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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 23, 2021 19:59:32 GMT
Why Trapani?
FM20 seems to be the version of this game where I revisit old teams and attempt to recreate or outdo the success I had previously. After the demise of my Marina di Ragusa save, I had unfinished business in Sicily and was a little wary of venturing outside of the standard database. This left me with three clubs to choose from - Sicula Leonzio, Catania or Trapani. My previous save with them had been pretty successful the successes were somewhat undermined by the takeover that happened within the first two seasons and left me with a sugar daddy chairman who thought nothing of injecting €20m+ several times a season to help with the running costs and early on built a large stadium (named after himself of course!). It would be nice to feel that any success has been earned rather than bought.
Why FM Touch?
I’ve really enjoyed the experience of playing Football Manager 2020 with Volendam and Marina di Ragusa, but it has taken me seven months to complete less than ten seasons. I’m one of those players who likes to get deep into a save. For me, the Volendam save is only really just beginning in many ways but the endless grind of press conferences, team meetings, board interactions and general player interaction has slowed it down too much. I wanted to have another save where I can quickly plough through the seasons before I move on to FM(T)21. I also thought that it might be of interest to a couple of people who have not seen much of FMT in the past.
Trapani history Another reason for sticking with FMT20 and not moving to FMT21 is that it wouldn't be possible to manage Trapani in FMT21 as they are currently non-existant! You may have seen me make reference to this in another thread on the board but they have had a rough year or two which has led to their demise. Financial troubles in 2019/20 led to a points deduction that relegated them and then they couldn't field a team for their first few matches of the 2020/21 season and so were thrown out of Serie C. Before that, they had done pretty well as one of the more senior Sicilian sides. With the demise of Palermo in recent years they have been the highest profile club from the island and have done well to hold their own in Serie B despite the limitations a 7,000 capacity stadium imposed upon them. A brief spell in Serie C has ended and they are back in Serie B for the 2019/20 season.
2019/20 season preview As a recently promoted side with limited resources, we are expected to struggle. The board's aim for this season is to "battle bravely against relegation", which to me means that even if we went down it might not be the end of my
spell in charge (though I'd probably be on very thin ice). However, that's not what I'm aiming for at all, obviously. I reckon with a solid tactic we can avoid relegation and start re-establishing ourselves as a Serie B side.
Squad The squad, from the January 2020 database, shows all the signs of a struggling side. It's big, full of loans (just LOOK AT ALL THOSE LOANS!! Even for Italy, that's a lot!) and shows the signs of a club who needed reinforcements in key areas. There's eight senior centre-backs and a similar number of central midfielders. Money is obviously tight as the one area they haven't got lots of depth is the most expensive area of the pitch: up front. There are four strikers here (which seems a lot) but the quality is lacking. Two limited target man-types and a couple of on-loan younger, pacier strikers are all we have to work with. In a classic bang-head-against-wall-at-the-sheer-stupidity-of-it move, the best striker, Mbala Nzola is on loan at Serie B rivals Spezia. The main positive here is that the quality throughout the squad is pretty consistent - whether it is high enough is another question...
Tactics Given the squad described above, I decided to go with this system. A very basic back four, two wingers to stretch the play, although only those on the right have much in the way of pace and a mobile central midfield with two of the central players attempting to get forward to support the lone Advanced Forward. I would normally go for a DM in there but none of the players are entirely natural there but it is an area I will be focusing on in the early matches. Team instructions are pretty minimal but the focus is on creating as many chances for the striker as possible as I think this is the weakest part of our outfield.
Aims/Priorities The aims for this save are pretty simple in many ways. Initially I would like us to consolidate our position as a Serie B side before we even think of challenging towards the top of the table. The squad, and the high number of loans, is something that will obviously require sorting pretty quickly. We need quality and a little more longevity out of our playing staff in order to build something worthwhile. The main priorities will be identifying a long-term goalkeeper and a couple of strikers before we move on to the wingers and full-backs.
Once all of that is complete, then my plan is to wheel and deal while accumulating enough money to invest in the facilities, building a solid youth system and hopefully generating some top quality youngsters. If we can get promoted and stay up while doing so, then all the better. It took me ten seasons with a very rich chairman to overhaul Juventus on FMT17 and I would be amazed if I could do it again in a similar timeframe.
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 24, 2021 11:15:48 GMT
Season 1: Mid-season report
The speed of FMT is one of its attractions and it is allowing me to play at the same pace as many of you manage! We're now in the early days of February and things are going pretty well.
