Career Bati Attempts In-game Challenges 5/7, 6/7 & 7/7

[BatiGoal]

6/7 You Can't Win Anything With Kids

 

Challenge Recap:

• Board's gone overboard --> children are the future with immediate effect --> senior players exit the club --> kids remain.. dumbfounded --> I come in to teach a thing or two --> and to meet the challenge objectives --> WIN A TROPHY WITH KIDS🏆

And in that light I've done a bit of research and found six perfect clubs with plenty of senior players to disappoint:

 

Parma Calcio 1913 - 9 players aged 30+ in the squad, including 32yo Gervinho and 37yo Bruno Alves. Great history and former players. Almost went with Parma for the Austerity Measures Challenge.

Albacete Balompié - 10 players aged 30+ in the squad, including 30yo Nadal. No, not the tennis player. In fact, none of the Albacete squad has the slightest proficiency in the game of tennis.

Royal Antwerp FC - 11 players aged 30+ in the squad, including 31yo Defour and 31yo former Everton striker Mirallas. Another senior player is A. Baby. You heard it. Veteran player Mr Baby. Only at Antwerp.

FC Internazionale - 12 players aged 30+ in the squad, including the two 33yo's D. Godín and A. Young. This team has a history of going for age. Internazionale are also the strongest team in the list.

Istanbul Başakşehir - 13 players aged 30+ in the squad, including ex-Arsenal Clichy, ex-Liverpool Skrtel, ex-Chelsea Ba and the infamous Robinho. Istanbul Başakşehir love big-name past-their-prime players.

Antalyaspor Kulübü - 15! players aged 30+, including 34 yo German Lukas Podolski. He's still playing? Apparently. 15 over-thirty players in your squad is just nuts. Royally nuts. Not for Antalyaspor.

 

The above clubs have a squad of fossil-like proportions, which should make this challenge a little more entertaining. But hopefully also a little tougher for the extreme rejuvenation process it needs to undergo. And at the same time win silverware.

Pls drop a comment with your club of choice. @samhardy you may vote for Stevenage again if you like. First club to receive 3 votes gets the nod, and will feature in this challenge. Thank you.

[broodje kip]

I’ll go for Parma and Inter

[Kanegan]

Go for Basaksehir. 

[Kun Aguero]

Parma looks like a great challenge

[BatiGoal]

Thanks for the votes @Lord Danish, @Kanegan & @Kun Aguero.

• 2 votes - Parma Calcio 1913
• 0 votes - Albacete Balompié
• 0 votes - Royal Antwerp FC
• 1 votes - FC Internazionale 
• 1 votes - Istanbul Başakşehir
• 0 votes - Antalyaspor Kulübü

First club with 3 votes is the chosen one. 

[ThomW12]

Lets go for Parma too, should be difficult to win in italy

[JamesVilla]

My vote goes for Antalyaspor Kulubu purely to make it difficult 🤣

[Rob]

Parma 

[BatiGoal]

Thanks @ThomW12, @Jsavfc & @Rob. Parma are the clear winners.

Am I worried? A little bit, yes, tbh. It's not necessarily difficult to win something with Parma if given time and money, but this in-game challenge is only going to last ½ season. So we need to win silverware within the time frame of 6 months and lots can go wrong before then 🤔 I feel a proper public humiliation coming up.. 

[Dagion]

3 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Thanks @ThomW12, @Jsavfc & @Rob. Parma are the clear winners.

Am I worried? A little bit, yes, tbh. It's not necessarily difficult to win something with Parma if given time and money, but this in-game challenge is only going to last ½ season. So we need to win silverware within the time frame of 6 months and lots can go wrong before then 🤔 I feel a proper public humiliation coming up.. 

Well, not sure about this year but usually you get replacements for your older ones. Not too bad either in my last attempt. Good luck!

[gunnersaur]

Id say go with Parma

[bb]

Parma

[BatiGoal]

Thanks big for the votes, guys 👍 

Just made a start with Parma, will update tomorrow. 

[BatiGoal]

6/7 You Can't Win Jack With Kids

 

I'm actually playing this challenge with my son by my side - he's my assistant manager - so if this challenge goes bust, it's 100% his fault. 

 

We inherited Parma with a small-ish budget. Not a lot of room to buy many quality reinforcements. I think I need to go "loan" again.

First day on the job and we're sitting #2 with Juventus and 4pts off Lazio. Could be worse.

And we're in the Coppa Quarters. I'd like to win this one. It's the easiest road to silverware.

The most important is the starting squad we inherited. Our so-called "kids" squad. My son, oh apologies - I've been told I must address him with Assistant Manager during the entire challenge. So my... Assistant Manager.. wants to compare this "kids" squad with the original one. 

