(No Longer a) Lower League Dream

So i have loaded up an Italian expansion to go down to the promozione.
I start unemployed and here I am:

Wanted a really young club, so found one with "2014" in their name and applied.
It was an amateur club so I guess they had to agree. Here it is:

Board wants mid-table but i want to get promoted

I played an intersquad friendly and the senior squad lost 5-2
Clearly, I needed to strengthen the squad. I promoted one of the grey players(who had scored, and my assistant felt he was a 5-star player. then started transfers, without limit as no salary was involved. In the end, here is what I had:


Note that my once 5-star(yellow) Parma is now a half star(white)
That is probably the league as a whole, we are somewhat better than the rest
We are presently in the winter break, and here is the table


I am determined to win the league and try to turn semi pro soon enough

One season done, my target is achieved. Parma is back to 5-stars and we are up to the eccellenza. Here is the final leaue table:

No major awards but the league is ours.
Sadly, the squad morale is very low and I hope to operate on less than ~60 players like this season.
Could anyone tell when will we turn semi pro?

The promotion did not help our professional status, and somehow, our new league has a lower reputation than the promozione. Still being amateur meant we had a tough time holding on to our better players while I had already got rid of our lesser players. Things ended up in a situation where 3hr 30min before transfer window close we had no goalkeeper at all, so I was randomly offering contracts to any known GK
Parma was one of the first to leave and i was really sad---the playing time he had got last season was at the cost of other prospects.
Anyway, I had strengthened all departments other than GK and we got a couple of GKs joining us in the eleventh hour, so things would be fine.

The only real player in our team from start, Germini, is still our best player, and injured for 3 months.
Anyway, let us see what happens next

I like it, it's made me want to do something more or less the same!

THANK YOU
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Well, we have reached another winter break and I am in a dreamland

Note that Promozione is still rated higher than Eccellenza
de Rentiis is developing well and Germini is back. Goalkeeping is the last thing I can complain about...

The rest of the season went quite downstream with us breaking the record for winless stretch(though, I guess that it was set up by me anyway. Of the last 21 games, we managed to win only 9. The damage had been done though in the opening 13 games:

Dell'Anna was rested in several matches in favour of a low CA/high PA keeper but still wins the golden glove(if there were such an award...) while D'Antonio wins a couple of awards.
Promoted to Serie D, I now realise that the 2 U19 incl 1 U18 in first 11 has gone up to 4 U20 incl 3 U19 incl 1 U18...

I really need some good jerseys, now that we are in serie d

Based on the logo colours as I dont know club colours. Can someone suggest a realistic sponsor?

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So we turned semi pro and now cannot sign players on a zero salary. My net monthly wage budget in $3000 so I can't even sign too many players on contract. All the same I needed to fill my team with U20 players so tried to get in a few. Here is the result(a different view this time:

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Winter break again, and my signings are paying off.

I am already planning ahead for Lega pro now. I estimate that We will be needing around 20K in salaries per month, Presently we are maintaining a ~0 cash flow so the balance should stay at 100k till the end of this season. From thereon, I wold need an extra 140K. ~30K should come from the prize money we recieve while another 20K from pre season friendlies(we managed 15k this season, so...).
all that remains is sponsorship. I have no idea as to how much that will be, but our present deal is there since promozione days and stands at 20k/season, so I can expect 30k, cant I? that would mean we will be left to scourge 60k from matchday income...
The board has to be convinced to allow me that salary, and I think it should be easy, as they are already allowing me 15k after a meeting. If anyone can suggest other ways of making money, please help(keep in mind the player values from the previous post )

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The season ended and I won as I predicted

