La Cosa Nostra - Welcome to the Family. A Story About SCC Napoli

[CaptainCrazy]

Welcome to the Family​

It's early July and, on the clubs official website, President Aurelio De Laurentiis states Walter Mazzarri's time as manager is over. The reasons are unclear and the only comment he can make on the subject is that it was something "that had to be done"​

Buongiorno. My name is Cristofero Falco, you can call me Cristo. I've been entrusted with the manager position in, the fooball club, SCC Napoli. You probably haven't heard of me, yet that is, but I'm sure we'll make good friends. Let's not get in to why I got the job, it's not really that interesting, and you don't want to know, really, you don't. Let's focus on the fact that I'm already here, I'm the boss so to say, what I say goes. I don't have much experience with football at this level, I've not done much other coaching than supervising some of the training sessions for the last couple of months, therefore the first concern is to bring in some experienced staff that can help me settle in properly. If you hadn't figured it out yet, the rest of the old staff were sacked along with Mazzarri, we're now going to get this club to the absolute top, no doubt about it, so come on let's go!

Let me make this clear, there are some players at this team who out-shine the rest, it's probably easy to see. But hey, don't tell the others, it might hurt moral you know *chuckles* To state the obvious, it's our offensive trio, man aren't they great eh? Well let me tell you, they are great, no question, anyways the trio are the following:


Edison Cavani
A forward who signed for us this season, got good things coming his way, hopefully he'll live up to his potential as soon as this season and score a bunch.

Ezequiel Lavezzi
Came to the club in the 07-08 season but has not yet proven himself as a good goalscorer with only about 8 Serie A goals a season, hopefully he will contribute more this time around, with both goals and assists.

Marek Hamsik
Ah, Marek Hamsik, came at the same time as Lavezzi and has already proven his love for the club by recently signing a new 5 year long contract. He's the engine of the team and king of the midfield, an offensive player with the ability to score and pass the ball, will serve the club well for the years to come​

Now, let's see if I can bring this club to glory once again, let's all pray together, to Maradona, it'll come true, you know it, I know it. All I need is some time, and your support of course, so let's meet again, at Stadio San Paolo, welcome to the family.​

So, this is the first story I'll try to write here on the forums. Please be gentle with me and my grammar as I'm not a native speaker of English. Also the updates might be slow at start with all the holidays and what not. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!​

 

[Journeyman14]

So, are you planning to upate?

 

[CaptainCrazy]

Let's get started then!

I'll do the most common thing, I believe, and start to look at the defence. Sure we have a bit of heart in there with Cannavaro and a bit of youth with Santacroce, but other than that there is neither enough skill or intelligence to make things work for us.

​

I'll probably keep going with the three central defenders like Mazzarri before me, meaning there'll be no wide defenders at all but five midfielders. At a first look there are three decent defenders of these, Santacroce, Cannavaro and Campagnaro. I'm getting rid of both Aronica and Grava. Cribari, that piece of ****, on the other hand, won't get sold since he was signed just this season. He shouldn't count on playing a single game though unless we get serious injury problems.

So let us look at some possible defenders coming in. I've had my eye on two in particular: Douglas from FC Twente, a Brazilian defender, and then Matías Silvestre, a Argentinian defender playing for Catania.​

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---------- Post added at 07:47 PM ---------- Previous post was yesterday at 06:14 AM ----------

Gotcha!​

I got who I wanted, perfect, both Douglas and Silvestre are now parts of my squad and I also managed to sell of Aronica but got no bids for Grava so now we have one too many defenders, good thing though that some teams have shown interest in Campagnaro so he'll probably be the next one to leave. Things are working out.

We also got to play some friendlies against teams I've never even heard of so that's not very interesting, more to get the guys in match shape. The first game of the season will be played against Genoa at San Paolo. Hopefully we can make the people happy with some entertaining football, especially since the game after that will be hard fought against Internazionale over in Milano.​

Oh, and I also got a tip about this young Portuguese defender called Roderick Miranda, so I went along and signed him as well, for the future. Hopefully he can grow here and settle in nicely.
Now on to the Midfield, I'm going to play with five midfielders, two central, two wide and then Hamsik up front behind the forwards. I'm going to sign Nocerino from Palermo, or atleast I will try to, as I think he'll fit perfectly in the set-up. Even better is that he's from Naples, and people of his calibre should of course play at home at San Paolo ​

Nocerino​

As I've made clear earlier, the attack is where we are strongest so I'll just try to get in one or two younger players who can serve as back-up and grow here at the club. I have my eyes set on signing the Empoli player Mchedlidze and to bring in Macheda on loan from Manchester United.

I'll make sure all these signing come true, but for now, I gotta get something to eat. Going down stairs to eat some fantastic sartù di riso, ciao!​

---------- Post added at 11:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:47 PM ----------

And so the campaign starts!​

First things first.

The Transfers

It got pretty expensive but most of the money will be payed over time, I'll just have to make sure that the money keep rolling in with good performances on the field and in Europa League where some money can be won. At the winter window I'll re-evaluate the players and see if some of them are just not up to the task and might have to be sold for someone more competent.

The Lineup

As you can see we're playing with a 3-5-2 formation, with Hamsik as a trequartista and Nocerino as a box-to-box midfielder. I will experiment with Sosa's position and will perhaps use a more defensive player there against tougher teams and/or away games.

As mentioned before, the first game was against Genoa in Naples, and let's just say we got off to a decent start.

Napoli 3-0 Genoa

To be fair, other than the goals, the game was pretty even, with pretty much a 50/50% in possesion and an equal amount of chances, but that's not what football is about now is it? It's about goals, and we scored three, they scored none.
Paolo Cannavaro won the MoM award with his goal, meaning 1-0, and quite a few key headers won, add to that a bunch of crucial interceptions and he's the clear winner. A good start for Cannavaro, a good start for me and a good start for Napoli, I hope it will continue like this.​

 

[Deovoultcha]

Playing with 3 in the back? A bit risky for an Italian side eh? Well it's looking good so far nice win but it is just Genoa