El Payaso

I've been coaching for almost ten years now. I retired from playing at the age of 24 and after that was asked to coach some local kids. I'm still on the same road. Don't really have the passion to do anything else than volunteering or coaching kids but anyway.

Squad analysis Player development After the rather depressing first half of the season, things seemed to kick off again for us in terms of player development. Here is a summary of what happened. Mikael Egil Ellertsson started as a star player of the club but he was also thrown into the mentoring group along with one of our most influential players Jacopo Segre. He started as a fairly determined personality but as the effects of the mentoring were good, he ended up being resolute like Segre also is. He was also one of our best trainers which saw him become a good Serie A player while he started the season as a leading Serie B player. A brilliant year for the Iceland international. Antonio Raimondo came into the club as somewhat of a rebel but he ended up being a grade-A student. He was in the same mentoring group with club captain Matteo Brunori, and soon became a resolute personality, learned multiple traits from his senior and also developed into a decent Serie A player already while he started as a leading Serie C player. Combine this with 13 goals in Serie A and you have almost a perfect season for the young forward. Alessio Buttaro has taken leaps forward as a player and has already shown that he can make it in Serie A. His personality and mental attributes still need a lot of work but I’m sure that he will get there eventually. He is at the moment a good Serie B player but could turn out to be a good Serie A player according to our coaching staff. Kacper Urbanski didn’t set the world on fire in season one but he was a steady developer for us as well as a useful option on the pitch. He came to the club as an ambitious youngster but with mentoring, he has developed his personality to be fairly professional. We still need to sign a new contract with no release clauses for him. He is already good enough to play at this level and there still isn't a clear picture of how good the Polish youngster could become. Filippo Ranocchia made the biggest change in the club last season after January. The Italian made his way to the starting eleven, kept his place, and developed nicely. He would still need a bit of work with his personality which still is only fairly professional but otherwise, he is on his way to becoming a real club icon as his potential could make him a good Serie A player. Franco Minerva was the biggest disappointment for us last season. The Argentine started well, scoring two goals in his first three games. As he struggled on the pitch after that, this also affected his development. With his lack of strength, Serie A could be a bit too big a pill to swallow for him at the moment but we will keep trying. He also still needs a lot of mentoring as his mentals and personality are a challenge. Andrea Papetti had a slow start to his Palermo career but luckily we managed to induct him to the starting eleven from March on. The player responded well by producing decent performances both on the pitch as well as in the training area. Patryk Peda had a superb loan spell at Granada where he first struggled to get any game-time. After the young Polish made his way to the starting eleven, his development was fast! This gives you a dilemma: should we keep him as a rotation option for the upcoming season or give him one more season as a starter in Spain for example where many La Liga clubs would like to have him. He started the season as a leading Serie C player but is already a decent option in Serie A. Giuseppe Aurelio looked like a lost cause but he kicked off with his development after Kristoffer Lund left the club. At the age of 25, he is considered a good Serie B player and with the potential to be a decent Serie A player. Combined with his balanced personality, I am not too hopeful for a world-breaking career but I'd be happy to keep the Italian as a rotation option. Aljosa Vasic's spell at Palermo might well be at its end now. I decided to give the youngster plenty of minutes at the beginning of last season but only saw him performing badly both on the pitch as well as in training. He did improve at the end of the season but that is a bit too little and a bit too late. With him being already 23 years old and still just a balanced personality, I don't see big things happening for him at Palermo. Mentoring groups I like the way the mentoring groups are working with our young players. They are usually slow processes that keep on the running background but we have also seen quick and interesting results such as last season’s loanee Valentín Carboni having his personality almost immediately changing from ‘ambitious’ to ‘resolute’. The biggest thing from last season was Mikael Egil Ellertsson also finding a suitable mentoring group with team leader Jacopo Segre, which led to his personality changing from ‘fairly determined’ to ‘resolute’ which makes the 20-times-capped Iceland international a forever player to us. The three most important mentors for the club are the already mentioned Jacopo Segre, team captain Matteo Brunori, and vice-captain Pietro Ceccaroni. All of them have already fallen into rotation roles, at least for now, but have kept their influential status in the squad hierarchy: After the season, I have now cleared all our mentoring groups as I am looking to rebuild them again based on both effects and player traits. What we would need in an ideal situation would be a ball-playing center-back with a good personality and player traits. This player would be working closely with Patryk Peda and Andrea Papetti to mold the defensive duo’s style of play to a more desired direction. Desired traits: Brings the ball out of defense Tries to play way out of trouble Tries long-range passes The second would be an experienced attacking midfielder with the right personality and style of play to take especially Franco Miranda and even Aljosa Vasic forward with their development. Roberto Insigne. who has fallen out of grace at the club, has the style but not the mental attributes to do this job. Desired traits: Tries killer balls Tries tricks Moves into channels Runs with the ball through the middle Comes deep to get the ball Scouting just got better For the last two years, we have been restricted to scouting just Southern Europe which has been a real challenge for our squad building. When the holiday started this year, I opted to allocate some of the wage and transfer budget to increase the area worldwide. We have now immediately started to scout South America, especially Argentina, and hoping to get some good results there. The amount of scouts has also been increased which means that we are in a good spot at the moment. The forever club As I have talked about forever players a million times already, it is time to reveal the current list. A forever player means to me players that we will look to keep hold of as long as possible and not sell them at any price. I have a few criteria for the players to qualify for this list. Right personality and mentality: I am looking for players that are the right type to be valuable enough for us to hold on for a long period. This means that the players need to be influential enough within the club to be respected by other players. The right personality on the other hand means first of all that the players can work as good mentors for younger players as well as not complain if they happen to drop into rotation options like many of these already have. Time at the club: the longer time a player stays at Palermo the stronger the bond to the forever list becomes. I know that Mikael Egil Ellertsson has only been with the club for one season but what he did in just one year, has left me in awe. He went through mentoring with Jacopo Segre, became a resolute personality, and was both our best player and developer last season. This tells me that the Iceland international is going to be a club icon as well as probably captain in the future. Attributes: technical and creative attributes can be limited for the players but all of them need to work hard for the team and be good team players. I know that Alessio Buttaro still lacks in some of the areas to qualify but as he is one of the players who were part of the team when I took over, he is going to be getting some slack. His mentoring is still in the process, and even though he is already an influential member of the squad, he seems to be getting significant influence from this. Who might become one in the future? I have a few names that might find themselves on this list: Patryk Peda - the right personality (resolute) and already a couple of years with the club. If he becomes a starter for the club in the upcoming season and performs well, he might well find himself in this list even though he is not Italian or Argentinian. Giuseppe Aurelio - The full-back has fought himself back to my plans after a strong second half of last season. He only would need his personality to change from ‘balanced’ to at least fairly professional. He might not be far from that as I haven’t seen anything poor in terms of his behavior so far. This means that he is not one of those worse 'balanced' players. Filippo Ranocchia is another player who has risen from death in my eyes. In January I was already looking to sell him but the former Juventus midfielder fought his way to become a starter and was along with Ellersson our best performer in training. Antonio Raimondo is already close at the age of 22. 13 goals in Serie A, huge development, and one of the best performers in training. Could easily already qualify but let's give it another season and see how he does. Who do we need to sign? Young first-choice goalkeeper to replace the experienced and only okayish Brignoli. Ball-playing center-back or Libero with great personality and traits. His job is to mentor Patryk Peda and Andrea Papetti as well as replace underperforming Gian Marco Ferrari as our defense's leader. Midfield destroyer or a pure Regista to fix the holes in our midfield. Experienced and creative attacking midfielder with good personality and traits to mentor Franco Miranda and provide creativity to our attack. Young and promising, but already capable, right-sided winger to drive our attacking play forward. This needs to be a permanent signing this time instead of a loan. Who has to leave? There is a lot of deadwood still in the squad and as we don’t have any budget available for transfers, the list of leaving players is quite long. Simon Graves - The Dane was a reliable centre-back option in season one but due to his balanced personality and lack of potential, he was loaned out to Sampdoria in season two. With only Serie B potential in him, we should cash out on the 25-year-old, who is currently valued at 2 million euros. Jon Pachedo - Mr. Liability did not turn out to be a big positive surprise for us. He has made some progress as a player but at the age of 24 it will be impossible to mentor him to be something else than a balanced personality with a fairly low determination. He simply doesn’t fit the squad anymore and we are hoping for some Spanish club to take the bait and sign him this summer. Salim Diakité - A fringe player at most also in the Serie B season. The 25-year-old right-back should have the potential to be a decent Serie A player but he is never going to reach that here. He has been part of our mentoring groups for two seasons but remains a ‘fairly determined’ player. It is more than likely that the Frenchman returns to his home country first on loan and later on permanently. Dario Saric - Even though the Bosnia & Herzegovina midfielder still is ranked as one of our best players, he did absolutely nothing but whine about his game time last season. A 6.65 average rating and just one assist in a whole season tells a lot. With his personality being only ‘fairly ambitious’ I simply don’t see a place for him in the club. At the age of 28, it should be an ideal moment to sell him a couple of million euros. Federico Di Francesco - A rotation option in season one, nothing else after that. He had a poor loan spell at Brescia during the latter half of last season and the Serie B club is not willing to sign him. It would be important to get rid of him and get at least +1 million euros in the deal. Could be easier said than done though. Roberto Insigne - Only one goal contribution last season after seven goals and 13 assists in season one. I should have relied on my gut feeling instead of offering him a contract extension. At the age of 31, he could prove difficult to move on and with a 20k per week contract, he could turn out to be a real drag for the club. Aljosa Vasic - Two years of mentoring and lots of game time and his personality remains as balanced. He still has the potential but at the age of 23, he is too far away from it. He could be a player who could get us a couple of million euros. We got the first offers for him right after transfer listing him, which is a good sign. Edoardo Soleri - Scored a few important goals in season one but hasn’t appeared since. Spent half a year on loan at Benevento, scoring 9 goals for them. This could easily lead to the Serie C side signing him permanently. Leonardo Mancuso - Signing Mancuso for 1.3 million euros as well as the club paying his €50k per week salary in season one is still a shocking piece of business. According to our board, it is also my fault even though I didn’t have anything to do with either of them. The 33-year-old is a decent mentor but that is just about everything. It might be impossible to sell him which means that he might well spend the upcoming season with our U-18 or U-20 squad and concentrate on mentoring them.

