Rise of the Incas

[Muttley84]

Back to FM after a period of absence, although being constantly at home with wife and kids doesn't represent the best circumstances in playing for hours at the computer. That is why for the past years I have switched to playing FM Touch (albeit it could be considered not the real experience by some, but still makes me struggle with achieving success and keeps me enjoying the game), and I will be doing this for this career also. The purpose is to get out a bit of the comfort zone, therefore I will be heading to an area I haven't played in the past editions of the game - South America. Furthermore, I won't be going to the big boys in Argentina and Brazil, not even to the more successful sides from Uruguay, Colombia and Chile, but to the worst (by performances) country available in the out-of-the box leagues. If the title didn't lead you to it, this career will be based in Peru, a country which has yet to win the pinnacle of South American club football - the Libertadores.

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The club chose is Club Centro Deportivo Municipal , based in the capital city of Lima, but somehow behind the big three of Universitario, Alianza Lima and Sporting Cristal. In addition, they have these really cool kits (which kinda mimic the ones of the Peru national team). To increase the level of difficulty for the career (as if it that was needed anyway), I will set myself the restriction of only signing players which are born in Lima or those from our own youth intakes (as only academy challenge would be a bit crazy giving that intakes in Touch are so small). Now, we are in the first division (the only one available for Peru), and the board expectations are not that high (mid-table), so it should give us the time of constructing a team capable of reaching these objectives:

1. Win Copa Bicentenario (Peru Cup - never won before)
2. Win Copa Movistar (Peru League - last win in 1950)
3. Qualify for Copa Sudamericana
4. Qualify for Copa Libertadores group stages
5. Have a team entirely of Lima-born and Academy players
6. Win Copa Libertadores
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Now I do not know if we will reach any of the 6 objectives above, but discovering the strange rules (for an European) of South American competitions (leagues and continental) or discovering new clubs and players should at least keep me busy and entertained for a while. Our manager (bonus points for those of you who recognize the reference - you are either old or really football fanatics) has been given an automatic experience and likes to play a control-possession 4-2-3-1. I am not a huge tactician so probably not going to go to far from the standard FM formations and deal more with players roles. We have a decent stadium (although some might say that 12k is small for South America standards), but pretty sub-par training and youth facilities and should look in improving those. Let's see how this goes!

 

[Muttley84]

What we found at the club was a pretty big squad (considering the reserves) but not very much quality - and where it is present is represented by aging players over 30. So we cleared out a lot of deadwood (and are continuing to do so before the transfer window closes, then I will post a situation of the transfer activity). But we have reached February and the first official games of the Opening Stage are coming so I wanted to give you an overview of the players at hand. A positive aspect is that the majority of players are already Lima-born (those who aren't are marked with an *), so it will be easier to build on this squad. I ain't ashamed to admit I didn't previously knew any of the players below.

Media sees us finishing 9th in the opening stage (dunno if its called also Apertura like in other countries), but my hopes are a bit higher. Actually, considering that 8 formations are going to qualify in the continental competitions (4 in Libertadores and 4 in Sudamericana), our objective this season should be to qualify for them (not really sure that finishing in first 8 place in the aggregated table of the league going to be enough).

 

[Muttley84]

Now the genius behind arranging a pre-season training camp all the way to Spain should be given a medal for its impact on our finances, and also for choosing in 3 out of 4 games teams from La Liga. We proved to be a good sparing-partner for them, so despite the draw against Malaga it got us a little worried. We arranged then two friendlies back home against smaller teams in the region, to increase morale and it proved a bit effective. I don't know if it's the fact we have not meet any of the big boys in the league or that the league is rather poor, but we stormed our first 5 games winning all of them, including a 7-0 thrashing of the newly-promoted Carlos Stein and another 5-2 win to Cienciano (the present club is far from the heights of the Cienciano team which achieved the greatest success in Peruvian football by wining the sudamericana and recopa). Although the transfer period continues to the end of March I think it is safe to say we have closed down business, actually making a profit out of it.

 

[Muttley84]

Just a little preview of our first defeat of the season. I wouldn't say we got completely FM-ed, but I could argue we were the better team of the day. It wasn't enough as we lost against an Universitario team who was sitting so low in the table. On the positives, at least we got the burden of being undefeated off our shoulders, but considering the hard schedule ahead of us we have to make sure our heads don't drop and we continue being consistent in the league.

 

[Muttley84]

Hopefully one day we will appear on this chart also by producing players good enough to be called up to the Peruvian national team. At the moment we only have one player in the youth squads, and it surely will take a lot of time and years of development before our players are good enough to be called up. What it's strange is that I saw the nickname of our club, and that is "La Academia" = The Academy. Surely with a nickname like this we should have had already players in there, unless we are an academy of arts and music.

 

[Muttley84]

As noted above we already lost against Universitario in the first defeat of the season, and we lost again away at Cusco (the former Real Garcillaso). We also draw two times, against the Alianza teams (Lima and Universidad), but somehow we are still first in the league. Sporting Cristal is tied to us, while Melgar or Alianza are coming strong from behind. There are still 6 games to play in the First Division Opening Stage, so anything could happen at this point - from winning it to finishing outside the podium. Fingers crossed.

