Career Ian Goes to the Movies - The Italian Job

[Ian]

Ian Goes to the Movies

Hello and welcome to my next career where I’ll be attempting a good few of the movie based challenges all created by @Thepremiermanager, well apart from The Full Monty one that @Ashez created and kindly allowed to be added to the list. Anyway, the index can be found here and I’ll be starting right at the beginning and attempting the very first one on that list in Goal!

Goal!

I know, we're at the movies and we still can't seem to leave football alone for a minute! But there's something in this rags to riches tale that I think speaks to all of us here. 

Goal! tells the tale of Santiago Munez, a young Mexican who ends up plying his trade in the North-East of England with Newcastle United. 

His journey, his hardships and his successes are something that everyone here on Vibe can relate to and make this the perfect starter entry onto our movie list. 

With Santiago, and his team-mate Gavin, making vital interventions, Newcastle make an unlikely run to the Champions League places. The climax of the film, featuring a last minute winner against Liverpool, completing his transition to superstar. 

 

The Challenge

 

1 season challenge. 

Play as Newcastle United. 

Choose your Mexican 'Santiago' and sign him up. 

Choose your 'Gavin'. He must be an English striker. 

Points for the leaderboard: Santiago goals + Gavin goals. 

Minimum requirement to get on leaderboard = Qualify for Champions League. 

Bonus points = +30 for league win. +10 for any cup win. 

All usual challenge rules apply. 

 

So I need to manage Newcastle, bring together a striking duo consisting of a Mexican and an Englishman who between them will hopefully score plenty of goals and steer the club to a top four finish and qualification to the next season's Champions League.

 

Team: Newcastle United

 

 

My Santiago: Carlos Vela

There weren't a lot of options available here with only really another two that tempted me but in the end Vela was my chosen Santiago. He’s more of a winger type really and I’m not overly happy about his lack of strength but he’s decent and will hopefully perform okay up top as a poacher.

My Gavin: Chuba Apkon

Plenty of potential English Gavin options but I really wanted someone fairly good all round to compliment my Santiago and once I stumbled upon this guy I was all set as I’ve never used him before and rarely have I ever come across him in any of my saves either.

 

I’m committed to using the following system below which could be a bit risky with no wide defensive players or a truly defensive midfielder but hopefully the three at the back will somewhat mitigate against those dangers. You can see that apart from the defence and goalkeeper I’ve totally revamped the team so hopefully that’ll pay off or maybe it won’t and I’ll find myself in the shit. I’ll go through all of the transfers in more detail on my next update.

 

Here’s a sneak preview of the first few games, you can see things haven’t started particularly well and it might be a struggle to compete at the top end of the table.

 

Thanks for reading.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Ian

[Rob]

Great challenge and good luck! 

[Titjes]

Good luck mate 😉

[BatiGoal]

Nice one, and good to see a few movies being done. There's some real good ones in the list. Goodluck. 

[Dagion]

This is one of the challenges which messed up my English Killer challenge by saving over it accidentally. Really fun to do, but I only scored 35 or something, should check and write it up soon. Needs quite some rebuilding (at least with my tactical skill) to get them to qualify for the Champions League. 

Doing the second one at Real Madrid with a similar 3-5-2 but I'm not keen on picking the obvious players (Kane/Abraham + Vela/Jimenez). Bit tricky to get your duo going, also so many stars stealing goals at Real ("Alright Bale, we know you're legendary, just pass to Dos Santos you twat!&@!).

[Mikey]

Great film choice and a very interesting challenge.

Will be following, good luck.

 

[Kanegan]

Good luck. A very interesting series of challenges so looking forward to you attempting all.

[Thepremiermanager]

@Ian Looking forward to seeing how you get on with these and adding another name on the leaderboards. This one is a surprisingly tricky challenge to get a good score. 

I'll have to get on with the next movies I've got in the pipeline. 

Good luck

[FuddledFox]

Vela used to be an annoying signing as he was quality but very injury prone. He seems to have done well in the MLS the last few years and hopefully he has lost that fragility.

Good luck.

[Woody]

You can do it Ian! Fully behind you at the greatest club in the world 😉

[Ian]

On 08/05/2020 at 15:44, Rob said:

Great challenge and good luck! 

Thank you Rob

22 hours ago, Titjes said:

Good luck mate 😉

Thanks Titjes

21 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Nice one, and good to see a few movies being done. There's some real good ones in the list. Goodluck. 

Thank you Bati, yeah there’s some nice ones and I plan on doing a good few of them.

21 hours ago, Dagion said:

This is one of the challenges which messed up my English Killer challenge by saving over it accidentally. Really fun to do, but I only scored 35 or something, should check and write it up soon. Needs quite some rebuilding (at least with my tactical skill) to get them to qualify for the Champions League. 

