Football Italia: Season 8 – Welcome to Serie A

Season Eight: Welcome to Serie A (with some transfer stuff thrown in, too).

The promised land awaits us.

Life has got busy of late so my normal three to four months a week has become three to four clicks but I have taken a little bit of time to collate some all-time Serie A records:

From the outside, it looks like a closed league; Parma are the yo-yo side, coming up, doing poor and then spending all of their parachute money to make an immediate return but most of the teams who have come up have struggled, with only Monza being able to cement themselves for any period of time after a spell outside of the top tier. Basically, we’re going to need to break the cycle if we want to become regulars at this level!

My biggest issue this off-season, though, hasn’t been preparation in terms of new signings but those who are already at the club, I have had to renew fourteen new deals, either due to the players entering their last year of contract or because they feel their wage is too low. Great for continuity but at an increase of €199,250 per week, it has sucked a significant portion of my improve the squad budget from me.

There are times when I like to hand things over to the finance team but there are also times where I want control of what is going on, and this has been one of them. To ensure that base wages stayed as low as possible, I took a risk by offering hugely inflated Loyalty Bonuses. This, for me, feels like a win/win – they either stay at the club and I pay this, with us being a better team or they demand a move, ask to be transfer listed and, from what I’ve read, then forego this fee. In total, these loyalty costs of €8.26m – €53k per week – are a big expenditure for me and I need to consider whether, for those lesser players, who may be sold if/when we grow into the league, should’ve had an extra €2/3k on their weekly wage instead.

I do, though, now have the core of my squad tied down for the coming years and still had some money left to invest in new players. Most notably, to fill the AM slot – replacing Colidio and Maldini, both of whom left after the ending of their loans. Moving to Serie A opens up three non-EU player slots and, wanting to do this as realistically as possible, I collated the list of five players who my recruitment team had found an interested me, for various reasons:

Valentin Depietri     Ezequiel Forclaz     Nicolás Rossi      Luca Kmet     Santiago Farrera

Wanting that runner profile, I knew that there’d be options for some wingers in this pool and that is what I had about Depietri and Rossi. Unfortunately, before I’d really started the process, the former had sealed a move to Velez and was off my list. Again, with the realism element, I used the scout reports before looking at the attributes in order to create a shortlist of the five, ordering them in terms of my overall preferences. Depietri is quick, technically able, creative and consistent but does lack some game intelligence and, at 30, was the oldest player to be recommended. Forclaz would, I was told, be an asset to us in big games and is a consistent, adaptable team player although has had problems with injuries in his career. Rossi would not fill a non-EU slot and his profile, despite not seeing it necessarily over his career, is that he’s a strong finisher. Kmet was unhappy and would, therefore, be easier to bring in and would bring with him his technical, creative skillset and Farrera’s flair and speed would also be a positive to the club.

My list was created and given to the DoF, with this order of preference:

1. Farrera – I was really impressed with the ‘second striker specific’ attributes that I was looking for: agility, dribbling, finishing and off the ball as well as the core DNA that I want to build here with only anticipation and decisions being below 15. No traits is a double edged sword; means he’ll need to spend time developing that to hopefully give an edge to his game but, ultimately, is very much of a clean slate for what he could do for the club. Has featured pretty heavily this season, with 23(3) appearances but not really set the league on fire with his three goal contributions but, considering that Argentinos Juniors finished 26th out of 27 teams, can see why.

2. Kmet – completely frozen out of the Vasco team, who have a plethora of wonderkids at their disposal but a very natural AM profile with strong attributes across the key areas for me. He’s got a couple of nice playmaking traits but I think he can also add some to do with ball carrying, which I can get on with straight away. I think we can offset his (lack of) size and strength by utilising the taller team behind him and I’d actually envisage that this will also be a benefit to him moving fluidly in tight spaces. He’s also, by far, the cheapest of the bunch of players recommended to me and, with a below-average number of appearances for his age, could still have time to grow.

3, Forclaz – probably the best player here but that comes with a price and, probably, a guarantee that he’ll be a key player, which is not something I want when I rotate and choose based on a number of factors, such as the opponents. Has eighteen contributions this season, which is really strong, but – obviously – somewhat skewed due to the State Champs that Botafogo won.

4. Depietri – I liked the winger-esque profile that he’d bring but, as I said, he moved on really early in this process and I was never truly able to get the full picture before making the move, so, when I created the shortlist, he went towards the bottom given the unlikely nature of signing him.

5. Rossi – very much the wildcard, I think. Not quite as good as the rest but, like Depietri, a profile that has worked well for me in the past in this role. He’d bring some set piece ability with him but, as I created this list, I very much felt that he was an outsider and we’d have done very badly if we reached this level.

What I got was great!

To get my first choice and then, again – given that the game handled the second shortlist presented to the DoF without Farrera as a different signing – is absolutely fantastic. Santi is, obviously, the record outlay for the club, beating the Viti deal by €1m but we are now a Serie A side and need to spend as such. Given that I’ve witnessed Atalanta seal a €98m deal for Romeo Lavia just days before, I’d say that this is still an excellent piece of targeted transfer business.

The Argentine duo will rotate with Vinci and Owusu, providing two left and two right footed options and a variety of playing styles and strengths. I am delighted with this deal and, honestly, hadn’t intended to do anything else, until…

This is pretty outlandish for me! Guido Hoyos, currently at Serie B Como, is going to absolutely smash my transfer record when he arrives next summer. Como, despite managing to hold on to him for one season in Serie B, have an Argentine international keeper who could be our number one for the next fifteen years and were holding him, almost against his will. In comparison with Esposito, he’s a far superior player but held on for a year given that my current number one had just signed a new deal and, therefore, wouldn’t be interested in a move away. Even with a relatively small contract, I couldn’t afford to keep them both at the club, plus, the extra year at a top club in Serie B will only benefit Guido. With the money available in the budget now, but no assurances of it it next season, I felt that this was a sensible move, depleting something that we have, knowing I’m likely to lose money over the course of the year.

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With a couple more fixtures left until we kick off, the excitement is building! I have no real hopes or expectations but would just like to stay up!

Forza Biancoscudati!