To be honest, I'm a bit wary of this board - they only wanted me to battle bravely against relegation, but they are "concerned" about every single defeat and there's a small, indignant part of me that is disappointed that my efforts so far this season are only worthy of a B grade.
With money tight, I haven't made any signings and given that I don't own half of my squad I haven't sold anyone significant either. I've extended a number of loans until the end of next season both to buy myself a little breathing room and because a number of them were completely free - no wages, no monthly fee - so it was a no-brainer to keep as many as possible while I focus on other areas of the squad. I still need to focus on finding a goalkeeper and strikers; Carnesecchi asked to terminate his loan as he wasn't playing enough (even though he's played every game which he hasn't missed through injury) so while I declined to terminate it I doubt he would have agreed an extension in January; Dalmonte has done fine but his wages represent 9% of my total wage bill and I reckon I can replace him for less than that, and Pettinari will be a target but Lecce want me to pay his wages and a fee next season so I need to try again in the summer when I have a clearer idea of my budget.
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 25, 2021 14:44:17 GMT
So... having been something of an evangelist for FMT in the past, somewhat reluctantly moving back to full FM and then grumbling about the amount of interaction in full FM, I am now finding FMT a strangely unsatisfying experience. The other danger has been the 'Instant Result' button, which when combined with the inability to give any sort of encouragement in-match has meant that on more than one occasion I have gone a goal down and simply handed the reins over to my assistant with the vague instruction to "Play for a win/draw" and left it at that. All of which has left me with stumbling late-season form and no real idea why because I haven't been paying enough attention to the matches.
I've got about 7 games left of the season and a couple of signings lined up, so I'll probably play on and see if the opportunity to wheel and deal over the summer kicks this save into life but I think that for all my grumbles I am now a full-version convert.
It doesn't help that over the weekend I saw something online that has me thinking about my next save so my mind isn't 100% on this one anyway.
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 25, 2021 19:53:22 GMT
With four matches to go, I should be happier than I am....
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 25, 2021 21:00:13 GMT
Season 1: End of season report I honestly can't remember a season quite like this. I've mentioned the board expectations earlier in the thread and they are continuing to piss me off. As you can see, we finished 11th, well above the relegation places and yet I'm getting a C+. They continue to be concerned by every single defeat and they're being pretty stingy with the money. Oh, and because I managed to finish 11th, they now want mid-table next year, while giving me €200k to spend.
Another thing I had forgotten about FMT is that the youth intake is in the summer. I now have a reason to keep playing... My best prospect is called Daniele Trapani. Clearly born to play for the club! Let's hope he develops well enough to build a long career here.
One of my big failings with this season has been tactical. As I mentioned before, the lure of the 'Instant Result' button was too much to resist on many occasions and so I had skipped any number of opportunities to see why my tactics weren't really working. I'd only ever planned for the 4-5-1 to be a bit of a stop-gap approach while we made the best of a badly balanced squad, but I hadn't spent any time trying to work out what I was working towards. So, come the end of the season I didn't really know what I was trying to recruit for. Given the age of the wingers I had in my squad, and their relative lack of quality, I have decided to ditch wingers and resurrect the diamond I played with Marina di Ragusa with some success. This does mean that the focus for this summer will really be: more depth up front; quality wing-backs; and someone with real creativity/flair.
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Post by Robson on Jan 26, 2021 20:54:14 GMT
On more than one occasion I have gone a goal down and simply handed the reins over to my assistant with the vague instruction to "Play for a win/draw" and left it at that. All of which has left me with stumbling late-season form and no real idea why because I haven't been paying enough attention to the matches. I don't play FMT, so I could be mistaken, but I don't think the instruction 'Play 4 a Win' is anything like a vague instruction. In fact I suspect under the hood its a much higher degree of micro management by match plan than you ever employ. As I say, I could be wrong but Play 4 a Win will implement a bunch of team instructions and reactively adjust team mentality according to the score and game clock. Years ago FM Live used to use match plans long before they were available to the main game. You had to play a whole season (+ pre season) against other human players within 1 month. Every game had a play by date, so if as a human manager you could not make that date you could implement a match plan how your team would play in your absence. Play 4 a Win was an automated match plan (as opposed to one you could draft yourself free format). As I recall it meant playing on ever increasing team mentalities until you were winning but when you went up by 3 goals it dropped you down to counter (now cautious). It may even add/remove team instructions each time you change mentality.
