The Italian Dream

leckuno

leckuno

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2017
Messages
1,787
Reaction score
2,914
Points
113
So, the last year must be one of the hardest years of my life. My football career was ended abruptly after a horror tackle which broke 2 bones in my leg. Getting told you’ll never be able play again was one of the hardest things I had ever been told. But who would of thought that this would bring something even better into my life.

I was just glad that very early on in my career I had decided to take my coaching badges. Who would have thought the SFA would actually be good at something but I hope to make them proud after gaining my badges.

While on a welcome weekend away to Florence with the wife enjoying the sights and the history. While at the Fountain of Neptune my phone rings. It’s my new agent who has promised me he will do all he can to get me a job in a top league somewhere in the world.

“Pack your bags, I’ve got you an interview in Italy”
“You’re Kidding me I’m already here on holiday. When’s the Interview and more importantly where is it for. You do also realize I don’t speak a word of Italian, don’t you?”
“Even better it’s in two days’ time and don’t worry about it you can learn it as you go. Just don’t agree to anything in the interview without running it past the translator”
“The interview is for Genoa. How long will it take you to get there?”
“If I jump on a train it should only take a couple of hours. Hopefully the wife doesn’t mind a bit of a detour”
“Great I’ll email you through the details, call me as soon as you get out”

So now I need to break the news to my wife that our holiday is going to have to be cancelled as the interview will take priority and I will need to go and get a new suit as I didn’t have anything appropriate to wear.

Surprisingly she was quite happy she was here as it meant she could have a look around the city and see what she thinks of the place in case we need to up sticks from Airdrie and move over
 
So, the day of the Interview has come and got to say I’m hoping the language barrier isn’t going to be a problem.
We arrived in Genoa a few hours early and decided to grab some lunch down at the port to try and relax. After a final coffee I made way across to the stadium. When I arrived, I linked up with the translator to get to know them a bit before the interview.

The interview was going well and then I came out with what I can only assume was why I got the job and I’m sure its one of the things my agent meant when he told me not to do anything stupid but I uttered the words none the less.

“If you hire me I will only hire players who have Italian nationality” the translator shot me a glance and I nodded and told him to relay what I just said. The smile across the chairman’s face was unmissable.
While walking back to the port to find my wife hoping she hasn’t spent to much money my agent called.
“What on earth did you say that for”
Oh great he’s already had the call to say I’m not getting the job.
“What do you mean?”
“Signing players who only come from Italy, it can’t be done you won’t build a successful team. But it has managed to sway the chairman. He’s offering you a one-year deal”
“Great tell them I’ll take it and I’ll make sure I’ll stick to my promise and prove that it can be done as the club already has some great players there.”
 

After moving across to Italy, I hired the translator who sat with me in the interview to help me out at training to get my ideas across while I tried to learn the language.

I quickly realised that this was going to be difficult, but my family had come with me and they were settling in well which really helped.
The first day of training arrived and I quickly promoted Pellegri to the first team as he is the brightest prospect at the club and he is strong enough I my opinion to stake a place in the first team even though he is only 16

Perin is the other person who is a strong Italian and will be first choice keeper for years.

After a chat with Perin I decided that he would be staying as the first team captain as he had the respect of the players already and offered to help introduce me to them and build a relationship with them.

I’ve got a good feeling about this already.

2nd​ day of the job get a phone call from an agent saying his player has just been transferred by Juventus as was wondering if I’d be interested in looking at him as he is a local boy and originally came through the ranks at the club. Little did I believe it would be Stefano Sturaro. A bid of £6.5 million was made as he was too good a player to pass on. The bid was accepted and followed by Interesting contract negations but it was a success a contract was accepted but we just had to hope nobody else came in for him.
 
Looking forward to more of this, I also like trying to stick to signing players of the same nationality of the club.

Also looking forward to seeing Pellegri progress
 
We have followed up Sturaro’s transfer with the signing of De Ceglie and the loan signings of Cutrone from A.C Milan and Pinamonti from Inter.

We have also had several players leave the club to allow me to make the signings I have. Rigoni, Pandev, Zima and Lazovic have all left permanently.

Pre-season has been going well and we won most of our games. My ideas are getting across with the help of Mario and the team are taking to the new tactics

Lets hope this continues into the season and we can get off to a winning start in our first competitive match in the TIM cup 3rd​ qualifing round.

We have also brought in giuseppe rossi in on trial to see if it will help hm convince to sign a contract after he gets over his injury as he will be a good backup to the current players and his experience will be good in the squd as well
 
Not bad at all. Some constructive ideas/ Get more in-depth explain more why you let the players goals. your season goals etc..
 
