With the club and country game coming to a premature end, I was on the hunt for a new save – a decision that a lot of FM players can find problematic. Stream chats, YouTube comments, twitter, forums – they’re all full of people asking for advice on who to play as, “what’s a good team”, etc.
It’s a question worth asking, particularly these days with the sheer number of hours that save games require. Who wants to waste 20-30 hours of game time only to discover you’re bored within half a season?
I’ve nearly always managed to pick saves or clubs that have kept my interest and this time round I’ve opted for Sampdoria. But, as an introduction to the save, why?
For me, choosing a club starts with an assessment of what types of save I’ve enjoyed in the past. I’ve never been one for managing the really big clubs as I find the lack of challenge boring, indeed any save quickly becomes stale once the club reaches the elite. And whilst I’ve enjoyed the long slog of bringing a minnow through the tiers (Feralpi Salò being a good example), I don’t have the time or the motivation these days.
Looking back at my journeyman save last year, my favourite two spells came at Real Sociedad and Toulouse. So whilst I did consider these clubs again, I wanted something fresh but of a similar level.
So I was looking for mid- or lower-table in a decent league. I like this sort of level as you have to be creative with tactics and signings in order to catch the big teams but without the type of time-consuming micro-management that can drain the enjoyment from lower league games.
Realising that I hadn’t played in Italy since the Feralpi save in FM13, I had a look around for suitable clubs and went for Samp on the arbitrary basis of liking their kit, liking their badge and having fond (hazy) memories of their 1991 scudetto winning side.
Occasionally, I’ll be drawn to a club by a particular player that I like but these days I know the square root of sod all about football, nevermind Italian football. So it was quite a surprise to find that Fabio Quagliarella still plays professional football, nevermind that he’s a key player in the Samp squad.
Aside from Quagliarella, Praet and Gaston Ramirez were familiar names and I had vague recollections of seeing Linetty in previous FM saves. Other than those four, my ignorance reigned.
Which suits me fine, to be honest. I like to approach the game with as few pre-conceptions as possible. I also tend to disable transfer budgets at the start of the game which forces me to use what’s at my disposal anyway.
Hopefully I’ll have picked the team wisely and the save keeps me interested. Early signs are promising as I’ve already played until February and am really starting to “get into it”. Should that continue, I’ll post blog updates here but they are likely to be shorter, save game ‘diary’ type updates more akin to the old forum style posts.
I’ve really been enjoying the content over at the FM Now Forum recently, particularly Ben [LINK] and Nick’s [LINK} threads, and think copying sort of format is much more what I’m looking for as an outlet to scratch my FM19 itch. (if you haven’t already, I’d definitely recommend giving those two threads a read)
To keep the interest going, I’m hoping to try a couple of different approaches in this save but, perhaps, more on that in future updates.
Forza Samp!
FM Veteran 
Nice read, can’t wait to see how you will perform with good old Sampdoria!