Sporting Clube de Portugal to Futbol Club Barcelona - Football Manager 2019

[Dave]

Well... Lets just say this diary is about to get a little more interesting....

@Cannabis @Dan @Stan @Blue 

[Dave]

Summer 2020

Throughout the course of the season, there has been somewhat underwhelming incidents going on behind the scenes.

Firstly, as I touched upon the board f**ked up with Bruno Fernandes contract allowing him to leave for twelve million less than we had rejected half a week before. I was only entitled to spend 30% of the money from the deal too. This led to five players coming to me on seperate occasions with concerns about the squad quality. Bruno Fernandes is the only player we had who looked capable of playing for a top, top club. Geromillo Rulli and Joavanne Cabral I image will get there one day, but for now, Bruno was the man. Yet we sold him for half as much as Porto and Benfica were letting their key players go for.

The Second thing was my contact. I was making £13,500 p/w whilst the Benfica and Porto managers were making in excess of £25,000+ p/w. Given I won a double last season I thought after the January debacle I would ask for a new contract. The board weren't going to give me a contract until I threatened to resign. It was gamble that worked as they offered me a new contract, but they wouldn't go over £15,000k p/w. So the talks broke down pretty quickly.

Napoli were willing to interview me for their job without me applying. I decided I had nothing to lose so went for it. Sporting then agreed to offer me a new contract to quash the rumour. They agreed a significant pay rise. This pay rise was to £16,000k p/w so again the talks broke down quickly.

I thought we were going to blow the title to be honest. Benfica and Porto had net spend's of over £40,000,000 over two seasons whilst we had a ridiculous net profit. The players were all progressing nicely, but when Benfica are making signings like Karim Benzema, there's only so much time you can do until the penny pinching catches up.

Then the summer came along, I was given £13,000,000 to spend. I got my four targets in just before Euro 2020 was about to commence. Everything was in place for the new season now. I was looking forward to it.

Then the board behind my back sold Geromillo Rulli to Napoli for £15,0000,000. Napoli in terms of prestige are slightly bigger than us. However they got just as far as us in The Champions League and finished fourth in Serie A. If they offered double, which I reckon is his max potential, I wouldn't have cared too much. But that fee bothered me.

I was scouring Europe and South America for a new Sweeper Keeper to compete with Dani Martin for the number one jersey. I decided on somebody called Claudio Ramos, he was ok but never going to be bigger than Lisbon. All pretty underwhelming really.

Then I had that 'holy shit' email....

[Dave]

The 'Holy Shit' Email....

"Barcelona would like to offer you a job interview...."

Yes, Barcelona had just finished third in la liga despite leading for the entirety of the season. This led to the board replacing Unai Emery, who had been made manager the season before because Ernesto Valverde had finished third.

The Barcelona board were impressed that I had won four trophies in two seasons which was emphasised heavily through the course of the interview. Sporting Lisbon caught wind of this, and promised a new contract if I agreed to stay. Lol. Not falling for that one again. I decided that regardless of what Barcelona offered, if there were to make a job offer I would take it. Based on the last two managers i'd probably be gone after one season anyway and would get a massive pay out.

Barcelona came back with a contract offer of £105,000k p/w and a budget of £10,000,000 to make staff changes. This was a dream come true as I could take all the staff that wanted to come with me. There was no negotiating the terms of the contract. A two year contract with those wages and a Champions League bonus was all I needed to become the third Barcelona manager in three seasons.

[Dave]

Now here is a real life photo of me standing in the dressing room wondering what the fuck just happened.

[Dave]

Barcelona Recap 2018/19 & 2019/20

So as I briefly touched upon, Barcelona have finished third the last two seasons and have ended both seasons trophy less. This has been deemed unacceptable and the baord are hopeing my quick trophy fix can offer a short term solution.

Uani Emery was somehwat of a weird choice as his Arsenal side finished fifth below Everton in the Premier League. However he wasn't helped by the Director of Football as the signings have been rather bizarre.

 

Here are the players that have been signed:

Juventus must have been pissing themselves that they made close to £45,000,000 profit on Emre Can in less than six months. Unsurprisingly they were trying to loan him out to Bayer Leverkusson after eighteen months. A colossal waste of money there.

Kurt Zouma must have an absolutely worldy season for Everton to get signed by Barcelona too given he had been mediocre for Stoke City before that. All that money on Zouma and Can... what were they thinking?!?

The only good additions really have been the full backs. Juan Bernat, Joao Cancelo and Faouzi Ghoulam all cost a bit of money but are aguably good signings.

David Silva is an ok signing, albeit you can't blame MAn City accepting close to £44,000,000 on a Midfielder that is 33 years old. 

 

And these are the faces he's let go. It's only letting Ghoulam go that i'm a bit annoyed about in all honesty. Denis Suarez is about to leave on a free too...

