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

January 14, 2020

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

"2020 Copa América" - Rio de la Plata #FM20

January 2, 2020

Previously on Rio de la Plata, Ángel Bastardo replaced Óscar Tabárez and became Uruguay’s most powerful football manager.

Estadio Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti will host the 47th edition of the Copa América Final.

Monday 16 December 2019. A day etched in my Football Manager history as one to forget. But I will probably never forget it. Not only is it the birthday of Daniel Gear (my podcasting co-host), it’s also the day I comprehensively lost to the Bolivian National Team in Football Manager 2020 during the 2020 Copa América, jointly hosted by Argentina and Colombia.

Can you ever come back from the lowest of FM lows? To answer this, read on for the game-by-game happenings on a tournament with no International team training, dangerously low levels of tactical familiarity and an adaptability score of 1 for Ángel Bastardo.

Strap yourselves in for some classic Bastardo-ball…

The Group Stage

Group B

Uruguay (ranked 8th in the World)

Argentina (ranked 10th in the World)

Paraguay (ranked 27th in the World)

Chile (ranked 29th in the World)

Bolivia (ranked 54th in the World)

Qatar B (ranked 98th in the World)

I wrote about my grand plans to adopt my Peñarol tactics with the Uruguayan National Team last time out on the blog. But these things take time, especially in International Management where no form of training exists whatsoever. This was a topic of conversation in Episode XLIII of the GrassNGear podcast and to summarise the discussion: my Uruguayan side would have to play through the tournament and learn as we go.

The signs of a painful tournament were highlighted in our 2-1 comeback win Vs Paraguay, our winner coming from Giorgione De Arrascaeta in a mazy run with less than 10 minutes to go. There’s not much I want to say about Bolivia, probably my worst game of FM20 so far. A Cavani goal ruled out for offside that would have pulled us level at 1-1, a second half sending off for Luca Olaza and then a Bolivian penalty when Martín Cáceres decided to attack the opposition. We sunk against the 54th ranked team in World Football and it was at this point that I had serious doubts about our 2020 Copa América credentials. Bolivia 3-0 Uruguay.

Our third game saw us adopt a 4-4-2 and get back to basics. Less team instructions and Suárez and Cavani upfront together: Uruguay 2-1 Chile.

Qatar B, an invitational side to make up the numbers, were our next opponents. Argentina had just beaten these guys 10-0, but we could only manage 4-0 as I reverted back to the 4-1-4-1 Peñarol tactic. It didn’t matter, Uruguay had qualified for the knockout stages and were one game away from meeting the Football Association’s ambition of reaching the Semi Finals.

However, before we entered the knockouts, we had the small matter of Argentina first. Bastardo’s home nation and last game of the group stage. I decided to match their 4-4-2 and got with a low block. All well laid plans were out of the window though after the 2nd minute…of course I overlooked the most important factor of man-marking Lionel Messi. Lucas Torreira’s job from then on was to man mark the 33-year old out of the game, as both matched up in the centre of midfield. But that did not stop Argentina…they’d just call on one or two of their other world class players: Pablo Dybala with a hat-trick and Sergio Agüero finishing the rout. Argentina 5-2 Uruguay.

Quarter Final

Uruguay Vs Colombia (ranked 21st in the World)

Now that we were in the knockout stages of a Copa América, we could not afford to take the mentality of ‘damage limitation’ as I did with Argentina (because that went well 👀). We’d have to play to our strengths and hope that it would be enough to see us through. So, I took a glance at Colombia’s formation and one thing immediately jumped out:

No natural width. We’d once again go back to the 4-1-4-1 / 4-3-3 and take the game to Colombia. The result was a painful 1-0 win, with Edinson Cavani grabbing the only goal on 67 minutes. It’s no less than we deserved though, and I felt in this game that I finally settled on a midfield trio…an engine room to rival the glorious one I had back in FM17: Lucas Torreira (DLP-D), Rodrigo Bentancur (CM-S) & Nahitan Nández (CM-A) coping well with the inflated numbers in Colombia’s midfield.

