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Post by Reiver on Nov 11, 2019 17:41:53 GMT
Tyrol has always been a place that I've been attracted to. It might be the luxurious green of the valleys in spring, with the rivers flowing in rapids and waterfalls down the alps and the white of the snow at the mountain peaks, and the pristine lakes surrounded by the mountain sides; or the white of the winter snow covering the alpine villages scattered around the valleys, seemingly with a castle in every mountain. It might be the rich history behind this land at the border of where the Bavarians settled on one side of the Alps and the Lombards on the other, with villages and valleys so isolated they developed their own language, some still actively used nowadays (Romance languages: Italian, Ladin and German (with several unintelligible dialects: Austro-Bavarian, Mòcheno, Cimbrian) - sometimes even neighboring villages: Deutschnofen (German Nofen) and Welschnofen (Romance-Speaking Nofen) or on the predominantly italian speaking side Mezzotedesco (German Center) and Mezzolombardo (Lombard Center). But of all the characteristics of this area, what drove my interest towards playing here was its more recent history, and the effects it has on football. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the area was ruled by the Bavarians in the North and the Lombards in the south - this split can still roughly be seen nowadays in the split of languages found nowadays. This territory eventually found its way to the Holy Roman Empire, first in the form of Prince-Bishoprics and then as its own County. They would go on to stay united in its own entity as part of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, with a few short-lived hiccups along the way. Then came WWI. At this point, Tyrol was an Austrian crownland with areas largely populated by Italian speaking people, and the recently united Italy was set on adding this area to its territories. At the end of the war, the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was signed, and the Italian-Austrian border moved northwards to the Alps water divide line. This was not the language divide line. The north area remained in Austria as the State of Tirol and the south went to Italy. This meant that now there was a German speaking area inside of Italy. This area, commonly known as Südtirol (South Tyrol), is the main focus of the save. At first, these german-speaking people were allowed to keep their language and customs, but soon after the annexation of the region, Italy saw the rise of fascism. The new regime tried to force the italianisation of the area. German-speaking was forbidden; German-speaking press closed; German schools were closed, all place names were changed to Italian ones, and immigration to the areas was incentivised. This lasted until WWII. After the war, the area remained in Italy, but the German minority achieved new rights: the area became an autonomous region(Trentino-Alto Adige: Trentino the italian speaking area and Alto-Adige the German one), German was made an official language, but as Italians were still the majority in the whole Trentino-Alto Adige region, German-speakers still had no self-government. This led to the creation of the Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol terrorist group that during the 50s and 60s attacked public buildings, fascist monuments, and police posts, costing the life of 21 people. In 72, the region was split further, with the province of Trentino and of Alto Adige (now officially Südtirol in German) keeping most of the taxes levied and a large degree of autonomy, which brought a new peace to the region. Today, Südtirol is the wealthiest region of Italy. Now you ask, why the history and geography lesson? Because it ties in with how the football history of the area and with how I want to play the game. Before its annexation by Italy, there already were football teams in Tyrol, but the so-called Austrian League started in 1911 only had teams from Wien. On the Austrian side, you eventually saw the rise and (many) falls of Wacker (and Tirol; and Swarovski) Innsbruck, who went on to have 5 leagues and cups in the 70s, one cup in the 90s, 3 more leagues in the early 00s, as well as 2 bankruptcies. On the Italian side, you saw no such success. The rise of fascist saw all German football side disbanded; the first (and only) real note of Südtiroler football in the Italian world was the one season AC Bolzano spent in Serie B in 1947. AC Bolzano spent some seasons in Serie C and many more in the lower leagues; the only other teams from the region that reached the same level during the twentieth century would be Passirio Merano and AC Trento from Trentino. The first two have since disbanded and the latter is back in the lower leagues after going bankrupt. Going bankrupt is also something common for teams in the region: Mezzocorona reached Serie C and stayed there for 3 seasons; then went bankrupt; Porfido Albiano and Alta Vallagarina also went close to becoming professional, only to go down that route. In the middle of all of this, a group of businessman from the capital of South Tyrol, Bozen (Bolzano) decided to create a new football team that would represent the whole region. It was the early 90s when conversations started. The last team from the region to be in a professional team had been AC Bolzano, back in 1979-80. At the time, the team was yo-yoing up and down the amateur leagues and the consortium attempted to purchase the club. When conversations failed, they purchased the place of a smaller amateur league down by the 7th tier of italian football. Thew new club was FC Südtirol. It's been very successful: they are now a leading Serie C team, and has been fighting for promotion in the last few seasons; they have a state of the art training center, often used by bigger teams for their pre-seasons and for special match preparations - Germany usually goes there to prepare for the World Cups. It has had several teams in the Italian youth teams, including 3 players at under 20s level. It has really only failed at one level, but based on what the businessmen set themselves to do, they failed one of their main goals. During the last season, the average attendance at the 3500 seats Drusus-Stadion was around 900. Südtirol's population is currently at half a million, and Bozen on its own has over one hundred thousand people, 250.000 if you count its metropolitan area. You can kind of tell that the team might say they represent Südtirol on the field, but Südtirolers don't really have their heart on this team. And it's not like football is not enjoyed in the area - when big football teams play (or even train) in the area, people flock to watch; Südtirol takes a team to the Europeadas, a sort of European Cup for minority groups, and has won it every time; local amateur teams sometimes have attendances that rival the ones from the main team. This image is from a 5th tier game. There's two reasons that have caused this. Number one is purely geographic - in the middle of the alps, it's not always easy to travel from the distant valleys down to Bozen just to watch a game, so people haven't created a close bond to this team, and choosing to cheer for their local amateur team and/or go for a German team - Bayern Munchen's likely the most supported team in the region, and the Italian speaking people of the area often cheer for whatever team their parents cheered for when they moved into the region. On the other hand, the team themselves haven't really done much to have the locals view them as their representation. Up to very recently, their communications were all done in Italian, and they currently have 2 players from Südtirol in their whole squad. In this savegame, I will attempt to create a team to represent Südtirol the way FC Südtirol is currently not doing. I will not be playing as FC Südtirol.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 2, 2019 14:51:29 GMT
Just a quick note. This hasn't died, I just was offered FM20 and was working out the details to be able to play this in the new version instead. Expect something in a few days.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 3, 2019 17:56:59 GMT
There have been some Südtirolean players to have player at a professional level at Südtirol - current captain Hannes Fink, Hannes Kiem, Fabian Tait, Hans Rudi Brugger, and a few others, and even went on to play in higher profile clubs - Manuel Fishnaller at Reggiana, Michael Cia at Albinoleffe, both at Italy U-20s, and there's even been Serie A players - the latest one being Simon Laner, who played in 2010-2011 for Cagliari. But the very first Südtirolean player to ever rise to the higher levels of football is most likely the best ever player for the region.
