“Original Pirate Material” - Faceless #FM22 — CoffeehouseFM

Previously in Faceless, Cuiabá Esporte Clube returned to the top flight of Brazilian football.

Intro

Welcome back, Reader.

The English language is a pirate language. I don’t mean that “Ahoy, Me Hearties!” lark, I’m talking about how the English language was formed over hundreds of years of invasions/occupations, feudal societies, enlightenments, and the creation of a national identity. To give you just one example, take our meat. When animals are reared on farms, they keep their Old English names: cow, pig, and sheep. But when they are cooked into dishes, we use an Anglicised French word: beef (beouf), pork (porc) and mutton (mouton). The English language takes bits from other languages and passes it off as its own.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s a bit like my recent FM22 FMing. I’m taking three approaches to recruitment from others, and shamelessly passing it off as my own* (🐄🐖🐑). I am calling it Original Pirate Material.

Disclaimers: I should mention that this blog isn’t going to uncover an either footed 17-year-old Mali Wonderkid from Timbuktu and scream MONEYBALL at you. I have a limited Scouting Package in Brazil (Middle Tier: Série A, B and C), and I am filtering on players based in South America who have played at least 1,000 Minutes in 2024.

*Not really, full credit is below.

Zealand’s Moneyball™ 🐄

“Moneyball. It’s a recruitment concept that’s well known, and which has been adopted by a lot of FMers over the years”, something I said on the blog a few months ago. Putting FM data into spreadsheets, particularly for a lot of FM Bloggers, has been a pastime for…well, decades.

However, it takes a well-known FM YouTuber sometimes to bring it into full public FM consciousness. Zealand Shannon has done exactly that, with a Moneyball YT video now over 150k views at the time of writing. What I like about the video is that he references the inspirations, references what is not quite perfect (yet) and lays out in simple terms how to “Moneyball” your save:

Zealand’s offering is one I felt more passionate data savvy Bloggers should have done years ago, via a download on a blog (and apologise if they did and I just missed it). Zealand has simply provided a Search Filter (with the data parameters included) and shared a Google Sheet (with formulas) for you to download. Zealand and co. have not invented something new here, but they do deserve credit for opening it up and making the approach easy-to-use (for simpletons like me):

Download Player Search filter and add it into your game. Run a search on whichever parameters you see fit e.g. Position, Age, Attributes etc.
Export said Player Search results, and place into a Google Sheet.
Check Google Sheet for statistical goodness.

I fancied giving it a try, so I used a modified Player Search based on the Half-Back role’s attributes, but I wanted to be agnostic in terms of who came up…so I did not set a Position within the search criteria. It did not bother me if Natural defenders came up in the search results, rather than natural DMs. Versatility would be a good thing and, depending on the game situation, this role could easily slot in at CB whilst I pushed a player up to AM (mimicking the 4-3-1-2 from last season which featured a No.10).

Therefore I set Half-Back in the search and did not expect players to meet 100% of the attributes; rather I set only 10 of the 16 attributes to match with a score of 13 or above. This meant a lot of CBs appeared in the search, but one name jumped out: Víctor Cuesta.

Using Zealand’s Google Sheet, I was quickly able to see that:

Cuesta had the highest Interceptions Per 90 for any top league player (2.54 per 90). Something I rate in any DM or CB position.
He ranked the 2nd best for Headers Won Per 90 for any top league player (10.63 per 90).
He was available for Free.
He is Argentine (meaning he’d become the 5th one in the current squad, but who is also a naturalised Brazilian status meaning he does not add to our FGN quota 🥰).

Now it was passed over to the General Manager, could he do a deal without me? Nope: he failed, but a new FM22 feature 🚨 allows me to take on the negotiations and keep the deal alive. I did just that, Víctor Cuesta signs on a one-year deal at $260k per annum.

36-year-old Víctor Cuesta takes a significant pay cut to join us!

