Outta This and Inter Something Better

Outta This and INTER Something Better



F.C. Internazionale Milano or Inter Milan if you’re a normal. One of the old school Italian ‘Giants’ who’ve spent a few years languishing outside of major European competition (despite only winning the Champions League in 2010) and pretty much outside of the thoughts of anyone not in Italy.

There’s a few reason for me starting this save and I’m not sure which is the strongest:

1) Reviving a giant is always a nice challenge as it gives you a good foundation for growth due to a massive fan base and (usually) a great level of facilities and finances.

2) Inter are my Italian team of choice, generally down to their sexy-ass kits of the past as well as this year’s addition:



3) They’ve recently replaced their manager and I remembered that they existed

4) There was an opportunity for a poor pun as a title and I ran with it

Objectives
1) Obviously in the short term I want to be as successful as possible. The main aim in the coming seasons will be to re-establish Inter as a force in Italy, rivalling Juve and Roma as well as becoming Champions League regulars once again. Eventually I’d like to dominate Serie A.

2) Utilise the academy as it’s been a long while since any meaningful academy prospects shone in the black and blue side of Milan, I’ll touch on my thoughts for this when I get to my squad. Blue sky thinking I’d love to get a fully Italian or academy produced side, possibly with an Italian Ballon D’Or to boot.



Not a problem Nicolo, but I’m doubting you actually speak like that

The State of Affairs

The Stadium


The iconic Stadio Giuseppe Meazza or San Siro depending on what colour you mix your black with is an 80,000 seater stadium shared by the Milan giants of Inter and… the other lot. I’m not sure of any guidelines on expansion etc at the moment but I would hope that in future we will be able to move into a home of our own (or kick the other lot out!) for no reason other than “because”. Who shares a house with their enemy? *INSERT OLD MAN WIFE JOKE*

The Owners
I’ll not bother with a finance screen as to be honest I see these in stories and I just see dots and numbers unless it is relevant to me. The main stuff is that for all we have a tight budget to start off, we’re actually pretty well off thanks to Massimo Morratti selling his stake to this happy little chap in 2013



That chap is Erick Thohir, an Indonesian fella who also owns DC United of the MLS, Persib Bandung in his homeland and an NBA team. Hopefully in terms of revenue we can find something in Asia to take advantage of what (in theory) should be a growing following and also use the DC United link (which isn’t official) to push the US revenue stream as well.

Competitions
We’re in the bloody Europa Qualifiers after a 5th place finish in 2013/14. I hate the Europa League as I feel like I never have a good season with having it added into my fixtures but so be it. Finishing in 3rd will get us into the Champions League (qualifiers at least) and that is what I’d like to do this season (as would some of my players) although it may be a lot harder than I think. Alternatively, winning the Europa League is a way into next years CL and so may have to be considered realistically. Having brushed Krasnodar aside, I don’t think we have the worse group I’ve ever seen





The next update will be preseason and transfers

The Squad and Transfers

Transfers
Not the most active of transfer windows for us as I was more concerned with getting rid of some deadwood. Other than these two fees, a load of players left on loan and for nothing as we had about 100-150 youth and reserve players just lingering around


Sad to lose Handanovic but as he hadn’t played for me yet it was less painful to see him go. Joel Obi was lost amongst a plethora of midfield talent and I thought it best that he left, we do have a buyback of £500k if ever we feel he’s getting too good to be elsewhere.


Obviously we needed a top class keeper and Mr Krul from the club I love was always going to be my first choice, he isn’t Italian but he is young-ish, young enough to either develop into a world beater or generate us some cash in the future.

Balanta joins us on the cheap (in my eyes) and goes straight into my side as a starting centre half, similar to Krul he is young and will develop and for all I’d rather not sell him, I’m sure he’ll be one hell of a money generator in future, particularly having spent so little on him now.

Sanogo is in purely due to injuries, Palacios is out for a while so this deal will cover us until January.

The Squad


What a multi-national bunch. 12 nations and only 6 Italians, Osvaldo being the only one likely to feature much.

As mentioned I’ll be looking to make this a lot more home grown and Italian based in the future, but as we grow it may be that, like Krul and Balanta, we will bring in players to get us to the next level and then build on that with Italians.

