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.
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.
Chapter 2
A Solid Start & Transfer Deadline Day Sees Two Arrive
Saturday 2nd September 2023
Pre season saw us go unbeaten through 6 friendlies and was capped off with a huge 8-0 win against lower league Spanish opposition in La Nurcia. The tactic seems to be working well and the lads have adapted to my style pretty quickly, although the proof will be in the pudding when we start playing competitive games.
Through watching the tactic and trying different tweaks in pre season, I have adapted the tactic ever so slightly. We have changed to an attacking style, focused the play through the middle of the pitch and added counter attack.
My first competitive game of the season will see us host Real Valladolid, a game which we will be slight favourites to win.
And that's probably because they are tipped by the bookies to get relegated this year. As far as we go, mid table obscurity is what is expected and if we can break into the top half it will be an achievement. There is no surprise to see a media dream 11 entirely made up of Real Madrid and Barcelona players....and Samuel Lino (Atletico).
It was a simple case of pure domination in the opening game, winning 3-1 and having over 70% of the possession. I can't quite tell if we were really good, Valladolid were really bad, or a combination of both. Great to see Borja kicking off his season with 2 goals, which means after 1 game he already has 25% of the amount of goals he scored last season!
I've made my first signing of the window as well. My scouting team have been on the lookout for a new centre back for me, not because I am unhappy with my first choice starters, but because I just felt I needed additional cover as I play three at the back. Malang Sarr is the player in amongst all their recommendations that caught my eye as he has some solid enough all round attributes and was available from Lens at a bargain price of just £550k.
Sarr made his debut from the bench in our next game at Valencia and helped us on the way to a very impressive victory. I felt like we could definitely give them a game, but I didn't expect to walk all over them the way we did! An incredible performance!
After demolishing Valencia, I didn't expect us to have any trouble beating Leganes, but this was a local derby and we all know what strange affects that can have on games. Despite the tension of the magnitude of the rivalry, we just about came through it with the 3 points to make it 3 wins from 3.
It's been a great start to the season for Borja Mayoral, with 4 goals in his opening 3 appearances, and that's enough to bag him the first Player Of The Month award.
He does need some competition for his place up front though and that is why I have turned to Atalanta's Malian striker, El Bilal Toure, who joins us on loan for the season. The 22 year old forward signed for Atalanta from Almeria where he scored 7 goals in 21 appearances and the fact he knows La Liga is a plus point and factored in my decision to bring him in. We'll pay 60% of his wages, plus a £40k per month loan fee for the season, with an optional buy clause of £25 million.
Another loan signing that came in on transfer deadline day was Ramon Terrats who will bolster my options in central midfield. We will pay all of his wages throughout the loan period along with a £20k per month loan fee. He joins from Villarreal with a point to prove that he can be a regular player in their lineup.
To make the deals happen, I had to adjust the budgets moving most of our transfer kitty into the wage budget. We also allowed some of our wingers to go out on loan to get them off the wage bill (as I don't use wide midfielders in my formation).
Despite upping our wage budget, we are still miles off the top three wage spenders in the league, with Barcelona and Real Madrid both spending at least 6 times what we spend!!
Chapter 3 Real and Barca's League And We're All Just Playing In It Sunday 22nd October 2023
Real Sociedad were definitely going to provide our biggest test in the league so far this year. However, the game did result in another 3 points for us! Our first goal came with a stroke of luck as Diego Rico crossed in from the left side and the ball ricocheted off Elustondo and into the back of his own net. This left Sociedad chasing the game and as they threw men forward, we were able to catch them on the counter attack for Juanmi to seal the win in stoppage time with his 3rd goal of the season.
That leaves only two teams in La Liga with 100% records after the opening four games, us and Real Madrid. And we go to the Bernabeau next!
Well there is a massive gulf in class between the two sides at this stage and we were ripped apart by a certain Kylian Mbappe who we simply couldn't deal with. Ouch, this result will hurt, but will now be a test of character to see how my lads react for me.
What a way to bounce back from our first defeat! We absolutely batter Real Betis, making full use of our set pieces scoring three times from corners. Great result!
