, by no surprise, is midfield maestro Koopmeiners - replacing him will prove very difficult should he continue to force a move away. The average score amongst all the outfield players in the first team is 249.8 - and those who sit above that score have been colour coded in green, those who almost make the grade are in yellow, and the orange signals those who are a way off the average. Those in orange may not have a future at the club, unless they’re young of course. The likes of Djimsiti and Palomino, although strong physically and good defenders, fall some way short of the technical and mental quality required for our kind of football - and this is reflected in their overall score. Assessing the DNA Score of a player can often help you identify an important player which you might otherwise discard when looking solely at the Star rating system. Take Miranchuk for example, he has a CA and PA of just 2.5 stars, but in terms of his DNA profile, is one of the best players at the club with an impressive score of 260, incidentally just 5 points short of Orsolini, who is currently rated much higher in the game at 3.5 stars. Some of our most talented youngsters can be seen below: Scalvini is of course the best U20 player at the club, and our first choice centre back. The others have some way to go before they can break into the first team, but I will monitor them closely and ensure there are opportunities for them. 16yr old Niccolo Gariani could be one to watch, currently in the U18 squad, I will keep a close eye on his development. Whether any of these kids turn out to be star players for the club, our huge sources of revenue such as Amad Diallo and Dejan Kulusevski, remains to be seen - but this commitment to developing youth, especially with the aforementioned 'DNA', will be a key part of this save. I will continue to monitor the players DNA scores, probably twice a season, with the aim of keeping tabs on our hot prospects in the youth squads in particular. ——————————————————————— In my next post, which might be a while away due to work commitments, I’ll dive into some actual games and results as I’m creeping up the midway point of the season now - also detailing how I’ve set the team up.

