Career An(other) DT 2K Challenge: Forza Azzurri! [SEASON 3!]

[BakaSotong]

'Aight, Season 2: Electric Boogoaloo has been completed, lemme show you guys how it went.

 

TRANSFERS [IN]:

We went ham on pre-signing players with expiring contracts last January, bringing four of them in this season. Ba & Alebiosu wound up being my off-the-bench options for LWB & RWB respectively, unfortunately that meant that they didn't get too much game time. Ba wouldn't make it past the winter transfer window, being sold for a modest fee of £5M. Alebiosu has grown decently throughout the season, though he's definitely the weakest RWB in the squad, and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon. I'd be open to selling him next season if I find a good wonderkid to replace him. As for Gazzaniga & Gebhardt, they'd replace Bravo & Hart to be my 1st and 2nd choice goalkeeper respectively. Gebhardt has actually grown into a surprisingly good goalie, actually.

Spoiler

Agility & Decisions are very much lacking, but his stats everywhere else seem to be able to make up for it. For a free goalie on minimal wage, I can't really complain.

 

Most of the other players were signed during the summer, with only Sliti and Morcillo coming in during January. The former player has grown into an absolute assist monster in my Triple Threat attempt, I'm hoping to replicate my results with him in this save. The latter comes in as a cheap (but decent) replacement to Ristic, and slots into the secondary line-up. Netz is probably one of the best wonderkids along the left flank, and similar to Sliti he's grown into one hell of a player in my other ongoing game, hence why I signed him once again. But instead of LM, I'll be utilizing him at LWB instead. Bellanova & Persyn are currently competing for the RM spot in the main squad with some stellar performances, though Persyn did drop off at the end of the season while Bellanova is only improving as time goes on. Nunez arrives to replace Carter-Vickers as a far more defensively solid option, though his distribution is slightly lacking with only 12 passing.

 

 

TRANSFERS [OUT]:

We managed to sell a lot of the B team players this year, getting rid of 10 of them. Aside from that, nothing too out of the ordinary, though I do feel like a massive dick towards Joe Hart. The lad was planning to retire this season, and I convinced him to stay around for a bit more... and by "a bit more" I mean I sent him packing to Motherwell just the day after I changed his mind. Not sure how he feels about it, but to be safe I did install some security for a while 👀

 

 

PERFORMANCE [DOMESTIC]:

We scored an impressive 110 goals in the League, but other than that, I don't have much to say about everything else. 3 more trophies to add to the cabinet, that's nice. 

 

 

PERFORMANCE [CONTINENTAL]:

Now here's where things got interesting.

Heartbreak once again in the group stage, where we got matched up against arguably 2 of the strongest teams in the world. No chance against them, but we did manage to beat Lille to slot into the Europa League. We made our way past Schalke in the Knock Out Play Offs, and Lyon in the Round of 16. Unfortunately, we lost to Villarreal in our first match-up against them, and in the 2nd leg, we had an injury crisis where nearly all our midfielders got injured, so we had to run this abomination:

Spoiler

(TBH I'm sure it can work if the strategy was tweaked accordingly, but... yeah nah it didn't feel good to me at all when I ran it)

Oddly enough, this was the game we managed to draw, but the damage was done already. I felt that we could have definitely beaten them and gone on a longer run if we had most of our players available, but... oh well. Next time. 

 

 

THE LADS:

He absolutely popped off this season, continuing his insane growth and scoring a great many goals. +1 in Dribbling, Passing, Shooting & Technique; +2 in Movement, Pace, Stamina; +3 in Strength; and a whopping +4 in Aerial, bringing it to a 19. I'm definitely gonna try and drag it up to a 20 to score even more of those crosses being fed to him.

+1 in Aerial, Dribbling, Movement, Pace & Passing; +2 in Decisions; +3 in Shooting & Strength. Noticeably less growth than Amadori, and definitively weaker in the air as well, though he's a lot more well-rounded than him. Also gonna try and get his Aerial up, especially since I don't feel like I need to worry too much about his other stats.

