He's Gonna Play That Bloody Save Again? Well I Am.

[chaodck]

Universidad de Chile 2021 Season Report

Recent History
Yes, another crack at my classic La U save. This time I won't take over the NT to start with, but the idea is to do it sometime down the road if the newgens accompany me in this journey (that killed this save in FM 20). Well, in real life La U is struggling mightily, as our last good season came in 2017, where we won the Clausura in the first semester and placed 3rd in the Transición played in the second semester, finishing 2nd in the aggregate table. 2018 was a decent season, as La U finished third in a year-long 30-game league, but in reality we never pushed Universidad Católica who won the title comfortably. Besides, La U played horribly in the Copa Libertadores that year, finishing last in a hellish group with Vasco, Cruzeiro and Racing, including an infamous 0-7 loss in Brazil against Cruzeiro that was followed with a 1-6 loss against Unión La Calera on the league meant the Board dismissed Angel Hoyos as the manager and hired Frank Kudelka almost a month later. Kudelka had a good second half of the year and allowed La U to place 3rd in the league, qualifying for the 2019 Libertadores.

And here, the nightmare starts. Kudelka was eliminated in the Second Preliminary Round of the Copa Libertadores against a midtable Peruvian side, Melgar. The elimination plus a horrible start to the league (1W-1D-2L) made the Board fire Kudelka and hire Alfredo Arias, who was surprised negotiating with La U before they sacked Kudelka (classy move by the La U Board...). But Arias didn't last long as well, and he was sacked after just 12 games in charge (1W-7D-4L). Hernán Caputto was the third manager of La U in 2019, and whlist he improved a bit, it wasn't enough to finish the season at ease. The 2019 Chilean league was cut short by the social unrest generated from the October 2019 protests and the FA decided no teams were to be relegated, which meant La U was "saved" from playing a relegation playoff as we finished the season in 14th place. Still, La U managed to qualify for the 2020 Copa Libertadores, as Copa Chile Finalists.

The 2020 season started off in good fashion, despite being eliminated quickly in Copa Libertadores as we drew Internacional de Porto Alegre in the Second Preliminary Round. A 0-2 aggregate loss was decent though. Despite a good start, by the end of the First Semester, the La U board decided to sack Hernán Caputto and appoint the fifth manager in 3 years for La U. The chosen one was Venezuelan Rafael Dudamel. But things didn't improve really and La U returned to dangerous positions, as the relegation system for 2020 took into account the 2019 season (60%) and the 2020 season (40%). With one game to go, to be played this weekend, la U sits at 14th place in the aggregate table, and needs a win to secure their Primera A spot for 2021.

Overview and Objectives
Enough history. The save started in 2021, and as such 2020 was simulated in the game. I dimished the CA/PA for a lot of la U players and I also lowered the club's reputation a bit. But still the team finished 2nd in the 2020 league, qualifying me in 2021 for the Copa Libertadores Group Phase. I took over in December 2020, with an aging and average squad, and not much money, so things needed improvement quick.
The idea for the save is to re-build La U to the national powerhouse it's always been. Universidad Católica has become the most dominant club in Chile (they just won their first 3-peat ever), and they have money, great players and a good coach, meanwhile Colo Colo has struggled in 2020, flirting with relegation as well as La U. To re-build the first thing to do is sort the finances, lowering the wage bill and trying to do good business in the market. La U has a few decent players in the roster who can fetch good prices down the road.
In terms of on-field performance, the idea is to play positive, entertaining football and develop players using the club's youth system as well.

A good list of objectives to fullfill in the first 10 years of the save are as follows:
- Win the majority of the League titles
- Win a Continental Cup
- Play in the Club World Cup
- Sell a player over €5M
- Become Chile's top club
- Become the NT's top contributor on all levels
- Have an academy player play in a big european club

2021 Season
We'll play in 5 competitions this season, which means a lot of games. We'll play in the League, the SuperCup, the Copa Chile, the League Cup and the Copa Libertadores. The Board didn't ask for much, asking for a top-4 in the league, semifinals in the Copa Chile and reach Group Phase in Libertadores.