Semi Final

Uruguay Vs Peru (ranked 19th in the World)

Next up was a surprise meeting with Peru, who had knocked out Argentina 2-1 five days earlier. Incredibly, despite being mostly gash all tournament, we had a genuine chance of surpassing the Football Association’s expectations by reaching a major International Final. I did not want to make too many changes, Nicolás De La Cruz replaced the injured Luis Suárez as our Inverted Winger on Attack. I’d also done something Unai Emery failed to do in his 18 months at real-life Arsenal…realise that Lucas Torreira is a ridiculously good Deep Lying Playmaker. I once again went with my new Uruguayan engine room, unchanged from the Colombia win…and:

Uruguay 1-0 Peru. Despite Peru battering our goal with 24 shots (11 on target) and slightly more possession, we held firm. This is probably the perfect International team for the Bastardo playstyle, players like Diego Godín & José Giménez were there to charge down every Peruvian shot, their elite mentalities shining through with beautiful ‘garra charrua’.

The Final 🏆

Uruguay Vs Brazil (ranked 1st in the World)

Brazil had scored 21 goals en route to the 2020 Copa América Final, held in River Plate’s wondrous Estadio ‘Monumental’. Ranked 1st in the World, there would be no greater test for my Uruguayan bastards. I couldn’t really see a weakness in Brazil’s starting XI, so I decided to stick with 4-1-4-1 / 4-3-3, crash and burn…Bolivia felt like a long time ago now anyway.

The game was played out on Comprehensive highlights over on Twitch, and you can re-watch it below. After taking a 2-0 lead on the 11th minute, we slowly crawled towards the darker arts of Bastardo ball: Cautious Mentality, Shorter Passing, Narrow & Frequently Wasting Time, all bound up in lovely low block.

Uruguay 2-1 Brazil. For as much as Brazil had the ball, they only mustered 6 shots on target the whole game. Goalscorers Edinson Cavani & Nahitan Nández will be elevated to hero status, but a lot could be said for the rest of the squad. Particularly 34-year old Captain Diego Godín, who won all 12 of his headers as he marked Roberto Firmino out of the game.

The game in all its glory is viewable here:

Freedom Of The Country

The freedom of Uruguay had been given to Ángel Bastardo, and he chose to use that freedom by shying away from the victory parade with La Celeste’s players & staff.

Instead he was in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Montevideo to address the greatest act of incompetence of the Bastardo-Montevideo era. $1.3bn worth of cocaine seized by the authorities whilst Bastardo was out of the country. The man responsible for distribution in place of Bastardo, Enrique Vázquez, was to be executed at midday. His crime was not only the lost shipments, but rather his failure to inform the chain of command. Instead he had attempted to run away with his family via an international flight to Chile. Poor move.

Bastardo coolly walked up within a few feet of his trembling mark and drew his pistol. No last words would be offered to Vázquez and a single shot met him clean in the head. Bastardo’s gaze remained on the slumped & bound body for a few extra seconds, as the group of spectators watched on.

“Hugo” Bastardo said firmly for all to hear, “take Vázquez’s men and resume control of our distribution. Find our lost stock”.

18-year old Hugo Ojeda, looking every bit as intimating as the older men around him, stepped forward from the crowd of Bastardo’s inner circle and nodded, “As you wish, Don Bastardo”.

Note from the Editor - The last two posts on the site have focused on the Uruguay NT team, and I have really enjoyed ticking off two major ambitions from my FM20 checklist (read more here).

There’s a lot missing from International Football in Football Manager 2020, but I’ve got enough motivation to continue with La Celeste with the target of representing them in the 2022 World Cup. The aim is to transition from the older stars (Cavani, Godín, Suárez et al), build around the ‘Engine Room’ (Bentancur, Nández, Torreira et al) and introduce some of the promising Uruguayan youth prospects (Araújo, Arezo, Cáceres et al).

For those wondering about my club save, we’ll now be back with Peñarol going forward…as I look to compete for the Copa Libertadores title and return to the domestic fight against Nacional in the 2020 Clausura.

As always, thanks for reading/sharing/caring.

FM Grasshopper

"The Heir to Tabárez" - Rio de la Plata #FM20

December 15, 2019

Previously on Rio de la Plata, Ángel Bastardo led the charge against Nacional and looked to the future.

Intro

Having accepted Ruslan Chepiga's offer to take on the Uruguayan U20s deep within the Colombian jungle, International football has been an element to my save since Day 1. However, I haven't really documented what's happened so far. Today's post will therefore bring you the events affecting 'La Celeste' between 2018-2020. We'll also have an update from the 1st half of Peñarol's 2020 campaigns (both at home and in the Copa Libertadores) and some detail behind some transfer hackz I’ve made. Vamos…

The Heir to Tabárez

My thinking behind taking on the U20 Uruguayan side in FM20 was that I could use La Celeste as a conveyor belt for my younger academy players. Peñarol have one of the best youth systems in Uruguay and by using their players in the U20 setup, I can test them against their peers from around the world and boost their reputation. Additionally I could also make use of the National reports that you can get for any young Uruguayan player, which is a good way of getting to know the league’s next generation without having to scout them from my club’s scouting budget.

