1. I am forward to making another blog here in The Offside, not about FM. If Daryl accepts creating me that blog, time for FM Blogging will be nil, so nothing doing.

2. I want to know how many of you want me to keep blogging, please answer yes or no in the comments, please be honest.

Then, if I keep blogging, we will talk about another save, cuz’ I’ve decided Villarreal time has DEFINETLY ended. The save will be with Benevento, a current Serie C1 (3rd division) team. I’m already starting my 4th year, and guess in what division? SERIE A! The players are simulated, so there are no real players. If I decide to continue blogging, based on that 2 things up there, I will post images, and tell what happened in this first 3 years of career…

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

Your fellow FM player,
Samir

Here you got the live comments of my last Villarreal game, the FINAL OF THE UCL!!!!!!!:

GOODBYE TO ALL!

Days: 28 July-5 August.
Currently Managing: Villareal
Status: Preseason, with some transfers finally done.
In-game Ass.Man: Aspiazu.
In-blog Ass.Men: Weston, Sam, Dhaw, Thomas, Stefan, Will, Zizou, Lord Quas, Vlad, Richard, Jorid. (Everyone who will submit a comment about the game will automatically be an ass.man.)
Next game: Friendly against Brescia coming up.

I’ve decided that in the friendlies I will play them all and write directly, not just day by day. The day-to-day thing will return when the official games start, and it’s a while for that.

First, transfers. James Rodriguez finally physically arrived, I think he had a work permit problem, he’s now mine, and I want to try him as fast as I can. I looked on some of your suggestions, and Camacho is good and cheap, but he’s on loan, Di Maria, Mevlut, and Gignac are quite out of budget, so let’s not think of them.. I bought for free for next season Alejandro Dominguez, who’s simply great from Rubin Kazan, although non-EU, good idea? Escudero left for La Bombonera, and the bi*** said he I was something like shite. I don’t want to repeat what I said when I heard that, so, let’s continue.

Now, friendlies. I played two, Taranto and Pescara, none went great, but you’ll see…

Taranto-Villareal:


The new formation didn’t go great, but when I changed James Rodriguez to the center, and Cazorla to the left, it went definetly better, Cazorla scored on a Rossi-James counter and Rossi got the 2-0 in the second half. I am not completely happy about that game, but, it’s just a friendly.

Pescara-Villarreal:

With this formation, we went at least 60% better than last game. 3-1 we won. They got ahead fastly with Sensonini, but we fastly equalized with Nilmar. The best of the game was, the 25 yards shot from James, where the goalie couldn’t do absolutely anything. Nilmar got the third and we went home with a good win.

What did I not like? How we did long, wrong passes, have you got an idea on how to change that?

Please answer me this questions:

6. Have you got any interesting young, cheap players in your managed teams, please suggest me.

See you!

20 July 2009.

Training has been getting everyday more important. But for now I can avoid to select specifical technical trainings for my players, for now I can let them have physical training and see them kill theirselves running throughout the pitch. I rejected all Rossi offers, just to give him an opportunity to show himself. But, guess what? He’s unhappy, and, while hoping his morale will change one day, I offered 6mil for Delfouneso, hoping Aston Villa accept, but I don’t think they will.

21 July 2009-22 July 2009.

Thinking on who to buy is not everything, because I got to think also on who to sell. Aspiazu and T’OM, told me to sell Escudero, and 2mil is the price I have set for him. And I have offered a contract to Senna, whom I will make stay at El Madrigal, as from a Vlad suggestion. While in the 22nd, I told my players to get a relax day, in which I needed to stay alone and think of tactics, obviously watching at the videos of the trainings I told my son to make. He was really more than excited to film everything, as he loves to film.

23 July 2009.

We’re back to the training pitch and I decide to talk to my players. I tell them somehow what will be the formation that will play against River, but changes can be made. We also talked about specific trainings, but the only ones I specified which training to make were Rossi and Cani. Both should look to a movement in the centre. Meanwhile, Aston Villa (as I knew they will) rejected the offer for Delfouneso. Aspiazu was the one to give me that news. I am becoming extremely irritated for his fault in these days, and told him to leave in that moment and send Racing a 1mil offer for Bolado. I really think Dhaw and T’OM are a very better ass.men than Aspia!

24 July 2009-25 July 2009.

This morning, I can finally be happy, even if the first offer for Bolado was rejected, with 1.8mil they accepted and I offered him a satisfying contract. Cordoba and Tenerife both made loan offers for Flores, and I accepted. The day was incredibly getting better, as Rossi seemed to sympathize with me, and was evidently happy! And in my first airplane trip with my players, heading to Argentina, my son seemed to be the happiest person in the whole plane, were he socialized with Ibagaza, Rossi, and specially Cani. I personally sleeped almost all the trip, and didn’t have the time to make my long speech to the players. And for that, the players need to thank me, because it would have taken at least one boring hour.

