The Rise of The Milk Boys - Rebirth of Parma

Parma Calcio 1913, commonly known as Parma, is an Italian professional football club based in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, which competes in the Serie B, the second tier of Italian football. Parma Football Club was originally founded in December 1913, while the current society dates back to 2015. 

The team has been playing its home matches in the 27,906-seat Stadio Ennio Tardini, often referred to as simply Il Tardini, since 1923.

Financed by Calisto Tanzi, the club won eight trophies between 1992 and 2002, a period in which it achieved its best ever league finish as runners-up in the 1996–97 season. The club has won three Coppa Italia, one Supercoppa Italiana, two UEFA Cups, one European Super Cup and one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

Parma is situated in beautiful area of Emilia-Romagna, one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the north of the country, comprising the historical regions of Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of 22,446 km2 (8,666 sq mi), and about 4.4 million inhabitants.

 Emilia-Romagna is one of the wealthiest and most developed regions in Europe, with the third highest gross domestic product per capita in Italy. Bologna, its capital, has one of Italy's highest quality of life indices and advanced social services. 

Emilia-Romagna is also a cultural, economic, and tourist center, being the home of the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world containing Romanesque and Renaissance cities, such as Modena, Parma and Ferrara, and the once Western Roman Empire's capital city, Ravenna; encompassing eleven UNESCO heritage sites being a center for food and automobile production (home of automotive companies such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pagani, De Tomaso, Dallara, and Ducati); and having popular coastal resorts such as Cervia, Cesenatico, Rimini and Riccione.

 In 2018, the Lonely Planet guide named Emilia-Romagna as the best place to see in Europe. The region is also home to the third largest community of foreign residents in the country, after Lombardy and Lazio.

Parma is playing their matches at Stadio Ennio Tardini, commonly referred to as just Il Tardini, a football stadium in Parma, Italy, located near the centre of Parma, between the town centre and the city walls. 

It is the home of Parma Calcio 1913. The stadium was built in 1923 and was named after one of Parma's former presidents, Ennio Tardini. The stadium is the nineteenth largest football stadium in Italy and the second largest in Emilia–Romagna with a capacity of 22,352 spectators. The stadium is the sixth oldest Italian football ground still in use.

The ground underwent significant expansion under Parmalat's ownership of the resident football club in the 1990s, as the ground's seating capacity was increased from around 13,500 to 29,050. In 2006, the capacity was reduced to 27,906 although only 21,473 are authorised to enter for all-seater events and even those seats are very seldom all sold. The expansion has allowed meant a number of Italy matches have been played at the Tardini. Expansion plans were made public in Italy's unsuccessful bid for Euro 2016 and would have made the permanent capacity of the stadium 31,397.

Nevio Scala was appointed as head coach in 1989. Scala's Parma secured a historic promotion in 1990 to Serie A with a 2–0 Derby dell'Enza win over Reggiana. Investment from parent company Parmalat helped to improve the team's fortunes and the club made its debut in UEFA competition in 1991. Scala led the club to its first four major honours. The first of these was the Coppa Italia in 1991–92, beating Juventus 2–1 over two legs.

The following year came the first international triumph in a 3–1 victory in the Cup Winners' Cup over Belgian side Antwerp at Wembley. The next season, the side was successful in the European Super Cup, overcoming Milan 2–1 on aggregate, but lost the Cup Winners' Cup final 1–0 to Arsenal. Scala's final success with Parma was in another two-legged final against Juventus: Dino Baggio scored twice to give Parma a 2–1 aggregate win, but Juventus exacted revenge in the Coppa Italia final. Replaced by Carlo Ancelotti, Scala departed in 1996 and was a popular coach for the trophies he won and because the team played attractive football in the tradition of the club.

Nevio Scala trained the squad between 1989 and 1996, taking it from second division to European triumphs.
Ancelotti overhauled the team and guided it to a record second place in 1997. Parma consequently made its debut in the UEFA Champions League the following year. 

Alberto Malesani was installed as coach in 1998 and the club completed a rare cup double in his first season, winning the Coppa Italia final against Fiorentina on the away goals rule and the UEFA Cup against Marseille at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow with a 3–0 victory before 1999 Supercoppa Italiana victory over league champions Milan followed in August 1999. In 2000, Hernán Crespo was sold to Lazio for a world record transfer fee and Malesani departed.

Parma got relegated at the end of the season 2020/21 by finishing as the bottom placed team in the league and is currently playing in Italian Serie B.

The goals for this save are next:

• Promotion to Serie A ASAP.
• Win Coppa Italia
• Win UEFA Cup which is today UEFA Europa League
•  

This will be it for this post, in the next one we are going to see what is the situation in the club with the players, staff and facilities, what are the board requests and expectations and do i have the backing of the fans which probably are going to hate me no matter what i do. 🙂 

Thank you all for the attention and see you all in the next post. Cheers

So, here i am, ready to start the job of rebuilding Parma and getting them back on the road of success but, before that, couple of words about the database. I have started a custom, large database with only one playable league, that is two leagues but only one playable nation while the rest of European nations are view only.

Database has over 110K players from every continent of the world since i want to use every single penny of my scouting budget and look for high potential players from all over the world and use them in the first team.

So, here i am on my first day at job raising some eyebrows as it usually goes when an anonymous takes over such a club.

I was welcomed by Luca Martines, managing director which introduced me to the clubs history and greatest achievements, as also best players currently in the club. 

Here are the boards vision and expectations, i do not have any problems with anything except the “be competitive in the Italian Cup”. How competitive, should i reach quarter finals for it to be competitive enough?  We will see about that, so far i think we are going to finish at the top 4 places in the league and even might get a promotion in the first season in charge.