Transfers
Right off the bat I felt we needed another winger. I was on the look for an inverted player, but the market wasn't quite there and I ended up settling for Thomas Rodríguez, son of the Universidad de Chile 90's Legend Leo Rodríguez. Thomas has a bit of european background, having trained in Genoa for a while, but eventually found his home in La Calera, we brought him for €400k plus €400k in clauses and a loaned player. Rodríguez was one of our best players in the season, but eventually lost the starting job in the second half of the season as I found my inverted player to play on the left, meaning Lenis used Thomas' place. I also brought in TM Ronnie Fernández on a free from Santiago Wanderers, mostly to be a backup of Joaquín Larrivey. Fernández scored 15 goals including a six-goal outburst against Palestino in a memorable game. The club had already arranged two transfers from last season, who joined permanently after being on loan, Pablo Aránguiz came in from FC Dallas for €850k and Luis Casanova from Temuco for €215k.
In the second semester as I said I found my inverted lad in the looks of Joe Abrigo, who came in from Audax Italiano for €350k, Abrigo is a talented player and ended up having a mediocre season, despite a good start. I also brough in Nicolás Díaz, from Mazatlán for €220k, a bargain if you ask me. Díaz is a great CB/LB hybrid who at 22 still has a lot of room to improve.

In terms of sales, not much happened really, as we only sold Gabriel Torres for €450k to Independiente del Valle, and released several other deadwood players like Augusto Barrios, Francisco Arancibia, Felipe Saavedra and Angelo Henríquez.

Campeonato Nacional
We had a good first semester, starting off with 3 wins, including a 3-0 derby win over Colo Colo, but we ended the first half in a worrying note with 2 losses. The second semester had a couple of tough losses against Colo Colo and Audax Italiano and with 6 games left in the league, this was the picture:


I felt confident as we had a game in hand, but the calendar was super tight, playing every 3 days and against strong teams. In the end, we aced that finish, winning all six games and not conceding a single goal. We ended up winning the title by 4 points.






It was a great league season, but we still can and need to improve a ton. Universidad Católica lost some incredible games during the season and Colo Colo will improve from that 12th position and become a threat again.

Copa de La Liga
The League Cup is played during the first semester of the season, except for the Final which is played in September. It's a one-legged Cup with replays on the first three rounds and penalties on the semifinals. The Board deemed it "not important" and from now on I will play it exclusively with U-21 players to both reduce load and also to provide development.
We won it this season, with only one tricky game against Antofagasta decided on penalties.




Chile Cup and SuperCup
The proper FA Cup, is played during the year for lower teams, but for the top two tiers, after the winter break. There's a 5-game group phase, and then a knockout tournament with two-legged fixtures. We struggled a bit during the knockouts, taking Colo Colo to penalties and eliminating Santiago Wanderers on away goals, but managed to win it, beating Curicó again in the Final.




We also won the SuperCup, a Final game played between the League and Cup winners (as Universidad Católica won both last season, we qualified as 2nd placed in the league). We beat UC 3-1 and won our first title of the save in February.


Copa Libertadores
The continent's most prized Cup. One of the world's most renowned trophies. We've never won it, only reaching the Semifinals 4 times before (1969, 1996, 2010 and 2012). We lucked out in the draw and landed a SUPER easy group alongside Independiente del Valle from Ecuador, Alianza from Perú and Atlético Tucumán from Argentina. We aced the group, winning 5 games and only losing on the last game against the Ecuadorans. We finished 1st and the luck kept strong as we drew Independiente Medellín from Colombia and we beat them easily 4-1 on aggregate. In the Quarter-Finals we faced our first real test in the form of Athletico Paranaense from Brazil. We lost 0-1 on the first leg in Brazil and were losing early 0-1 in Santiago. But a fantastic turnaround on the second half meant we won 3-1 and qualified for the Semifinals.
Yet, again the semifinals was the wall against which La U abruptly stops. Our draw luck ended and we faced the allmighty Flamengo, who dispatched us with two deadly 1-4 losses in a disgraceful 2-8 aggregate result.




Youth Intake
Well, we were promised a bad intake and we got a bad intake.


Quite a few handy lads to be put on the reserve teams, but none of them will ever make it to the senior squad.

