We were stale and happy in our first game after the Roma evisceration, and we lost 1-0 away to Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia. But the loss only seemed to jolt the team awake, and we started on a mind-spinning tear through the stratosphere of Serie A, beating Sampdoria (still technically our parent club) 1-0 away, drawing with Milan and Napoli at the Silvio Piola, and—sensationally—beating Juventus 2-1 in Turin. After a couple more wins against teams swimming against the relegation whirlpool, we were in fifth place in Serie A and scared of nothing on this earth. Instead of worrying about how to stay up, I was thinking about Europe. Actually, I won’t lie about this. I was thinking about the Champions League.
It didn’t last, of course. But before looking at what finally went wrong, let’s take a second to look at what went right. What happened was that some of the talented youngsters who’d started playing for the club at 17 or 18 were turning into legitimate stars—Jacopo Sammarco and David are now both described by the game as wonderkids, and they’re both turning in higher average ratings in Serie A than they ever did in Serie B—at precisely the moment when our summer signings had blended into the team and when the team itself hit a fantastic vein of form. Everything went right (well, almost: Milan did steal an equalizer in the 95th minute after we’d led almost the entire match, but then drawing with the six-time champions wasn’t exactly a case of something going wrong), everyone played above their normal level, and all my tactical gambles (for instance, deciding to attack Juventus even when we were getting battered in our own half) seemed to pay off.
By midwinter we were overachieving to the point that I was the only manager in Italy whose job security was listed as “untouchable.”
Then our form disintegrated just as our injury problems returned: we lost Miguel José, David, Fabrizio Barone, Davide Rubino, and Paolo Galli for stretches of varying duration. None of the injuries were catastrophic, but our squad is so small and so thin that almost any substitution forces a huge drop in quality in the position it affects: when David goes down, for instance, he’s replaced by a “backup left winger” who’s actually a backup left back who was actually a dud for us in his proper position in Serie B. Spread that out across two or three positions a game and you have problems. And on top of all that, the team had gotten overconfident after defying expectations in so many games, and while that’s a relatively easy problem to deal with under most circumstances—just pile on the pressure in your team talks—the technique doesn’t really work when you’re a newly promoted team taking on Inter.
So the ground fell away, and we went through a spell that was as awful as our good spell had been brilliant. Actually, we still haven’t come out of it. Of the six matches since our 2-1 win over Atalanta on January 28, we’ve lost five (including another 1910 Derby with Inter) and drawn one; we’ve only scored twice in those games, and we’ve conceded nine. In other words, we’ve reverted to the form everyone expected of us at the start of the season.
As a result, we’ve fallen into 10th place with 11 games left to play—still a fantastic position relative to our preseason expectations, but a crippling blow to our brief midseason dreams of Europe. I wish I could see a way to turn things around, and I really wish I’d been able to bring in a couple of good central defenders in January (I couldn’t find any that I both liked and could afford), but at the moment I’m essentially just grinding through these results while waiting for everyone to get healthy. And hoping the team will click again when they are.
In the meantime, we have another source of instability to worry about, and this could be huge:
I guess this is what happens when you increase the value of a team by a factor of 25 over six seasons. Still, it’s alarming, especially since I’m not hearing anything else from the Vercelli Soccer Express and, untouchable or not, I seem to be completely frozen out of the boardroom gossip. I have no idea who’s in this consortium or what they intend for the club. The dangers are 1) that they’ll want to fire me and replace me with their own preferred manager (this happens); and 2) that the negotiations will entail a freeze on transfer activity, which could fall right in the middle of the summer transfer season. I’ve already had a search for feeder clubs put on hold “while the short-term future of the club is still in jeopardy.” I need to bring in strength in depth this summer, and I can’t afford to lose time while a bunch of bureaucrats try to figure out what to do with a decimal.
Read More: Football Manager 2009, Pixel Dramas, Pro Vercelli
by Brian Phillips · April 8, 2009
[contact-form 5 'Email form']
Fuck em Brian, I just watched a documentary about Cloughie, he wouldn’t stand for this mealy-mouthed red tape bullshit and neither should you. He also said “I don’t like the Germans cos they shot me dad”. Your Pro Vercelli success has inspired me to go down Tesco’s 24 hour and pick up a copy right now!
Brian, how has this season affected your bank balance? What are the financial implications of bringing to the top league a club with such low overheads?
I’m a much bigger fan of Against the Day than I am of Gravity’s Rainbow.
One book got the prizes, while the other is a much, much better read.
t’OM, it’s been great for our bank balance. Our revenue-generating powers are limited by the size of the Silvio Piola, but we’ve still brought in around €15 million, almost twice as much as last season. Our salary costs have gone up, since just about everyone on the first team had an automatic 25% promotion boost, and our overall expenses have gone up, too, but we’ve still made a profit of about €4 million on the year so far. And that’s despite having spent €3.7 million bringing in Arteaga and Galli.
The bank balance itself is around €8.6 million at the moment. But the biggest gains are probably in less obvious areas like the valuation of our players (guys who would have sold for hundreds of thousands of euros last season would now sell for millions) and our sponsorship potential once our current deals run out.
