[FM 13] The two manager brothers story...

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I am sat on my bench… We are facing Barcelona, it’s the 75th minute and we are 2-0 up… Ok guys, we can do it! They are attacking, but our defense is doing its duties and we are controlling them…
But… What’s going on?!? Iniesta throws a ball in the middle of our defense and finds Fabregas… Where the hell are my backs?!? Fabregas runs to the goal… and he scores! NOOO!!! Ok… We can still do it… I shout trying to focus my side…

The ball is in the midfield… The match starts again… Yameogo touch the ball to Adrian, then back to Romero… What?!? Messi steals the ball from that guy and runs to the goal… ‘Go on, face that guy!’ I shout… Without any result… Nobody seems to care about him, and he equalizes…

Ok, we have to keep it up and maintain the draw… We can do it! The clock is going fast, it’s the 90th now… 2 minutes of overtime given by the ref… Iniesta is attacking from the right, crosses the ball in… WHAAAT?!? The ref assigns a penalty to them! I shouted, I insulted him… What has he in his mind? Nothing happened in that damned box! He does not care about me… In a moment Messi is kicking the ball into the net… NOOOOOOOOO…

“NOOOOOO!!!” I shout in the moment I am waking up, sitting on my bed… ‘What happened? Was it only a nightmare?’ Chiara wakes up and hugs me, saying it is all ok… “I know my dear. I am sorry, go back to sleep darling, I go and have a glass of water before coming back to sleep.”

It takes some minutes for me to realize that that was only a nightmare, a nightmare after the dream that got realized some hours ago. Because in the real world, that match ended 2-0 and we defeated the greatest team on Earth! The adrenaline has joked at me and gifted me that nightmare…

Now I can have my glass of water and come back to sleep… With a smile on my face: that was only a bad nightmare… A nightmare after a wonderful dream…

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The new year has started well. We played 7 matches and we obtained 6 wins and 1 draw, in the 1st leg of the Coppa Italia’s quarterfinals, not influent as we won home in the 2nd leg. We are still two match back from the other team cause of the World Club Championship.
January is also month of awards, and I was surprised when I came to know that Radamel was not even in the first three of the World Golden Ball and Fifa World Player awards ranking: after that wonderful year, I think he deserved more consideration from the judgers…


Finally, January is also a month of transfer market, but not for us. I only tried one signing during those days: I offered 24M€ for the 22yo goalie Marc-André ter-Stegen, a really good keeper that could be the real future of the club in the role. Unfortunately, Barcelona equalized my offer and he preferred to join them.


So, the two youngsters Gerace and Vivacqua remained our unique movements in this transfer window.







Four played, four won. 12 important points to stay next to Juventus, that is now leading the league with only 2 points more than us… And we have 2 matches to catch up next month… Worth of mention is the goal of Garmash against Siena, that deserved the Goal of the Month award.





An incredible 2-1 victory, obtained in the last minutes of the match with the winning goal scored at the 6th minute of the injury time! I was ready to shout to my guys everything I had in mind, but they scored twice in ten minutes, overcoming the goal by Paloschi at the beginning of the second half.



The draw assigned us Catania, the easiest team in the box as the other two were Juventus and Inter. We didn’t play well in both the games, but the two goals by Fierro, one per match, were enough to go straight to the final.

Juventus defeated Inter 2-1 on aggregate and will be the last opponent between us and the cup.




He led us to the Coppa Italia’s final with two goals, and he scored another two in the league. Carlos perfectly substituted Falcao during his injury time and showed he deserves my trust.




Next month will be again really congested, this time due to the catch up of the match against Catania we are missing in the league. In the last days we also start again our adventure in the Champions League, with the last 16 match against Valencia.

A dreaming month! I don’t know what else I can say… We are in the Copa del Rey final against Barcelona… That we just defeated in the home league match! I am really excited!



The first thing to start from is the market. I think we did great in this month.

To the young Argentinian striker Cesar Luis Payer, that finally joined us after having been blocked almost two years ago, I added another young striker in the last hours of the market: Christer Lyberg is only 16, but he said to be a very talented guy and also Manchester United was interested in him. Another two guys joined us, two center backs: the Norwegian 15yo Karl Okland and the 18yo Irish Liam Healy.

But I felt I could also make some movements in the first team. I had a look at the transfer list and I saw two guys that could be really helpful to the team: Mateo Musacchio and Vicente Iborra were both unsettled at their teams, Liverpool and PSV, respectively, and were also available on loan. Then, I decided to loan them and to set up a buy clause on both of them, even if their wages are out of our budgets till now.