Squad Stats
As I said above, the highest average rating came from Thomas Rodríguez, who in 43 games (30 starts), scored 10 goals and had 15 assists with a 7.28 rating. Closely second came in Reinaldo Lenis (who plays in his same position), with 39 games (35 starts), 12 goals, 9 assists and a 7.20 rating. Pablo Aránguiz rounds up the top 3, with 45 games (42 starts), 11 goals, 8 assists and 7.18 rating.



Off the Pitch
- It was a good year financially speaking. We started off around €2.5M in the red and despite having at a point around €7M in the bank, after taxes and shareholder payouts we finished €1.1M in the red.
- Without money there's not much improvements to talk about really, I plan on revising the facilities once I manage to finish the season afloat.
- We have a few gaps to fill next season, with Walter Montillo retiring and some players being wanted. I've been scounting extensively the newgens and it seems it was a poor generation overall. From next season on, I plan on doing a youth teams overhaul and organize them like I did on my NEC save.




Thanks for reading mates I plan on doing shorter updates from now on. Oh, and the reference for the thread's title is this.

[jawzy]

Im not massivly bothered if La U is here again, aslong as your enjoying it plus not many of us end up in a prolonged carear outside of europe it feels, so you provide a different flavour <3

[Robson]

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

[Marshdweller]

From CM00/01 until probably FM14, the first (and usually only) save I had each year was with Forest.

[chaodck]

Cheers for the encouragement lads. I'll have a 2022 pre-season and season start update tomorrow maybe.

[dalenichol]

Fuck sake, not this again!!!

[chaodck]

Universidad de Chile March 2022 Report

Overview
Start of season #2 sees La U in a good position after sweeping all 4 domestic competitions last season and getting to the Libertadores Semifinals. But we're just starting off here and the aims are just being scratched. I'm gonna do shorter reports now and the first step to this is this pre-season report, where I'll show not only how we are improving the squad but also the start to the season.

Transfers
It was a busy summer in Santiago. I felt we could start to build the squad towards how I want the team to play and that meant getting rid of a few players to start with. This list included Diego Carrasco who went to Antofagasta for €100k, Luis del Pino Mago who left for Audax Italiano for €1.3M and Esteban Valencia who went to Emelec for €425k, while I also released Jimmy Martínez. Unfortunately, we also sold a few players who were starters or solid squad players, but offers came and they were too good, Thomas Rodríguez went to Necaxa for €3.5M, Ronnie Fernández went to LA Galaxy for €1.5M and Camilo Moya to Pumas for €3.8M (plus 50% of his next transfer fee). We also lost starting GK Fernando de Paul to Al-Sadd on a free due to his contract bug.

We had money and needed to replace several players. The first area of improvement was our fullbacks as both starters from last season were 35+, I managed to bring in Simón Ramírez from Universidad de Concepción for €1M a solid attacking RB with a bit of European experience and we shocked the market with the acquisition of Santiago Arzamendia a Paraguayan NT player from Cerro Porteño for €450k. Arzamendia has all the looks of a key player and will bring international experience to the squad. To replace Moya, I decided to buy Tomás Alarcón from O'Higgins for €1.2M (plus €300k in clauses), Alarcón is one of the better young CM's in Chile and he will fit in his role seemlessly. To replace De Paul came in Zacarías López from Municipal for €170k, much in the looks of Ramírez and Alarcón, López is a highly touted young GK in Chile. I also decided to bring back on a free a loan signing from last season, Uruguayan Cristián Barros. Finally, as I said I wanted to splash a little cash and we needed a midifeld playmaker. I decided to look onto Brazil and brought in Ronaldo Souza from Flamengo for €2.9M. Surely a big price for not that a great player, but he's well rounded and will boss the midfield in Chile.


We also bought several young prospects, the best we could get from last season's intake to fuel our youth ranks. They are not ready to be shown to the world though.