Bonazzoli has moved up from the U20s as I needed a bit more cover and I have chosen him as the start of the academy production line! I would post a screenshot but my game doesn’t appear to let me take them of competitions and player profiles at the moment

The Line Up


This is how I’m looking to line up for the start of the season. The squad is massive and so I’ll be pretty harsh in terms of dropping players for poor performance as I think we have the quality to do so.

Also, like every great man I will quote myself (from my Project Bilbao Story):


Self-Explanatory really.

Pre Season 2014


Nothing too inspiring there, a draw with a bang average Dortmund side (with the majority of their team on holiday due to WC duties) started us off and then I left my assistant take the rest and get used to our 352 system.

I never really know what to think of friendlies as in the past I've had amazing pre-seasons and gone on to stinker seasons and vice versa. This was average so maybe that means my season will be average?

Miscellaneous


Essentially that's what I mentioned when posting about Erick Thohir, looking to get an Asian link and hopefully bring in some revenue that way. From my knowledge, Grampus are a decent side in Japan and should do the trick. Hoping that some good performances from Yuto Nagatomo can help there too

August - October 2014

August


Unlike in England, we only had 1 league game to contend with during the transfer window and all of our business was done. In theory this was our first team, minus Palacios who is still injured and we came up short against a poor Cagliari side on a very narrow pitch which I feel may have contributed to our poor show.

Not a great start. This month did include the two Krasnodar games which I mentioned in a previous post

September


The month started with another poor showing, this time to one of the giants in the league, Napoli. Sanogo came on late to score a consolation rocket but really we didn't even put up a fight.

We moved forward with a point I was almost happy with against Wolfsburg who I reckon are our main rivals in this Europa group. We created a lot of chances and in the end couldn't conjure anything for the win

The win over Cesena is what I am hoping will become a routine performance, we had 78% possession and essentially toyed with them for most of the game, killing it off nice and early with the third goal.

Udinese was another decent performance although I did feel the fear when they scored their goal! Kuzmanovic made a good impression in his first start, deputising for the suspended Medel who collects yellow cards like football stickers

Finally the Lazio Draw saw Palacio make an early return from injury and mark it with a goal. Astonishingly, his 11th minute strike was the equaliser given that we must have thought kick off was 15:05 and gave a away 2 penalties conceding 1 in the first 4 minutes.

October


Not the best.

An uninspiring draw against Tel Aviv set the tone for this month, scoring early doors from a free kick we didn't create much else. This started to get me thinking about the formation and wondering if we could maybe be a little more attacking in our play

The Verona win persuaded me to stick with it a little longer as we performed pretty much in the same manner as September's Cesena win

At Sampdoria we had 3 suspensions in Medel (again), Vidal and Icardi as well as injuries to Hernanes and Nagamoto which cost us dearly. Another lax display saw us outplayed and pretty much outclassed

The Atromitos game was expected to be our easiest of the group stage but it didn't pan out that way, scraping a 2-1 win. Another poor show. Worrying.

As for Torino and Fiorentina I can write the same match report. We took a 2 goal lead in both games and threw it away in the last 10 minutes. Fun and games.

November 2014



Another uninspiring month summarised nicely in the final 3 games.

Palermo was great, that's all I really need to say

Atromitos was atrocious, we couldn't score despite the fact that just 1 goal would have actually sent us through (after seeing the results in the other games)

Our bipolar form continued as we dominated Parma thanks to an outstanding performance from Mr Osvaldo who ran them ragged.

Then at Sassuolo we fought back to 2-2 after falling behind early on, only to give away a stupid penalty in the dying seconds to lose the hard fought point. This started a horrible spell...

The Wolfsburg result is actually a decent one in terms of the opposition and being away from home, however we were 1-0 up right until the 89th minute when Rannocchia (who had recently moaned about wanting a chance in the team) turned and played a 20 yard back-pass to Krul. Given that Krul was 50 yards away I wasn't best pleased as bloody Fabio Borini ran through 1v1 to tuck it home and AGAIN cost ourselves qualification in the dying seconds, meaning that our game with Tel-Aviv is a straight shoot out that we need to win

The Empoli game was back to the poor form of old. Frustrating the life out of me now!

