Past | Present | Future - IACC - La Nueva Joya #FM23

January 6, 2023

Buckle up blog readers - this is going to be a bit of a rollercoaster read. Well, that’s how I see the blog in my head as I start to write this down. Last time out I brought you up to speed with events come the end of Season 3 and safe to say a lot has happened since then.

I’m keen to focus on where I’m currently at in the save and the future of IACC but in order to dive into that I’ve got to bring you all up to speed - it helps paint the picture. It’s 18 in-game months past the end of season 3…

Past

So ahead of Season 4 and the League Cup stage we had the usual players leaving on expiring contracts as well as a few sales. £8m was brought in by 3 players; Santiago Rodriguez to Osasuna (£2.8m), Emanuel Cecchini to Zaragoza (£3.3m) and Fernando Alarcon to LAFC (£1.7m). Whilst I was super busy bringing in 12(!) players for a grand total of £0.

As I’ve found, players come and go in this save with no real time to gain a true attachment to any of them. This allows me to be more ruthless when selling them I guess, but I do miss taking a player or two along for the ride. Signing good players for free is always enjoyable and paid dividends ahead of competitive football.

We cantered to IACC’s first ever League Cup triumph, topping our League Cup table over River Plate before smashing Estudiantes DlP 7-2 and ultimately seeing off Racing Club in the final thanks to our two young stars Rayan and Gabriel Lima (more on them later).

We shifted from a 4-4-2 to a 4-2-4 ahead of this season after doing a bit of analysis of average positions and where my wide men were receiving the ball - it was too deep and close to my full/wing backs so I shifted them up and on the whole it worked well. There’s a mini-blog in there somewhere…

We move into the summer months on a high but the usual crowing for new contracts for players persists, this time it’s Nehual Tenaglia who wants to triple his salary, so he was sold to Fulham for £4.4m whilst we spent £1.2m bringing in cover at left back, central midfield and then belatedly in goal as my first choice keeper picked up a bad injury so I had to move quickly.

The new league competition awaited, I was desperate to win but know that beating Boca, and even River, is going to be a really tough ask. One we ultimately couldn’t quite achieve again.

We only finished 7 points behind when Boca last 3 of their last 4 games - they’d already won the title by that point

Realistically we are still a ways off the pace of Boca, they’re just a machine with far greater resources than us and they rarely drop points. Will we ever overcome them over a league season? I’m starting to wonder.

Juan Cruz Zurbriggen was a revelation up front and comfortably signing of the season. He notched 43 goals and 9 assists in 50 games in all competitions. Not bad for a free signing. Maxi Romero bagged another 28 goals and 11 assists in 44 games but it was home-grown Gabriel Lima that really excited me this season. He joined in our first intake, had progressed significantly just before and during the League Cup stage to become a key player at AML playing as a Winger (A).

Here you can see the obvious progress he’s made. I always enjoy players who’re very two-footed and he was just brilliant when brought into the team. 38 games, 7 goals and 18 assists. He really impressed me and was far better than I thought he would be. This calendar year he has come on leaps and bounds…but now the vultures are circling.

In Gabriel Lima I considered whether I had found my next wonderkid, the ‘La Nueva Joya’ we’d been searching for. Here was a home-grown star in the making finally making waves in the first team. We moved into pre-season ahead of Season 5, January 2026 and he was subject to a couple of derisory bids from Premier League clubs that were instantly rejected, but the damage was done, his head was turned and as quickly as he lit up Argentina, he was gone.

In my first blog post I set about my ‘Hopes & Dreams’ for the save, essentially self-imposed targets. One of them was to break the record sale held by Dybala and here we’ve gone and done it. Though it felt a little hollow.

I’d have loved to have kept Lima but I couldn’t reject such a vast sum. A sum that has since helped to improve our facilities and the board plan to build a new stadium. But it almost felt as if I had peaked with this save, or at the very least reached a peak. I debated whether there would ever be another peak for me to find with IACC or if I was destined to just journey down the same road. We’d produce 1 or 2 great youths, sell them before they even turn 20, get forced to sell our better players due to exorbitant wage demands, thus struggling to keep apace with Boca and ultimately fall slightly short in the hunt the big prizes. Is this something I want from my save and my time on FM? I was seriously considering whether it was time to move on.

Yet FM just seems to have a way through to some dormant emotions. Hell I thought I could put some of the Lima money to good use and see what happens - maybe I’ll still enjoy things?

