A very short story about my career at Roma that, I hope, will brighten your day.
Back in 2022, in my FM-save life, I was obscure Sicilian-Australian who took over Jose Mourinho's job at Roma.
In my real life, I started the save in late November of what had been a hard hard year. Without boring y'all, my father died from Alzeimers on the other side of the world, and I had visited three times to fare him well. My wife and I were struggling with the strain of minding our young boy. We were exhausted and often clashing. And, for a long time, and still now, I was scared about the war in Ukraine, what it was doing to the people there and how it could all escalate into a major war. Like just about everyone reading this, I played FM partly to blank out the real world.
Anyway, I'll get to the main point. I was in my third season and had roughed out a solid but successful squad, with a Simeone-style 442 counterattacking philosophy/tactic, and some robust, aggressive and versatile players. We had few absolute superstars. But we were a pack of wolves who died hard.
By the fourth season, we had won the Conference and UEFA cups. And we had held on each year to qualify for the Champions League. But we were always tipped to do badly in the big one, the CL, as outsiders who could treat it as a learning experience.
Anyway, in real life, just before Christmas on holiday in South Africa, on blazing summer days something strange started happening. Bone-tired after nursing our baby at night and mourning my dad and trying to keep it all together, I'd be buried in FM in my spare hours.
That season, we started badly in the CL. Chelsea hammered us 3-0 away. We scratched some draws against giant sides like City, and eke out some narrow wins against the middle powers. Not much to see here. Just another standard issue, middling save.
We got to the knockouts. At each point, we got drawn against a titan. Liverpool first. "Oh well, that's it." I'd think. Just enjoy the ride.
But something in the quiet psyche of our players and in the algorithm of the match engine (or was it team cohesion? Or just luck?) - it just clicked.
Against Klopp's Liverpool, Pelligrini and Piccoli between them put us ahead at home, a free kick and even better, a turnover in their half. Liverpool looked lazy. In fact, that might have been it. Other sides looked down on us and turned up thinking they could swat us away like a little insect.
Liverpool away, it was backs to the wall, a tenacious, blood and thunder, all hands on deck brawl. Liverpool couldn't break through and red frowning faces covered their tactics board. And our wonderful Ukrainian defender, Illia Zabarnyi, caught them on the break after yet another set piece, ran up the other end and put it in, and us through.
Then...similar stuff happened...against Chelsea. Then against Real Madrid.
At each point, we were written off. At each point, I was borderline fatalistic. Enjoy the ride. See what happens. Etc.
And at each point, at the end of a dark, stressful, sad year, miracles happened and my eyes lit up. The weather broke for us.
Suddenly we were in the final. Against Arsenal. Again, everyone tipped against us. But we noticed Arsenal were tired. If we could hold on, we could counterpunch...maybe. The great Lorenzo Pelligrini was suspended, alas. But we were in with a shout.
I was so nervous I went for a walk and bought a coffee and remembered what Gordon Strachan said when he got Southampton to a cup final. If you get to a final you wanna win it, not just have a nice occasion and feel good you got there. Cl finals don't happen to me much in FM. I don't cheat, at least, not any more. It's do or don't do.
It was tense. Tense tense tense. Until Weston McKennie scored from outside the box and we had something to defend. Odegaard was always threatening and I tried that thing most FM players have tried, to hold a lead by being compact and cautious but not too much, not too passive, ready to pounce and getting the balance right.
87th minute...Piccoli scores, Arsenal are broken. Against all expectation we reached the promised land. I still can't believe it. I think of it often, and always with gratitude. Remember what Claudio Ranieri said,
"No-one can ever take away what we achieved together and I hope you think about it and smile every day the way I always will. "It was a time of wonderfulness and happiness that I will never forget."
To all FM players, I hope you also get a lovely surprise, like this. There's always a child inside our mind who dreams of something like this, and I guess there's something going on here about my Dad, too, and mourning him fondly, who used to take me to the cricket on hot afternoons. Long live hot afternoons. And long live dreams.
Under some (not all) of my player tabs, when I click on the "analysis" tab (and this happens in a number of different skins), it comes up blank, saying "no analytics have currently been requested." The club has a full staff of analysts etc. Am puzzled. Thoughts? We are a few months into the first season.