The Vercelli Soccer Express is about to break the news that ‘l’allenatore americano’ has threatened privately that he won’t be around much longer if the situation isn’t resolved quickly. It was actually his wife who did all the talking, but the message stands.
While it would be extremely anti-climactic, it would be the perfect ending for these modern times if your career finished at the hands of scheming new owners…
In that case, hello, era-appropriateness…
I had a similar take-over experience when I managed Leeds after 2 consecutive promotions.
There were annoying voices that new owner would have changed the manager in charge, but all my team supported me and then I retained my job.
So don’t you worry, no chances they could fire a successful manager as you are.
To: brian.phillips@provercelli.it
From amare.stoudemire@liverpoolfc.co.uk
Subject: Don’t Be Worried
Dear Brian,
The first season after Rafa decided to move to Kyoto and spend his time studying Zen gardening was rough. We started off well but nagging injuries to Gerrard and Torres prevented team from Gelling. Ryan Babel and Xabi Alonso formed a partnership that kept us in the top four, but Man City was biting at our heels. Babel is playing so well in January that on a lark I decide to ask him to recommend a player for me to take a look at in the transfer window. He recommended Axel Witsel, a 19 year old from Liege who looks to be by all accounts a smarter, slower, right footed Babel.
I spend the rest of my transfer money overpaying Inter for Davide Santon–already nearly as good as Arbeloa, more athletic, and oozing with upside. Everyone stays healthy. The team starts to Gel. Torres decides to make up for lost time and scores 17 goals in 21 games. We pass Man United and Chelsea and are nipping at Arsenal’s heels in mid-march. Just before our first Champions League Quarterfinal tie, our takeover bid was announced.
Our team’s morale made human-shaped holes in the concrete floor of the away locker room at Old Trafford. We played with no chemistry, and we lost 2-0. Over the following two weeks we were tenuously on form and somehow managed to keep pace with Arsenal to until we saw Man United in the Champions League at Anfield. We came out on fire and hammered United 5-0. We draw Inter the next round.
And again, the drama came. A RUMOR came out that I was going to be replaced the week of the first tie with Inter. The same things happened at the San Siro, except the score is 3-0. Again, two weeks passed before they came to Anfield, the team settled down, and we crushed them 4-0 in front of the home crowd.
The sale went through with two weeks left in the Premier League Season. Multiple names were being mentioned as my replacement, and it galvanized the team. We won our last four games and stole the title out from Arsenal’s nose. We lost to the Dutch National Team featuring Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos that is Real Madrid in Rome, but the new owner, a die-hard Liverpool fan himself, saw something special was taking place.
Instead of firing me, he doubled my salary, told me me he expected nothing less than a repeat next year and gave me SEVENTY ONE MILLION POUNDS to spend in the transfer market.
You can find the Liverpool roster on the google, to be sure, but I would like you instead to imagine what you would do with that amount of money.
After a 23 match unbeaten streak in the Premier League, he’s given me another 40 million pounds to spend in the winter window. I’m staring at it, wondering what he expects me to do.
Suffice to say: You’ll keep your job, the fans won’t let you leave. If you’re lucky, your new owner will give you more money than you could possibly imagine making doing the thing you love, he will build you a new stadium and upgrade the team’s facilities. And if you’re very lucky, he’ll give you an even more obscene amount of money to build your dream team with. You’re in the dark right now, and understandably, you are scared. But, my friend, the light at the end of the tunnel can be very bright.
Pro Vercelli are a favorite in Liverpool,
Amare Stoudemire
First of all, let me say that this is easily one of the three or four coolest emails I have ever received from Amare Stoudemire.
Secondly, paine and Amare, I hope you guys are right. I’d be surprised if the consortium looking to buy Pro Vercelli had huge amounts of money to spend on it. But assuming I stay in the job, I’d be satisfied if they’d just hire a couple of groundsmen to re-lay the pitch.
Thirdly, the idea that Rafa’s next move might involve Zen gardening seriously helps to put Liverpool’s performance yesterday in perspective. On the one hand, yes, they lost. On the other hand, they played with the motionless tranquility of freshly raked sand. Which has to count for something.
What does this sort of success take?
Pro Vercelli inspired to start playing this again. The last time I’d played a football manager game it was still called Championship Manager, success relied largely on persuading PSG to sell Ronaldinho, and the most graphic excitement was the flashing GOAL sign.
Needless to say things have changed a bit. I’m concerned that I don’t have the time (or dare I say it skill/knowledge) to fine-tune the tactics the game desires.
Nevertheless I will soldier on and continue to enjoy the exploits of Barone and co. and best of luck with your job. Perhaps a grass pitch rather than arugula swamp could be forthcoming from your potential new owners?
I didn’t even know that Liverpool had signed Stoudemire. Detached retina, be damned!
You only need one eye when you can rely on Gerrard and Torres alone for an average of 45 goals a season and have the best non-Iker-Casillas goalie in the world anchoring your back line.