 

[Muttley84]

We blew it so close to the final. Oh, well, It would have been miraculous to win it at first go. We only got 2 points out of the last 4 games, and that was enough for Melgar to surpass us and finish first in the Opening Stage and qualify for the playoffs. We finish 2nd which is still a pretty cool performance given the media prediction, and are a bit more closer to our objectives of qualifying for the continental cups. It's going to be a small break this summer + a transfer window (looking to offload a couple more of the non-Lima players) + Copa America (we only have one player called up, the Paraguayan player Jeremias Bogado, no Peruvian players are good enough for the national team). After the break we will start with 3 games in the groups of the Cup, which I don't think interest people that much (my board doesn't care about it) and those games stand more in place of preparation matches for the Closing Stages. Ariba Municipal!

 

[Muttley84]

Our national team (without any of our players) performed rather admirable at the Copa America by reaching the semi-finals and going out on penalties after a bore draw. But in the end it was just a classic affair of South American football, as Argentina beat Brazil in the final to lift the trophy. Messi should be so happy now

 

[Muttley84]

As said before the group stage of the cup was just a pre-season friendly for most of the teams. Even us rotated a lot and gave chances to some of the players who have not played a lot in the league, but considering we had lower leagues teams in our group we still managed to qualify for the second stage, albeit it was from the second position as Juan Aurich beat us in the direct match. From now on the Cup continues in classic round-robin format parallel with the Closing Stage of the First Division.

 

[Muttley84]

Not much to be excited about for the intake coming up at the end of the season, but at least the two or three players who should be good enough will be integrated in the first team. At least one of them should make it as I want to promote the local identity of the club with each generation.

 

[Muttley84]

Not a bad start of the second half of the season, in the first two months we had played 10 games and with a line of 5 wins, 4 draws and only one loss I can be very satisfied about this. It is true that we are 5 points off the first place but they are bound to lose at some point too. We also passed another round in the Cup. One thing a bit worrying is that we have average attendances at home around 5-6000, and only when we play local derbies this increases (we filled the 12000 places of the stadium in the home games against Alianza Lima and Universitario). Surely if we qualify at list for Copa Sudamericana and contend for the first places in the table our reputation should increase a bit allowing us to attract better crowds.

 

[Muttley84]

A pretty poor month as we are out of the cup after a bore draw against Cantolao followed by a penalty exit and could not cut the lead to the first places in the table. We are still in 5th with 5 points to the first place, but now there are only 6 matches left of the season.

 

[Muttley84]

We did not manage to close the gap to the top of the table despite and undefeated end of the season. We finish 4th but just 3 points away from the surprise Cantolao team who were the surprise winners in front of Melgar and Sporting Cristal. Universitario and Alianza Lima performed so bad in this second part of the season also, while reigning champions Binacional seem to have been relegated to the second division. Theoretically now there should be a playoff between the winners of the opening (Melgar) and closing (Cantolao) stage, but not sure 100% if it works like that will have to advance to see it.

 

[Muttley84]

Now, to see if I got this straight: besides the winners of the two stages (Melgar and Cantolao), the first two teams in the overall table (resulted from adding the two stages), also qualify for the playoffs. Those two teams are Melgar and us. Since Melgar qualified from both winning one stage and finishing high in the overall table they get a bye straight to the final, and in the remaining semifinal we are to battle Cantolao for a place in the Copa Movistar final. Gotta love South-American leagues and their beautiful and complicated rules. We finished 2nd and 4th in the two stages, 2nd in the overall table, and still are just 4 matches away from winning it.

 

[Muttley84]

Not good, not bad, just an average youth intake I guess. I was not expecting some world beaters wonderkids, and the the first three look like they could turn into valuable squad players. Probably not going to sign all of them after the trial period, and probably going to give Alarcon some chances in the pre-season friendlies.

 

[Muttley84]

In an amazing turn of events we have actually won the Copa Movistar. We were lucky to get a draw at home against Catolao in front of a packed stadium, but then we managed to park the bus in the return leg and won it following a penalty. In the final awaited Melgar, which was the better team during the regular season, but we played some nice attacking football and beat them in both legs to clinch the title. This means we already achieved two of our objectives - in the Copa Movistar and also qualify for the Libertadores group stages. Nice period to be around here

 

[Muttley84]

The players that carried us through this season. Not a single world-beater or wonderkid in there, but good enough for the Peruvian league. However, if we wish to really make an appearance in the Libertadores we really need to step up another level.

 

[Muttley84]

Despite winning the league I wasn't the best manager of the league, that title going instead to someone who barely managed to escape relegation. In other news, Peruvian teams did awful in the continental Competitions. Only the two automatically qualified reached the group stages of Libertadores and finished in 3rd (Alianza Lima) and 4th (Binacional), while in Copa Sudamerican the highest stage was the quarter final (Alianza Lima and Atletico Grau). Guess that is good as there is no high bar for us next season

 

[Muttley84]

Some minor improvements showing our progress as a club as the youth development budget increases, so does our wage budget (not by much though as the prize money for winning the league were not that significant).

 

[Muttley84]

Decent enough expectations for next season. They do not expect us to win the league again and in Libertadores just being present in the group stage (where we are already qualified).