Klaus Bachlechner is not a name that has been written in the Olympus of football, but he is a part of the history of 3 Italian clubs: he started playing for Hellas Verona as a defender at age 19 in 1972, he went on to play for them almost 100 times before moving to Bologna in 1978, and then he played for the Rossoblù 86 times in the next 3 years - a very solid stopper who could also play in the sides and as a defensive midfielder, he was strangely overlooked for the Italian National team. In 1981, he reached the highest point in his career, signing for Inter Milan. He struggled to adapt to the San Siro atmosphere, but still managed to play 20 games for Inter in Serie A in the season where Inter sent Milan to Serie B; he played 4 games in the UEFA Cup, and 4 games in the Italian Cup, the sole trophy that he managed to win in his career. At the end of the season he moved back to Bologna, where he played for 2 more years before retiring and opening his own Hotel back in picturesque Tyrol.
Before he trialed at and then played senior football for Verona, Bachlechner was just a small kid playing football in the local team of his small village. But this wasn't any small village club. Südtiroler Sportverein Bruneck was formed in 1945, in the aftermath of WWII, but they can directly trace their history all the way to 1862, the year Turnverein Bruneck, then a gymnastics club in the style of TSV 1860 München. Bruneck itself is a small town of just under 20000 people, the main urban center of an alpine valley with around 90000 people, but they can boast having the oldest team in Tyrol and one of the oldest in Italy. At their highest point, decades ago, the team played the equivalent to what is now Serie D, but are now languishing all the way down in the Promozione (or as the german speakers call it, the Landesliga), the 6th level of Italian football and the first level with only teams from Südtirol. This is where you'll find this game starting.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 4, 2019 16:08:15 GMT
So I've finished the database I need to play this game. I have Italy down to the 6th level, and once I become professional and I am capable of attract foreign players I also have the Austrian leagues all the way down. All Südtirolean cities have the correct languages set and are marked so it's easy to filter the player and staff search. I have also added the whole squad of SSV Bruneck, with CA and PAs of 30 to 50 (yeah, that's the level of quality at this level). This means that we will have a complete squad while some teams at this level will be filled with regens, but it'll actually make the game a bit harder for me - I tried this save in FM19 without this and I ended up poaching a whole team by signing the best players of all teams around me - this won't need to happen this year. Still, I predict this first year to be very easy.
Now to how I will play this game: SSV Bruneck will work almost like Athletic Bilbao does - the idea is to only sign players with a connection to Tyrol. My idea is to work at this level of importance:
1. South Tirolean German or Ladin speaking players; 2. Austrian Tirolean players; 3. South Tirolean Italian speaking players
And in case of dire necessity or very rare surgical marquee signings
4. Players already playing and established in clubs from Tirol, having played in the area for several years 5. Players from elsewhere but connected to the Alps and/or preferably German speaking - Swiss, Austrian, Bavarian...
Until we're semi-pro we're going to focus solely on 1 and 3, and 2 will only come once we're professional. Next time, I'll show the club's (lack of) infrastructure, what competitions we're in and how they work and the team.
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Post by shrewnaldo on Dec 5, 2019 23:17:55 GMT
God I love the save games on this forum. Some cracking writing.
Am I remembering incorrectly or did you have a club and country with Sudtirol back on FM12 or 13? Using the editor to make the Sudtirol a separate nation replacing someone shit like Malta?
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Post by Reiver on Dec 6, 2019 15:57:24 GMT
God I love the save games on this forum. Some cracking writing. Am I remembering incorrectly or did you have a club and country with Sudtirol back on FM12 or 13? Using the editor to make the Sudtirol a separate nation replacing someone shit like Malta? I did, though i don't remember which FM it was. A long time ago. I don't even remember how that ended up anymore.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 6, 2019 19:43:37 GMT
I'm going to assume people reading this, in a Football Manager forum, know how the professional Italian leagues so I won't go into detail. 3 professional leagues with promotion, relegation and playoffs, where the bottom one, Serie C is divided into 3 groups. There's only one South Tyrolean team at this level, Südtirol, a perennial contender to achieve promotion to Serie B.
Below this you find Serie D. 9 groups (each group encompassing roughly 3 Italian regions), with mostly semi-pro teams. Top team in each group wins promotion and qualifies to a cup to crown the overall Serie D winner. Second to Fifth qualify to a promotion playoff played nationwide. Bottom two teams of each group get relegated, and the top above play a relegation playoff. There's currently only one South Tirolean team playing at this level, Virtus Bolzano, while from neighbouring Trentino there's US Dro.