Assessing The Squad Part 3 - I imagine this will be the final bit of background before we actually delve into some matches and results. Due to the amount/size of images I've had to split this into two posts. This post will detail our current squad and transfers, before I go into how created our Club 'DNA' in the following post. Drawing Comparisons As always when starting a new save, it’s important to take a look at the tools at your disposal. As a keen follower of Serie A, Atalanta are a team that I know pretty well, but it can still be difficult to know how they stack up against the competition in FM. I discussed my philosophy and how I ideally want to set the team up in the previous post, but this is all well and good in theory. It’s vital to make sure you have players who are capable of following your instructions, be it from a tactical/mental or technical perspective. From a mental standpoint, I have very few concerns about the squad. Most display Resolute characteristics, with relatively high levels of Determination, Teamwork and Work Rate across the board. In fact for our outfield players only, for Determination we rank 3rd, Work Rate 6th, and Teamwork 9th (can do with some improvement). For me, those are the most vital attributes, and will form the backbone of our DNA - more of that later. However, potential issues lie in the squads ability on a technical level. Below you can see how they stack up against the rest of the league: As a squad, we have a lot of room for improvement in terms of technical ability. I have some concerns about the standard of Passing in particular, ranking just 12th in the league. Not ideal for a side who want to place an emphasis on playing out from the back, and patiently probing in the final third. The Squad: Here is a look at the squad which I inherited (during Pre -Season): This screenshot was taken late in pre-season, and I am playing on ‘Real World’ so the right wingback Emil Holm had yet to arrive from Spezia. I have selected my ‘DNA’ squad view which highlights the most important attributes for me and my play style (more on that later). It gives me a great overview of each players strengths and weaknesses in regards to their attributes. One of the most pleasing things which I noticed about this squad right away, is the amount of ‘positive’ Personality types we have - in particular, ‘Resolute’. This should serve us well, particularly when it comes to mentoring young players. Key Players: After taking a detailed look at the playing squad, and also scouring through the various squads within the club - including the newly formed B Team which compete in Serie C - I decided to focus on a few players who I signalled out for attention. These could be the guys which we look to build around, if all goes well: Charles De Ketelaere First up, we have talented attacking midfielder Charles De Ketelaere. When he signed for AC Milan after promising so much in his home country with Club Brugge, fans were expecting big things. However, he struggled to make an impact in Milan. Somewhat surprisingly, he made a move across Lombardy to Atalanta this summer, on loan with an option to buy. At the time of writing, IRL he has amassed 7 goals and 5 assists in 24 games in all competitions for Atalanta. Those are pretty steady numbers, and far better than 0 goals and 1 assist in 40 for Milan. One of the main goals of my save will be to get the best out of him. Although if I fail to do so in season 1, it remains to be seen if I will activate that option to buy (which stands at 20.5m). I have plans to use him as my Attacking Mezzala, but we may be forced to use him as a Winger at times due to the lack of options there. His 6ft 4 frame could also prove useful from Set Pieces. Giorgio Scalvini A wonderkid whom many will be familiar with. A central defender with enormous potential, who is already one of the better players in this Atalanta side. He’s comfortable on the ball, and physically imposing - he should suit my possession style and high line very nicely. Another 6ft 4 frame, I imagine he will chip in with the odd goal. A big challenge of mine will be keeping him at the club. I’m sure it won’t be long until Premier League giants come sniffing. I hope I can mould him into a modern-day Maldini, and if he’s also a one club man like Paolo was, then that’s even better! Teun Koopmeiners The Dutchman arrived from AZ Alkmaar two years ago and made an instant impact in Serie A. A hard working, technically figured midfielder, he is also capable of chipping in with a few goals from midfield - a real asset to any side. I envision him playing as either a support duty Mezalla or a sort of Box to Box-ish role in the midfield. He does also have the technical and mental capability to play as the No. 6 in the side as well, but this might depend on what other options I have for the two ‘free 8 roles’ ahead. Annoyingly, he is currently Unhappy at the club as we turned down a pretty poor offer from Saudi Arabia. He, like Lookman, were subject to bids which we rejected, only for them to say they would stay at the club if we offered them, wait for it… £475,000 a week. Not a chance, lads. Transfers With the squad I inherited being accustomed to playing in a back five with wingbacks, and usually a couple of 10s behind a striker, or one 10 behind two strikers, there was an obvious weakness in the team. Wingers. One of the benefits of using a 4-3-3 system is the width that it can give you, whilst still having plenty of players in the centre. The issue we had, is there were only two natural wide players in the squad: Ademola Lookman and Alexey Miranchuk. Both have been deployed more centrally IRL by Gasperini, and Miranchuk especially, looks more like a 10 to me than an out and out wide player. Youngsters Lukas Vorlicky and Vanja Vlahovic are not quite at the required level to start for Atalanta in Serie A, so to the transfer market we went. Incomings: There was little budget available, but we needed reinforcements in the wide areas. I opted to stay in Italy when looking at options as this is where I was able to find the best deals. Primary target for the right wing slot, was Riccardo Orsolini from Bologna. At 26yrs old, he is a little older than the player I’d like to bring in, but importantly, he is a marked improvement on Miranchuk. We managed to secure him on loan for 1.9m with an obligation to buy for a further 10.5m in the summer: For the left wing, I had Lookman who would be nailed on for a starting berth, so I wanted a decent backup. We managed to strike a bargain deal for 24yr old Alessio Zerbin from Napoli for just 700k. A peripheral player for the current reigning champions, he’ll likely get more opportunities here: My scouts also found an interesting prospect. At 18yrs old he has some developing to do, but another option at Left Wing wouldn’t hurt, and for a good price too. For 3.8m (rising to 4.8m), I hope Delle Monache becomes another one of Atalanta’s great finds: Outgoings: Given that we had too many wingbacks, and we needed to raise some funds to get some depth for the LW/RW positions, someone had to make way. We parted with Zortea, a product of the Atalanta youth team, he didn’t seem like a bad option but we were stacked there, and he was the only right back who generated some interest. Plus, his personality and Determination, although not bad, was not as impressive as his direct competitors. We only managed to fetch 1.9m for him from Crystal Palace, but it was better than nothing. So only one sale under my stewardship thus far, but we will have to continue to trim the squad since we have too many players, particularly in defence. Getting the wage bill down and hopefully raising some funds, might put us in a decent position to make CDK's loan move permanent should we wish. Up Next: Please read on in the next post, where I'll discuss our Club 'DNA'.

