The second Renaissance of Florence DISCONTINUED

Hi and welcome to my first story & indeed post on this website (you will have to excuse me if this is a tad boring and lacks banners etc! Firstly, a bit about myself. I've been loyally tallying up the hours on FM since 2006, spending hours tweeking tactics, tearing my hair out at missed penalties and fist pumping at 90th minute winners. I have a general philosophy in football in attractive attacking whilst maintaining possession, to an extent (I actually don't enjoy watching Barcelona). Workhorse midfielders and creative attackers, alongside attacking wing backs are central to my game. I also like to keep a tight lid on finances. Anyway, lets crack onto the story!
At the end of each month I will do a monthly overview with a match report on one and then a few notes on the others. A brief, overall summary with results, board confidence, the league table and star players will be at the bottom of each post.

ACF Fiorentina


Background
ACF Fiorentina, affectionately known as Viola due to their purple kits, are a Florentine club founded in 1926. They play and have played at the 47290 capacity Estadio Artemio Franchi since 1931, with its most recent redevelopment coming in for Italia '90.

In the 50s and 60s, Viola were an Italian powerhouse regularly finishing in the top 5, winning their only two league titles in 1956 and 1969. Indeed most of their professional existence has come in Serie A, with only 4 teams playing more Serie A matches. In 2001, this famous old club was forced to declare bankruptcy as they were in huge debt and couldn't pay this bills and so was relegated so the fourth tier. In 2002, Diego Della Valle bought the club with the aim of clearing the finances and re-establishing them as a top flight team. That season they won the Serie C2 with consummate ease and due to a re-shuffle of leagues, gained access to the Serie B which they then again gained promotion back into Serie A from. Despite a promising resurgency into Serie A, with the highlight a champions league run in 2008/9, they have once again been showing signs of decline with their last league position coming in at 13th.

However, all is not lost - an investment from Della Valle to bring in Guiseppe Rossi, Alberto Aquilani, Borja Valero and Stefan Savic amongst others to add to the likes of Jovetic, Pasqual, Camporese and Ljajic has brought together a talented squad capable of some fantastic ball play and with some young talent. The stage is set for a talented manager to come in and take this once great team and bring them back to power - much as the Renaissance era Italian artists brought back the beauty of Florence herself.


Acknowledgements
Much thanks for Glenn T for giving me advice on my first ever story - and telling me how to make it readable.
Thanks out to WeAreFev for his advice on putting easy match result photos in for the casual readers.
Thanks to Devil. for the Gazzetta banner & joethequin for the boardroom banner.

1

1

A New Era & The Pre-Season
Staff
My first move was to assess the staff - I believe a good backroom is central to any team hoping to be successful. I also dislike the 'Italian way' of overpaying staff in just about every area of the club and so found myself releasing every member of staff outside of u20 Manager Leonardo Simplici, Coach Gianni Vio, Youth Coach Federico Guidi and Chief Scout Eduardo Macia - all of which I gave new contracts extending them onto 2017.

I brought in former Athletico Director of Football Paolo Futre, and former Bayern Head of Youth Development Werner Kern as my two key backroom members which I saw as a coup given their ability and history. I signed Giovanno Bucaro as my assistant - he will also be handling Reserve Matches.
In the Coach department I signed Sergio Zanetti from Inter, and Massimo Bonini, Tulio Gritti and Marcel Lucassen on free transfers and quickly got them studying for licences. My Youth Coaches that I brought in were u20 AM - Bruno Conca, and u20 Coaches' Fabian Calcaterra and Goran Djorovic.
At GK Coach I signed Italian legends Franco Tancredi and Marco Onorati and in Fitness Coaching I brought in former Chelsea coach Antonio Pintus and the Brazilian Anselmo Sbraglia.
I signed a somewhat average Head Physio in the form of Luciano Dati but only on a 2 year deal so I can terminate his contract and replace him at a later time. My other Physio's were Daniel Lasfargues, brazilian Lenoardo Reis and promising Italian Armand Cistero.
In the scouting department, I filled up with 6 average scouts from around the world on £500p/w contracts with 3 year deals to boost my knowledge, and Sidnei Lobo on a 5 year deal at £750p/w with any serious scouting to be done by him.

And so we have my backroom - my training (General - Team Cohesion ; Match - Attacking Positioning) now looks like this.


All coaches have a 4.5* potential at the least, more than satisfactory for my team as many are already studying for Continental licenses.

