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WhyHX
Pete Rando, 19 years of age, has been a huge football fan since he discovered Rocket League while casually browsing Twitch six months ago. Enthused by his newfound passion, Pete insisted that his shady billionaire father Mr. Rando to get him a job in football.
Happy that his son finally wanted a job, Mr. Rando decided to finally cash in a favour Josep Maria Bartomeu owed him. Josep agreed reluctantly, only with two conditions – that nobody must know about this arrangement, and that Pete could be fired if his performance was horrid or if he lost the training room.
This is the story of how Pete, who had no patience to even sit through a full football match, is now expected to win the La Liga and Champions League in his debut season.
Expectations and Approach
As luck would have it, Pete Rando’s Rocket League-based football education has somehow aligned his beliefs with that of the Barcelona board’s – hold on to the ball, and score many goals.
That was why his original tactical approach, if one could call it that, was to play with 4 central strikers. Luckily, his assistant Eder Sarabia managed to convince him otherwise. Seriously, who could say no to this face?
Anyway, Pete and Eder reached a compromise – no 4 strikers, but Barcelona will likely spend the next few matches (at least) playing in a 4-2-4 formation.
How will it go? Nobody’s knows – not even Pete Rando himself.
Sidenote:
Hi everyone, thanks for reading! This is my first ever FM story, and I believe my first ever post on SortitoutSI to boot. Have always toyed with the idea of doing an FM career story, and I guess the current virus situation really gave me the time to do so. I'm kind of a casual FM player, so I thought to have something more lighthearted as my first ever FM story. I plan to update this at least twice a week, and the next post would be a summary of Pete Rando's first pre-season.
Hope you guys will enjoy the story as much as I'd enjoy writing it!
TinakoFM
Sounds like a fun story, will be following!
Estradas
WhyHX
"Chapter 2" will be coming soon, both as a story here and a video on Youtube!
WhyHX
At the end of pre-season, Pete Rando’s come to the realisation that he might have bitten more than he could chew. Over the past 6 weeks, Pete’s been busier everyday than his entire 19 years combined.
First, the transfers, which confused Pete right off the bat. Barcelona’s funds has been depleted from their signing of Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong, but Pete’s team told him that his squad needed another backup defender still. This completely stumped Pete – why do we need defenders when we can just outscore anyone?
But Pete went with the flow, because again, who could say no to Eder?
The scouting team recommended Daniele Rugani of Juventus, mainly because their first option, anyone with Barcelona DNA, was not available. Which worked out well because Rugani, a right-footed ball-playing defender would function as a solid back-up for Gerard Pique. To fund for Rugani, Pete sold off Arturo Vidal and Adal Turan to Man City and Qatar respectively. No love lost between Pete and Vidal, whom Pete thought had really little hair for someone named after shampoo.
All the transferring of players left Pete quite fascinated – why can we only buy/sell fellow humans in football nowadays? But Pete had no time to wonder, for La Liga was starting.
August - September
Pete started really well in La Liga, to the surprise of most. 2-0 wins over Real Valladolid and Real Sociedad (where Martin Odegaard scored an own goal – bless his Real Madrid career) was followed by a 5-0 thumping of Osasuna.
Some might have written off these matches as beginner’s luck, but not Pete. No, not Pete at all, who started to believe that football management was easy and that there would never be a match that ends in a draw despite him having 29 more shots than the opponent.
Even Pete’s own team was surprised at his early success, but the joy was shortlived as a top-of-the-table clash with Atletico Madrid loomed on the horizon.
The game against Atletico Madrid began well actually, after a tap-in from Griezmann gave Barcelona the lead on the 11th minute. Even the players were surprised – could this 19 year old really do it?
Nope.
Sergio Busquets got himself sent off after a lunge on Atletico’s Saul, and Barcelona just couldn’t find their fluency after that. And when Morata sprung the offside trap and equalised, Barcelona had no real answers despite playing at home.
Pete’s first excursion into Europe did not end well either. Barcelona got off to a flying start, and was leading 3-1 when Rey Manaj knocked home a great cross from Nelson Semedo. But Napoli sprang to life after a goal from Manolas in the 90th minute, and ter Stegen gifted the ball straight to Napoli soon after for their equaliser.
A 1-1 draw with bitter rivals Espanyol (where Barcelona dominated and had 30 shots to Espanyol’s 1) was sandwiched by scrappy wins at Granada and Getafe.
Two months in, and there are many questions within the game.
The players and the staff can’t help but ask who this 19 year old is, and how he got the job.
Rivals everywhere are asking if Pete could have the job forever.
And Pete? His greatest question right now is how Antoine Griezmann, a Twitch streamer with not much of a goalscoring form this season, ended up playing for Barcelona.
Sidenote:
Episode 2, where you can watch Pete's Barcelona take on Atletico Madrid and Napoli, is live on YouTube here as well! Do subscribe if you like the video, or let me know your thoughts via the comments here or on Youtube.
WhyHX
“Football management is easier than I thought”, Pete Rando thought as he looked back on his match records during the winter break. Despite a wobbly start to his management career, Pete’s Barcelona has gone on quite an impressive run – 16 wins out of 18 games, with 14 clean sheets along the way.
Besides a loss to Celta Vigo and a draw at Alaves – unfortunate blips, Pete would insist while pointing to the number of shots Barcelona recorded – Pete had so little to worry about that he even had time to develop a friendship with his goalkeeper Marc Andre ter Stegen, who Pete lovingly calls The Sturgeon.
But what Pete did not realise was that his 2020 would start with two back-to-back El Clasicos – one a La Liga match, and the other a showpiece match all the way in Saudi Arabia.
Pete was confused in the lead-up to the first El Clasico. It’s the winter break, why was the entire team prancing around nervously, and why are there friendly games to “maintain everyone’s fitness”? Could we not deal with that when January starts?
Pete understood when Camp Nou welcomed Real Madrid though. Any remnants of confusion were wiped away by the incredible noise at the stadium, and with understanding came nerves.
“What if we lost? How do we leave the stadium?” he asked his assistant Eder.
Eder’s response was terse - “We do not lose.”
Sidenote:
Episode 3 where Barcelona takes on Valencia and Athletic Bilbao is live on Youtube! Stay tuned for the next episode where we have back to back El Clasicos.