Whenever I recount an incident or a story I like to provide a lot of context, but my wife always tells me “I don’t need a timeline of events”, she says “just get to the point”. But it’s not always that easy. Sometimes you need the backstory to understand and to properly process the information. Understanding what has happened previously helps you to understand how certain conclusions were drawn and why specific decisions were made.
Obviously, I do also get that some people just want the quick hit rather than the slow burn. I also get that it may annoy my wife (but don’t tell her) when she wants to know why I left my keys and spare change on the side in the bathroom and I start my explanation with “once upon a time…”. TLDR.
I’ve decided to split my first film of Piacenza’s Serie A season into two parts so that if you do happen to be like my wife and have no patience for an eloquent preamble, then I guess you could always go straight to the match.
But don’t do that.
This is the accompanying blog post to part one and details what’s happened since Serie B. Part 2, here on YouTube, will be the first game of the Serie A season against SPAL.
Season 3 and Piacenza are in Serie A.
My ‘timeline of events’ is not going to go back so far as to cover the Serie C/A and Serie B seasons, suffice to say we romped C/A and did really well in B—the latter with a team that was probably not quite as good as our 2nd place position suggests.
It’s been a surprisingly short road, really. I’d expected more of a challenge getting to Serie A, but after back to back promotions, I did it with relative ease and much shock. Our arrival in Serie A means that the first of my goals for the save has been achieved. Remember I had those 3 goals?
1, Get Piacenza back into to Serie A.
2, Find a new bison (A Hübner-esque Capocannoniere—Serie A top scorer).
3, Achieve some sort of financial security.
The finances? Let’s just say they are a work in progress, but they’re looking up as you’ll hopefully see later on… and the bison? Well the bison could have one of many young heads at the moment — we have some interesting prospects (Gambatto and Buso current pick of the crop) who I’ll no doubt talk about in more detail as the season progresses.
So that’s one down, I’m a third of the way there. But ahead of time, there’s still plenty to do, so shall we try and not get fucked in Serie A first?
Fixtures. Exciting.
So, here’s the lay of the land. Look at all those big boys. Juve, Milan, Inter, Lazio, Roma, Napoli… this is going to be fun. And also scary. The stadium visits should be pretty special too! Some proper big stadiums and big cities, really looking forward to those!
Our first game is against SPAL who are another favourite for relegation. Oh, sorry, didn’t I mention? Media prediction sees us finishing 20th in Serie A. That’s last. Bottom. 550–1 for the title. Put your cash back in your pocket, it’s probably not worth a bet.
I don’t know anything about SPAL actually. S.P.A.L. What is SPAL?! Where is SPAL? It’s an acronym. We’ll have a look in part 2 (the YouTube part). One thing is for sure though, first game or not, if we are to stay up this season then these are the kind of games we need to be winning.
So, the season preview is not looking good… again. We defied all odds last season, finishing 2nd when we were similarly tipped for relegation, so this Piacenza side is no stranger to adversity. But this is Serie A. A huge step up from Serie B. The quality in this division is head and shoulders (Joe Hart doesn’t play for Torino anymore does he? Damn it, could’ve been a good joke.) above anything we’ve faced previously and as you’ll see in a minute, although I have a sort of semi-plan, we haven’t actually strengthened a great deal. And when I say ‘semi-plan’ you could certainly argue that’s an appropriate term. We are on the, er… flaccid side, in terms of Serie A teams.
Indeed, we are expected to go down like a big fat brick in the river Po.
There are a few teams around us that also look ropey, but we are seen as proper shit. Which I guess could be fair enough.
Of the other two promoted teams, Benevento are predicted to finish in the relegation zone with us and the other, Chievo, are somehow tipped to narrowly survive. I don’t know where that came from as Benevento won Serie B and we finished second whilst Chievo only just scraped promotion. Perhaps they’ve bought lots of good players? That seems like it would be a good idea, doesn’t it? Ahem…
But here’s what I reckon:
You have to ask the question, in terms of football AND in terms of FM as a game, just how much of a role do tactics and team cohesion play?
What is the value of a good tactic used in conjunction with supposed, less able players? Can it hold its own?
We’ve done ok so far. Against the odds too. Why is that?
These Season Preview predictions are based on an assessment of our team comparatively against the others in the league, but that assessment is formulated by averaging player Attributes for Serie A. There’s quite a large disparity between the best attributes in Serie A and the worst. Plus, some of my players are young with potential and room to improve. I’m a firm believer that attributes don’t always tell the whole story. They’re useful and they have a huge role in determining a players suitability for the level your team is playing at, but they are by no means a guarantee of success. So I’m not sure how seriously I take that prediction. But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I!