So basically adults that never grow up? I do understand passion and bragging rights in real life but "I have to win in a computer game to be able to play it" is something that is really hard to understand from grown men. Also, this view doesn't align with the general idea of the game itself, which is (as far as I know) at least a semi-realistic career simulation. Something like promoting a local small club to the top flight and even as Champions League winners has nothing to do with career or realism. And a question also: don't people become bored at some point when they practically know that every career us going to be a fairytale?

Hard work pays off! Even though in this kind of career trophies are probably secondary objects. But, what a career it has been! I've enjoyed reading every post that you have written. This is because your style of playing and writing are both really enjoyable. Your approach to the game is simply superb and at least to me this career is exactly what Football Manager should be all about.

Anything specifically wrong with them?

Second half schedule Nothing too dramatic about the schedule here as we play four games each month. The only real thing to notice here are the last two months: if we want to keep ourselves up, things should definitely be secured during April which is a month where we will be meeting teams that we should be able to take points from. May on the other hand is the polar opposite as we will be facing only good teams and each point that we can salvage is going to be a bonus. New tactical approach New year sadly means a new tactical approach to us. The dream was to make a 3-man defensive line to work for us but as I wasn’t able to do it or even make any kind of progress during the last couple of months, I simply just decided to ditch the idea. At least for now. The thinking behind the new 4-3-3 system is that we would always have 4-5 players under the ball and that we could still keep all the fancy roles in the system which should offer us enough going forward. The left-sided midfielder plays a key role here as he needs to be able to cover for the defensive weakness that the trequartista will be leaving. If this doesn’t happen, we are probably going to be really fragile in overlaps. In situations where we need a goal, this role could be changed to a box-to-box midfielder or even attacking central midfielder. In those games where we are clear underdogs, this role will be CM(D) or Ball Winning Midfielder. The striker has now also been turned into just a goalscorer who should offer an outlet for longer through-balls. Down the right-hand side, I am looking for the inside forward and mezzala to combine well. The starting point of the inverted winger is going to be quite wide but he should be stepping in at times which should create space for the mezzala’s overlaps. They both also should offer through-ball assets to the trequartista. The reason why I decided to change the passing style to short was the fact that I wasn’t able to see my team being good enough to utilize mixed passing as usually the decisions to pass the ball more directly or longer proved out to be wasteful. In general this might be a system that works but it could also turn into a disaster. Of course, it is going to be a work-in-process during the second half of the season and tweaking will once again start based on what happens during matches. Sadly on FM we are not able to investigate this on the training pitch. First signing of the year Luka Romero is a player that fits both the club philosophy and the new tactical approach like a glove. The 20-year-old is an interesting name as he was born in Mexico to Argentinian parents but moved to Spain at very young age. Romero debuted in La Liga with Mallorca already in season 2019/20 but never made his real breakthrough at the club. He then moved to Lazio in 2021 where he appeared in 14 Serie A games in two seasons before another free transfer to AC Milan. He had an uneventful loan with Almeria last season with 16 games and zero goal contributions before a return to Milan this season where he has played in four games, scoring one goal. January 2025 We decided to throw the new tactical approach immediately to the deep end in an away game at Napoli. The team did incredibly well, limiting the hosts to 1.46 xG. The result wasn’t meant to be though as we conceded yet another heartbreaker in the dying seconds of the game when a low cross saw our centre-backs falling asleep. There was no relief either against Lecce as we labored to a draw. It was a tight game where we conceded from a direct free-kick for the first time this season but were able to get one point through Ellertsson feeding Antonio Raimondo with a through-ball. Disaster struck us on the 13th of January when Atalanta finally got their will through and our board decided to accept the 13 million euro bid for Kristoffer Lund. It was a sad day for the club as we lost both our best player as well a player that could have easily been thought of as a forever player. We did a great job developing him as he hit his peak as a ‘Good Serie A player’. This was quite a growth for the Yank/Dane as he started in season one as Giuseppe Aurelio’s backup and ended up wiping the floor with the Italian. Just a day later Francesco Di Mariano also packed his stuff and moved to Tenerife for 400 thousand euros. The 8-game winless streak finally came to an end at Genoa where we were once again mainly forced to defend the 0-0. It was the first game without Kristoffer Lund but I think the team did well anyway. We conceded a disappointing late goal through Brightelli’s mistake from a long-range shot but responded magnificently through substitute Matteo Brunori who scored only his fourth and fifth goal of the season late in the game. This took our cushion back to eight points. The month-ending fixture against Parma was another frustrating one. We were in control of the game and limited the home side to only one shot against our ten. Sadly we weren’t able to find a way through here despite coming close a couple of times. Parma are a good side at nullifying our attack. Despite the wobbly form, I am quite happy with the way the team responded. We are still far from safety but at least we are now looking like we’re going to fight. Filippo Ranocchia was the single player to show that. I decided to give the young midfielder the game-time he needs and he responded well both on the pitch as well as in training. Our new loanee Luka Romero had a slow start to his career. The Argentinian started in all four fixtures but only produced 0.18 xG and zero key passes. Deadline Day Transfers in Transfers out The deadline turned out to be a busy one after all, mainly due to the departure of Kristoffer Lund earlier this month. Patryk Peda found a loan deal that was really hard to turn down: a regular starter role in La Liga without an optional signing fee. The three others were dead wood to us. None of them has featured basically at all or offers anything in terms of mentoring, so we decided to just loan them out cheaply. Good riddance. Ángelo Martino was signed as the direct replacement for the United States international. This was once again a signing that we made with a minimum amount of knowledge of the player. I still don’t know where these scout reports from South America appear but I’m not going to worry about it too much either. As I knew that the player was already 26 years old the thinking was that we would be getting a decent replacement for the former best player of the team. With his personality, Martino is only going to be a short-term solution to our left-back area but I think he is a good player. While Lund had developed himself to be a good Serie A player already, Martino also is a decent one based on our backroom staff’s opinion. He was also fairly cheap, which is a good thing. Valentín Carboni was the second Argentinian to arrive, this time on loan from Inter Milan. With Di Francesco’s and Di Mariano’s departure, we needed one player to bring depth to the area. As the young Argentine was not willing to join the club on loan in the summer and Inter also trying to pull a really expensive deal for us in July, I am not going to be following the terms that we agreed for the loan. So, not a lot of game time or playing him in a preferred role. Andrea Papetti was the final one to arrive. He is a player that we have been scouting for more than a year already. He has been ever-present for Brescia this season but hasn’t developed a lot with them. With his nationality and personality, he could easily become a forever player for us. We just need to be intelligent with his development and take the risk of giving him enough minutes already this season. February 2025 The month started with yet another draw as Matteo Brunori’s first-half goal was canceled by yet another penalty we had conceded. Sassuolo were the better side in terms of stats but once again our well-working defense limited them to half chances. Ángelo Martin marked his debut with a Man of the Match performance. Avoiding defeat against our bitter rivals Frosinone was the minimum we could ask for as the draw kept the cushion to eight points. It was an even match with 10 shots against 9 and 0.86 xG against 0.94. A better performance could have easily seen us winning the game but we did do the minimum here. What was also delightful was the fact that our newly born Filippo Ranocchia continued his fine form with a stunning long-range effort. Our best defensive display of the season sadly was canceled again by Milan with an unnecessary goal where Rafael Leão was left unmarked after a corner that he delivered and he was able to beat Brignoli from a narrow angle. We have conceded way too many of those this season. The month-ending visit to Torino was