FM Stag’s Goalkeeper Calculator™ 🐖

Personally, judging Goalkeepers is always a challenge for me on FM. Maybe it’s because the muscle memory just doesn’t exist, where the eye isn’t sharp enough to focus in the right places on the attributes screen. You see, I hardly sign Goalkeepers. Usually, it’s a case of finding one and then sticking with him for many seasons. When I discovered FM Stag had a Goalkeeper Calculator, I immediately asked to use it. The spreadsheet takes a combination of metrics, weightings + adds/subtracts to give me a GK Rating to work towards.

In this search, I simply wanted a Goalkeeper that had played at least 1,000 minutes in 2024 and was based in South America. The export was large, but because of the GK Rating, I filtered down to a Top 5…

Due to budgetary constraints, it was likely I could only afford the three Brazilians in the search (Megiolaro, Ricardo and Arias). So, it was over to the General Manager to tempt the best rated: Phelipe Megiolaro, who was available from Série C side Ituano on an expiring contract…

It’s a big gamble, putting your trust in the stats like this. But Phelipe Megiolaro has:

The best Saves per 90 out of the top 5 targets.
A strong Average Rating of 7.24.
Played every minute of Ituano’s successful promotion to Série B. He’s in a side that leaks a lot of shots, but he saves them…and they get promoted.

Megiolaro will jump two leagues up to Série A and will play as our Sweeper Keeper…as we look to play a more Counter Attacking style in 2025 during the Série A campaign.

Dan Gear’s General Manager/Director of Football Method™ 🐑

Read more about Dan’s approach here: https://www.footballmanager.com/the-byline/using-your-staff-recruitment-fm22

In this save, my current GM’s hit rate stands at 50%.

Víctor Cuesta - Failed.
Phelipe Megiolaro - Successful.

However, could the GM do one final deal from a recommendation provided by the scouting setup? It was over to the Short Term/Priority Focus screen to bring in another Striker within the Scouting Centre. The parameters: somebody who could play Deep Lying Forward aged 23 or below (to meet the Board’s club vision). Luciano Gondou topped the recommendations with an A (“sign whatever the price’) rating, and the reports indicate he is an adaptable and consistent performer. His contract expires towards the end of the calendar year, so I could have perhaps negotiated a cheap transfer deal. However, I instructed the GM to go for a loan deal because his current low wage means we can get him on a low-risk 8-month deal, to see how he does first.

The GM got the deal done. Gondou is hopefully going to get a lot of game time, because he covers both the DLF and Poacher roles in my tactic. He’s decent in the air, can finish with two feet and makes good decisions…well done GM!

Season 2025: State Championships

My blog frequency will slow down a bit once I hit a full Série A campaign. I’m therefore unsure how best to capture a Brazilian season. Blog a whole calendar year, or cut it in half like a bit of undercooked cow? I have not decided yet, however I am here right now to let you know how the 2025 Mato Grosso State Championship went. It’s my first taste of genuine “stat padding” and I bloody loved it…

Cuiabá Esporte Clube: Mato Grosso State Champs 🏆

There was mixed success for the new signings: Víctor Cuesta missed most of the states with an ankle injury, making just 1 start and 6 substitute appearances. However, Phelipe Megiolaro kept 12 clean sheets in the 15 State fixtures. He hardly needed to make a save as we dominated games! Luciano Gondou arrived late in the States but managed to bag 3 goals in four knockout round games. The real hero however was Alan Empereur (who I shared last time out on the blog). The Emperor bagged 12 goals in fifteen matches from Centre-Back, with a mix of back post headers, freekicks and penalty area skirmishes. Maybe next year I’ll to play the kids so that games are more competitive!

Now, my Cuiabá side move into the Série A. The Board’s aim is to “fight bravely against relegation”, which sounds ominous, but let’s hope our new signings complement the existing squad and we do ‘enough’. Enough would be 16th place (out of 20 clubs), anything less would mean The Faceless moves on. Again.

As always, thanks for reading/sharing and caring. Faceless will be back 🎭

Tony / FM Grasshopper