Squad and Tactics
The idea is not to delve much from what worked last season. Both of the fullbacks I brought in the summer are more offensive minded so I tried a few more offensive tactics on the tactic resource, but in the end I had to compromise too much to make them 5 star. Maybe down the road once I tailor the squad even more to what I want I'll try them. For now, I settled on two variations of a 4-2-3-1, with one winger and one inverted winger, and depending on whether Larrivey or Contreras play up top, the setup as Larrivey is a TM, while Contreras much more of a modern AF. All the newcomers with the exception of Barros will slot into the starting XI right away, which makes us a fairly new team and will impact performances at the start. We did play a decent pre-season, but for some reason I was blocked of doing friendlies for almost 3 weeks in the middle of the pre-season, which hampered a bit the progress.


Our main tactic, is a bit more forward positive, but doesn't press much team-wise (player-wise it does), while the second is a bit more cautious, but is heavy on team press (and player press). Larrivey can play decently at AF so I guess we can rotate a bit onto the second even when he's available depending on what we need. I'm not a big fan of shiting styles much, as you might guess from this setup.


Pre-season was fantastic as we sailed through the games, including a great 3-0 win over Fluminense (who played mostly with backups though).



Primera División
We've played the first 5 games of the League so far and we're doing ok, nothing spectacular as the team is still gelling, but we're doing well. We beat Colo Colo 2-0 in the opener with league debut goals for Alarcón and Arzamendia, then beat Iquique, Wanderers and Huachipato narrowly while drawing 1-1 against Audax Italiano. With 13 points we sit atop the table alongside Everton.




Copa Libertadores
We drew a harder group than last season, but still a pretty decent one. We'll play Sao Paulo, Defensa y Justicia from Argentina and Liverpool from Uruguay, one of each the top 3 leagues in the continent isn't ideal but I feel we're better than the Argentineans and Uruguayans. We started off against Sao Paulo in Santiago and managed to get a 1-1 draw in a good game, then we beat Defensa y Justicia in Argentina 2-0 and finally beat Liverpool in Santiago 1-0 to close out the first half of the group games in 1st place alongside Sao Paulo and with qualification surely on the way.



Cups
Not much action here, as we won the Supercopa again to kickstart the season with a narrow 1-0 win over rivals Universidad Católica, then lost in the League Cup debut, playing with an all-youngsters team (all U-21 none of them in the senior squad), 0-1 against Primera B side Santiago Morning. I plan on playing this competition always with youth team players, hopefully someday we're good enough to win it like that.



Off the Pitch
- Financially things have improved a lot, due to TV/competition money to start the season and also the net profit we made on the market. The bank account currently holds €6M.
- Given the good status to finance right now I plan on asking for a few improvements. La U has decent starting facilities, but we need to improve to become the best.
- Pablo Aránguiz is starting to be scouted by Mexican sides, which will mean I'll sell him soon. There's an already-good 17 year old in the youth teams, who can fill the position up immediately, while promoting Simón Contreras to the starting XI as LW and moving Abrigo to the AM spot.
- We're doing great defensively, with a fantastic GA record, but we're struggling with goals. I might try and delve from the 5-star rated tactics to try and be more offensive at the risk of letting more goals in.
- Seven players' contracts run up at the end of the season, with 3 of them retiring (Beausejour, Rodríguez and González). From the other four players, none might be renewed as the only decent rotation option is Sebastián Galani and he's asking way too much money for a backup.

Screenies available on request lads, thanks for reading.

[chaodck]

Universidad de Chile 2022 Midseason Report

Overview
First half of the second season done. It's been a good season overall, trying to mold the team into what I want it to be, but being a bit too cautious on the approach. I might delve from the tactical resource a bit and just throw it all out the window, which is the type of football I like IRL. I'll gradually start doing it during this second semester and the objective is to have an all-out-attack tactic ready by next season, at least to play domestically and against lower rated continental sides. We'll see how that goes.

Primera División
We started off great with 4 wins and a draw from the first 5 games in the last update, and we carried on majestically winning the rest of the games of the first half of the season. Our defence is brutally tough and our offence is good enough to guarantee wins. As of now, we're walking the league and dominating all competition, beating Colo Colo twice 2-0 and Universidad Católica once, also 2-0. Audax Italiano seems like the toughest team of the league besides us, and the only ones that managed to take points from us, in a 1-1 draw on the 3rd matchday, while Everton who started out strong has lost a bit of momentum and sits 4th on the table.