a real bummer. After a solid first half and a narrow lead, we had two good opportunities early on in the second half to make it 3-1. This failed and we then showed the worst side of our defending once again. Jon Pachedo was back in the lineup as a centre-back and that was noticeable as the Spaniard was the main culprit for the second and third goals. March 2025 Fiorentina were the best team in terms of form when they traveled to meet us, and you could easily see why. We were run over but managed to score a late goal in the first half with our first shot of the game. I have no idea why Brunori’s effort was turned into an own goal as his shot seemed to be on target. This also took away Franco Miranda’s first assist of the season as the Argentine was back in our starting XI after his international commitment. Fiorentina on the other hand were so strong that it was impossible to contain them to zero goals even though they missed many good opportunities. The gaps that we left especially for their wide players were huge and we should have conceded 3 or 4 here. We did concede those four against Roma as the fellow strugglers hit us four times with their first four shots of the game. It was a shocking first 45 minutes which I responded by giving the team a silent treatment at half-time, along with all five substitutions, including the goalkeeper. I am quite speechless at how the team responded. Three stunning goals and a superb fightback to retain our cushion to the relegation zone at five points. This could be a big boost to our hopes of staying up, as well as to our confidence. The unexpected comeback against Roma seemed to give the team a big confidence boost as we coasted to a victory against Cremonese who have had a good first season in Serie A. As Matteo Brunori is again suffering from small injuries, Antonio Raimondo has answered the call by scoring braces in two consecutive games. I also had waited for about 150 games to see the first direct free-kick goal in the game, and this had to come from Emil Krafth from 30 meters out. The Swede has been a reliable working horse for us. He has been moved to the centre-back area lately to give us some ability as a libero and he has done well. This was also the first time when our Argentinian loanee Luka Romero appeared by providing two assists. This game was the first one where we had all our three Argentinian youngsters playing at the same time as I opted to go with a deep 4-2-3-1 formation. Another Argentine’s season was over though as Ángelo Martin injured his back and is set to miss the next two months. The victory was quite sweet as it was only our third in the last 17 matches and it also grew our gap to Frosinone back to eight points. This might well be enough for us to stay up. The month ended in an away fixture against league-leader Atalanta. Even though they hit the bar after just 20 seconds of play, it wasn’t any kind of a signal for things to come as we did incredibly well against them. They got the first goal quite early on from a corner kick but we came back to the game, especially in the second half where we had Filippo Ranocchia’s goal turned over by a narrow offside, Antonio Raimondo missing a through-on-goal type of a chance and Mikael Egill Ellertsson hitting the crossbar. Atalanta on the other hand got their second good chance of the game which they also converted to put the game in bed. We finished the month still with an eight-point advantage to Frosinone. And also with a left-back as Filippo Aurelio joined Ángelo Martin in the sickbay with a muscle injury. Big month ahead of us as we will play four games that should be winnable for us. April 2025 As Frosinone had lost their away game against Napoli, our fixture against Monza was a moment to grow the gap. As we were now lacking left-backs, Jacopo Segre was forced to play in the inverted fullback position. It was his mistake also that made Monza score from their second shot of the game as the midfielder had for some reason drifted inside the penalty area instead of marking the opposition winger who now got a free cross in. It was looking bad for a long time but two late goals from Emil Krafth and Luka Romero saw us through. The latter was probably our goal of the season as Alessio Buttaro released a 40-yard cross or through-ball to the run of the Argentinian who put the ball in from a narrow angle clipping the post on the way. We managed to avoid defeats also in the next two. Bologna at home was a game where we kinda threw a victory away. We probably should have been losing after a poor first half but on the other hand, gave them nothing in the second and had two good chances to take the three points. Udinese on the other hand was a good robbery from the team as we hit them twice in the second half with quick counters where Mikael Egil Ellertsson set up Antonio Raimondo to score. Due to multiple small injuries, the young centre-back Andrea Papetti was only now able to make his Palermo debut which ended in a clean sheet and a 7.2 rating. The end of the month again left us with a bitter taste in the mouth as the relegation candidate Cagliari took three points from La Favorita thanks to yet another bad corner kick clearance. Raimondo’s equalizer late in the last five minutes of the game was taken away by the VAR. May 2025 With an 11-point cushion, we were practically safe and there wasn’t much else than teasing the bigger clubs left in May. And teased we indeed did. We had nice victories against both Lazio and Napoli and also came close to results against the two other teams that we faced. The first victory of the month also meant that we had sealed our place in Serie A for the upcoming season. Against Juventus, who were on top of the form table, we should have even won the game based on the stats. We missed three good chances and gave away the only goal of the game with a poor pass in our defense. In the final game of the season, we were able to give a debut to last year’s graduate Marcelo Lieto who played little less than 30 minutes after coming on for our second goalscorer Antonio Raimondo. In general, the second half of the season was way more productive even though we struggled a lot during the first half of it. We now looked more like a worthy football club and this culminated in both Antonio Raimondo and Mikael Egil Ellertsson. 13 goals for the young striker and 7 assists for the midfielder are both good numbers. Frosinone were eventually the team to survive as they beat Udinese 3-2 on aggregate after being 2-0 down after the first leg. Atalanta managed to throw away their title with a weak end to the season. Same applied to Parma who were looking comfortable at some point. Cremonese salvaged themselves with a final-day victory. Simone Insaghi's reign at Inter came to an end while AC Milan won the tile eventually with their interim manager Alberico Evani as Stefano Pioli decided to accept Liverpool's job offer at the beginning of May. The loanees Out of our own two loanees, Luka Romero had a slow start at the club but he became a vital part of the squad in the final stretch scoring three times and assisting as many. We have a 6 million euro buyout option for the youngster but he isn’t currently interested in joining the club unless we offer him some crazy money. Milan on the other hand don’t want to extend the loan with us. Valentin Carboni turned out to be just a backup option as I wanted to give my players the maximum amount of game time. 12 games, zero goal contributions, and an average rating of 6.53 was something that none of the parties was looking for. We did manage to mentor him in a good way as his personality is now ‘resolute’ instead of ‘very ambitious’. We have a buyout option for him but that is 12.75 million euros which is way too high even though the player would be an ideal addition to our club DNA. The only significant outgoing loan was Patryk Peda who played half a season with Granada. He got off to a slow start and didn’t play a game until March. The young Polish finally got his opportunity and ended up playing in the last eight games of the season. His development turned out to be rapid in Spain which means that he is now ready for the first team with us. He also earned his first cap with the Polish senior national team. One player who wasn’t a loanee is Kristoffer Lund whose move to Atalanta has been on the sour side so far. He has only appeared in four games for the title contenders and is already very worried about his game. At Palermo, he was one of the best left-sided defenders in the league but for some reason, Atalanta were not willing to give him a chance. Finances at the end of the season Financially the season wasn't as beneficial as I would probably have liked to. But there are many reasons behind this. The main things are the loan repayments that started early this year, and they cost us about 200 thousand euros each month. Also, we have used a lot of the profits on improving our youth team coaching, youth facilities and training facilities. I think the club is going in a fantastic direction and the past youth intake already proved that we are on the correct path. We are also making progress in commercial areas: During the last year, we were the fifth most profitable club in Italy. We are still far away from big teams like the Milan sides, Juventus, etc. but we are in the right way for sure. A second season in Serie A should also be beneficial to us. For the upcoming season, I have been given a transfer budget of 5 million euros and wages worth 400k a week to spend. So, it is going to be another summer of building with peanuts for us. More about this in the next post though as we analyze the team performance, and player development and assess the areas that we need to improve on in our attempt to stay up also next season.

