God, Bugs & Communists: A Kids Save with Argentinos Juniors
Dec 15, 2020 19:39:21 GMT
Dirk Nowitzki and jt like this
Post by chaodck on Dec 15, 2020 19:39:21 GMT
Argentinos Juniors 2020-21 Takeover & Season Report
Overview and Rules
Ever since the death of Diego Maradona, I've been reading a lot about him. "El Diego" produced a fascination in me ever since I saw him play at Napoli, via an old VHS my dad had taped of a highlights show from him. By far the best player I've ever seen play, despite mostly seeing him in archive as his prime was when I was too young to appreciate football, his ability to dribble through rivals made him a delight to watch, and we're talking about guys who really wanted to injure him (football was a far more violent sport in the 80's than now) like in the end Andoni Goikoetxea did in Barcelona. I've watched a ton of documentaries on him (my favourite and a must watch for football fans "Ho Visto Maradona") and decided to start my FM 2021 journey in the search for a new Diego, playing in "The World's Seeder" Argentinos Juniors, in a "You Don't Win Anything With Kids" style of save.
The title of the thread mentions God, as I'll be looking for a new Maradona, Bugs which is the common nickname of the club (El Bicho, The Bug or El Bicho Colorado, The Red Bug) and Communists as Argentinos Juniors is a club founded by communists in Argentina who chose the red colour due to their fervent political views. Still as of now, the club is considered a left-wing club, with most of their fans being from the middle-class to poor, and also densely populated neighborhood of La Paternal in Buenos Aires.
One of the world's most famous "cantera", nicknamed "El Semillero del Mundo" ("The World's Seedbed/Nursery"), the youth teams of Argentinos Juniors have produced arguably history's best player in Diego Maradona, but also several other top tier players, like Juan Román Riquelme, Esteban Cambiasso, Juan Pablo Sorín, Fernando Redondo, Lucas Biglia, Andrés D'Alessandro, Fabricio Coloccini, Claudio Borghi, Sergio Batista, Nicolás Pareja among others. Argentinos has been 3 times League Winners, in 1984, 1985 and Clausura 2010, with also a win on the Copa Libertadores in 1985. The club plays home matches at Estadio Diego Armando Maradona in La Paternal, Buenos Aires with a 26,000 capacity (8,700 seated) and possesses decent facilities with Good Training, Average Youth, Average Coaching and Average Recruitment.
The rules are simple. No transfers allowed. Either loans, free or full transfers are all forbidden. The only way to add new players is via de youth intake.
Squad Makeup
Like is usual in Argentina, there are a ton of players to start with. There were 4 loans in the senior squad and I couldn't reject anyone. One of the four had already arranged a transfer to be done in the midseason (and again, couldn't be cancelled), so I decided to treat him as a player already at the club, while two of the other loaned players were sparingly used and one was demoted to the Reserves.
There's a lot of fat to trim and I expect to not renew a lot of players during the seasons. My idea is to try and have a Senior Squad of 23 players, the top 23 players of the club, a Reserves side of 25-30 players with players aging 20-23 and including players away on loans, and a U-20 side of 20-25 players with players under 19 years old.
I have inherited a great squad, albeit a bit on the old side, but with 4-5 incredible young players to kickstart this into the future. Miguel Ángel Torrén is undoubtedly the best player of the team, with Elías Gómez and Lucas Chaves close behind. Meanwhile the younger side of things include talented Fausto Vera, Lautaro Ovando and Franco Ibarra. Also, the U-20 squad boasts 6 players with a 5-star PA rating.
League
Well, this will get complicated. Due to Covid-19 and Argentina still trying to undo the shitty decision they made a few years ago when they decided to have a 30-team first tier, the league had 24 teams to start the season. There will be two "leagues" played during the year, a normal 23-match league with the team getting most points being crowned the Champion, played from July to March dubbed "Liga Profesional", then a second league, in cup format, dubbed "Copa Superliga", where the 24 teams split into two 12-team groups, playing each other once, then top two teams from each group qualify for the Semifinals, played over two legs and then a Final match. Continental Qualification is decided via the Liga Profesional table, and the relegations are decided via an "Averages table" that divides all points from league competitions in the past 3 years over the games played, and the 3 lowest averages, get relegated. There's also an "Overall Table" that adds up the Liga Profesional and the group stage of the Copa Superliga into one 34-match table. But it doesn't do anything, it's just for looks.