Doing the second one at Real Madrid with a similar 3-5-2 but I'm not keen on picking the obvious players (Kane/Abraham + Vela/Jimenez). Bit tricky to get your duo going, also so many stars stealing goals at Real ("Alright Bale, we know you're legendary, just pass to Dos Santos you twat!&@!).

Yeah it’s not so easy to get top four with the toon and a lot of goals and you can see we’ve not started very well so the main focus now is purely on results and just hope the two boys get a few goals. I’m doing the Madrid one next and I understand your frustrations but I’m quite looking forward to being able to build a nice side there.

20 hours ago, Mikey said:

Great film choice and a very interesting challenge.

Will be following, good luck.

 

Thank you Mikey, it’s a nice challenge, hopefully I can succeed in getting top four.

9 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Good luck. A very interesting series of challenges so looking forward to you attempting all.

Cheers Kane, I’m definitely doing a few and may well do that all haha.

7 hours ago, Thepremiermanager said:

@Ian Looking forward to seeing how you get on with these and adding another name on the leaderboards. This one is a surprisingly tricky challenge to get a good score. 

I'll have to get on with the next movies I've got in the pipeline. 

Good luck

Thank you, yeah it’s not so easy to get the results and a lot of goals from the duo. I have read your challenge post and see that I could go with just one striker and one behind which might be easier but I’m not going to as I want to keep to the two up top. The next one at Madrid should be a little easier.

7 hours ago, Foxy said:

Vela used to be an annoying signing as he was quality but very injury prone. He seems to have done well in the MLS the last few years and hopefully he has lost that fragility.

Good luck.

Thanks Foxy, I don’t think I’ve used him on the mobile game but do remember using him on the PC game a few years ago. No worries if he has injury troubles as I’ve got Joelinton as back up.

7 hours ago, Woody said:

You can do it Ian! Fully behind you at the greatest club in the world 😉

Thank you Woody, yes the fans are brilliant. What a reception the boys and myself have had and hopefully we can repay them with some good on field action.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Ian

[Ian]

You can see from my little preview yesterday that we hadn’t exactly set the world alight in our first few games so the focus for me was to try and improve our results as no top four equals no place on the leaderboard. I started tinkering with my instructions to see if I could get things working better so let’s see if I could as I update you all on how the first half of the season went.

 

Transfers

As you can see I went a bit crazy in the transfer market in a bid the reshape the squad to hopefully suit my tactic.

Incomings

• Filipe Kostic - A nice and tidy left winger who I’ve used before but not sure where.
• Gabriel - A great all round central midfielder who I’m fairly confident will perform well.
• Jen Toornstra - A decent midfield playmaker that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
• Karim Bellarabi - A right winger with decent attributes but don’t think I’ve used him previously so a bit of a gamble this one.
• Niklas Stark - A nice central defender who is decent value for money.
• Roberto Gagliardini - Another good all round steady central midfielder who I used a good few times on last year's game so thought I’d try him on this.
• Alfred N’Diaye - Yet another central midfielder who should do well you’d think.
• Matías Vecino - Another central midfielder and one that I’ve never previously used but I’ve got high hopes for him.
• Scott McKenna - The steady bargain centre back gets another crack under my tutorship, I must’ve signed him about a hundred times over the last few years.
• Steven Berghuis - He’s a steady left winger who should make for a good back up option, I’ve used him previously but can’t quite remember where.
• Alphonso Davies - A good young left winger brought in purely for cover.
• Mason Mount - Another youngster brought in on loan as cover.
• Mateus Cunha - Yes you guessed right, another youngster brought in for cover.

 

Outgoings

We sold off a load of players and raised £87m to fund the signings with a good chunk of that money coming from Espanyol who decided they liked doing business with us. The Longstaff brothers both went and to Espanyol funnily enough which was a tricky decision but I felt they were really for the future and with this just being one season I decided to cash in.

 

In keeping with the movie theme;

The Good,

 

The Bad

 

And the Ugly

 

You can see things have been a little wild with a famous victory over Man City at St. James’ Park and a couple of heavy defeats against the two big boys from the north west. The Liverpool one was a touch strange as looking at the stats you’d say we did ok but the goals were just flying in and we had no answer unfortunately.

 

August

Not a fantastic start but at least we picked up a couple of league wins.

 

September

Apart from the heavy Man Utd defeat, not such a bad month as we went big against Rotherham in the Caramel Cup and picked up another few league points.

 

October

A truly fine month as we scored 15 goals in four games including five against Man City in a truly vintage display in front of our loyal St. James’ Park supporters.

 

November

Another good month with just the one narrow defeat away to Everton which is always a tricky place to visit.

 

December

A mixed month here as we won all of our home games and lost all away. In fairness they were all tough away fixtures so at least we can now tick them off. Arsenal ended our Caramel Cup hopes as they narrowly beat us at the Emirates in what was a fairly poor game.

