Career SL Benfica - Diary of a journey to conquer the world

[lfcosta73]

First of all, let me present myself. My name is Luis Costa and i've been playing CM (since the 92-93 edition) and FM after that all my life. The more recent installments of the game were great but time consuming and these days i don't have that much time to play FM16 on my desktop, because life just get's in the way. Work, wife, kid and everything else sums up and my free time has become lesser and lesser. Than, a few weeks ago i came across with FMM16... paid the damn thing... install, play and WOW!! Obviously it hasn't the depth that FM16 has, but it's still engaging and covers the basic needs of a FM junkie like myself. Suddenly i have at the tip of my fingers, a mobile version of FM that i can play whenever i've got a few spare moments to kill. Best spent money of my life.

I've installed the game in my mobile phone and in my tablet, but i primarily use my 10' BQ Edison 3 to play and it's smooth like a feather.

Because i rarely play with any other team than the mighty glorious SL Benfica, the club of my heart, i will try to leave here some sort of diary of this journey and lead my team to victory and domination

SL Benfica - Diary of a journey to conquer the world #1 (part one)

SL Benfica has a nice squad. Good players in almost every position and there's only need to make a few tweaks here and there. Carefully viewing the squad decided to go with the actual Rui Vitória tactics, a standard 442 with wide midfielders. The tactic didn't perform well in the portuguese league although i had nice performances in the Champions Cup. Than i discovered this site and tried out some tactics of local user's like Mikee and Taff, but didn't work for me as well. So mid december i was 8th in the portuguese league, both board and supporters were starting to criticise my job, i decided that i needed to shake things up and created my own tactic: a 433 that as given me 9 straight wins in a row since than.

My Tactic
I was suffering too many goals and the reason for that was that i was always playing with only two midfielders and loosing the mid court battle. For that reason i decided to abandon my 442 and create a new 433 formation, that can function like a 442. So the concept behind this is that one of the wingers, the left one will have a IF role making him float diagonaly to partner with my sole poacher. I compensate this movement having a left wing back so goes up and down all game. So the tactic is this:

        GK
FB CD CD WB
       DLP
 BWM BBM
W              IF
         P

Instructions are Attacking/Mixed/Mixed/Mixed/Normal with Pressing.

It has been performing wonderfully with nine wins in nine games with 27 goals scored and 6 conceaded.

My Transfers
First of all i decided to sell one of my star players to increase funds to buy better players. So i sold to Chelsea my argentinian left winger Nicolas Gaitán for 39M and also sold my serbian defensive midfielder Fejsa to Eibar for 3.3M. With all that money i bought two new young promising defensive midfielders: Riechedly Bazoer from Ajax for 15M plus Ruben Amorim and Thiago Maia from Santos for 12.5M. To finish my transfers i bought other two young promising players: André Horta, a portuguese M/AM C from Vit. Setúbal for 3M and the serbian winger Andrija Zivkovic from Partisan for 7.5M.

In January i paid Fulham 7.5M to have Mitroglou wich was already on loan playing for us. I also bought Bruma from Galatasaray for 7.5M plus german AMC Hany Muhktar and finally also brought in the argentinian midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur from Boca for 5M. In this same period i sold Pizzi to Barcelona for 9M.

My Squad
My two main keepers are brazilian. The veteran Júlio César is my first team choice and the promissing Ederson is my rotation keeper. The third choice, my reserve keeper, is the veteran portuguese keeper Paulo Lopes.

My defenders are:
Right Full Backs: Nélson Semedo and André Almeida
Left Wing Backs: Eliseu and Grimaldo
Center Defenders: I started with Luisão and Jardel as my first team players, but when i changed to my 433 formation in mid december, i decided to drop down Luisão and go with Lisandro López instead and that also made a positive impact in the team. My fourth CD is the young sweeden Lindelof.

My midfield start-up line is usually composed with Thiago Maia (DLP), Samaris (BWM) and  Renato Sanches (BBM). This trio is superb, great tackling and passing skills combined with strenght and stamina. My back-up trio would be Bazoer (DLP), Bentancur (BWM) and André Horta (BBM). Also have Talisca as a reserve midfielder. I also have Bruma that has just signed in, but he still needs to work on is condition, but surely he will become my top pick for IF role.

