The Flight of the Griffins

First off this is my first time posting anything about FM so any helpful tips or pointers you have to help me improve what I am doing, that would be great.
Second I am going to be running this story in video form on youtube too. The youtube series will be a little bit behind this story/post. My Youtube Channel and My Twitter.

SO, WHY GENOA?
Well I chose Genoa because I wanted to have a shot at doing an FM story/career and I wanted to start with an average team who had something about them, something to build on. First I looked at who won the Serie A first and when I seen Genoa not only won the inaugural Serie A title they won a hat-trick of titles and then the following season they finished second and then the following season they went on to win another hat-trick of titles, I just had to use them. They were the first real 'Kingpins' of Italian football. Overall they have 9 Serie A titles, between 1898 - 1924, but the tenth league title has been eluding them. They have spent 49 season in Serie A, which is the 12th highest in all of Italy. The main aim is to win a treble of Serie A titles and at least two champions leagues. Another long term aim would be win more titles than Juventus but I don't know if this will on on for that long!! So I think that is enough rambling,
So let's GOOOOO!!

Team Report

Entire First Team: (1) and (2)
Entire U20s: (1) and (2)
Entire U18s: (1) and (2)

Ok, so after examining the club I have found plenty of Pros and Cons. Let's start with the CONS:
1) We rent our stadium for 999k per year. In the grand scheme of things this seems like very little but in a league where you get tv income and no league prize for your final position is it key to increase finances in anyway possible. It isn't the biggest problem but definetly a con. I think we share a stadium with Sampdoria.
2) We are worth 48Million with 148 Million loan debt.
3) We have poor affiliate clubs.
4) We have a couple of overpaid, good, players with stupidly high wages but equally there are a couple of players on too much for their low ability. Marco Borriello(80,000p/w), Goran Pandev(54,000p/w) and Diego Perotti(30,500p/w) are just a few of the overpaid good players.
5) The first team squad, U20s and U18s have got too many players. I know you can have 12 substitutes on the bench in the Italy but there is a lot of deadweight. Clearing this up will give us a better looking wage budget and overall financial outlook.

PROS:

1) In players such as Darko Lazovic, Diogo Figueiras, Juraj Kucka, Panagiotis Tachtsidis, Ioannis Fetfatzidis, Isaac Cofie, Diego Polenta, Riccardo Improta and maybe one of the best young Italian goalkeeping prospects Mattia Perin, we have a good young core to the squad.
2) Great training facilities and good youth facilities, which will be key as we bring young players through our academy.
3) Media prediction of 10th. I never go below my media prediction and often finish 2 or more positions above it so I have confidence in the team!
4) The squads average age is 24 and there are only 6 out of 36 players in my first team squad above the age of 28.

SEASON EXPECTATIONS

My three options were: Top Half Finish, Europa League Qualification and Champions Cup Qualification.
I chose To get Europa League Qualification, 4th and 5th positions, as I believe we will be strong this season. Getting 4th or 5th position will mean we are going to be 6 or 5 positions above our media prediction of 10th position.

Good luck

I dig a Serie A career. I'm into my second season with Palermo and I inherited a similar squad (in 2050). A real mix of overpaid decent players and some solid youngsters.

First thing I did was make a conscious effort to cut the wages, I just wasn't comfortable spending 40k+ a week on any player. I sold a few of my star players just to make way for the youth and players who I could sell at a profit. I sent the scouts out looking for players U25 and it paid dividends from the off, I managed to finish 4th last year even though we were predicted 16th.

This season I've continued to ship out a few of the older players and I also specifically targeted strengthening my defence. I'm hoping for a top 7 finish as I think it will be hard to replicate last years efforts.

Get out there, scout for some young bargains, nurture the squad and don't be afraid to sell players to build for the future.

Thanks Man

Yeah it is common for teams to be like this in Italy! I have 4-5 players, who aren't worth much and aren't on high wages, that i am going to sell but the high wage players, like Marco Borriello(80,000p/w) just joined and aren't keen on moving on or aren't attracting other clubs interest(even for €0 transfer fee!) but besides that I want to keep the save kind of realistic and not sell players in the same season they joined. Good luck with your save man