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

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I didn’t sleep well tonight… Something was unsettling me… There was something I have wanted to change in my team since some months ago and I was starting to think that this was the right time to do that…

I woke up at 6 a.m. For one that is on holiday, it was a little bit early… I had my breakfast and then I catch the little blackboard I have in my studio and started to sketch something on it… I wanted a two-strikers tactics, this was the starting point! I had already tried a 3-5-2 sometimes in the past seasons, but I don’t feel comfortable with only 3 men in my defense…


Then, the next point was to have 4 men in the defensive line… Done! Now, 4 players remained to be placed on the pitch… I had a look at my squad and I realized that I had no players that could play as side midfielders, but I had very strong offensive wings such as El Shaarawy and Trabelsi, or Jovetic and Fierro that could play there… I didn’t want to give them up, then I placed the two wings on the sides of my tactics… Two players still to place…

In these 3 seasons I became to love the role that the defensive midfielder played in my game style, then I didn’t want to give it up too… Ok, now it’s ready! It will be an asymmetric 4-2-2-2!


‘Mmm… Very offensive man… Are you sure that you can win something with this tactics?!?’ was the first feeling I had looking at the board… Then I called my two favorite consultants to a meeting at my place: my assistant manager Mauro Tassotti and the U20’s manager Filippo Inzaghi.


I had a discussion with them. We agreed that the tactics could work, but we had to be careful about the instructions to give to each player, assigning to the 4 defenders and to the man in front of them a defensive mood, leaving the attacking phase to the four offenders and giving to the central midfielder the crucial role of supporting both the phases.

We also decided that the 4-3-3 that we used as main tactics in these 3 seasons and the 3-5-2 would have been the other two system plans to be trained during the upcoming season.


As soon as they left, the time to study the next season squad came. Changing the tactics mean that you have also to change something in your squad! Some ideas came to my mind… Some crazy ideas…

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Po’, Burkina Faso.

Welcome to the first episode of Gazzetta Young Talents Scouting, our column devoted to the U21 talents all over the world! In this first episode I want to tell you the story of a young guy from Burkina Faso that, thanks to the help of one of the most interesting managers in the football world, is becoming has become one of the most interesting young striker of Spain, and maybe Europe: Issa Yameogo.
The story of the young Issa starts in Po’, a 50,000 city in Burkina Faso, on January 12, 1997. That day a local rice cultivator, Mwaka, and an English woman, Catherine, daughter of a merchant, gave birth to their first and unique son, Issa himself. The English origins of his mother let Issa grow up with an average quality of life, despite the increasing poverty of his country. Since the first year of his life, Issa showed his love for football, playing in his city’s streets together with his young friends. At the age of 12, during a match with his friends in a free ground in the center of the city, a scout of Racing Club Bobo-Dioulasso saw him and got impressed by his qualities, offering him a trial. This was how Issa entered the world of football in 2009.


In 2012, the Oviedo’s net reached somehow Burkina Faso, where Issa came to the eyes of Los Carbayones’ scouts. The young and newcomer manager Stefano Gagliardo, trusting his scouts, decided to contact the father of the guy, Mwaka, and to offer him the possibility to go to Spain to let his son become a professional footballer. Even if standard international football law prevents the possibility of an U18 African guy to be signed by a European team, thanks to a bureaucratic exception dealing with his English passport, Issa could join Oviedo in January 2013, at the early age of 16.

Issa did not take too much time to show his qualities in the Oviedo U19 team. Gagliardo was that impressed about the guy that he let him debut one month after his arrival at the Spanish side. His performance was so convincing that he started to be regularly in the first team call-ups, ending his first season with 17 appearances, during which he could score 9 goals that helped Oviedo to obtain his first promotion, winning the Segunda Division B1.

In the three seasons spent in Oviedo so far, Issa collected 93 appearances, scoring 55. Few months ago Oviedo’s legend, Diego Cervero, the only one who could score more than Issa in the last three seasons (83 goals), in an interview to El Periodico de Oviedo said: “Issa has all the qualities to become my heir here at Real Oviedo. He is a complete forward, that can score in every way and give assists to his team-mates.” To the same newspaper, his manager Stefano Gagliardo said, at the end of one of the last matches of the last season, that “one of the main qualities of Issa is that he can play both as the target striker and as the deep-lying forward, a quality that no many players around Europe has.”


Being only 19, Issa Yameogo is one of the hottest European prospects and is a regular of the English U21 team, with 9 caps and the impressive amount of 15 goals! Next year he will be for sure one of the protagonists in Oviedo’s adventure in the Champions League and we are all looking forward to see how this young guy from Burkina Faso will manage this new situation…

The three Flying Dutchmen: from left to right, Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit.