It might be old news, but it's certainly more noticeable this year. Look around the forums and on Twitter, many players are noticing it. Regardless of if they end up with a goal or not, it's getting quite boring just how many highlights come from throw-ins (and set pieces in general). They may as well call it Set Piece Manager 24

FM24 - Positional Play is Alive and Well: Before I delve into my philosophy, I want to touch on the Club Vision and Objectives set by the board, which I feel marry very well with how I want to approach the game… Atalanta’s Vision and the legacy of Gasperini’s Philosophy: Gian Piero Gasperini, although being a staunch back five user, has always played entertaining attacking football with Atalanta. They are brave in possession, often playing out from the back rather than going long, and use constant rotations and triangles, particularly in wider areas to create overloads. They are a bit more vertical than how I would ideally set a team up, but this has no doubt led to entertaining football at the Gewiss Stadium over the years. My aim is to continue that entertaining brand of football, with my own philosophy and system, and hopefully take Atalanta to the promised land: winning the Scudetto. I was really pleased to see that the Club’s vision/objectives line up with how Atalanta are perceived in real life. As I already discussed, under Gasperini, they play a high-tempo pressing football. They play entertaining (attacking football, with the aim of scoring lots of goals of course). And Atalanta are notorious for developing some of the best talent in Italian football. All of these things happen to be part of the ‘Board Culture’ above. I believe this ties up very nicely with how I aim to set this team up and take the club forward - it fits my vision and philosophy, and gives me something tangible to measure my style against. Now onto my football manager philosophy… My Tactical Approach in FM: I feel that my philosophy is one that suits Atalanta and the way that they try and play IRL under Gasperini. I always set my teams up in a similar vein in FM, regardless of the team/save. I want to play attacking football, dominating possession and creating good chances. Possession should be used as a tool for both attacking and defending. As the old saying goes, if we have the ball then the opponent can’t score! Juego de Posicion (Positional Play in English) is a term coined in Spain, where it is synonymous with the football of Pep Guardiola and Barcelona. A student of the Dutch school of football, Guardiola brought this style, an obsession with keeping the ball and dominating certain areas of the field, to England with Manchester City. Since arriving in 2016 he has influenced English football a great deal. If you go up and down the English football pyramid, you will find plenty of teams playing out from the back and utilising inverted fullbacks/wingbacks. From a tactical perspective, I don’t think anyone has influenced the modern game more than he has, in my opinion at least. Guardiola sees the game, or the field, quite differently to many coaches before him. This is what a football pitch looks like to Pep: The field is split into various zones. The most important, are the five vertical zones, or channels. The two Wing zones, the two Halfspaces, and the Centre. One of key principles of Positional Play is to ensure that you have a player in each vertical zone of the field at all times. Doing so, gives you the best coverage of the field and should in theory, create problems for the opponent. You may find you have an overload in a certain zone, or a free man. This is why the majority of teams now attack with five players (creating a five channel attack). They do this with either a 2-3-5 or 3-2-5 build up shape. In FM24, we now have the tools to implement this at a near perfect level. This has already been covered extensively in the Tactics forum, so I won’t elaborate any further on the in-game specifics but you can find one of the best threads here if you have not read it: https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/577981-fm24-positional-play-explained-with-examples/ Laying down the ground rules: To achieve the style of play we are looking for, we must first lay out some Pep-like ground rules. A good few years back, I read a couple of books on (no surprises here) one of my favourite managers, Pep Guardiola. One was the biography by Guillem Balague: Another Way Of Winning, which focused on his days at Barcelona and coaching that super team. The other, is Pep Confidential by Marti Perarnau, who had unprecedented access to Pep and his team when coaching Bayern Munich. Being a bit of a tactics nerd, I enjoyed these books a lot and made a few notes with the aim of applying these concepts to FM. Notes on the philosophy and game model: Always be in control. We want to be the ‘protagonists’ on the pitch Attacking football Keep possession, but with a purpose Create numerical advantages all over the pitch When the ball is lost, try to win it back instantly. Pep is famed for his ‘five second rule’ (counter pressing) Each player has a zone, fluid movement is of course encouraged but each zone must be occupied at all times In simpler terms, there were three rules of thumb which Guardiola applies according to his former goalkeeper at Barcelona, Victor Valdes, and they all revolve around the ball: To have the ball - when we have the ball, the opposing team suffers and we are in total control. To not lose the ball in compromising positions since this could cause a dangerous situation - if the opponent wins the ball it should be of their own merit, not our mistakes. We must bite. Be intense. When possession is lost, each player has a zone in which they must apply pressure. We should all help each other, and not lose concentration, ever. “Guardiola says that those three concepts are our strong point, one of the things he repeats most in the dressing room. When we apply all three, everything works.” - Victor Valdes Other Points to Note: Keep a small squad (16 starters, 20 total) High Defensive Line Make 15 Passes before any attack Pressing/Trapping the Free Man Passes must be