Good News



Nice, the money was then split between wages and budget giving me a much healthier wage budget to play with and allowing me to take advantage of 2 release clauses:





2 of my better players this year, Osvaldo/Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones is top scoring as I write this (I'm a couple months ahead) and M'Vila is young and a steal at £6m.

I'm at that point again where I'm regretting writing this up because it's so bloody annoying at times

Wrapping Up 2014



Better.

3 great wins starting with an away win (which is rare in itself) to join league leaders Roma. Palacio starred for us in a game that was spent with our backs against the wall for much of it. We moved to a flat 5 at the back as opposed to the wing backs to neutralise the threat of Gervinho and sent Gary Medel a bit further forward to take care of Florenzi who is in ridiculous form.

Our next game at home to Tel-Aviv was a winner takes all occasion and thankfully that was us! Going a goal down after 6 minutes lead to me fearing the worst but the team showed a little more composure than I did and took the win.

The Chievo game saw Mateo Kovacic (now a target of Arsenal) score an 18 minute hat-trick to put the game beyond doubt before it had really started. They netted a consolation goal before I threw on Bonazzoli for his first league appearance and he repaid me with his first goal. He's a nice kid.

At the close of the year we sit 7th in Serie A which is a boost given our poor start. For some reason, FM won’t allow me to print screen and player profiles or league tables at this time as so you’ll just have to trust me!

Rounding Up Europa

As I'm having trouble in screenshotting league tables etc I thought I'd have a little wrap up of the Europa league as the group ended. Essentially it ended in seeding order:

Inter
Wolfsburg
Tel-Aviv
Atrocious

We ended with 10 points, jumping from 3rd to top on the final day due to our win against Tel-Aviv in the make or break clash. Here are our results put together:



As I mentioned throughout those games we should have done a lot better in most of them. Both Atromitos and Wolfsburg away should have been wins which would have meant that the Tel-Aviv game was then insignificant rather than as tense as it was.

Still... unbeaten in Europe and hopefully it can continue with this draw

January 2015



A great month really.

The win against Genoa was great, we kept a clean sheet (which is rare at the moment) and dominated the ball and the game

Juve was disappointing but only in the fact that I think we could have won it. We conceded in the very first minute which left me wondering if it was my fault as [Pardew] I was typing on Steam, Steam then closed meaning I skipped straight through the team talk and left the players un-motivated [/Pardew]. After that we had a goal chalked off for offside which was the correct decision but just showed that we did have our chances!

Chievo in the cup was a nothing game in which I rotated my full squad, giving senior debuts to 3 players (one of which is in the transfers section below) as well as a 35 year old centre half who I forgot I even had and it turns out he's alright. Bonazzoli scored again in his first full start and second time on the pitch!

Buzzing to win the 'away' Milan Derby against The Other Lot. Campagnaro (the 'alright' 35 year old) set us off to a good start with a 40 yard rocket and after being pegged back to 1-1, Rodrigo Palacio came off the bench to replace the injured Icardi in the first half to go on and win the game himself. Legend.

Atalanta was annoying but really it was typical FM, going form a high in one game to the mundane reality of being rubbish against a rubbish team in the next.

Cagliari righted some wrongs from our previous game and allowed me to use the "revenge" team talk which always seems to get an extra 10% out of the players.

Table



Finally it's let me take a screenshot! This is how the table looks just after the halfway point. Juve are running away with it and even the Champions League is getting away from us. Surprised to see Lazio and Sampdoria where they are!

Transfers



Odegaard is someone that everyone seems to be signing and he joined us for a nominal fee and went straight into the team against Chievo, becoming our youngest ever player in the process.

I know I mentioned earlier about becoming home grown (this was mainly inspired by Dan’s Man United save a while back) but we are a long way off it and at the moment every decent young player is being loaned from or co-owned by Juve, Roma and The Other Lot which is obviously bumping prices.

For all I have a few targets there's been no other business this month.

We're now up to date with where I am in real life and so I will apologise in advance for the likely slower updates