My overall ambition with the U20s was to impress the Uruguayan Federation in order to be in the frame for taking on the top job, whenever 72 year-old Óscar Tabárez retires in Football Manager. Here are my results in 2019:

I adopted the Peñarol 4141 / 433 that had done well domestically in Uruguay and had some lovely 19/20 year-olds to call upon: Ronald Araújo, Brian Rodríguez & Juan Manuel Sanabria to name just three supreme talents that had already moved away from Uruguay. In 2019, I integrated three Peñarol youngsters into the U20 setup: Agustín Dávila, Ezequiel Busquets and Facundo Torres. Unfortunately I would have called up wonderboy Ezequiel Mechoso (who I wrote about here), if he had not been injured in the 2nd half of 2019.

Despite the Bolivia loss up in the mountains, the U20 results were incredibly promising and I looked forward to the 2020 invitational tournament where I expected to face some strong European opposition…until the opportunity to replace Tabárez occurred in January 2020! Óscar Tabárez retiring after almost 14 years in his 2nd stint with La Celeste:

There was no guarantee my application would be successful, but I am delighted to get the full national team job. The U20 was fun and different, but the big disadvantage is that I really only had friendlies to play. Whereas, with the full squad, I will have the Copa América and the World Cup Qualifiers over 2020:

Uruguay’s fixtures (and results) under Bastardo.

I will continue to use the Peñarol formation and tactics I have used previously in this save, and Bastardo-ball with some of the best/cuntiest players in the World is a mouth-watering prospect:

Bastardo’s Uruguayan squad for the 2020 Copa América.

I plan to enjoy the Copa América tournament, so I’m taking it slow with the possible return of a couple of 90 minute matches (probably against Chile and Argentina). These matches ‘may’ be streamed over on twitch.tv/fm_grasshopper….but don’t count on it. There are 5 group games before the knockout games start with the Quarter Finals…my aim is to finish up the groups before heading off to France for the Christmas holidays (sadly, no laptop will accompany me as I plan to drink wine and talk to people). So, we’ll most likely finish off the tournament around the New Year 🎉

Season 2020

Domestic

Back in Peñarol and it’s largely been a productive season. Buoyed by the signing of Mauro Zárate for €900k from Boca Juniors, Peñarol won the Opening Stage with 12 straight victories (9 of those being clean sheets). However there were three disappointing performances, notably the Super Cup loss to River Plate Montevideo and the away match against Wanderers (no connection to my podcast co-host Daniel Gear).

Continental

In the Copa Libertadores, we once again progressed from the Group Stage; which contained holders Flamengo and a difficult trip to the Bolivian mountains (I’m finding altitude having an effect this year, honest). We’ll look back at the last round victory with fond memories, with Mauro Zárate netting both goals…and paying off his transfer fee (earning us €947k prize money for our 2nd Round appearance against Deportivo Cali). Hero & Maverick.

Signing Sebastián

In previous blogs I said that I’d use all available transfer budget to sign older stars in this save. But in June 2020, the opportunity to sign one of the league’s best central defenders presented itself: Sebastián Cáceres. At 20 years-old, Cáceres was both club captain at Liverpool Montevideo and also within my U20 Uruguayan side. At the time, his transfer value was €300k, but his Scouting Report said he was well out of my transfer budget range and I didn’t think he’d be a viable option for Peñarol.

Until I used the Interact with Board transfer hackz:

I selected the option that signing Cáceres would “help me achieve my goals this season”…and the board agreed. You can see from the above that the Board shook the magic money tree and found extra monies from the bank balance to make the deal happen. It was then up to the management, including the Director Football Pierre Aubame, to get the deal over the line:

It’s a great deal in terms of wages and I like the three-year length but I am slightly worried about the minimum release fee (however the Board have said they are pleased to see the clause in the contract via the Club Vision screen). More importantly though, from a 1st team coach perspective, I am getting one of the best defenders in the league with Cáceres arriving as a 4-star ability central defender:

This technique does come with a caveat though, and should be treated with caution: on successful delivery of this Board request, the Board will freeze transfer/wage budgets on the short-medium term. This means that you will be unable to make budget adjustments from wages to transfer budget for example. So my recommendation would be to use this option if that’s the one deal you want to get done in that particular transfer window, or at least the final signing of the window.