Unfortunately, we couldn't back it up with a win at Villarreal. However, we didn't do ourselves an injustice here and arguably deserved something from the game. We can take the positives from this and move on.
We are a very different proposition at home than we are away, and we proved that by smashing 6 goals past Espanyol in our next match. An unbelievable effort from the lads and again a great way to bounce back immediately from defeat. Borja picked up his first hat trick of the season as he was unstoppable up top!
After a performance like that, it's no surprise that five of our players made the team of the week!
We hadn't yet drawn a game this season, but that has now changed as we finish up 2-2 at Alaves. Twice, our right back Allan Nyom gave us the lead, but both times we let is slip and have to settle for a single point.
The squad disappeared off for the October international break (well 5 of them did anyway), with the highlight being Borja getting his first cap for Spain at the age of 27!
Scoring 7 goals in 6 appearances so far this season and appearing on the international stage is raising Borja's stock across Europe and I might just have to fend off some interest in the January transfer window as Newcastle, Liverpool and Al-Nassr have all been scouting our front man.
He couldn't do the business for us against Las Palmas though as we record our worst result of the season so far. This is absolutely a game I'd have expected us to win and to not even really compete throughout was bitterly disappointing.
Despite that defeat, we do remain 3rd in the league though and things are still pretty positive, assuming we can rebound from that defeat OK. But already looking at the points tallys, it would seem this is Real Madrid and Barcelona's league and we're all just playing in it.
Chapter 4
An Incredibly Tight Bottom Half
Sunday 31st December 2023
We kick off this chapter with some bad news as I lose my keeper for up to 5 weeks.
Now if you're looking for a team that has made a disappointing start to the league campaign, then look no further than Athletic Bilbao who came into our game in 12th. And we piled on the misery for them, inflicting another defeat on them here.
From Athletic to Atletico, but this time the result wasn't in our favour as we were turned over by probably the 3rd best team in the country. Again, no shame in this defeat and we put up a decent fight.
It was an absolute goal fest against Sevilla, but one I am pleased to say we came out on the right end of. Borja bagged his second hat trick of the season as he led the line superbly, whilst Allan Nyom again scored from that right wing back position and he has now returned 4 goals from his 7 appearances this season.
To say I am getting the best out of Borja would be an understatement as he is averaging a goal a game so far this season and looks well on course to return his best goal tally in his entire career.
We've had a tough run of fixtures against some of the better sides in the league of late, but we now have five games coming up where we won't play any side in the top 8, so it's an opportunity to hopefully string together some more positive results.
We didn't kick off that run very well though as we can only manage a 0-0 draw with Mallorca who, in all honesty, played us off the park.
Much, much better against Osasuna and a comfortable victory. Our match against Real Vallecano had been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch and the extra time we had to prepare for this one seems to have worked in our favour.
A solid defensive performance was the foundation for us earning a decent point away at Girona. Not an amazing game for either set of fans to watch though.
Celta Vigo are 18th in the league and struggling and we battered their goal for a full 90 minutes. We only managed to score a single goal though as Mauro Arambarri nets for the first time this season. Luckily, it was enough to secure the points.
That's five games without losing now, but more impressive is the four clean sheets in a row.
That was our final league game of 2023 and we will finish the calendar year in 6th position, although we do have 1 or 2 games in hand over the sides above us. The biggest surprise is seeing Athletic Bilbao and Valencia right down in the relegation battle. However, things are very tight in the bottom half of the table with just 5 points seperating 9th and 19th.
It wasn't our final match of the calendar year though as we still had the first round of the Copa del Rey to play and we'd drawn Alfaro, minnows from the lower leagues. Despite the gulf in class between the two squads, we still made ****** hard work of getting through though.
Chapter 5
Eyes Set On European Football
Sunday 28th January 2024
We returned from the Christmas break with an excellent win over Valencia. We've completed the double over them this season and that is a great achievement for us and hopefully this result will see us pick up in 2024 where we left off last year.
I may have a situation developing with top goalscorer, Borja. Al-Nassr came in with an offer of £40 million for him which I rejected, but that his ****** him off and now he is edging for the move. It might be a case of extracting as much as I can during this window as I can for him and letting him leave the club :-(
Even though there is a little unrest with him, I still opted to start Borja against Valladolid and I'm pleased to see him maintain his professionalism as he turned in a good performance and scored too.