At front i usually go with Salvio (W), Carcela (IF) and Jonas (P).
My rotation front trio is Zivkovic (W), Gonçalo Guedes (IF) and Mitroglou (P).
In reserve i have Luka Jovic and Raul Jimenez.

Summing up, my usual first team is:

                      J.César
N.Semedo L.López Jardel Eliseu
                      T.Maia
              Samaris R.Sanches
Salvio                                    Carcela
                      Jonas

My Status
At this point, i'm 4th in the portuguese league 8 points below league leader, but with 2 less games played, so in theory i might be two points behind leadership.
Uefa Champions Cup was great, in a tough group with Barcelona, Lazio and Celtic i managed to finish in first place, but first draw put me on the path of B.Munich (seriously??) well, lets cross that bridge when it comes.

Presently my top players are Jonas with 16 goals, Renato Sanches with 9 assists and Mitroglou with 8.00 average

Hope you find this reading interesting... now for the exciting second half of the season... 

[Ashez]

Nice start and welcome to Vibe. I enjoyed the read but some screenshots would be nice

[lfcosta73]

Yes, of course, you're right.

Here are some SS for you to see.

[JustM1kePlays]

Welcometo Vibe. Wow 11 games unbeaten well done mate.

[lfcosta73]

Yeah! The players have been responding well to this new tactic. I think that now it's all about carefull selection of players. As soon as Bruma gets fit to play he will replace Carcela and i believe it will improve a lot our overall performance. Also, i'm still trying to find the best option for my DLP. Both Thiago Maia and Bazoer are considered wonderkids and have great stats with tremendous potential but they have been performing below average. I'm still to figure out if they are a wrong fit on this team or if they just need a bit more time to settle and achieve full potential. Nonetheless even if both of them fail, i have young Pelé on loan.

For now i'm very happy with the squad, some of the older players have still one or two more good seasons under they're belt, but i have already replacements for them.

To replace the keeper Júlio César i have already Ederson and also Predrag Rajkovic which i've signed this January but he will only come in the end of the season. I'll probably loan one of them until Júlio César retires and than they will both be part of the squad.

In my defense i have Luisão which i'm still considering keeping or not. Lindelof is his natural sucessor, alongside with Lisandro and Jardel i have my CD position covered for the next years. Eliseu has signed for one more year and i'm still evaluating if Grimaldo will be or not the right sucessor. If not i need to find here a new replacement.

The other veteran i need to think about is the forward Jonas, but there also i have already everything covered with Jovic and Jonathan Rodriguéz.

Let's see what the second half of this first season brings.

[edited some typos]

Edited April 7, 2016 by lfcosta73

[kylieboi88]

Welcome to vibe, great read.

I signed bazoer for spurs b4 the update and ended up selling him at a loss bcoz he wanted a new deal every week and if i dropped him for a game he wanted a transfer.

Maia is the nuts of a DLP i loved him on my brazil save. Theres a young left midfielder geudes or something how he is not in your side is criminal, hes excellent. 

All the best, I may even do a portugal save as Benfica and Sporting are my fav clubs from that country 

[lfcosta73]

@kylieboi88 thanks

So far Bazoer hasn't caused me any trouble and he's been performing a lot better than Thiago Maia, so for now he is my first choice for DLP.

The young left midfielder you're talking about is Gonçalo Guedes and indeed he's a great player. He didn't start well, but than, no one did, so i ultimately swapped him for Carcela which has been performing very well in my left side as an Inside Forward. Now that i have bought Bruma, i guess Carcela will see less play. Guedes is still my go to player when i need to replace my left IF or my right Winger.

 

[lfcosta73]

SL Benfica - Diary of a journey to conquer the world #1 (part two)

So season one is over now and i can say that it went way off what i would expect.
I manage to win the Portuguese Super Cup, Portuguese League Cup and Europe Champions Cup. Was runner-up for the Portuguese Cup and ended in 3rd place on the League Championship, fighting for 1st place right until the last game of the season.