Will be interested to see how Pellegri does, got my eye on him in my save!
 
So here it comes my first competative match is fast approaching and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more nervous in my life. This is my big chance and I better not blow it. The board have set their objectives and I just need to make sure we finish in the top half of the table and reach the first round of the cup. Surely that can’t be too difficult with the squad here.

For the cup we only need to get through to games and the we’re in the first round. So, the first game is the first stage in the third qualifing round. We come up against Virtus Entella who are in Serie B.

After the friendlies I have settled on my starting line up and I am throwing Pellegri straight into the fold its his time to shine and help bring success to a club which has a rich history. Only problem is an hour before the game the nerves are getting the better of me and I just can’t stop being sick.

Time to go down and talk to the boys and get them fired up and tell them to go out and start with a win and the confidence will then come. The first half has not gone well and we just can’t get a shot on target and it finishes 0-0. I lay into the boys at half time and tell them its not good enough. Within 5 minutes we are rewarded with an improved performance and go 1-0 up. 53 minutes in we concede and go to 1-1. The rest of the half has been a disappointment but in the 2nd​ minute of injury time Lapadula came up with the winner and we made it into the next round.

Next came along Udinese in the league and I stuck with the same team that saw us through the last match and it delivered, Pellegri scored a brace to repay the faith theat I had shown in him. Finally in August we came up aginst newly promoted Benevento and managed a 3-1 victory.
 
So, can we continue our start to the season into the September fixtures and get some more points on the board. The next game was against SPAL away from home who had previously drawn with Juventus so they had me worried. It was a proper end to end game with goals all over the place but we managed to win 7-4. Lapadula had the pick of the goals and scored his first hatrick for the team and Pellegri got his 3rd​ goal of the season as well. Next was Cagliari and we managed another win, this time 3-1 making it 5 wins on the trot. We then went on an awy trip to Torino which ended 3-3 with Lapadula scoring another 2 to take his tally to 8 goals for the season so far.

For the first points dropped we were still extremly happy to have not dropped all 3. This draw also put us to the top of the table for a couple of hours until Juventus played later in the day. Safe to say the board is extatic. Next came along Sassuolo and we managed a 1-1 draw.
After this game though I took the lads aside and reminded them that this is going to be a long season and we can’t get carried away and we need to take one game at a time. This did not go down well with my assistant who was getting carried away. He got that angry he decided to try and through a punch but luckily Veloso managed to grab his arm before he could follow through with it.
His days were now numbered as my number 2 and word went out that we were now looking for a new assistant manager and I was willing to talk to anybody no matter of experience since I had very little myself in this game.

To end the month on a high though we also managed to tie Rossi down to a 2 year deal. Really help he can help the club reach the top with his experience playing for some of the biggest teams in Europe
 
The start of October brought the first derby match of the season against Sampdoria. I spoke to Pellegri, Perin and Sturaro to find out more about the Derby. Coming from Glasgow I know a thing or two about local derbies but its always good to get the local’s perspective on it though.

There was a lot of talk in the media at the build up and they were intent on getting me riled up but I stayed calm and answerd the questions as best as I could to make sure the boys stayed focused. I hope we are able to get back to winning ways. We managed just that with a well placed goal in the 88th​ minute to take the game 0-1.

Over the course of the international break the nterviews began for my new assistant and we were inundated with applications. The stand out candidat though was Wolfgang Rolff who has a very strong C.V from his time in Germany as an asisstant manager for a number of teams and most recently as a coach in China. We got on like a house on fire when he came in for the interview and accepted the job on the spot.

Up next was Milan and I knew that even though they were havinga poor season and sitting in 9th​ spot we were going to have to be at our best to get a result. We havea few boy on loan from Milan who were wiling to provide some tips on how we might be able to get the edge. We came out 1-0 winners with Pinamonti getting the goal in the 83rd​ minute with our only shot on target.

With a tough couple of games coming up first Lazio at home and then Napoli away we are going to have to do some rotation to make sure we get through with the best possible results.

So first up we welcome Lazio and run out 2-0 winners with Sturaro and Lapadula getting the goals. The goals seem to have dried up a bit for Pellegri and he hasn’t added ny more goals in over a month but I’m going to stick with him as I see it the best way for him to Improve.

So we then go away to Napoli where we go 1-0 down within 20 minutes. The lads don’t seem to have an answer to them in the first half. I blew my top at half time with them and they knew they had to go out and perform as they were playing for their space in the squad. They rallies and wen’t out and ended up winning the game 3-1 with Pellegri fnally getting on the score sheet again with Lapadula getting yet another 2 goals
 
November has rolled around and we are currently unbeaten in the league. How long can this continue? Its surely got to end soon and this has been far too good a start for us and something has surely got to go wrong soon.

