4. The prodigal son
Pro Vercelli epic saga in Football Manager 20 continues….
In 1923, 96 years ago, Virginio Rosetta, then one of the best Italian defenders, moved from Pro Vercelli to Juventus, that moment marked the beginning of professionalism in Italian football and the beginning of the decline for Pro Vercelli, unable to compete economically with the clubs of large cities such as Milan and Turin.
Now, in the multiverse of 2020, things are slowly changing and big clubs will soon notice.
After the promotion to Serie B, the manager of Pro Vercelli, Alberto Gilardino, immediately signed four Juventus players to strengthen the Vercelli team for the new season.
Small things, I know, they’re only players from Juve reserve squad, but maybe there’s something more, a sign of things to come.
Erik Gerbi, Nikolai Frederiksen, Paolo Beruatto and Matteo Stoppa will wear the “bianche casacche” of Pro Vercelli.
They’re all interesting youngsters, but the story of Erik Gerbi deserves to be told.
Growing up in the Pro Vercelli youth teams, the young 20-year-old striker left his home team to establish himself with the Italian champions of Juve, but things didn’t go as planned.
After a year spent languishing on the bench of Juve under-23 in Serie C, without playing a single league game, the player decided to accept our offer and get back where his career had begun.
Other players were purchased to strengthen and add depth to the squad in preparation for this new and challenging Serie B campaign, all share some common traits: they’re younger than 23 years and are damn cheap.
Overall we spent 500K to sign eleven new players, five of them came on loan.
I didn’t sell any players mainly because of lack of interest, but I loaned out 15 players to keep costs down and allow them to play more regularly.
Our strategy is clear, having 25 players suitable for the 3–5–2 that worked so well last year and continuing this way my system of heavy rotations.
This is the team that Mister Gilardino has put together for the 2020–21 season, the Italian bias is always present, but signing a foreign player is obviously not a problem if he’s the right one.
For more info about my tactic and the way we play, you should check my previous article:
What happened in our second season?
The season started out great with a resounding 6–1 win over Lecce, which has placed great trust in us, being Lecce one of the favourites for the promotion to Serie A.
Maybe our media prediction (18th place) was a bit wrong.
The next game we lost to Salernitana, but after that, we had an astonishing 14 games unbeaten run (9W 5D) that propelled us at the top of the table before Christmas.
Then we lost two difficult games vs. Entella and Perugia, our closest rivals in the league (both promoted at the end of the season), but in the second half of the season, we lost only other 3 games, winning the league once again and gaining a deserved promotion to bloody Serie A, the promised land, this also means back-to-back promotions for us.
The board asked for a mid-table finish, we did better.
Pro Vercelli are back to Serie A after 96 years!
How did the players perform?
Erik Gerbi had a complicated start to the season where he played little also because of some injuries, but in January he started to be employed more regularly.
He became a starter and formed a great partnership with Nicolai Frederiksen (7 goals & 7 assists), with 8 goals, all in the second part of the season, he’s our top scorer.
I don’t know if he can develop into a Serie A player but surely deserves a chance.
Another young man who will stay with us is Lucien Agoume, excellent regista who played at the Silvio Piola for two seasons on loan from Inter.
This summer I will try to buy him permanently, having an agreed price clause of 3.5M, cause this guy has a lot to offer and could be dominant at a higher level as well.
Nicoletti had another good year (see below) while our regular goalie, Tommaso Nobile, who had been loaned out to Carpi last season, came back just to break the league clean sheets record with 20.
In my solid back trio, Danish defender Rasmus Nicolaisen emerged as my best asset (33 apps. 2.25 interceptions/90min, 4.11 headers won/90min), while Raoul Mal (5 goals & 2 assists) and Leonardo Mazza (4 goals & 6 assists) both confirmed to be interesting prospects for the squad in midfield.
Compared to last year, the numbers say that we still have the best attack and the best defence, but we are no longer the ones with the most successful dribbles per game stat (we’re only 9th now), anyway we have the best cross completion ratio.
Future plans
Finally, I can see the stadium Silvio Piola often full, the next step will be to expand it or build a new one to ensure more revenue.
Being in Serie A with a 5500 seat stadium is not the best if you want the club to continue to grow.
The same can be said for the training facilities, as soon as there are funds available I’ll ask the management to improve them.
Our policy to bring in young players on loan to test them and fill the gaps in the squad showed to be effective so far, from now we’re going to buy some of them to build a solid core for years to come.
Serie A probably came too soon, we might struggle next season, however I’m confident we’re on the right track, we’ll make Pro Vercelli fans proud or we’ll fail trying.
Do you need more Armchair Gaffer content?
Then check the link below to discover how this Pro Vercelli story started.
A big “thank you” to my readers for supporting this publication and sharing my content, stay in touch!
Grazie.