Also, congratulations to my computer for simulating 96 leagues for three seasons. Now that ecc and prm ggo out, it is limited to only 15 leagues(Serie A, Serie B, Lega Pro(3), Serie D(9), I-League)
The no of players also comes down from 180k to 115k which is within the recommended limit.
And we got a new sponsor(inspiration for new kits) paying us 100k per season.
That is all about good things though. I realised that turning pro is more difficult that expected. Players are demandin 3 times the semi pro salary. My 20k estimate is falling well short, already spending 21k on a sub par side with majority of players still amateur. Media does not rate us highly either

10 times less likely than the second worst.
My friendlies were cosistently bad as well, the last win against a lower league side:

Well, the new kits feature for only a single post then. Basically, Here is how the things were going:

Things looked bleak and we were in the relegation zone. In the mean time Chievo in the Serie B was performing badly, so just to test my reputation, I declared interest. There was no reply from their side so I had not been laughed at.
Soon after, Chievo fired their manager, and the media said that I had an outside chance to be named as the successor. Inspired by this, I went to the chairman to ask for a senior affiliate for the nth time. Despite having achieved 3 successive promotions, when I claimed that it was getting difficult for me to carry out my job, He offered to terminate my contract, and I agreed.
The next day, Chievo named their manager and I was left jobless.

Few days later, however, Salernitana fired their boss. They were 13th in the league despite being co-favourites for third position, and I applied for the post. They had stable finances, and most of all offered a 200k p/m wage budget. Definitely heaven compared to VSJ?
The media soon reported that Salern felt Flattered by my interest. Soon, I was offered an interview where I was made to agree to keep all the coaching staff intact and get them a mid table finish. I agreed and they offered a 300k wage budget. I got the job.
Now here is the fun part: this financially stable club has a 650k debt. It is spending 200k on salaries of which ~50k goes to pay a below average U20 team. So, unlike my previous club, these people will not fund my football education and I am to stay continental A for the forseeable future...

Finances continue down south but board doesn't give a damn. Our league table position however is much better than before:

As you see, with almost half the season remaining, we are just 2 points off the playoff spots. The playoff tables are also in our favor: the bottom most team is already a point below us. I guess I still have a chance to make it 4 promotions in 4 years

Where There is Will There is Way
Here is the table at the end of the season:

Do not look at the bottom of the table though

Well, so I quit Salernitana at the srart of the season as they were no good for Serie B. I want to make it 5 promotions in 5 years so I wanted a better club. The favourites for the year were Fiorentina and the media pprediction showed things to be tight up the tableso I hoped some firing would go on.
Well, there was no majorfiring and I was not going back to Lega Pro. In the mean time, just to keep the career going, I took up the Costa Rica spot. October, November, December passed eventless and then...




This is no Serie B matter, it is Serie A matter!
A history:

And a Present:

Getting a bit more regular now:

So two draws and three wins to follow. We saw us slide down to 8th after the two draws and I put it down completely to morale. And now:

Morale is the key definitely, a Serie A team is now performing like one:

And the table matches media Prediction finally:

Would have loved to say all is well, but it isn't. First of all players all of a sudden start realizing that we are in Serie B not Serie A so they want to leave. I try to force keep them and team morale dips. as a result:

This is further compounded by injuries:

And as a result we end our unbeaten run(Though my previous club Salernitana made sure that we stayed up )

Luckily in the table, we are still up on goal difference:

Note that 9 points separate 3rd and 4th. Should this go up to more than 10, there will be no playoffs and third position will become an automatic promotion spot.

We were left with six games to play, of which two were against relegation candidates so 4 were important. The results:

Verona and Novara, as I already said were never going to challenge Fiorentina. It was the other 4 matches that would decide our future.
The 0-0 draw with lower half Juve Stabia was disheartening. The Loss against Brescia even more hurting. But the morale probably went up with the next two Victories and Latina Got the best of us! Catania on the other hand were error prone. In short, WE WON WITH A GAME IN HAND!!!