Further down, you find the Eccellenza (or as the germans call it, the Oberliga). This is the top amateur level, and there's at least one Eccellenza per Italian region - this means that there's a division comprised of teams from South Tyrol and Trentino. Once again, top team gets promoted, second team goes to a nationwide playoff. Bottom two teams get relegated and the four above play a relegation playoff.
One more step, and now only 3 steps above the lowest Italian level of them all, there's the Promozione (or Landesliga) divisions. At this level, there's one Promozione for Trentino and one only with South Tyrolean teams - this is where you'll find SSV Bruneck. 16 teams, top team gets promoted, the four below play each other in a promotion playoff. 2 teams go down, the four above play a relegation playoff.
There's also a plethora of cups. The Coppa Italia is the main one, with teams from Serie A, Be and C, plus 9 teams from Serie D participating. Teams from Serie C have their own cup, the Coppa Italia Serie C;and teams from Serie D too, the Coppa Italia Serie D. Teams that win these cups automatically qualify to the prmotion playoffs of their leagues. Teams from Eccelenza and Promozione also have their own cup, in fact, one cup per region: the winner of each cup then plays a national cup, the Coppa Italia Dilettanti, and the winner of this cup gets promoted to Serie D (this is not reflected in FM, as it is not possible to have a team from the 6th tier potentially getting promoted to the 4th).
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Post by Reiver on Dec 6, 2019 21:27:09 GMT
Now that I've explained the setup we'll be playing at, let's talk about the club. SSV Bruneck are obviously amateur, and they'll most likely stay this way until getting to the Serie D. We play at the Sportpark Reiperting, a 1000 people stadium on the outskirts of Bruneck. Our facilities are, also as expected, poor and basic all around. This is how the league we're at looks like, together with how the pundits think we'll fare:
We're predicted to finish first, and this is also what the board expect. We certainly have the team for it, and the team finished third last season, so this is also what we're aiming for. To get there, after looking at what players I had at my disposal. I like to have at least 2 decent options for each of the 11 positions on the field, and after thinking on what system would work best at this level, with the players I have and with me having to hire the least amount of players to complete the squad, I ended up going for a 4-5-1 Gegenpress that looks something like this, very out of the box:
It might look very basic, but the idea behind it solid. At this level of play, there's bound to be player errors. As we have one of the best squads in the league, we want to force the opposition into making those errors, and making them as close to their goal as possible. When attacking, we also overrun their defenses, usually ending up with 3 players inside their box and 4 more surrounding it. Even if we lose the ball then, we have three further at the back to cover any immediate long balls and again, instant pressure on their players. Early results are very promising: This is how we fared in our friendlies. The results against Aarau, a team from the Swiss second division was more than expected, but we gave them a run for our money and the game was a lot more contended than expected, we managed to have 6 shots against their 12. Then the team went above and beyond winning against St. Georgen, currently the biggest team from Bruneck, currently one division above us and relegated into it this year. On paper, their team is quite better than ours - and I know that teams don't play exactly the same during friendlies, but it showed me we were on the right path. St. Martin is another team from the division above us, but they are predicted to go down, not back up, and this showed that we have the team to play at that level already. The rest of the games were against teams from our division, or teams at our level in Trentino. A big shoutout already for Lukas Hochwieser, our first choice striker who is showing that he can score for fun. A better look at the players, both the ones already at the club, and the signings will come in the next post. This also gives you an idea of the footballing level I'm at.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 8, 2019 21:32:15 GMT
There's one thing I forgot to mention before. The Italian amateur leagues are very biased towards youngsters. And I mean very because their match squad rules are at least 4 Under-20s, of which at least 3 Under-19 and 1 Under-18 in the playing eleven. This adds a level of complexity to the squad. To this squad:
From the squad I started with I lost one player, David Zimmerhofer (DR) - probably our best player too, that had experience playing at Serie D and the Austrian second division, and only 24. He went to another amateur team, so it's likely that as we go up the leagues he'll end up coming back this way. In came a few players to make sure i had a complete squad: Tscholl and Gabrieli come on loan from Südtirol - they're just 17 so they help me with the squad rules, they have abgs of potential so it's only good if they build a relation with my team, and Ill probably be relying on Südtirol for players for some years, so builind a good relation with the team is good too. Jan Pichler and Philipp Rabensteiner came from a team one division above us; Davide Ioris from a team in our league, Vasile Mauro came as a free agent after having played for the last 4 years for a team in our division and the star signing, Amdewerk Tappeiner, a product of Südtirol's youth teams, is a Ethiopian/South Tirolean player that IRL was called up for Italy's U-15s at least once.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 14, 2019 20:59:36 GMT
The season couldn't have started any better. In the first round of the Coppa Italia Eccellenza Trentino/Alto Adige, also known as Forst Cup, sponsored by a local brewery, we played against another Promozione team, one from the Trentino side, and we thumped them 6-0, followed by a 4-1 win in the second round against Schenna that play in our group. To top an amazing beginning to the season, we piled on the attack again for the first league game with a 7-1 win. The following results weren't as expressive, but we are currently sitting comfortably at the top, together with Naturns, which seems to be the main opposition we'll have for the title - tied at the top, and the only team that was able to get points against us. We ended up going out of the cup in the quarter finals, in the first time we had to face opposition from a division higher than ours - still, we reached the goal the board wanted for us, so it was still a mission accomplished moment.
All in all, if we manage to keep this team together come the winter market, we're set to go up!