A 14-point cushion means the title is in the bag. It's impossible to think otherwise.

Copa Libertadores
We drew a tough-ish group with a Brazilian, an Argentinean and a Uruguayan side. We drew against Sao Paulo in the first game at home, 1-1 then beat Defensa y Justicia 2-0 in Argentina and narrowly beat Liverpool de Montevideo 1-0 in Santiago. The return legs saw us draw 0-0 with Liverpool in Montevideo, beat Defensa y Justicia 3-0 at home and harvest another draw against Sao Paulo at Morumbí 0-0. Twelve points from a group like that is amazing, but not enough to see us qualify as 1st placed as Sao Paulo only drew against us and beat everyone else. Still, in a group with a continental giant as Sao Paulo, being 2nd placed is what you expect and even better if we didn't lose a single game. Our reward? Another continental giant as we'll go to Vila Belmiro to face Santos in the knockouts.



Domestic Cups
I already showed you the Super Cup and our somewhat expected elimination in the League Cup (given the starting 11 I played). We'll play the Copa Chile now, starting the second half of the season with it, we'll face an easy group, alongside a fellow top tier team, two second tier teams and two third tier teams. Top team qualifies only, so we'll need to be alert as this cup is mandatory for the Board and they want us to win it (unlike the League Cup which doesn't matter).



Squad and Performances
We've been good so far. Defensively we are amazing, conceding only 8 goals in 25 games played in all competitions. Unfortunately we haven't been great offensively only scoring 37 goals on those 25 games. No wonder our 7 top performers are defensive-ish positions, with Santiago Arzamendia being our top player with 3 goals, 4 assists and a 7.55 rating on 20 games (19 starts), I envisioned him to become a key player and his international experience put him a step ahead of all players in the league. CB Nicolás Díaz is 2nd, with no goals or assists, but a 7.35 rating in 20 games (all starts), while defensive CM Tomás Alarcón rounds up the top 3 with 2 goals, 2 assists and a 7.20 rating in 17 games (all starts).

We need to build upon this solid defensive scheme to try and be more dangerous when we go forward. The fans aren't happy with how vertical our style is and I'll try to make changes to make it a bit more direct and to try to overload more, using the two fantastic offensive fullbacks I bought in the summer. This will probably end up sacrificing "solidity" and struggle a bit more to keep possession, while committing more fouls as well, but if we're attacking more and being better offensively, I'm gonna be happy with that and I bet the fans and Board too.




Off the Pitch
- We're doing ok financially, with €2.8M in the bank.
- We upgraded the youth setup a bit, as we improved the Junior Coaching (to Excellent) and also are in process of upgrading the Youth Facilities (currently at Excellent), which will be finished by October this year.
- Regarding the youth intake, we need help. Again it was shitty. We have fantastic facilities, specially compared to the rest of the league (despite Santiago being a tough territory to compete in, alongside our top rivals who also have great recruitment). The intake promises a decent winger and a good AM prospect, but "a very poor crop of players".
- Starting ST Joaquín Larrivey tore his ACL during the season and will be out 8-9 months. Simón Contreras has taken over as his replacement, but I'm thinking about bringing in someone new in the winter window. Also, Monterrey made an offer for Pablo Aránguiz, but talks broke down after they didn't meet our terms. Aránguiz wasn't bothered about us rejecting them.

Thanks for reading!

[chaodck]

Well, we did change tactics. Yes it's against a 2nd tier team (currently in contention for promotion to the top tier though), yes it's a super small sample size, yes it's "only" the Cup, yes two goals came from penalties, but this is a drastic 180° change from the boring football we were playing.

[chaodck]

Universidad de Chile 2022 Season Report

Overview
Second season done. I'm struggling with this game, I know. Seasons take me forever and while I'm enjoying the time I play, somehow I'm not playing much and when I do I slog through watching videos or doing other things while playing at a low rhythm. I de-activated a lot of the media part, leaving it all to the AM, only worrying about the squad, training, player development, scouting and transfers. Here's hoping I rekindle with my former enthusiasm to play the game and advance quicker.