Yeah. And I think that SI could have easily implemented all these already years ago but haven't. This is only just my own thinking and not facts but I think the fear of upsetting the childish/casual players has always been a drag for the game. I'm not using the childish term as an insult but if you have to win in a game to be able to play it, then that is not a grown adult's behavior in my opinion.

But has the game ever been more difficult to be honest? Back in the days I used to do the LLM saves where you would take a team from the lowest league to the Premier league and it always went the same way: season per promotion until Championship where you were often had to spend a second season before getting promoted. And this was in 2014-17 so basically ten years ago. What I don't understand at all is the need of winning virtual trophies. What do you really get by winning the Champions League or Premier League in a video game? Why is it so bloody important?

Good to see you continuing. And once again a well-written post. How do you go with youth development? Are you in charge of the B-team and U-19 training and at what point do you start shifting the youth players to the senior teams? And are some of the youngsters so good that they can be directly taken to the first team instead of going to the B?

Ah, Mirko in goal. I'd really salute the genius who can keep the team up with that kind of a goalkeeper. I think the AI has done better job than me with Patryk Peda at least.

La classe del 2005 I wasn't expecting much for the second intake of youth as the youth development platform of the club is still quite strongly underway. We have of course used all the extra money that we have gotten through the promotion and good business in terms of squad building but the club still shouldn't be there in terms of producing its talent. Thereby it was a nice surprise to see the new intake of youth which seems to include three names that are rated as elite talents. Carmine Capurro seems to be an interesting player profile for sure. Technical player with lots of flair and determination but on the other hand he seems to lack bravery and a general eye for the game. If he had had higher vision, he would have definitely suited the trequartista mold almost perfectly. Now it is going to be interesting to see how we can develop him and where he could find his own role. I like his trait of ‘argues with officials’ as I do like strong personalities instead of grey mass with no character at all. Elia Frascadore is also an interesting name. He has a decent starting personality to start with as well as some vital attributes for a two-way midfielder. I think with his lack of vision, he is not going to be a regista for the club but a hard-working role that creates space for the more creative players could well work for him. Andrea Locatelli is yet another quite technical player with no real football intelligence sadly. I think a pure wide-area role is going to be the only one where he can shine. His tallness also makes him an interesting winger and you can already see the size in his attributes as he is quite good aerially. This could be some kind of asset too. Juan Galván is our first Argentinian newgen and luckily he seems to have decent potential. The dark blue parts in his club DNA area tell you that there is a lot of work to be done with him though, and the same sadly applies to his personality. Decision-making and physical attributes seem to have a decent starting platform but otherwise, he is definitely a work in our hands. The same applies to the rest of the group which includes Manuel Milani, Luciano Romano, and Michele Leonardi. Out of these three, Leonardi seems to be the most well-rounded player at this point and luckily he is a right-sided defender where we don’t have many long-term options as Alessio Buttaro is the only one and he also is quite a one-sided player with no real attacking talent in him. Coaching staff Our board has not been willing to increase the number of coaches in the first team but luckily they have allowed us to build quite an army with the U-18 club. This makes the quality of the coaching staff quite good. The latest addition to the coaching staff has been Javier Pastore who spent two years with the club in 2009-11 before his big move to PSG. The next addition will probably be Salvatore Sirigu who is going to retire at the end of the season at the age of 38. It would be nice to see both of them as part of the backroom staff of the first team at some point when they have done their coaching courses. As I don't feel it is a realistic approach, I haven't taken control of the under-18s or under-20s training. Those teams both have their own managers and backroom staff, so it is not my responsibility to interfere. At the end of April, the club completed yet another renovation to our youth facilities which are now in 'great' level.

I apologise if questions like these are not allowed but here it goes anyway: 1) Thanks to some caching issues, I had to reinstall the skin and I don't remember anymore how I can remove player and staff search options from the skin. Could I get the instruction again? 2) Secondly: is it possible to change the skin to have a dark background? Either black or something close to it and if yes, how can I change it?

Wow, just catched up on this. Brilliantly well written update once again. Palermo seem to be still fighting for their place in the league. Any chance of seeing their current squad?