 

 

GOAL TALLY:

Alright, time for the most important part: How're we getting along with goals? 

84 goals! Definitely a step-up from last time, but TBH... am I asking too much if I say I'm disappointed? I wanted to start scoring 100+ goals this season. But nevertheless we're getting on the right track, hopefully next season we continue to turn it up even more.

 

 

BONUS STUFF THAT I DIDN'T KNOW WHERE TO FIT IN SO IT'S GOT ITS OWN CATEGORY NOW:

No. 1:

Spoiler

 

Not the best send-off for one of our players, unfortunately. 

 

No. 2:

Spoiler

bruh.

 

== == == ==

 

That's all we got, folks! Well, for now, at least. I'll get cracking on S3 in a bit, but I'm gonna take a small breather to test a tactic I came up with a while back. Speaking of which, lemme get y'all's opinion on something: Should I sign this guy?

Spoiler

Some random regen I found in France (I didn't load France in, so maybe that's why he popped up so randomly). The 20 Crossing and overall stat distribution is quite impressive TBH, but the Pace is definitely lacking. What do you guys think?

Anyways, LMK if you guys have any feedback or questions! Thanks ^w^

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by BakaSotong

[BatiGoal]

1 hour ago, BakaSotong said:

Just imagine what goes thru the opposing manager's mind a minute after kick-off. .."hey, ass.manager.. get over here!".. "do you see what I'm seeing???".. "wt-grand-f is BakaSotong up to??" .. uhmm.. "I think ..uhmm.. I think he wants to get his ass fired.. ..that or he's a f#$&ing genius."

😂

1 hour ago, BakaSotong said:

Very borderline this one to me. Poor physical attr. but I love his versatility. I always pick subs who can play in 2-3 positions when possible. Makes it real easy to rotate and all subs get plenty of playing time. Bummer he's 25 already. I think I'd still take him tho but wouldn't expect too many improvements. So for squad depth only.

Good progress on the career 👍

[BakaSotong]

7 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Just imagine what goes thru the opposing manager's mind a minute after kick-off. .."hey, ass.manager.. get over here!".. "do you see what I'm seeing???".. "wt-grand-f is BakaSotong up to??" .. uhmm.. "I think ..uhmm.. I think he wants to get his ass fired.. ..that or he's a f#$&ing genius."

There's a method to my madness, the method is "I have no clue what I'm doing" xD

7 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Very borderline this one to me. Poor physical attr. but I love his versatility. I always pick subs who can play in 2-3 positions when possible. Makes it real easy to rotate and all subs get plenty of playing time. Bummer he's 25 already. I think I'd still take him tho but wouldn't expect too many improvements. So for squad depth only.

Good progress on the career 👍

Honestly I was just drawn to him because of his insane 20 crossing... but now that I look at him again, his decisions and movement is definitely not up to standard. Might unfortunately have to pass on him 😕

[BatiGoal]

1 hour ago, BakaSotong said:

There's a method to my madness, the method is "I have no clue what I'm doing" xD

There's a fine between not knowing and overthinking.. I'm guilty of both 😆

In all seriousness, imagine if you got that thing to work. Non-stop crosses to the TF(s) 😂

1 hour ago, BakaSotong said:

Might unfortunately have to pass on him 😕

Yes, it would very much depend on the subs at your disposal already. And .. if fair priced I once in a while take gamble on such players - benefit of the doubt thingie.

[Scratch]

Great season, you will definitely hit 100 next season and it will be bigger and bigger from there. 

As for Andrade, sign that lad up fast!!! Doesn't matter how crap he is from open play, just stick him on corners and get him sending it in to Amadori. The corner tactic isn't all that nerfed... I'm getting maybe one a game right now with 18 Crossing to 18 Aerial. 

Of course if you have anyone else at 20 or 19 Crossing, then maybe you don't need him. Too slow, movement no good enough, etc, but that crossing will get goals for you strikers.