In the Liga Profesional, we started off great, and by the end of August we were atop the league, after 3 wins and 2 draws. We improved even further in September and October, after winning all 6 games played on those months and allowing us to sit in 1st place with a 5 point cushion. Granted, our schedule had been super easy, as we only had faced Racing out of the "big clubs" of Argentinean football. November was a sketchy month and 3 straight draws made River leapfrog us in the table.
After the break we kept our good form and with 5 games left to go, this was the title picture:
But then, a strange draw against Arsenal early February, meant River had a 5 point advantage over us in the table, and we had to face them soon. We ended up losing 0-1, our first loss of the season, against River and they got crowned champions in our stadium. We also lost the last game of the Liga Profesional, 1-3 against Independiente. We finished on 2nd place, a fantastic finish for our first season, and secured the qualification for the Copa Libertadores 2022 (to be played in the second half of next season).
The Copa Superliga group phase, landed us in a somewhat easy group, avoiding Boca, River, Independiente, Estudiantes and San Lorenzo, only pitting us against Vélez and Racing from the big clubs. We dominated the group phase, despite playing alongside the Copa Libertadores, which had us playing some games with a "B" squad. We lost two games in the Group Phase and won all the rest, qualifying in 1st place to the Semifinal.
We played the semifinals against Newell's, beating them 3-2 in the first leg and 1-0 in the second leg, securing our place in the Final against Defensa y Justicia. Unfortunately, in the last game of the season, we played poorly and allowed the Cup to slip out of our hands, with a 0-1 loss that lost us the title.
We still had a fantastic year, and bossed all the aggregate tables. We finished comfortably 1st on the Overall Table that combined both the Liga Profesional and the Group Phase of the Copa Superliga and also, finished 1st on the averages table, that sees out the relegations.
Copa Argentina
When I resort back to two updates per season, this will be much more in order, as the Copa Argentina is played during the year-long calendar and not inside the July-May european style calendar. For the 2020 Copa Argentina, the AI had beaten Vélez on the Fifth Round, and I beat Instituto in the Sixth Round 4-0, before falling to Lanús on the Seventh Round.
For the 2021 Copa, I have already beaten Rosario Central in the Fifth Round 5-1. We'll play Agropecuario Argentino on the Sixth Round at the start of next season.
Copa Sudamericana
Again, as with the Copa Argentina, the Continental Cups are played during the calendar year, meaning we get to play the early phases of Copa Sudamericana at the end of one season, and the latter stages at the start of the next season. Not ideal, but we'll have to manage. I had the fortune of being still on Copa Sudamericana during the first season of the save, as the AI had beaten Atlético Nacional on the First Round and Goias on the Second Round. We had a very much easier way then, beating River Plate from Uruguay on the Third Round, with a solid 4-1 aggregate win, then Millonarios from Colombia on the Quarter-Final with a 6-1 aggregate win and Aucas from Ecuador on the Semifinal with a 3-2 aggregate win.
This set us up to face América de Cali from Colombia on the Final, and after a great Lautaro Ovando performance, we managed to win our first Continental Trophy right away, with a 2-1 win in the Final.
Copa Libertadores
Phew! What a year, right? Well this is the 2021 Copa Libertadores, to which we qualified as Copa Sudamericana Champions, not due to our 2nd place in the league (that qualified us for the 2022 Libertadores). We landed in the group phase, and drew a fairly straightforward group alongside Palmeiras, Universidad Católica (Ecuador) and Real Potosí. I expected us to qualify as 2nd placed easily overpowering the Ecuadoran and Bolivians, while trying to fight the Brazilians. In the end it was exactly like that, as we beat the Ecuadorans twice, drew against the Bolivians at the height of Potosí (4.000 meters over sea level), and beat them at home, and drew at home against Palmeiras and lost narrowly in Brazil. With 11 points and just 1 goal against I was super happy with our performance.
Unfortunately, the draw wasn't kind to us and we'll face Brazilians Flamengo on the Second Round, to kickstart our 2021-22 season.
Recopa Sudamericana
WAIT! There's still more!!! Due to winning Copa Sudamericana, we had to play against the Copa Libertadores winners in the Recopa Sudamericana. We faced São Paulo in a two-legged fixture and lost after losing at home 1-3 and a 2-2 draw in Brazil. We didn't play well at home, but improved a lot in Brazil, but it just wasn't to be.