@Jogo Bonito thank you so much. Happy to have you on board. @Fantasista10 yeah, these claims are actually based on assessment of the comprehensive highlights. In the past I have managed many promoted teams but I think this Palermo side is playing the worst football I have ever seen. During the first half of the season I constantly had the feeling that we were getting more than we deserved, practically scoring from all the good opportunities that we got. And also scored five goals from corners, while only conceding once. I think for the second half of the season, it is time to ditch the initial tactical thinking and get back to basics. As we don't have players suitable to play the fancy roles yet, there is no point to give that much slack to the opponents. I also feel that getting 6.0-.6.4 ratings for a player like Minerva is going to slow down his development. My only real regret at this point of the career is the amount of players that we need to sign. I would be more than happy to sign only 2-3 players each season and use rest of the money to make long-term improvements on coaching and facilities. The second minor thing is reporting the matches. I like some aspects of my visuals but haven't yet found a good way for the results.

Thank you. This is all good stuff. Even though I am usually quite capable if picking up areas of problems in other people's tactical approaches, I sometimes become really blind to my own. It might be that I will spend most of the second half of the season tinkering with a 4-3-3 but at some point I would be definitely interested in trying to make the 3-man defensive line to work.

https://imgur.com/itdEuS1 This is the full tactic.

Fernando Forestieri is the player I can remember from 2008. Almost perfect attributes for a number 10. Same applies to Emiliano Vecchio on FM. I think he had the most 20 attributes that I have ever seen on FM.

If you are interested in giving me some insights, feel free to check my career update thread: Obviously I am not stuck into any style of play but I think the latest tactic is quite close to what I have been using for most of the season so far.

That is one of the attributes but I have also noticed in replays that this is often down to one or two if the centre-backs being dragged out of position which can leave huge gaps. Also another common scenario are these falling asleep situations which are probable caused by low concentration. Obviously it is a bit difficult to say as I don't use a skin that shows the attributes. Just should be more reactive to things but watching games in full doesn't sound appealing as this game already is quite time consuming.

I am seeing it a lot with my Palermo team. Quite often the defending can be just fine for 85 minutes in the game but then I tend to get hit by big errors. But then on the other hand I don't see my team doing that against the AI which means that it is likely down to my own tactical errors and the lack of quality in players. My best centre-back is not doing too badly but the ones with Serie B and C current ability are quite error-prone.

