Career Flynn and Esposito taking over La Liga - 1kc (Season 6)

[Chris]

Posting this quite late. Started a while ago and it's been slow going, but hopefully I will speed things up a bit from now. I'm half way through the third season and you can find the first 2 seasons at the bottom of this post. I will be keeping the updates short and sweet and will try post each season as I finish them from now on. 

Barcelona and Real Madrid were the obvious choices for this challenge, but I went for my favorite team in the league. Still a strong side, and they shouldn't need a great deal of strengthening to get things off to a strong start:

The main man. Ignore the date on the screenshot. I forgot to take one at the start of the season.

A great set of stats for such a young player. Only one downside... He has had the "development has plateaued" on his training page for the entirety of his career so far and has shown little improvement (except for a random jump in aerial at the end of season 2 and some aggression mentoring, as you will see below) . Hopefully this will change soon.

Season One

Spoiler

Competitions:

League was decided on the final game of the season. We had been top for entirety of the season and fluffed it in the final game to hand the title to Barcelona. Made up for it by winning the champions league with little challenge. 

Goals:

I was quite surprised by Esposito's first season. 41 goals in 40 games sees us get off to a strong start. Again though his lack of development is worrying. 

Total: 41/1000

Season Two

Spoiler

A very nice surprise to kick off the 2nd season:

With the current stamina of Esposito INT games won't be making too much of a difference at this stage. But it's always good to get the job asap. 

Competitions:

The team is still finding their feet. I'm still tweaking my tactic slightly but hope that more goals and better results start to flow in following seasons. 

Goals:

I'm not sure why the INT stats on his history page are not correct. He definitely scored 2 goals. GPG not great as I subbed him off quite early due to fitness concerns. 

Anyway, we finished the season with another 41 goals to add to the tally.

Point to note, his aerial took a huge jump up to 18 right at the end of the season. Not sure why this happened as he still "needs to mature to develop further" but I can't complain. I just wish it happened at the beginning. I think his goal tally would have been much better. 

Total: 82/1000

Thanks for taking the time to read! Apologies for the first long post. 

Edited December 21, 2019 by itzChris92

[BatiGoal]

Just turned 19 so he's still a very young lad + you got the ITN job already. Perfect start! 

[Ian]

He’s going well so far. Even with his recent aerial increase he’s still not great at this stage yet you’ve got a good few goals chalked off already. Keep it up!

[Chris]

4 hours ago, Ian said:

He’s going well so far. Even with his recent aerial increase he’s still not great at this stage yet you’ve got a good few goals chalked off already. Keep it up!

Thanks! Hoping to finish the 3rd season tomorrow

[broodje kip]

Another 1kc nicceeee

[Chris]

Season Three

I was overall pleased with how things went this season. The beginning was slow as I was still making adjustments to the tactic, but the team really began to impress towards the latter parts of the year. I'm happy with how the team are playing now, and can't see my self needing to make any drastic changes. 

One thing that is slightly annoying is the lack of quality in the Italy team. Their defence is pretty dire all round minus the keepers, and they don't have much in the way of wingers to supplement Esposito up front. Fingers crossed for some wonderkids to start shining through or I may need to run a different tactic for my INT games.

Anyway, here are the results after the third season - 

Competitions:

A decent increase in performance all round really. Still had Barcelona right on the heels though, winning the league on the last game of the season. 

Goals:

Not sure why his international goals don't seem to be adding up. I always take my screenshot at the last possible day before the new season screen. Seems 2 goals are unaccounted for on the history screen.

Anyway, Esposito really impressed this season. Even with the dire start he had he still managed to bang in 67 goals across all competitions, smashing his previous year. That 18 aerial really did the trick. His development was frozen again all season, and the stat increases you see above have only just happened. But most importantly... HE SEEMS TO HAVE MATURED! Let's get them greens coming! 

Total: 149/1000

[MikeF]

I’m about to start an Esposito 1k but Inter didn’t want to sell at all so he cost me £150m! Seems you got a better deal...

[Chris]

9 minutes ago, MikeF said:

I’m about to start an Esposito 1k but Inter didn’t want to sell at all so he cost me £150m! Seems you got a better deal...

Dam that's a high price. Maybe try loading a similar game and going for him again? 

[MikeF]

13 minutes ago, itzChris92 said:

Dam that's a high price. Maybe try loading a similar game and going for him again? 

Nah. I’m PSG so have the money. Thats the way the cookie crumbles! No reloading from me. 

[Chris]

53 minutes ago, MikeF said:

Nah. I’m PSG so have the money. Thats the way the cookie crumbles! No reloading from me. 

Ah I thought you couldn't afford him. Best of luck! 

[broodje kip]

Great season and that aerial looks nice

[Kanegan]

Great three seasons so far and you got the INT job pretty early. 

[Chris]

On 05/12/2019 at 02:24, Kanegan said:

Great three seasons so far and you got the INT job pretty early. 

Yeah about that... Lost against Belgium in world Cup second round and they gave me the sack 😕 stupid game... The final was Holland vs Australia!! My tactic really wasn't clicking with Italy. And the board had extremely high expectations considering we were ranked 27th in the world...