26 July 2009.

River-Villarreal:
As I already said, I will try a 4-3-1-2, specifically with a balanced philosophy, short passes, playing narrow, and drill crosses. This was the formation:

In some sense, it was a good night, because I understood my team plays good narrowly. In all other senses, it was a nightmare. We lost 4-1. At 13th Buonanotte scored the first just out of the box. Llorente equalized with a great Ruben header through ball. Then Buonanotte, three minutes later, scored another one with a header. Gallardo in a counter closed the game and in the second half Blanco got the 4-1.

After the game I just told my players nothing bad happened, that it was only a friendly and bla bla bla. But I know no one likes to lose 4-1. I know my ass.man. Dhaw told me not to care of friendly results, but I am still unhappy.

And, when I thought it couldn’t get worse, guess who came to talk to me? The bad luck guy, Aspiazu. He told me Bolado accepted the offer, but he got injured for 9-10 months and won’t arrive. Fuck. Aspiazu is really getting me to the nerves.

27 July 2009.

Today I woke up with a bad headache, and called Aspiazu to tell him that we will all get a day off. I thought over what happened the day before, and decided the next game’s formation against Taranto will be a 4-2-3-1. And, when I turned on the TV, I saw a very interesting player, Soldado. Here you got his stats:

And here you got Ruben’s stats, my 22 year old striker:

Ruben stats

1. Anyone of you got an idea of a good young cheap striker to buy? Or should I look for Soldado, whom I could get for around 6mil? (Nsue can’t be bought because he’s in loan to Mallorca).

2. Do you think 4-2-3-1 is a good formation for my Villarreal?

3. Is Ruben good enough to fight for his place in the team?

4. Do you like my new form of posting, like a diary?

In the next post the Ups and Downs of the River game.

Days: 15-18 July.
Currently Managing: Villareal
Status: Still preseason, transfers on their way.
In-game Ass.Man: Aspiazu.
In-blog Ass.Men: Weston, Sam, Dhaw, Thomas, Stefan, Will, Zizou, Lord Quas. (Everyone who will submit a comment about the game will automatically be an ass.man.)
Next game: Friendly against River Plate, away.

Dear Diary,

The new fm8 type of blog is finally started.

15-16 July 2009.

My debut game has just finished, I applaud my players and talk to each of them. Diego Lopez and Gonzalo Rodriguez seem hurt, my physio comes immediately to take charge of the situation, and after a while he tells me they are both injured, Diego for from 12 days to 2 weeks, and Gonzalo for at least 2 weeks. Not good. After that, we head home. When to finish a long cell phone chat with Aspiazu, he tells me James Rodriguez can be bought, but one player between Nilmar, Godin, or Escudero needs to be unregistered for the incoming season. As it is late into the night, I tell him we will talk about it tomorrow. I turn on my brand new PC, and get to my gmail. And then came the surprise. Ferguson sent me a mail, he wanted Rossi, Giuseppe Rossi. He said he could even pay 30mil for him. I was shocked, and easily told him I will only sell him at the right price. Tired, I just turned off the PC and went to bed, thinking on my team’s future. Waiting for the 17th, when I will see my players again.

17 July 2009.

Good morning. That was the first thing I said to my players that day, but I knew it would have been a day plenty of decisions. After the training session, Aspiazu approached me, and told me he called James Rodriguez agent, ready for the offer. I didn’t even decide on what player I will unregister, but Aspiazu urged me to, so I looked at my three non-EU players and thought, if I am going to buy James, I will need to sell the other attacking midfielder, and that took me to the conclusion of unregistering Escudero. He’s very fast, but I really want James. His agent was very polite, and we got to the conlusion, 7.000 an year for James. So, it was only left that Banfield accepted the 1mil offer. Aspiazu made a fast call, and it was done. James Rodriguez is my player, my first player bought for Villarreal.

18 July 2009.

After having slept well that night, and having completely forgot about the Rossi thing, I got an early call that mostly ruined my day. Escudero said that he didn’t like my decision of unregistering him for an 18-19 year old player, and that he wanted to leave. I really liked Escudero, maybe could have unregistered Godin in the next days, you know, change my decision, but now Escudero was mad with me, and there was no way changing that. When I got to the training pitch, mad at Aspiazu for splitting everything to Escudero, told him to make a deep scouting with his player databases for young good strikers. And that evening he satisfied me. Here are the players he proposed. What do you think, in-blog ass.men?