tight, fast and unsettle opponent. Players must position themselves closely but not all, some must stretch the pitch Dominate the centre of the pitch, always maintain superiority there Striker must vacate the box, but always arrive there to finish a chance False 9 must drop deep and create superiority, leaving the centre backs unopposed before either dribbling at them or arriving into space The No. 6 or ‘organising midfielder’ is the fulcrum of the team. Make sure he is your best player, tactically and technically. Must play line breaking passes. I will try and constantly refer back to these points, like a sort of mantra, throughout my save. The first point, regarding squad size, will be quite tricky especially at the start as Atalanta have a 26 man squad. So I will begin analysing who fits, and who doesn’t, and look to move on certain players over the first few windows. Taking all of these points on board, let’s dive into how I implement this into FM24… The Tactics: The system which I have used on my only other save on FM24, with Malaga, is an Arsenal/Man City (or Pep) inspired positional play 4-3-3 system: I have decided to flip the roles and duties of my full backs from my original replication (also having a knock on of swapping my MEZ and Winger duties), because it suits the full back profiles a lot better. Kolasinac is fairly comfortable as a centre back, in fact he plays on the left of the back three for Atalanta IRL. So it makes more sense utilising him as an Inverted Fullback on Defend. He will tuck in to create our back three in build up, filling in as an auxiliary central defender. Whereas Zappacosta is much more attack minded and more comfortable on the ball. So he will be our main IWB, tucking into midfield. The switch also allows me to use our best (and only true Winger) Ademola Lookman, on an Attack duty. I suspect he will be our biggest goal threat aside from our Advanced Forward. The aim behind my setup is to try and create the 3-2-5 attacking shape which you can see below: First brought to prominence in the Premier League by Pep, many managers such as Arteta and Klopp, are now adopting this build up shape and attacking structure. It enables you to have an almost perfect coverage of the field, in all phases. You have three defenders spread out across the back line, making it easier to play out against a front two pressing, and with the option to also use the keeper, you can have a 4v2 or 4v3 if the opposition try to go man for man. There is also the crucial ‘box’ structure in midfield. Having the 4 man box, can help outnumber your typical midfield 3 that we see nowadays. Or, if the opposition line up in a 4-4-2, you are outnumbering them in the first phase of build up, allowing easy progression into the midfield 4/box who, as you can see in the above image, are staggered in between the lines of the midfield. Another key aspect, is the very wide wingers. One of the key routes to goal in this system is getting your tricky winger isolated in a 1v1 against his fullback. If you have a quality player here, you will generate good chances as this winger should be beating his fullback more often than not. The overall aim of the tactic is to create numerical superiority (quantitative) by creating overloads and technical/physical superiority (qualitative) when switching to underloaded side for 1v1 opportunities. We also give ourselves great coverage of the five vertical zones which I mentioned earlier. The above image is taken from a pre-season game. You can see that thanks to the improvements to FM24’s match engine, we can get an almost perfect 3-2-5 shape. #3 is my IFB, tucking in to create the back three, and #2 is the IWB(S) who is playing the ‘Zinchenko’ role, sitting alongside the DM and completing our 3-2 base. The wide players (Wingers, one on attack and one support) are stretching the play and giving us width. Our front five are occupying the right zones, and we outnumber there back four with ease, having a free man, in this case #10. We actually score from that image, Scalvini sprays the ball out to #10 on the right, who plays a pass inside to our attacking MEZ #8 and puts our striker through. This is a common pattern, the winger draws out the full back, the Mezalla attacks the space vacated to either shoot or play in the striker. So far, so good. There will be plenty of work ahead, particularly in shaping the Atalanta squad to play the kind of football I want. Team Instructions: One thing is for sure, the Mentality and general Team Instructions will not change. I have a preferred way of playing, and that, to quote Mikel Arteta, is a “non-negotiable”. We will look to play on a Positive mentality pretty much all the time. I feel that this is the most effective out of the more adventurous/attacking mentalities. The Attacking mentality is more vertical, perhaps truer to Gasperini, but everything is more rushed (higher tempo) and generally more risky. For me, it’s counter productive, even when playing a lesser team or chasing a goal. If you’re facing a parked bus, they’re not going to give you any room or space to exploit, so you’re better off patiently probing, perhaps going wider, or running at a defence instead. Positive balances that risk and reward approach much better. Any lower than Positive and you create stale, meaningless possession. Any higher, and you risk sloppy turnovers and leaving yourself vulnerable on the counter. Opposition Instructions: For those interested in Opposition Instructions, this is what I use for each game. I have a clear strategy here, to press the entire back line, and funnel play into specific areas. I force centre backs to go out wide, and then look to trap the full backs, but I don’t want to show them up the line. I tried this, and it resulted in quite a few goals from crosses conceded. Showing them inside, with the numbers we have, along with the Trap Outside team instruction, means we defend quite narrow and protect the centre and engaging out wide, rather than in the midfield. —————— As this is quite a long post, I’ll be ending this here and diving into the Squad, Key Players and an update on the start of Season in my next post.

