Career Scratch Tries: Andrea Pinamonti 1.5KC [Complete]

[samhardy]

Try a 1CB system

[Scratch]

8 minutes ago, samhardy said:

Try a 1CB system

Once I level up the side I'm going to play 0 0 5 4 1 - but I need a better keeper first. 😄

BTW the way, I have one word for you regarding Sunderland: Karanka! 

[Scratch]

Update - Season 2

Pinamonti got off to a slowish start with 25 goals in his opening season (with a month out injured). My public target for season 2 was 35 goals, but I was privately hoping for 50, especially after seeing some of the other careers out there. Was that possible?

The team was starting to come together. We had brought in a bunch of wonderkids who were developing nicely and starting to step up. Last season we finished 3rd in the EPL and won the FA Cup. Could we win the EPL this year? How far would we go in the Champions League?

So many questions... Well, the answers are all below, so read on!

 

Transfers

We'd already totally overhauled the squad in season 1, so what do we do in season 2? Answer: Add moar wonderkids!

First though we needed to move on some players:

Spoiler

Notable departures:

• Matt Richie who had been a serviceable player in season 1, but who wasn't as good as the youngsters coming through.

• Dudu, who didn't work out as planned. He'd been epic for me at Celtic in 2017, but he couldn't get going this time around, perhaps because of the higher standard in the EPL.

• A bunch of youngsters who'd come back from a year on loan, but who where never going to cut it.

• The saddest departure of all was that of Adam Armstrong. You'll always be my first (1KC) Adam, but we need to go our separate ways this time round.

Coming in:

Spoiler

Notable newcomers:

• Kai Havertz to strengthen the midfield and provide flexibility to the squad. I remembered him from @BatiGoal's 1KC and figured he'd develop nicely and be retrainable.

• Kieran Tierney who has always excelled for me in my Celtic careers. I tried to buy him in season 1, but didn't quite have the coin back then.

• A couple of regens: Simone Cattani (Pirlo) and Jonas Menezes Jacomo (Kaka). I'm not planning to use too many regens, but couldn't pass these ones by. I would have got Jacomo anyway as I'm buying ALL the young Brazilians, but I specifically hunted Pirlo to be my DLP.

• A handful of other promising youngsters: Afonso, D'Amico, Reynoso.

The squad is coming together.

 

The Want Away

Last update I mentioned that our Brazilian wonderkid Arthur had decided he was too big for us. He was still very popular in the dressing room and still performing, so I decided to ride it out and keep him.

This season my resolve was tested severely. He complained weekly. His performances dropped off. He was no longer very popular with the squad. I had other players developing that meant I didn't need him so much. And bids were coming in:

Tempting under the circumstances. But I rode it out. He became a bench player, then didn't even feature for a while. A wasted genius...

Meanwhile I kept telling him what we were building here, that we'd become the greatest club in the world. He didn't believe it. But we were visibly getting better and doing well in all competitions. Eventually, he saw the light:

As will the whole world, and sooner rather than later...

 

Tactics

Last season was totally 4 3 2 1. This season started with the same, but I experimented with a two upfront / one CB formation (3 1 2 2 2). There is a screenshot in a post above, so I won't repeat it here.

It worked really well for a time. Mitrovic was the perfect partner for Pinamonti, providing more assists than goals and Pinamonti flourished. However, it didn't last - performances dropped off, Mitrovic started scoring too much, Pinamonti went cold...

So it was back to 4 3 2 1:

Having experimented with the instructions a little, I seem to have settled on a tactic that works quite well - at least for now.

 

Competitions

Here's how we did in the various competitions this seasons:

• Won the Community Shield, walking all over Man City (3-0), with Pinamonti scoring in the very first minute of the season.

• Won the League Cup, beating Liverpool 1-0 in the Final, with Pinamonti the scorer. I had a moment of panic in the Semi Final, when Leicester beat us 2-0, before I remembered that there'd been a first leg and we'd won that 4-0. 🤦‍♂️

• Won the FA Cup, beating Manchester City 3-0 in the Final, with 2 goals to Pinamonti.

