Hunting for Trophies

[doyce7]

Hello all, this is the first time that I will be attempting a story. So be gentle please. By "story" what I really mean is recap. The save is done, the story is complete.
The idea behind the save will be familiar to anyone who follows Doctor Benjy on Youtube. The challenge is to win the biggest trophies in Europe. You need to win the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1. You need to win all of the Cups for those countries as well. Outside of the Leagues, you also need to win the Champions League and Europa League. Internationally you need to win the World Cup and European Championship. The catch is you have a time limit, 20 years to get it all done. Did I do it? Tune in to find out.

 

[doyce7]

There is no rules as to who you start with. The spirit of the Challenge is that you start with a good team. The Idea is play with some of the big boys in Europe and move around between them. At the same time I did not want to start with a team already in the Champions League, this would be too easy IMO. I settled on starting in Italy because it feels pretty wide open in FM this year. And what team did I start with?

Roma seemed like they would be fun side to start with. My goal going into the season was to win the Coppa Italia and the Euro Conf, which I decided to add to the list of trophies I must win to complete the challenge.

Before I get to showing the season and the transfer I did. there are 3 people you need to meet. One thing I wanted to do is have a core coaching team that I would take with me to my new jobs around Europe. 3 men were with me at every team that I managed.
First up is my assistant manager. Patrick De Bruijn, The Dutchman was my first hire at Roma and aside from one stint as caretaker at a club that I left, and a season that I was unemployed(I'll get to that), he was with me the whole time.

Next up the German disciplinarian Erich Spang. The page says fairly loyal but that is an understatement. Not only was he with me every step of the way, I had to resign a few times across the save and he walked out with me every time.

Lastly for now, Alessandro Davite, he just kept wanting to tag along and was as good as most people already employed at other clubs, so I kept bringing him with me.

A few other coaches will be talked about later but they weren't picked up until later clubs.

Season 1 recap will be posted tomorrow

 

[doyce7]

Going into the first season I had 3 goals, win the Coppa, win the Euro Conf, qualify for the Champions League. When it came to transfers I felt like the team was pretty well covered at most positions but did need more depth at CB, LB and CM. I settled on Dan-Axel Zagadou, Frederico Dimarco and Rodrigo Bentancur.

Dimarco is now one of my favorite players on this years FM, he's a wonderful LB, great at set pieces and crossing. If you have an aerial threat in your team, like Tammy Abraham or Zagadou, get Fredi Dimarco and you will not be disappointed. Bentancur played as a BWM next to Veretout as BBM.
As for transfers out, the only first teamers that left were Gonzalo Villar, a DLP which I did not plan to play and Chris Smalling who was good in limited minutes but he was 4th choice at CB behind Zagadou, Macini and Ibanez, so I let him leave in January.

 

[doyce7]

The season started off on a flyer. Winning every one of the first 9 games. If you look at the scorers you can see what I discovered very early, feed the ball to Tammy Abraham and you will win games. Zaniolo and Veretout would chip in and both had good goal scoring records but Tammy is just a beast. Finally after 10 games unbeaten Atalanta managed a late winner against us, no invincible season sadly. But we got back to mostly winning ways thereafter and went into the small winter break comfortably top of the league with 48 points and a healthy GD after 19 games.

The Euro Conf was going well also but you'll see what happened there in the next post.

The second half of the season somehow was even better than the first. 51 points in the second half this time and just look at the amount of goals. This team can score. You will see over the course of this story that I like to score goals, I would rather win 4-2 than 1-0.

As you might expect the league was pretty drama free. I knew I'd be in the Champions league by the end of January unless I lost every game. I confirmed winning the league in early May. Here is the final league table for your enjoyment. Honestly disappionted to not get to 100 points but you can't have everything.

 

[doyce7]

Well now that you know I won the league, what about the other goals? How did those go down? Well disappointment struck in March, in the Coppa, with my first defeat in all comps since Atalana in October. Lucky for me that defeat was away from home in a 2 leg tie. the game was a 4-3 thriller. I was actually 4-1 down in this game at halftime but Tammy was able to keep us alive going into the home fixture. It wasn't to be. After going down in the 16th minute at home, Tammy was able to drag us level on the night but we just couldn't find another breakthrough and we go out in the Semis

What about the Conf, I hear you ask. Well other than Betis in the second knockout round it was all really a bit easy. I will admit I was lucky to avoid English and German teams the whole way. The Betis draw away from home is the only thing that stopped perfection.

 

[doyce7]

It was very Successful season, yes it was disappointing to not win the Coppa, but I never expected to win the league and to do so in such commanding fashion. I love this team, honestly Roma would be a fun save to do as a one club thing. Really good infrastructure, good players that can get better. You can really play an exciting brand of football.

