We went to the San Siro with a lot on the line. It was the 1910 Derby, which made it a massive game in itself. With our season collapsing around us, we’d fallen to Genoa, but come from behind to beat Juventus at the Silvio Piola, meaning we still had an outside chance of finishing in seventh and taking the last UEFA Cup spot—but only if we could beat Inter. On the other side, Inter had opened a small lead on A.C. Milan at the top of the table, and beating us would guarantee them the championship. Here’s what happened.
Song clip: We Are Scientists’ cover of “Bang Bang Rock & Roll”
We went on to destroy Lecce 3-0 in our last match, but it wasn’t enough to keep us from finishing eleventh. That’s our worst finish in Serie A, and it brings an end to our run of seven consecutive seasons in which we finished higher than the season before. Dark were the locker-clearings as the players made ready for their holidays.
For some reason, the end of the season was delayed this year—the last matches were played on June 3—so this news came almost immediately after our final game against Lecce.
Wait a second…could it be? I hadn’t checked all year (why would I?) but we tended to be the least-penalized team in Serie A…
Yes! And…yes!
It’s a little humilating, getting excited about reaching the Europa League via the Fair Play draw (for the second time, no less) just one season after we finished fourth in Serie A. It’s certainly not what I expected at the start of the year. But it’s something to build on, it may keep some of our restless players happy, and at this point, we’ll take what we can get.
In any case, the crazy luck of having this happen twice (for what it’s worth, I’ve never qualified for Europe this way in any previous FM game, and now I’ve done it twice in three seasons) feels like proof that God is on our side. We deserve some sort of recognition for our soft-tackling ways, right? Though I may get around to turning some of those tackling sliders up next year. We’ve been punched in the stomach this season, and I feel like it’s time to hit back.
Read More: Football Manager 2009, Pixel Dramas, Pro Vercelli
by Brian Phillips · May 12, 2009
Congratulations, how does the team celebrate something like this? Do the players care how the team gets to the European League?
Also, what would have happened if Bari had fewer cards, can a team be relegated, but still get to play?
I was thinking about your collapses in the last 15 minutes and I wonder how your physios are. Because just one or two 20 physios can really change your condition scores especially when you’re playing 2-3 matches every week with europe and cup games. It might be as simple as the fact that you don’t have the depth to really rotate and send players out there who start with upwards of 94% condition at the start at all times.
But congratulations anyways on reaching Europe through the Fair Play lottery. And condolences on the loss, I’ve definitely been there, almost losing a UEFA cup tie my first season after being up by 4 goals, needing a rescue by the away goal rule.
The physio situation is REALLY FRUSTRATING. The two we have are very good, but the board won’t let me hire a third for some reason, even though I’m allowed to have 15 scouts and 20 coaches, even though I’m only using about 2/3 of my wage budget, and even though there are lots of great physios out there for just a few hundred euros a week. We’ve been in this stalemate for years. I keep offering contracts that the board then cancels at the last minute.
I’m not sure what threshold we have to cross before we’re allowed to have the same kind of medical care that every other Serie A club takes for granted. Inter and Milan have 16 physios between them.
While Pro Vercelli might not be progressing each year anymore, your videos certainly…the F1 thing was beautiful…
Liverpool will only let me have three, and we’re the 6th richest club in the world right now.
So who knows what the rationale of the owner is.
Brian–
What’s the wishlist for the summer?
The summer transfer window, rather.
If you can not get more physios, why not try getting more fitness coaches ? Ideally they should also have a bearing on conditioning players between games.
or why not terminate the contracts of the physios that you do have and then sign these “20″ physios?
shane — We celebrated by holding a bonfire on our practice pitch, into which everyone had to throw one memento from the season. I threw in the matchday program from the 4-0 loss to Milan; David, with a weirdly vengeful look, threw in the audiobook of Foucault’s Pendulum that I gave him for Christmas (it was instead of the Da Vinci Code DVD, so sue me). While this was going on, the PA played grim songs about dark deeds assembled on a mix by Jacob Larsen, who has a “Johnny Cash flipping off the camera” poster on the inside of his locker door. I didn’t catch all the track names, but I do remember this verse:
Afterward, we all pledged never to talk about what happened this season again.
sethu — My impression is that the only thing fitness coaches affect is the allocation of new ability points to the strength and aerobic attribute categories. I haven’t seen any evidence that they affect the players’ fatigue recovery between games. (I’m also not sure physios have that effect on non-injured players, for that matter, though I’d be thrilled to see evidence for either possibility.)
Stowe — Not much of a wishlist, actually. I’m still convinced that we have the team we need. I’d like to bring in a new striker, maybe a backup defender, and some promising youngsters for depth.
SP — That’s the thing; the two guys we already have are “20″ physios. I just want, say, six more of them.
Precisely, Fitness Coach would work on Natural Fitness ( this i guess determines the fatigue between games) Strength, Stamina and Work Rate (this i guess makes the players last the entire 90 minutes)
These are just my interpretations though.
By the way, Does your off season plans include tying “indispensable” members to long term deals ? Does this not make them more committed to the vercelli cause?
That was IRL cars are Indy, not F1. (F1 ran that course clockwise, while IRL runs the full oval counter-clockwise.) Also, the Penske IRL car was heavily featured.
Anyway, another awesome video! Do you do that for a living?
And who was the band? Sounded a bit like T-Rex, even though it wasn’t …
I should have read all the way to the bottom … ;-p
Sethu — All those attributes are part of the strength training category, where we have one decent dedicated coach (though we could use a better one) and a good assistant manager serving as backup. As far as I know, the only reason to have multiple coaches cover a single training area is to keep their workload at “light,” which ours is. Bringing in extra coaches would only help if one of them was better than the coach I already have.
Anyway, my sense of how condition recovery works in the game is that it’s more complicated than a simple calculation of Stamina and Natural Fitness (I don’t think Work Rate has anything to do with it). The last time I know anyone’s looked into this seriously was in FM07, at which point the explanation was that there are hidden stats called Match Exercise and Fitness that affect a player’s rate of condition loss and recovery. The window into these in the game is the the player’s Fitness rating (i.e., “match fit,” “in superb condition,” etc.) They’re probably partially influenced by Stamina and Natural Fitness, but recovery is ultimately affected more by rest than anything. The idea is to strike a balance between rest and exercise, so that a player exercises enough to keep his fitness but rests enough for his condition to stay high. So in this case I don’t think coaching is the problem so much as the smallness of the squad and the fact that many of our players are playing in just about every match.
I’d love to sign the disgruntled players to new contracts, as I think money affects their happiness and signing a contract seems to hit the reset button on their dissatisfactions. The problem is that none of them will talk about new deals at the moment. I’m hoping to catch them at an unguarded moment during the summer and convince them to let me give them raises.
KingSnake — I definitely, definitely don’t edit videos for a living, but it’s been a lot of fun doing it for the site. It’s killing me that there’s a typo in this one. I’d redo the whole thing, but I’ve already deleted the source files.
I think that the only place you need to better in the first team is a striker..Someone clinical to take the chances that the Baron and Galli missed. But u may be o.k in not doing anything and just waiting until the team gels the way u want it to. Have u expanded the Silivio Piola yet? Im trying to expand the Deportivo’s Riazor past thr 45,000 mark, but the board are not interested.
We were only able to expand the Silvio once before we hit the “local council will never grant permission” wall, so we’re stuck at 10,000 seats until we can build a new stadium. Which will hopefully be soon, as I’m really getting depressed about the fact that every other team in the league has a cool grass pattern and we’re still playing on what looks like a blotchy peat bog.