La Celeste

So, it’s now over to Uruguayan National Team to continue this gripping save. Ranked 6th in the World, can Bastardo’s Uruguay win the Copa América and tick off a major ambition of this save? As always, you can stay up-to-date over on my Twitter page…or wait for the next blog post sometime in January 2020.

Thanks for reading/sharing/caring,

FM Grasshopper as Ángel Bastardo: “The Heir to Tabárez”

"Paint It Black" - Rio de la Plata #FM20

December 7, 2019

Previously on Rio de la Plata, Ángel Bastardo fought fatigue and won a trophy.

Intro

Nacional Vs. Peñarol is (outside of the UK) the oldest club derby in world football history, it’s an emotionally charged fixture…the way Ángel Bastardo likes it. The Montevideo police had drawn out the entry zones into the Campeón del Siglo stadium, keen to ensure the contact between both sets of fans was kept to a minimum. But these plans were futile whilst Bastardo and the Peñarol caporegime were around.

Three hours before kick-off, Bastardo had led the charge on horseback; around 150 Barra Amsterdam soldiers flanked by 27 Venezuelan Free Folk, including young Hugo Ojeda, caught the Nacional troops with a surprise attack from the fields deep into the Canelones department. Crossing Route 102 and into the stadium complex, the home fans had cheered Don Bastardo even before a ball had been kicked. It was said that going up against Peñarol often felt like starting the match 0-3 down…for Nacional fans on 27 November 2019, it was true.

Battered and bruised they would make their way into the stadium with only a few minutes to spare before kick-off. Those fans entered the Campeón del Siglo and into cauldron of black and yellow, to see a manager who was on the verge of winning his first Uruguayan Primera División title. Bastardo’s message to his players in the pre-match team talk: “Paint It Black”…

Season 2019

Domestic

Last time out on the blog I documented my near perfect start with Peñarol in the Opening Stage of the Primera División: 14 wins and 1 solitary loss (away at Nacional). I was therefore fairly confident going into the mid-season Intermedio, which FM treats as a cup competition. We could rotate the squad and hopefully get another cup final. So, I took a largely developmental squad into the seven games in order to introduce a few Peñarol youth products to the 1st team. We’ll talk more about them further on this blog post, but they are: Ezequiel Busquets (18), Agustín Canobbio (20), Matías de los Santos (20) & Ezequiel Mechoso (19).

But as I quickly learnt, one bad result can screw you’re whole mid-season campaign. We had an awful game against River Plate Montevideo (losing 2-1 at home), who went on to top the group and then beat Nacional on penalties to win the 2019 Intermedio.

Despite the Board wanting to win the Intermedio, my main target this season was to be crowned the 2019 domestic league champion. We had already secured a Champions Play-Off spot, after winning the Opening Stage…but by winning the Closing Stage I could become the outright champion and avoid the drama of a Play-Off. We were strong, perhaps not as strong as the freakishly good Opening Stage…but enough to top the league once again. The title being decided at home Vs Nacional on 27 November 2019, a 2-1 win with Captain Fantastic Cristian Rodríguez scoring the winner (more on this later):

Our 4141 / 433 system fluid-counter attack system produced a record points haul of 94 points, when tallying up the Opening, Intermedio & Closing stages:

Continental

The real challenge of this save is on the continental scene and so it proved in my knockout matches against Internacional of Porto Alegre, Brazil. I won’t come out and say we were the better team here, because ultimately I felt Internacional were better than us over the 180 minutes. But the ties were remarkably close and give us hope that we can compete against the best from Brazil going forwards.

Internacional’s run went all the way to the final, where they were beaten by real-life Copa Libertadores Champions Flamengo in an all-Brazilian encounter.

So, overall a brilliant season. A Primera División and Super Cup domestic double to cast away the Bastardo doubters. Here are some of my top performers from Year 2019 (all comps):

Goals: Agustín Canobbio (18 goals), Cristian Rodríguez (14 goals) & Luis Acevedo (11 goals)
Assists: Giovanni González (12 assists), Cristian Rodríguez (11 assists) & Gabriel Rojas (7 assists)
Average Rating: Gabriel Rojas (7.37), Giovanni González (7.22) & Agustín Canobbio (7.14)

Las Joyas de Peñarol

I really like charting the progression of a group of youngsters in Football Manager, I did something similar in FM18 with Estudiantes (read more here). In those posts, I had a mixture of youth that had either come from the Academy itself or Newgens acquired externally by poaching talents from around South America. As mentioned in my opening FM20 post, I intend to work towards the club vision of developing youth from within the Peñarol setup. Alongside that, an alternative club vision has me signing established stars for the 1st Team. For these reasons, my sole focus in terms of youth development is working with whatever the Academy produces. The scouting & transfer budgets will be used to buy 1st team ready players but the coaching & training side of Peñarol will be there to help bring through “Las joyas de Peñarol”.