• Won the Premier League by 14 points, the ghost of Ferguson's mind games laid to rest. We scored much better this time around too, with 85 goals for and 32 against.

• Made it to the Champions League final, after first braving a tough group (Real Madrid, Dortmund, Feyenoord). We took Barcelona to extra time, but they scored in the 117th minute (after we'd gone down to 10 men). They dominated, but we were left wondering what would have happened if Pinamonti's 15th minute goal hadn't been ruled offside. We'll be back.

Spoiler

 

 

So... A quadruple in our second season and close to winning the Champions League. Not bad... But we'll be better next year.

 

Sunderland Watch

Not going to ping anyone, don't want to get kicked off the forums for bullying, but it's not going so smoothly at our smaller neighbour.

Spoiler

 

I thought they'd be safe in Rafa Benetiz's capable hands. At one point they were just outside the playoff places, but then things started to slide. Their board reacted:

I missed whether Rafa got sacked or jumped ship or simply gave Sunderland up as a lost cause, but a few weeks later Aitor Karanka was appointed as their new boss:

Only he couldn't halt the slide and was given the dreaded vote of confidence.

They ended up finishing in 18th place, though well clear of relegation, with Karanka still in place. Let's hope they can push forward next season.

 

 

Facilities

One of the things I'd been wanting to do is to improve the facilities, and I went straight to the Board as soon as we won anything. They were so happy they kept saying yes! Mike Ashley must be sick or something...

We soon had maxed out training and youth development facilities and a much enlarged stadium (71K).

 

The Kingmaker

Who is providing all the goals? Pavon is our leading assist provider with 27 (he has the corners). After that it's back to an assortment of players around 10 assists each. Hoping more step up next year.

 

Injuries

No injuries this year! Long may it last.

 

Development

Pinamonti started the season looking like this:

And ended the season looking like this:

Massive upgrade all round. Starting to look very nice! Well apart from that Teamwork attribute. Hope he's still got a little development left in the tank, but I can work with this if not. 🙂

My staff tell me he sucks at free kicks and penalties though, which is a shame. He got slightly tired quite a lot this year, but strangely had some cracking performances when I pushed ahead and played him anyway (eg 4 goals against Anderlecht).

 

Awards

Pinamonti really stepped up this year and it was recognised with the Best Player in Europe award:

He was snubbed in England though with Mitrovic, mostly a backup player, winning English Footballer of the year and Pavon winning both Players' Player and Players' Young Player of the Year.

He did make it into the EPL team of the year, along with Mitrovic, Pavon and Scarpa and into the World Best 11 with Pavon:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Goals

Pinamonti scored 4 goals against Anderlecht, as well as racking up XXX hat-tricks this year (including one in the return leg against Anderlecht):

Spoiler

 

 

Note how many of them are in Semi Finals or knockout games, etc. Also note how many finals he scored in the Competitions section above. My staff won't say that he thrives in big matches, but screw them, I'll say it right here: He's Showtime!

In total, he scored 61 goals in 54 appearances:

Wow, that's a massive step up from last year. I suspect it's partly because he's turned into a great player already and partly because the team has gone from good Premier League team to one of the best teams in the world. It will be interesting to see if he can maintain it next year.

I was a little worried about doing a 1KC in the EPL, but I've got no doubts now, this lad is going all the way!

 

Progress

19 years old (EOY)	Season	Total
Club Goals	61	86



The Future

Is bright! The team is only going to get better and so is Pinamonti. We'll be aiming for the Champions League next year and 70 goals for Pinamonti. I wasn't expecting to get up to speed this quick, but I'll take it!

Edited July 19, 2018 by scratch99

[Damilare]

Nice season mate...with the involvement of champions league, u have more games which means more goals..