Player Performances
It was a fantastic season to start with. I felt at times it was too easy, specially as a first season in a save. But the challenge here is to try and maintain this without bringing in anyone new. Our top performers came from the defence, with centre back Carlos Quintana being our best rated player, with 44 appearances, 3 goals, 2 assists and a 7.35 rating, followed by fullback Elías Gómez with 41 apps, 1 goal, 11 assists and a 7.25 rating and CB Miguel Ángel Torrén rounding up the top three with 45 apps, and a 7.25 rating.
After not being picked up for the senior squad, Lautaro Ovando shot up the rankings after injuries to the starter and backup forwards. He rose to stardom, earning himself a spot on our starting XI and a juicy new contract with a €60M release fee. Ovando played 38 games, scoring 31 goals and had 4 assists with a 7.07 rating, playing half of the season under 18 years old.
Youth Intake
We were promised a decent intake and in the end they delivered with a few interesting players.
Nahuel Raposo is clearly the top player of the bunch, with a bright future for him. It's quite re-assuring that our first good newgen is an AMC, as I'm searching for the new Maradona, but he's clearly not at that level haha. I'm quite happy with the first inakte though as clearly things will start to get better once we upgrade the facilities and staff.
Off the Pitch
- Some interesting developments during the season included an improvement to the Junior Coaching, and the Youth Recruitment. I expect to improve them again both next season and also the youth facilities.
- We are doing fine on the finances department. We managed to sell a few of the deadwood lying around on loans and on the reserves and that kept us afloat. We're still spending too much on wages and not bringing in nearly enough on ticket sales. I guess we'll rely both on player sales and on a minor scale on prize money (which isn't great in here). We currently have around €6M in the bank.
- This squad has some of the best names I've ever seen on a real life club. First, there's several references to Juan Román Riquelme. Senior squad striker Juan Román Pucheta and in the U-20's there's two players named Román, including one named Román Riquelme (not related). Last, but definitely not least, we have our own Kevin Mac Allister (though the spelling isn't perfect) in the team. Here's hoping he's never left Home Alone.
Sorry for the brick opening post. It was a hell of a season, with a TON of games in unending competitions. Here's hoping seasons are a bit shorter from now on due to us not playing in both continental competitions and also due to the future shortening of the league.
Ever since the death of Diego Maradona, I've been reading a lot about him. "El Diego" produced a fascination in me ever since I saw him play at Napoli, via an old VHS my dad had taped of a highlights show from him. By far the best player I've ever seen play, despite mostly seeing him in archive as his prime was when I was too young to appreciate football, his ability to dribble through rivals made him a delight to watch, and we're talking about guys who really wanted to injure him (football was a far more violent sport in the 80's than now) like in the end Andoni Goikoetxea did in Barcelona. I've watched a ton of documentaries on him (my favourite and a must watch for football fans "Ho Visto Maradona") and decided to start my FM 2021 journey in the search for a new Diego, playing in "The World's Seeder" Argentinos Juniors, in a "You Don't Win Anything With Kids" style of save.
The title of the thread mentions God, as I'll be looking for a new Maradona, Bugs which is the common nickname of the club (El Bicho, The Bug or El Bicho Colorado, The Red Bug) and Communists as Argentinos Juniors is a club founded by communists in Argentina who chose the red colour due to their fervent political views. Still as of now, the club is considered a left-wing club, with most of their fans being from the middle-class to poor, and also densely populated neighborhood of La Paternal in Buenos Aires.
One of the world's most famous "cantera", nicknamed "El Semillero del Mundo" ("The World's Seedbed/Nursery"), the youth teams of Argentinos Juniors have produced arguably history's best player in Diego Maradona, but also several other top tier players, like Juan Román Riquelme, Esteban Cambiasso, Juan Pablo Sorín, Fernando Redondo, Lucas Biglia, Andrés D'Alessandro, Fabricio Coloccini, Claudio Borghi, Sergio Batista, Nicolás Pareja among others. Argentinos has been 3 times League Winners, in 1984, 1985 and Clausura 2010, with also a win on the Copa Libertadores in 1985. The club plays home matches at Estadio Diego Armando Maradona in La Paternal, Buenos Aires with a 26,000 capacity (8,700 seated) and possesses decent facilities with Good Training, Average Youth, Average Coaching and Average Recruitment.