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 26, 2021 21:15:00 GMT
You're quite right Robson, I'm being disingenuous. As I understand it, your explanation of what it does under the hood is correct. I meant it was vague in the sense that I personally am not actually making conscious decisions about how to go about breaking down the opposition. I'm abdicating responsibility for the process in the hope of getting the right end result. The good thing about my Volendam save in full FM was that I was forced to deal with each in-game scenario and work out a way to either reverse the damage or just limit it. With this one, I didn't really know why we were struggling - was it the tactics or just a weak squad? I suspect a bit of both but I couldn't be sure because I wasn't watching all the matches.
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 30, 2021 13:53:20 GMT
Season 2 Confession time: I very nearly canned this save and even played through pre-season with Trapani on the full version of FM20. However, an injury to Pettinari, the general grind of the early days of the save and the thought of going back to square one and having to battle relegation made me give this another chance. I'm getting more used to the limitations of FMT again and enjoying it more. I've also made a commitment to myself to not use the 'Instant result' button.
Tactics As mentioned in my previous post, I've switched back to a diamond. I took the Gegenpress preset as a starting point but have deviated a lot from that by now.
This puts a lot of focus on my wing-backs and if/when I get some money to spend, they will be the first area to strengthen. At the moment, I am retraining a couple of loanees to cover those areas (Colpani in the screenshot above being one of them).
Transfers Apart from the ending of some loans and Felice Evacuo's retirement, almost nobody has left the club, so I'm only showing those I've brought in.
Marco Bleve was going to be my first-choice keeper but Carnesecchi extended his loan so those two are my main two. Carnesecchi is marginally better so is starting at the moment.
Leonardo Candellone was my main signing of the summer but has yet to really take off. I think he can go on to do very well for us but needs something to spark an upturn in form. He's displaced Pettinari in the starting line-up but may well find himself out of the team soon. Giulio Mulas joined from Serie D and has looked right at home in the second tier. My starting right wing-back and one of the better performers already this season. He's still young and could improve a little too. Finally, our big-money signing at €75,000, Liam Jordan. A South African playing in Denmark, he has brought some creativity to the number 10 role (and shirt!) and made a decent start to his career at Trapani.
Pre-season and early days Pre-season was mixed, some decent wins mixed in with a rotated side taking a real beating at Catania (who are still in Serie C!). Then we laboured through the first round of the Coppa Italia before being knocked out by Pordenone before the league season even began. Since then we haven't looked back and have won seven on the spin to leave us four points clear even at this early stage of the season. I'll be amazed if it lasts, but it's a very strong foundation for the rest of the campaign.
In terms of player performances, here's the overall summary. Also, the board have remained a miserable bunch, expressing their concern at every defeat and originally were still only giving me a C+ when we were joint top after winning our opening four matches. They're thawing a little now but there have been rumours of a takeover on a couple of occasions so I may have a new boss soon, which might be an improvement or could mean I'm sacked so they can spend billions bringing Max Allegri in. Who knows?
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 31, 2021 20:24:22 GMT
The form has dropped off a little, but it's tight at the top and to my surprise we're still in contention.
A few things to note:
1. Financially, we're struggling. We're nearly €4m in the red and it would be more if the board hadn't invested several chunks of money. I've made a couple of mistakes with contract renewals late last season or over the summer (Jonathan Biabiany on €13,000 a week!?) which are costing us unnecessary money. I need to offload some of these surplus players ASAP.
2. The diamond seemed to run out of steam a little and we were very vulnerable on the flanks. I mentioned in an earlier post about the reliance on the wing-backs and in the end my natural caution got the better of me. I've taken the pressure off the wing-backs by crowbarring a couple of oval pegs into round holes to fit into a 4-3-3 which has seen an upturn in form through January. As you'll see from the style name, it took my Volendam tactic as a starting point and then the wide players were adapted a little based on those I had available.
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Post by Robson on Jan 31, 2021 21:46:32 GMT
I'm glad you changed tactics, as there were elements in the diamond I wasn't buying into. The one above (433) looks better. Have you tried or considered Jordan in his advanced playmaker role from the wing; then make Aloi a conventional defensive midfielder? Candellone becomes a winger if left footed or inside forward if right footed?
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Post by Marshdweller on Jan 31, 2021 22:08:26 GMT
I'm glad you changed tactics, as there were elements in the diamond I wasn't buying into. The one above (433) looks better. Have you tried or considered Jordan in his advanced playmaker role from the wing; then make Aloi a conventional defensive midfielder? Candellone becomes a winger if left footed or inside forward if right footed? I'm curious - what didn't you like about the diamond? (It's a formation I like, but I find it hard to get it to work properly). I think playing FM20, more than any other version, has taught me that I am really a 4-1-4-1/4-3-3 man and I'm best to stick to that system as I know it pretty well.