Snap back to the save and we also sold money-grabbing Maxi Romero for £5m to Fulham (they love buying from us). Oscar Salomon joined River for £4.2m and Bersano left for Chicago Fire for £700k. Yet more money in but we lose 3 first team players. So naturally 5 players come in immediately with a few to join in the summer (more on them soon).

Present

I flew through the League Cup stage of the season still in the mindset that I may well resign. So I switched to key highlights for many a game - we seem to have cracked this competition.

We never fail to smash Estudiantes (LP), they must hate us

Winning this competition is great but I’m very much in a place where it’s a nice bonus now with bigger prizes on offer in the League and continental competitions. We’ve not been able to do well in the Copa Libertadores to date and that was no different in Season 4 nor this season so far as we finished 3rd in our group and drop into the Copa Total Sudamerica - a competition I had completely forgotten existed. Could our path to continental glory lie this way? Slowly but surely I’m being dragged back in.

With the transfer window open it’s often a time of turmoil and this season is no different. Due primarily to more demand for crazy wages we’ve managed to bring in £40.5m in sales across 2026. Out go Rayan to Leeds (£5.5m), Liziero to Getafe (£3.3m), Muro to Fluminese (£3.8m) and Joaquin Jara to Fulham (again! £5m). The coffers are well and truly stocked.

So now you’ve joined me at where I am currently - kicking off another new season, reinvigorated by a new cup competition yes, but mostly because of IACC’s future.

Future

This is heavily caveated by the fact I know first hand that the future can be very fleeting. Seemingly so distant and yet passes by in a flash, but I’m determined to enjoy it whilst I can. We’ve a crop of cracking youngsters, a mix of home-grown talent still on the fringes of the first team and a nice bunch of young stars we’ve managed to convince to join the club. Let’s introduce them:

Victor

Victor joins us in the summer of 2026 ahead of the new season for £850k - he’ll be utilised as an Advanced Forward and set to work on his pace. I can see him banging in quite a few goals with that finishing attribute.

Ezequiel Veloso

I had my eye on Veloso as his contract wound down at Talleres at the end of 2023. An offer was made but he chose to join Wolfsburg where he promptly did very little. Ahead of the League Cup 2026 stage I was able to nab him for just £210k. He’ll play at AMR with Rayan now having left the club but I can see him performing anywhere across the front 4 roles if need be. High hopes for this fella.

Darío Sarmiento

A real coup this one. Signed from Man City on a free & I love that he wanted to join us. Signs up ahead of the 2026 league season and will replace Gabriel Lima in the AML - Winger (A) role. Still only 23 I reckon he’s going to be a revelation this season.

Carlos Fernández

Joining from Universidad San Martín de Porres for £550k, Fernandez will provide crucial cover in the wide AML/AMR roles as either an IW(A) from AMR or Winger (A) from AML. His value has already risen 5-fold since I took this screen - he joins ahead of the new 2026 season.

Diego Caballero

Ooooh this guy could really be incredible. Somehow plucked from the depths of Paraguay from Club Rubio Ñu, he joins on an end of contract deal where we pay £375k compensation. An utter bargain if you ask me. He won’t join until the end of the 2026 season but I am hyped for when he arrives. Still only 17 and a Model Citizen. Dreamy.

Lautaro López

An example to never remove players from your shortlist (maybe) this fella was bought by Inter Miami from Velez but then didn’t make the draft in his second season there so was a free agent that we dutifully snapped up. I want him to provide cover in the CM-D role I operate whilst also being emergency backup at centre back.

Rodrigo Pérez

A home-grown IACC boy, Perez has progressed nicely in the last 12 months used predominantly as an Advanced Forward. He’ll continue to provide cover there whilst also able to play in the AML role as a winger. Hopefully he’ll continue to develop.

There are more but I can’t share them all - but between them they make me want to see whether I can still take IACC to yet further heights. Let’s see what the future holds.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Santiago Rodriguez - he was good this season

Progress & Enjoyment - IACC End of Season 3 Review - La Nueva Joya #FM23

December 16, 2022

Another blog means another season has flown by here with Ed Lasso at IACC. If you need to catch up on season 2 then go here before reading any further.

So with an incredible first season back in the top division of Argentina, IACC had broken all sorts of club records on the way to a superb 2nd place finish behind the mighty Boca Juniors. Morale was high yet the financial worry still loomed over the club. Would we have to sell our assets to avoid slipping further into the red? How would this affect our competitiveness? Especially with the Copa Libertadores on the horizon? Let’s dive in.