[Dave]

Squad Recap:

Ter Stegen is still one of the best in the world and we are lucky to have him here. Hopefully Cilessen is happy to remain second fiddle and i'll not have to worry about a second choice 'keeper.

I think Nelson Semedo is ready to do battle with Joao Cancelo for that right wing back position. Both of a similar age. Hopefully it will be like the Sylvinho / Van Bronckhorst dispute all those years ago on the left side and one will really gain from it. I know Pique is ageing but the cover really worries me so he will start alongside Umtiti with my scouts working in the background to identify a replacement for next summer. Zouma is not a ball playing defender and can go if by some miracle we recoup what was paid for him. I'm actively pursuing a world class left wing back with our transfer budget and have identified Alaba and Hernandez as suitable players.

I am looking forward to playing with a Seguno Volante in the DM slot as it's something I haven't tried before. Albeit if I last longer than a season I will have to start making long term plans to replace Busquets as that man is not going to be Emre Can. Sergei Roberto has really pushed on in the last two seasons so I hope he can continue that in the box-to-box role. David Silva and Ivan Rakitic's contracts expire at the end of the season so I hope that Arthur can make life east for me and displace both of them.

Messi on the right, Coutinho on the left, Suarez down the middle for this season. I'll be cautious about Abel Ruiz's playing time as he could become a good player if nutured correctly. I may sign Joavanne Cabral as a squad player just to say thank you for winning me the league last season.

 

 

[Stan]

51 minutes ago, The Palace Fan said:

Barcelona came back with a contract offer of £105,000k p/w

That's fucking huge amount of money. I know it's Barca but I've never breached £100k/w at any club I've ever been at in any  FM series. I think the highest I ever got to was £70k-75k?!

48 minutes ago, The Palace Fan said:

Now here is a real life photo of me standing in the dressing room wondering what the fuck just happened.

This had me in fits of laughter . 

I see the squad have deserted you before you've even begun . In all seriousness, FM need to work on this part of the graphics in future series. It's as if we're back in FIFA 98 days with everything just squared off. 

 

35 minutes ago, The Palace Fan said:

 

 

And these are the faces he's let go. It's only letting Ghoulam go that i'm a bit annoyed about in all honesty. Denis Suarez is about to leave on a free too...

 

The signings were utterly shite to be honest and no wonder they dropped to 3rd. The one departure that stands out for me, more than Ghoulam, is how much of a bargain Alba was for Utd. 

[Dave]

3 hours ago, Stan said:

That's fucking huge amount of money. I know it's Barca but I've never breached £100k/w at any club I've ever been at in any  FM series. I think the highest I ever got to was £70k-75k?!

This had me in fits of laughter . 

I see the squad have deserted you before you've even begun . In all seriousness, FM need to work on this part of the graphics in future series. It's as if we're back in FIFA 98 days with everything just squared off. 

 

The signings were utterly shite to be honest and no wonder they dropped to 3rd. The one departure that stands out for me, more than Ghoulam, is how much of a bargain Alba was for Utd. 

Yeah, jokes on them, I would have taken 15k 

Other than the graphics Fifa 98 was a great game. They really got that series right with the road to the world cup whilst the league was still on going. They didn't get better than that for absolutely ages.

And yes, Jordi Alba was a bargain for United. I could understand in replacing him for younger players but they spent a similar price on a 33 year old David Silva.

----

The board are refusing to pay Lionel Messi anywhere near his 1.2 mil p/w. Admirable if he wasn't so good! Even when I reset the budget ratio to put all my transfer funds in the wage budget, they won't budge over 750k p/w. So hopefully he will drop his wage demands as the season progresses.

David Silva, Luis Suarez, Jasper Cilessen and Ivan Rakitic have agreed to year extensions on the same or less money.

I've made my one and only signing this summer (unless somebody buys some of my backups)... David Alaba joins for £85 million. Very pricey but he's the world's best left back and should fit in like a glove for 4/5 years.

[Dan+]

You've done a very good job at Sporting. I'm quite glad you avoided Leicester though. Moving from Sporting to Leicester is a curse.

Barcelona's probably a fair progression. It's a massive step up but you've punched above your weight with Sporting.

[Dave]

So, as always after a major European competition in Football Manager Land, after Euro 2020 the amount of moves went mental.

 

Awsene Wenger, who had just won his first PL title in 15 years at Liverpool, has decided to walk away from Anfield after one season to manage France.

Pep Guardiola, who had just lost the CL final with Manchester City, decided to leave the City of Manchester Stadium to manage Liverpool.

Thomas Tuchel, after winning the the CL final with Paris Saint Germain, had decided to leave to manage Manchester City.

Paris Saint Germain then decided to appoint my arch nemesis at Porto who has won NOTHING in two years and just hates me.