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start off by having a look at the last tactic and team selection used in Serie B and how that compares to and influences the one we’ll use moving forward in Serie A.
I can feel your judgement through the screen already. Calm down, dear.
Tactics
Last season this is mostly what we did, give or take a few instructions.
So the first thing to note — and you can probably tell — is that, despite being a Stoke fan, I like attacking football. This formation is designed to push forward and pressure the opposition. Press and win the ball back when we don’t have it and then overload (ideally using the WB’s) when we do.
The tactic has worked, in part, because we have assumed that we are better or equal to all teams we’ve played so far in Serie C/A and Serie B. ‘Attack’ has been the best form of defence. In Serie A, the opposite can be said. There’s a good chance that we will be weaker than, well, every team we encounter.
So you’d theorise, naturally, that in a far superior league with much better teams, perhaps an attacking mentality isn’t wise? Right? Well, not entirely.
I believe that there’s a lot to be said for familiarity with a tactic and I feel I’d be stupid to change it too drastically. It has performed brilliantly so far, albeit in lower divisions. Even changes to mentality could end up being detrimental; evident when this team have started a match with a balanced or cautious mentality in the past. We’ve looked noticeably weaker doing so. Less decisive, less threatening. In my opinion, the tactic works because it’s aggressive. If you take that positivity away it doesn’t perform well. It’s also really well suited to the personnel I deploy in each position and they, in turn, are suited to an attacking mentality.
Which would lead me nicely on to our signings…
…Except there are just two other things I’d like to address quickly:
Let’s carry on looking at that tactic from the last league game of the Serie B season against Frosinone. In the starting 11 there were 3 loan players, 2 of which have been with us for 2 seasons (Circled in red). As well as that there were 4 ‘older players’, either approaching 30 or over 30 years old (Circled in blue) and 4 youngsters, aged between 19–22 (Circled in green).
Let’s just break that down. There are two points worth noting here really:
1, The loan players will move on, meaning that we will lose not only the depth and talent in their vacated positions but also we will lose a lot of the good rapport that has been nurtured over the past few seasons.
2, The age of some of the players could be considered an issue. Lack of experience in the younger players and potentially a trailing off of pace and energy of some of the older players. There is also the added concern that the older ones may start to think about moving to China (ignore me, I‘ve been burned before) or retirement. Related side note: we lost Porcari to retirement this season.
Let’s deal with these points in reverse because I’m annoying.
2. Age. The age of players doesn’t bother me so much. As far as I’m concerned, if you play well you can earn a spot in the first 11. Age should be irrelevant and this is something I’m going to try to remember over the coming season. My team selection will be based on merit and performances rather than going with my ‘heart’. Historically, my decisions are usually quite driven by emotional connections with players. What I mean by that is that all too often I think “I like the look of this guy, I want him to do well” and I try to force him into the picture even if it doesn’t seem to be working.
In other words, I have favourites. That needs to stop ideally.
You’re as good as your last game… Or your last 3–5 games in this case (I’ve yet to decide).
Similarly, if a player comes to me pissed off and wanting game time, I’m going to make a real effort to give it to them—with the caveat that they need to impress me.
If you perform you can play. Simple.
So with that in mind, young or old, it shouldn’t matter.
1. Loanees. This concerned me at the end of Serie B. We have relied heavily on loan players over the past few seasons. Not only have these players played well, in many cases being our best and most consistent players, but they have also gelled with the wider team and created that solid backbone, that team cohesion that I’ve been talking about. My concern was that losing these loanees would have a detrimental effect on the learned tactic and team dynamics. How much of the success of my tactic is down to the right players in the right positions and with the right players around them? Sure, I could track down another AMC and replace Portanova, but would it still work? Would another right wing back be able to bomb down the flanks as successfully as Troiani has done? I don’t know? What I do know is that I can’t take the risk of upsetting the equilibrium. Plus, those players have performed for me match after match after match, so, I feel they deserve a shot in Serie A… if they want to sign.
I had a transfer budget of €5m, which I knew wasn’t going to go far and we needed to either buy or replace all loanees and also strengthen for a more competitive division. I was worried that the loan players, after good seasons with us, may now command fairly high transfer fees, so I had to weigh this up when deciding whether to try to get these familiar faces in permanently or to find new stars of equal or better ability.
Timeline of events.
I’ll cut to the chase.
I managed to sign Manolo Portanova, Michele Troiani and Marco Pompetti. All young. All very good in past seasons. Promising players, despite arguably not currently operating at Serie A level.
Still, I am really happy with these signings and the three of them help to keep the backbone of my team together.