I told you Dimarco is good, look at that average rating! He also had 15 assists in the league btw. The Dimarco cross to Tammy is a thing of beauty. Speaking of Tammy, oh boy is he good. Absolute beast, if I had to build my perfect striker, he would look an awful lot like Tammy Abraham. Fast, strong, good in the air, nimble in the dribble and with him flanked by Zaniolo who if not for Fredi and Tammy would be the unquestioned star of this team. Put Zaniolo on the right as an IW(A) and watch magic happen. I don't want to overlook Pellegrini, ignore his rating, he played as an AP and those don't get good ratings but he often made the pass that led to the assist. Karsdorp was a solid counterpart to Dimarco on the other side. Ibanez and Mancini, and Zagadou, were all very solid at the back and they had alot to do. With the WBs getting forward, Dimarco in particular, they had alot to do and alot of ground to cover. Only giving up 25 goals in the league while attacking as much as I was is testament to how good those 3 were. Bentancur and Veretout were solid if not spectacular. Those two and Cristante, with Diawara as 4th choice, held down my midfield but BWM and BBM very well and kept the team ticking in possession.

That's it for the first season, 2 trophies in the bag, Italy halfway done. Next season the only goal, WIN. THE. COPPA.

 

[doyce7]

If anyone has any tips for me, things you want to see, let me know. As I said in the first post, this is my first time doing this and the thought didn't occur to me to even do it until after the save was over and it was such a wild ride that I needed to share. Should I do more, shorter updates going forward? I am very conscious of the fact that I can't go into too much detail alot of the time because memory being what it is. But I'd love to hear any and all feedback, Either as a reply on this thread or message me directly. Cheers

 

[doyce7]

Before I go on to season 2. I thought I'd show you the knockout results for both the Champions and Europa Leagues as well as league Tables for the other leagues I need to win. No real surprises anywhere to be found season 1.

 

[doyce7]

Ah Roma, year 2. World Cup year Don't ya know? Lets get on with it.
For transfers out, the first is one I was forced into. Veretout, who I like and played well wanted to go to Man U and would have kicked up a fuss if not allowed to so I let him go. I think 48M is still pretty good business though for a player I like but was not crucial. Florenzi is a good player but he had been on loan at Milan and I didn't have a place for him anyway. Under and Lopez are much the same case.

There are a lot of outs. Typical for a transfer window in Italy really. They all have squads that are just way to big and well, that can bring in money. Out of all these players the only real notable ones are Spinazzola and Kluivert. Spinazzola is a really good player but spend most of last season injured and I barely played him when he got fit. With Dimarco as starter and I'm happy with Vina as backup, I decided to cash in on Spinazzola. Kluivert is a different situation, I wanted to keep him. I had planned on him being my left winger and Zaniolo on the right. He wanted to leave, he kicked up a fuss, I tried to talk him down but he wanted no part of staying, in the end I was only able to get 30M for him. Very disappointing.

 

[doyce7]

When it came to transfers in, I knew I needed a Veretout replacement BBM to pair with Bentancur at BWM. I ended up changing the midfield system to a DLP/BBM and instead of AP at AMC it would either be SS or AM depending on who played there. Kumbulla is a CB that was pre-arranged and I had no plans for, 4th choice CB behind Ibanez, Mancini and Zagadou. Adeyemi comes in to backup both Zaniolo at IW and Tammy up front. Marco Verratti comes in, in one of the most what the **** was I thinking moves of the whole save. I spent how much? Just dumb, really good player but the money could have been spent better I'm sure. Gravenberch on the other hand, well worth the money, went on a few years later for 118M to Man U. As for Werner, well I needed an IF on the left and he was the best I could find for the amount of money I got from the Kluivert deal. Yes I spent a lot of money but brought in almost that much in player sales. Most of the sales are at least 80% upfront and the ins are anywhere from 50%-100% upfront, in the case of Gravenberch.

 

[doyce7]

Going into season 2 the main goal is obviously to win the Coppa but winning the league again would of course be great for my rep. The season did not start off the way I would have liked. After 1 game I had the same amount of losses as I had all last season. We followed that with 2 wins a draw and another loss. All in all 27 points in the first 14 games before the World Cup break. If I remember correctly I was around 4th or 5th in the league at this point so not exactly going well.

The Champions League group ended up being Barcelona, AS Monaco and Sporting. The group did not get off to a good start with a loss away to Sporting, a win at home to Monaco and loss away to Barcelona. Obviously I expected to lose both games against Barcelona but thought I'd be able to win my other games and get through. Not exactly how I planned to get to the 12 point goal but hey, I'll take a 4-1 over Barcelona at home any day!

The next post will be the World Cup

 

[doyce7]

The World Cup! Of course at some point I have to win this. Not in it this year though. Some definite shockers this year. Argentina, Spain and Colombia all going out in the group stage.

Greece goes all the way to the final!

 

[doyce7]

So after the World Cup finished, we have the second half of the season. But disaster struck in January. My best player, the guy who scored the goals that fired Roma to a league Title and had us in position to do it again, wanted to leave. Man City came knocking, and I had no choice but who accept that he was gone. I went to Tammy and we had a nice chat where we agreed that if City came in for 90M, I would accept it. City wasted no time and a 90M bid came in.

Being January, prices on strikers was ridiculous and I couldn't bring in a player of that same quality. I ended up going for Anthony Martial. Aubameyang was brought in to give some depth at IF on the left and up front.