Career Geordiekrispy's Fiorentina Challenge - Complete

[geordiekrispy]

I fancied a bit of a more structured challenge for my next career, so I decided to go for the Death and Rise of AC Fiorentina challenge:

 

Essentially you sign an Italian GK, Portuguese Attacking Midfielder and Argentinian Striker, to copy AC Fiorentina's trio of Toldo, Rui Costa and Batistuta.

 

So here's the usual starting screenshots:

Spoiler

 

My Francesco Toldo

For my Italian GK, I scoured the Italian Serie A for the best young keeper I could afford, I ended up with:

Whilst he's not great, he seemed like he could be definitely good enough.

 

My Riu Costa

For my Portuguese Att Midfielder, I decided to try and find a winger to ensure that I could get some crosses and corners to help rack up my assists.

 

My Gabriel Batistuta

As Fiorentina already have a very decent young Argentinian Striker I decided to just use him:

 

I shall post the next few seasons very shortly, hopefully I can get Simeone scoring with Vigidal assisting and Cragno keeping as many clean sheets as possible!

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by geordiekrispy

[Nucleus]

Good luck mate 😁

[smoggy90]

What a player Batistuta was! Best of luck.

[Leo Wats]

I

42 minutes ago, smoggy90 said:

What a player Batistuta was! Best of luck.

I remember as a child watching Italian football on channel 4 and being amazed by him.

[geordiekrispy]

Season 1

 

Ok, so I've finally managed to find time to update this thread, hopefully with the first few seasons.

 

Transfers:

Spoiler

Players In:

Players Out:

 

Overall it was a decent enough season, the players all did what they were supposed to, it wasn't a massive season we didn't win the league and my goals against wasn't great, which means my GK will be knocking a lot of potential points of my season 1 score.

 

I did win Manager of the year though, so a small success I suppose.

 

The players:

Cragno:

Cragno had an ok season, the annoying thing is that I've got 2 or 3 really good young non Italian keepers already at the club that I'm having to not use...

Spoiler

 

A total of 40 conceded this season, not a great start!

 

Vigidal:

Vidigal seemed to be improving a decent amount, but him and Chiesa are a damn good partnership as wingers.

Spoiler

 

12 assists isn't great, so hopefully he can improve on that in coming seasons.

 

Simone:

He is quite frankly a beast! He scores for fun almost every game and doesn't seem to get injured for very long... (fingers crossed).

Spoiler

 

Awesome start of 44 goals, means I should at least have some points on the board for this season.

 

Points:

 

A grand total of 16 points is not great for a first season, but it's somewhere to build from!

 

On to season 2...

 

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

Season 2

 

Ok, let's hope we can build on a disappointing first season.

 

In short... kind of...

 

Transfers:

Spoiler

Edit:

I don't appear to have taken any screenshots of my transfers for this season, but I essentially sent out a load of players on loan and I picked up Fabio Silva for £1m with a p/ex of a player I didn't need.

 

Players:

Cragno:

Spoiler

Not a great season for my GK, basically conceding once a game...

 

Vigidal:

Spoiler

A very minor improvement in terms of stats...

 

Simeone:

Spoiler

A good season, not quite as impressive in terms of goals per games as last season, but at least he cancelled out Crago's point deductions again...

 

Trophies:

Well... we didn't win the league, again...

In fact finishing 6th was a major disappointment, the season started badly and just didn't improve to much.

 

But in Europe...

Success! With Simeone getting a brace.

 

So what does that do for us points wise?

 

Points:

 

Not a great total, the Champions League really helped otherwise it would've been an awful season, onward and upwards... hopefully...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

Season 3

 

Trying to build on the disappointing second season, hopefully I can get some more cups won and get a better defensive record...

 

Transfers:

Spoiler

Players In:

 

I brought in a young Italian CB to try and shore up my defence, didn't really need anyone else at this point.

 

Players Out:

Clearing out deadwood and more loans of young players.

 

The Players:

Cragno:

Still not a great record for my GK, with 55 conceded overall

Spoiler

 

Vidigal:

A much better season in terms of assists from Vidigal, a nice total of 34.

Spoiler

 

Simeone:

Another great season from my striker, smashing in 69 goals in all competitions.

Spoiler

 

Trophies:

So is this the year I manage to win some trophies?

Spoiler

Yes!

First up is the Club World Cup, with a brace from Simeone:

 

Then the Italian Cup:

 

And Serie A!

 

And finally the Champions League again:

 

But I was runner up for the European Super Cup and the Italian Super Cup, something to build on for next year!

 

So... along with all those trophies I also won the manager of the year again:

 

Points:

So hopefully that should get me a bit of a more respectable points score for this season:

 

Definitely a better season!

Now just to get those last few cups that have alluded me this season and hopefully improve my defence a little...

 

Edit:

I noticed the points were only adding on to the previous season's total, not the total score (it's only 16 points, but it all counts)

 

Edited January 23, 2019 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

Season 4

 

After a trophy filled season 3 let's try and see if we can improve on those results, hopefully with less goals conceded and more trophies

 

Transfers:

Spoiler

Players In:

I couldn't resist a player swap for one of midfielders and Frenkie de Jong and a couple more academy graduates.

 

Players Out:

 

Clearing out more deadwood and finally being able to sell some of them rather than just letting them go on a free, and more loans out of my reserves/first team squad members that can't break into the first team.

 

The Players:

Cragno:

Spoiler

Let's have a look at how Cragno, who's now broken into the Italian side is doing attributes wise:

 

Not too shabby, not amazing, and unfortunately LaFont is still nipping at his heels for a first team place rather than being on the bench.

And let's look at how he did this season.

Much better only conceding 46, almost his best season with 26 more games played!