Now that the brief intro is over, I’ll introduce you to the aforementioned foursome of players that were here from Day 1 of my save. All of whom have contributed significantly to Peñarol’s domestic double in 2019…

Agustín Canobbio - born 1998

Before taking on this save, I already knew that Canobbio should be one of the standout youngsters to keep an eye on. Little did I know that he’d undoubtedly be my most prolific forward with 18 goals (all comps). He won both the Player & Young Player of the Primera División awards for 2019, so it was a huge priority buy out his contract from his Agent (a common event in South America) in December 2019.

His exposure to First Team football has seen him jump from 2.5 star to 3.5 star current ability. He has a little wiggle room left before maxing out as a 4 star player, which is why it’s imperative we don’t move him on just yet:

Canobbio has been playing and training as a Winger on Attack, and I’ve been conscious not to overload him on then training ground, because he was pretty critical to our success in the 1st team.

He has also been placed in a tutoring group, and despite no great increase in Determination or personality, I hope to see further gains made here in 2020. Although I am worried that his status as a key player in our side will see him less influenced by older players.

Bastardo's reflection:

+ Huge offensive output in the First Team.
+ Removed Agent ownership and tied to a two year contract with no release clause.
- Needs a complementary player trait trained. Tutoring with Cristian Rodríguez has been largely ineffectual in year 1.

Matías de los Santos - born 1998

Next up is Matías de los Santos. Who has gone from being a fringe player to an integral part of our midfield three engine room…to the point where he is now one of the first names on the team-sheet. You’ll see from the below that we’ve been training him in the central midfield position (and in a Central Midfielder-Attack role), and he’s probably now more suited in this more advanced position than at DM. He’s grown well in both Anticipation and Off The Ball (both +2 point increases) and I’m probably going to switch his training to a CM-Support role to favour Concentration over Long Shots over 2020.

I tried to get him some traits from Walter Gargano via a mentoring group, but sadly they haven’t yet arrived…only the negative two point drop in Determination to now match Gargano’s score of 15. However, his star rating has grown from 2.5 stars to 4 stars, which now suggests that he has reached his potential. I therefore had no worries with our Director of Football adding in a minimum fee release clause of €2.2m which would be good money for us; should a club bid for him during his two year contract.

Bastardo's reflection:

+ Has almost reached his ceiling in terms of potential ability.
+ Now a preferred Central Midfielder and plays this role well in the team.
- Drop in Determination from mentoring.

Ezequiel Mechoso - born 2000
Continuing the theme of young central midfielders, we have Ezequiel Mechoso who was sitting in our under 19s on Day 1 of this save. During the second half of the 2019 season I introduced him to the First Team, he made 5 league starts in the Closing Stage and featured in 5 of the 7 Intermedio cup games. His growth is perhaps not as spectacular compared to Agustín & Matías, but he has earned a one year contract extension in Team Bastardo.

I’ve added an individual focus on Attacking movement to help accelerate Mechoso’s attacking growth in Anticipation, Decisions and Off The Ball. These are important attributes for my Central Midfielder Attack role in my side, and could be deadly when combined with Mechoso’s high scores in Passing & Vision. Doing this is effectively a 4th session of the day in training terms, so I’ll monitor whether I keep this going forward depending on how much gametime Mechoso is getting in 2020.

Bastardo's reflection:

+ Early signs show a technical player with some strong mental attributes.
+ Still a huge room for development, Mechoso now needs games.
- Mechoso has been added to Cristian Rodríguez’s mentoring group. I expect a drop in Determination, but I would like a Player Trait or two!

Ezequiel Busquets - born 2000

Similar in the way Ezequiel Mechoso joined the Peñarol First Team, Ezequiel Busquets was part of the developmental Intermedio squad. He’s had to be patient, seeing that 1st choice right back Giovanni González is one of our top performers.