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So, what's next?
We play in the top tier of Italy, which currently has maximum possible European spots, but with a Debt of $15M and a very low reputation. The question is whether to stay or to look for a better club?
A Flamengo job is available. The club has a much higher(4-star) reputation but offers a Payroll budget half of what I have at Fiorentina. In fact, despite the huge debt, the club somehow managed to cough up a $27M Transfer budget for next season.

A POTENTIALLY GAME BREAKING PROBLEM
The Serie A Table Has no highlighted European Spots!
Note that last year, teams placed 1st 2nd and 5th qualified for UCL Group Stage (And have been drawn into groups), 6th qualified for UCL Prelim stage(and are also there in the groups) while 7th and 8th along with cup winners qualified for Europa and are playing.
Last years table too (in history) shows no spots. However assuming some FFP failures, the qualification for last year seems fine.
If any experienced FMer is reading this please tell me If I should continue in Italy(which I want to) or should I go else where(MLS maybe, where the highlightings are there...)

Since no one replied, I just continue and hope it is just a cosmetic problem.
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The Board provided an Injection of 13M or so and I decided to go for it in the transfer window.

Mario Gomez left due to his huge salary(680K p/m).
On the ins, Rexha and Albarracin came in for the future, while most of the others were improvements or backups.
Now on to matches

Friendlies were no longer very earning so I left them to my Assistant. The season started with a draw against Juventus, which at the time I thought was great. This was followed by a miraculous run and now we are behing Juventus only on goal difference...

As you see, No highlighting other than champions

Another 6 matches gone.

Results quite good, though I could do without 0-2 loss at home.
Albarracin is already the first choice striker, though he just got out for a month. Rexha is still just a bench warmer.

Interestingly, Juventus are not our chief competitors...

Holy crap you went from Veliterna to Fiorentina in a few years ?!

Well, I did and I think the most important event in making this happen was the relegation of Fiorentina to Serie B.
My first two promotions(The second one because of the game) and the Salern Promotion were somewhat expected

Six more Matches Done.
Results:

And table:

With almost all sides having played a different number of matches, it is tough to analyse...

6 more matches passed and:

Our good form falling off, getting only a couple of league wins. The cup campaign however has been much better, although Juventus will be waiting to eat us alive in the final. Here is the table

Juventus pip us for first and here we are...

7 matches this time(as 14 were left since the last update):

My very bad man management is showing effects with a poor squad morale but still a pretty good set of matches.

The battle for the top has really heated up between us and Juventus, this time us ahead with 1 point. The extended league table(not this one) has 'EL' written against us so European Football is now sure(though I may not stay for another season in Italy)

The Season is OVER.

On the extreme right you see the number of times Juventus had won this continuously.
The matches:

Milan was managed by my assistant, we already having won the league. In a parallel match, Juventus lost to the 19th placed team
The match of importance was the second last one, which we needed to draw. I would like to share my tactic here:

We still managed to score!

I had had enough of Italy so decided to leave. With my reputation now continental, I would probably get a good job in the other 4 of EFIGS, but that would mean waiting for a month and a half. So instead I go down south:
New Club:

They are playing in the Copa Bridgestone Libertadores so I have continental chances.
As a fact of matter, I had also applied at palmerias but rejected the Job offer as Corinthians was* offering a higher wage budget. I was surprised that while Corinthians was* flattered why they were not offering an interview. Now I know
Here is the league table at the start of my tenure

Note that though we are down 10th, only Athletico Miniero are really ahead if we can win the games in hand

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*Would someone from Brazil tell me if it is was or were?

6 League games gone and on the way I picked up the Copa Bridgestone Libertadores!!!

In the mean time I made a stupid mistake. Galatasaray wanted one of my main strikers and were offering a good price(15M). I accepted as I saw that a replacement was available ant 5M. Now the deal went through and only after all was sorted out did I realise that this new signing had played for another team in the same league in 7 or more games so could not play for me!
Now I am a lead striker short (you need 4 to play a 2 striker formation with games every 2-3 days)
But here is the league table

Good position with games in hand, so far so good