Previously on La Plata: Colombia, Hugo Ojeda relocated a jungle settlement to the Caribbean Coast and set out his ambitions.

Intro

I don’t want to dwell too much on it, but I lost my original FM21 save. A few months of in-game playtime never blogged, in that time we (mostly via FM Slack) saw:

1. Junior FC lose the Super Cup Final 3-1 on aggerate to América de Cali.

2. Carlos Valderrama arrive as Hugo Ojeda’s Assistant Manager.

3. Junior FC go unbeaten in the Copa Sudamericana Group Stage, with a gorgeous knockout match with FM20 club Club Atlético Peñarol lined up.

For a time, I felt like Neo in the transition area between the machine world and the Matrix itself; not totally sure what to do and where to go. But I’ve decided to restart on Football Manager 21.1.3 (me v21.3), with the aim to do similar things (i.e. Carlos Valderrama and 1 outfield signing), but also not deliberately throw away games I had lost.

Today’s update therefore covers January 2021 to June 2021, which includes the entirety of the Opening league campaign (known as Apertura) and the Copa Sudamericana Group Stages.

¡Vamos!

Startup + Pre-Season

I loaded all South American leagues and every South American player from the game’s database. I’ve added Mexico for the FM20 Ojeda narrative and also to hopefully continue Liga MX’s recruitment of South American players. The total player count comes to just under 60,000 players:

Training

Despite starting up the save in mid-December 2020, actual player training only took place from the end of that month. This meant it was a race against time to get ‘some’ level of tactical familiarity and fitness before the games arrived in early January. We just about made it, but it would have been better to have been able to set the players’ return date. Something I hope I have more control going into Season 2.

Now I am in mid-season, the games come thick and fast in Colombia which means there is limited time to train. I’ve only had a handful of uninterrupted seven day periods on the training ground. The more common weekly cycle is recovery and match preparation sessions in the lead up to games every two to three days. I am personally loving it, but I do hope to document some proper training approaches in a future post as I look to work on the U20 side of things. It can’t be right now though, as I only inherited three youth players in the Day 1 Junior Youth Setup with another six out on loan. It’s an area where I need to invest in during future years, but I quite like the idea of the clean canvass approach.

The intake will come in, and they will most likely earn U20 minutes right away and I can recruit around the edges. Perfecto.

“The Assistant Manager doesn’t solve the problems, he just points them out”

Whilst I agree with the above statement, I don’t really place much importance to the in-game advice I get from my assistant in Football Manager (I mean, why is he always telling me to change my mentality?!). I therefore prescribe to the romantic Assistant Manager appointments in my saves. In FM18 it was all about Estudiantes legend José Luis Brown (RIP) returning home to become Ángel Bastardo’s Assistant.

For FM21, it’s the man that personified Francisco Maturana‘s El Toque on the pitch: Carlos Valderrama. He’s got the Tactical Knowledge (16) and the Motivating (19) skills that any FM Blogger would envy, Junior FC love him too. I’ll probably follow his motivational team talk recommendations and stroke his fuzzy hair from time-to-time. That’s about it.

Welcome El Pibe!

Season 2021: Apertura

The Raumdeuter 🔥

I got the team down to the squad registration cap for Colombia: 30 players. But a few weeks into the season Liga MX came in for my left sided attacker: 30-year-old Fredy Hinestroza. I can’t really stop those in their prime from experiencing the bright lights of a better league, so I agreed to sell to Atlético San Luis. Fredy’s sale combined with another sale to Liga MX (Defender Dany Rosero to Toluca) generated around €400k. Combine that with our starting transfer budget (€2m) and I was sitting on a small fortune. I did what any sensible FMer would do in this situation, we bought a Wonderkid…

I am unsure if it’s a significant fee between Colombian clubs, but we’ve paid a considerable amount of Junior Club money for 20-year-old Jaminton Campaz. €1m from this year’s budget and the same amount in 12 month’s time, plus my 2nd choice right back (Fabián Viáfara) went in the opposite direction (something the AI requested, which I’ve not seen in FM for years). The Board rated the economics of the deal as ‘E’ (presumably meaning “Excellent”), and I was confident that Campaz would be golden and earn back his fee in goals and assists. In my first sight of him in the RIP save, he was electric in the ME…the best player I’ve witnessed so far in FM21 Colombia. He was now mine in this save universe!

For my Junior side, he hit the ground running. He made a goal or an assist contribution in each of his opening seven games for Junior (below), as our left sided Raumdeuter. The Raumdeuter is not a role I usually opt for, and I’m surprised it’s remained in Football Manager for over half a decade now…when it’s really only one player that’s ever referenced as one (Thomas Müller, who I used in a Byline piece a few months back). That being said, it can be absolutely lethal in my setup. As the first seven games showed:

I would usually dive into some FM Analysis here and show you Campaz’s performance via visualisations (touch/heat/pass maps etc)…but FM21 is bugged to High Hell. I can’t get anything meaningful right now out of the game, which is a shame, so please make do with words:

“The Raumdeuter in FM21 has surprised me, because he’s been as much of a creator than a goal scorer (I wrongly simplify the role in my head to a wider Poacher-type role that’s selfish and one dimensional. That’s not the case here). My left sided Wing Back often releases the Raumdeuter, who makes a good run in between opposition FB-CB and finds time to cross for my Advanced Forward. The role also frequently cuts back to the Enganche for shooting opportunities. Thanks”.

