"Bastardo's Crown" - Rio de la Plata #FM20 — CoffeehouseFM

Previously on Rio de la Plata, Ángel Bastardo won International honours with Uruguay.

Intro

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" Henry IV, Part II, Act III, Scene 1.

Ángel Bastardo returned to Uruguay a hero, but the domestic battles ensured that people were quick to forget what he had done for Uruguayan football. It was also time for the Argentine himself to forget past glories and concentrate on winning a second successive league title. Peñarol had been agreeable to the Club & Country arrangement, but Bastardo knew who paid his wages. The greatest Uruguayan club side would need his utmost attention, so today’s blog post therefore updates you on the football happenings from the second-half of the 2020 campaign and the Peñarol Caporegime.

Vamos.

Season 2020

Domestic

I love the Uruguayan league setup, and even after 2 years now…it’s still feeling fresh and unfamiliar to me. Especially the Intermedio Final, which I once again refuse to progress to. I have this theory in my head that it’s harder to win as a larger side, seeing that Football Manager classes it as a cup competition. The first four games this time round in 2020 were abysmal, being schooled at home by Atenas de San Carlos was one of the lowest moments of this save (excluding 3-0 Bolivia of course). We did find form at the tail end of the tournament though, but sadly the damage was already done:

We almost made unnecessary hard work in our Closing Stage too. Despite a 13 match unbeaten run to pip Wanderers to the title on the final day, there were some needlessly tight games and frustrating draws. I don’t know whether it’s my platonic relationship with Football Manager’s v2026 match engine OR my central strikers being shockingly average, we’re simply failing to fire on all cylinders. It is something I will correct though, with a view to playing 4-1-4-1 for one more season before I move towards something more risqué in 2022 (when at that point the February/March ME update will be out). More on that in a subsequent blog post no doubt.

Anyway, we won both the Opening & Closing stages for the second year running which meant no awkward final rounds to go through. We top the Overall Table with less points & goals than last year, and annoyingly 5 more goals conceded. There is definitely work ahead in order to come back stronger in 2021:

Continental

Good progress has been made in the Copa Libertadores. We reached a Quarter Final with an end-to-end tie away in Cali, Colombia…Mauro Zárate with 2 goals in that game to cement his place as my MVP. He was my marquee signing back in January (for €900k), but he’s paid his transfer costs back by being directly involved in 30 goals this season (Goals + Assists all comps).

All in all, a Primera División title & a Quarter Final Copa Libertadores appearance means it has been a great season for us. Certainly, there are reminders that we are not quite the finished product (as that Boca 0-4 home loss showed); but it’s been another season of transitioning younger players into the team as we move away from a reliance on elder statesmen like Cristian Rodríguez (35) & Walter Gargano (36). Instead we now have a homegrown central midfield triumvirate of Agustín Álvarez (19), Ezequiel Mechoso (20) & Matías de los Santos (21). All of whom have been excellent during 2020.

Our 2020 top performers are below:

Goals: Mauro Zárate (18 goals), Agustín Canobbio (13 goals) & Luis Acevedo (8 goals)
Assists: Mauro Zárate (12 assists), Elías Pereyra (8 assists) & Matías de los Santos (3 assists)
Average Rating: Agustín Álvarez (7.23), Mauro Zárate (7.11) & Matías de los Santos (7.06)

The #GIFGoals to remember this season comes from Striker Luis Acevedo, scoring the first Peñarol goal in a 2-1 title winning victory over rivals Nacional in their crap Gran Parque Central stadium. Shades of World Cup 1998 Bergkamp Vs Argentina?

The Caporegime Part II

Before kicking off this save, I had an introductory post that outlined my plans to focus on staff recruitment in Football Manager 2020. I dubbed this my ‘Caporegime’, a Mafia term to reference the crews within an organised crime syndicate. On Day 1 of the save, thirty staff members made up the Peñarol Caporegime, which included Bastardo himself. Above them all sat two Managing Directors, Carlos Sanchez & Fernando Morena in non-footballing roles.

Over the course of two years there have been some dramatic changes to the Caporegime: Directors of Football have come and gone, coaches/scouts have been headhunted by bigger clubs and even elections have brought about a new Presidential structure. But one thing remains constant: Bastardo is overseeing it all without the need of a Technical Director (a new Staff Role that will recruit your backroom staff for you in FM20).

After two years of ploughing wage and transfer budget into the staffing side of the club, we now employ forty staff members across the three Peñarol squads (excluding our new Managing Director Guzmán, hired by new President Miguel Moreira in December 2020):

From the above, you can see that I have recruited the maximum number of First Team employees for the coaching and medical specialisms. The big change for Season 2 was to offload the incumbent Assistant Manager, Michele Fini - who I outlined as a distinctly average Assistant back when kicking this save off. I recruited his replacement internally, Álex García - who joined from managing the U19s. Note: it’s always worth checking what you have internally, Álex García’s appointment was ideal for me…as he knew all the players right away. So he hit the ground running with stuff like the Selection Advice and Coaching Reports, which I have used more frequently this year.

Álex García - Bastardo’s 2nd No.2 in two years :-)

Peñarol’s Caporegime is the best in the league and it’s only the scouting side that we now need to focus on in 2021. This has been the most volatile area as I have had a few Scouts depart for better things and new 2019 Director of Football: Pierre Aubame decided not to renew his stay with us into 2021. Finding Aubame’s replacement was difficult and for now I have settled on Ángel Moretto, who will guide our transfer activity using the ‘3 List Approach’ I outlined back at the start of this save. Moretto is not the perfect DoF, but unfortunately there was not much in the way of wages and budget to find a better replacement for Pierre Aubame (who, with no disrespect, was far too good for us).

Ángel Moretto - Bastardo’s new Director of Football.

The final staff member to quickly update you on is with regards to #ProjectVincent. Vincent van Raam was edited into my save because I speak to him about Argie-ball in real-life and consider him the Dutch pen friend I never had as a kid. Having been with me for two years now, Vincent has not bettered his judging abilities one bit; which is a real shame. Naturally, he has bettered his tactical knowledge working under Ángel Bastardo and he now understands the rules of football a bit more. There is hope for him though, Vincent now has fairly decent knowledge of South America after being sent to Argentina, Brazil, Chile & Colombia a few times on weekends away. I hope he will thank me in real-life one day, most FM Bloggers would have ditched him by now…but not me!

Next Steps

My objectives into 2021 are to better our scouting setup. We’ll recruit a further three scouts and we will also widen our Senior & Youth Packages to cover more of South America in the Player Search. Once I have fully completed my Caporegime, I will then recruit to the two new positions in FM20: Technical Director (who should maintain our position as Uruguay’s elite staffing setup) & Loan Manager (who will handle player loans away from the club), in order to see how they will do. This may likely be my third and final part of the Caporegime series, where I look to lessen the weight of Bastardo’s crown 👑

As always, thanks for reading/sharing/caring.

FM Grasshopper