Hello and welcome!
Deciding which club to manager for FM22 was quite easy this year.
While on YouTube, I stumbled upon a short documentary by Copa90 Stories about Ternana Calcio, “Ternana Calcio: The Working Class Goes to Heaven.” Being the football romantic that I am, I was immediately attached to the team. From the club’s close relationship with the city’s working class and former players, to the friendships with Atalanta and St. Pauli, lastly their goals to be a forward thinking club.
There’s more to it of course, go watch the 26-minute documentary and you’ll see for yourself as to why it was an easy choice. I mean, the idea for the save was laid out perfectly for me.
Return to Serie A
Ternana Calcio have only spent two seasons in the Serie A, between 1972-1974. Since then, they’ve yoyo’d between Serie C and Serie B for most of their time. So the only task at hand will be to get the team back to the Serie A and to keep them up for as long as possible. The ultimate goal will be to win the Scudetto during my time at the club.
Transfer Policy
The transfer policy won’t be as simple as last year’s save with SC Verl, which basically was “don’t spend any money and develop your own players.” For Ternana I will allow myself to have a bit of fun. Here are the transfer restrictions:
Buy/loan Atalanta & St. Pauli Players
As mentioned above, Ternana has a great relationship with Atalanta and St. Pauli. Naturally, one of the transfers strategies will be to loan/purchase their players (regardless of nationality). I’ll do my best to form a link with the clubs by becoming affiliates but that’s not necessarily a goal.
Develop Youth Players
Terni has often been called the “Manchester of Italy” due to both cities being industrials hubs. As a Man Utd fan, I will aim to implement their importance of developing homegrown youth players. Aiming for the first team to be made up of at least 50% club-homegrown players.
Sign Chilean Players
I will be scouting Chile to hopefully unearth a couple gems. This might sound random but if you watch the short documentary you will learn about the connection that Ternana and their fans formed with the people of Chile during the 1970’s. General Augusto Pinochet and his junta forcibly took over Chile and held power between 1973-1990. During his time in Chile, Pinochet left over 3,000 people dead or missing, plus thousands more tortured and imprisoned, and hundreds of thousands displaced.
I’ve been excited to get on with this save as it’s been sitting in the back of my mind since I watched the documentary back in May. I’m not sure how it will all play out in FM22, but I’m going to do my best to enjoy the journey. I hope you follow along and enjoy it as well.
In the next post I will be taking a more detailed look of the team as well as the tactic that I will be using for the duration of the save. Feel free to join the Slack channel for a more detailed look once I get going with the save.
Best,
José