Nsue:

Bolado:

Delfounseo:

Now, I prefer that you answer to my questions in the comments, so I can add you to the ass. men. Who should I buy of them: Nsue, Bolado, Delfouneso. Feel free in the comment to write your own opinion of a young striker I should buy.

And what do you think, what is my team’s part I should buy more players for the defense, the goalies, the midfield, or the attack. Please specify the type of player I should buy. For example a right full back.

In the meanwhile, Aspiazu (why does he bother me everytime??) told me that we just got two offers for Rossi, Chelsea 13,5mil and Man.Utd. 16mil. Do you think I should sell him?

To close this first diary entry, I must say I offered Senna to clubs for 5,75mil. Let’s just see what happens in the next days.

After this short introduction in which I talked of my first of many problems I will face at the lead of Villarreal, let’s talk about my debut. After only one day being Villarreal’s manager, I will face an intersquad friendly match against the Villareal “B”. I remember my debut in FM09 with Napoli, it was an official match for the Uefa Cup against Hibernian. I was very nervous, but won 3-0. This time it is very different, first of all, it’s FM10, second, it’s a friendly, third, my team seems very good.

Just before the match, I was presented to the press. It went ok, and I declared I wanted an attractive, attacking game. And after that, for the first time, tactics. As Weston clearly pointed out in the last post’s comments, Giuseppe Rossi ain’t no good, but I have some reasons to disagree.

Villareal vs. Villareal “B”:
In my first game, I knew I would have to face new tactics, so I decided an easy 4-4-2, rigid philosophy(new thing in FM10, it means how much the players need to take serious their positions somehow), direct pass down flanks, quick, high pressing and floating crosses. This was the formation:

So my first game at El Madrigal had officially started. The first I saw in the first 5 minutes was that Nilmar was always offside and the team was very high, so I tried my first touchline instruction, play deeper. It definitely worked. In the 8th Rossi ran from the midfield and when he was a distance of 35 yards from the net, he shot and got the woodwork. Good job Giuseppe, I think Weston may have an apologize to do! In the 21st Rossi got a cross from Cazorla in the left and scored the 1-0. I sort of jumped off my chair when it happened, but remembered it was just a friendly. 9 minutes later Gonzalo Rodriguez took a Cazorla corner and scored the 2-0. In the second half I tried just to control the match, but my tactics failed and they got to score a goal with Mandi, but I still won. By the way, Rossi got another woodowork and had an 8.0 rating, maybe it was only the reserves, but it is a good start.

In the meanwhile, Liverpool said they wanted Senna, but I issued hands of warning. He is an important player, but he didn’t do much in the first match, maybe I could get some good money.

Things to point out after the first match:
1. The 4-4-2, although I liked Cazorla’s and Fuster’s runs in the left and right, is not Villarreal’s formation, maybe I could try a more narrow formation, such as the 4-3-1-2, or the 4-1-2-1-2. Please give your opinion.
2. Senna in the middle didn’t do much, and I really preffered the other mid centre, Ibagaza. Should Liverpool’s offer for Senna interest me? Please give opinion.
3. Rossi and Nilmar just don’t connect up front. I know this was only the first match, but I was thinking, should I think of a replacement for one of them, or more easy, try Llorente? Give opinion.

Ok. Now we got some other friendlies, in which I will not only follow your opinions, but I will make 2 or 3 formations in which all the players play at least 90 minutes so we can judge them for the start of the new season.

Fernando Roig, their president, welcomed me with a 23,000 euros salary (I love that amount!) and I told him that my expectation was to qualify to the Champions League through the leauge. That expectation gave me only 7mil to buy, not so much, but I can afford some good players with that money, don’t you think so?

Here is my team: (As it’s a team with a lot of players, there are two images)


Then, I went to meet my staff and players, with a new function in FM10, that in the start of the game and also later, your staff give you advice and feedback. For example, they told me I didn’t have a squad management expert, so I chose one. Someone told me to buy Riquelme, but I dismissed that advice, he’s old now, don’t you think? In the meanwhile, other staff told me that I have good concentration, good pressing, good passing, and bad height in the team.

Next was to choose the roles in the squad. Fuster will take the penalties, Ibagaza freekicks, Rossi wil be a target man and Cazorla playmaker. Good choices?

As this was only the introduction post, we will talk about transfers and tactics in the next post. And remember, this blog now will be interactive, you guys will be the ones that choose my team’s formation. Now, we have some friendlies, and I will try in every friendly different players, so me and you guys have and idea of what my team is and then in the official matches YOU decide the formations. Here is my list of friendlies:

See ya in the next post!!!