Pre-season Business

In Argentina, even though it’s the end of the season, January still felt very much like a European January in that not a great deal happened. We managed to flog Joaquín Arzura to Millonarios for £500k and Gregorio Rodríguez for £525k, Arzura was a backup in central midfield whilst Rodríguez never left our reserves squad. Much needed cash in the bank and with our transfer revenue % at 5% there was no chance of reinvestment.

That being said I was able to make 3 free transfers within the realms of the wage budget - one a backup GK, Fernando Bersano at LB to replace the outgoing loanee Thomas Ortega and Nehual Tenaglia (now comfortably our highest earner) who I had thought could retrain as my Ball-winning midfielder…

Bersano turned out to be a shrewd operator in the Wing Back - Attack role posting solid creative numbers whilst not doing a huge amount defensively. Tenaglia was injured for much of the League Cup games and when he did return from injury - trained woefully and performed badly at MC in the BWM-D role. His versatility was useful in a small squad covering right back and centre back positions and he ended up primarily used as a ball-playing centre back with the stopper duty. He didn’t set the world alight but he was quite fun to watch when he brought the ball out from the back and pinged a cross-field pass.

League Cup Performance

We’ve fully established ourselves as a quality team in Argentina. Yes, our group was definitely the better one to be in with no River or Boca but we still did superbly well to win 11 or 14 games whilst we also had to juggle the schedule with our first ever endeavour into the Copa Libertadores.
We went through to face Tigre in the QF and thrashed out a 4-3 win before succumbing to a Velez side 2-0 in the semi-final. I was a little disappointed to lose at that stage given how dominant we had been in the group stage but it was a good run and given how far we’ve risen in a short space of time, in context it’s a great achievement.

Copa Libertadores

The Champions League of South America was finally here and safe to say I was pretty excited to take part. I’ve not experienced it on any version of Football Manager EVER so it’s nice to have a first.

We faced the Brazilian champions Palmeiras, a real mouth-watering tie for my IACC side, as well as bloody Tigre who we’ve played so many times already (and who finished behind us in 3rd last season) then Estudiantes de Merida of Ecuador - the weakest of the 4 sides.

These fixtures were always held midweek so from the outset of the League Cup group phase I had to battle to keep players fit for the Copa Libertadores. I really wanted to prioritise this competition whilst also finishing in the top 4 of the League Cup. Overall I feel I managed to do this but bloody hell it was a struggle at times.

Huge

One aspect of the Copa Libertadores I have yet to mention is the financial benefit it’ll have for a club like IACC. Given the pitiful TV, sponsorship and competition prize money locally if we wanted to continue to progress as a club we HAD to qualify for this competition to take advantage of the money received just for taking part. This, alongside selling players, is the only way to make money in Argentina. This halved our financial deficit. Thank-you very much.

4 wins in the group stage meant we qualified top of the group. Palmeiras away we were lucky to get out of there with only a 1-0 loss, but the return match at home where we won 3-1 I probably didn’t appreciate the magnitude of that win until writing this blog. Palmeiras were the Brazilian champions and, as I now know, the champions again this season just gone - so a 3-1 win against them is a superb win for us Argentinian minnows. Oh and also they were the eventual winners of the competition beating Boca in the final - so technically we’re the best team in South America right? That’s how it works.

We scraped through the 2-legged tie vs Millonarios where we had multiple injuries and fatigue to first team players. Santos then absolutely blew us away at our place, a proper demolition job on my squad that I felt was completely spent by this point. We did somehow go to Brazil and staunchly hold out a 1-0 away win, another landmark victory. Our Copa Libertadores journey was over for this season, the financial benefits were crucial as we brought in £4.8m in prize money. Huge money for us and nearly 3 seasons in we were finally in the green financially. I hope to come back next season and go at least one step further.

Pause / Reflect

Such is the format of football in Argentina that there seems to be relatively little time to take a breather. Both for myself and my squad. Part of me knows this is down to my quick style of playing FM. At the end of the League Cup stage my squad had roughly a month off before the League began and yet, no players went on holiday like I expected - they all hung around the club during this time. Now, I don’t know if I can collectively force them all to bugger off (I think I can individually) and I found this a little strange. But for the life of me I can’t remember if this happened last season as well. So I was left not really knowing whether I should look to keep them fit with friendlies or give them some proper rest. Or both even. In the end I gave them all a week of rest before resuming training mixed in with 3 friendlies (which we won).

I’ve no idea if this had a positive or negative effect on the season ahead - just that it made me think about something different and whether I had managed it properly. Something for me to look out for next season & plan for. Personally I think it may have contributed to mid-league-season-fatigue, but how the frig will I ever know?!