[Rob]

Cracking season buddy. Those attributes ❤️

[Nucleus]

Boom! 😁 Keep it up mate! Smashed it 

[lilgwanz]

Keep pushing bro this is going fine for me actually 

[Peely]

That's an impressive improvement over the first season and 61 goals in the Premier League would be a great achievement for a player in their prime. 1,500 goals or bust! 😛

[Scratch]

20 hours ago, Damilare said:

Nice season mate...with the involvement of champions league, u have more games which means more goals..

Thanks mate! Yeah, it definitely helps, although he's started being picked by Italy, so I need to be careful about not overloading him with games and keeping him fresh... What also helped this season was that his Stamina is better so he plays longer in games too.

added 0 minutes later

19 hours ago, Rob2017 said:

Cracking season buddy. Those attributes ❤️

Thanks mate. Yeah, he's turning out alright. 🙂

[Scratch]

18 hours ago, Nucleus said:

Boom! 😁 Keep it up mate! Smashed it 

Yeah, after the first season I was looking round the forum going "hang on, 26 is really really small compared to the others", so I'm glad he bounced back this season. Fingers crossed he can keep building on that

added 0 minutes later

16 hours ago, lilgwanz said:

Keep pushing bro this is going fine for me actually 

Thanks mate, yeah I think he'll make it fine now (was a bit worried after season 1)

[Scratch]

15 hours ago, Peely said:

That's an impressive improvement over the first season and 61 goals in the Premier League would be a great achievement for a player in their prime. 1,500 goals or bust! 😛

Thanks mate, yeah not a bad total and made me much more positive about this. I was pretty sure I could get him to 1K, but wasn't sure whether it would be a long hard struggle or whether it would be a bit smoother... I'm guessing the latter now.

Not going to mention the 1.5K mark. Can't even think about it. Oh, I've started shaking.... I need to go back to the therapist....

Spoiler

 

Edited July 20, 2018 by scratch99

[Cockers2505]

Looking good @scratch99 considering his young age, I know this guy turns out to be a monster up front from previous saves and other challenges i've seen, so only time will tell if he stays injury free, otherwise this is a walk in the park for you

[Scratch]

13 minutes ago, Cockers2505 said:

Looking good @scratch99 considering his young age, I know this guy turns out to be a monster up front from previous saves and other challenges i've seen, so only time will tell if he stays injury free, otherwise this is a walk in the park for you

Thanks @Cockers2505. I don't think I've ever had a 1KC start so well. Though it's my first one in 2018 so maybe it's different from 2017. It was a super happy bonus to find out he is "very rarely injured" - although of course he got injured in the first season, but hopefully injuries shouldn't be too bad this save... 🤞

[ADNANJANUZAJMOYES]

Looking good! They're usually inconsistent when they're young..can't wait to see how this works out

[Scratch]

3 hours ago, ADNANJANUZAJMOYES said:

Looking good! They're usually inconsistent when they're young..can't wait to see how this works out

Thanks mate, yeah good point about the inconsistency. A few bare patches in the next season, followed by some hot patches. But I gotta say he's doing better than any of my 2017 strikers, so I'm feeling good.

[FuddledFox]

This is building up very nicely indeed. Everything is progressing including the main man and a very tasty goal total this season as well from him.

Sunderland watch😂

Selling Armstrong😥

[Woody]

Dude...currently in a massive que at Thorpe Park so it have me chance to catch up.

Smashing 2nd season and Pino is coming along nicely.

Mitrovic getting POTY is just laughable  😂

Kiu mate you doing the Geordies proud! 😉

[Scratch]

44 minutes ago, Foxy said:

This is building up very nicely indeed. Everything is progressing including the main man and a very tasty goal total this season as well from him.

Sunderland watch😂

Selling Armstrong😥

Thanks - yeah looking good. Probably won't keep up the Sunderland Watch, just too good to pass up this year... 😄

As for Armstrong - that was a real hard one... I was thinking I'd make him my backup striker, but I realised he just wasn't good enough and the other players I was buying (like Rodrygo and Vinicius Junior) would probably be better backups, along with Mitrovic who had good teamwork etc... But it was a hard one... 😢

[Scratch]

4 minutes ago, Woody said:

Dude...currently in a massive que at Thorpe Park so it have me chance to catch up.

