Book of Torino F.C.

Hello and welcome to my first ever Football Manager story. For my first time story, I already chose a team, and as you can see from the club’s logo above, I will be doing a managerial career in Torino Football Club (Torino from hereby on), a Serie A club based in Turin, Italy. Football fans mostly know Torino based on their rivalry with Juventus, who currently dominating Italy’s football. Also, because of the beloved England National Team’s goalkeeper Joe Hart is having a surprising loan spell in the club.

But, after reading their wikipedia’s page thoroughly, I found that they were once a dominating team in Italy, especially nearing World War II. Until, Superga air disaster happened, which killed all of the main players of the team that nicknamed Grande Torino. Since then, they have been in ups and down in Italy’s league system. In 2015/16 season, they managed to finish 12th, which was suspected from a mid-table club like them. But it bounds to change, with me as their manager.

I will be doing this story on monthly (in-game) review, so I hope I can cover most of the things in an in-game month.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to comment.

Good luck with them the Super Ga team were incredible so hopefully you can get another team up at the top level for Torino

2016-11-23 10:57#238980 ninjaskill : Good luck with them the Super Ga team were incredible so hopefully you can get another team up at the top level for Torino

thanks!

this is gonna be interesting to read, since i did a 2 seasons at torino

2016-11-23 17:55#238986 itsZdan : this is gonna be interesting to read, since i did a 2 seasons at torino

If you have any suggestion, don't hesitate to share with me and everyone else

For the database and playing league, I chose England, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and (of course!) Italy. The reason behind choosing these leagues (beside Italy as the main league) are because of the players I think I can buy from, and I’m thinking that I will buy lots of players from transfer and loan list. So these leagues will help me to find those players I need to bolster the squad. The database will be on Large and I might add/remove leagues while playing. I will mention if it happens.

Before I continue on, I just want to tell you that I’ve been playing Torino in FM16 for two season before buying FM17, so keep in mind that I have some knowledge of the club.

Without further ado, let’s get started!


For the sake of the game, I’m Italiano who born in Turin, which makes me a local boy. I “said” that I’m “relishing the opportunity to manage at Olimpico” and you know what, I’m more than excited to see the prospect of Torino under my management.


This is our current state. We have 3.5 stars of both of our Training Facilities and Youth Facilites, which is decent. As far as I remember, Torino has lots of potential youth prospects from their academy. I think we can use some of the young players in the latter stages of the game. I might improve the Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment to max out the youth system that we currently have.


This specific message, who comes from our Director of Football, Gianluca Petrachi, was confusing at the first glance. After reading some articles somewhere else, I can understand this specific part.

So, basically, the squad rules are similar to the one in English Premier League, where there should be maximum of 25 players registered for each club (not including U-21 players), 4 of them must be club-grown player and 8 of them (including the 4 club-grown players) must be nation-grown. This happened since last season (with exclusion of 4 club-grown players rule). In addition to that, since 2003/04 season, there are some restriction to sign non-EU players from abroad. Each team can sign maximum of 2 non-EU players, except for teams who has less than 2 non-EU players at the end of the season, which they will get 3 non-EU quota. (click ‘rules’ for the understanding of the non-EU quota).

In our case (as pictured above), we already signed one non-EU player, that is Serbian Sasa Lukic. I also noticed that Lukic is already capped 5 times for Serbia U-21, which he is now one of the non-EU players that will be counted towards the end of the season.

Talking about players, let’s have a look at current squad players and report.


We have three loanees in the form of Falque, Hart and Leandro Castan. The latter two has no buying clause, while we can buy Falque for €5m in case we need him next season. We also have two long term injuries (from 7 weeks to 3 months injury) in Danilo Avelar and Ajeti. The latter is a new signing, probably brought in exchange of Kamil Glik who moved to AS Monaco.

