I Biancorossi - A Carpi FC Journey

[Danny]

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Introduction

Carpi are a Italian football team from Emilia-Romagna, the club was founded in 1909 and refounded in 2000 - And this year will be joining Italy's best in the Serie A for the very first time.

I'm starting a save with Carpi on the FM16 BETA, and going to attempt to turn them into the best team in Italy, and I thought I'd post it here and do updates every so often (probably in-game monthly updates)

Obviously the aim for season one, is purely stay in the league. I'd take a 17th place finish, no problem! Anything better than that would be a bonus for me. I'm not giving myself a set amount of years to win the league/Champions League, but I'd like to have both won within 6 years.

Leagues Loaded
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These are the leagues I'd use every save on FM15, so I'm sticking with them at the start of FM16. I see these as the best nations for regen's, so hopefully I'm able to find a few gems.

The Team
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I'm actually pretty happy with the squad, as it stands. I do have about £1.2m to spend, but I'll probably just try sign some players on loan rather than signing them, that's normally my approach to these kind of saves. You can normally pick up 1/2 players that are way above your clubs level.

Key Player (in my opinion)
Jerry Mbakogu!
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22 years old, 6'1", fantastic Physical stats. Hoping he'll cause defenders a real issue and grab between 10/15 goals for me, anything around that and I'd be happy. I also have Marco Borriello in the squad, the ex-Milan/Roma/Juventus & West Ham striker should also chip in with around 10 goals.



Finances
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I'm not really worried/interested in this area, yet. As things stats we're losing £7,883 per-month, once a few players have sold, this should sort itself out and I know if I do stay in the league the money from that will also boost the club.

They are a small club, they don't have much money nor do they have any top players to sell. The on real way I can improve this is by winning/growing players and selling them on (which I don't like doing)


Gianfranco Poletto & Giorgio Vernizzi are Carpi's all time to scorers with 78 goals. I'm hoping I can have this record beaten within 4 seasons, maybe 5.

This is the end of the small intro, I'll make posts for Tactics/Signings & Pre-Season in the future, so I can go more in-depth about them.

(I'll be adding more to this intro and sorting the layout, this was just a quick intro into the save)

If you've started as Carpi, let me know how you're also getting on! I'd love to know.​

 

[Danny]

Tactics!

Home Games
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I'm assuming we're going to get most of our points at home, so I've decided to go for a 4-1-2-1-2, and my aim here is to just get the ball into the box as fast as we can, and pepper their goal with shots. I have two solid ST's and a creative CAM here, in my opinion it's easily the strongest area on my squad, so shots on goal is what I've gone for.

Will it work? Who knows. Vs the big teams, I doubt it very much, but if I can grab wins here and there vs the 'average'/'relegation' teams then my job is done. With Jerry as our Target Man, he'll be the focus point.. Getting the ball and either setting up Marco and laying the ball up for Lazzari who being very creative, should set up a fair few goals for us.


Away Games
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Totally different here, it's set-up as a 'Counter Attacking' tactic, as I hope we can soak up attacks and sling that ball to the strikers asap. And in all honesty, I've kinda set-up in hope for a load of draws, I doubt winning many away games will be on the cards, but if I can prevent a loss and take away a point for almost any away game, I'll take it. After all, my aim for Season One is just staying in the league.


Training
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Always set-up to focus on fitness, no matter which team I manager. Pre-Season for me is all about fitness, and I'll be doing the same with Carpi! Also have the match training set to Teamwork for pre-season, but during the season that'll change week-by-week. If we're at home next game.. Attacking. If we're away.. Defensive.

We'll see how that goes and tweak/alter things during the season if needed.



Next Update: Pre-Season Results!​

 

[Danny]

I will be adding stuff to each post as I go along, I'm just getting them up and ready. If you have any areas of the save you'll like updates on or want to know more about a specific players etc etc, just let me know and I'll do my best to update you on that also.

 

[MagicWithin]

Carpi is different and should be challenging! Should be interesting where you finish though!

 

[Danny]

Carpi is different and should be challenging! Should be interesting where you finish though!

As long as I don't get relegated, I'm not fussed where I finish. Only aim is safety this season.

I'd take 17th on GD's, hahaha.

 

[Danny]

Pre-Season!

It wasn't the longest pre-season for us, I didn't want 7/8 games and risk any long-term injuries to any of my players, so I decided to go with just 4 games, and we ended up winning 3 out of the 4, although we could have lost all 4 and I wouldn't have been worried. I tweak so much stuff tactic wise that I'm surprised we won 3.

These are the results from pre-season!
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I pretty much played my first XI to try get them use to the tactic as much as possible, then I'd rotate the team around the 60'/65' mark, and my idea of peppering the goal seemed to work - We had around 60 shots over the 4 games and scored 10 goals. If we can manage that during the season I don't think we'd do too bad.


Key Player!
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During pre-season Jerry Mbakogu was our best player, without a doubt. Over the 4 games he bagged 5 goals and 1 assist. He also ended pre-season with a 7.85 average rating. Was bullying defenders during every single game, let's hope he does that in Serie A, too.



Transfers!

We didn't do much during the transfer window, only bringing in 2 players and letting just 1 leave, but we ended up making a decent profit come the end of the window, so I can't complain.

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Lorenzo Lollo - OUT

Lollo was the player who left, when I set-up my 'best' XI, he wasn't actually part of it, however he would have normally come off the bench or played a fair bit, but once Watford had shown some interest he got unhappy I didn't let him go at first, so I decided £2.1m was good enough for me to let him leave and that then gave me the option to sign the two players I brought in.


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Torrado - IN

I wanted to replace Lollo, strangely enough, I needed a back-up DM who wouldn't play that much, and looking at his stats I though Torrado would do, for at least one season anyway. And at just £110k, I couldn't say no. The 36 year old has bags of experience and could play a vital role in the important away games.


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Matty Taylor - IN

Bet a few of you are thinking "Matty Taylor, really?" - Yes. I didn't have any left wingers who could deliver a ball into the box, and with 16 for crossing and 16 for corners, along with 16 for free-kicks, and only costing £120k, like Torrado I couldn't really say no. After all I am aiming to drop the ball on Jerry's head for him to cause havoc in the penalty area. So far in the games I've played with Taylor, he's done exactly that.


Due to these transfers, I've gone from making a loss each month to now making £290k per-month (so far) - My projected balance is also set to increase month by month, which should be a decent amount come Jan/end of the season.​

 

[Danny]

Okay, so I was playing the save.. FM randomly closed down, now FM won't open. Reset PC, uninstalled and reinstalled the game... Nothing.

Anyone had this/have any ideas?