This is the best XI i have in my hands and i am quite happy with it, only change that i will make is that i will put Vazquez at CMF and play with two strikers as i have some good strikers in the team as well as some youngster who can develop into some good, useful players for the future.

That will be it so far, in the next post we take a closer look at players and the staff and do a total overhaul of the coaching staff.

This is the formation and tactics that i have came up with. Control possession, shorter passing, build up from the defense and control the pace of the match. I will probably switch mentality from balanced to positive or attacking  whenever i get the chance.

Now lets take a look at players that i have at hand.

I have no less then 35 players in my first team and my first task with players is going to be clear that up and crystallize the best XI and the subs. I have picked to play without the AMC because Franco Vazquez is the only player (not taking loan players seriously) at that position and he is already at serious age and besides that, i have some serious strikers that i would like to develop and use further down the line.

Here are Vazquez ratings and i think he is going to do just fine at CM as Playmaker with that vision, off the ball and passing.

This is the best player by star rating in my team, we will see how will he do in the season.

This looks like it could turn out to be a really good player and i am going to start him in front of Vazquez.

And, of course, Gigi Buffon, my 44 year old first team GK. No words needed.

It was about time to hold a pre season team meeting where i was quite ambitious and asked from the team to mount a tittle challenge and give it the best from themselves in doing it .

This is the response i got, all believe in what i was saying except one which had to speak up, i will sort him out really fast.

Also, i did a complete overhaul of the staff and found them much better replacements.

And as you see, there is a looooooong way in front of me before i turn this gang into a good, cohesive team and gain their trust.

Next up: Pre season review and first competitive match.

Pre Season Review

As far as pre season goes this was just fine, we managed to squeeze in 8 matches and it was a mixture of Serie B teams along with some lower reputation teams. I have managed to get to know my players and i have a first team in my mind already.

Talking about the first team, i have cleared up and removed a lot of players from the first team and this is how it looks right now. I have couple of injured players but nothing too serious, Corvi and Mihaila will be back at full training a couple of days while Zanimacchia could be off for maybe two weeks.

I wanted to improve my team at wingers position but i just could not find decent back up at this position and it is as it is right now. I insist on having the best possible player on couple of positions, i must have best possible ball winning midfielder at DMF, i must have best possible playmaker at CMF and i must have best possible target forward at STC. So far i am quite happy with DMF and CMF, i tried getting Simone Zaza into team, twice, but we were just too far apart on wages.

Only player i have brought in during the preseason is Michel Adopo, i know i already have a lot of players at those positions but i brought him in as i think i will cash in on him in few seasons.

That will be it for now, next up: First competitive match, Coppa Italia!

Coppa Italia

Round #1 Modena HOME

My first competitive match for Parma was an absolute cracker. We were up 6:0 and i was quite happy how we played, we controlled possession and pace of the match, took our chances and we already had comfortable possession at half time. Im not happy that we conceded goals, especially the second one since it was a clumsy reaction from Gianluigi Buffon but it is what it is, win is a win.

Gabriel Charpentier finished the match with three goals and an assist and deservedly got 10.0 rating in the match.

Serie B

Round #1 Como HOME

Another great match from my team where i must admit, i was quite surprised with finishing, three goals from three shots on target. Great job so far.

Serie B

Round #5 Benevento HOME

Perfect match where we gave Benevento no chance of scoring at all and where Franco Vazquez had to step up since i had a striker injured during the match with others being away on international duty. Vazquez delivered by scoring two beautiful goals.

This makes it five wins in a row and we are sitting comfortably at the top of the table.

I have solved the lack of players at AML position by signing experienced winger Diego Perotti on a free transfer.

Serie B

Round #9 Palermo AWAY

First tough match where i was on the edge of defeat. We conceded a free kick goal from 25 meters far and it took some time to recover from it. It was our best goalscorer who pulled us back, Gabriel Charpentier with his 10th goal in 8 matches rescued us a draw.

Serie B

Round #10 Modena HOME

We really missed the chance to win, i especially feel bad for our youngster Giacomo Marconi who had a chance in his debut for the match but his actually well struck penalty kick was saved by the GK.

This is how the league table looks 10 matches in the season

Coppa Italia

Round #2 Cremonese AWAY

Tough match which i played with a mixture of bench and first team players and im really happy that i got this minimal win here and that i am moving on to the next round.

And in the next round we travel to Napoli.

Serie B

Round #20 Como AWAY

Pretty equal match where the next stayed calm for the first half and the first team which broke the deadlock in the second half took over the match completely and won the gam. Como only had enough to score just a consolation of the goal in the injury time.

This is the situation at the table after 20 matches in Serie B. Only one loss and i am quite happy how the team is playing, absolutely no complaints so far.

But it is not all so pretty, i had some horrible injuries and one of those sidelined our arguably best player of the team for MONTHS!

Coppa Italia

Round #3 Napoli AWAY

Unexpectedly bad showing from my boys, i expected to at least fight back but after conceding so early its hard to stay focused and stick to the gameplan. It is what it is, our participation in Coppa Italia is over and we move on.

Serie B

Round #27 Ternana AWAY

We just played derby of the top of the table and we were way bellow par and we lost it, as a result of that we have fallen down the table to 2nd place. Its going to be a tough end of the season and we are going to have to work hard if we want to be crowned as champions.

League table 27 matches into the season.

Serie B

Round #29 Modena AWAY

Emilia derby finished in a draw and as a result of that we are curently second placed team on the table. Still a good position but we might lose a title for this.

Serie B

Round #35 Perugia AWAY

This is getting nerve wrecking. By the way how the season started i thought that we are going to thunder through the league all the way to the title. Boy was i wrong, we need to fight for every inch on the field.

I think it is safe to say that the title is gone and we would need a miracle to win it in this season but promotion is a dream still alive but we have to work for it. 3 more to go.