Previously on Rio de la Plata, Ángel Bastardo made a deal with the President and outlined his aims with Peñarol.
Intro
It was clear Ángel Bastardo had united the barrios. Instead of fighting each other, they were now fighting for Uruguay. Murder rates were down and drug enforcement seizures were up (arranged offerings for the Montevideo metropolitan police in order to keep the peace). Everybody was getting richer and Bastardo's Caporegime had restored order and discipline to the Uruguayan Underworld, one could therefore be forgiven for thinking everything was fine.
But it wasn't.
Bastardo's real headache was on the football field...or more precisely slightly off it. He'd promised the President a Copa Libertadores title on the condition that the asylum of the Venezuelan followers he had earned in the Colombian jungle were assured. Yet, it was clear that Peñarol were not staffed adequately to take on a continental conquest just yet. Bastardo needed his own footballing Caporegime: discipline, order and structure. A task which became the immediate Day 1 focus for Bastardo’s Peñarol…
Back to The Future?
Just as a side, the initial headache on save start-up is whether to start in December 2018 or December 2019. I had already decided that 2018 was the right choice for me, nevertheless a lovely chat in #fmgrasshopper occurred over on FMSlack. By starting in December 2018, I will get an extra year of youth development of real-life players i.e. the 19/20 year olds in present day will be a year younger, which means I can sculpt them a little bit more in terms of individual training, mentoring and adding player traits to their game. It will also allow me to call up a few Uruguayan youngsters to the u20 National Team squad (ICYMI - I got that job too), who would soon pass the age threshold during 2020. These include the La Liga talents of Darwin Núñez (Almería), Juan Manuel Sanabria (Atlético de Madrid) and a potential shock inclusion for Real Madrid’s Federico Valverde. So, choosing 2018 over 2019 is therefore an easy decision for me.
Once that’s done, it’s a simple a case of adding all South American out-of-the-box leagues and including all South American players of nationality. Thus taking my player count to circa 50k players. South America here we come!
The Caporegime
On the whole, the Peñarol squad is fairly balanced. In places it looks a bit stretched (central midfield & defence), but I think I can see out the Apertura campaign as we are. So, I will disable the initial transfer window and the main focus during my formative months will be recruiting to the many staff roles which are vacant. I’m calling this little side-project my ‘Caporegime’, a Mafia term to reference the crews within an organised crime syndicate. Thirty staff members make up the Peñarol Caporegime, which includes Bastardo himself. Above them all sits two Managing Directors, Carlos Sanchez & Fernando Morena in non-footballing roles.
There are two graphics that can illustrate the Caporegime, (1) a high-level overview of club structure & staff activity and then (2) a more detailed graphic that will quantify each staff member from FM: Bastardo’s Caporegime, and something I want to keep up-to-date as I progress with my save. In the short and medium future I have to accept that some inadequate staff members will occupy some staff roles, but over time I wish to micro-manage the staff to ensure Peñarol have one of South America’s best staffing setups. This means in the long-term I want every position filled and I hope to do it by bringing in a few ex-Peñarol players too. Who said romance is dead?
The high-level stuff…
The high-level structure: Bastardo & direct reports.
Like a lot of FM Bloggers this year, I will be managing overall & individual training of my FM20 squad (in my case all squads, including the u19s). It’s only fair that I delegate some other parts of the club management in order to speed up my game-play (nobody wants to see me still in 2019 in a few month’s time!). Player trading is something I will have the overall say on, approving the incoming and outgoings of all playing staff (including Reserves and U19)…however the large bulk of this work (scouting and contracts) will be done by my recruitment and scouting teams via the ‘3 lists approach’:
List 1: Transfer Targets
I will delegate the scouting responsibility to our Chief Scout, Néstor Gonçalves, who is one I want to keep within the Peñarol setup with his 15 judging player potential. Néstor will handle the assignments, hopefully by telling other scouts (currently only 1/6 filled) where to go and then collate reports into the Scouting Centre. From here, the Scouting Meetings will be delegated to the Director of Football role…he will decide if somebody is good enough. I’ll dip in from time-to-time to see scouted list and interfere when I see fit, which brings us to List 1: Transfer Targets. I’ll keep the responsibility to initiate transfer offers with Bastardo, by dropping targets into the list (whether from the Scouting Centre or manually) and ask the Director of Football to proceed with making an offer.
List 2: Unwanted List
Probably the least desirable, for me at least, part of transfer dealing is shipping off players deemed surplus to requirements. The Director of Football can have that headache. I’ll be adding players to this list and seeing what he can do. If he doesn’t perform, I’ll step in and see if I do better.
List 3: Development List
Here we have a list of players that can be bettered with game-time. I’ll be adding those above the age of 18 years to this list, in the hope that the Director of Football can find a suitable standard of football to continue their development. Those under 18-years-of-age will be remaining in the under 19s setup, who will be carefully monitored by Bastardo and the youth coaches…including Head of Youth Development, Fernando Curutchet, who is a respectable judge of player potential at 15.
Lastly, Assistant Manager Michele Fini (who is awfully average) will be taking on a few more roles I’ve previously done in past FMs. Match preparation, some media duties etc. Something to speed it all up a bit. Fini’s position is something I will look to address though, as I look to find the right Assistant Manager for Bastardo…a place up for grabs since the tragic passing of FM18 right-hand man José Luis Brown earlier this year in real life. RIP Tata.
The Bastardo-Capo…
So, out of the thirty available staff positions previously mentioned at Peñarol…we have eighteen vacancies(!). A lot of work is required, and in the short-term I can only invest €8k per month from the wage budget. Given that my high-level overview places utmost importance on the Director of Football role…that’s where my focus will be on Day 1 of this save. After that, I would like either a coach, another Scout or a Data Analyst. The Caporegime will not be built overnight, it will likely take a number of years to form the right backroom structure.
Day 1 Caporegime.
And so it begins…
I didn’t expect to publish another blog (albeit very short) before FM20’s release, then again…I didn’t expect to have such a lengthy beta period or a mid-late November release. But we’re finally here now, with my Peñarol Party kicking off on Tuesday 19 November. A lovely day of annual leave without wife or kids in the house from 0900-1700! It promises to be a great day, so keep up-to-date with the happenings of pre-season over on my Twitter feed. We’ll certainly have a Super Cup with Nacional to play and hopefully we’ll sign that Director of Football in time :-)
As always, thanks for reading/sharing/caring.
FM Grasshopper