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Post by chaodck on Dec 17, 2019 15:32:32 GMT
Interesting save Reiver, in my current save in FM19 I started off with a 5th tier team in Germany (the prize money helped a ton when I got to the 3rd tier), so I'm feeling your pain of losing key players on non contract deals and the like. I reckon you said you did this in FM19 as well, how far did you go? Keep it up mate, looking forward to more of this.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 17, 2019 16:52:01 GMT
Interesting save Reiver, in my current save in FM19 I started off with a 5th tier team in Germany (the prize money helped a ton when I got to the 3rd tier), so I'm feeling your pain of losing key players on non contract deals and the like. I reckon you said you did this in FM19 as well, how far did you go? Keep it up mate, looking forward to more of this. I did it with a 5th tier team in FM19. I very easily went from Eccellenza to Serie D and became semi-pro in the first season; then in Serie D I turned semi-pro. I expected to finish midtable but surprisingly got promoted again in the very last game. In Serie C I was managing to be in the group of teams fighting to be above the relegation playoffs while still having half the same starting team as in Serie D and 3 players from Eccellenza. Then I bought FM20. I don't expect the same to happen this time - I mean, I expect that going to Serie D won't be very hard, the top teams of Promozione and of Eccellenza are pretty much on the same level, but once I get to Serie D and become semi-pro we'll manage to keep our players but we'll also meet a higher standard of players. I think I'll stay at Serie D for a few years before going pro.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 25, 2019 16:32:02 GMT
It is now the end of January, and the Bruneck train is still going at full speed through the Südtirolean lower leagues. We had a small hiccup against Weinstrasse Süd (which together with Naturns and us have clearly the best squad of the league - we'd be the 3 teams I believe would have no problem holding our own in the division above us), but other than that it's been smooth sailing - Tappeiner coming from the left and Hochwieser in the center have banging goals after goals, managing to have the first and second spot in the top goalscorer ranking of the league!
January also saw the opening of the transfer season, and we lost a few players.
While I'm a bit annoyed to have lost 3 players all on the same area of midfield, they didn't all hit the same way. Hitthaler and Agstner went to other amateur teams just one level above us, which is both annoying as we're fighting to get to that level, but also makes it easier to eventually get them back if needed. Pichler on the other hand signed for the under 20s of a Serie C team, meaning he turned pro - signed a 2 year contract and it's making 1,2k per month. Not bad for a 19 year old previously playing 3 levels lower. He's been a used sub in a game already. Two players came in for the 3 that went out. While the MC positions (Agstner and Pichler) already have decent replacements within the team, the DMC one (Hitthaler) got a bit thin in options, so in came Roland Harrasser (link) from St. Georgen, another team from Bruneck playing one level above us,. He also brings some experience to a very young squad. The other signing, DC Anto Babic (link) was a gamble I took, and is the first Austrian player to join us. At the start of the game, I made a shortlist of the Tirolean players with the highest reputation, potential and/or had played at higher levels - the idea being that these would be the players that a local that paid attention to local sports would have heard of. it was a way to keep tabs on the best players, from Schöpf at Schalke 04 to Simon Straudi at Werder Bremen B, plus most pro players from the area. i was looking in the list and Babic was there without a club. I thought I'd throw him a contract as a cheeky way to see if there was any interest. There was. And know the Kirchdorf in Tirol born Austrian/Croatian player that has previously been at NK Varazdin in the Croatian top division, NK Zelina at croatian second division and at NK Drava in the Slovenian second division is now playing for us. In other (not so good) news, I got word of our youth intake. I forgot to screenshot, but it mostly said that no player coming through seems to have any potential, even to make it at our level.
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Post by Reiver on Dec 25, 2019 16:36:44 GMT
Found it. In all its glory.
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Post by Reiver on Jan 3, 2020 18:17:10 GMT
So it wasn't as bad as I thought it could be - though I doubt any of the players, even the ones with +2,5* potential will realistically see footballing time with us. Even Brandler comes with absolutely the wrong profile to play with us - his stats suggest he should be used as an Inverted Winger from ML, when we use Inside Forwards from AML, he's temperamental, and has horrible Work Rate. Plus, even if he does develop nicely, by the time he's good enough to play in the 6th tier, my long term plans are to be playing at the 4th level.
Now to the real beginning of our scouting journey, as I get my scouts to look after all regens generated at Südtirolean teams to start building a database of players for the future.
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Post by Reiver on Jan 8, 2020 12:22:08 GMT
First promotion: check! It was a two horse race all the way to the end, with Naturns and ourselves ending around 20 points ahead of everyone. The seven point lead we got on Naturns doesn't really show how close the league was up to the end. We only clinched the title at the end of round 29, and then Naturns lost the last game against Latsch who needed those points the clinch the playoff position - which did them no good in the end as Naturns showed in the playoffs they were also miles ahead of all the other teams at this level. We actually only managed to get one point against them this season, drawing 1-1 at home and losing 1-2 away against them. The difference was that we were a lot more clinical against smaller teams and just did not lose points anywhere. We ended up blitzing most league records, at least as far as they are present on FM: most goals (previous record was 89) and least amount of draws (previous record was 3). We equalised most wins in the league, and was just one point away from equaling most points.