I have thought about the AP at AMR and will experiment with that over coming matches. I quite like the DLP as I have it in my head that he provides early balls over the top for the AF but again it's worth experimenting with.
Candellone is left-footed but I'm using him as a Trequartista as it sits more narrowly than a winger. I used him as a winger initially and didn't get much out of him, but if I want more defensively I will consider switching back.
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Post by Robson on Jan 31, 2021 22:56:23 GMT
I'm glad you changed tactics, as there were elements in the diamond I wasn't buying into. I'm curious - what didn't you like about the diamond? (It's a formation I like, but I find it hard to get it to work properly). Something about the 'in possession' instructions felt awkward and didn't sit right. Play from the back; be narrow within a narrow shape; be direct up front. I've always thought you need space to be quick and direct. On a football pitch that's most readily found on the wings, possibly the fastest area to progress play. It also combines well with having more than 1 striker. A pair of strikers can split to support the wings. In a diamond, one which you made narrow...well you've opened up space on the flanks but don't have the positions on the pitch to make any use of it. You only have full backs.
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Post by Marshdweller on Feb 1, 2021 12:41:03 GMT
I'm curious - what didn't you like about the diamond? (It's a formation I like, but I find it hard to get it to work properly). Something about the 'in possession' instructions felt awkward and didn't sit right. Play from the back; be narrow within a narrow shape; be direct up front. I've always thought you need space to be quick and direct. On a football pitch that's most readily found on the wings, possibly the fastest area to progress play. It also combines well with having more than 1 striker. A pair of strikers can split to support the wings. In a diamond, one which you made narrow...well you've opened up space on the flanks but don't have the positions on the pitch to make any use of it. You only have full backs. Great thoughts, thank you. The narrow width was a relic of the standard gegenpress TIs and was one I kept looking at as something to change, but all the while the tactic was getting results I left it. The direct passing came from a little messing around on the tactic site you linked, though my assistant manager would often suggest we switched to shorter passing (and then soon after would recommend we went more direct). I think part of my downfall has been that I haven't thought carefully about it as a whole system and have just borrowed from too many other sources. Another good reminder to clear the TIs at the start and then add what I need to fix what isn't working!!
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Post by Marshdweller on Feb 3, 2021 10:28:47 GMT
This save is pretty much dead at this point, which I'm a bit disappointed about, especially after Dale and Chaodck's help with the kits.
I've played on until the end of the second season and the simple fact is that I have made a handful of mistakes in this save which have basically screwed things up. I'm tempted to say that these wouldn't have happened in full FM due to the regular backroom advice messages (which don't happen in Touch) but they continue on the theme of poor squad management that showed up a few times in both my Volendam save and Marina di Ragusa too. As a result, despite a positive season on the pitch, we are losing money faster than we can count it, the board have cut the wage budget by 25% and as a result I haven't been able to renew a bunch of contracts which means we are light at the back and faced with no option but to sell as many players for cash as we can while trying to replace like-for-like in terms of quality but on a fraction of the money. Right now, I don't have the stomach for that challenge.
Given how things went in real life, I guess it shows that FM provides a pretty realistic simulation of the challenges that faced Trapani.
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Post by Dirk Nowitzki on Feb 3, 2021 11:46:19 GMT
It's sad to hear the good form at the start of the season didn't continue enough to make it to the Serie A Marshdweller! Are you planning to make the jump to FM21 now?
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Post by Marshdweller on Feb 3, 2021 12:23:00 GMT
It's sad to hear the good form at the start of the season didn't continue enough to make it to the Serie A Marshdweller! Are you planning to make the jump to FM21 now? The form was OK, and we finished 6th in the end, but got battered by Frosinone in the play-offs. The real issue was that there was no rhyme or reason to our results. The same approach would see me put three past a promotion contender only for the same XI to lose at home to the bottom side a week later. I think we were massively overperforming in the first few matches (stating the obvious!) but then injuries and tactical tinkering slightly derailed us along with a regression to the mean. There were a number of issues that led to the final problem, some with the club/squad, some with my management. - A lack of sellable assets meant we couldn't raise money through sales (the players we actually owned were usually old and/or in relatively low value positions - e.g. I'd need to sell three centre-backs to afford a striker)
- Small stadium etc. = low income
- Unbalanced squad in the first place
- Me not deciding on a set tactical approach meant I kept players I didn't need, costing us money in wages and bloating the squad
- My own personal caution also led to me keeping too many players, "just in case...." and a lack of ruthlessness didn't help with good players that didn't fit the system
- I underestimated just how bad the financial situation was until it was too big an obstacle for me to overcome
I read Ondrej Rensie's FM21 GAIS blog post yesterday and he talked about improving the squad while cutting the wage budget which is exactly what I need to do here. It would be an interesting challenge to take on but I'm not sure I'll find the time to trawl through all the players available to try to make it work. Maybe I'll battle on through the summer transfer window to see what I can do, but I'm not hopeful.
