SL Benfica - Breaking the curse

SL Benfica – Breaking the curse

The author
I recently found that a save I was doing with my hometown club Oxford United had become a bit stale. I was 4 years in and in league 1. I had been thinking about doing a story on a FM website for a while and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The story
In 1962, with Eusébio as his talisman, Hungarian coach Bela Guttmann won the European cup (Champions league) with Benfica. After the final he asked for an improved contract. For some reason the board said no. Before he left he allegedly said that the club would not win a European trophy for 100 years. This became known as the curse of Bela Guttmann as the club have lost all 8 European finals since his departure.

Format
The idea of the save is to win a European trophy using young players that I have developed. Depending on how many readers I get I may continue, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
I will be posting monthly updates involving screenshots and a review of how the team have performed.

I don’t know when I will finish each month of game time so posts will come when they are ready, not at a set date. Any feedback or comments are appreciated!
I hope you enjoy reading.

#ForcaBenfica

Monthly report – July 2015

The great grandson of Bela Guttmann has taken over SL Benfica. Otto Guttmann suffered a career ending injury at the age of 16, playing for Honved under 19s. He went straight into management with various Hungarian teams and developed a decent regional reputation. Otto was appointed as Benfica coach to much disappointment. Fans will take winning over as many believe that he had been chosen on name alone.


Results
We played 3 pre-season matches on our German training camp. We came back from 1-0 down against lowly German side Jena to win 1-3. I wouldn’t read much into that result, as Jena play in the regional division north east. Our next 2 games against Hoffenheim and Schalke both resulted in defeats. I do however know the reason behind this. I set my mentality to control, as we are likely to dominate most of our domestic fixtures this season. However, teams like Hoffenheim and Schalke won’t just roll over. They didn’t let us have the time on the ball that my tactic requires. Therefore we lost 2 out of 3 friendly matches.


Transfers
The 2 players brought in so far look to be great pieces of business. Our 2 Argentine signings, Cristian Pavon and Emanuel Mammana cost a combined £7.5 million and have bags of potential. I told my director of football to try and loan out as many of the reserve players as he could as there is a ridiculous hoard of talent in there and they are in need of professional experience. One stand out departure was Victor Andrade, on loan to Braga. I also told the notorious troublemaker Adel Taarabt to look for a new home. If we are to develop young talent then I don’t really want his bad attitude reflected on the youth players. I also put Filip Djuricic on the transfer list as he was surplus to requirements and my transfer budget was looking a bit slim. A deal for French playmaker Yoann Gourcuff fell through after the free agent failed his medical.


Other news
Nico Gaitan signed a new £43,000 a week, 5 year contract with a release clause of £40million.

Monthly report – August 2015

Transfer mania
August saw the arrival of 5 players. The first of these was Andrija Zivkovic, a Serbian winger from Partisan Belgrade. At just 19 years old he has lots of room for growth and he already looks to be a very good player. Just 3 days later a more familiar name arrived at Benfica. Eder Alvarez Balanta joined for £3.5 million. He still looks like a decent player this year, despite his wonder kid status dropping in recent editions of the game. Filip Djuricic left to Hoffenheim for £4 million, and no more business was done until the 25th. Sevilla came in with an unexpected bid for Pizzi. The £4.7 million transfer fee was one I could not refuse. After his departure I was in need of a first team centre midfielder. I was able to pick up young argentine, Bruno Zucilini on loan from Man City but I knew that I needed a more reliable option.

As we got into deadline day I decided to take a gamble. Swedish midfielder, Rasmus Elm (Formerly of CSKA Moscow) joined from Kalmar FF for a mere £450k. He is an experienced campaigner at 27 who has played in the Champions League, so this division should be fine for him. Just as I thought things were over, PSG came in with a bid for Fejsa. He was a great rotation option so I didn’t want to sell him. I rejected the bid at first but Fejsa came to me and complained. He wanted to win the Champions League and demanded to leave. I accepted the bid and I was left with a gaping hole in my squad. There were 4 hours left of deadline day and I had to act fast. Rodrigo Caio from Sao Paulo was a promising 22 year old who could play in centre back and defensive midfield. At £2.5 million I had to go for it! Deadline day ended and I promoted Taarabt back into the first team as I hadn’t been able to move him on. A total of 49 youth players were loaned out to gain experience. We spent £15.18 million and sold £11.2 million worth of players. When Bela Guttmann joined Benfica he released 20 players on his first day. I may not have been so extreme, but I have made this squad my own and put faith in the young talent at the club.