That game did see us register another clean sheet and that's now 7 in a row which is a new club record.
However, I have now lost one of my most experienced centre backs as Djene Dakonam has left the club to join Al Taawoun. The 33 year old had already decided to leave the club at the end of his contract at the end of the season, so I thought it was better to move him on now and get at least some sort of fee for him rather than allow him to leave on a free. We bagged £3.5 million which isn't bad for a player with 6 months left on their deal and 33 years old.
In the Copa del Rey, we had once again drawn a side from the lower league and just as we did in the first round, we made hard work of it to get past them, leaving it extremely late to score the two goals that saw us through.
One of our star players, Diego Rico, will unfortunately be leaving the club at the end of the season when his contract expires. I tried to keep him, but we just couldn't compete with Newcastle's offer who have almost quadrupled his current wages.
And I have lost another of our wing backs, but with immediate effect and again there wasn't much I could do about it. Juan Iglesias had a minimum fee release clause in his contract of £17.25 million and Atletico Madrid have activated it. Again, I tried to convince him to stay but his mind was already made up with the lure of a bigger club with a bigger reputation than us.
It does put some money into the transfer kitty for me to play with though and now allows me to dip my toes into the January transfer window myself.
Before I had time to start making move in the transfer market, we had an away day at the Nou Camp to contend with. It was a game that saw us concede for the first time in 9 games in all competitions as we fall to a defeat here, which was probably expected in all honesty.
It was then that I made my first signing of the January window as Sean Longstaff comes in from Newcastle on a permanent deal. This might seem underwhelming but I managed to pick him up for a mere £1.6 million and his work rate through the centre of the pitch is second to none. This transfer reminds me a little of Scott McTominay going to Napoli and I hope it pays off in the same way that one has.
Longstaff went straight into the starting lineup for our Copa del Ray clash with Eldense. Again, we'd drawn a lower league side in the cup and after two lacklustre performances in the competition so far, I wanted us to show a bit more in this one and I told the lads as such in our pre-match team talk. They clearly listened to me as we came firing out of the blocks and were 2-0 up inside the first 6 minutes. As it turned out, they were the only two goals of the game and although it would have been nice to score a few more, we are at least safely through to the next round.
The biggest shock of the third round was Barcelona being knocked out by Linares. Their fans will be abolutely furious!
Back in the league, it was derby day against Leganes and even though we were reduced to 10 men in the 40th minute, we still managed to swing the game in our favour. It was an ill tempered affair with the sending off for us and a penalty given away by them (which should have been punished with at least a yellow card as well) but I'm glad to see us come through it with all 3 points.
We remain nicely embedded in the top 4 after 21 games and could rise to 3rd if we win our game in hand. It's the nice 13 point gap that we have back to Mallorca in 8th that pleases me most though as we look to earn some form of European football through our final league position this year.
Chapter 6
Busy Deadline Day
Saturday 24th February 2024
For the first time this season, we would face fellow La Liga opposition in the Copa del Rey and Las Palmas would present stiff opposition after already beating us 2-0 in the league back in October.
And they got the better of us again here and we crash out of the cup. Gutting, but we will take it on the chin and move on...it is my first season in charge after all.
What concerns me more right now is that Juanmi went off injured in that game and one of our key attackers is now going to miss up to 7 weeks of football.
Transfer deadline day was a busy one. With the injury to Juanmi, I knew I needed to bring in another attacking midfielder to sit just behind my forward. I am really happy with the loan signing of Fabio Vieira from Arsenal until the end of the season though and feel like he definitely improves the squad. We are covering 60% of his wages (which I had to free up from the transfer budget) and will have an option to buy him at the end of the season for £3.4 million.
Then I wanted to bolster the centre back position after the departure of Djene Dakonam and I was keen to add a Spanish player to the ranks. I have managed to pick up Arnau Comas from Basel for £3.6 million which is a decent little price for a player that will play a rotation role for sure. Good bargain buy.