No problem. Thank you for confirming

Thank you, I’m looking forward to getting stuck into this save. Yes, I will try my best to make it as realistic as possible. I really like their recruitment and transfer strategy IRL, so will try to emulate that. Perhaps the one part which I will try to avoid, as the team hopefully becomes the best in Italy, is selling our best young talent. For example, I’d love to keep hold of Scalvini!

Atalanta BC (Bergamasca Calico) are a team which I have admired and followed rather closely for a number of years now. When contemplating a new FM save, I pondered over many clubs and challenges, and ultimately felt like I wanted to manage in Italy. Initially, I had my sights set on Serie B, and Sampdoria in particular. However, having recently taken Malaga from the Spanish third tier to La Liga, I wanted a break from managing smaller clubs. Atalanta sit in a weird position of not being a massive club, certainly not financially, but have also had far too much success and quality in recent years to be deemed as a ‘big challenge’ in FM terms. Although, the idea of taking this ‘Queen of the Provincial Clubs’, who have not one a major trophy in 60 years, and never been crowned Serie A champions, to the top of the italian summit, is for me at least, an exciting challenge. Helped by the fact that Atalanta boast one of the best, if not the best, academies in Italy, I aim to make this quite a Youth ‘heavy’ save, incorporating as many homegrown / Bergamo natives into the team as possible. Affectionally known as La Dea (The Goddess) by their fans, they are often referred to by others as Regina delle Provinciali (The Queen of the Provincial clubs) as they are one of the most successful and consistent Italian clubs, not based in a regional capital (like their Lombardy rivals Milan or Inter). Atalanta lifted the Coppa Italia in 1963 - they're only major trophy to this date. The Remarkable Rise under Gasperini: An unstable period followed between the years 1994 and 2011, with the club experiencing several relegations and promotions. After a tumultuous 2009–10 season, which saw the club change coach three times, the club was once again relegated to Serie B. After this latest fall from the top flight, Antonio Percassi became the club’s new President - a role which he still occupies today. He appointed Stefano Colantuano as Head Coach, and the club swiftly returned to Serie A in 2011. Unfortunately for Atalanta, club captain Cristiano Doni was embroiled in a match fixing scandal which earned him a three and a half year ban, with the club being docked six points in the 2011-12 season and a further two points in the 2012-13 season. Colontuano kept the club affloat in that time, but Atalanta lingered in the lower mid table positions. This all changed in 2016, when Gian Piero Gasperini took the reins as Head Coach. Gasperini, was in fact, on the verge of the sack just five games into his first season with Atalanta lying in 19th place. Patience in the coach was rewarded, as form improved drastically and Atalanta went on a six game winning streak, beating the likes of Inter, Roma and Napoli and lay in 6th place come the winter break. They continued their fine run, and ended up in 4th place with 72 points, a club record, and qualifying for the UEFA Europa League after 26 years out of European competition. Atalanta reached the round of 16 in the UEL, before being knocked out by Borussia Dortmund. They went onto achieve a 7th place finish that year, but qualified for the Europa League once more, as well as a Coppa Italia semi-final. It was his third season in charge in which Atalanta really took Italian football by storm. They played some dazzling football with the attacking trident of Papa Gomez, Josip Ilicic and Duvan Zapata regularly combining and taking Atalanta to a 3rd place finish - qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in their history! It was their best ever league position, and they were the leagues top goalscorers, as well as being Coppa Italia finalists - unfortunately losing 2-0 to cup specialists Lazio. The club went onto achieve consecutive 3rd place finishes in 2019-20 and 2020-21, cementing themselves as one of the top Italian sides, and a Champions League participant for three straight seasons. Atalanta have been on the rise since his appointment, playing an attractive, attacking brand of high pressing football along the way. They have regressed a little over the last few seasons, finishing 8th in 2021-22, but returned to Europe with a 5th place finish last season. After losing key attacking players such as Papu Gomez and Josip Ilicic, you cannot be too surprised by the recent regression. The two of them, behind Duvan Zapata, who moved on this summer to Torino, were an unplayable trio who gave many Serie A defenders nightmares for a good few seasons. Gasperini had to install a great work ethic, one that is synonymous with the City of Bergamo and its people, into the team itself. They do not boast the riches of their Milan rivals, or Juventus for that matter. However, Gasperini could lean quite heavily on the impressive talent pool within the Academy, and the club’s fantastic work in the scouting department by always finding hidden gems at a good price. Atalanta also do a great job of flipping these players for a profit, take the recent sale of Rasmus Højlund to Manchester United for an initial £64m, after signing him for 17m euros just one year earlier. It speaks volumes for Gasperini to be able to turn Atalanta from a club who’s goal was to avoid elegation, into a team fighting for Serie A dominance, and constantly participating in European competitions, and on top of that, being one of the most exciting teams to watch in Europe. He does so with a fairly modest playing squad, a true testament to his tactical nouse. I will now look to build on the great foundations which he has laid down at the club, and try and deliver not just a Scudetto, but ensure Atalanta becomes not just the mythical Goddess it already is, but a behemoth of Italian football. Next I will delve into My Philosophy and the Tactics, before going through some of my techniques to Training/Player Development and how this will work at Atalanta. #GoAtalantaGo