Results
On the 1st of August we played against Braga in a testimonial for our legendary captain Luisao. Goncalo Guedes put us ahead after 22 minutes but Braga pulled one back in the 65th. Nico Gaitan played a 9.0 and looked inspirational throughout. This game however was still a friendly, and fitness levels were still quite low. It finished 1-1. We also played a friendly against Atletico CP, we won 3-2 but it was all about fitness. Our next game was the season opener against Sporting in the supertaca (Community shield). It was an extremely close game and required extra time and penalties. The winning spot kick came from 17 year old Renato Sanches, who was making his first team debut. Next up was the league opener at home against Belenenses. Debutant, and new signing, Cristian Pavon scored in the 61st minute, to win us the game, 1-0. Samaris claimed man of the match. We played Guimaraes away and won with a convincing 0-3 victory. Talisca, Jonas and an own goal meant a second victory in the league. Our next match was a slip up against Nacional da Madeira. They were very hard to break down and a fluke goal meant that we slipped to a 0-1 defeat.



August was a very busy month in many aspects and September shows no signs of slowing down! Tricky games include Sporting away in the league, Steaua at home and Galatasaray away, both in the Champions league.The current squad looks like this...



#ForcaBenfica

Someone certainly has been reading the FM wonderkids list ha! I can never seem to be able to bring in Mammana no matter how much I try, always ends up at Chelsea for me, good luck with this!

2016-01-27 22:54#225294 Griffo : Someone certainly has been reading the FM wonderkids list ha! I can never seem to be able to bring in Mammana no matter how much I try, always ends up at Chelsea for me, good luck with this!

I also tried to sign Kristoffer Ajer but he went to Real Madrid! Thanks for the feedback mate, I appreciate it.

Monthly report – September 2015

Patchy form
We began September with an away trip to Sporting on the 11th. Our rivals took the lead in the 19th minute via Carlos Mane but new signing Cristian Pavon continued his impressive form with a goal in the 72nd to level it up to 1-1. Eliseu picked up a stupid red card one minute into injury time. I gave him a warning to make sure it didn’t happen again. Next up was our first game in the Champions league against Steaua. Samaris opened the scoring in the 17th minute but the Romanians pulled one back with a scrappy goal. Jonas restored our lead in the 24th, and Nico Gaitan curled home a free kick late on to seal an impressive win. On the 19th we travelled to Moreirense. We met expectations with a 1-4 victory. Goals from Jonas, Gaitan and a standout performance from Goncalo Guedes, with 2 goals and a man of the match award. Next in the league was a bore draw against Uniao Madeira. Bruno Zucilini opened his account for Benfica in the 23rd minute, but Madeira equalised just before half time. The match ended 1-1 after a poor second half. Eliseu picked up yet another red card. 3 minutes into injury time! He clearly hadn’t listened to me so I fined him 1 week’s wages. He immediately came back to me and complained. I told him that it wasn’t open for debate and he should respect my authority. The team called a meeting and I had to withdraw the fine for the sake of squad harmony. Our next game was an absolute joke. We lost 4-0 away to Galatasaray. Once again, the problem was trying to use the control tactic against big teams. I will address the problem as soon as possible. I might have one counter attack tactic for big teams and one control tactic for the rubbish teams in the domestic competitions.



Registration issues
At the start of the month we had to register our squad for the Champions league. Due to some farcical home grown player restrictions we had to leave out Mitroglou, Taarabt and Carcela. Mitroglou and Taarabt didn’t take it that badly, however Carcela seemed intent on making a fuss. I explained that I had to meet restrictions and offered my apologies. He accused me of `Handling it badly’. I lost patience with him and basically told him to `shut up and get on with his job’. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t take this too well. I put him up for sale and demoted him to the under 19s. He won’t be able to play any games as he is over age. Mehdi Carcela Gonzalez will never play for SL Benfica again at any level. How’s that for man management? Under the previous regime there seemed to be a sense of `player power’. This has now been eliminated and is now run as a dictatorship!

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Monthly update – October + November

Change in format
To speed things up a bit I have decided to post an update every 2 months of game time. I found that having to stop and type up a review after every half an hour was becoming quite annoying.

Results
We kicked off October against Maritimo. We bounced straight back from that embarrassment versus Galatasaray to win 4-0. Gaitan and Jonas with 2 goals each. Next, we played a semi-professional club called Barreirense in the cup. We spanked them 7-1 as expected. Raul Jimenez asked for more game time the day before the game. I played him and he scored 4 goals! In our next match against Arsenal, I told the team to hold on for dear life and try to hit them on the break. Jonas put us ahead in the 77th minute but Mertesacker scored a fluke goal in the 89th to steal a point. We failed to recover from this disappointment as we lost 0-1 at home to Arouca. As if to show off how inconsistent we are, we won our next game against 1st placed Porto, Jonas and Nico Gaitan with the goals to beat the league leaders 2-1.