Before we began the league season we had a certain curtain-raiser to compete in first…

I’ll admit I had little expectations going into this game but it’s another testament of how far we’ve come. We were far sharper than Boca and it showed - Rodrigo Perez, a 17yr old drafted in due to widespread injuries, bagged his first goal for the club in a fairytale moment, helping us to a 2-0 win. Not a bad way to start the season.

The League Campaign

Here’s where things got pretty interesting; the summer transfer window opened for us and all clubs around the world and our progress had not gone unnoticed it seems. I still didn’t have a huge amount of wriggle room budget-wise (still with only 5% transfer revenue as well) so knew I’d have to sell ahead of the new league campaign and hope I could be savvy enough to bring in enough quality to replace any outgoings.

Franco Watson, an IACC legend in the making, leaves for the south coast of England

The Supercopa Argentina was played on the 14th July with the season starting the following week, so as you can see all outgoings come at quite a crucial time early in the league season. Especially as the Copa Libertadores knockout games kick in around about now as well. But bringing in £17.25m was fantastic for our finances if a little bittersweet. Faraj, Mereles & Farioli were squad options who won’t be missed. Cucchi was a standout performer last season yet unreasonable wage demands led to his sale to Spain. Santiago Mele has been a phenomenon in goal since he joined and to lose him to Sp*rs is unpleasant. However, £3.1m is a great fee and he rejoins us on loan for the season so my panic at having to replace him is eased.

The biggest loss by far though is our golden boy, our Nueva Joya, Franco Watson who left for a fee I couldn’t refuse. He’s been the main cog in the IACC machine and to leave a month into the new season is painful. After he left this news item came through…

Watson in there alongside some big SA names

A standout player in the region’s biggest competition - I sincerely hope that IACC can find another Nueva Joya through our youth system in the coming seasons. He doesn’t get a grand farewell like I envisaged but maybe he’ll be back one day.

Despite bringing in a nice chunk of cash my transfer budget was still paltry in comparison. So I played the free agent and loan market as best I could. Reinhart was brought in to temporarily fill the creative void left by Franco Watson as I couldn’t find anyone better within my budget. Charpentier added depth to the strikeforce with Cucchi leaving and the much-loved FM star Maxi Romero joined us on a free which I considered quite a coup for IACC.

Finally we signed a young lad called Rayan from Brazil who I really do have high hopes for.

So how did things fare in the league after our best midfielder and attacker were sold?

5 wins and 1 loss to begin the season was pretty good. Then we really did stutter to go winless in our next 5 games before spanking the ever present Tigre 3-0 in a much needed return to form. Our 2 legged tie with Santos was squeezed into the middle of this barren run and I definitely know my rotation and squad management contributed to the poor results. We sat outside the top 6 and therefore outside those teams who qualified for the Copa Libertadores.

Thankfully, with all our focus now on the league season we turned into an irrepressible force in our remaining 13 games losing just the once and winning 11. I feel this upturn in form was a result of a few things:

1. Maxi Romero

His first 5 or 6 games he really struggled for fitness having played no football for a while before joining us. Then he picked up a small knock and I was wondering whether he would ever work out for IACC. I needn’t have feared. Fast forward to season ends and he’d bagged 15 goals & 4 assists in 21 appearances including a few absolute beauties along the way. His stats really show how well he performed in the end.

2. Santiago Rodriguez

Santi’s stats were fantastic this season as well. 35 games, 10 goals and 14 assists. Through injuries and fatigue I felt in the first half of the season I had to shoehorn players into certain positions or roles. In the 2nd half players flourished by being fresher and also played in one position and role. Santi flourished when finally put in the Winger(Attack) role from ML and provided the creativity and end product that Franco Watson used to.

3. Rayan

Rayan has become an Ed Lasso favourite, at 6ft 2inches he’s an imposing young man who joined us having played very little football. A natural inverted winger at AMR I’d hoped to retrain him to MR where he could function in the same role.

This is the true meaning of progress, maybe. He was useless at MR in his first few games to the point I thought I’ll try him elsewhere. He was largely useless everywhere else. I was forced into persevering with him and back to MR he went, this time on the attacking duty of an inverted winger & in the second half of the season he flourished.

His expected attacking output ended up the best in the league with elite numbers posted for open play xA/90, goals/90 and non-penalty xG/90 contributing assists and key passes as well. He was a joy to watch at times and at 19 I can see him having a cracking full season next year.

So how did the table look on the final day?