Unfortunately Busquets out of all the four players integrated over 2019 had the hardest time to adapt. Maybe it’s the low Determination or some of the hidden attributes behind the scenes, he’s had a real issue with taking on additional training. However, we have seen a slight increase in Determination due to him being part of Walter Gargano’s mentoring group.

But in a curious tale that relates back to the opening paragraph of this blog post, Ezequiel Busquets’ played a pivot role in the title decider against Nacional on 27 November 2019. Not only did he score his second own goal of the season to bring the teams level at 1-1, he perhaps justified why you should really see youth development through in FM:

His direct running all game was a thorn in the side of Nacional, and it finally paid off with a good cross for Cristian Rodríguez to head home. Young players will make mistakes, it’s part of football, but you have to be there for them when it happens. To quote a truly great man:

“Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players. They should be encouraged to try skills without fear of failure” - Arsène Wenger

Bastardo's reflection:

+ Assisted the title winning goal.
+ Bastardo’s 1st choice in the Uruguayan U20 setup.
- Needs to be more determined.

Next time…

I wanted this youth development post to be concise with just the four guys over a very short window (just one year), to provide a snapshot at the decision making I go into when managing and integrating younger players. One year is no longer enough time to turn youngsters into superstars in Football Manager, progress takes time and proper management. So, I am happy with what we’ve done over 2019, but there is massive room for improvements. The good news is that there’s at least another couple of 18 year olds entering the 1st team for 2020 (Agustín Álvarez & Facundo Pellistri), plus I am fast approaching my first Youth Intake in Football Manager 2020. The excitement rises for what has, so far, been an awesome save as I look to continue the good work here at Peñarol.

Note - I have intentionally shied away from updating you on 2020 transfer dealings, updates on the happenings of the Uruguayan u20 National Team setup, Project Vincent or the Caporegime. These will all be covered in various blogs in the future.

As always, thanks for reading/sharing/caring.

FM Grasshopper

"Fighting Fatigue, Training Tactics and Familiarity"- Rio de la Plata #FM20

November 27, 2019

Previously on Rio de la Plata, Ángel Bastardo begun to assemble his Caporegime.

Intro

Football Manager 2020’s release day was a weird one. I didn’t expect to undertake so many house chores on my precious single day of annual leave without the wife and kids. This day is annually dedicated to Football Manager and only Football Manager. Yet I dusted [and then vacuumed] the house, ran the washing machine twice, made a fresh Arrabbiata dish [with crouton starter] and moisturised my face.

Of course, I gave it the bravado when Football Manager’s unpatched release arrived, adamant that I would be able to get past the vast majority of players having 1 for Determination. But alas, I grew hesitant of starting my new save on such a downbeat opening few hours. After all, I usually play my saves well into the life cycle of FM…so waiting a few more hours was painful but probably the right thing to do, right?

Luckily the patch did arrive (20 minutes before picking up my children from school), and I’ve soon enough ploughed 50 hours into Football Manager 2020. The save is back on, and I am loving it even more than I thought I would….for reasons that will probably become clear if you read on further.

Today I document the events of my pre-season, from kick-starting my Caporegime to the fitness and tactical setup of Bastardo’s Peñarol. Let’s begin…

Pre-Season

#YoPierreSnr

As previously mentioned last time out, I am starting FM20 with the first transfer window disabled. I figured that by starting in December 2018, I’d rather keep real-life squads together until at least mid-2019. So, this is pretty unusual for me as I often like to bring in a couple of my own guys to complement my starting tactic. My initial priority therefore is finding a Director of Football, who will be the guy responsible at Peñarol for transfers and contracts.

I was actually struggling to find a suitable DoF, until I realised that the African Scout I was recommending to AccordingtoFM would actually be a suitable appointment for my save too as a DoF. Pierre Aubame has a great judge of player ability and is also a fairly shrewd negotiator. It also fits in with the narrative too, having played in Colombia briefly in the mid-90s for Junior. Bastardo did not need any more convincing, Aubameyang Senior was the guy to work with at Peñarol.

Project Vincent

Having worked with Vincent van Raam on the FM20 South American guides, I really wanted to sign him as a Scout in my Football Manager 2020 save. However, I only wished to load South American players and did not want to specifically load Netherlands data just for him (sorry Vincent). So I opted to edit Vincent into the Peñarol setup before save creation. I gave him the cheapest wage in the club, a deal reflecting his relatively poor scouting attributes. But…the plan is to send Vincent around South America and generally increase his knowledge to reflect, what I feel, is a more accurate representation of his real-life South American scouting knowledge. I am dubbing it 'Project Vincent', please get behind it.

