Il Doria – Sampthing Like A Phenomenon

I haven’t posted an update for a while, not because I haven’t been playing the save but rather because I was into playing it so much that I couldn’t be bothered taking the time out to write and update.

Besides, the season following my last update was a pretty dull one with nothing much interesting to blog.  We won the cup, which was nice, and pushed into the Champions League qualification spots but suffered a similar February  / March slump to the previous year and fell away in the title race.

This season, however, was a much different story.

Il Doria – Sampthing Different

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?

Feralpi Salò – European Champions!!

Champions of Europe.

Doesn’t that sound rather nice?

Champions.

Of Europe.

About bloody time some might say but no-0ne cares about the haters so instead I’ll just take delight in the fact that I have FINALLY secured football’s biggest trophy with our tiny side from the banks of Lake Garda.

With the decision made that I’m going to stay at Feralpi to secure what I hope will be an easy Club World Cup, I’ll give defending our Champions League title one shot and then move on to a new club… which may also entail a new save depending on what game I end up going with.

So this should be a relatively quick update with a little on the domestic competitions, some more focus on the Champions League glory and a little information on a couple of new tactics. But mostly it’ll be about being Champions. Of Europe. 🙂

Feralpi Salò – If at first you don’t succeed…

… try just one more time then give up. Well, at least that’s my plan.

I was tempted to call it a day at the end of this season but we got so close this year that one more effort is called for in our attempts to complete that final challenge – winning the Champions League.

It’s clear that we’re now the best team in Italy, comfortably so I would say but there is still a small group of European elite sides that are just that little bit better than us. It’s no longer the class above that it has been as evidenced by our fantastic performances in Europe this season but neither would I class Feralpi as equals to PSG, Real Madrid and Man City – the real powerhouses of Europe at the moment, although I’ve got a wary eye on Man Utd after appointing Montella and Bayern who are managed by my old protegé Christian Chivu.

So a fairly simple update this one – how we did, who was good, who wasn’t that good and a few transfers to make us better. And we’ll check in on the progress of young Eric Little – the development case study… he’s getting good.

Feralpi Salò – not quite there yet…

As you should now know, I decided to stay in Salò with the sole aim of securing a Champions League trophy. This is the one remaining (meaningful) goal for the club which I have yet to achieve and without which I do not feel my time at Feralpi would be complete. We’ve won both Serie A and the Coppa Italia twice and have secured a solid future for the club with the construction of  new stadium, state of the art facilities, a healthy bank balance and a youth squad full of bright young talents.

So the pertinent question should be: is this a plausible target or have we hit one of these —> a glass ceiling?

Almost certainly, the answer should be the former. We play in a big league and whilst a relatively small stadium may be a limiting factor, it’s simply not the case that we are so short of money as to preclude any continental success.

So… what do we do about it?

Well before I get there, let’s see what happened this season. For those looking for something other than a simple story of our results this update also includes a case study of trouble shooting our tactic to overcome second season syndrome and a continuing look at the development of Eric Little.

Feralpi Salò – we’re not done yet…

In the last update, I asked you all to vote on whether I should stay with Feralpi Salò or move on to another club and another league. At the time of writing, the votes were too close to call – with 53% (40 votes) in favour of moving on and 47% (35 votes) wanting me to stay.

Perhaps I should have gone with the small majority but the minority who wanted me to stay were also good enough to provide reasons within the comments section and managed to persuade me that my time in Salò is not yet finished. So lesson learned – if you really want me to leave, tell me why next time!

This will be a relatively small update then: detailing why I’ve decided to stay, what I’ll do to try and keep it interesting and the transfers that we’ve completed over the summer.

Feralpi Salò – Going out with a bang or start of a trend?

 

Well that may be up to you as I have started a poll at the bottom of the post to decide my next move – whether that be staying with Feralpi or moving on; and if the latter, where?

And the reason that it could be “going out with a bang”? Well that should be fairly obvious as we made up for the last minute despicability of last season and secured the Serie A title I’ve been working towards for 9 long seasons in Salò.

There really wasn’t much that we did this season that we haven’t done in any of the preceding campaigns, it’s just that we did it better and more consistently this year. Therefore, there isn’t any “guide” on squad building or even much on tactics within this post. It’s simply a celebration of the title winning squad and a little bit of history on how and when they arrived at the club and how they contributed this season.

Then there’s the dilemma of what’s next…

Feralpi Salò – A fairytale ending, a rage quit and backtracking – the story of 2023/24

An interesting end to the season, that’s for sure.

When I updated last, we were embroiled in a 4-way title challenge going into the winter break and the team was performing very well – giving me great hope that we’d be able to sustain our form this season and give ourselves a real chance of a first Serie A trophy.

Going into the last day, we’d done just that and faced a bona fide “helicopter Sunday” as any one of ourselves, Napoli or Inter could claim glory in a final day showdown.

Could we do it? Could we simply nudge ourselves over the line and claim glory? Read on to find out….

(NB – this update will purely look at our results and the players that I’ve brought in)

Feralpi Salò – In the hunt…

I’m feeling good about this season. We’ve reached the winter break, just a little before the halfway point in the league, and things are going pretty well. We’re embroiled in a very interesting title challenge and surpassed all my expectations in the Champions League despite a sticky start.

More importantly than that, though, is that the team feels like it’s performing really well. I feel like I have options all over the park and there aren’t many players who I feel have let me down on a regular basis, indeed I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some.

Normally I would wait until the end of the season and do a big update then but Thomas Levin (worth a follow on twitter by the way) suggested that I provide a little bit of information on my scouting techniques. I guess that I am more thorough than a lot of FM-ers… well “thorough” is the polite way of putting it. Others might describe it as indecisive, un-necessarily picky and borderline anal.

This was the case but the scouting section has become so big (waffle) that I’ve decided to issue it as a standalone article. Therefore this update will simply be that – an update on the fortunes of Feralpi Salò. I hope you still find it interesting.

Feralpi Salò – Mistakes, transition year and squad building

I always used to say that 3 seasons was enough to win any league with any team in FM… well as this is my 3rd season in Serie A with Feralpi that puts me in a rather awkward position. You can forget any ideas that we may have won the league. Whatever slim chance we had of that disappeared long before the winter break.

With the team struggling to maintain any consistency, I did the only thing that any sane football manager would do… I declared this to be a year of consolidation. You can’t blame me for any lack of real progression from last year when we are in a transition period can you? We’re just building for the future you see. Take a hit now, sow a few seeds and reap the benefits in years to come…

Or something like that.

In reality, much of the blame for our lack of progression this year can be attributed to mistakes that I made earlier in the season. In hindsight, it’s easy to spot the mistakes and wonder why I made them in the first place, although it should be noted that I wasn’t the only one to make mistakes with at least 6 opposition goals being the direct result of defensive mistakes from my players.

Either way, it’s given me an opportunity to consolidate, re-shape the squad slightly and further improve the club’s infrastructure without losing too much, if any, ground on the teams we are supposed to be challenging for silverware. Therefore, this update will briefly look at the results over the course of the season and those mistakes I made before going into more detail on the more interesting and transferable aspects of the year – the squad building.