[BakaSotong]

11 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Yes, it would very much depend on the subs at your disposal already. And .. if fair priced I once in a while take gamble on such players - benefit of the doubt thingie.

4 hours ago, Scratch said:

As for Andrade, sign that lad up fast!!! Doesn't matter how crap he is from open play, just stick him on corners and get him sending it in to Amadori. The corner tactic isn't all that nerfed... I'm getting maybe one a game right now with 18 Crossing to 18 Aerial. 

Well, I tried to sign him just to see how much he'd cost... Nice wanted £25M for him minimum, and on top of that he wanted £100K in wages... yeah, I think I'll have to pass 😕 As for corners, IIRC it's "penalty spot", then slap 1 or 2 of your strikers as "mark keeper" right? At least, that's what I'm running RN, I'm not sure if that the correct method though. Probs not, since I'm not getting too many goals from corners.

 

4 hours ago, Scratch said:

Of course if you have anyone else at 20 or 19 Crossing, then maybe you don't need him. Too slow, movement no good enough, etc, but that crossing will get goals for you strikers.

Most of my wingers are at 16/17 crossing, I think it's good enough once they hit the 18 mark. I'm more worried about their Decisions & Movement, they're struggling to hit the 15 mark ATM. Hopefully next season they can cross that threshold.

 

11 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

In all seriousness, imagine if you got that thing to work. Non-stop crosses to the TF(s) 😂

Taking "cross & inshallah" to a whole 'nother level xD

Edited January 29, 2023 by BakaSotong

[Rob]

Lovely second season. Mildly amazing seeing people starting to question whether 86 goals for two kids is good in season two. It is!!!! Keep it up! 

[broodje kip]

The boys are progressing well. A little tweak with the tactic and I think they can both reach 55+

[BakaSotong]

37 minutes ago, Rob said:

Lovely second season. Mildly amazing seeing people starting to question whether 86 goals for two kids is good in season two. It is!!!! Keep it up! 

Normally I wouldn't complain! But if we're aiming for the stars here, I'm barely scratching the stratosphere, if you catch my drift.

33 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

The boys are progressing well. A little tweak with the tactic and I think they can both reach 55+

I did tweak the tactic actually in the middle of the season, with decent results so far. I guess my main debate is whether to shift the RP at DM to maybe an AM at AMC, or an AP at either CM at AMC. Not that he isn't doing his job well enough, but I think he can afford to pull more players away from the strikers to make it easier for them to score. My main worry with changing his position is that he'll end up stealing goals from the strikers, that happened when I used the RP at CM a while ago. I'll do a bit of testing in pre-season, see how it goes. What do you guys think though?

[Scratch]

1 hour ago, BakaSotong said:

Well, I tried to sign him just to see how much he'd cost... Nice wanted £25M for him minimum, and on top of that he wanted £100K in wages... yeah, I think I'll have to pass 😕 As for corners, IIRC it's "penalty spot", then slap 1 or 2 of your strikers as "mark keeper" right? At least, that's what I'm running RN, I'm not sure if that the correct method though. Probs not, since I'm not getting too many goals from corners.

Yeah pen spot, mark keeper with 1 player, everyone else stay back. 

Was gold last year, 1-2 goals per game. It's nerfed now - instead of it generating a true one on one or one on two every time, the other players are more likely to ignore the stay back command and mess things up. But, as my winger's crossing and my striker's aerial levels up, more are going in - probably not 1 a game, but getting close.

I'd really love my players to develop a little more (get from 18 to 20) and see how that pans out.

38 minutes ago, BakaSotong said:

I did tweak the tactic actually in the middle of the season, with decent results so far. I guess my main debate is whether to shift the RP at DM to maybe an AM at AMC, or an AP at either CM at AMC. Not that he isn't doing his job well enough, but I think he can afford to pull more players away from the strikers to make it easier for them to score. My main worry with changing his position is that he'll end up stealing goals from the strikers, that happened when I used the RP at CM a while ago. I'll do a bit of testing in pre-season, see how it goes. What do you guys think though?