First up is Atalanta who are currently sitting mid table and should provide an entertaining game for the fans as we are both evenly matched. We run out 4-0 winners though with Pellegri getting on the score sheet again. We are then up against Bologna away from home and it finishes 1-1 with Pellegri scoring from the penalty spot to secure us a point.
Up next is Fiorentina at home, this should be a really tough match but confidence is high amongst the squad and with the confidence comes very good performances. The boys rally and pull off a remarkable 3-1 win with the boy wonder (Pellegri) getting another 2 goals so coming towards the end of November he is now sitting at 8 goals. Who would of thought that if given the chance at 16 he would be grabbing it with both hands and showing he’s up there with the best in the league.

On the final day of the month we come up against Alessandria who are sitting at the top of Lega Pro A so this should be a pretty straight forward game so I use this opportunity to put out a second string team to give them a chance to show me what they could do. Eddy Salcedo was they player I really wanted to see in action. He’s another 16 year old who is destined for the top in the Italian game. The boys struggled to overcome a much smaller team and the game was eventually won with Rossi getting his first goal for the club in the 92nd​ minute.

We’ve now reached our goal for the cup and reached the first round, lets see how much further we can get and see if we can manage to bring some Silver wear to the club again
 
The Christmas season rolls around and I get a call from the chairman asking me to go in for a meeting with him. I thought we’d been performing well above expectations, so I wasn’t sure why I was getting called in. We sat down and discussed how the club was doing and how much of a turn around there is been in support for the club since I came on board and he was rewarding me with a new 3-year contract. I signed on the spot and I am now contacted to the club until June 2020 now. Let’s hope the new contract doesn’t go to my head and I start to ease off a bit.

First match of the month is away to Turin to face league leaders Juventus. A win would let us close the gap by a few points. After his performance in the last game saw Eddy Salcedo get a spot on the bench. We went 1-0 down after 49 minutes and then went down to 10 men after Bertolacci was sent off for a second yellow card in the 81st​ minute. This called for some changes and Salcedo was brought on down the left. Little did we know at the time he would go on and score a 92nd​ minute penalty to secure us a 1-1 draw and more importantly a point.
Next up we were at home to Crotone and it was a meagre 0-0 draw. We had to forget that and concentrate on facing Napoli in the first round of the TIM cup. It was a game to remember as we walked away 2-1 winners with Pellegri scoring both goals to see us to the quarter final.
Next up we had Inter at home. The game couldn’t of got off to a worse start and we were 1-0 down after 1 minute. The game was then held at 1-0 for the rest of the game but in the 88th​ minute we went down to 9 men with both Rossettini and Sturaro being sent off.

We needed to bounce back after that defeat as it was a sore one since we had always performed so well at home and we were missing our rock in midfield since Sturaro was banned for a game. We were off to Chievo and manage to secure a 2-1 victory with Pellegri scoring the winning goal.

Up next was the quarter final of the cup against Juventus. After going 2-1 up we conceded a penalty which Juve slotted home to push the game into extra time. We managed to hold our own so the game then went to penalties where Buffon punished my players and saved 3 in a row so we bowed out with our heads held high as nobody was expecting us to get that far.
 
So after celebrating our first new year in Italy we get ready for the first game of the new year at home to Roma. Can we start the new year the same way we finished last year? The short answer would be no, we suffered our second league defeat of the season away to Roma. Next up was second bottom Udinese again at home. We could surely bounce back after the defeat. We needed a 94th​ minute goal from Sturaro to secure a 1-1 draw. This is not the start I had expected this season.

Benevento were up next away from home and we managed a 2-1 victory which we found disappointing as we had so many chances. Finally up cam SPAL at home. I wasn’t too certain of our home form after the last 2 games but the boy wonder scored a dramatic winner in a 2-1 win.

We didn’t have the transfer budget to strengthen the team either this month but we did see 3 players leave the club. We let Rossi go for £600k which I thought was alright since I probably wouldn’t of kept him at the end of the season and it wasn’t a bad profit off a free transfer. Thomas Rodríguez also left the club for £875k as he was a back up player for the club and hadn’t had any game time yet. Alessandro Bulgarelli then left for £300k which I wasn’t going to turn down for a 17 year old that would never make the first team.
 
First up was Cagliari where the boy wonder managed to score again and we went on to win the game 2-1. Up next was Torino where we ran out 2-0 winners with Sturaro getting on the score sheet from midfield again. Sassuolo were up next away from home where we ended up losing 2-1.