Original Parma squad:

Spoiler

So as you can see we lost more than half the squad, in fact 19 players, who got replaced by kids. Young and very average quality kids. Yes, I think we might be in trouble.

I'm not surprised? Well, this was a couple days before we got all our reinforcements in. Ayé came in first and did well tho. But we're very short in decent defenders and could do with a striker or two. So an imbalanced squad leads to this. A very bad start to this challenge. 

There they are. The little money we had we spent it on a quality defender we desperately needed. The rest has come on loan. Especially delighted with Fati, Anderson and Nikolaou.

Yes! Losing a 2nd straight would've been disastrous. My so... my Assistant Manager.. jumped off the sofa screaming 'YESSS' after the successful late comeback. I duly reminded him it was my doing. 

This was a biggie. The team's already looking way more balanced than on day 1 and like I said, winning the Coppa is our best bet to challenge completion. 

However, there's a two-legged tie with Inter coming up which stands in the way of the final. I hope the team is ready for this. 

And the Lecce loss and Milan win means we dropped to #3 now and 5pts adrift. I'm not confident of winning this tbh. We're contenders for sure, but playing a squad that's not entirely mine is always tricky. 

Any Bati-lievers? 

[broodje kip]

Hope your son don’t have any Vibe account 😂

[BatiGoal]

51 minutes ago, Lord Danish said:

Hope your son don’t have any Vibe account 😂

Not that I'm aware of 

[Kanegan]

Good start. Just ditch the league and throw everything on Coppa Italia, that way atleast you won't have any excuse when you fail. 😂😂

[BatiGoal]

6/7 You Can't Win Jack With Kids

 

February

The all-important Coppa game is up next and I was totally unaware of the painful fact that my loan GK already at the club is Inter's. So now we'll have to make do with a 17yo in goal. This is 100% my.. Assistant Manager's fault. He should've informed me. If we lose this tie, he'll be out the door. Literally! 

 🤔 Negatives: we lost. Positives: we're still in the tie. 

It wasn't a great month to start with. Terrible pts drop vs Udinese and the double loss vs Inter definitely down to having the Inter GK loan who wasn't eligible to play in both games. His replacement is shit. Good recovery beating Torino and Napoli afterwards, with our strongest side. Vs Napoli was an easy win, we conceded two 90min goals, so the score looks deceiving.

We have a strong enough starting team to maybe pull this off but our problem is there's zero squad depth. A couple injuries or suspensions and we plummet to being an ordinary group of players. 

The pts loss puts us in a dangerous spot. We continue dropping down the table with 6pts behind new leaders Juventus now. This is going to be a close battle till the very end. 

So my hopes are all on the Coppa where we need to make up for the 1-0 away loss. And this time with an even worse starting 11. Again no Inter loanee GK of course + 4 other starters. We're doomed. 

The reason for this short update is because my son .. Assistant Manager.... is away for a few hours. I'm not allowed to play any further until he's back. This is our challenge to play together.. but I'm starting to have my doubts whether we'll be all smiles at the end of it.

[Mr Tree]

great stuff here Bati, keep it up. sounds like the Assistant Manager is the inspiration here and deserves a pay-rise

[BatiGoal]

3 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

great stuff here Bati, keep it up. sounds like the Assistant Manager is the inspiration here and deserves a pay-rise

We'll see about that at the end of the challenge 😁

 

6/7 You Can't Win Jack With Kids

 

March

Due to the injuries and ineligibility of players, we're fielding a weakened Parma side in a slightly asymmetrical formation. No decent replacement for the MR spot. So improvisations bring us to this. Similar to my High Low Winger formation that proved tough to crack. 

Off to a fine start. Was hoping to keep a clean sheet till at least late in the game, so to be 1-0 up already is perfect. 

All square after 90min. The lack of squad depth might be an issue now as some of my players have low fitness levels at this point. And there's very little cover. 

Still dead even. I'm not sure I want to go for penalties tbh with a 17yo rookie GK. I'll do anything to avoid it so I'm trying to go slightly more offensive to force a winner. Risky but I think necessary, plus subbing a man with no legs in midfield. 

It kinda worked as we go 2-0 up and are thru at this point.. Assistant Manager is overjoyed and does his vocal thing in the air... but it's short-lived as Inter pull back with a few minutes left on the clock. We're done! Crap. 

First chance for silverware is out the window. So what rests us now is the league only. It's going to be an uphill climb to the finishline. 

 

League wise we did great. Annoyed with the late goals we continue to concede as it hurts our GD greatly. All minimal wins tho in fact they're comfortable enough wins. So the extra 9pts definitely lifts our spirits. The GD tho is not going to be in our favor. 