Our first fixture of November was away at the Emirates. A Nico Gaitan strike meant nothing, as Alexis and Mertesacker (again) scored to take all 3 points. Another poor performance away at Tondela resulted in a 0-0 draw. Another Jonas goal meant we beat Belenenses 1-0 in the cup. In the Champions league, an 82nd minute equaliser for Steaua meant we went back to Lisbon with a point, and we currently sit bottom of group A with 5 points and -3 goal difference. In our last game of November, Goncalo Guedes returned from injury to score against Rio Ave and win the game 1-0. We enter December in 4th place. Porto are top, and lead Braga by 8 points.



Attitude problems
I seem to have fallen out with even more players. Earlier in October, Adel Taarabt failed to report for training. He agreed with me that this was unacceptable and he took his warning. However, In November he moaned about his lack of playing time. We had a long debate and I told him that no player is bigger than the club. He joined Carcela in the under 19s. Lisandro Lopez was the next to break rank. He also wanted more game time that I couldn’t guarantee him. We both agreed that he should be sold. He joined Mehdi and Adel in the under 19 squad. We might just have to make a new team just for people I’ve fallen out with at this rate! The press tried to get me sacked a few times. I told them I wasn’t fazed by rumours and would continue in my job. Benfica are a club with very high domestic expectations. We need to pick up more points if we are to keep this job.

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Monthly report – December + January

First of all I want to apologise for not posting for a while. I had lots of other things going on and couldn’t find the time. Anyway, on with the report!

Transfers!
January saw a new year and a new transfer window! An opportunity to fire up the sawmill and clear out the deadwood! The first of these rotten lumps of wood was Lisandro Lopez. Not a bad player by any means, but his chances were limited. He left to AC Milan for £4 million, a great move for all involved. Next up was our old friend Mehdi Carcela. He left for Greuther Furth on a free transfer. Another old mate of ours was Adel Taarabt. Lyon were the latest team to waste their time and money on this Moroccan mercenary. The fee was £1.9 million.



I decided that I needed to strengthen my midfield as we entered January. I spent £1.5 million on the versatile Dutch midfielder Tonny Vilhena. A bargain buy. Unfortunately he suffered a double hernia and was out for a number of weeks. I needed further improvements in midfield. This was an even bigger issue when Barca and Real came in with £18 million for Samaris. I rejected the bids with the hope that I might get lucky. However this was not the case, I accepted a £22 million bid from Real Madrid and my budget went through the roof. I managed to find German international and 2x Bundesliga winner Sven Bender for an incredible £4 million! I snapped him up and laughed at how cheap he was! I then signed Gueida Fofana. A talented, French box to box midfielder, who looked exactly like Samaris stats wise. At £3.8 million he was a solid investment. I also managed to snap up Andre Castro from the Turkish league and bring him back home to Portugal. However he used to play for Porto! That was the end of the transfer window. A few more youth players went out on loan and we made a profit of about £9 million.



Results
After that long winded explanation of the transfer window I will just pick out the key games from the fixture list. Our first big game was Braga at home. Gaitan and Guedes meant we won 2-0. Next up was Galatasaray at home. A 30 yard screamer from Wesley Sneijder meant we lost 0-1. Probably an unfair result, however we were out of the Champions League. We did however draw Manchester United in the Europa League! I have no idea how we lost 0-3 at home to Rio Ave. We took a roasting from the press but we soon shut them up. We went unbeaten for our next 10 games, Winning 7 of them. A standout fixture from these 10 games was our 1-0 win at home to Sporting. A Jonas penalty in the 81st minute sealed the victory, and meant we moved up to 2nd in the league on 44 points, 5 behind Porto, who have 49. Somehow, Estoril, who finished 12th last year are 3rd! Sporting are 5th. Ha!



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Sacked

We were beaten over 2 legs by a strong Manchester United team. This would clearly not be the year we broke the curse. I decided to simulate to the end of the season and begin preparing for next season. I noticed a pleasant email from the board to inform me of my immediate departure. We lost the league by 8 points and they had every right to sack me. Otto then decided to retire from football and move to New York. No one really knows what happened after that, however it is rumoured that Otto was on a 7 year contract at SLB, and had seen an incredible pay off.

This has been a great experience and great fun to write! I want to thank the people who took time out of their lives to read what I created, that is a fantastic feeling!

#ForcaBenfica