The team is mixed of young, spirited and old, experienced players, which I don’t mind a little bit. And because of the rules that I mentioned above, the team now has lots of Italiano, which helpful, but only three of them are club-grown, Arreca, Aramu, and Boye (note: I wonder why Boye is club-grown, as he just arrived at the club this season as part of the non-EU rules). They are, fortunately, still counted as U-21 players so they don’t need to be registered. Unfortunately though, that makes us having no senior club-grown players, which makes me have to empty 4 slots so that I can manage within the rules. Players that I need to offload or buy will be depending on my tactic, which I present it to you right now.


This is the tactic that I will use for the upcoming season, with other two that I keep hidden for now. As you know, 3 defenders formations become a favourite in Italy, especially because there are lots of managers that using the tactic. I also used this tactic when playing Torino on FM16, and because the squad depth are helping with this formation, I’m going to use it for the time being. This tactic I use is from AlvaroRecoba in FM Base. While the season going, I might change here and there to find the perfect recipe for the players I have. Also, those names are probably the starting lineup that I will use throughout the season, if they are inform or not having any injuries. I might change Bovo/Rossettini for Ajeti if he fits after his injury healed. Meanwhile, I probably try to bring one more center-back for a backup as I currently only have 5 CBs in the first team squad. On other positions, the depth is quiet nice, but with this formation, Falque and Ljajic (who are both attacking wingers) won’t have a place, unless they are trained in different position. Both can play as strikers up front, and I’ve decided to trained Falque as central midfielder, just in case we need depth in the particular position.


Here is the budget that I currently have right now. With a little bit of tweaking, I might have less than €2m in the bank, which isn’t nice, because, as I said, I need a backup CB for the depth. I might looking at Free Transfer while try to offload some players by selling (to get more transfer budget) or loaning young ones (to reduce the wage budget, which can be sent to transfer budget).


This is the staff that I currently have right now. I will keep them as I tend to let them stay in the club until their contract expiring. I don’t want to use money just to fire them even though they are probably won’t help me as much as I need to.


This is the amount of staffs that we have currently, and what board wants us to have. Currently we have lots of coaches than what the board expect, which means we won’t have any of new coaches till it reach 4 for first team and 2 for both U-20 and U-18. In the other hand, we might need to hire some scouts as we only have 2 (including Chief Scout) and you know that 2 is not enough for a scout. Of course, I will look for free agents as I don’t want to disturb finances greatly.

So, this is the end of the overall overview of the team. Now let’s move to my target. What do I want to achieve with this save? What is my long term goals? What is my short term goals?

Well, for long term, of course it’s to achieve all possible trophies, including Serie A and Champions League. To do that, we have to fight against the domination of Juventus.

For short term, in the next two, three season, we need to get to European competition, preferably Champions League. That’s my main target for now.

For the next posts, I will do it in a in-game monthly review. While waiting, you can comment below to suggest whatever you think it’s appropriate for the saves, including tactic, players, etc.

Thanks for reading, and see you soon!

Vives held an average rating of over 7.00 with over 40 games per season, he is a great team captain and a very valuable player. make sure to use him!

2016-11-25 18:35#239039 itsZdan : Vives held an average rating of over 7.00 with over 40 games per season, he is a great team captain and a very valuable player. make sure to use him!

a little bit of spoiler: he's not on the team anymore i hope my decision won't bite me back

he was my best player up until he retired, score goal of teh season on S2...

Hello there, I’m back with July 2016’s monthly review. We started off the season on 9th of July, which also start of pre-season. We start Chapter 1 with target for 2016/17 season.


We only have two competitions to attend, Serie A and Italian Cup (a.k.a Coppa Italia). In the league, we are expected to be in the top half of the league, which is maximum 10th placed in the final table. Meanwhile, we will start Italian Cup from Third Qualifying round against one of Spal, Siena and Tuttocuoio. The low expectation from the board made me thinking that the squad is not ready yet to compete in European competition. Added with low budget that we get, it seems that the board wants us to play safe while peeking towards the Europa League spot, which is 6th place (if Italian Cup winner already hold European competition spot through league table). I’m trying to aim that much, although I’m kinda pessimistic with the squad we have right now.

