Los Murciélagos: A Valencia Story

[Liam I42I]

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​

 

[Liam I42I]

August: Start of the Season/Transfer Window

This was the team we lined up heading into the first game of the season at home against Barcelona

Matchday 1: Valencia 2 - 0 Barcelona

Thoroughly deserved win against Barcelona as we hit them twice on the counter with out relatively high press. Hopefully a sign of things to come.

Matchday 2: Levante 1 - 1 Valencia

Very frustrating result here against our local rivals Levante. A late VAR awarded penalty meant we only took 1 point. In fairness, we played poorly.

Matchday 3:

A very boring draw. 4 highlights the full game on extensive. Enough said.

Transfer Window

Outs (Deadline Day):
1. Juame Domenech (3rd Choice GK): €6m to Cruz Azul
2. Uros Racic (Didn't want to sell but wanted to leave): €7.5m to Gladbach
3. Denis Cheryshev (Final year on contract): €2.9m to Club America
4. Gabriel Paulista (Deadline day offer negotiated from €14.75m. He wanted to leave): €30m to Newcastle

With this we had to not only sign a replacement for Paulista, we also had some money left over to invest in a player or two.

Ins (Deadline Day):

1. Mady Camara (Signed to replace Racic): €3.5m (€7.5m)

2. Andrea Papetti (Signed to replace Paulista, probably not there yet but we will through him straight into the team): €4.8m

3. Benjamin Sesko (I always sign Adeyemi, so I though I'd mix it up due to us having the money remaining from the Paulista deal): €13.5m

Next Update: September
​

 

[Liam I42I]

September:

We face four games this month and I expect four wins. We play Cadiz, Granada, Elche and Alaves in La Liga.


Cadiz 1 - 3 Valencia:

Deserved win here against Cadiz, just not thrilled with conceding and giving up the clean sheet.

Valencia 4 - 0 Granada:

A complete performance from the boys in this one in a game which we could easily have scored 2 or 3 more!

Elche 0 - 3 Valencia:

Another solid performance as we brush aside Elche to make it 5 games unbeaten in La Liga.

Valencia 3 - 0 Dep' Alaves:

Once again we pick up a rather simple three points and I got my four wins from four which I expected this month.

League Table:

We sit second in La Liga following a perfect September, although I'm under no illusions that outside of Barcelona on the opening fay; we haven't faced any of the big boys and looking forward to October; the next update may not be as positive as we face both Madrid sides, Sevilla and Bilbao.

Player of the Month:

Carlos Soler scored 4 goals and got an assist, easily making him our top performer this month​

 

[Liam I42I]

October

5 league games this month and as I said in the previous update, the fixtures in October could put out form in serious disrepute!

03/10/2021: Atletico Madrid v Valencia

Our best result of the season and it keeps our winning run going. We actually dominated the match stats and thoroughly deserved the three points, keeping us in sight of Real Madrid at the top of the league.

17/10/2021: Valencia v Athletic Bilbao

I am not impressed with the outcome of this match, particularly because this is the second time already this season we have conceded a penalty after the 90th minute. We played fairly well but didn't take our chances so I suppose it wouldn't be unfair to say we deserved to draw.

24/10/2021: Real Madrid v Valencia

The score flatters us. It could easily have been 4 or 5 for Madrid, this is hands-down the worst performance we've had since I took over and it sees us fall further behind in the title race, although in fairness I wasn't expecting to be in any title race for the first... or even second season.

27/10/2021: Valencia v Espanyol

We are back. After dropping 5 points in 2 games we needed to bounce back to stay in the Champions League places and deliver we did! Benjamin Sesko with a hattrick was a particular highlight.

31/10/2021: Sevilla v Valencia

Absolutely delighted with this one. Battle of the midfields in what was a very tactical game. Against a rival for the top 4, this could prove a pivotal result for our season.

League Table:

I am delighted to say that we maintain our position in second place in La Liga. we certainly have the benefit of not having European football. After the month we've just had I am confident going into next month in which we only play three La Liga games, all of which are winnable.
​

 

[Liam I42I]

November/December Update

I have decided to combine the November and December updates due to the minimal number of games across those months.
We go into November 7 points behind Real Madrid at the top of La Liga with what i'd consider to be a winnable run of fixtures.

07/11/2021: Valencia v Getafe

Great start to the month here as we storm Getafe at the Mestalla, a relief after going 1-0 down early on. The Madrid hunt is on.

21/11/2021: Valencia v Atletico Pamplona

We return from the international window with both Guedes and Diakhaby out for 3-4 weeks respectively and with that, I am delighted we were able to knock out a steady 2-0 in this one.

28/11/2021: Mallorca v Valencia

Not only did we concede another 90+minute penalty, we also dropped points in a weekend where dropping points wasn't optional as Real Madrid lose to Celta Vigo. Massively disappointed here.

01/12/2021: Valencia v Villareal

Another 2 points dropped! However, this was a cracking game and both sides had chances late on to ****** all three points. Real Madrid lost again!

06/12/2021: Celta Vigo v Valencia

Real Madrid have now lost 3 games on the bounce... and yet again we fail to capitalise. We played really poorly here.

12/12/2021

The league final match before the winter break and it was arguably out biggest win of the season as we complete an unbeaten winter run with a 3-0 win over Real Sociedad. Maxi Gomez with a stormer here.

League Table

I couldn't have imagined a title challenge in season 1, but I would argue it is now fully between Real, us and Barcelona for the title. My big concern is that we have all sorts of debt so we can't strengthen in January without sales first.

We have also confirmed a new 5-year deal for club captain Jose Gaya. Delighted with this one.​

 

[Liam I42I]

Had a few exams last week, but hoping to get back into this over the next few days... I haven't just quit another story save again!