Not far from finishing my current season now, and hopefully get a few banged out pretty quick after this one. 

Anyone ever been sacked and rehired by an INT team in any of their careers before? 

[Chris]

Season Four

This season was brought with it a mix of emotions. As a club we had our best season yet, with our main man also doing quite well. Everything was going so well until... The World Cup.

We finished with 2nd in the Group Stages of a difficult group, drawing 1 game and winning the others. Italy seemed to be starting to cope with the tactic, conceding few, but they couldn't seem to score. This may have been due to the lack of world class wingers, although I feel Politano, Chiesa, and El Sharaawy should all have been up to the task. 

Anyway, we were knocked out by Belgium in the second round in a typical FMM fashion. We dominated possession and the shot stats, but could not get anything past Courtois. That, coupled with a super Brace from good ol' Kevin saw us take a heartbreaking early trip home. Swiftly followed by the "big boot"... This may be the deciding factor of this challenge... 

Onto the rest... 

Competitions:

The league was a breeze. We won with 5 games to spare, with Barcelona now struggling to keep up with a maturing Athletico team. We also hit the 100 league goals milestone. Always room for improvement however, and I hope to see less draws and even more goals next season.

We also took home every other piece of silverware this season with little to no real opposition. Great stuff. 

We are also currently on a 70 game undefeated run! 

Goals:

His stats are looking great for a TM now, although I don't think he has much development left. I wish he had a bit more technical ability and dribbling, but so long as the goals keep coming I can't complain. 

74 goals across all competitions this season (see proof of INT goals below, following losing the Italian job. Only 3 measly goals anyways). Fairly happy with that, although I was hoping for 80+. He may well have hit that with the extra INT games as he doesn't stand a chance of being selected against Pinamonti at the moment. 

I think he should hit the 1k mark if he can reach the 80 mark and maintain that into his late twentied. If he plays till 35, he needs to average just over 50 goals per season for the rest of his career.

Thanks for reading.

Total: 223/1000

The Big Boot:

Spoiler

I know the dates are a few days out, but I quickly remembered I should take a SS if my players stats to save any goals coming under question. If people would rather me discount these 3 goals from my total I'll happily do so. This date was while the World Cup was still running so no games were played by Italy between the 6th and 10th.

Aaaaand this game is mental:

How are Australia rated so good on this game when half of their players are grey?? They are ranked 8th in the world on my save... Whilst Italy were ranked 25th-ish when I took over! 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by itzChris92

[Chris]

Season Five

Keeping these short and sweet for now. I was fairly happy with the season, but I will be expecting bigger things from  Esposito as he enters what should be the best years of his career. 

Competitions:

Goals:

To be fair to him he was injured for about 6 weeks. He may have hit my target of 80 if it hadn't been for this. He took a while to start scoring properly after returning from injury. He still has a little room for potential but I won't expect his stats to change to much for now. 

Surprise:

It seems Italy's new manager suffered the same fate as myself and got the boot after failing to qualify from the group stages of the Euros. I applied for the job and will await a reply in the new season. 

 

And my sugar daddy couldn't have come at a better time as my squad is beginning to age now, and I could do with bringing in some world class young blood. 

 

Total: 288/1000

Edited December 18, 2019 by itzChris92

[MikeF]

Looking good. Is he still improving?

 

[Ian]

He looks to be well on course here. His returns are well in range and if he further improves you’ll be laughing. Keep it up 

[Chris]

59 minutes ago, MikeF said:

Looking good. Is he still improving?

 

Thanks mate. Your career with this guy is motivating me to get my seasons done quicker 😂 and yes, and his report says "Some room for improvement". Not quite the beast yours is, but I think he'll get close enough. 

36 minutes ago, Ian said:

He looks to be well on course here. His returns are well in range and if he further improves you’ll be laughing. Keep it up 

Thanks. I'm in two minds about switching up the tactic for the next season. I'd really like to hit those triple digits. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by itzChris92

[Chris]

Season Six

Italy decided to give me another chance. They had only been getting worse since I had last managed them, now ranked 31st. That's what you get for not trusting in Esposito! The squad was still pretty dire, lacking any real quality at wingback or wings. It was going to be a struggle either way, but I hoped my new tactical changes would help. If I end up losing the job again I'll stay out of the international management for this save. Its a shame that the squad sucks as they have some really good strikers. 

Competitions:

Walked away with every thing again this season. League performance wasn't as great overall, but I did switch up my tactic from last year.

Goals:

Not much in the way of stat changes, as expected, but he is a great player now. His shooting was 20 at some point, but an injury shocker at the end of the season saw him decline slightly... And he missed out on about 8 games as a result. He also scored 10 INT goals in 7 games, so happy with that. 

Fingers crossed that he doesn't miss too much of the new season. 

He was firing on all cylinders this season, with some great runs. Even still, I felt kind of robbed of triple digits when he missed the end of the season. He needed 13 goals in 8 games to make it. With INT goals included, he totaled 97 goals in 63 games. Most of the assists come from my wingers and wingbacks, and my middle 3 really struggle to get good ratings. I'll keep tinkering with them in the hope they will contribute more. 

Total: 385/1000

Thanks for reading! 

 

[broodje kip]

Great work almost hit the 100 there