Smashing 2nd season and Pino is coming along nicely.

Mitrovic getting POTY is just laughable  😂

Kiu mate you doing the Geordies proud! 😉

Thanks mate, yeah it's going well. Newcastle will soon be the best club in the world. As for Mitrovic, he's actually doing really really well in the limited time allotted to him. Of course not POTY worthy at all, but enough to make me wonder about a 1KC with him.... But I have about 4 or 5 1KC ideas, better park them and concentrate on this one...

[Nucleus]

Mitrovic develops into one of the best TM’s in the game imo! I’ll try and find a screenshot from one of my careers

[Nucleus]

Found it. Part of my triple threat career. Three seasons in I got him for around £25m

His physicals are unreal 😍

[Woody]

37 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

Found it. Part of my triple threat career. Three seasons in I got him for around £25m

His physicals are unreal 😍

Those numbers are nuts 😲

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, Nucleus said:

Found it. Part of my triple threat career. Three seasons in I got him for around £25m

His physicals are unreal 😍

My one is not quite that good at the same age (mostly the same but 3 down on Pace and 1 down on a few of the others) - but still pretty damn good. I'm going to have to read back on your triple threat career now! 🙂

[JohnyBravo]

Great start, 60+ with 20 year old is impressive, especially in England. Looking forward to next update, KIU.

[Scratch]

6 hours ago, JohnyBravo said:

Great start, 60+ with 20 year old is impressive, especially in England. Looking forward to next update, KIU.

Thanks mate - yeah pretty happy with that, hoping he can build on that. I've seen some young strikers yo-yo a bit. 🤞

[Scratch]

Update - Season 3

Pinamonti took off last season with 61 goals. The question everyone is asking is whether he can maintain that sort of form and even build on it. I think he can and I've set a target of 70 goals for him this season.

Newcastle were only a Champions League final win away from a clean sweep last season and we'll be aiming to put that right this year. It's amazing we've got to this level so soon, but our youngsters have blossomed and we now have world beaters in every position (including on the bench).

I reckon it's going to be an exciting season!

 

Transfers

This year saw further refinement of the squad:

Spoiler

Notable departures:

• Most of the remaining original team that I inherited: Lascelles (our captain), Shelvey, Mbemba, Merino, Yedlin. They were the best of the original squad, but we've moved to the next level. Actually I would have kept Yedlin, but he became our first outcast, so his number was up too.

• Kryvstov who was our number 1 centre back up until the moment he was sold. I wasn't looking to sell him, but when the offer came in, I knew it was time. We'd just bought a better player and Roco could partner him just as well as Kryvstov could, and we had several youngsters ready to play. Brutal world, football.

Notable newcomers:

• Joe Gomez was our big signing. Our centre backs were good, but it was time to take them to the next level. I chose Gomez over some other players because he's English and I need to make sure we have some Englishmen in the squad!

• Amiri came in to hopefully provide assists (more on that below). I'd been eyeing him for a while, but pulled the trigger when I saw how well he was doing for @Foxy in his Teutonic Treble career.

• Passlack, Vidaic and Rosa came in to fight over the right back position vacated by Yedlin. All of them look top notch, so I may have gone a little overboard (yes, again).

• A handful of other promising youngsters: Sacristan, Maggio, Nydam, Silva de Sousa, Cordova and Fornaroli.

• A couple of graduates, one of whom will get a mention shortly. Also, I was disappointed to discover that FMM 2018 still has the board criticising you for signing youth team players. Why did they bother funding the improvement of the youth facilities then?

Worth noting that I unlocked the Work Permit unlockable:

 

On Regens

I'll take a second to explain my regen policy.

I'm not actively targeting regens beyond those I did in season 2 (Pirlo and Kaka). However I am trawling through large amounts of young players and I'm bound to pick a few up. Of course some are obvious due to their nationality and I won't turn them away if I think they'll help.