The last signing Antonio Raimondo - the fact is that we would have been in a deep swamp if Matteo Brunori ended up injured. This is why we brought in the 20-year-old striker to fill the void. Raimondo played last season at Ternana scoring six goals for them in Serie B. He is currently ranked only as a leading Serie C player but he should have loads of potential. With his player traits “winds up opponent” and “argues with officials”, I imagine him as a new Antonio Cassano who was a different type of player type but anyway. That is also why he was given the number 99 shirt at Palermo. A fairly determined personality is not the worst one but I think there is something underneath it as it was really hard to find the young forward a mentoring group where he would benefit from. Anyway, I love personalities and this is one. We’re hoping to get some scrappy late goals from him and celebrations in front of the opposition fans. August 2024 As mentioned in the season preview already, we had quite a kind schedule for the start of the season which we needed to take advantage of. I was still surprised at how well the team was playing straight from the start as there were no signs of that insecurity that we saw in the pre-season. We did concede two unnecessary goals in our two first fixtures, yet we were also lucky with a big deflection in our season opener against Lecce. Our defensive midfielders had a fantastic month both winning the ball back as well as moving it forward. Tactically the team is looking exactly like I would liked to. The movement of the most advanced trio seems fluid, and we are winning the ball a lot close to the halfway line. The opposition is quite often close to getting those dreaded through-on-goal chances after mistakes in closing down but so far these have turned into narrow offsides. The biggest difference has been seen down the flanks where we have been way more solid than last season. After three rounds of Serie A, the team was sitting in third place. Transfer deadline day We didn’t manage to do anything in terms of transfers. I was trying my best to both sell and loan out Federico Di Francesco, Francesco Di Mariano, and Edoardo Soleri but had no offers whatsoever. Antonio Raimondo’s arrival meant that we probably won’t need to make any real signings even in the upcoming summer. The only ones we are looking for could be some mentoring options with good personalities and enough influence to make a difference. Someone like Mattia De Sciglio for example who Juventus released in July. September 2024 At the beginning of the month, we finally beat Parma at home by totally nullifying them and making good use of our chances. The right-footed Messi made it two in three games while the Polish Kacper Urbanski also got off the mark in a dominant performance. After the international break things started to go wrong in terms of defending. Sassuolo first punished us for our big mistakes three times inside five minutes and we also gifted two cheap goals to our rivals Frosinone whom we luckily managed to beat. We were not giving away many chances as Albero Brignoli had quite a torrid start to the month, conceding four out of five shots that were toward his goal. This tells you that we were giving away easy chances for the opposition to utilize. Either this was showing our tactical frailties or the real level of our team, which still is full of players suitable for playing Serie B or even Serie C football. Against AC Milan we did ourselves a lot of justice. We faced a lot of shots here but about 75% of them came from set-pieces from which the home side always seemed to win the first ball. It’s not a big surprise that the second goal from the league leaders came from one of them. October 2024 The honeymoon was officially over with a really poor performance against Torino where we didn’t create absolutely anything going forward. Except for that one hit of a crossbar which also led to a narrow offside goal from Antonio Raimondo. We expected nothing in the next two games but somehow managed to extend Fiorentina’s run of losses into three as Raimondo scored the winning goal in the 94th minute. The biggest upset was the fact how well we were able to match them away from home. Probably not that well-deserved victory but we weren’t the weaker team either. AS Roma were the first Seria A team who took us to school and showed the difference between a mediocre and a great team. We weren’t run over but they struck ruthlessly to the mistakes that we had been doing both in possession and with our passing throughout the last couple of months. All the four goals came from quick turn-overs. Simply a fantastic display of quality from the visitors. We continued our tactical experiences also against Cremonese and managed to add to their misery with a rather sub-par performance. 4 shots against 10 wasn’t great but one precise through-ball to the struggling Matteo Brunori was enough to seal the deal. We finished the month in eighth place which is way above where we should be. Still waiting for us to run out of luck. November 2024 The level of our squad is often quite easy to see in these matches against bigger sides. Jon Pachedo’s goal-of-the-season candidate and quite convincing performance in the first half turned into shocking marking errors in the second half where the opposition hit our lower defensive line with three lofted balls and no defenders to be seen when the finishes were applied. These kinds of errors should not happen but it is hard to come up with a solution when the team is just all over the place at times. Antonio ‘Baron’ Raimondo’s third late winner of the season gave us the vital points against 15th-placed Monza. This was once again a much more solid defensive effort after some changes to the system. And again a game where we won the rather lucky deflections two to one. After 12 rounds played, we had 10 points cushion to the relegation zone. The month ended in agony once again as two horrendous marking errors late in the game saw us throwing away three important points against Bologna. December 2024 The final stretch of the year started with fixtures against two of the bottom teams of the league. Against Udinese, there was once again very little to be happy about. Matteo Brunori had injured himself keeping the experienced striker out of the lineup for the next couple of weeks. Antonio Raimondo answered the call with two beautiful goals but otherwise, the team was once again far from their best which saw us escaping with yet another lucky draw. When we traveled to face the 19th-placed Cagriliari, I had only two things in mind: a solid defensive display and a clean sheet. We fared well against them and probably should even won the game based on stats. The closest we came though was Alessio Buttaro hitting the crossbar in the 91st minute. Against Lazio errors once again destroyed all the hopes for points even though otherwise we were able to match them. The weak form then continued in a Coppa Italia exit against Salernitana where 3 of the 4 goals came from corner kicks and one from a throw-in and the home team managed to turn 1.45 xG to 4 goals scored. Such a performance that I for the first time thought about resigning. Facing Inter was always going to be an uphill battle but I think that we did ourselves proud here. An early goal didn’t shake the team but luck was now truly against us as Matteo Brunori crowned his woeful debut with a missed penalty in the 38th minute. The striker now has 0/3 penalties converted since my tenure started. Expected nothing from San Siro but should have gotten a draw for sure. We ended the year against Juventus who had been behind us in the table almost throughout the season and who were once again led by the newly appointed Antonio Conte. We fared well against them, had an excellent chance to score in the 77th minute through Antonio Raimondo, and then lost in the 95th minute through a shocking mistake from Jon Pachedo. The defeat made it seven without a victory in Serie A and our cushion to the relegation zone has narrowed to six points. General thoughts about the first half of the season After the rather promising start to the season where the team was even close to the European spots for the next season, we have been hit hard to the face. 11th place is way above what our performances would merit us. We have been one of