Demetz · Tappeiner · Hochwieser The whole team played off the charts, but it's these three I want to focus on the most. First we have Alex Demetz(<-link), who grabbed 7 assists and 1 Man of the Match award from right-back, all while keeping 77% pass-rate and 3 tackles per game. His average rating of 7,48 is massive for a full-back, and shows just how important he was to our team. I'd like to give a quick honourable mention at this point to Daniel Castlunger, who played on the other side, and despite technically being the weakest spot in our usual first team (which he usually was in because of the league's need to have at least one under-18 in the eleven) he still managed to get an average rating of 7,34 - he just wasn't as good in all aspects of the game. He actually performed better offensively than Demetz, but not nearly a good defensively. i actually feel bad for the lad, if i manage to get the players I am looking into for next season, he won't play nearly as much as this year. Next you have Ethiopian/South-Tyrolean Amdewerk Tappeiner(<-link). He was nothing short of amazing playing as an Inside Forward from left-wing. Despite being injured for a month during the season with a broken toe, he still managed to score 19 goals in 27 games and also had 7 assists, ending up as Man of the Match 5 times. This guy really is too good for the level he's playing. My coaches all think he's at leading Eccellenza level (the division above us) with potential to be a Serie D or Serie C player. There's Serie D teams interested in him, and I have no doubts that he'll leave for a bigger team in the summer. i already found a replacement, but unfortunately is a short-term one, and I'll be looking for another left winger for the future throughout the next season. And my biggest shoutout this season has to be to Mr. Goal himself, Lukas Hochwieser(<-link). This guy scored goals for fun, and made it look easy against pretty much every single team this season. 30 goals in 28 appearances in the league, 33 goals in 34 games throughout all the season, plus 4 assists and 9 Man of the Match, partnered with 83% of pass accuracy is amazing for a striker. Even better, unlike Tappeiner, there hasn't been interest from upper levels yet, so I'll be able to keep him in the squad for next year. --- Now, speaking of next year. The new board wants Top Half next season. I think it's doable - the two hardest teams in the league went up last season (Trento and fellow team from Bruneck St.Georgen), and no relegated teams came down to our group, and most of the remaining teams seem to be level or only slightly better than the teams from the top half of our current league. The big challenge will come in Serie D, and I think that with the right players coming in and if we don't bleed out too many players to bigger teams we have a chance at going up again. I mentioned new board there. We got a consortium takeover right after the league ended and for a while there were talks that the new president wanted to sack me and hire another manager. Luckily it did not happen! Elsewhere in the world: Juventus won Serie A, with Ronaldo having just a good season as when he was in his twenties; Liverpool won the Premiership and lost the Champions League against Barcelona;Man Utd won the Europa League against Sporting CP; Barcelona also won la Liga; huge surprise in France with Lyon stealing the league from PSG, also surprise in once big team Bordeaux getting relegated; in contrast, no surprises in Germany where Bayern got one more title. and the biggest surprise of the year: England won the Euros beating france 3-0 in the final.
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Post by Reiver on Jan 8, 2020 15:59:26 GMT
So we ended up moving more in the market than I expected! Let's go in order: Ghersini, Chiarello, Caruso and Kicaj were all signings finished last season and the players have already been on trial with the team to gel through the last few months. All 4 were Virtus Bolzano players that were let go on a free, so they were playing at a higher level. The first three are on the younger side (they're all under-19s), and they're all decent at this level so they'll help me with the match squad rules too. Ghersini as a left winger has a bit less chances to break to the main team just yet so he might stay in the under-20s for now, but the rest will see playing time. Kicaj is one of the reasons I said Castlunger will probably see less playing time. Ghersini (MC) | Chiarello (AMR) | Caruso (DM) | Kicaj (DRL) I knew Tappeiner was being circled by several Serie D teams, and eventually left for Sondrio. I managed to get a short term replacement even before Tappeiner had left in De Gasperi. De Gasperi is one of the best South Tyrolean players ever, having played 5 seasons in Serie B for Cittadella, and 9 more at Serie C with Cittadella, Taranto and Bassano. He even has 5 Italian under-20 caps. And if you're wandering why I am calling him a short term solution: he is almost as good as, if not better than Tappeiner. He is also 38, so he'll probably only play one or two more seasons before retiring. So the search for a young good left-winger continues. De GasperiNext are the Südtirol loans. i want to build good relations, both with the team, because they are the team that will produce the best Südtirol youngsters and I'll probably be using their loans for years to come, and also with the players themselves, so that further down the line they're more willing to permanently join us. As an example, last year loanee Gabrieli (AMR) so his loan be extended for one more year and his personal relationship with me is already "Very Close" and I'm in his favoured personnel. Should Südtirol ever release him because he won't make the cut for them (and it's not likely that he will), this makes it a lot more likely for him to come play for us. So whenever I see youngsters on their side good enough to play for us, I will pounce on them. This year we have 3 more coming our way: Heinz (DM/MC) | Bässler (DC) | Brunialti (DL) Falkensteiner (DCL) and Rainer (AMR/ST) leaving did not affect me much, they were squad players that would likely see less playing time this season based on the new players that entered, but I got very annoyed at Babic, going back to Slovenia, to play for a semi-pro second tier team. I mean, all the better for him, but considering he only played games in the club from February to May, played 8 games, then left back to the country he was at before he came to us, i feel a bit like we were just used for him to get back on his footballing feet. With him and Falkensteiner leaving we did get a big hole in our defense. That's where Höller comes in. A veteran of these leagues, he should bring some experience together with De Gasperi to this otherwise very young team. Höller (DC) This brings us to our last signing. I wasn't looking for a goalkeeper, and i certainly wasn't looking to spend any money - we're amateurs! But then our scouts came back with Schneider. Just 18, bags of potential, local, with amazing handling skills, and more importantly willing to come. At St. Georgen last season he only played 2 games and we offered him a chance to play more. i don't care that my current goalkeeper, who is just as good, is 30 so is at its peak, is our most influential player and our captain - this season he'll be sharing goalkeeping duties 50-50 with the new kid. He came for 950€ + 50% of a next sale, if we manage to keep him to the point we're no longer amateurs. Schneider (GK) If friendlies are anything to go by, we have a decent team for this level.