River usurped Boca to become champions with their incredibly affective, direct style of play. Our form in the 2nd half of the season sees us comfortably in 3rd and not too far off the best 2 teams in Argentina. We may have finished one place lower than last season but definite progress has been made once again - it was nice to finish as the league’s top scorers as well. But just look at how Boca and River just don’t concede many goals. That’s the gap we need to bridge.

The Seeds of Turmoil

As the curtain comes down on another season at IACC I can reflect it as one of progress and enjoyment. It was definitely the most challenging season so far and more challenges no doubt await on the horizon. Our increased reputation and standing in South America means that more clubs are taking notice of our players and internally, our current crop of stars now want to be paid the same as their rivals over at River and Boca - the problem is we still don’t have their resources. So some tough decisions await as the seeds of turmoil swirl in the wind again ahead of Ed Lasso’s 4th season in charge. I want us to close the gap on the top 2 and yet can we do so if we keep having to sell key players each year? Maybe, with our finances in better ways than before, we can start to bring in more talented players and improve our facilities to produce our own. I’m still awaiting the next Paulo Dybala to walk through our doors.

I didn’t even mention we beat Boca…again. How far can this team go?

Until next time!

'The Dream Team' - IACC End of Season 2 Review - La Nueva Joya #FM23

December 2, 2022

Football Manager is a one of a kind game isn’t it? Bloody fuck we all moan about it, endlessly at times, and yet we do this while sinking 100s if not 1000s of hours of our time into this game. I think I moan less than others - I know the game isn’t perfect and yet I’m not looking for perfection, just a means to enjoy the 2-3 hours of ‘me’ time I get most evenings when my 3 kids are in bed.

In my opening season I was able to split my blogs into two but I have blitzed season two so this may well be a #longread - I was just enjoying the journey too much. It’s been a hell of a season back in the top flight for IACC. Let’s get stuck in.

Pre-Season - Recruitment Drive

It was always going to be a tricky period to navigate after sensationally gaining promotion. 2 players retired, including our club captain and first-choice keeper, and 7 other players left the first team squad due to expiring contracts. A few I was recommended to keep but decided not to either down to age, wage or the fact that I thought they just weren’t keeping. We then sold our backup right back, Cerato, for £700k and reserve defensive midfielder Nicholas Watson (brother to Franco) for £850k. Pleasing fees for players not first choice nor cut out for the Liga Profesional de Fútbol.

I’ve spoken previously about wanting to utilise statistics when recruiting players. FM Stag has yet again done some fantastic work in this area by producing ‘what good looks like’ when looking at numbers on a screen. Tony, aka FM Grasshopper also used his burgeoning skills as a graphic artist producing key statistics per position in his latest blog.

Unfortunately I haven’t really been able to utilise this much again. Our finances are grim so I’m still relying mostly on free agents / cheap players - most of whom haven’t played enough football to gather statistics on. But there was one…

I’ve used Stag’s thresholds but just tweaked the ratings for my own benefit to ‘Very Good’, ‘Good’ and ‘Poor’. As we can see from the image above Salomón floats around the very good in two metrics, good in two and poor in one. This was whilst playing for Tigre on loan from Boca across 14 games. Not a huge data set to use but better than most of what I was dealing with when recruiting. He passed the eye test attribute-wise and as a free transfer the statistics backed up my initial appraisal - a shrewd signing.

In the end we made a total of 10 signings. 8 free transfers with fees paid for Omar Faraj (£200k) and Santiago Mele (£500k). Despite our financial position our board are still allowing us to reinvest 100% of transfer fees accrued.

Club Vision & Tactics

With promotion comes changing expectations and at IACC it was no different. Our board knew the challenge ahead and thus decided we had to change tack.

This would be a huge shift from our first season, not to mention a massive philosophy change for me, Ed Lasso. I don’t recall over playing defensively solid football (not deliberately) nor counter-attacking football. Challenge accepted.

The ‘eventual’ tactic settled upon. Tweaks are made ahead/during some games but this is largely where we begin each game

A cautious system…well I never. Safe to say I wasn’t sure about this but I was keen to give the board what they wanted. Plus I was a little bit scared of getting thrashed week in week out if we tried to play expansive football - so there’s plenty of logic behind this. I sometimes switched the role of my PF depending on the opposition. My WM-A is asked to sit narrow and I sometimes used a WP-A in that role (switching the central AP to a CM-S). All in all - this functioned well from the off.