Now, we move to Transfers. For this month, we loaned out two players and sold two players. In the other side, we managed to buy one backup central defender, as what I said in the Prologue.


Aramu’s natural position as Left Attacking Midfielder made him went on loan to Serie B side Latina. He won’t much fit on my system, unless he plays as a Striker, which we have lots of players waiting in line for the first team.


Different case with Obi, whom I want to offload, but with no luck. His position is also a Left Midfielder, which has no place in my current tactic, although he can play as Center Midfielder. We have lots of players on that position, especially those out-of-position players like Falque and Gustafson. Just a fun thing, social media react quiet well to Obi’s loan, which convinced me that this is the right choice.


Because there are abundance of central midfielder players, Vives, the real-life captain of Torino, made his way out to Atalanta (apparently, they are our rival) for €375k with added ons. He’s 35 years old and getting money from his sale made me happy. He’s also only a nation-grown player, which I have no objection to sell.


Same case with Moretti, 35 years old left full-back who also natural in central defender position. His old age doesn’t suit my style, even though Italy’s football always respect the oldies like Maldini and Totti. And I was happy to accept offer from the Russian CSKA Moskow, who offfered €550k with add-ons.


Meanwhile, we managed to buy Suagher, 23 years old Italian, from Atalanta. His fee basically end my spending moment right now, as I only left with less than €1m to buy people. I also realized that his fee was higher than it should be, but, I needed a backup for three central defender in the formation that we will use throughout the season and the young lad will greatly help us in squad depth.


Deadline transfer is still far away and I might looking into free transfer market again to find new players, in case there’s a long term injury or someone is sold again. To replace Moretti, as I put him as a backup central defender, I already approach two free agent players. I will choose only one of them as if we have too many CBs it’s not good either. Another reason is we cannot add more players to the squad unless he’s younger than 21, as we don’t have club-grown players, which means I need to emtpy 4 slots so that we can submit to the regulation.

While the transfer happened, we had two friendlies and one testimonial to play. One is away to Spain and one is home against Israeli team. The testimonial is for the home team ChievoVerona’s player, Sergio Pelissier, who started his professional career with us.


A decent performance, I think. Against Spanish side Hospitalet we battered them 4-1 as expected, with all the domination, beside the possession, as we played with ‘More Direct Passing’ instruction on. I was hoping that Belotti will be our goal machine, but it seems that he had a different role as he had in FM16, where he was a Complete Forward, but now he’s an Advanced Forward. Anyway in this match, Maxi Lopez scored a brace which is nice, as we need those strikers to score lots of goal, while Rossettini and Valdifiori’s goal came from a set piece situation. And as you can see below, our wing-backs in the shape of Zappacosta and Molinaro had each one assists, which made me happy as we need them to throw crosses into the box for more chances.


In the second match against Israeli Maccabi Tel-Aviv, I decided to rotate most of the team, as it’s held 4 days after the Hospitalet match. We managed to win anyway, with own goal to start and Martinez bragged a brace on the early part of second half. A surprising fact, that Martinez can brag a brace, as he was really not good enough on FM16. Without Immobile after his loan spell finished at the end of the season, I’m happy to see that we have two strikers that can scored goals. Still hoping that Bellotti will also start scoring, though.


Third match at ChievoVerona’s stadium for Pellissier’s testimonial, we lost a mere 1-0. As you can see in the picture below, I didn’t sub any of the players. You may ask why. It’s because I was doing something else, and there were less highlights as I’m using ‘Key’ for highlights, which mean I didn’t have the time to do the subs. I just realized that the game was nearing end when I wanted to change some players. Anyway we also didn’t dominating as last two matches, and I might have to tinker the tactic as ChievoVerona is also in the same league as us and this is not a good predicament for us.


In other news, we have injury news from Benassi, who will out for 4-5 weeks, in addition to the long term injury of Avelar and Ajeti. He will be a big miss for the preseason as he’s a potential box-to-box midfielder in the team and injury might deter his progress a little bit.