Welcome back to our column devoted to the U21 talents all over the world! In this episode we will be in Italy, where the history of this young center back is starting to be build. The Netherlands have always been a breeding ground for A.C. Milan, with players like Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Clarence Seedorf having built an important part of their careers there. The last arrival of the Dutch Milan’s family is named Tonny Hendriks.


Tonny was born on October 29, 1997 from a mid-rich family of the Kinkerbuurt neighborhood in Amsterdam, his father being a business man and his mother playing an average role in politics. He started to move his first steps in football with the FC Blauw-Wit Amsterdam, amatorial club that in the past gave rise to the career of Frank Rijkaard. In the early 2009, Tonny was noticed by the Ajax’s scouts and in April he signed a youth contract for the main Dutch team. In the four year with de Amsterdammers he failed to make a league appearance, but he distinguished in the youth teams as a very solid defender. Well-endowed, 194cm tall, Milan’s scouts noticed him and gave important reports to the new manager, Andrea Gagliardo, who contacted his agent Sjoerd de Graaf and agreed a move to Rossoneri in July 2013, with Ajax obtaining a 350,000 fee for youth preparation.

In the first season in Italy, the Dutch guy was the protagonist of the U20 league Group 1 victory of A.C. Milan U20 team and made his debut in the last matches of the season, after Milan having obtained the second league title of the ‘Gagliardo Era’, ending the season with 3 appearances.

Gagliardo got impressed by the qualities of this guy, gifted of very good aerial and tackling skills, and decided to have him in the pre-season to evaluate if he was worth of being in the first team for the season. Tonny showed to deserve an opportunity and Gagliardo kept him in his first squad, which he became an almost regular member of, with 27 appearances, during which he found also his first professional goal ever on August 23, in a match against Empoli.


On January 23, he made his debut with Holland main team in a match against North Ireland, first of the two caps up to now with the main Holland national team so far, after 21 caps and 1 goal with the U21 squad.

Everyone is expecting him being a regular of A.C. Milan and Holland national team in the next future, maybe from the upcoming season on. A.C. Milan fans are waiting for their new Flying Dutchman…

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If I look back to the last 10 days I can’t believe what happened…

After having decided my new tactics for the next season, I had to make some decisions on who was going to leave due to the changed playing style. Two players were already on the move out: Raul Albiol and Giampaolo Pazzini had already shown their willing to leave due to the few number of minutes spent on the pitch. I was not disappointed of letting them go as they were not in my future plans… I added to my transfer list three other names: Riccardo Montolivo and Kevin-Prince Boateng were not going to have room in my squad as the number of midfielder is going to decrease from 3 to 2, with the former also turning 31, while Mbaye Niang is young, is a really good player, but I am going to use El Shaarawy and Fierro as right wings and it should have been bad to him to stay on the bench (if not in the stands) for the whole season… Moreover, I saw a good occasion to make a lot of money from his transfer…

In the 21st century news travel fast and as soon as I communicated my intentions to let them leave, I received a call from FC Porto’s director of football, Antero Henrique, who showed his interest in Albiol, Montolivo and Niang… “Do you want to create a new A.C. Milan in Portugal man?!?” I asked, and he answered “Looking at your results, well, it would not be bad…” Kind words to hear… Well, I gave him the prices I set up for the players: 18M€ for Albiol, 25M for Montolivo and 45M (despite a release clause of 50) for Niang. The sums were high, I thought he was going to tell me I was crazy! Instead, he said he was ready to satisfy my requests for the first two, while he could not for Niang due to the budget constraints he had, but he was ready to offer me 39.5M€… But how much money does FCP have?!? Of course, I told him that he had my consensus to speak with the first two, while I was going to think a little bit more on his offer for the French guy.

The next day I was ready to call him back to tell him that he could also speak with Niang’s agent, when I received a fax from London: Arsenal was ready to offer 45M€ for Niang! Oh my God! I obviously answered them to speak with the guy before they changed their mind! And I rejected the Porto’s offer, as well as the one that came few hours later from another Portuguese team, Sporting, that were offering me 38.5M€. And in the meantime, they were offering the same amount for Albiol, so that they obtain the right to speak with the player’s agent. In the same hours, Roma offered me 14M for Montolivo, offer rejected.

I was starting to think that no one was interested in Pazzini and Boateng when I received a fax from Valencia regarding the former: they were offering 13.5M€ despite my starting price of 15M, with 11M€ payable in 3 years. I decided to accept their offer as the agent’s player showed the intention of Giampaolo to move to Valencia.


In the end, Albiol and Montolivo moved to Porto for a total amount of 43M€…



Niang moved to Arsenal, for 45M€ plus a clause that ensures me the 35% of their gain on his next transfer…



Pazzini moved to Valencia for 13.5M€…



For a total amount of almost 100M€! Gained in less than 10 days! With those transfers I doubled my transfer budget that grew up to 202M€, with the remaining wage budget increasing to more than 27M€. The club is becoming richer and richer… And the nice thing is that I am not intended to use that money…