Argentine League Cup

Well, I’m not quite sure I expected this…

Pre-season friendlies showed me that this tactic had legs but I still didn’t expect to perform as well as we did. A host of new signings…better opposition, this was dreamy. A solitary loss to Velez our only blemish in an otherwise perfect cup ‘group’ stage. We sat back, surrendered possession but in areas of the pitch that wouldn’t hurt us. When we won the ball back, intercepted or opponents’ attacks broke down we countered at pace and in numbers. It really was a joy to watch. Unfortunately we fell at the first hurdle once into the knockout rounds but a phenomenal start to the new season. I was far more confident at competing going into the league stage of the season.

Liga Profesional de Fútbol

The end of the League Cup stage more or less coincides with the European summer transfer window. This is also a transfer window in Argentina but being £5m in the red, unless I sold I wasn’t bringing anyone in. It was at this stage that our board removed my allowance for scouts to zero and scrapped the scouting budget. Not ideal. But we were full of confidence with the squad we had. We were right to be confident.

Wow. Second place. After our showing in the league cup I was definitely hopeful, yet a part of me always assumed we’d ‘regress’ to mid-table anonymity. However, we surpassed all expectations and deservedly finished a club record high of 2nd only 5 points shy of the imperious Boca Juniors. Another truly historic season for IACC and one I really, really enjoyed. I’ll be looking to dissect our ‘Cautious 4-4-2’ in a separate blog to better demonstrate how well it performed throughout this season. But for now, I’m simply soaking in the sweet, sweet reality of a 2nd placed finish in our first season back in the top flight of Argentinian football.

Copa Argentina AXION Energy

So how would we fare in the truly weirdly formatted and scheduled Copa Argentina? These games just seem to pop up randomly and then disappear for months. But when they came around we seemed to enjoy them.

Last season we went our at the first hurdle but we were determined to do better this season.

We snuck through on penalties to then not concede any more goals on route to the final. The semi final shootout against rivals Belgrano was excruciating to watch as we eventually ran out 8-7 winners scoring all our penalties. IACC had reached their first final in history and faced an in-form Tigre side.

We dominated throughout and finally made it pay with two late second half strikes. IACC’s first ever silverware and surely Ed Lasso is on the road to legendary status at the club. This capped off a really enjoyable and successful 2nd season.

Performance Overview

As much as I’m keen to blog separately about how this season went tactically I’d like to highlight a few keys to our success this season.

11 goals from corners (2nd place had only 6)
43% of shots on target (2nd in the league)
494 dribbles made (1st in the league)
22 goals conceded and 11 clean sheets (2nd best in the league)
22nd place in Salary per annum spend

Just a few snippets to highlight how we fared this season compared to our peers. I did enjoy the amount of dribbles completed (almost solely when counter attacking). We were also very reliable in possession.

I wanted to give a huge shout to our £500k signing Santiago Mele who was brilliant in goal this season. I feel his statistics don’t quite do him justice (even though they’re solid). He was ever present and a wall between the sticks. 11 clean sheets and he earned his debut with Uruguay during the season. It was fully deserved. My only concern is we’ll lose him to his £2.8m release clause very soon.

The main reason for our success was in our prowess in front of goal. With the switch to 4-4-2 Cucchi was primarily used as an AF-A with Contreras PF-A/S/D. As a partnership they were pretty formidable and with Faraj in reserve we had a potent strikeforce.

Contreras ended up as the league player of the season as he added 6 assists and a record 7 player of the match performances. Not bad for a free signing.

What Happens Next?

So what next? We’ve surpassed all expectations by years & have established ourselves as a true top flight team. Continental football awaits but the club remains mired in over £5m of debt. Some of our players are becoming attractive to potential suitors and we have to raise money somehow. I’m hopeful the continental football may provide some much needed cash, however, I’m under no illusions that I may well lose one or two key players in the January 2024 window.

But what a season ey?

'Glory is a Carnival' - IACC End of Season 1 Update - La Nueva Joya #FM23

November 24, 2022

It’s time to wrap up the second half of the season & boy it’s been a ride. If you need to catch up on the half-season progress report then STOP. Give it a read here and then come back.

Our start to the season was pretty inconsistent but I’d come to terms with that as 90% of the teams in this league are the same given the competitiveness & similar qualities each team possess. The key was to try and tip the scales over into securing more wins of course. Overall that’s exactly what we managed to do.