Thank you for confirming @Rashidi - much appreciated!

I'm having serious issues with defending throw ins, so many goals have been conceded in this way. I had them on the Default setting for a while, but even after tweaking them to my own configuration, I'm still having no luck. Now something just happened to me in a game which has left me speechless. I took a screen recording but the file was too big to upload, so I hope this URL is accessible: https://jmp.sh/RHhgFutz Keep an eye on my left back Victor Garcia (#24) in the bottom right corner. He is tight to his man, as the opponent prepares to take the throw in, but as play develops, he decides to leave him completely free, and just runs further into the box towards nobody, where there is no danger, whilst his marker scores the easiest tap in at the back post. If it makes any difference, his instruction for the set piece is to 'Player Mark' - which he does initially, before abandoning that duty, and running away from his man like a headless chicken. I can understand conceding the odd throw in, and it's been a problem but not one worth highlighting, until this, which is just ridiculous and makes me think it has to be a bug? There is no logical explanation to see this type of behaviour. Apologies if this is the incorrect forum to raise this, I'm not sure if it's a genuine bug or tactical issue.

I have the exact same issue - most of our goals conceded tend to come late on, in the last 15-20 minutes especially: They tend to be from crosses as well. Most teams we come up against tend to use 'Wing Play' which I'm starting to think could be a little over powered as well. You are right though, some adjustments can be made to counter that, and definitely not at the expense of the attacking play. Like yourself, I have not done much to address the issue, since we are outscoring our opponents anyway - but something to keep an eye on especially next season in the Second Division.

Following this with great interest as I’m also playing with Malaga at the moment. Almost finished the first season, just clinched the title with 5 games to spare. It’s been great fun, I suspect next season will be a lot more challenging in L2. Regarding your struggles to keep a clean sheet: I have also had a real problem keeping the goals out, despite having the best Expected Goals Against by some margin. We were leading the league in all stats and metrics, but now can only boast the second best defensive record with 35 conceded in 33. After seeing your defensive struggles, I am wondering if it’s just an issue with the defence/goalkeepers at Malaga - or maybe just the goal-friendly Match Engine, rather than any glaring tactical issues. Nevertheless, you seem to be on an unstoppable run. I can’t quite boast the same record, as we got XG’d (or FM’d) a few times and did end up losing 5 games so far but 80pts from 33 games is not too shabby. Keep up the good work!

Can’t wait for this! The ‘Ajax way’ of playing, that Dutch Total Football, has always been my favourite style to try and replicate. Excited to see how you interpret this in the new match engine with the improved positional play and roles. Good luck!