Don't have a solid suggestion for you, but definitely worth playing with. I tend to watch games to see who's getting the shots and then I adjust the formation if needed. I use an AM in the AMC position, but one game he had 5 shots by 30 minutes, so I moved him to DM (to get him to stop shooting) and made one of strikers a T (so they run back into whatever space the AM was exploiting) and he scored a couple. But it changes depending on the opposition formation and even down to how they play on the day - the next time I played that team, the AM didn't shoot at all so I didn't change it.

[BakaSotong]

2 hours ago, Scratch said:

Don't have a solid suggestion for you, but definitely worth playing with. I tend to watch games to see who's getting the shots and then I adjust the formation if needed. I use an AM in the AMC position, but one game he had 5 shots by 30 minutes, so I moved him to DM (to get him to stop shooting) and made one of strikers a T (so they run back into whatever space the AM was exploiting) and he scored a couple. But it changes depending on the opposition formation and even down to how they play on the day - the next time I played that team, the AM didn't shoot at all so I didn't change it.

I guess it really depends on how the opposing team lines up, it seems. 'Cause similar to what you said, sometimes they'll take shots from all over, other times they barely get a peep in. But yea, I'll do a bit more experimenting, see what works and what doesn't. The "striker converting to a T" is a great idea BTW, I might just use that if we're struggling. Thanks for the help mate! 

[BakaSotong]

On 29/01/2023 at 02:02, BatiGoal said:

Just imagine what goes thru the opposing manager's mind a minute after kick-off. .."hey, ass.manager.. get over here!".. "do you see what I'm seeing???".. "wt-grand-f is BakaSotong up to??" .. uhmm.. "I think ..uhmm.. I think he wants to get his ass fired.. ..that or he's a f#$&ing genius."

😂 

So, uhm, funny story. I may have gotten it to work. And it may be better than my current tactics.

(Halfway through the season RN, was malding at the usual mid-season slump so I decided to just throw whatever at the wall, this somehow managed to stick. Will have to do more testing, I've only used it for 3 games thus far but it's extremely promising)

Edited February 4, 2023 by BakaSotong

[BatiGoal]

10 minutes ago, BakaSotong said:

so I decided to just throw whatever at the wall, this somehow managed to stick.

It's still a game after all, and sometimes that IS the best way to go about it. It surely can't hurt. 😁

[BakaSotong]

2 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

It's still a game after all, and sometimes that IS the best way to go about it. It surely can't hurt. 😁

Definitely. Might wanna do some testing with a different save first though, before I commit to selling half my midfield in January =P

[BakaSotong]

SEASON 3

 

TACTICS:
Call it greed, call it not being complacent, but as successful as my strikers were… I still wanted to squeeze even more goals out of them. Cue a whole bunch of tactical shifts that didn’t stick, at all. I won’t bore you with the details, but for now I decided to test out shifting my WMs up to the AM line and playing them as wingers for next season, hopefully that’ll help.

 

TRANSFERS:

Spoiler

Yeahhhh… if you noticed: Yes, I did bring Zalewski in at the start of the season, and yes I did sell him in January. Apart from just being sub-par on all fronts (performance, growth, etc.), he got injured for a few months around late September / October and declined massively. At that point I decided to just cut my losses and offload him, and brought in a loanee (Paredes) to stand in for him until next season. I’m fully anticipating this coming back to bite me in the ass, where he’s gonna develop massively and knock me out of the Champions League in a few seasons. Netz takes his position in the primary team, with Paredes coming in for the secondary spot. 

 

I also decided to go for more offensive IWBs. Previously I favoured Positioning over Movement, but I figured if we’re gonna go for an outrageously ambitious goal-scoring objective, may as well go all in. Hence why Ebosele came in for Rosas (who left for a measly £4M!), and Zalewski for Bensebaini… at least, that was the plan 👀

 

Other than that, everything else is pretty standard stuff, clearing out deadwood, switching out players for better or younger players with potential.