We're back in contention and back to the 4pt chase like at the start of this challenge. Only difference is now we're chasing Juventus, and now there's only 9 games left. It's going to be tough, with a couple tough away games left. 

We must win the Serie A or this challenge ends in failure. 

[BatiGoal]

6/7 You Can't Win Jack With Kids

 

April

Parma 0-0 Cagliari - boring performance from both teams. Shared possession, no CCC's in the entire game, a couple extra shots on target from my team. Missed opportunity to take advantage of things as you'll see later on. 

Atalanta 3-2 Parma - dead even apart from the scoreline. They took the lead twice and we came back as many times. I'd settle for a point as we couldn't get much going. Then they struck one last time in the 2nd min injury time. Unlucky! 

Parma 3-1 Brescia - a must-win game like never before as we're running the risk of dropping down the table too deep and lose this challenge. 3-1 up after an hour play and finally the taste of 3 pts again. There's that lifeline. 

Fiorentina 0-1 Parma - nervous going into this as Fiorentina away is never easy. A couple extra numbers in every stat over them makes us the deserved winners. An early 5th min goal was enough on the day and massive pts again. 

Parma 2-1 Bologna - a missed penalty and a disallowed goal among others brings us a small win which otherwise would've been bigger. Small but significant, as we record a third consecutive victory. 10 pts out of 15 isn't top by any stretch, but it keeps us in the race for silverware. 

 

And what race. Tight. With 4 games left to play for it's without any doubt squeaky bumbum time. It's Lazio, Inter and Juventus trying to hold me off top spot and have me replay this challenge. I'm doing everything I can to avoid failing this, but with away games vs two of said teams the odds aren't stacked in my favor. 

My son, the Assistant Manager, is going over tactics again and again to see if we missed anything 😂 hilarious to see, but with the group we're fielding there's only so much one can do. 

Tomorrow's the moment of truth. 

[Dagion]

Fun to read, surely if your assistant would have had more responsibilities Parma would sit comfortably on top. I understand his meticulous assessment of the previously used tactics after the goalie debacle, there must be something that can be done! 😁

[BatiGoal]

8 hours ago, Dagion said:

Fun to read, surely if your assistant would have had more responsibilities Parma would sit comfortably on top. I understand his meticulous assessment of the previously used tactics after the goalie debacle, there must be something that can be done! 😁

Thanks mate, I agree 100% with your assistant manager comment. I just can't ever tell him that 😂 

Edited April 23, 2020 by BatiGoal

[Scratch]

Doing great mate, you and your Assistant Manager have got this. The youngsters will be getting better with every match and be flying now (or just about ready to take off)... The only thing that's worrying is the goal difference, so you might need to break out that 1 2 2 5 formation again...

Nice job with the first challenge too. Sorry to hear you dropped your phone - I hope the 🚽 was clean when you dropped it and it dried out okay. Great move bringing in the Assistant Manager - that should prevent that happening again. 

[BatiGoal]

Thanks @Scratch we're actually about to play the remainder right now, so it's great to have the extra support. One of us believes in miracles and the other clearly doesn't. Won't tell you who's who 😂 

[Scratch]

27 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Thanks @Scratch we're actually about to play the remainder right now, so it's great to have the extra support. One of us believes in miracles and the other clearly doesn't. Won't tell you who's who 😂 

Good luck! I'd guess it's you who doesn't believe in miracles, but at the same time, I think you know this scenario doesn't need a miracle, just some solid FMM game play and a little luck (but not miracle levels). 

So, 30 minutes have passed since you were going to play the final 4 games - pass the trophy to your Assistant Manager and write the update already! 😄 

[Rob]

I am of the opinion to get rid of the manager and slot the Assistant in.

[BatiGoal]

3 hours ago, Scratch said:

Good luck! I'd guess it's you who doesn't believe in miracles, but at the same time, I think you know this scenario doesn't need a miracle, just some solid FMM game play and a little luck (but not miracle levels). 

So, 30 minutes have passed since you were going to play the final 4 games - pass the trophy to your Assistant Manager and write the update already! 😄 

😂 

Some work stuff came up inbetween but no worries the update will be up today. 

56 minutes ago, Rob said:

I am of the opinion to get rid of the manager and slot the Assistant in.

You're right. After the next update I think we'll reverse roles. 😲 

[samhardy]

2 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

After the next update I think we'll reverse roles.

If this had been done at the start the challenge would already have been completed!

I’m seeing a 4-0 loss to Juventus with 2 red cards to end all chances.

[Scratch]

Unlike Sam, I have the utmost respect for you as a manager, but I gotta say, this live blog sucks!

I keep hitting refresh thinking it must have broken and it's not giving the me the update that's surely been posted by now, but no, there's no update at all! 🤣😜