I added another centre back too as Bojan Kovacevic was brought to me by my scouting team and the 20 year old Serbian only had a £1.7 million release clause at FK Partizan. He looks decent enough for his age already and will only improve, so even if he doesn't go on to become a regular for us, I am sure we will at least make money on him.
We'd only had a 3 day break since our last game, so I was forced into rotation and all three of my new signings went straight into the starting lineup against Rayo Vallecano. Unfortunately, they are going to need some time to gel and we only managed to carve out a 0-0 draw.
On the plus side, Borja is no longer looking to leave the club. Our top goalscorer and number 1 forward can get back to concentrating on his game again.
It wasn't Borja's best showing against Real Sociedad though as we labour to another 0-0 draw. On a positive note, our two new centre backs have both kept back to back clean sheets in their first 2 games for the club.
Luis Mila might have missed a penalty against Sociedad, but he was the hero as we beat Real Madrid in our next game. His first was from the penalty spot as he quickly puts the demons from his previous game behind him, before smashing home a 30 yard banger for his second! Our most impressive win of the season without a doubt!
Getting a point away at 5th placed Real Betis is a decent result as well. And ANOTHER clean sheet for our new look defence as my signings are looking mustard!
Well my defensive ones are anyway. Fabio Vieira has been pretty disappointing in his first 4 games since arriving, not contributing a single assist or goal yet, nor a match rating above 6.9.
And then all of a sudden, things just seemed to click for Vieira as he scored a goal and grabbed an assist as we beat Villarreal.
That win over Villarreal saw us jump above Atletico Madrid in the table up to 3rd place, although they do have a game in hand so it may only be temporary. The top 4 have pulled well away from the rest now though and I can start seriously considering whether we might be good enough in my first season to qualify for the Champions League!
Chapter 7
Las Palmas The Bogey Team
Sunday 21st April 2024
Espanyol sit rock bottom of the table and have won only 3 league games all season, so I fully expected a win against them. However, we were only able to manage a draw despite being camped in their half for the entire 90 minutes and carving out 3 clear cut chances in the match. A poor result!
We did at least put things right against Alaves, although the scoreline wasn't the most convincing. Fabio Vieira had a few good chances in this game and had squandered better ones before the one he finally scored, but his goal does get us the 3 points and that's the most important thing.
And that's now 7 league games again without conceding a single goal! Our defence has been immense this season, it really has!
In fact, we have more clean sheets in the division than any other side this season.
There was no clean sheet against Las Palmas though and it is confirmed that they are definitely our bogey team. They might be struggling in the bottom half of the table, but we've played them twice in the league this year as well as in the cup and they've now beaten us on all three occasions.
After an international break, we returned to action with victory over Athletic Club, who are in serious danger of getting relegated this season!! We turned around a 1-0 deficit to score twice in the dying minutes to steal victory from the jaws of defeat.
That winning goal from El Bilal Toure was his first in the league all season, in what has been a very disappointing campaign for the youngster here on loan.
It's good to see that 4 of the world's top 10 wonderkids are currently playing their football in La Liga. For now, we don't have any players featuring in the top 50, but hopefully this will change during my time here.
Although it might not be any time soon as this year's youth intake is average at best, with no youngsters looking notable for the future.
Back on the pitch, Atletico Madrid were an altogether more difficult proposition and were worthy winners against us, dominating us for pretty much the entire game. We simply couldn't get near their goal.
We were looking destined to fall to back to back defeats, but a brilliant fightback earns us a good point against 6th placed Sevilla. Great character shown from the lads.
With 6 games of the season remaining, we sit 3rd in the table. There is no chance of mounting any sort of challenge to Real Madrid or Barcelona in the title race, instead turning all of our attention on to holding on to a place in the top 4 and qualifying for next year's Champions League.
Our run in kicked off with a 2-2 draw away at Mallorca who are seriously overachieving this season and still have an outside chance of qualifying for Europe. Based on that alone, getting a point at their place isn't the worst result.
That point ensures we have met the board's vision for this season, with 5 games to go.
We needed a win over Rayo Vallecano to guarantee some form of European football next season and we did get the result by the narrowest of margins. Europa Conference League (at least) is now confirmed for next year.
Then, before we even kicked a football again, with other results going our way, we were upgraded to at least qualification for next season's Europa League.