 

Vigidal:

Spoiler

Let's look at the now "peaked" Vigidal:

Still a lot of yellow on there, but Crossing and Dribbling are pretty much all I care about.

 

Let's look at how the young Portuguese winger did this year:

 

His best year yet!

50 assists, an amazing season for him, almost an assist a game in the league and 1 per game in continental competitions.

 

Simeone:

Spoiler

Now Simeone has not progressed at all in a couple of seasons, but he's not in decline as he's still young(ish).

He unfortunate to be hit by a couple of 3 week injuries this season, so he missed a good chunk of games:

 

This meant that I had to get his "understudy" back from loan to fill in a couple of times, but he did ok I suppose...

 

So how did the injury plagued season go:

20 less games and he still scores 50 goals... Just imagine what he'd have done on a full season!

 

Trophies:

So with those stats how did we do in the various competitions?

Spoiler

Club World Championship was our again:

We finally win the Italian Super Cup:

We keep hold of the Italian Cup:

We also keep our hands on the Serie A trophy:

 

We also won the European Super Cup, but I forgot to take a screenshot of that and we lost the Champions League Final to Spurs with a de Jong own goal in extra time.

 

 

So overall a pretty good season, an injury hit one for my striker, but he still the business and disappointment in the Champions League final, but we managed to win the Italian and European Super cups so that rounds out all the available trophies for the team (other than the Europa League) and I won the manager of the year again.

 

Plus we have over half of the Serie A team of the year:

 

After the final season I think I'll go through and post all of the awards that the players have one, Chiesa is quite frankly a machine, he's poaching goals off Simeone, but he's dominating on all fronts; domestic, European and International.

 

Points:

 

Let's hope for a clean sweep next season to finish off the challenge!

Edited January 23, 2019 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

Season 5 - The final season

 

So here we are, the final season of this challenge.  I think I can safely say that I have made Fiorentina great again and restored them to their former glory, if not surpassing that former team.

 

So how did we do?

 

Transfers:

Spoiler

Players In:

One youth promotion and a young Brazilian CB.

 

Players Out:

 

Trying to clear out some players that really should be first teamers somewhere, so I let them go... for a good chunk of money, and then sending the others out on loan, if I could.

 

The Players:

The final look at the players I chose for this challenge:

Cragno:

Spoiler

In the end he's improved a fair amount, but has now peaked and is fighting to be the Italian main GK.

Let's see how he did this season:

Not a massive improvement, but not too shabby, managed to play every league game this season, but we missed out on the "easy games" of the club world cup by not winning the Champions League the season before.

 

Vigidal:

Spoiler

Like I said last time, he's peaked but he still does a good job, definitely a show case of not needing greens everywhere to put in a good shift and do the job required.

 

Again not quite as good a season as last year, but still a damn good season for the winger.

 

Simeone:

Spoiler

He likewise has peaked, but he's still pretty decent where it counts.

 

Another almost best season return for the prolific striker, if I'd been able to stop my BBM and Chiesa from scoring he'd probably have hit 80 goals.

 

Trophies:

Could I continue my reign as Serie A champions and win back our crown of best in Europe too?

Spoiler

Italian Cup

 

Champions League (just)

 

Serie A

 

I also won the Italian Super Cup, but forgot to get a screenshot...

 

Points:

 

So how did that improve my challenge points total:

 

Not as good a season as the previous one, but still it puts me at a decent enough total points score of 674. @Nucleus can you put my score on the leaderboard please?

 

Final Thoughts:

Overall a decent result, I think Simeone had the ability to hit 80 goals a season, assuming no or short injuries, but my tactics/rest of the team wanted to score too, I could have almost done the everyone's a goal scorer challenge (if it was allowed past the first season).

I was unsure about my choice for Vigidal as my Portuguese attacking midfielder, but he really came good in the final couple of seasons with a massive number of assists.

Cragno was not the best GK choice either, but probably the best I could afford and he did ok, with a better tactic/defence in front of him, he probably would've conceded less.

 

It has definitely got me thinking about my next challenge.  Not sure if I want to have a specific goal scorer challenge, like a 1k or the UK goal scoring challenge.  Or more of a team based challenge like the mid-level challenge or a Long Way to the Top.  Hell I might even just play the game normally... Or finally get around to writing up my Sir Bobby Challenge and trying it myself.

 

[Nucleus]

Added to the leaderboard. Great score mate, and a massive apology for not following throughout 🙁 

[geordiekrispy]

Just now, Nucleus said:

Added to the leaderboard. Great score mate, and a massive apology for not following throughout 🙁 

Nah it's ok, i didn't really post anything until I'd almost completed it due to new baby and family life being manic.

[mikeedwilson]

Great work! A de Jong own goal away from getting an attempt at a clean sweep in Season 5 must be frustrating! One Vigidal getting that many assists with minimal greens is interesting - something I should pay attention to a bit more when selecting players.

Enjoyed reading and following this one. Sir Bobby challenge sounds interesting!  

 

[geordiekrispy]

1 minute ago, mikeedwilson said:

Great work! A de Jong own goal away from getting an attempt at a clean sweep in Season 5 must be frustrating! One Vigidal getting that many assists with minimal greens is interesting - something I should pay attention to a bit more when selecting players.

Enjoyed reading and following this one. Sir Bobby challenge sounds interesting!  

 

Yeah it was infuriating to say the least!  Honestly, I'm not convinced he's as good as everyone says, or he wasn't for me anyway.

Yeah Vigidal just seemed to do so well with a good full back and midfielders next to him, plus with the aerial ability bug, means you are guaranteed goals from corners.  With my tactics I had Simeone offset to one side as the loan striker so he was always on the near post for a quick header in.