 

So after 20 games we are placed just outside the top four. We’ve really improved since the early stages and I remain hopeful that we can maybe sneak in during the second half of the season when most of the others will have European distractions.

 

The highlight for the duo so far was this game against Rotherham as my Santiago knocked in a hat trick and my Gavin netted a brace but you’ll have to wait until the next update to see their returns I’m afraid.

 

Thank you for reading.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Ian

[BatiGoal]

I like Stark. I've used him a lot last year, good reliable player for few bucks. 

December's ugly to look at, but you're still in the race for the big one. KIU! 

[Ian]

8 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

I like Stark. I've used him a lot last year, good reliable player for few bucks. 

December's ugly to look at, but you're still in the race for the big one. KIU! 

Thanks Bati, Yes I really like him, I wish I could have another version of him here if I’m honest. We are generally defending well but it’s just against the bigger teams where we can’t cope but I feel we aren’t far away from getting it right and definitely in with a shot at top four.

[Ian]

So we were sat just outside the top four after 20 league games and now we’ll see if we could manage to break in as I update you on the second half of the season

 

January

A brilliant month here as we go unbeaten to really put us in the mix for top four. A couple of nice FA Cup victories too and it would be nice to have a good run in that for our supporters.

 

February

A fairly steady February too with a couple of nice home wins and the only defeat was a tight affair away at Arsenal.

 

March

Things didn’t go quite to plan this month I’m afraid as we struggled to score goals and unfortunately our FA Cup run came to an end as Villa dumped us out in the fifth round. We did pick up a nice win over Everton at the end of the month though in what would turn out to be the highlight of the second half of the season with my Santiago netting a hat trick in a 3-2 victory.

 

April

A very professional month here as we went unbeaten with four clean sheets and three nice victories to put us in touching distance of finishing in the top four.

 

This was the table at this stage and you can see we were well positioned with three games to go. Unfortunately, a quick look at our remaining fixtures changed things as we had tricky away games against fellow top four hopefuls Chelsea and Man Utd.

 

May

We took a nice early lead against Chelsea but unfortunately they broke our hearts with two late goals.

We got back to winning ways at home against Norwich as we flew out the blocks with three goals in the first 13 minutes.

Everything rested on the final game away to Manchester United. A draw would be enough and even a defeat if Chelsea were to get beat by Bournemouth but that didn’t seem very likely to me.

The boys put in a vintage display and picked up a great two nil victory with my Gavin scoring the second goal right at the death.

Here’s the final table and we ended up in third so after struggling a bit early on we can be happy with that as we can now put a score down for the challenge.

 

The Duo

Carlos Vela contributed 26 goals to the challenge and Chuba Akpon 25 so 51 in total which I’m happy with as we only managed to score 86 goals as a team.

 

Manager

 

 

Score

Carlos Vela: 26 goals

Chuba Akpon: 25 goals

Total: 51 goals

 

Now we move onto Goal 2 where we do this all again but this time at Real Madrid where hopefully we’ll be able to score a few more goals.

 

Thank you for reading.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Ian

[BatiGoal]

A debut season with Newcastle finishing 3rd is a good job, Ian. And not a bad combined return at all from the duo. Well done! 

[Woody]

Thats a brilliant season mate. Top 3 is a mere pipe dream do well done.

The lads did really well too.

[FuddledFox]

Nicely done Ian.

Do you have to use Vela and Akpom again at Real?

[Rob]

Brilliant Ian. Not only do you have a wonderful TT tactic you also appear to be nailing the DT tactic too!

[broodje kip]

Great score Ian

[Ian]

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

A debut season with Newcastle finishing 3rd is a good job, Ian. And not a bad combined return at all from the duo. Well done! 

Thank you Bati, I’m happy as we had our troubles at times but stuck at it and in the end got our reward.

5 hours ago, Woody said:

Thats a brilliant season mate. Top 3 is a mere pipe dream do well done.

The lads did really well too.

Thanks Woody, we did well and the boys did too. Top 3 might be a pipe dream now but it mightn’t always be, remember that.

4 hours ago, Foxy said:

Nicely done Ian.

Do you have to use Vela and Akpom again at Real?

Thank you Foxy, it would be interesting to see how they’d get on at Real but unfortunately I’ve gone a different way. I’ve gone obvious on one and the other is an older player but I’ve never managed either players I don’t think, I’ll reveal them tomorrow.

4 hours ago, Rob said:

Brilliant Ian. Not only do you have a wonderful TT tactic you also appear to be nailing the DT tactic too!

Thank you Rob, yes I think this system could be good with a full elite team. I’ll keep the tactic to test out later. I’ve gone a different way at Madrid though in using more or less my Liverpool front three system with an AM behind the duo so we’ll see how that goes.