The exception to this is that I am actively targeting a few English regens. I have very few English players left and need to balance it out a bit better, but it's hard to find top quality English youngsters who will be able to actually earn some playing time.

You might suggest I buy the top English players instead. I'm reaching stage where I have money spare for that, but some are impossible to get (Tottenham are not letting go of Ryan Sessegnon at any price), while others are just not going to get in the team (I would have taken Eric Dier a season ago, but now there are better options in all his positions).

Don't get me wrong - I am buying some real English players (mostly young), but I'm supplementing that with a few regens.

 

Right Under Your Nose

One of the regens I was eyeing was Joe Cole. I know it's debatable whether he would fit into the "really top quality" category I just mentioned, but I liked him enough in real life and I figured it would be worth the punt to see how he turned out.

Problem is I couldn't find him... Then just when I had given up, I realised that I already had him. He'd come to me as a youth player and was sitting in my reserves, loaned out to a League 1 team.

Spoiler

We'll see how he develops, but he's already had a case of disrupting training and made no comment when I called him out on it, so he might be headed for the exit sooner rather than later.

 

Competitions

Here's how we did in the various competitions this seasons:

• Won the Community Shield, but only after it went to penalties. Not a very convincing start to the season.

• Won the League Cup, beating Leicester 4-0 in the Final, with Pinamonti scoring a penalty.

• Won the FA Cup, beating Brighton 3-0 in the Final, with Pinamonti scoring one of the goals.

• Won the Premier League by 20 points. We had it wrapped up in mid-April. We went undefeated and scored 100 goals this time around. Looking for 115 next time.

• We won the Champions League, beating Man City 3-2 in a tense final. They scored early and we couldn't get any decent shots away. I got that "we're going to lose" feeling, but Pinamonti popped up to equalise and the game headed into extra time. We went ahead, they equalised and I thought it was going to penalties - but we scored with 2 minutes left and snatched a victory we didn't really deserve. They all count...

Spoiler

 

One for Ashez

I thought of @Ashez when this fellow won Player of the Month, not once, but twice:

I liked him well enough, but never rated him that highly. Now he's beating my fancy 1KC striker to Player of the Month? Maybe Ashez was right after all!

 

Facilities

I keep winning things, so I keep asking for things. Because the facilities were maxed out last year, I really only have the stadium size left to ask for.

We're up to 106,000 seats now, so I'm wondering what will happen if I eventually get a new stadium. It'll have to be massive!

 

Injuries

No injuries again this year. It's great that he's resistant to injuries - but what's this?

He's robust but he has a recurring groin issue? 😱 Let's hope the robust part wins out there...

 

Development

Pinamonti started the season looking like this:

And ended the season looking like this:

No improvement to Physicals or Shooting, but I'm happy with Decisions and Movement both improving by 2. I got the dreaded "reached a peak" message from my staff near the end of this season, so I guess that's it.

 

Awards

Pinamonti received the following awards this year:

• Best Player in Europe

• English Footballer of the Year

• Players' Player of the Year

• Players' Young Player of the Year

• Players Team of the Year, along with Pavon

• World Best 11 with Amiri

Spoiler

 

 

 

Goals

Pinamonti scored four hat-tricks this year, all in the first half of the year:

Spoiler

 

In total, he scored 61 goals in 51 appearances:

Same as last year and short of our target of 70 goals. I'm trying to stay positive about it - I know it's still a great number at this stage, but ... I was really hoping for 70.

He was like lightning in the first half off the year, but slowed down in the second half, I think because he played too much. He is now a regular for Italy (remember ITN friendlies don't show in the screen above, they played a lot more than that), which makes it harder to avoid the slightly tired message. He even became jaded and in need of a rest at one point.

I guess that means I need to keep an eye out for the Italy job.

 

The Italy Job

I don't want the ITN job, but I'm going to have to try to get it, purely so I can balance Pinamonti's playing time.