Ojeda’s 4-2-3-1 DM

The Raumdeuter sits on the left side of a Balanced (and sometimes Positive) 4-2-3-1. The thinking behind using him here was that he was a lot of space to move into with the Advanced Forward breaking beyond the lines (and thus creating space) and the Enganche holding his position centrally. The role suits a shorter passing style too, something I’ve really been keen to try and implement here in Colombia.

Campaz is in no way the perfect Raumdeuter just yet. It’s a role that requires strong Mentals, something which is obviously still developing in a 20-year-old, but I would say he is definitely on the right track. His positional understanding became natural after 5 months of playtime at AML, and I’ve had an individual focus on him to work on his Shooting alongside the Raumdeuter duty training. His trait to Cut Inside From Left Wing and attack central places also helps, and I am thinking of asking him to learn either Play One-Twos or Move Into Channels in the next few months to help even further.

Campaz’s 2021 record so far (all comps) stands at: 29 games, 7 goals (xG of 5) and 16 assists. Decent.

Elsewhere in the 4-2-3-1, I’ve tried to use some traditional South American roles. I’ve got the aforementioned No.10 as my Enganche, which is usually Sherman Cárdenas. He has the two guys on attack to feed with through balls, a supportive Winger running wide and sometimes the central Segundo Volante (who in certain games in on Attack Duty) to link up with. But I would say the effectiveness of the role is still to be determined, sometimes the No.10 is great to watch and sometimes it is extremely quiet. The defence is classic FM Grasshopper Conservatism, I’m perhaps a bit too passive with the supporting cast at Full Back and also the Defensive Midfielder on Defend duty. All something to ponder after 6 months of gameplay…

Results

The fun/cruel thing about Colombian league football (and across a lot of South America), is that you can be the ‘best’ side by gathering more points than anybody else…and yet still not win anything. As demonstrated by Ojeda’s Junior, who achieved a 1st place finish in the traditional Opening Table: 11 Wins, 7 Draws and 2 Defeats. Some of those wins were scintillating, especially the 7-0 Vs Millonarios. Yet there are still too many draws, showing that my 4-2-3-1 is in no way an all-conquering tactic. If anything, we’ve become worse as we’ve progressed through 2021…

I would say we hit a fitness wall around April/May time, where the games were played every 3 days. Many players became jaded and experienced niggling injuries. So, I rotated as best I could…despite seeing it massively effect on-field performances (and results) and we limped into the Semi Final Group, which contained the league favourites Atlético Nacional. I wouldn’t say we were humiliated in the end of it all, we just did not take our best football into the mini-tournament. That famous 7-0 win Vs Millonarios felt like eons ago.

To tie nicely back to my earlier discussion on Campaz. If my ‘business end’ struggles with fitness and performances were not clear enough, you can see how the poor form has been reflected in The Raumdeuter’s last seven games (below). It’s a direct contrast to his first seven games, and perhaps shows that I’ve overworked a core set of players (all of whom needed a more intensive pre-season and the odd rest period)…

2021 Copa Sudamericana

More gloom for Hugo Ojeda and the disgruntled Junior Board Members, who saw the side fail to meet expectations in the Copa Sudamericana (which was the Second Round). It didn’t help that I only realised that 2nd place did not go through in the Suda until the last game week (what an idiot!), but I can’t help feel we got a ridiculously hard group. Atlético Mineiro are coached to be a good pressing side under Jorge Sampaoli (who I felt lucky to remain unbeaten against) and Argentine top flight side Newell’s Old Boys hammered us in the opening group game. I feel satisfied to have since bounced back from that defeat and go five unbeaten, earning difficult points away in Brazil and up in the clouds away at Cusco, Peru.

Nevertheless, we have a big red thumbs down on the Club Vision screen. “Failed”.

Adios Miguel Borja

I am trying to remain positive in this save. But the task ahead appears to be even harder with the departure of 28-year-old Miguel Borja, whose loan ends in June 2021. Borja has been an apex predator for me in FM21: 32 games, 25 goals (xG of 14). He’s been the one consistent goal threat throughout the whole season, and he will no doubt be hard to replace.

However, I did know this was coming and I always expected to be powerless in trying to keep him; his wages are Brazil level and we can’t afford his transfer fee. I took this save on knowing that I would only get 6 month’s of magic from him, something I have been craving since he burst onto the scene in 2016/17. As this lovely throwback between myself and good friend Diego Mendoza shows…

It’s therefore time to find a new No.9 for the remainder of 2021, where I hope we can go on to win the Closing Stage and compete for the Copa Colombia title. Both competitions offer a gateway into the more lucrative 2022 Copa Libertadores, which has to be the primary goal.

The first uncertain 6 months of FM21 Colombia have been a real challenge, I’m learning as I go and adapting where I can. But one thing is for sure, La Plata: Colombia is warming up nicely.

Thanks for reading/sharing/caring.

FM Grasshopper