4 hours ago, broodje kip said:

Great score Ian

Thank you Mr Danish, much appreciated.

[Kanegan]

Great score Ian. Well done. 

[Scratch]

Great job! Like your choice of movie and of course your choice of team! 😄

Finishing 3rd is a great job with Newcastle and the two lads did really well.

Good luck in the sequel! 

[Thepremiermanager]

Great work @Ian

Squeezing 51 goals out of 2 players, for Newcastle is pretty tricky. 

It's also enough to put you top of the Goal! leaderboard by 3 points! 

I'll update it shortly. Looking forward to seeing your attempt at Goal 2.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Thepremiermanager

[Ian]

11 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Great score Ian. Well done. 

Thanks Kane, appreciated.

8 hours ago, Scratch said:

Great job! Like your choice of movie and of course your choice of team! 😄

Finishing 3rd is a great job with Newcastle and the two lads did really well.

Good luck in the sequel! 

Cheers Scratch, yes it was a nice film with the lovely Anna Friel being the highlight.

The boys did well and hopefully I can get my new Santiago and Gavin firing at Real next time out.

3 hours ago, Thepremiermanager said:

Great work @Ian

Squeezing 51 goals out of 2 players, for Newcastle is pretty tricky. 

It's also enough to put you top of the Goal! leaderboard by 3 points! 

I'll update it shortly. Looking forward to seeing your attempt at Goal 2.

Thank you Premier Manager for adding me onto the board. Yes they did well I thought in scoring a good chunk of our goals. A nice change of scenery for the next one in Spain and then the Italian Job after that, happy days.

[Thepremiermanager]

40 minutes ago, Ian said:

Thank you Premier Manager for adding me onto the board. Yes they did well I thought in scoring a good chunk of our goals. A nice change of scenery for the next one in Spain and then the Italian Job after that, happy days.

That's the whole idea of the Movies. Different countries, different teams, different types of challenges. Hopefully there's plenty more you'll enjoy. Good luck in Spain. 

[Ian]

Goal 2

Who doesn't love a sequel? Especially one that takes us from the St James Park to the glamour and bright lights of the Bernabeu. 

That's right, Goal 2 tells the continued tale of young Santiago Munez as he makes a dream move to La Liga with Real Madrid. 

Taking place over the 2005-6 season, Santiago spends the season rubbing shoulders with footballing royalty as Madrid fight to take the ultimate club footballing prize, the UEFA Champions League. 

As his world threatens to unravel, Santi goes on a journey of discovery both personally and footballing, eventually culminating in a key performance in the Champions League final. 

 

The Challenge

 

Play as Real Madrid. 

Choose your Mexican 'Santiago' and sign him up. 

Choose your 'Gavin'. He must be an English striker. 

Points for the leaderboard: Santiago goals + Gavin goals. 

Minimum requirement to get on leaderboard = Play in Champions League final. 

Bonus points = +25 for Champions League win. +15 for La Liga. +10 for any other cup win. 

All usual challenge rules apply. 

 

He's living the dream, now finish it! 
 

So I’ve got to take over Real Madrid, sign up my Santiago and Gavin, set them upon La Liga and the Champions League where we have to reach the final.

 

Team: Real Madrid

 

 

My Santiago: Raúl Jiménez

The best option I could find by some distance and although he’s well known I can honestly say I’ve never used him before so I was interested in seeing him in action which made the decision easy. 

 

My Gavin: Jamie Vardy

Another well known player but again one which I’ve never used. I actually nearly used him for a challenge a couple of months ago where I needed to use an English striker but opted to go with Calvert-Lewin in the end so Vardy was always going to get his chance here. 

 

I’ve chosen to go with the following system with two at the back, five in midfield with an attacking midfielder operating just behind the two boys. I’ve used something similar in a recent challenge and there’s usually plenty of goals with a top side so I’m hoping that’ll be the case here too. The attacking midfielder is my primary concern as it’s Hazard and I can see him pinching a good few goals so we’ll just see how it goes. I’ve taken this shot a good way into the season and you can see some of my signing including going for Fabinho to train up to centre back as I’ve done previously. I’ve also got that shithouse Ramos alongside him as unfortunately he’s rather good on the game. I’ll go through all the transfers in detail on my next update like last time.

 

Here’s a sneak preview and you can see our boys have settled in fairly well.

 

 

Thank you for reading, I’ll be back with more later.

[Thepremiermanager]

8-3! Brilliant. Can't wait to see how your results go. 

KIU

[samhardy]

Great stuff here @Ian but it’s a terrible shame about the clubs you’re being forced to manage

[Thepremiermanager]

2 hours ago, samhardy said:

Great stuff here @Ian but it’s a terrible shame about the clubs you’re being forced to manage

Wait until he does Enemy at the Gates! 😂😂😂