the worst teams in Serie A both going forward and defending. Most of the time the performances have been really painful to watch as we don’t do many things well in the pitch. We are an error-prone team that doesn’t produce anything going forward. Even though we don't score any goals, we are still overachieving in this department. The reason why we do not score goals is on the other hand just because we don't create chances. To add to this, we have also been quite lucky in terms of defending as we are facing the second most shots in the league. We also let the opponents dominate the games in terms of passing. The ten-point cushion that we had at some point is slowly dripping away and if something dramatic doesn’t happen in terms of performance, I would say that we are the likeliest team to go down. Tactically we have tried many things so far but at any point haven't ditched the three important roles that are hard-coded to our tactics. A bit of Ancelotti's Christmas Tree, Antonio Conte's direct counter-attacks at Chelsea, Simeone's new 3-3-2-2 system, and other quite hopeless attempts but nothing has been working for us. We aren't really beaten down or hammered in any of the games but the big errors that we make have become regularity and we are quite deservedly losing games. The board seems to think we are in a crisis at the moment which has led to them inviting me to an emergency recruitment meeting, even though there isn't any money left in the budget. I would personally rather manage the team in Serie B but obviously, we are not going to purposely get ourselves relegated. The kids aren’t alright Developing our younger players was considered crucial at the start of the season. When your players’ level of quality is one or even two levels below where you are playing, the individuals need to step up and fill that gap as soon as possible. Sadly this hasn’t been happening so far. Antonio Raimondo has quite surprisingly been our best performer both in training and in terms of scoring goals. The young forward came into the club with a bit of a reputation as a rebel but a good goal tally, successful mentoring, and enough game-time have seen him grow a lot as a footballer. His fairly determined personality has now changed to resolute, the same as Matteo Brunori, which is good. At the age of 20, the temperamental striker can well be on his way to becoming a club legend. He was also quite surprisingly the third-best U-20 player this year in Italy. Franco Minerva was the player we had the most hopes for this season. The Argentinian has been a key player for us in terms of minutes but his weak performances and still just a balanced personality have seen his development stall. He finally seemed to kick off a bit in November and December but an ankle injury against Inter might hinder these steps. The thing with the young Argentinian might be that he has been thrown in too deep as a key player in Serie A and he would probably be the main beneficiary if we get relegated. As you might have noticed in his profile, we are also training traits with him to make him perfectly molded to the trequartista role. I'm probably going to talk about my thinking about this in the next post. Kristoffer Lund is getting there too. He still hasn’t reached the peak where he once was based on the charts but he is regularly our best trainer of the week. His mentoring has been a bit of a challenge as he has been an influential member of the squad straight from the start. The effects of mentoring can for a moment be significant for him in a new group but this usually changes to slight or none which makes it difficult. His personality now is fairly determined instead of balanced so there has been slight progress in this area. Even though Lund has only the United States and Danish nationalities, he is someone we would like to keep throughout this career. Alessio Buttaro has continued playing a big role for the club, mainly as a centre-back where he seems to be better than at wing-back. I consider him one of our own even though this is only his fourth season with the club after joining from AS Roma. Sadly his progress is also a bit weird here: a huge summer and autumn slump where he is only just starting to recuperate. Even though he has been in mentoring groups with average to significant influence, his personality has remained as driven, which isn’t the worst but neither something that creates a forever player for us. He should have the potential to be a good Serie A player which means that he is among those last ones that we would like to shift away. New signings Kacper Urbanski and Mikael Egil Ellertson have both done well in this regard. The Icelandic has also been by far the best player for us this season and the only one who regularly seems to be up to this level. Urbanski has struggled a bit on the pitch even though he started the season well but this hasn’t hurt his development. Both work in the same mentoring group with Jacopo Segre and the effects should be significant for them. If we manage to change their personalities to something else than ‘fairly determined’ and 'fairly professional' these two will be forever players for us. The changes that mentoring has had on Urbanski are the biggest reason I like this feature. We also have a few lost causes on our hands. At the age of 22, it is probably too early to give up on Patryk Peda but to be honest, his development has been disappointing. Just five games in Serie A so far is a bit too little and this is something that we have to change in the second half of the season. With a resolute personality, he should be all good to go on reaching his potential. In January we need to think about whether should we just throw him in the deep end and hope for the best by making him a starter or maybe loan him out to Serie B. This current style isn’t working for him and at that age, all the time is vital for his development. With Filippo Ranocchia it is hard to say if he is a fish or a bird or what. He simply hasn’t found his place in the team and this also shows in his development. He is a fairly professional personality and should have Serie A potential but is that going to materialize in Palermo? I’m highly doubtful that it will. There seems to be something under the hood with him that I haven’t yet figured out. If and probably when we are going to get relegated, I could easily give it another go and make him a key player for the team in one of the midfield roles and see what he can do. Giuseppe Aurelio and Aljosa Vasic are the two names that I have given up on already. Aurelio’s journey with my guidance started brightly as he was even clearly ahead of Lund as our wing-back. Injuries and Lund’s progress have changed things and the 24-year-old is now mainly a backup and with a balanced personality so far from reaching his potential that we might even let him go in January. Rather than developing he has more likely declined even though he is getting quite a good amount of minutes in Serie A. Vasic was a starter for us in the first ten or so games, did nothing on the pitch, and didn’t develop either. At the age of 22, he is still far from his ‘good Serie A’ potential and with his personality remaining balanced, I have no hopes for him anymore. His development has recently started again but when the summer comes, his ability is once again going to drop to Serie C level and during the season he is not going to be reaching anything else than Serie B level. The former Serbian U-21 player is more than likely to be shifted away either in January or the upcoming summer. The last one worth mentioning is Jon Pachedo. We signed the Spaniard at the age of 23 and as a balanced personality, which we didn’t know about then. The progress has been quite minimal and he still is only a good Serie B player, and despite mentoring still having a significant effect on him, he isn’t going to reach the Serie A level with us. He has been a decent player for us and not as shockingly bad in Serie A as we were afraid of. The Spaniard has been drawing some attention from his home country and it could well be that we cash on him here if the opportunity arises. To be honest, he was never going to be a long-term option for us, and with the cards we got with him, I am fairly happy with how we have done in terms of business. It should be fairly easy to sell him with a profit.

