Football At The Coliseum

[FM_TNSSO]

Football At The Coliseum

Most of you opening this story are fully expecting to see some sort of football career in Rome, going by the title, but that's not the case. In fact, this is a career story involving Getafe Club de Futbol - a Spanish professional football club based in Getafe which is a city in the community of Madrid.

The club currently plays it's football in La Liga, the top tier in Spain, and the 16,500 capacity Estadio Coliseum is their home. It's an open air stadium which was inaugrated in 1998 and seats 14,400 with the remaining capacity made up from standing. It's frequently a sell out for their local games against giants of Spanish football Real and Atletico Madrid, but attendances can vary outside of these games. So that is task number 1 of this save - bring an entertaining brand of football to Getafe that the fans want to see, in order to steal some of those fans away from the 'bigger' local clubs.

In terms of the history of Getafe FC, they were founded in 1946 and then refounded in 1983, with the club playing in the top tier for the first time in 2004. They've played only one season outside of La Liga since (in 2016/17), so have firmly cemented themselves amongst Spain's best. Despite that, it's fair to say they mainly make up the numbers in the highest division, finishing in the bottom half for 11 of those seasons and only finishing in the top 8 on three occasions, never above 5th. Task number 2 - Break into the top 4 in La Liga.

Getafe have a very dusty old trophy cabinet with no major trophies in it at all, although they have reached the Copa del Rey final back in 2007 and 2008 losing to Sevilla and Valencia on those occasions. Task number 3 - win the Copa del Rey.

As well as choosing Getafe for my career mode for their stadium name, I did have another motive. I really like their home shirt, whilst their 2nd and 3rd kits are also decent looking kits. I mean, you have to look good when you're playing good football right!

And the facilities I'll be kicking things off with are not too shabby either, but there is room to improve them over time. Task number 4 - improve facilities to world class level to compete with elite clubs.

Now Getafe's owner is actually listed as a legend at the club and his story is inspiring. Angel Torres Sanchez is a Spanish businessman who lost his father to a road accident at the age of 14, and he was orphaned at 18. He initially worked as a mechanic in Getafe, when he lost his job whilst striking. He was then fired from a factory in Fuenlabrada in solidarity with another employee whose service was also terminated. In the 1980's, he made his name in the construction industry during a boom in the expansion of Madrid's commuter towns and sold off his interests in order to invest in bars, bingo halls and nightclubs across Getafe. It was in 2002 that he convinced by the town's mayor to purchase the football club. Task number 5 - become a club legend like Torres.

The longer term task 6 of this career is to overthrow the dominance of Barcelona and Real Madrid, two powerhouses of world football. They've won 20 of the last 25 La Liga titles between them, but before I can even lay a glove on them I'll have to better the likes of Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Villarreal, Sevilla and Valencia...no easy task in itself!

The other thing that is going to make it incredibly hard to overcome the top teams in the country is the La Liga salary cap. Ours currently sits at £500k per week and each team's is calculated by their turnover/income year on year. So the likes of Barca and Real Madrid who bring in so much more money than all the other teams in the league are well positioned to stay at the top of Spanish football as their massive wage budgets give them the opportunities to sign much better players than everyone else. However, I don't see this as a negative...I see it as all part of the challenge, so let's get on our way.

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[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 1
The Squad

As I meet my squad, I am pleased to see an abundance of Spanish talent in the ranks and only 7 players across the first team are not of the home nationality. This is something I'd love to continue through my career and although I won't exclusively sign Spanish players, I will look to bring through Spanish youth. I am quick to notice that I do have a bunch of players at mixed stages of their careers, with six players under 21 and six over 30 years old. Going by my assistant manager's initial star ratings, we seem to be pretty strong across the defensive half of the pitch but could be lacking talent particularly in attacking midfield.

We might be struggling for creativity, but what we do have is a decent striker in Borja Mayoral. In fact, my assistant rates the ex Real Madrid forward as the best player in the squad. He did only bag 8 goals in 35 league games last season though and I'll be trying to get a better return out of him than that, assuming I can hold on to him as Saudi club Al-Nassr are sniffing around him.

Now I might have a lack of creative options out wide in midfield, but through the middle, we do have Luis Milla. The 29 year old Spaniard is a player to build a team around for the first couple of seasons at least.

We've got a quality left back in Diego Rico as well, who will be bombing on from the back to offer threat down the left side. With an excellent work rate and determination, combined with the ability to whip in a decent cross, I'll be expecting a fair amount of assists from him.

I'm also pretty well covered between the sticks with David Soria as my number 1 keeper. He's been at the club for a few seasons now and is a commanding presence in the team who can give our defence plenty of confidence in the man backing them up.

Talking of the defence, at the heart of it will be Omar Alderete. The Paraguayan international is without doubt my best current option at the club at centre back and I'm hoping with his height, heading and jumping ability he will offer me a threat from set pieces in attack as well.

I do have £4 million to improve the squad, although I'm not sure how good a player that buys you in La Liga if I'm honest and the loan market might be a better bet for me in my first season in charge. However, I might have to skim a bit off that wage bill first as we are currently overspending by more than £10k per week.

There is a possibility I may clash with the fans initially as they want to see a direct style of football and that's not in line with what I've created. Hopefully we can get some results under our belts early on and win them over.

This is the tactic I have come up with, which is solely focused on keeping the ball with a patient approach, keeping the ball and carving out opportunities as we defend as a solid unit and then move forward up the pitch together as one.

My targets as far as the board are concerned are to have Getafe competing in European competition within the next 4-5 years. I love their ambition.

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