I am VERY tempted to start with FM21 now, but given that there *should* be a final patch soon and that I am hoping to move house in the next couple of weeks I think I should put it off. I also have lots of ideas for saves I would like to do but I'm struggling to pick one to start with!
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Post by Marshdweller on Apr 17, 2021 21:05:54 GMT
Given my struggles with FM21, I have gone back to this save, determined to undo the damage I did with my careless spending. It has taken a while (Just finished the fourth season), and isn't helped by the fact that there is no prize money in Serie B unless you're promoted, but I think we are now pretty much guaranteed to be back in the black soon.
This helped. A lot.
My total transfer expenditure over the four seasons is €90,000 and we brought in €7,250,000 in the last season alone. I'm actually really enjoying the challenge of wheeling and dealing in the free transfer market - it's actually my favourite way to play FM.
I fully expect us to struggle to stay up next season and I'm half hoping (given this is FM Touch) that I will be awarded the 'Unsackable' unlockable for boosting the club's reputation. I may use it just so that the almost inevitable relegation doesn't bring an end to my stay at Provinciale and allows me to yo-yo for a couple of seasons until we can naturally establish ourselves as a Serie A club.
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Post by Marshdweller on Apr 24, 2021 18:58:49 GMT
A quick update:
1. No 'Unsackable' unlockable. Clearly this has been made harder to unlock since FMT17 (no bad thing really). My arse is still, therefore, on the line. 2. The board were very conservative with their budgets. I've spent all the money I could and after four years of haemorraghing cash, we are now making just under €2m profit a month. 3. We are bad. It's Christmas and we have one win to our names in the league. This is because (a) I was playing a fairly positive style which leaves us very exposed at times, so I need to look at a more solid, counter-attacking tactic, and (b) until the last few games of last season I thought we would finish in the playoffs and ineviavly fail to get through; not expecting to get promoted last season meant that many of the transfers I arranged before the season ended were for Serie B-quality reinforcements. I now have a nice deep squad of players who generally just aren't up to the job of playing Serie A football. January may be very busy if I am to have any hope of avoiding relegation.
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Post by jawzy on Apr 25, 2021 15:49:04 GMT
Might be joining you on a FMT scenario, as just not got motivation for fm21 full fat and from what i can tell FMT21 seems bit broken?
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Post by Marshdweller on Apr 25, 2021 16:30:11 GMT
I just had the one season with FMT21 and while it seemed fine, I've heard bad things about the youth intake which would ruin it for me. I also got annoyed by the work permit requirements post-Brexit, so gave up on that.
At the moment, I'm looking with interest at FM17 as a really retro FM fix.
*********
As far as my Trapani season finished, we were dead last but not mathematically relgated until the 37th match so the board are satisfied with me. They've also agreed to build a new stadium at some undecided point in the future. However, they want a top-5 finish next season and I have a bit of a rebuild to do. Gotta be honest, I'm feeling a little fatigued by the whole thing at the moment.
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Post by jawzy on Apr 25, 2021 20:09:02 GMT
I just had the one season with FMT21 and while it seemed fine, I've heard bad things about the youth intake which would ruin it for me. I also got annoyed by the work permit requirements post-Brexit, so gave up on that. At the moment, I'm looking with interest at FM17 as a really retro FM fix. ********* As far as my Trapani season finished, we were dead last but not mathematically relgated until the 37th match so the board are satisfied with me. They've also agreed to build a new stadium at some undecided point in the future. However, they want a top-5 finish next season and I have a bit of a rebuild to do. Gotta be honest, I'm feeling a little fatigued by the whole thing at the moment. Okay, ill use the touch version I have most hrs logged whch was fmt17 when I was introducing a fm newb to the game in real life lol
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