Thank you. That explains a lot.

This is a good point too. At the moment you can practically change from one totally different system to another that your team has not trained at all without any real negative effects. Also training should work like so that you should be able and and forced to concentrate on small details within the tactic while watching how it works in your training pitch when the team is having a match practice. At the moment it's a bit too much like "let's hope" as you don't get any insight of the tactics otherwise than during matches.

But they do have staff able to tell them an estimation of that potential.

This is a well-written message which includes also many of my own thoughts about the difficulty. I'm going to once again use my home country Finland as an example as that is the football that I nowadays know most about. In Finland during the last 20 years or so it has been incredibly hard to strengthen even an established club and for example finding strikers that can score goals has been almost impossible to the domestic teams. They often bring someone from abroad but more often than not those signings end up being flops. It is a real rarity that a striker arriving from abroad scores regularly even though we're not even talking about that high level of football. Also it is fairly common that the real quality of the player is only revealed after a couple of months in the club while on FM you have both in scout reports and later on player report almost instantly a good picture of the level of the player. These make it way harder to actually sign players that turn into flops. This week I was playing online with a friend of mine who nowadays coaches in the second tier of Finnish football. He had never played FM before and was quite astonished about the tactical side of the game. He took the initial tactical setup and used about 30 seconds with that, proceeded to play games, did incredibly well and at some point was asking me: is this going to be difficult at some and are you at some point supposed to actually create a style of play where you have to put some effort on instructing the players how to play, how to attack and how to defend or is this going to be on autopilot. Then when we had our first fixture against each other and he had to for the first time starting to think things more throughly he was amused when he had no option to tell the team to stop the feeding for my pacey winger who was giving him a lot of trouble. I won that match and he was mainly just saying that in real life he would have plenty of options to instruct the team and tell them exactly what he wants them to do in different scenarios while on FM he felt that there was nothing he could do than just do "something" and hope for the best. In short his opinion was that the tactical side had very little to do with how things work in real life. I'm also on the same page with many things. Evem though I wouldn't want sliders to be in the game anymore, the tactical side of the game feels way too much of scratching the surface and setting up a system works too much like we are on auto pilot. In the Finnish online save I used 17 seconds to set up a tactic, never really did anything after that, played with extended highlights and won the domestic triple with a team that was predicted to finish seventh. If you compare my gameplay to what it was on 07 or 08, I have definitely become really lazy with different kind of features. In the past I used to use hours tinkering with tactics and training but these have both become so overwhelming and difficult to control that I am usually just auto piloting with them. Would love to use all the features and putting a lot of effort but as the game doesn't force you to do it or give you an option to really be in control and make a big difference using them, I really don't bother anymore. Would love it if FM 2025 could change many things in terms of the existing features by making them more in-depth and again possible to make big difference so that players like me would again get interested in using them. And most importantly: give good instructions how to use all the features instead of leaving people guessing and just seeing out what happens.