On the outgoing side, I let the youngsters Robert Papp and Michel Serge go out on loan: the arrivals of Musacchio and Iborra made their roles congested, so that I preferred to let them go away to have some space, to Levante and Monaco, respectively.

Also Urko Vera went out on loan, to Logrones: Racing, in fact, decided to cancel the transfer we agreed months ago and I decided to loan out him, even if he was ready to stay at our side, because I don’t think he has any future here.








We started very well smashing Granada, with Adrian being protagonist with two goals and 1 assist. Then we had the two matches in Sevilla, with 4 points obtained that are a great result against two important sides. Finally, the dreaming victory against Barcelona, even more special because we played at their same level for the whole match! A really incredible performance by my guys!

The league table says that we are 3rd! It’s unbelievable! We are 22 points away from the relegation zone, then it’s time to start thinking to some other objectives…





Granada was the opponent of the month, and we smashed them 3 times! Winning 4-0 on aggregate against them, we obtained the pass for the semifinals, where we were drawn against Espanyol, for sure the best opponent in the box: the other semifinal would have been El Clasico, Real Madrid-Barcelona!



A really incredible semifinal! We lost away in Cornellà cause of an unlucky own goal by Musacchio. But at home we won 2-1, the same result as the first leg, and the extra-time did not change exerythin. So, for the first time in my career, I had to face the penalty kicks. Where Gomes was great, keeping 3 penalties and gifting us the pass to the semifinal against Barcelona!





The young Spanish striker is once again my man of the month: he scored 4 goals and gave 2 assists to his mates, playing wonderfully in all the matches he went in the pitch.




After this congested month, the next one will propose us a little break, with only 4 matches to play, but two really difficult sides such as Atletico and Valencia to face.

With the fixtures becoming congested and tougher, I had no time to have a review on the previous month. But now that I have, I can say that I am proud of what we did in the last 60 days.




Despite a bad loss against Parma, and the two even worse draws against Chievo and Udinese, the victories in the other league matches led us to the top with 6 points more than Juventus.


Crucial has been the match against Bianconeri where, after having been down for the goal conceded to Fernando Llorente, we started to dominate completely the match, bouncing back and terminating with a 3-1 that left no words on our opponents mouths. After the match, Ronald Koeman, their manager, who is becoming a friend despite being on a rival’s bench, came to me saying: “You completely deserved that sir. You’re better than us, I cannot say nothing else…” Not bad for one that has been in the managerial world for less than 3 seasons…





We have also qualified for the quarterfinals in the Champions League, after having defeated Valencia in the 1st knockout round. We had a very bad time during the first leg, having been defeated 2-1 at Mestalla playing an ugly match. But we destroyed them in the second leg, scoring 4 times and being the only team on the pitch for the whole 90 minutes. They couldn’t handle us!


The draw assigned us Zenit for the next round: looking at the sides in the box, that was the best draw possible.





Stevan placed a raw of stunning performances in these two months, scoring 4 times and placing 3 assists for his mates. He is arrived at 10 goals this season, and I can be satisfied from his 7.35 average rating.


If I am satisfied from Stevan’s performances, how couldn’t I be from the ones of Tarek? The Tunisian guy is growing up day by day, and with 8 goals being Stevan’s backup is definitely confirming that he will be my regular in the future.




On the 18th of March Filippo Galli, my Head of Youth Development man, called me at 10a.m. excited. He said: “Andrea! Andrea! My friend, we have the striker of the future here on the pitch! Come here! Fast!” If Filippo, that has seen a lot of youths on that ground, calls you so excited, you can be sure that the guy is really good. I went out from my office to join him at the training ground. And well… I got surprised! For a 15yo guy, that Gianluigi Peruzzi had great physical qualities, a strength that helped him keeping away the opponents, and a really quality heading. And what a determined guy! I immediately ask him to join us after the training session, and he obviously agreed.


The other guys were average, but I decided to sign 4 of them as I needed some players for my U20 team. I also asked my scouting team to wonder around and have a look to the new intakes of the other teams, and they came back with the profile of a …yo center back named Raffaele Di Cesare, that was starting his first trainings with Napoli U20 team. Having faith in my scouts, I immediately informed the side’s president, Aurelio De Laurentiis, that I had the intention to have a talk with the guy to know if he liked to join us. The man inform me that, in case, the fee to pay for having the player was of 650K€. Di Cesare was glad of my interest and we agreed a 3 years deal starting from July.





The last matches of the league seem not to be a hard road to the league title, with only Inter and Torino being really difficult side to face, and Cesena as a tough opponent looking at their surprising season. This will let me focus a bit more on the Champions League, where we are facing the difficult challenge of defending our title.