 

So when The Champions League groups were announced, it was inevitable what was going to happen...

 

Great news in the league though, Chelsea have nabbed Atletico Madrid's Diego Simeone to replace Maurizio Sarri who was off to manage Italy. Hopefully that will completely derail them.

[Dave]

The First Challenge - Real Madrid

Building up to the first challenge everything was going to the script. Messi and Coutinho got us off to a winning start against Espanyol. David Alaba then justified his transfer fee, scoring us the goals that won us the games against Leganes and Malaga. Clean sheets were then kept as we beat Eibar through Luis Suarez, Vallecano through Luis Suarez and Arthur, and then Villareal through Emre Can. Vallecano were top of the league and scoring goals for fun when we played them.

We remained untested before the visit to Real Madrid which made for a fantastic contest. However, what had worked in our favour was that some of the other teams had already started dropping points. If we could beat Madrid, we could be well on our way to cementing ourselves as the early runners for the title.

It was actually quite an emotional affair as football manager hasn't mastered the amount of play acting and time wasting that usually ruins these spectacles. Whilst Lionel Messi was an absolute magician in the early stages with two goals that were all created by himself, Real Madrid grew in to the game and had two good chances to score before De Vrij's goal via a set piece. Thankfully Nabil Fekir is no Cristiano Ronaldo or we would have been in trouble. What was impressive was how we went up the other end and scored immediatly after, through Sergio Busquets of all people! The second half was all Real Madrid, and Ter Stergen had to put in some second half performance to keep our lead, but it was a great victory on paper and one that should boost confidence.

Isco was sent off for a very bad tackle on Sergei Roberto - the invention of the decade,

 

[Dave]

The Second Challenge - Paris Saint Germain

Needless to say PSG started the group in no mood to drop standards. The current holders dismantled Standard whilst we kept up our league form of relying on David Alaba to storm through from left back to get us another three points.

I decided to rotate instead of send out a strong message in this fixture but in a way we ended up doing both. David Alaba on the score sheet again, Sergei Robert got a goal that his performances over the season deserved, and Abel Ruiz who was given an opportunity up front took advantage by scoring his first goal of the season. I couldn't believe what Cavani did to Zenit. How one man could destroy another team like that and score six goals doesn't even bare worth thinking about.

So next up was the big match, and my god what a match it was. The game started even until Paris Saint Germain got a penalty in what was a debateable hand ball call. Why VAR is not being used in The Champions League is beyond me. Anyway after that we were trying to get a hold of the match. PSG were doing a good job at stopping us doing that but they were showing no attacking offense. In the second half was had two real good chances through Arthur and Messi to score but didn't take out chances. I believed though if we were carving out chances we would eventually score, and the goal came from Coutinho after a well worked move. I thought that was it after that and I was happy with the draw, but as we had the offense and were at home I allowed my players to still attack. Then in the 91st minute Cavani had a shot hit the bar, it bounced out Cancelo, who played it out wide to Messi, who ran through the centre with Suarez on his right and Coutinho on his left. It was 3 against 2. Messi waited for Hernandez to commit himself before playing a through ball to Suarez, who went one-on-one with the keeper before slotting the ball underneath him in to the net. The absolute scenes in 3D mood. I'm pretty sure I saw my character run on to the pitch to celebrate.

The second leg was never going to live up to the first but I was keen to avoid a defeat at the very least after all the effort we had put in before. We didn't start off well at all as Kovacic hit the post in the first minute. It was no surprise really when Kylian Mbappe scored after being left unmarked. We then flicked the switch almost immediatly and Luis Suarez scored a carbon copy goal up the other end shortly after. After that we showed a superiority I didn't know we had. Arthur was pulling the strings in midfield like there was no tomorrow and PSG rarely troubled us. Suarez converting a low Messi cross from six yards was a fine reward for a well capped performance.  To our dismay though, it was PSG that had the last laugh, as a Hernandez thunderbolt from over 25 yards went straight in to the top corner. Definitely a contender for goal of the tournament. The scenes again were unreal. Almost immediatly after the restart Coutinho got sent off for a rather horrendous tackle on Mbappe as tempers flared before the full time. Partly my thought because of my comments towards their manager in the build up to both matches.

But hey, can't dwell on that ending, we're through already because the other two teams are shite:

 

[...Dan]

I've never bothered trying to get good wages...it just takes money away from what you can spend, no? I've always just accepted offers.

[Dave]

8 hours ago, ...Dan said:

I've never bothered trying to get good wages...it just takes money away from what you can spend, no? I've always just accepted offers.

 

8 hours ago, Cannabis said:

Same, would rather pump the money into the club as it's not as though you can use it for anything in the game.

I like to feel appreciated because I'm needy.