Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to Vincent Guzman and his perfect guides about South America nations, before Football Manager 2019 was released. It was one of the main reasons why I decided to leave Europe and I wanted to try a different continent.
Now, after almost one year, the FM19 cycle is over. And it was a good decision to try different nations, different league system, different continental competitions and to discover different players.
The first part was in Chile with CD Magallanes and I thought it will be my only club for the whole FM19 time. But I was wrong. As I already wrote in the past, the success with the Chilean club was too fast.
Simple stats summary: Nine seasons, 466 matches played, 327 matches won, 870 goals scored, 27 trophies won, new stadium, most reputable South American club in the world…
…the club growth was perfect in all areas but as I had a lot of time to play, it was too fast and I ended this part of the journey at the end of February 2019 of real-life date.
When I wrote about this part of the save I included my three favourite players. They were real-life players, not newgens. I wrote about the central defender Rodrigo Echeverría and two midfielders Diego Aravena and Tomás Aránguiz. You can read it about them HERE.
I decided to share my favourite newgen from the time with Magallanes. Despite the fact, this young player was not wonderkid and he was not the best newgen from the youth intake, he was able to develop in the player who spent a big part of his career in Manchester City.
His name is Alfonso Reiman and he was part of the Youth Intake of our affiliate club Unión San Felipe in 2021. I bought him for €195k and he played mainly as CM(S).
We sold him for €10M four years later to Corinthians and it was a new club record for outgoing transfer. He spent three and a half years with Corinthians before Manchester City bought him for €21M.
To my big surprise, he was not just one of many players here. He became a very important member of the squad and his value was €90M in 2035 when he was 30 years old.
He moved to Bayern in 2037 and to PSG one year later where he is at the end of this save in his 35 years and with 137 caps for Chilean national team.
I didn't have him in my own squad for a long time before he moved elsewhere but it was great to follow his career.
Alfonso Reimann in 2022, 2025, 2030, 2035 and 2040.
The seasons in Chile are from January to December and I knew during the last season already I will leave. I started to look around other nations and leagues.
I wanted a new challenge. And I spotted Arsenal de Sarandí. The bottom team of the Argentinian second tier. The magic of the relegation rules in Argentina is that you can stay in the division even if you end the season at the last place in the table thanks to "Average Points Over 3 Years Table".
And that was also the case of my first half of the season with Sarandí. It was a risk as there was a possibility we will not gain enough points, the club will be relegated to the non-playable third tier and I will have to look for another team.
But we made it, finished 21st in the table but 17th in the Average Points Table.
Since the 2026/2027 survive, I started to build the club on my own and as I like the most - young players, selling the key players to have enough money for club facilities improvement and playing with many own newgens.
We won the promotion in my first full season with the club and we finished 7th in the first season in the Superliga. Sixth place in the 2029/2030 season was the start of the next three years with the first trophies after many years.
We won the Superliga, Superleague Cup, Copa Sudamericana and Recopa Sudamericana.
When I wrote about the 2038/2039 season, the title was "The season like no other" because of some records and perfect results. But the next season, the last one of the save, was even more successful. We won 7 trophies including all 4 domestic competitions and also Copa Libertadores, Recopa Sudamericana and FIFA Club World Cup.
The biggest difference between Magallanes and Arsenal de Sarandí board was the willingness to move the club forward.
Every time we earned some money thanks to transfers or via competitions with Magallanes, the board accepted my requests to improve facilities. That was the main reason why I spent only 9 years with Magallanes but 14 years with Sarandí.
Finances of Arsenal de Sarandí in 2027 vs. 2040
When we won the second league title with Sarandí in 2031/2032 and the first Copa Libertadores trophy, the club still had the bellow average training & youth facilities, average youth recruitment and the board was happy with the level of everything.
And they also rejected all my requests despite a lot of money in the bank and prematurely repaid loans.
But the situation has changed after elections in 2032 and the new board was willing to move the club to the highest level. That was the moment when I got new blood and new motivation to continue in the save. I said to myself I will improve all facilities to the top and the save will be over.
We are in June 2040 and all facilities are within the best possible level except the Youth Facilities as they are "only" Superb and the last upgrade will be done in November 2040.
I mentioned in the last post one of the reasons why I joined this club - the captain Agustin Chocobar. The central midfielder who was able to play in several roles including BWM but also DLP or classic CM. If you missed it, you can find it in the bottom part of THIS POST.
You can see there are several players included in the club details section as Icons or Favoured Personnel.
There are almost all my favourite players from the time with Sarandí including Santiago Ortiz, Lautaro Contreras, Franco Somoza, Damián Guevara, Marcelo Pérez, Darío González or Luciano Cambiasso.
The last one is probably my most favourite newgen from the Sarandí Youth Intake in 2031. He played mainly as CM(S) or CM(A) and despite he didn't score too many goals, he usually broke the net when he scored from the long distance.
Luciano Cambiasso in 2032, 2035 and 2040.
I used several tactics during this FM19 save. It all started with defensive-minded 4-1-2-3 but it continued with a more positive version of this formation and several variations of 4-1-4-1.
And (almost) as always it ended with many versions of 4-3-3 with the flat midfield trio - Development of 4-3-3 with Magallanes.
The 4-3-3 with the flat midfield trio was the main tactic for the time with Sarandí as well. You can find some versions and modifications in the previous posts.
The last part of the save, the last half of the season, I used 4-4-2 formation with very simple instructions and it resulted in stupid results (click to see the results).
The Football Manager 2019 save in South America is over. I mentioned it in the Football Manager 2019 (#FM19) - in retrospect I was able to contribute to thanks to FMGrasshopper that FM19 became predictable and I didn't enjoy it as much as previous versions of the game.
On the other side, as I already mentioned at the start, it was great to discover something new outside Europe.
If you would like to read the whole South America save from the beginning, just open this link.
Now, it's time to find some ideal challenge for the Football Manager 2020.
Thank you, everyone, for following the save.