Achieving targets 4 years ahead of schedule is always going to go down well with the board.
We may struggle for goals in our last few games of the season as top scorer Borja has picked up an injury in training which means he probably won't play again this year.
It was Fabio Vieira who netted our only goal of the game at Osasuna with the game finishing in a draw and it's one point closer to the Champions League for us.
It left us needing only a single point to guarantee qualification to play in Europe's elite competition next year, but we got all three against Girona. The goals came from the unlikely positions of both wing backs, three quality strikes as well!
There it is in print...I've led Getafe to Champions League qualification in my first year in charge - something I never dreamed would happen so quickly. We must build on this now.
Although I'm not sure how much these budgets allow me to improve the squad for next year!! This is disappointing numbers considering all the extra income that will now come our way next season.
We didn't win either of our last two games, but the job was already done and it didn't really matter.
The only significance it had, was that Atletico Madrid leapfrogged us into 3rd place, but a 4th place finish is still well above this season's target! After flirting with relegation all season, Athletic Club stay up by the skin of their teeth and I'll be glad to see the back of Las Palmas who beat us three times this season.
That 4th placed finish is a new club record high finish...not bad for my first season in charge.
Competition Winners La Liga EA Sports = Barcelona
La Liga Hypermotion = Racing Santander
Copa del Rey = Real Madrid
Supercopa de Espana = Real Madrid
Serie A = AC Milan
Bundesliga = Bayern Munich
Premier League = Tottenham
Ligue 1 = Paris Saint-Germain
Liga Portugal Betclic = Sporting CP
Eredivisie = Ajax
UEFA Champions League = Inter Milan
UEFA Europa League = Aston Villa
UEFA Europa Conference League = Chelsea
It was a fantastic league season for us this year, surpassing all expectations as we finished 4th and qualify for next year's Champions League. We were some way off the top 2, but I'm really not bothered about this right now.
The Copa del Rey was a competition we never really got the hang of though. We laboured past three lower league teams, without an inspiring performance in any of those games, before being knocked out by Las Palmas in the fourth round.
Chapter 10
Preparing To Play A New Formation
Friday 16th August 2024
My first departure of the Summer is goalkeeper David Soria. Now you obviously never want to lose your number 1 keeper, but I have to admit that Soria was a bit of a disruptive influence at times last year, disagreeing with me on a couple of occasions and causing unrest in the changing room. Based on that and the fact that Newcastle were willing to fork out £26 million to sign the 32 year old, I'm actually not too worried about this one as I feel he is replaceable for sure.
The only negative from the deal is that £6.5 million of the fee goes straight into the pockets of Sevilla.
I didn't waste any time bringing in his replacement. Pascal Loretz is only 22 years old but looks like a great piece of business signing for £10 million (£6 million paid up front) as he could be our keeper for years to come. He looks decent on paper already and will likely only improve.
I then brought in Barcelona playmaker Pablo Torre on loan for the season. He will cost us £140k per month along with £16k per week in wages for the duration of the loan, but that should prove to be well worth it as he immediately becomes one of our best players.
I've got plans to change up my formation this season to a 4-1-2-3, which means further attacking reinforcements would be required. The next signing covers some of that void as 30 year old Brazilian winger, Marcinho, joins the club from Japanese side Kawasaki Frontale for a fee of £1.2 million, which I am hoping will prove to be a bargain!
Next in was a new right back as 23 year old Belgian Ignace Van Der Brempt joins the club. He comes in from Como for a fee of £6 million (with £3.5 million paid up front) and again could hopefully prove to be a shrewd bit of business on my part. He only played 8 times in Serie A last year, recording a rating of 6.87, and now has the chance to step up to more regular first team football.
I still needed a backup to Van Der Brempt and was loooking for a cheap option as I look to continue maximising my budgets. I managed to pick up Valentin Rosier from Osasuna for just £210k and just £15.5k per week wages. He's not amazing, but should prove an adequate backup.
