Hello all. I've been playing fm for so long and this is my first story i'm gonna tell you. Some people pick strong,rich clubs others pick some clubs you probably never heard of,and some like me love to pick a club where you can cheer with your players and where you can bite nails,fingers pull your hair and live the most frustating life as manager of your club.
Yup, this story is one of those. I've been playing tons and tons of leagues,but lately (for few fm's) i've been avoiding Italy. So after selecting ~34 leagues i had to pick a club. Not too strong like Juve,Inter,Milan etc and not too weak like Siena,Chievo and similar ones. To narrow my search i decided to choose by my style of playing. I love midfielders and wingers so i searched around which club has nice players that would suit me.
Choice was between Catania , Genoa and Cagliari. So I searched deeper...stadiums!!! Genoa has biggest, Cagliari lowest capacity among these 3. To conclude my search, Catania bought me with geographical position. Sicily!!! Mafia + Etna vulcano
So i clicked that "Take control" and off i go to train some elephants...
After i played 2 seasons and just started my 3rd, i'll provide you some images to see how it worked out...basicly start was "yay" but when i looked on financial status over some time, that "yay" went to "aww".
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Season 2012
OK, so i started by bringing some fresh faces into club, Catania has nice players but lacks in DC and ST position. DC as you are short with them...ST as these ones are not so precise when it comes to score goals...or not?!
so as you can see, none of nice defenders wanted to join, so i took some nice DMC's and few strikers,with my fingers crossed that defenders don't injure themselves on training or match. Since you are kinda short with € i offered almost whole reserve squad for loan so i can free up some wage space,once you count you get pretty nice 2-3mil € free space.
My staff were...well i had some decent and some crapy ones so i kicked few and brought fresh faces (atm staff are from 2014 some of them retired like Luciano Moggi) most of them are attending pro licence,and some of them already have it.
Since i had so many midfield players my tactic was 4-5-1 or as some would say 4-3-2-1 with wingers. My midfielders offered me so many attack opportunities either by exploiting wings or by long shots from my MC's as they had very nice ratings for it. Problem was counter-attacks from opposition, 1 out of 7 would be goal for them...so our mentality was "score more than you can get".
so i played with Limited defenders, Ball winning midfielder, next to him were Deep lying playmaker's , Wingers & Target man and as you can see most of them scored,and wingers had decent amount of assists.
at start i organized 2 friendly myself with Lazio as they were paying 250k per game, so i managed to fix 2 of them while my assistant menager organized rest. I started season by beating stronger ones,and losing from weaker as you can see Milan,Lazio,Fiorentina. Also my local derby with biggest rival Palermo was not so succesful. In cup i managed to get to 1/4 finals but then i landed on Parma which had some nice striker Belfodil who will be avaiable on free transfer soon but i can't afford him as i don't have any € to spare for his wage...crapy 900k p/a... so as season went by my elephants were strugling and hoping to achieve nice mid-table position that board asked in first place. After taking some more scalps from bigger teams and loosing from relegation teams (Siena, Roma) i ended season as 12th
so to conclude this short briefing from season 12 i had to many draws,and a bit more lost games than i expected. As free transfer was aproaching i could only watch so many nice players going to all directions except into my club as my team was negative in balance,and chairman said he'll even cut wage budget for 3mil... so from nice 19/19,5mil budget i ended to 19/16mil budget. But to end season 12 here are some top transfers in Italy.
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Season 2013
ok so around 20 players returned from loans...one of them was Maxi Lopez...guy who scored 20 goals for Sampdoria last season, just wanna meet genius who sent him on loan,nice job Catania! New season, new cash... well remember that "yay" from start? I got message that my sponsorship will be doubled..."yay"...i got 29mil from TV rights, ~3mil for transfers and... ... ...board decided to take a loan from bank, no reason i was in short positive, but they took 40mil until 2019 which i will pay ~600k monthly "aww" so we are at the start of "season 2012" with no cash in our pocket. I managed to grab some free players but i had to take 1 GK as my 2 co-owned were...bad!
but now i got myself nice DC Alexander Madlung who will provide nice challenge goalkeeper DC while i do crossing from corners. And i got GK Marcelo Barovero who had better technical ratings than my Andujar, but he was with Argentina squad so i decided to let him continue to be #1 (which will be nice later for World Cup
)This time i had 2 nice strikers who can score pretty nice amount of goals for Catania, behind them was stronger midfield and i had nice defense...so i went that season for classic 4-4-2
This time i switched possitions for ML,MR which was nice as when you watch 3d pitch you could actually see them swap places,while opposition players were bumping into each other (a bug maybe?) Bergessio & Lopez ended up with 36 goals total in serie A which was nice as other half was scored by midfielders. But biggest achievment was Italian Cup! Yes,yes my elephants managed to run over all the way to finals,but i have to say nice job to Udinese as they cleared my wait to finals but knocking out bigger teams. I said "thank you Udine" in finals...where i took them out in extra time. My assistent got me friendly with Barcelona,bad part except losing is that i had to pay them for that match so i didn't even earn 1€.
as ussual i left point to teams who will be in relegation zone,and i took points from top 5 teams,seems like it's a genetics in Catania. But i bought all the hearts with this Cup,as i knocked out my rival Palermo and managed to end up at mid-table again,so board was pleased and they gave me high five and new contract. By this time i was offered many contracts from other leagues and some big clubs,most of them who were going out like Roma,Schalke,Werder,HSV,Newcastle,Deportivo,Rennais,... all rejected this is Catania story after all
and to maybe conclude this season i'll provide you again top 15 transfers in Italy...by this time i was thinking to maybe sell half of my team as i had pretty nice 5* players in my shortlist that scouts provided me in this 2 years, what will happen? Check out in season 2014.
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Season 2014
Ok since this season is still active i'll just fill you up with transfers, starting fixtures, new presents and some top stats.
At this time most od my strong DMC's retired
yeah i know playing football with 35 isn't that easy even if you have stamina 17! But i already had nice young elephants just waiting to get for free, thank you scouts! So to reduce my wages i released most of dead meat who were ending on contract soon...that gave me totally ~8/9 mil difference to play with. So i brought 2 transfer faces Buonanotte and Viera, payed them with that wage difference and got offered 6mil for Belluschi 50% co-ownership which i accepted but with my terms!Player will be 2 years in Catania and other 50% will cost 20mil ... was a nice day for me,as Napoli accepted & Argentina won WC which made my #1 GK Superstar increasing his value to 8mil.
So i bought 2 players, got "refunded" brought few free players and had my team ready...then it crossed my mind they will be soon near end of contract so i can offer them new one or try to sell them ~december what will happen, we will see.
New season started and brought new presents...Italian Super Cup , & Europe! well let's see how that worked out
yeah i won ISC vs Atalanta who won Serie A last season, how derp is that
so i got 2 trophies in few months, not so "big" but Cup gave me opportunity to play in Europe. In Serie A i started with wins,i'm so proud on my elephants as they broke bones to all who oppose them but season is very long and we haven't done J from job. Until i play to 1.1.2015 or maybe whole season i'll provide you with some transfers and some info about players. Until then have fun all \o,
Goalscorers in past seasons
Some ratings of my top players (avoid scout ratings,most of them are old now so they wont progress)
if you need or if you are curious with some info,images or something you wish to know feel free to ask me.