The early bit of FM20 deliberation was obviously the squad numbers and my fascination of the Uruguayan system. I like to reflect the numbering culture of the nation I am managing in, so I intend to keep these graphics going each season in order to chart the evolution of my squad. You’ll note a traditional South American ‘5’ at DM but also the unique Uruguayan Centre Back pairings of ‘3’ & ‘2’ with the ‘4’ pushed out wide, lovely stuff. Vamos!

Fighting Fatigue, Training Tactics and Familiarity

Fighting Fatigue

Jadedness is something you see quite often in Football Manager, especially if you have a squad playing a long run of games without pause; typical of a South American calendar. Uruguay is no different, at times there is no time to train mid-season and fighting fatigue will be a continual battle…it's a constant cycle of winding down from the last game and preparing for the next (and travelling in between). So, the vast majority of my fitness work needs to be done in the first few weeks of pre-season. Having taken control of all aspects of training throughout the three teams at Peñarol (read more here), I was able to put in an intense heavy schedule: lots of endurance, resistance & quickness conditioning.

A standard league and continental schedule.

Who fancies a game every two days? We do!

Now for an analogy: Imagine your players' fitness like a pint of beer. A full pint is a professional player with an extremely conditioned level of fitness at the start of the season, this athlete has had an intense fitness schedule. Now imagine a footballer who has had a weaker pre-season, it could be an injury that disrupted plans or simply a shorter fitness regime. This player isn't quite a full pint and even has a frothy head. Over time both players’ conditions will decline due to match days. The decline is given respite with Recovery sessions and Rest, but during a congested fixture list there will ultimately be a fitness deficit. Now imagine the 1/2 pint line on the glass as where players' fitness becomes jaded…the player who was our full pint will take longer to descend to that level, as opposed to the other player who will likely now be on or below it and become jaded.

Jadedness won't be my problem. Sure, I'll get the odd guy that may get it…but on the whole an intense month of fitness will see my guys cope well in the long-term. For Football Manager 2020, I took the base Pre-Season - Heavy schedule and tweaked it slightly for some tactical stuff bit, which we’ll come on to next:

Tactics

Those that followed my FM18 save with Estudiantes may remember the traditional flat 4141, which brought back-to-back Copa Libertadores titles to La Plata. The direct counter attacking style was really enjoyable to see play out in the match engine and I had a great sense of achievement from getting the best out of a relatively modest set of players.

I had initial plans to play the same way with Peñarol in FM20, but after a long reflection I've decided to make FM20 Bastardo-Ball more positive in a 4141 for the reasons below:

(1) Peñarol: the perennial winners of Uruguay

Peñarol are the biggest club in Uruguay. For the vast majority of domestic games I will face an opposition looking to dig in and grind out a result with a relatively low block. It will therefore be down to my side to take the initiative and hope our quality sees us through.

(2) Technical superiority

I don't necessarily think that playing short passing is technically superior over a glorious direct style, perhaps the fanfare of tiki-taka clouded people's perceptions on this. But playing a shorter game over a high tempo requires a degree of technical competency…and I think it's a skillset we boast over our rivals. We have a number of attacking players with high attributes scores in First Touch, Dribbling, Passing & Technique. So we ought to be willing to do more in possession than Bastardo’s Estudiantes.

(3) Tricky Wingers

Pushing the wingers further forward to the AML/AMR slots means I now cover all positional stratas on the football pitch. This is good for youth development because I will be channelling players into the additional roles of Inside Forward/Wingers, meaning that more naturally attacking youth have a chance of entering the Peñarol setup…instead of having to re-train to a deeper role at such an early age.

Despite this, there are elements of the FM18 Bastardo-Ball that I wish to retain. I still like the urgency that the counter/counter-press philosophy, and it sits well with my fibra recruitment ideas i.e. those that have high Aggression, Bravery, Determination, Teamwork & Work-Rate will press more effectively. So, gleaming bits of what I liked from FM18 and bits I feel we excel at, we require something like the tactical pre-set of a Fluid Counter Attack:

I have used a 4141, I simply can’t get away from the luxury that my No.5 Deep Lying Playmaker gives (in this case the wonderful bastard of Walter Gargano). He’ll hold and dictate the play from deep, providing license for the central two players to advance. Further on we have an Inverted Winger on attack, who originally was an Inside Forward but I couldn’t get the dynamism and output I wanted from the role, and on the right we have a traditional Winger on attack. There’s variety in the match highlights by having different roles around the team and it’s made viewing games really pleasing on the eye.