Then there was another departure from the club and not one I wanted to happen. Carles Alena was a first team regular for me last season and would likely have played a big part for us again this season, but Al-Nassr came in with a £4 million bid for him and when I rejected it, he threw his dummy well and truly out of the pram. In the end, I was backed into a corner and had to let him go or keep an unhappy player here for a season and see him leave on a free next Summer anyway. He eventually joins Al-Nassr for £5.5 million.
I only had one recognised left back in the squad at this point, so needed to get another in. I've raided Borussia Dortmund for 23 year old, Daniel Svensson who only featured for them 4 times last season in the Bundesliga. He was obviously seen as surplas to requirements for them and therefore only cost me £2.7 million.
Pre season has been ******* dreadful this year and we haven't inspired in a single friendly, as I have been tinkering around with the squad and tactic trying to prepare for a new formation this year. Right now, it doesn't seem to be working and it's worrying going into the first game of the season.
Here is where I am currently at with the new tactic, although it might not stay this way for long if we don't pick up some early results in the league.
Then, out of nowhere, we kick off the season with a dominant performance and excellent win away at Betis. Well I have to say I didn't expect that after the way we had performed in pre-season but I will ****** take it!
I celebrate the opening day victory with another signing. Wonderkid Facundo Buonanotte has signed on loan for the season from Brighton and the 20 year old can absolutely strut his stuff around here and show his parent club what he is capable of this year. I'm looking forward to seeing the youngster in action.
Chapter 11
Talk About A Tough Start
Thursday 19th September 2024
Pablo Torre didn't play in our opening day fixture as he was tired, having only just returned from the U23 Spain squad at the Olympics. However, it only took him 5 minutes to score on his debut here against Valencia on our way to a 4-0 win against Valencia. Facundo Buonanotte came off the bench to bag himself a debut goal as well!
Our first defeat of the season came at the hands of Real Sociedad, in a game that came down to the quality of finishing. We created plenty of chances but simply couldn't put the ball in the back of the net, where as our opponents only really had a couple of decent chances but put them both away.
My first serious injury of the season comes early as well, as I lose my first choice right back for just over a month.
Now I wasn't planning on buying another central midfielder this Summer, but my scouts brought my attention to St Gallen's Mihailo Stevanovic and when I saw I could get him for as cheap as £5.5 million (£3.5 million up front), it was a no brainer to get the deal done. Stevanovic is a quality footballer and at the age of 23, he is only likely to get better as well. I look forward to getting him in the team and seeing him develop.
With the arrival of Stevanovic, there was then a departure the very next day. Domingos Duarte wanted to be seen as an important player at the club and start most games, but I just didn't see him justifying that status and the wage he was asking for and decided to move him on. He joins Crystal Palace for £7.75 million.
The Champions League fixtures have been released and I'm actually quite optimistic about them. I feel like PSV, Reims, Celtic and Villa are teams we can potentially get results against, which might be enough for us to secure a playoff spot.
Before we have even kicked a football in the competition we are already reaping the financial benefits of being in the competition.
Which is seeing our bank balance grow to a very healthy position. Unfortunately for me, I can't invest that money into my squad as we are now already maxed out on our La Liga salary cap of £500k per week.
Back on the pitch, we were the masters of our own downfall against Barcelona as Valentin Rosier was sent off as early as the 7th minute on his first start for the club. Then to make matters worse, we handed Barca their first goal with a 14th minute penalty. That could have opened the floodgates for a real thrashing, and although we did go on to lose the result wasn't as bad as it could have been.
I mentioned before that we have plenty of money in the bank now, so I'm pleased the board have agreed to invest some of it into expansion of the stadium.
After losing to Barcelona, the last thing you really want to do is go away to Atletico Madrid. However, we rose to the occasion and recorded one of the most impressive wins of my management career so far. An amazing result that I have to confess I didn't see coming and it's the first time I've beaten Atleti as Getafe boss.
Considering we have already played, Betis, Sociedad, Barca, Atleti and Valencia, I'll take the 9 points we have gained from those games as a good start, with hopefully easier games on the horizon.
Our first Champions League game would see last year's Europa League winners, Aston Villa, travel over to Spain and we sent them home with nothing as we kicked off our campaign with a good win. What a first goal for the club it was for Marcinho as he cut inside from the left wing to sweep a right footed curling effort right into the far top corner.