For the next month, we will have more friendlies, a cup match against either Spal 2013 or Robur Siena, and also two league matches. I decided to cancel a couple of friendlies as one is just one day after the cup match and one is too close to the first league match. Our first two league matches are against two just-promoted teams, so I hope we can win these two opening matches.


Okay then, that’s all from me today. If you think I missed something important, you can comment down below and I will put it onto the next post. See you in August monthly review!

Not much money to play around with. Solid player you bought in Suagher. Good luck with the start of the season.

2016-11-29 06:02#239122 Lumix : Not much money to play around with. Solid player you bought in Suagher. Good luck with the start of the season.

thanks!

Welcome back to Book of Torino F.C. This time it’s August 2016 monthly review. August means transfer deadline time, and also start of the season. Before we move to the matches we already played, let’s go to some news first.

We start with the squad numbers!


What do you think? Do Joe Hart worth to hold no. 1 shirt? He’ll be my first choice goalkeeper anyway. I clicked auto-numbering but most of the numbers didn’t changed much as I expected.


I decided to move on with this Normal bonus, as I don’t have much transfer budget to spend for upgrading the bonuses. I think it’s enough to motivate the players till the end of the season.

Let’s moving on to our chance in the league.


We are presumed by bookers to be on the 8th position, which is reasonable. I don’t think we can challenge for title, yet, as the manpower we have cannot cope with teams like Juventus, AS Roma, Internazionale and A.C. Milan. But I do hope to climb above Fiorentina and Lazio to at least get a chance in European spot in the league. Let’s make the dream happens!


So, with Vives and Moretti went to another club, we have to choose new captain and vice captain for the upcoming season. Lombardo suggested these two players to become the captain and vice captain of Torino for season 2016/17, and I don’t mind to follow it. So welcome the new captain and new vice captain in the form of Joe Hart and Valdifiori.

Moving on to transfer, we managed to replace Moretti in the central defender position in form of Borja Gomez, a free agent who was released by Spanish minnow Real Oviedo.


He’s perfectly fit the system we are using and also with his status as backup, I’m hoping that he won’t dwell much when he’s not on the lineup. His attributes are decent enough and I hope he will be performing well when we need him. Meanwhile, on the out, there are only some loans deal for the youngster to get first team football. And there aren’t any movement on the deadline day, as I’m already satisfied with the squad we currently have.

By the way, I already told about our opponent in Italian Cup, now we have a definite team to play with.


We will play agains Spal 2013 on the 14th of August. Well, it’s already played. So let’s straight into the fixtures in this month.


We have greens all over, although two of them are Friendly matches. We have one Italian Cup match against Spal, which match is my first ever match in my managerial career. Meanwhile, we have two opening Serie A’s matches against two promoted teams, Crotone and Pescara.


Against minnow side Varese, we managed to win 2-0 with our first team squad, just to make them having match fitness so that they can compete throughout the season. We also managed to overpowered Varese, although we only scored two goals. And of course, I always forget to change the players (because I’m using Key on viewing match, should I change into Extended?) After this match, I decided to rest majority of the starting eleven I used as few days later we were playing against Spal.


We won convincingly against Spal, and I’m happy to see Belotti scored a hattrick in this match. I hope he will continue his goalscoring form throughout the season. We have more chances and also managed to dominate them with shots, although I’m a little bit worried about our fouls. For the next opponent in the Italian Cup, we will play against Serie B side Latina.


Just saw in the screenshot that, if we win against Latina, we will be facing Fiorentina in the First Round. Interesting.


Against Boca Juniors at home, we managed to score one. As expected, my worries of fouls happened in this match, with lots of yellow cards flying from referee’s pocket. Unfortunately, in this match Maxi Lopez injured himself and he will be out for 6-7 weeks.


And in this match I decided to use second squad to add their match fitness and to ensure that the starting eleven had better fitness to play in our first match in Serie A against Crotone.