One thing we started to do with more regularity was find the back of the net. We scored 23 goals in our first 20 games whereas we smashed in 32 in the next 16 games, going from roughly 1 goal a game to 2. A nice jump. And we have to thank this fella for our upturn in fortunes -

I need to tell you how the season went but I wanted to focus on Franco (sounds like a good name for a tangent blog…) - I’ve tried to ensure he’s the main man this season and he hasn’t disappointed. He ended the season with 39 appearances, 8 goals & 18 assists with an average rating of 7.14. He covered more distance than any other player in the league, made more high intensity sprints than any other player in the league and his creative numbers were amongst the best.. He was a lot of fun to watch.

Another special mention has to go to retiring captain & veteran goalkeeper Jorge Carranza. It’s no coincidence that with him missing our first 9 games of the season we were a far better side once he returned from injury. Just the 9 clean sheets but there were some crucial saves in some key matches. At 41 he became our oldest ever player & bows out on a real high.

As our form improved, so did our fame (or so I like to think) as a certain someone was watching from afar…

As we hit July we made our first sale of the season; Diego Becker joined Club Necaxa for £350k. He was a talented AMC but I couldn’t give him enough game time to please him due to the form of a certain Franco Watson. This gave me a little space to bring in a few free agents.

Cortés came in as a replacement for Watson (but ended up with no game time so far). Mereles to add depth to my AMR role I currently had as a Winger on support. He was solid if unspectacular. But with zero investment bar wages I was happy to bring them in. They both became our first non-Argentinian players as well.

Standings

We snuck into 2nd place on the final day of the season

Well as you can see, those results really did catapult us up the table in the second half of the season. We floated around the top 5 but managed to sneak into second place on the last day of the season. Given how life started for me at IACC I really couldn’t see this finish so I was really pleased with how things had progressed.
This meant we had hit our target of making the playoffs - something I’ve not experienced before being my first time in Argentina so I wasn’t completely certain what the format was. As it happens the 2nd place finish meant we were highly seeded (steady) and go straight into the Playoff Semi-Finals. Whilst those teams finishing 12th to 3rd had to battle it out in a first and second round of knockout matches to have to chance to face IACC.

As it happens we were eventually drawn, in a two-legged affair, with San Martin (Tucumán). A team we faced away from home in the league season and lost 1-0. I was hopeful but bloody nervous - now that we’d got this far I really didn’t want to fall at one of the final hurdles.

We played the first leg at home and, quite frankly, we were terrible.

Despite plenty of the ball we were dreadful with it. Our goal was a pot shot from the edge of the box that squirmed in under the keeper. The one bit of luck we had in an otherwise pitiful display. I worried that hope was lost.

BUT NEVER GIVE UP HOPE PEOPLE! BELIEVE! Well, we were pretty awful again. Better, but definitely rode our luck in this game. Our defence just refused to concede they were phenomenal all averaging over 7.1 with Alarcón, our DC, winning 16(!) headers, 8 interceptions and 5 clearances. A player of the match performance.

Admittedly, when the game finished 1-0 I thought to myself, ‘what happens now?’ - extra time? Did we lose on away goals? Oh no readers. We were through, by the skin of our teeth and purely by being the higher seeded side. Argentina, how I love you.

Playoff Final

So somehow, despite everything that had happened this season, we were one game away from promotion. We faced Chicarita Juniors who again, we had lost 1-0 to in the league season. Our big match preparation was done and it was time to play.

Victory. Sweet, sweet victory. When they equalised right before half-time I really didn’t know which way the game would go. But we came out in that second half like we deserved that promotion. A 4-2 win. Let the carnival begin!

IACC were promoted. Ed Lasso, a hero. A truly landmark day in the history of this club. I’m really excited for next season. I hope promotion will help with our pretty worrying financial situation and also allow us to upgrade the squad as we will face far superior opposition next season.

My first season in Argentina and a truly rememberable one.

“If the Lasso way is wrong, it’s hard to imagine being right”

— Trent Crim, The Independant

6 Months in With IACC - La Nueva Joya #FM23

November 17, 2022

BELIEVE

〰️

BELIEVE 〰️

“Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn’t it? If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong”

— Ted Lasso

It’s been 6 ‘FM’ months since my life began anew in Argentina with IACC and it’s safe to say it’s not all been plain sailing. We’re 20 games in now with potentially the same amount of matches to come - so I felt it time to take stock and update everyone on how Ed Lasso has fared in his maiden management role in South America.

Let’s jump right in to where we are today and then maybe work our way backwards as to how we arrived there. Destination before journey right? Results are as below and you can see how consistency has been extremely hard to come by.

Getting your season off to a 2-0 loss is never the way anyone wants to start. We recovered immaculately with 3 back to back wins propelling us up to 2nd place, however, our lofty heights were short lived as we promptly went on a run of no wins in 8, losing 5.