That's a good result with that lineup! The injuries can be a bit rough, I'm having to rest/rotate a lot more than in FM23 just to keep players fit. Nwaneri is an absolute gem as well btw! Tactic looks a lot more balanced - actually very similar to what I've been using. How's it going now? Regarding the Jesus problem...I signed Ivan Toney (for just 48m) in January and he's scored 17 in 16 so far - playing him either as a PF-A or DLF-A.

This looks better than the original you posted, a lot more balance now with White as a FB. I've set up quite similar to this, except I've been using either a CM-A or BBM (Rice plays there vs big teams) in the left 8 role. If you're having issues with the CAR leaving gaps, I'd try a BBM and maybe ask him to 'Move into Channels'. I also have Martinelli on Support rather than Attack, but either as an IW or IF - not decided which one is better so far. How is Jesus performing for you? In all comps he has 11 goals in 22(4), and a minutes per goal of just 151. Nketiah has a goal every 112 by contrast. I have been chopping and changing his role, either a PF-A, or DLF-S / CF-S if I want him to drop deep and drag defenders away. He just seems to get low ratings, regardless of the role.

I think that sounds about right for Martinelli, especially as players make more intelligent decisions in regards to their position and rotations in the new ME - such as holding width for an 8/10 to move into the half space. Interesting set up. I've not tried a 4-2-3-1 yet, it would definitely replicate the off ball/pressing shape a lot better than a 4-3-3 but I'm not sure if it's better at creating the 3-2-5 build up? The other reason I'm yet to try it is due to the double DM meaning there isn't a natural place for a Havertz/Vieira/ESR in there since Odegaard is the #10 However, that is the most accurate representation of the current lineup IRL form the past 3 games (City, Chelsea, Sevilla). Jesus is a tricky role. When I watch him play, he screams Support duty to me - he's always dropping deep, both on and off the ball, and more often than not meaning we do not have a presence in the box. Whereas Nketiah, not saying he does not drop deep from time to time, definitely plays more like a traditional #9 - and I'd say a PF-A represents him. Jesus could be a CF-S perhaps? The Saka - Martinelli debate is interesting too. I view Saka as more of a creator out of the two, Martinelli is the guy that wants to run in behind and get into goalscoring positions more frequently.

Also playing as my beloved Arsenal in FM24, it's going pretty well and like you I am trying to play as close as I can to how we set up IRL. I have mostly been using Saka as a W-A like yourself, but the roles around him can change. He's probably been my most consistent attacker, but that might be down to his sheer quality. Overall I can't complain too much, we are top joint top and have the best defence in the league after 19 games. However, whilst we also have the 3rd best attack, I'm not entirely pleased with the output. To be fair I have been tweaking a lot as this will most likely be my 'Beta save' and I'm using it to test my Arteta inspired tactic. I have a couple questions however, how do you/would you set up the left side of the attack? I see Martinelli and Saka's roles to be pretty similar, both hug the touchline and look for 1v1 opportunities. Although Martinelli is more of a threat in behind and can pop up in central positions (like his goal vs Sevilla tonight!) which is why I've tried IW and IF for him too. Then the left 8 role has been troublesome - much like real life I guess. RE Havertz, I've had a decent output from him and Vieira/ESR from a CM-A, but none of them setting the world alight. I feel to get this to work best, a Winger role for Martinelli makes sense to create space for the CM-A to run into. I've also not settled on my 'In Possession' instructions thus far. I feel with the pace in the side, I score a lot of goals on the counter and with through balls in behind. But when I try to 'dominate' games by controlling possession, it results in next to no highlights with barely any shots on goal. Definitely enjoying the new ME, with the new and tweaked roles to enable better positional play, and I feel like I've pretty much nailed the first third (build up), it's after that where I still need some tweaking!

It could well be because of that. I’m going into the next season with the aim of dominating possession even more, so we reduce the amount of counter attack opportunities for the AI. Thanks for the suggestion on the centre backs. I used one on Cover due to one of my CB’s (Enzo Boyomo) being more suited to that role. I haven’t really noticed the Cover defender doing any ‘covering’ or sweeping up balls in behind, or anything that a Defend duty wouldn’t do. So maybe reverting to both on Defend is a good idea. Appreciate the feedback