Football Italia: Season 8 – Looking at youth

Season Eight: Great now; even greater in future?

Our final three fixtures produced three points but I didn’t expect them to come in the order that they did, as we lost to Cremonese but beat a Napoli side who had realised that second place was locked up and were already on holiday.

Confirming our best ever finish, this has been an absolute joy to manage. I’ve said all season long that I’ve expected the bad form and, honestly, it’s never truly arrived. Yes, we had flirted with third our fourth place and a dream Champions League campaign but we’re far from ready and my job is to steadily build the team and the club, so this – already – is a season of huge progress. Milan and Napoli are the big movers from last year, whilst Juventus have really suffered and Inter too, in all honesty. Atalanta still can’t break past fifth placed and Frosinone will enter the Europa Conference League, qualifying for Europe for the first time in this save after finishing nearly twenty points above their average and recording their highest league finish, obviously.

Our player stats are interesting – most notably showing the lack of a true goalscorer or, in the sense of not using a traditional nine, a number of players who could take the bull by the horns and score heavily. However, strong performances from Bellino and Lucenti, who contributed twenty-four times between them felt strong. A total of twenty-one assists came from the wing backs with only Mussolini being left behind there. Six and eight, respectively, contributions for Kmet and Farrera are ok in their first season in Italy but I do feel that they will need to kick on next time around if we want to replicate this as their ‘competition’ – Owusu and Vinci recorded eleven and thirteen each.

Over the summer, I want to focus to shift away from the first team. Despite a setback in search of a new stadium, the board have decided that they want to give me three years to create the best youth academy in the country. A match made in heaven for my playing style. So I’m going to dive in to what I’ve got, spend my hours and minutes on the game micromanaging this and, maybe, leaving the first team alone a bit more. With Hoyos coming in, I need to secure a move for Esposito – a really hard thing to do as he’s one of the top keepers in this league but absolutely won’t accept sitting on the bench, and rightly so – but aside from that, I anticipate little else to do! 

Kicking off my reshuffle is a bit of staffing news..

Michael Beale, who – for me as a Villa fan – maybe has a bit of a tainted reputation despite being the brains behind the Gerrard-era, joins after two years out of football. I don’t know what would tempt a manager to join a youth side, but he brings vast experience and his real life experiences in South America should be ideal for the type of players I’m going to be building here. Joining him are two further English staff, after my adverts alerted some top young coaches: Christopher Butler and George Danaher are not my normal type of appointments but I really want quality here rather than my normal focus of nationality, ex players and personality and can all join together on their intensive language course across this season! They form part of a team that works with the youth sector, who have demolished the U18 league this year, falling at the final hurdle to Inter U18s. A bug in my game means that we’ve got no U20 league, which is why I’m putting so much more effort into the affiliate program.

Currently, I have:

• Rudes: 3rd in the Croatian top flight and a UECL team next year.
• Taranto: 1st in Serie C Girone C and a Serie B team next year
• Trapani: 1st in Serie D Girone I and a Serie C team next year
• Palmese: Eccellenza Calabria and maybe promoted to Serie D next year.

This means that I’ve nearly got teams in all areas, depending on the Palmese promotion or not promotion. I’m going to be looking at providing four or five players to each of these clubs and then will also be looking at bigger clubs in European top flights for those who just need that finishing. This, however, can’t be possible if I don’t prioritise their development and have a clear goal for them from a very young age.

Below are the top-rated players within the club:

Moraga is an odd player but top of the list in terms of CA and PA. I feel like I’ve developed him well but then again, I look at him and feel he’s slightly unfinished but, after 136 games for us, I don’t feel like a loan would work. Then again, over 60% of his appearances have been off the bench and he flits around between wanting to be a defender and a holding midfielder, with me never really putting all my energy into one of the two. Migliori has had two loan spells – Virtus Entella in Serie C and Rudes in the top flight of the Croatian league – but now needs to move somewhere more reputable (above 25th in Europe) to really fine tune the last bit of his game. In Sacchetti, Chester and  De Cicco, we have a strong group of U18 players, which Zago will join after being the top youth candidate this year. I’m not too sold on what I want to do with my new lad but I’m thinking of going down the Lisandro Martinez route of an undersized but strong, brave and right place, right time defender. The first three, though, have key roles to play in my team and will hopefully grow, in tandem, in three of the four midfield roles. Chester is a cut above the rest but, ever since he came into the club, I must say that I am excited by the wrong footed element of Sacchetti at left wing back. Girard cut his teeth on loan last year and will continue that, and Gueye will be moved to a club, probably at Serie C level – likely to be Trapani, in order to meet his needs. It’s also pretty cool because I don’t think I’ve ever had a Mauritanian player in my squad!

All of the youngsters in this pot train with the first team and I think that it’s having a really good impact on their development, mixing with the experienced professionals. I will have to be more careful this year to manage this as, with us entering European competition, our training schedules will be somewhat lighter around mid-week fixtures and I want to ensure that, despite the strong coaching setup in both areas, they’re getting the consistency of training as well as quality of it.

Traore’s loan at Trapani was cut short with a broken ankle but, with 27 goal contributions in 20 games, he’s surely good enough to get a crack at Serie C. Nicolini bloomed in the Eccellenza and will add another season to his half season spell in Serie D. He’s one dimensional but a real threat when carrying the ball and has scored heavily, like Traore before him. I love Mirabelli as much as the Trapani fans do after he contributed forty-two times in thirty games last year but my fear is he’s just not sure whether he’s a forward or an attacking mid; jack of both trades but master of none. A loan to Serie C will happen but I’m conscious that he and Gueye are very similar so can’t send them to the same place!

The next crop of players has some first teamers in but, honestly – like with Moraga – I feel a sense of an underperformance in the development of Vinci and Biagioni, but I must consider that ‘five star potential’ in Serie C – when Vinci graduated – is very different to now and, in all likelihood, he’s probably reached his ceiling and that will just reconfigure as the season goes on. There’s some decent youth here but I’m not necessarily sold on any of them truly being in the style of what I want: Palazzolo is a decent sweeper keeper but the rest – Arana, Colell and Fuentes – don’t really have the necessary attributes and may look to be used for profit and FFP compliance, should we need it.

The last list of above average players here actually contains four of my important first team players and two players who have gone through this whole process themselves, Lucenti and Owusu. In terms of loans, Kouakou will continue but move somewhere other than Palmese, probably but the rest will probably stay. Although I don’t necessarily post about them that much these days and, certainly, I don’t go into the depth will Excel as I used to – I have a fairly rudimentary piece of work that charts their attribute growth from entry to exit of my youth setup and, interestingly, you can see that it is Matteo Colzi who has made the most attribute progress year on year so far in this test.

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I’m now at the hyper focus stage of this save, trying to maximise everything I can through the club to achieve the bigger picture!

Forza Biancoscudati!