Of course, I’d understand anyone looking at this from the outside and saying that I’ve been too cautious. Maybe I should have looked to acquire players with better attributes and more Serie A experience rather than signing players who have a proven track record for us over the past two seasons (in lower divisions). But here’s my logic: 1, As I said previously, I think they deserve a shot at Serie A and they’re all young. 2, I only had €5m which wouldn't go far in terms of attracting established Serie A quality talent. I certainly couldn't afford the superstar Serie A type wages either. I know what each of these players bring to the team and I have confidence in them to perform above expectations and above what their attributes suggest (watch this space). 3, I didn’t want to fuck with the cohesion of the team/tactic.
Make of that what you will. It’s a hunch at the end of the day. A decision made partially if I’m honest, out of the fear of change but also, out of confidence in players I feel familiar with— which might prove helpful in new uncharted territory?
Am I trying to convince you? Or me?
I also tied down Marco Bleve. If you remember, he was on loan with us in Serie C/A and I was gutted when we lost him just before Serie B. He is younger and has better current and potential ability than previous no.1, Lagomarsini, so I splashed out €450k and agreed to some hefty wages. I think he will either be a long term keeper for many years or land us a huge wodge of cash if we lose him. He also ‘Uses long throws to start counter attacks’ which is great for getting our wingbacks attacking. He saved a penalty in the first game of preseason. I like him alot.
As for the other signings, there are a lot and they are mostly youth players for the future (that I will hopefully loan out or develop in u18s or u20s) or players that I’ve taken a punt on.
I won’t talk about them all, I just want to introduce you to a few of them. Just the most interesting ones. I’ll gloss over anyone who is unlikely to feature this season.
Oh, I should also mention that Fabrizio Larini (DoF) has only been in charge of signing youth prospects this preseason, so 90% of these signings are down to me. Gulp.
Lorenzo Di Livio | Free | Roma
Attacking Midfielder (Right) / M (Right), AM (Left, Centre)
Stefano Pellizarri | Free
Defender (Centre)
Hicham Kanis | €215k | Vicenza
Attacking Midfielder (Right, Left) / M (Right)
Michael N’Tube | Free | Inter
Defender (Centre)
Luigi D’Ignazio | Free
Defender, Wing Back (Left)
Benjamin Garré | Loan | Manchester City
Attacking Midfielder (Centre), Striker (Centre) / AM (R/L)
This is the new tactic. It only has minor differences and look, still Attacking! The players here are not necessarily the starting 11 by the way. Likely swaps will be Bertoncini for N’Tube, Pompetti for Nicco and Buso for Garré and…well, I don’t know. I’m still deciding. I don’t feel like we played enough games preseason to accurately assess all of the new faces yet, so the SPAL game could be interesting.
In summary: The tactic has barely changed and in terms of players, the squad has grown but not massively improved.
What could go wrong?
One final thing. What does that mean for our finances?
It’s worth touching on because at the end of Serie B we were looking very shaky indeed.
They still don’t look brilliant, do they! But promotion to Serie A really helped us get rid of a substantial amount of debt. We’re still €1m in the red but that’s a pretty big improvement from what was getting close to €4m last season. I can hardly argue it’s a ‘good’ thing, but it’s slowly improving.
If we can stay in Serie A then I’m confident we will slowly recuperate and end up getting back to €0 eventually. Safe to say, relegation would be disastrous to this goal.
The eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that we are spending over our wage budget after already overspending our transfer budget. We are spending €135,386 p/w of a suggested €124,338 p/w. Roughly €11k over.
Come on, it’s not that bad.
Our projections don’t look massively bad either actually. We could still do with either winning something big to get some prize money or creating a young star—with no release clause! Annoyingly Zelalem and Buso both have ridiculously low release clauses in their contracts at the moment.
Zelalem, in particular, is a big worry because he is arguably our best player and if he has a good season we will struggle to keep hold of him. We can’t offer him the kind of contract that the bigger clubs can and so if he decides he wants to leave we may end up losing him and making €fuckall from the sale. My only hope is that he performs well enough to keep us in the division before we inevitably, lose him. Does that make it worth the loss? If he keeps us up? Probably. Anyway. It hasn’t happened yet. Stop stressing out! Relax!
Our current financial state is not sustainable at the moment and we might struggle to recruit/hold on to players over the next few seasons if we stay in Serie A. But on the positive side, for the immediate future at least, we are not in any jeopardy.
That’s got to be a good thing.
So there you have it! Can we survive Serie A with a proven, successful tactic which deploys the leagues worst players (on average)?
Exciting and very interesting times.
Looking forward to this.