The rules are simple. No transfers allowed. Either loans, free or full transfers are all forbidden. The only way to add new players is via de youth intake.
Squad Makeup
Like is usual in Argentina, there are a ton of players to start with. There were 4 loans in the senior squad and I couldn't reject anyone. One of the four had already arranged a transfer to be done in the midseason (and again, couldn't be cancelled), so I decided to treat him as a player already at the club, while two of the other loaned players were sparingly used and one was demoted to the Reserves.
There's a lot of fat to trim and I expect to not renew a lot of players during the seasons. My idea is to try and have a Senior Squad of 23 players, the top 23 players of the club, a Reserves side of 25-30 players with players aging 20-23 and including players away on loans, and a U-20 side of 20-25 players with players under 19 years old.
I have inherited a great squad, albeit a bit on the old side, but with 4-5 incredible young players to kickstart this into the future. Miguel Ángel Torrén is undoubtedly the best player of the team, with Elías Gómez and Lucas Chaves close behind. Meanwhile the younger side of things include talented Fausto Vera, Lautaro Ovando and Franco Ibarra. Also, the U-20 squad boasts 6 players with a 5-star PA rating.
League
Well, this will get complicated. Due to Covid-19 and Argentina still trying to undo the shitty decision they made a few years ago when they decided to have a 30-team first tier, the league had 24 teams to start the season. There will be two "leagues" played during the year, a normal 23-match league with the team getting most points being crowned the Champion, played from July to March dubbed "Liga Profesional", then a second league, in cup format, dubbed "Copa Superliga", where the 24 teams split into two 12-team groups, playing each other once, then top two teams from each group qualify for the Semifinals, played over two legs and then a Final match. Continental Qualification is decided via the Liga Profesional table, and the relegations are decided via an "Averages table" that divides all points from league competitions in the past 3 years over the games played, and the 3 lowest averages, get relegated. There's also an "Overall Table" that adds up the Liga Profesional and the group stage of the Copa Superliga into one 34-match table. But it doesn't do anything, it's just for looks.
In the Liga Profesional, we started off great, and by the end of August we were atop the league, after 3 wins and 2 draws. We improved even further in September and October, after winning all 6 games played on those months and allowing us to sit in 1st place with a 5 point cushion. Granted, our schedule had been super easy, as we only had faced Racing out of the "big clubs" of Argentinean football. November was a sketchy month and 3 straight draws made River leapfrog us in the table.
After the break we kept our good form and with 5 games left to go, this was the title picture:
But then, a strange draw against Arsenal early February, meant River had a 5 point advantage over us in the table, and we had to face them soon. We ended up losing 0-1, our first loss of the season, against River and they got crowned champions in our stadium. We also lost the last game of the Liga Profesional, 1-3 against Independiente. We finished on 2nd place, a fantastic finish for our first season, and secured the qualification for the Copa Libertadores 2022 (to be played in the second half of next season).
The Copa Superliga group phase, landed us in a somewhat easy group, avoiding Boca, River, Independiente, Estudiantes and San Lorenzo, only pitting us against Vélez and Racing from the big clubs. We dominated the group phase, despite playing alongside the Copa Libertadores, which had us playing some games with a "B" squad. We lost two games in the Group Phase and won all the rest, qualifying in 1st place to the Semifinal.
We played the semifinals against Newell's, beating them 3-2 in the first leg and 1-0 in the second leg, securing our place in the Final against Defensa y Justicia. Unfortunately, in the last game of the season, we played poorly and allowed the Cup to slip out of our hands, with a 0-1 loss that lost us the title.
We still had a fantastic year, and bossed all the aggregate tables. We finished comfortably 1st on the Overall Table that combined both the Liga Profesional and the Group Phase of the Copa Superliga and also, finished 1st on the averages table, that sees out the relegations.
Copa Argentina
When I resort back to two updates per season, this will be much more in order, as the Copa Argentina is played during the year-long calendar and not inside the July-May european style calendar. For the 2020 Copa Argentina, the AI had beaten Vélez on the Fifth Round, and I beat Instituto in the Sixth Round 4-0, before falling to Lanús on the Seventh Round.
For the 2021 Copa, I have already beaten Rosario Central in the Fifth Round 5-1. We'll play Agropecuario Argentino on the Sixth Round at the start of next season.