Luckily, I've become the best manager in the world:

And Ancelotti is very insecure in the position at the moment:

I'll be interested to see if FMM 2018 is like 2017, where he will stay very insecure while winning or drawing, but become safe again when Italy loses a game (which of course seems back to front, but there you go). Even if he's sacked, I can't count my chickens as there are a number of very good Italian managers around.

 

The Kingmaker

Who is providing all the goals?

Despite bringing Amiri in to be the assist-master, it's still Pavon who's leading the way with 28 assists from 38 appearances. His attributes generally aren't as good as others on our team, but he gets the results. He did get injured 4 times this season though, which is a worry.

Amiri played well, but quite frankly was disappointing in terms of assists (after seeing him get 30 or 40 for Foxy). I generally played him either as wide left AP (if Pavon was playing) or wide right AP (if Pavon was not). He's now trained as a CM, so I may play him as AP from there next season.

I was also disappointed in both (Pirlo) Cattani and Havertz. I was really expecting more from them. Maybe they'll improve as they mature a little (although Cattani is already 24). I'm also hoping Menezes (Kaka) Jacomo (still only 18) will step up - he was a legend in some of my 2017 careers.

Corners are still mostly taken by Pavon. It seems his corners results in a) more goals and b) more goals for Pinamonti. For some reason he can stick it on Pinamonti's head at the near post, while the other all go to the back post. Not sure why... ¯_(ツ)_/¯

 

Progress

21 years old (EOY)	Season	Total
Club Goals	61	147



The Future

The team met their goal this year (the Champions League) and now there is nothing left to shoot for, apart from utter dominance every year. Pinamonti will continue to improve with age, like a fine wine... He didn't make it to 70 this year, so that will be my aim for next year (or maybe a little higher).
 

Edited July 23, 2018 by scratch99

[Nucleus]

Wow, a great season. I’m surprised you sold Merino as he develops into an all round beast this year after a few seasons. Regarding the stadium bit, I maxed out my capacity on my Augusta save and in 22 seasons I never got a new one from the board so I’d recommend slowing down on the extensions. 61 goals is a great amount and you’re ticking along nicely now, I’m also liking the update style. Very nice work Scratch, KIU

[FuddledFox]

38 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

Amiri played well, but quite frankly was disappointing in terms of assists (after seeing him get 30 or 40 for Foxy). I generally played him either as wide left AP (if Pavon was playing) or wide right AP (if Pavon was not).

Try him wide right as a winger and put him on all corners and I'm sure you will see those kinds of numbers.

Pinamonti is looking awesome and reminds me of Arp attributes wise so I'm sure the goals are going to increase over the next few years.

[Nucleus]

1 minute ago, Foxy said:

Try him wide right as a winger and put him on all corners

That’s exactly what I do with him too 😁 by far his best position imo

[Scratch]

2 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

Wow, a great season. I’m surprised you sold Merino as he develops into an all round beast this year after a few seasons. Regarding the stadium bit, I maxed out my capacity on my Augusta save and in 22 seasons I never got a new one from the board so I’d recommend slowing down on the extensions. 61 goals is a great amount and you’re ticking along nicely now, I’m also liking the update style. Very nice work Scratch, KIU

Thanks mate!

Yeah Merino is very good, I just have better! 🙂 Arthur, Fred, Cattani (Pirlo) have been my starters in central midfield this year, with Havertz and Menezes (Kaka) Jacomo coming off the bench. Amiri may be moving into the central midfield. Sacristan looks the business too. And I'm hanging on to Dozell as my token Englishman... So that's 8 players sharing 3 positions... Merino just fell off the edge of the rotation... 

Next season is going to see some major surprises in the Out column too. At least two players that others have had a lot of success with will be out the door. And one of the players I mentioned above... I'm a ruthless b*@$tard... Actually, I'm basically a cat lady, who occasionally realises that one or two of the little darlings have to go...

As for the stadium, I guess I'll have to miss the new stadium this save. To be honest I'd rather have a 100K stadium now than have to wait. I'm sure it helps with attracting players and club reputation etc.