Tactics
My main tactic is a controlling 4-3-2-1 where I seek to impose on smaller teams by keeping the ball and playing my way into the box; my ST, Jovetic, will drop deep and join in the play whilst remaining my main goal scoring threat along with my WBs getting involved. For larger teams I play the same formation but on the counter, with my AMs looking to sit in the hole rather than sit back and full backs staying back. I also use 3 shout options depending on whether I want to keep the ball, attack or sit back. (If this tactic works for a season I will post it online - if you want to try it out let me know and I will send you it)


Players
I assessed the team myself, then looked at the assessment of my new Assistant and found that there were several dead-weight players, un-required and expensive loanees' and a lack of depth in many positions. Annoyingly I see Cassani and Vargas, two players who would fit perfectly into my system, on the bench.

To counter this I released all loanees' with the exception of Viviani, my keeper (although I plan to slowly bring Neto in), and put Comper and Roncaglia up for loan with a recall option so I can sell them in January. I also released Lupatelli, an aging GK in my Reserves. I then placed Futre in charge of selling senior players I list and Kern in charge of selling or loaning my youth players.

I signed several free players - firstly Goulon on a £8000p/w contract as a solid back up BWM. Secondly Zanetti on £1500p/w with a 20 game extension clause as a back up DLP, Akos Buzsáky on a £6000p/w deal with the extension clasue as AP back up and Simon Vukcevic on a 3 year deal on £7500p/w.

Goulon is a young French DM who can play CM and serves as a good back-up to my first choice who will be mentioned later. Zanetti has played for Fiorentina twice before and brings Champions League and International experience to the team. Buzsáky is a solid back up CM with BPL experience last year and good passing - then finally Vukcevic is a great back up until Rossi is fit in the New Year and for a free his has very good attributes. He also adds to the Montenegran camp with Joevetic and Savic - he did exceptionally well in the pre-season.


My first money signing was Maxime Gonalons, a young French DM who has recently broke into the first team - he joined on around £30000p/w which is well within my strict self-imposed budgetary controls - and is looking like a bright player for the future with a 4* potential and already a key player for my team.


I then persuaded a 15 year old French ST from OGC Nice, Neal Maupay, to join me on a free (with £1.3 compensation) on a 4 year deal worth £4000p/w with clauses. This was a real coup and he has a 5* potential and already brilliant stats - if the dreaded day comes when Jovetic does hand in his transfer request, hopefully Maupay can step in.


On loan I took Spaniard Xabi Castillo for a price of £7000p/w with a buyout clause of £600000 which if I receive any money during the season, will maximize on as he is a great player for low wages. I also took in De Sciglio as a back up for LB and RB as a result of a 3 month injury to my best LB Pasqual and to RB Romulu.


Going into the first pre-Season matches - this is how my squad looked. Many of my players were, in my opinion, very underrated!

1

Pre-Season Fixtures


The End of the Pre-Season - Issues with Jovetic & over the Captaincy

The day after my final friendly, Jovetic announced that he wanted a big move and I had to promise him qualification into the knock-out rounds of the ECL from this season - a target which I believe do-able, though admittedly I had only targeted the Europa League for next season.

In the commencing days I loaded my player rewards with a high bonus for a Serie A peformance and a low bonus for cup success. Ideally I would like to place both high, however Viola are a team in debt and I realise we need to save money. My next move was to formerly introduce myself as Head Coach to which the whole squad reacted well. I then went onto sort out who would be taking my set pieces and changed my captain. My initial captain was Manuel Pasqual who was injured for 3 months and as you will see had low stats - and so I changed it to who I believed was the ideal candidate Gonzalo Rodriguez who brought age and determination to my squad.

At this news half of my teams morale dropped to low, with Viviani and Jovetic going to very low as they both believed they should have been captain. Despite their protestations I stuck to my guns as Viviani is a loanee and will hopefully be second string by the end of the season to the promising Neto (who Inter and Milan keep annoyingly co-ownership bidding for, I hate co-ownership) and Jovetic is only 22 and has lower determination - I also prefer defending or goalkeeping captains who can bark orders from the back and just get the job done.

1

1

Match Day 1 & September Review
My first month in Serie A has been eventful to say the least playing 5 games (with Inter included) obtaining 3 wins, 1 loss & 1 draw. Coming into this month 5 players were missing through injury which I was ok with - with a few bad ones such as Zanetti for 3 months and so I decided to Sign in Papa Bouba Diop as back-up.

1

1