We managed to unconvincingly win against Crotone. So many shots happened but we only managed to score one with Belotti. We still got yellow cards, although same thing happened with Crotone as well. In this match, we have two injuries from Leandro Castan and Baselli, Although Leandro Castan just having couple days of injury, same thing didn’t happen with Baselli, where he got 3-4 weeks groin strain injury.


In our last match on August against Pescara away, we managed to bag a goal thanks to long effort strike of Martinez. He’s been performing well with Belotti as his partner in the front. In this match we almost being dominated by Pescara, but luckily we managed to hold our 1 goal advantage till full time. In other news, we still get lots of yellow cards, which still worries me a lot.


With two matches in Serie A, we have Martinez in the Serie A Team of the Month. He’s ever present for us in the front, and I hope he can continue to perform well so that we can achieve our goals.


For the next chapter, we will have lots of matches to play. We will face three big clubs, that are AS Roma, Internazionale, and Fiorentina. Wish me luck on those three matches, in addition to Sampdoria in the middle, and hope we can at least get a point from them.


If you have any advice, or you want to comment on players and such, don’t hesitate to comment on down below. See you soon!

Looking good right now and some quality wins!! Keep up the good work and please dethrone Juve.

Hello and welcome back to Book of Torino F.C. and we are now passing September 2016. So let’s see what was happened throughout September. We start with updates from our monthly review.




Board is happy for my performances thoroughout the month, especially big win against Spal in the Italian Cup. The negative point is only about Vives leaving, which is understandable, as he was the leader of the squad and missing him, in fans’ opinion, might left us barred. Meanwhile in finance situation, we are okay with them, although I predict that it will deteriorate in next months as we are not in European competition and there’s no much money given in TV deals.

Now, let’s move on to matches that we have been played.



3 wins and 1 loss. I would have not expected the form will be this good, especially with the players that we currently have and the team we were against. That one loss against Internazionale was very understandable, although, we should get at least a point out from them.



Against AS Roma, we managed to score one goal to win the match, thanks to Belotti’s strike. As you can see on the bottom left corner, the performance between two teams is similar and in the end, we won the match. Notice that Leandro Castan has a bad 6.4 rating, although he didn’t get any yellow cards and we kept a clean sheet. That’s why I subbed him off and put in Borja Gomez to the pitch.



We also won against Sampdoria away from home. Belotti scored once again and I’m personally delighted to see him scoring. To be honest, Sampdoria was dominating the scene, although the possession showed that no one was superior. And again, Leandro Castan got another 6.4 rating, albeit he got a yellow card as well. Another clean sheet meaning that our defense is solid and Joe Hart is one of the reason why.



Next up, we lost against Internazionale. It’s my mistake to rotate some of the players, as this match was on midweek and I forgot to rest my starting eleven for the Sampdoria match. I also decided to change Leandro Castan with Borja Gomez, because of the bad rating he had for last two matches. Ajeti was healed from his long term injury but not fit enough at that time so I chose Borja Gomez to start in this match. I also put Baselli in the starting lineup after he recovered from injury as well. Overall, we were even, but our team had too many fouls that I have expected before. I might change the tackling instruction if this situation still happening. And in the end, we conceded for the first time in the league.



We won against Fiorentina 2-1 thanks to the late goal of Benassi at injury time. Fiorentina really dominated us with their chances but in the end our subs did the wonder. I decided to rest some of players who played against Internazionale and also Ajeti was on the starting lineup after his long term injury.

We have played 6 matches in the league so far, so let’s see where we are currently in the table.



With 5 wins and 1 loss, we managed to be in the top of the table with Juventus lurking behind us with 1 point less. There still a lot of matches to be played and I think matches against Juventus will be the decisive moment for us. Meanwhile, looking at other team, Lazio and AS Roma are currently struggling in the lower part of the table.



For the October, we will have 4 weekend matches and 1 midweek match. I’m hoping that we can manage to grab some points from them, especially against Napoli in the first day of October and Sassuolo in the midweek game. We are now cleared from injury with the latest being recovered is Maxi Lopez.

That’s all from me. Please comment below for advice and suggestion, and see you soon!