You will see that in possession we are Fairly Narrow, this facilitates our passing game and brings the team forward together. It’s probably worth pointing out how effective the full back positions are in this formation, notably the Complete Wing Back who offers the width to go outside of the Inverted Winger and who contributes so much to our attack. I’ve purposely chosen my left-hand side to be the more attacking due to the year-long loan of Gabriel Rojas, a 21 year-old Argentine fullback with strong Work Rate of 16 and more than adequate physicals to run up and down the length of the pitch.

In possession, our technical superiority is displayed in our instruction to Run At Defence. When possession is lost we will counter press immediately and I’m hoping our strong mentals will suit this part of our game. For longer periods without the ball, we will look to engage around the half way line and the full coverage of our formation (i.e. playing wide players at AML/AMR) suits this approach. Obviously, ‘Get Stuck In’ is a priority for any team of Bastardo.

The big change is switching the default mentality from Cautious to Positive. This doesn’t mean my players will suddenly play gung-ho, rather they will take more risks and play on a Higher Tempo (instead of Slightly Higher), will never waste time and will slightly raise our lines of defence & engagement for the press. As in-game scenarios play out, I am known to tweak back to a more cautious mentality if needed OR raise both the Defensive Line or Line of Engagement manually when feeling like I should overwhelm the opposition. But I generally don’t dilute this tactical style too much or make frequent changes.

Tactical Familiarity

Circling back to training for a moment, I should mention the efforts I made to ensure our tactic was familiar to the players in preparation for the prestigious Uruguayan Super Cup final Vs Nacional. This game arrives in pre-season so I really wanted to be ready for it, given that a trophy was on the line. I naturally trained the tactical style ‘Fluid Counter Attack’ and added extra sessions in which improved the elements of the tactical familiarity I was lacking in week-by-week. Here is what we looked like on Day 1 of the save:

40 days later, we had managed to increase it by a great deal via training and friendlies…

Tactical Familiarity on Opening Day of the Uruguayan season.

By training the things we were lacking in and keeping with the same tactic (therefore not training any secondary tactic), we were able to become fluid in all tactical aspects come the 1st Copa Libertadores Group Stage…our 6th game of the season:

Tactical Familiarity on the Opening Day of the Copa Libertadores campaign.

So, we’ve applied a heavy intense pre-season, we chose a tactical style that suits my players and we trained it very hard. How did it do? Read on to find out…

Season 2019

Domestic

It took 34 days for Ángel Bastardo to win silverware, the Super Cup success being the good reward for the heavy pre-season we trained. After this, we started the Primera División well with thirteen straight league wins. I knew we would be strong domestically, but I never envisaged that it would be this strong - a lovely run of seven straight clean-sheets culminated us winning the Opening Stage by mid-April.

Nacional will be the rivals in this save, and they proved hard opponents in my penultimate match. The loss hurt, but if you would have offered me an easy Opening Stage and the Super Cup trophy for the sake of this one loss…I’d have accepted it. Perhaps we can go one better for the Closing Stage and keep a 100% win record? Next up is the Intermedio tournament, where sixteen teams split into two groups of eight. The group winners play each other in a one-legged final to determine the mid-season Champion. Further reading on the inner workings of this is found in my South American league guide.

Continental

The real challenge to this save is on the continental scene, but the remarkable 4141 saw Peñarol win the first three games and take command of the group:

The Board wanted to be competitive and Bastardo’s continental success has seen them very pleased, which is a contributor to a B score in terms of Manager Performance. Only time will tell how far we can go in the 2019 Copa Libertadores, but I certainly feel a level of optimism given the fact we did so well against San Lorenzo of Argentina.

Bastardo 2020

I appreciate that I’ve rambled on quite a bit already, and there is still so much I have yet to say: about the Uruguay Under 20s, the Youth Development I’ve been doing or the Scouting targets I have for the second half of 2019. These will have to wait for a future post to avoid this one becoming unwieldy.

I have simply loved every second of this save so far, and I can’t wait to launch myself into the Intermedio, the Copa Libertadores Knockouts, the Uruguayan Closing Stage and the Transfer Market. The Board have quite rightly offered me a new deal, so Bastardo’s Peñarol will continue into 2020 for sure…I hope you can follow along with me :-)

Thanks for reading/sharing/caring,

FM Grasshopper