Transfers
We didn't have any transfer movement in the second half of the season. We only loaned one player out and brought in a few youngsters not ready to be shown to the world.

Campeonato Nacional
We walked the league. Our first half of the season was brilliant, only drawing one game and winning all the rest. We won the title with around 6-7 games in hand, and just when I though we'd get to the 100-point mark and an unbeaten season, we miraculously lost a game against Curicó, leaving us with a obviously fantastic 32-1-1 record to finish the league with 97 points.





Cups
We played in the three local cups. We won the Supercup early in the season, beating Universidad Católica 1-0 with a goal from Joaquín Larrivey, we then lost in the First Round of the Copa de la Liga, losing 0-1 against Santiago Morning in a game played with youth team players.




We won the Copa Chile, beating Universidad Católica, Iquique, Curicó and Colo Colo on the road to our domestic treble. Simón Contreras graduated in his idol position, scoring a hattrick against both our rivals on the Cup.




Copa Libertadores
We had a good group stage in the Copa Libertadores finishing second on a tough group alongside Sao Paulo, Defensa y Justicia and Liverpool de Montevideo. We unfortunately drew Santos on the Second Round and despite a brave effort we ended up losing 5-6 on aggregate, winning 3-2 in Santiago and losing 2-4 in Brazil. We managed to be 2-2 at the return leg and I felt confident we'd make it through, but we crumbled on the last 20 minutes and lost.




Youth Intake
We were promised a bad intake, and we ended up getting a good one, with a shining gem at GK in the looks of Julio Briceño and José Luis Parraguez, César Castillo and Nicolás Ávila being interesting prospects as well. It was a decent intake with decent personalities, specially for Parraguez and Castillo, and a high potential prospect on Briceño who is Balanced and will improve.



Regarding the youth teams, our U-21 team won their league and reached the Final of the U-21 Cup, while the U-18 team won their league and as well reached the Final of the U-18 Cup. The U-21 side also won the Copa Libertadores U-20.

Stats and Players
It was a fantastic season for our players. The tactical shift in the midseason worked like a charm and we managed to both improve our offensive efficiency and our defensive efficiency. The 5-star tactics from the tactic resource are a bit too conservative and we played boring football. I made the change to push a bit forward and overlap, and it worked like a charm. Our best players on the season were both foreign newcomers with Santiago Arzamendia playing 43 games, scoring 5 goals and had 13 assists with a 7.51 rating, while Ronaldo Souza played 45 games, scoring 3 goals and had 23 assists with a 7.48 rating. Our two CB's also were great with Nico Díaz developing into a fantastic defensive player and Luis Casanova being the veteran presence, while our other CM also newcomer Tomás Alarcón also had a great season. The big newcomer of the season though was academy prospect Simón Contreras, who stepped up after we lost Joaquín Larrivey to a torn ACL (which in the end forced him to retire in the midseason) and I didn't bring anyone to replace Larrivey as Contreras was a blitz, scoring 41 goals in the season (47 games played, 35 starts), with also 7 assists and a 7.19 rating. We will probably lose Contreras next season as he's 20 and has Sevilla and big Mexican sides following him.



Off the Pitch
- We barely finished the season on the black, with €200k in the bank currently. We were over a million most of the year, but shareholders payouts and taxes left us without cash. Sponsorship and season ticket money will be in soon and we'll be back in business. Here's hoping we can stabilize on the issue, next season.
- With no money on the bank it's hard to ask for improvements. Unfortunately we had a regression on our Training Facilities this offseason due to technological advances in the world. Our facilities currently stand at Excellent.
- We had interest in a ton of players of the team. Ronaldo Souza, Nico Díaz, Simón Contreras, Tomás Alarcón and Simón Ramírez are all wanted by big teams with big money. We have around €2.5M in the transfer budget and we're well below the wage budget so despite the fear of losing our top players is real, I'm quite hopeful we can easily replace them.
- Also there are a few fantastic newgen prospects who will surely make the senior squad next season. If a few of those big players leave I even might end up throwing one into the starting lineup.




Thanks for reading!

[hokster]

Briceno looks fantastic! Looking forward to seeing how he develops.