Copa Sudamericana
Again, as with the Copa Argentina, the Continental Cups are played during the calendar year, meaning we get to play the early phases of Copa Sudamericana at the end of one season, and the latter stages at the start of the next season. Not ideal, but we'll have to manage. I had the fortune of being still on Copa Sudamericana during the first season of the save, as the AI had beaten Atlético Nacional on the First Round and Goias on the Second Round. We had a very much easier way then, beating River Plate from Uruguay on the Third Round, with a solid 4-1 aggregate win, then Millonarios from Colombia on the Quarter-Final with a 6-1 aggregate win and Aucas from Ecuador on the Semifinal with a 3-2 aggregate win.
This set us up to face América de Cali from Colombia on the Final, and after a great Lautaro Ovando performance, we managed to win our first Continental Trophy right away, with a 2-1 win in the Final.
Copa Libertadores
Phew! What a year, right? Well this is the 2021 Copa Libertadores, to which we qualified as Copa Sudamericana Champions, not due to our 2nd place in the league (that qualified us for the 2022 Libertadores). We landed in the group phase, and drew a fairly straightforward group alongside Palmeiras, Universidad Católica (Ecuador) and Real Potosí. I expected us to qualify as 2nd placed easily overpowering the Ecuadoran and Bolivians, while trying to fight the Brazilians. In the end it was exactly like that, as we beat the Ecuadorans twice, drew against the Bolivians at the height of Potosí (4.000 meters over sea level), and beat them at home, and drew at home against Palmeiras and lost narrowly in Brazil. With 11 points and just 1 goal against I was super happy with our performance.
Unfortunately, the draw wasn't kind to us and we'll face Brazilians Flamengo on the Second Round, to kickstart our 2021-22 season.
Recopa Sudamericana
WAIT! There's still more!!! Due to winning Copa Sudamericana, we had to play against the Copa Libertadores winners in the Recopa Sudamericana. We faced São Paulo in a two-legged fixture and lost after losing at home 1-3 and a 2-2 draw in Brazil. We didn't play well at home, but improved a lot in Brazil, but it just wasn't to be.
Player Performances
It was a fantastic season to start with. I felt at times it was too easy, specially as a first season in a save. But the challenge here is to try and maintain this without bringing in anyone new. Our top performers came from the defence, with centre back Carlos Quintana being our best rated player, with 44 appearances, 3 goals, 2 assists and a 7.35 rating, followed by fullback Elías Gómez with 41 apps, 1 goal, 11 assists and a 7.25 rating and CB Miguel Ángel Torrén rounding up the top three with 45 apps, and a 7.25 rating.
After not being picked up for the senior squad, Lautaro Ovando shot up the rankings after injuries to the starter and backup forwards. He rose to stardom, earning himself a spot on our starting XI and a juicy new contract with a €60M release fee. Ovando played 38 games, scoring 31 goals and had 4 assists with a 7.07 rating, playing half of the season under 18 years old.
Youth Intake
We were promised a decent intake and in the end they delivered with a few interesting players.
Nahuel Raposo is clearly the top player of the bunch, with a bright future for him. It's quite re-assuring that our first good newgen is an AMC, as I'm searching for the new Maradona, but he's clearly not at that level haha. I'm quite happy with the first inakte though as clearly things will start to get better once we upgrade the facilities and staff.
Off the Pitch
- Some interesting developments during the season included an improvement to the Junior Coaching, and the Youth Recruitment. I expect to improve them again both next season and also the youth facilities.
- We are doing fine on the finances department. We managed to sell a few of the deadwood lying around on loans and on the reserves and that kept us afloat. We're still spending too much on wages and not bringing in nearly enough on ticket sales. I guess we'll rely both on player sales and on a minor scale on prize money (which isn't great in here). We currently have around €6M in the bank.
- This squad has some of the best names I've ever seen on a real life club. First, there's several references to Juan Román Riquelme. Senior squad striker Juan Román Pucheta and in the U-20's there's two players named Román, including one named Román Riquelme (not related). Last, but definitely not least, we have our own Kevin Mac Allister (though the spelling isn't perfect) in the team. Here's hoping he's never left Home Alone.
Sorry for the brick opening post. It was a hell of a season, with a TON of games in unending competitions. Here's hoping seasons are a bit shorter from now on due to us not playing in both continental competitions and also due to the future shortening of the league.