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Post by Reiver on Jan 9, 2020 11:19:48 GMT
It is now the beginning of December 2020. Let's start with the negatives. The board wanted us the reach the semi-finals of the local Trentino-Südtirol Cup. We clearly did not correspond there, losing 2 ties before the one we were given as a goal. The game against ViPo Trento was one we dominated, but also one where we played terribly - I mean, 17 shots on goal without a single clear cut chance? And then the old axiom went into play, if you can't score you run a high risk of losing, which happened in the end. This was a shame, not only because we fell way short of the board request, because as I expected we are fighting for promotion again, meaning we might just never have a chance to win this silverware, and the nationwide cup it would qualify us for. It also meant that my first plan of rotating the goalkeepers in the competitions is also shot.
Now, for happier news - as mentioned before we're fighting for promotion in the Eccellenza (5th tier). The pundits predict us to finish 4th and we're trying to show them we can do a bit better than that. I mean pundits are sometimes very wrong, they're predicting that Naturns will finish in 15th and look at them in front of us! Speaking of Naturns, they're turning into our bogey team. We just can't win against them. Hochwieser is still our main scorer, though now that we're facing better defenses he's not as prolific as before, going from 1 goal a game to a goal every other game Still makes him best scorer in the league. De Gasperi is also showing that despite his age he can help this team, bagging already 8 assists. I am having some issues with my midfielders under-performing at the moment, and it's what's mostly bringing the team down. I'm going for the "let's talk to the players" approach first to see if it makes them go back to their usual self, but I'm already thinking on how I could change our tactical approach.
At the moment I feel like any of the teams in the top 6 has the team and can easily end up getting promoted directly or through the second placed teams playoff. I am hoping one of those teams is mine.
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Post by Reiver on Jan 9, 2020 13:53:20 GMT
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Post by Reiver on Jan 9, 2020 14:23:32 GMT
Kiem | Schlegel
After such a busy summer transfer period, my original plan was not to hire any players in the winter period unless the team's situation was a lot worse than expected, I needed to replace any leaving players or a special opportunity came up that i could not say no to. Well, I manage to pull through the whole window without any player leaving, so the whole season was a calm one at Sportpark Reiperting.
Despite not losing any players, Kiem was hired as a replacement... just not a player replacement. My coach Armin Runng left to become Partschins manager one level below us. This meant I needed a new coach (of which I am also only hiring Tirolean staff). Enter Hannes. Hannes played for Südtirol from 2002 to 2015, being their captain for 11 of those years. Now at 35, this central defender is still good enough to be a squad rotation option at my team and signed a player/coach contract so he's also covering for Runng's departure.
Schlegel on the other hand was the opportunity I couldn't let go of. This young striker came from the youth team of Brixen last year. He was then poached by another Eccellenza team. I've been trying to hire him since May of last year and he never seemed interested until the very last days of the transfer season. As soon as i noticed I had to pounce. He's already as good as Hochwieser and more suited to being a pressing forward. He also seems to have alot of promise - I know my facilities are not currently the best by a longshot, but with a good exposure to football, I think I have my first player that has the potential to stay with us even when we become professional.
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Post by fmramble on Jan 12, 2020 17:06:42 GMT
This is great, Reiver! It's like a mini-history lesson come South Tyrol documentary and I love it! You've also had great success on the pitch so far so I can see this being a great rags-to-riches story too. You have got a long climb up the Italian ladder but you've started really well.
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Post by Reiver on Jan 13, 2020 10:10:51 GMT
This is great, Reiver! It's like a mini-history lesson come South Tyrol documentary and I love it! You've also had great success on the pitch so far so I can see this being a great rags-to-riches story too. You have got a long climb up the Italian ladder but you've started really well. Thanks! Previous experience tells me that while you're on the amateur leagues things are easy as most teams are at a similar level - it's when you try to mingle in the professional leagues that things start getting hard. i will hit an extra step there as there probably won't be that many decent players to stay at the top while using only tiroleans and i will start to develop them myself.
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Post by Reiver on Jan 13, 2020 10:26:58 GMT
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Post by Reiver on Jan 13, 2020 10:31:02 GMT
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Post by Reiver on Jan 14, 2020 9:38:16 GMT
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Post by Reiver on Jan 31, 2020 19:43:42 GMT
I'm back to the drawing board for a game - I was hit by a contract bug in this game.
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Post by Reiver on Feb 9, 2020 22:06:54 GMT
I'll hav something to post here - a very long one too, but rumours of this save's demise were greatly exaggerated.
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Post by Reiver on Mar 12, 2020 9:20:40 GMT
2021/22 Season Strap yourselves in, this will be one long-ass update. First of all, let's recap the 2020/21 season. As you can see above, one game before the end of the season, we were 2 points behind bogey team SSV Naturns and tied with FC Mezzocorona, in a promotion play off position. It sounded like a very exciting end of season that ended up not being so exciting, if still a very positive one. On the last round of the season, all teams at the top won, and nothing changed. This meant automatic promotion for Naturns and promotion playoffs for us. Now that sounds very exciting! Well, not when they were two of the most boring games we ever played. Still can't complain, we're going up! This means Serie D, this means one step from the big leagues, this means turning semi-pro, and football beyond Südtirol/Trentino area!