The next game was again one of the most important games of the season we we’re traveling to local rivals Sampdoria who were sitting bottom of the table. I had a long chat to the boys on the bus over reminding them to stay focused and to keep it clean as there is no better feeling than beating your bitter rivals both home and away. Got to say I was not expecting the response I got on the pitch from the players. The boy wonder scored his first senior hattrick and we ran away with the game and secured a 4-0 win.
The boys were ecstatic with the result and made sure they enjoyed themselves on the trip home and then into the little hours of the night.
 
The finances at the club are just getting worse and worse. I’m only just finding out this is because of the players we have on loan and ridiculous monthly fees getting paid out. We’re going to need to watch what we do in the next transfer window to make sure we don’t get into the same mess again next season.

First up for the month was a visit to Milan. The wife even came along on this on this trip but I think the shopping had more to do with this as she could spend a good chunk of my wages here. To make it better though with managing a 2-1 victory with Sturaro getting on the score sheet from midfield yet again to win the match for us.

Verona at home were up next but sadly we fell to a 1-0 defeat. After the game I got torn into the lads as our home form recently has been all over the place and this just isn’t acceptable after us turning it into a fortress in the first half of the season. They vowed to up their game at home but we will see what happens in the next home game which doesn’t fall until the final day of the month.

For the next game we went to Rome to face a very good Lazio team who were one spot above us in the table in second spot. We ended up getting our worst defeat of the season so far and losing the game 3-1. This wasn’t helped with Sturaro getting his marching orders in the 64th​ minute of the game with giving away a penalty. It was the turning point in the game as we were sitting at 1-1 up until that point.

Finally we get to the next home game of the season. Will everybody else keep up to their end of the bargain and give a much better performance at home? We welcomed Napoli to Genoa and I was making sure we were going to make this a tough game for them. We finally managed another win at home and won 2-0 with Pellegri getting on the score sheet again.
 
Going into April and I couldn’t believe it we were still in with a chance of winning the title. We are 1 point behind Lazio and 8 points behind league leaders Juventus. It was in our grasp but could we keep a hold of it or would we fall away.

First up for the month was a trip away to Atalanta where we managed to keep our title hopes alive and secure a 2-0 victory. Next up was Bologna at home and we managed to extend our run with a 1-0 win.

Next was a game we would need to win and again would show that we are series contenders and we travelled to Fiorentina. We were 2-1 up after 28 minutes but in the second half we managed to implode and concede two goals in the last 10 minutes to lose 3-2.

To keep our title hopes alive we would need to get a result against top placed Juventus when they came for a visit as we were now 11 points behind them. On their visit things went ridiculously well and the lads bounced back after their disappointing defeat to Fiorentina we rallied and secured a 2-1 victory against the league leaders with Sturaro scoring the winning goal against his old team.

The final game of the month we came up against Crotone where we ran out 5-0 winners. The main talking point of the game though was Eddy Salcedo starting the game and scoring 2 goals. He’s always taken his chance when he’s been given it.

Now back to 8 points behind top spot with 3 games left we would need some serious luck to be crowned champions but I backed my lads to do well in the last 3 remaining games.

We have now also been guaranteed champions league football for next season so lets home the board is going to invest in the squad so we don't embarrass ourselves

 
After securing champions league football with the win over Juventus I was called into the chairman’s office to talk about our budgets for next season. The chat did not go as expected. I was told that the club were 8 million in the red and the money just wasn’t there to invest in the team. The wage budget was getting cut to 650k per week and I was getting a transfer budget of £1.89 million. How am I meant to build a squad capable of managing with Europe and domestic football. How am I meant to even get the players I need to replace the ones I currently have in on Loan. He then also drops the bombshell that I will only be getting 10% of any players going out so I can’t even sell players to try and get a decent budget. Things were left tense between us as I got up and stormed out slamming the door as I left. How can I build a team on this?

I’ve got to say that the meeting had rattled me and it ended up effecting the players as we took on Inter away. We fell to a 1-0 defeat to 10 men we just couldn’t get going as my head just wasn’t in it after the meeting the other day. With that we threw away our chance of the title.

A week later we took on Chievo and my head was in a much better place and I had calmed down. With that we run out 4-0 winners on our final home game of the season. Up last we played our final game away to Roma and we won it 2-1 and finished on a high and gave our fans something to celebrate the whole way home.

Who would of thought that the final table would look like this when I started out in the club since we were just looking to finish in the top half.
 
I'd be casting an eye around for other jobs! You've already limited yourself with only buying Italians and with the limited budget you'll be hard pressed to find any suitable players let alone Italian ones!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

FMBase

Beta

Resources

Top