 

PERFORMANCE:

Spoiler

We won the Champions League! Possibly in the weirdest penalty shoot-out I’ve ever seen in my years of playing FM as well. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep this up next year. Oh, and we also won everything in Scotland ^w^

 

THE LADS:

Still wasn’t able to get him to 20 Aerial and he plateaued for the first half of the season, something about needing to mature IIRC. Nevertheless, guy still grew quite well all-round, especially his Shooting getting a +4. Hopefully next season, he can hit 20 for both of ‘em.

 

Decent growth for him as well, similar to Amadori he’s getting close to a nice 20 finishing. Also bulking up it seems, getting to a strong 18 strength. 

 

The problem is that both are hitting 21 soon, which is where the rapid development usually slows. We’re going to have to make the most of next season if we want to see some 20s. Also gonna need to get the stamina up, they’re still getting tired, especially after a long string of games. But otherwise, I think they’re both coming along just fine.

 

GOAL TALLY:

123 goals! Quite an impressive amount from the 84 last season, especially since Amadori matched that by his lonesome. I think 150 goals should be feasible, especially if Tresoldi is able to keep up with Amadori this time round. 

 

== == == ==

 

Hope you guys enjoyed reading! If y’all got any questions, I’ll be happy to answer ^w^

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by BakaSotong

[BatiGoal]

Big big season that. 

3 hours ago, BakaSotong said:

Also gonna need to get the stamina up, they’re still getting tired, especially after a long string of games.

Yes, that's key. My last save I got 5! Games in 8 days. 30/4 , 2/5 , 4/5 , 6/5 , 8/5 - a single day rest in-between games, absolutely ridiculous. Couldn't play the same starting 11 the full 90min obviously, let alone the main man up front.

Good Stamina, as well as "energy-saving" player roles if you will and tactics during such busy periods is essential to keeping the lads healthy.

[Scratch]

Yeah, that's a great season, you just gotta get Tresoldi pulling his weight now! But they are young still and will score a lot more as they get older.

BTW - Reading this is encouraging me to get back to my own save - haven't touched it for about a week now!

[BakaSotong]

20 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Big big season that. 

Yes, that's key. My last save I got 5! Games in 8 days. 30/4 , 2/5 , 4/5 , 6/5 , 8/5 - a single day rest in-between games, absolutely ridiculous. Couldn't play the same starting 11 the full 90min obviously, let alone the main man up front.

Good Stamina, as well as "energy-saving" player roles if you will and tactics during such busy periods is essential to keeping the lads healthy.

Definitely. During those busy periods, sometimes I'll let the main two strikers play the first half, then sub them off for my back-ups to let them rest. At least they still get game time and hence chances to score, but also conserving the energy they have. 

6 hours ago, Scratch said:

Yeah, that's a great season, you just gotta get Tresoldi pulling his weight now! But they are young still and will score a lot more as they get older.

BTW - Reading this is encouraging me to get back to my own save - haven't touched it for about a week now!

Good luck with your save, I've been enjoying it so far! But honestly, sometimes I need to catch a break from the challenge, so I feel ya. Currently feeling really burned out halfway through S4, decided to leave the save on the sidelines for now and revisit my annual tradition of managing Southampton (no particular reason why, it's just something I've done on every FM I've owned so far). TBH it's also an excuse to use some players I haven't had the chance to yet, y'know I've yet to use Endrick the whole time I've been playing? Time to fix that =P

Edited February 13, 2023 by BakaSotong

[BakaSotong]

Welp, I've got bad news folks. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but my phone decided to go kaput, and along with it the save files for this challenge. Unfortunately I made the amateur mistake of not backing them up, so... I guess that's that, I guess. sigh Sorry y'all.

I might restart from scratch (winter update just dropped, so that's good timing I suppose), or move on to something different. I'm open to any suggestions though ^w^