Serie D
Traditionally, teams from Südtirol and Trentino end up in Group B or (more often) C of Serie D, depending on the pool of teams that make up Serie D. This time it's no different, and we're going to play Girone C, along with the other teams from the Italian Northwest, mostly from Veneto, but also from Friuli-Venezia Giulia; from Südtirol and Trentino we have the company of AC Trento and neighbours ASC St. Georgen. SSV Naturns, as they are from the Western end of Südtirol ended up in Girone B together with teams from the North Center of Italy. That means no bogey team this year! To give you an idea of how far we've come, last year we were playing against teams in the area inside the internal borders that include the afforementioned teams, and two yearsw ago, against teams from Bolzano (Bozen) and above! This is not to say that we don't have some big(ger) names here: AC Mestre, from the mainland part of Venezia. has just been relegated from Serie C, and the likes of FC Bassano and AC Belluno have also played at professional level recently. At this level, we're a small fish in a bigger pond: we're 17th out of 18 teams when it comes to sponsorship money, with €35.5k per year, compared to €700k of Bassano or €500k of Mestre; and even after completely rebuilding the team, we were still predicted to finish in 14th, with the lowest wages - this in part because of the bug that hit me. You see, we turned semi-pro, but the board only allowed me to offer rolling contracts to my players. No wages, just bonuses. I thought about scraping the game altogether, but after realising I still managed to build a team that I thought would be good enough to finish in the top half of the league i decided to just play it through... then it became so much fun that I ended up playing the whole season and forgetting to update the game in the meantime. Coppa Italia Serie DIn our previous seasons, we always sizzled out of the cups very early and disappointingly, and this was the more disheartening as we were always expected to do decently in them. This was the first year we were not expected to accomplish anything in the league, so we obviously went out of our way to show people how wrong they were: The best way to start the season is beating your crosstown rivals? I literally mean crosstown: the two stadiums are at different ends of Bruneck, three and a half kilometres away from eachother. We kept surprising teams, including Lecco, a team with seasons at Serie C in the recent past, and ended up losing in the quarters against a name most of you will recognise. Rimini, fifteen years ago a Serie B side, now down in their luck defeated us on their way to the cup final, where they'd lose against Matellica. Considering our expectation was to "not to embarass ourselves", I think we can call this a job well done. Serie D Girone CA picture to tell a thousand words. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect something like this. We grabbed that first spot from the very first round and never let go of it - there was no dip of form, no injury crisis that could stop us. Four games from the end of the season, the gap between us and Mestre was 11 points long. We were nothing short of amazing, with one specific player deserving most of the praise - more on that just ahead. The TeamAs this season I went haywire and hire pretty much a whole new squad, I thought it would be nice to show you the whole team. We ended last season with Pietersteiner demanding more football time after I started rotating him and Schneider to give the youngster much needed playing time for him to develop. He was at the time the captain and most influential player in the team, but I took some drastic measures and decided to just boot him out before he started affecting morale and just go with Schneider as the first choice keeper. As our new bench warming keeper, we hired Alessio Piz from Bozner FC. The latter ended up playing 3 games throughout the season due to injuries, as Schneider always showed safety in the net. (All names on these lists are links.) Maik Schneider, 20 years old, born in Bruneck (Südtirol, Italy), 2nd year at the club, previously at ASC St. Georgen. Alessio Piz, 23 years old, born in Bozen (Südtirol, Italy), 1st year at the club, previously at Bozner FC.
In the first half of the season, the spot belonged to Demetz, and it's not like he was doing a bad job, but in the winter market we managed to snag the highest profile player ever to play for us (even though the name will mean nothing to almost anyone). Alexander Ranacher, wing-back/winger, previously at Austria Lustenau in the Austrian Second Division, joins and is immediately adapted to play as a very attacking full-back, with the gamble paying off very well - Demetz had 1 goal and 2 assists during the 20(6) games he played while Ranacher managed 2 goals and 6 assists in 14(7). Throughout the season, the other right-back option we had was youngster Michael Aleth that we hired from St. Georgen. The spot was also taken at times by some of the players that were hired to play in the center of defense when subbing players during the games asked for it. Alex Demetz, 24 years old, born in Sterzing (Südtirol, Italy), 4th season at the club, previously at ASC St. Georgen. Alexander Ranacher, 23 years old, born in Lienz (Osttirol, Austria), 1st season at the club, previously at SC Austria Lustenau. Michael Aleth, 20 years old, born in Bruneck (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season at the club, previously at ASC St. Georgen.If at right back we had more than one option, we didn't have the same luxury for left back. Brunialti came back on loan for one more season and whenever he wasn't available or I needed to rotate one of our centre backs with the ability to go to the wing would take over. Brunialti ended up bagging 3 goals and 5 assists from 37 games. Luca Brunialti, 20 years old, born in Bozen (Südtirol, Italy), 2nd season at the club, on loan from FC Südtirol.
Considering that they also provided cover for the left back position when needed, I can say that having 5 CB options in the squad was not exaggerated. The first name in the squad was newcomer Thomas Fenninger who came from a team two divisions below us, and ended the season with an average rating above 7 having played 37 games. The other spots were shared between Untertrifaller, loanee Bässler, Plattner and Niederkofler. Thomas Fenninger, 24 years old, born in Klausen (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season at the club, previously at SG Latzfons/Verdings. Alex Untertrifaller, 20 years old, born in Bozen (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season at the club, previously at ISM Gradisca.Harald Bässler, 19 years old, born in Meran (Südtirol, Italy), 2nd season at the club, on loan from FC Südtirol.Marian Plattner, 22 years old, born in Brixen (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season at the club, previously at Bozner FC. Alex Niederkofler, 22 years old, born in Bruneck (Südtirol, Italy), 7th season at the club.
Our playmaker, sitting deep, always with options for a short pass to vthe back or the front and also capable of through balls to the striker and wingers. Jonas Heinz, back again on loan from Südtirol (see a trend here?), is the boss and owner of this spot. Another of our players that managed to finish the season with an average rating over 7, he started for the team 30 times this season. Whenever he did not start, the place was occupied by Christian Felder.Jonas Heinz, 18 years old, born in Bozen (Südtirol, Italy), 2nd season at the club, on loan from FC Südtirol. Christian Felder, 25 years old, born in Innichen (Südtirol, Italy), 4th season at the club, previously at ASC St. Georgen.
