Liam I42I
Member
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2020
- Messages
- 43
- Reaction score
- 72
- Points
- 18
Valencia C.F
Founded in 1919, Valencia is a stalwart of Spanish elite football. The club has won 6 La Liga titles, 3 Europa Leagues and even the Cup Winners Cup. The most recent major success from the club was the infamous 2003/04 season where the club won a historic La Liga and Europa League double.
Since then however, the club has fallen into significant financial mismanagement under Chairman Peter Lim, accruing a whopping €243m in debt (according to FM). This has had a dire impact both on and off the field. On the field, Valencia have only finished in the top 4 (all times 4th) 3 times in the past 10 years, a significant decline for the team designated as Spain's 3rd team in the decade prior. Off the field the difficulty is emphasised, the club was meant to relocate from the historic Mestalla stadium in 2009 but the 'Nou Mestalla' stadium was postponed, and still is to this day. Football Manager estimates a 2025 entry date for the new 55,000 seater stadium.
This tifo organised by Celtic supporters for the club's visit to Celtic Park in 2019 emphasises the collapse of the Spanish giant. A shadow of their former self, the Celtic fans mocked the landmark Bat on the Valencia logo.
More indicatively though, this highlighted the scope of the challenge facing Valencia as they had dropped from continuous Champions League campaigns and European finals to being mocked by opposition fans in the round of 32 of the Europa League.
Moving onto Football Manager...
The Squad
The squad is solid, but could do with some work! Despite the financial woes facing the club I am determined that Carlos Soler, Jose Gaya, Goncalo Guedes and Maxi Gomez must not be available for sale, at least in season 1. Those will be the players the team is built around, as well as some of our incredible youth prospects such as Yunus Musah amd Hugo Guillamon who I hope will stick around for the long haul.
The media predict us to finish 7th and with a board expectation qualifying for the Conference League I am content that we should be able to match those expectations, perhaps go beyond them although it is crucial to remember the immense quality in this league as I imagine we will be in direct competition with teams such as Bilbao, Sociedad, Sevilla, Villareal and Betis for those European spots.
As a result of the financial situation, I only have €2m to spend and a negative wage budget, so it will be a sell to buy type of window. First priority however is a new contract for Carlos Soler
Next Update: Transfers and August