We all play FM differently. In games past I’ve found a system I enjoy quite quickly and will then often play many matches on key highlights - therefore progressing quite quickly. This year I’ve decided to be a little more reserved in my speed of play and I watched the first 10 games or so on comprehensive highlights. The plan was to watch more closely how my side would play game to game so that I can hopefully find areas of strength and weakness and tweak the tactic accordingly.

In hindsight this had both a positive and negative impact both on myself and my team. During the run of 0 wins in 8 games the football we played was absolutely dire to watch. Atrocious. Awful. Shocking. Insert any synonym here and you’ve nailed it. We were still playing the 4-3-1-2 that had started the season fairly well but all of a sudden (seemingly) the system and the team had fallen apart. Watching dreadful performances on comprehensive highlights really is not a fun FM experience. I wouldn’t recommend it.

During this poor run of games I made a number of tweaks based off of what I saw; our back line was moved lower, more positive mentality, attempting to trap the opposition centrally with our press. It got to the point where I’d made so many tweaks I lost sight of what I was actually trying to achieve. I reverted back to the ‘vanilla’ tactic for the huge derby game against Belgrano. We promptly lost 2-0, comfortably, and I knew something had to give.

One of my key focuses was to retain the AMC role for my Dybala narrative - I wanted this role to be the creative hub of my side (like Dybala had been for me in FM’s of the past) but knew that my ‘narrow’ setup wasn’t fulfilling the vision I had in my head. So we moved to the below:

Veteran captain and goalkeeper Carranza also return from injury as we switched tactics. Pretty sure that’s been a key moment as well

I used a ‘control possession’ system as my base & then made some tweaks. It proved to be a good decision as we’ve gone on to lose only 1 of our next 9 matches all played with this system. Watching on extended highlights we looked like a team transformed straight away. Positionally more astute and in a system that better suited the players at my disposal performances were so much better and more enjoyable to watch. It’s not perfect, far from it. But progress has been made and it’s been far from a comfortable journey to get here. At least now I have hope for the rest of the season. That is if I avoid looking at our finances…

We started the game with nothing and now have a lot less. A slight overspend on wages is due to the contract renewals I was able to do. A large portion of our squad still have expiring contracts at the end of the current season and without promotion I can only imagine our financial outlook is incredibly bleak. But how am I supposed to make any money? That question leads me to answers I really don’t like #sellalltheplayers

League Table

A snapshot of the top half of the table paints things in a fairly positive light. Our expectations are to finish in the playoffs which is the top 13 clubs after 36 games. We are on track but the table is just so damn tight it changes so quickly. A few wins can move you up 10 places whilst a few losses can see you drop the same amount. I’d love to find some consistency in results but as things stand all I can manage is to be consistently inconsistent.

La Nueva Joya

As outlined in my first blog I’m on the hunt for the next Dybala and I’m hopeful I can bring one through the ranks here like IACC did all those years ago. A positive about Argentina and their season starting early in the calendar year means this message pops up nice and early -

Will admit this got me ridiculously excited at the time

Two elite talents it says yet I’m not convinced by Perez at all. Lima does interest me though - able to play in the AMC role (I’m training him there now at double intensity) he’s diminutive like Dybala, has great flair & definitely some foundations to mould over the coming seasons that may see him become a key player for us. A one in a million talent? I’m not sure. But I’ll be watching his progress closely. I do also love that he is ‘Driven’ and two footed.

Franco Watson

I highlighted Franco out in my previous post as our best player and someone who I wanted to build our tactic around. If anything this has probably been one element that he gone fairly well so far. He’s one of our top performers & is producing some really good metrics compared to other performers in the league.

As you can see he’s been nice and creative & with 7 assists so far this season is outperforming the majority of other midfielders in the league so far. There’s definitely been multiple occasions where if my strikers were better than they are he’d easily be into double figures.

Franco still operatives in the AP-S role at AMC & I’m content to persist with this for the remainder of the season. I’d love for us to be more clinical up front to make the most of Franco’s creativity. Oh and he’s learned the trait ‘tries killer balls often’ which is just lovely.

The Jury’s Still Out

So it seems the jury is still out for Ed Lasso and life in Argentina. I’m glad we recovered from that awful winless streak and hope we can consolidate a top 13 finish ahead of the playoffs. There’s still a hell of a long way to go.

Watch out for Volume 002 of The Daily Clap that will follow this blog in due course. If you missed the first offering then find it here.