We play with a Box-to-Box Midfielder and a Carrilero on the side where we're more attacking on the flanks. In midfield we currently have 5 options for these spots. The usual duo would be the first two foreign players we ever hired. Stefan Skrbo was amazing as a Carrilero and kept the spot for pretty much the whole season, and his long shots made the difference more than once - what can oyu say of a midfielder that scores 8 goals in a season while not playing in an attacking position? The usual suspect at his side would be Jan Schranz. While not as prolific in scoring goals, Schranz took the job of providing assists, bagging 6 in the season. They played so well that the 3 following players managed to start only 5 games between themselves, and will probably not last much longer in the team - the exception would be Michael Cia. The veteran player is one of the best sudtirolean players ever, and had a season plagued with injuries. He's still a very versatile player to have in the bench and he doubles as our Head of Youth Development, so even if he does not play, he'll probably not go anywhere. Stefan Skrbo, 21 years old, born in Wattens (Nordtirol, Austria), 1st season at the club, previously at SC Imst.Jan Schranz, 23 years old, born in Imst (Nordtirol, Austria), 1st season at the club, previously at SC Imst.Vasile Mauro, 24 years old, born in Kurtatsch An Der Weinstrasse (Südtirol, Italy), 3rd season at the club, previously at SSV Weinstrasse Süd.Philipp Rabensteiner, 22 years old, born in Brixen (Südtirol, Italy), 3rd season in the club, previously at ASV Tramin.Michael Cia, 33 years old, born in Bozen (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season in the club, previously at ASC St. Georgen.
If there's ever been any season I've had on any game of Football Manager where I can say that the whole reason of our success was a single player, this is it. Uwe Adelwart, on loan from Südtirol was the Messi of Serie D Girone C. And I'm not exagerating. He bagged every single record he could: best goalscorer (27 goals), most assists (20 assists), highest average rating (7,61), most times Player of the Match (10). He blocked any chance his second choice would have to play a single game. The bad news is that Südtirol has no intention to renew his loan as they plan (not suprisingly) to make him part of their first team. Uwe Adelwart, 18 years old, born in Schlanders (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season at the club, on loan from FC Südtirol. Moritz Tscholl, born in Meran (Südtirol, Italy), 2nd season at the club, previously at FC Südtirol.
The statistics for the right wing would look good when looked on their own but obviously pale in comparison with super-Uwe on the other side. First choice Niccolò Gabrieli bagged 5 goals and 5 assists, and second choice Philipp Schwingshackl 5 goals and 3 assists from around half the game as Niccolò. Niccolò Gabrieli, 20 years old, born in Bozen (Südtirol, Italy), 3rd season at the club, previously at FC Südtirol.Philipp Schwingshackl, 26 years old, born in Innichen (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season at the club, previously at ASC St. Georgen.We started the season with Sebastian Schlegel as our first choice striker only to have him snatched from me on the last day of the transfer season. At least he's going to brighter pastures, now playing for Vicenza. This meant that for the first half of the season we played with Julian Kofler in front, and he did a decent job, scoring 11 goals for us in 22 games. In the winter season I managed to sign a player with stats more fitted to what I wanted a striker to do - Andreas Huber, more versatile as he can also play in midfield, is not as good at actually finishing, though he is still good with his head, but more importantly, he's a lot better at pressing, and his mere presence often creates chances that our wingers would capitalise on. As third option, our man Hochwieser, the goal-man from our first season is still around, and i have a hard time letting go of him for sentimental reasons. He still played 4 games and was subbed in 9 more times and scored 3 goals this season. Julian Kofler, 24 years old, born in Meran (Südtirol, Italy), 1st season at the club, previously at ASC Passeier. Andreas Huber, 20 years old, born in Trento (Trentino, Italy), 1st season at the club, previously at AC Trento. Lukas Hochwieser, 29 years old, born in Mareo (Südtirol, Italy), 4th season at the club, previously at ASC St Georgen.The Future Unlike this season, I'm not planning on signing a whole new squad again - I don't think there's many aspects of this team where I can currently find players to improve. Most better players are at a level where they're not interested to come. i will try to hire surgically or for the future. The board gave me a ridiculously low budget for our professional team that I've already busted (and by around twice of what they gave me) just giving contracts to my existing players (and offering them all Italian minimum wage) - their budget was good enough to give contracts to around 10 players. Still, my calculations show that we should be making money and not losing it next season. it helps that the board decided that instead of expanding our stadium or building a new one, for the time being we'll just groundshare with Südtirol. That gives us a 4000 people stadium almost for free (better than the 1000 stadium we had), but it makes us have our home games 70 km and 1 hour away from Bruneck. That's what happens when we play in the mountains, as the other two closest decent stadiums are just as far away... and in Austria. Now, let's see in which Serie C group we get chucked in and let's try not to embarass ourselves.
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Post by chaodck on Mar 12, 2020 14:20:38 GMT
Great update Reiver, very much glad to see this save is still going. The Board has been a bit inactive in the last weeks, so some company here is welcomed. The "renewing the team" strategy seemed to have panned out perfectly, the youth and (hopefully) potential of them makes for a good future team in Serie C I think, here's hoping you manage to avoid the drop in the first season and try and improve the team via their natural evolution.
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Post by Reiver on Mar 13, 2020 20:41:36 GMT
Great update Reiver, very much glad to see this save is still going. The Board has been a bit inactive in the last weeks, so some company here is welcomed. The "renewing the team" strategy seemed to have panned out perfectly, the youth and (hopefully) potential of them makes for a good future team in Serie C I think, here's hoping you manage to avoid the drop in the first season and try and improve the team via their natural evolution. Thanks! I think it worked mostly because of Uwe which I no longer have, but I think I managed to get a decent enough replacement.
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