My tactic went really well, but at times i had the sensation that the game AI would "interfere", whenever i was in a winning streak of 10 or 11 games i always loose or draw one or two games to end the streak. This happened two times: the first time during first half of the season, after 11 wins in a row i lost strangely with Estoril and again after 11 wins in a row between April and May i had a draw and a loss. Don't now if it was the IA messing with me or not, but it felt strange.

Nonetheless i'm very happy with my tactic and i made some variants that sometimes i use. But my main 433 kicked some ass  
Played Barcelona 4 times (won 3 and draw 1; 9 goals scored and 3 against). Against B.Munich scored 4 goals and suffured 2 in both legs.
Winning ECC in first year with Benfica was really outstanding.

You can check some stats in these pictures.

Now i have Season two to prepare and i need to win again the ECC but also the Portuguese League. I have already a great team, but need to figure out where i can do better:

SEASON ONE SQUAD:
GK - Júlio César, Ederson and Paulo Lopes;
DF - Nélson Semedo, André Almeida; Lisandro López, Jardel, Lindelof, Luisão; Grimaldo and Eliseu;
MF - Riechedly Bazoer, Thiago Maia; Bentancur, Samaris; Renato Sanches, André Horta and Talisca;
AT - Salvio, Andrija Zivkovic; Bruma, Carcela, Gonçalo Guedes; Luka Jovic, Mitroglou, Jonas, Jiménez.

CARREGA BENFICA!

[lfcosta73]

26M for transfers... NIIICE!
Any suggestions?

[ADNANJANUZAJMOYES]

A solid central defender! Maybe murillo from inter

[lfcosta73]

@ADNANJANUZAJMOYES Yes, a Central Defender is needed. Luisão is old and Jardel will enter now it's decay phase. Lindelof and Lisandro will provide a decent coverage but i guess that a new strong CD won't be a bad choice. Jeison Murillo is indeed a very good choice, but i don´t know if i can grabb him from Inter. Other possible options i have in mind are Uros Spajic, Matthias Ginter, Daniele Rugani or Hidde ter Avest.
 

I decided to buy 1 Right Full Back (Djibril Sidibé, Erick Durm, Kenny Tete, Marcel Tisserand, Matteo Darmian and Omar Elabdellaoui are my main options); and also 2 Left Wing Backs (Jorge and Alex Telles are my first choices here).

I've already signed keeper Predrag Rajkovic and also the experient midfielder Nigel Reo-Cooker.

[lfcosta73]

Still going over season preparations but i have almost my entire squad ready.

I decided to make one tactical change and swap the two central midfielder roles. Now my BBM plays on the right side of my central midfield and my BWM plays on the left side. This seems to make more sense to me, since in the left i use a WB that makes all flank and leaves more empty space behind. This way my BWM will be much closer of this empty space and will balance more my team.

So my tactic will look like this now:

        GK
FB CD CD WB
       DLP
  BBM BWM
W               IF
         P

For now my squad has the following players:

GK: Júlio César, Predrag Rajkovic, Ederson;
FB: Nélson Semedo, Silvan Widmer, André Almeida;
CD: Lindelof, Lisandro López, Luisão, Jardel, Hidde ter Avest;
WB: Alex Telles, Cristian Ansaldi;
DLP: Riechedly Bazoer, Thiago Maia;
BWM: Pelé, Samaris, Reo-Coker;
BBM: Renato Sanches, Bentancur;
RW: Zivkovic, Gonçalo Guedes;
LIF: Bruma, Gancinovic, Carcela;
P: Jonathan Rodriguez, Jonas, Luka Jovic, Mitroglou.

Players Out: Paulo Lopes (free), Eliseu, Alex Grimaldo, Talisca, Salvio, Jimenez.
Players In: Predrag Rajkovic, Silvan Widmer, Hidden ter Avest, Alex Telles, Cristian Ansaldi, Nigel Reo-Coker, Mitaj Gacinovic.

I will put out some images later on

[kylieboi88]

Reo coker is risky for a big club i can only imagine its to be a squad player as cover?