FM22 | Ternana Calcio: 2025/2026

Aaand we’re back!

Last season we took home the Serie A title. The team played some beautiful football, we had best attacking record and third best defense. Could we build from the success and bring home another title? Let’s find out.

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Transfers

In:

Summer: Nelson Aliaga – Santiago Wanderers (£1m), Fabio Weis (Chilean/German) – O’Higgins (£825k), Luciano Alarcón (£325k) & Felipe Schmitt (£100k – Chilean/German) – Universidad Católica, Francesco(Brazilian/Italian) – Quixadá (free), 2025 NxG winner Liridon Aliu – Frankfurt (£21m) and, Jairo Garcia – Toronto FC (£4.1m).

January: Jaime Avila – Cobresal (£400k), Sebastián Sousa – River Plate (Uru) (£34k) and José Antonio Figueroa – FC Dallas (free)

Out:

We sold 24 players for £177m in the summer window and a further 5 players during the January window for £15.3m, a grand total of £192m. Click here for outgoing transfers.

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First Team

We headed into the season with the youngest team in the league at 21 y.o. The core of the team is back alongside last year’s signings. We also promoted a few players from the youth team, Tommaso Bernardi, Adrijano Čurek, Martin Hovarth, and Nicola Luparini.

Goalkeepers:

Defenders:

Rightbacks


Centerbacks




Leftbacks

Midfielders:

Defensive Midfielders


Central Midfielders

Forwards:

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Competitions

Supercup & Coppa Italia

We won our third trophy of the save after beating Inter Milan (3-1) in front of 88,218 fans at the Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We scored three goals eight minutes and then went in lockdown mode.

This season was our best run in the Coppa Italia so far in the save. We took down Torino (3-1) in the third-round, two goals coming from our Uzbek giant Rustam Jumayev. In the Quarter-Finals, we beat Atalanta (2-0) with goals from De Rossi and Donnarumma. The party was over in the two-legged Semi-Final against Juventus (0-2 on Agg).

Champions League & Europa League

As you might have seen above, we only managed to finish in third place in our Champions League group. I believed that we could finished in the top two places but unfortunately, I underestimated our competition. Our two losses came by the hands of Wolfsburg and Galatasaray, not Barça. Surprisingly, Wolfsburg ended up winning the group. We were off to the Europa League to face Athletic Club (Bilbao). Unlike in the 2023/2024 season, we were unable to beat then. So we try again next season!

Serie A

That’s two in a row! Although a close one, we had a much better season compared to last. We improved massively in defensive. We conceded 15 less goal and we kept 26 clean sheets compared to 16 from last season, finishing with the second best defense in the league (by 1 goal). This lead to four of our back five players made it to ‘Team of the Year.’

In terms of attack, we scored 15 less goals than last season. Losing Lorenzo Lucca hurt us but we had to rely on the rest of the team to pick up the pieces. Matteo De Rossi finished as our leading goalscorer in the league with 19 goals, and Antonio Palumbo lead the team with 14 assists, second in the league.

There were only two teams in contention for the league title this season, Juventus & Ternana. The bookies had Juventus as title favorites and they had Ternana finishing 8th place. Both teams fluctuated in the first half of the season but from match-day 18th, both teams would be separated by 1 point. 

It didn’t seem like it then but the league would be decided in Match-day 23 when we faced Juventus at home. Goals from Matteo De Rossi and Ljubiša Dragićević would help us win the match (2-0). Fast forward the last match of the season and Ternana would go on to lift their second Serie A titled.

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Team Performance

After such a great season I wanted to take a look at the numbers to see if there was anything that I might be missing. 

Our fullbacks have been the most well rounded players in the team for the last couple of seasons, and they’ve outdone themselves once again this season. They’re asked to do a lot, bombing up-and-down the flanks, winning tackles up the field, and being a threat when attacking. Gian Marco Nesta, Lorenzo Carrara, Tommaso Bernardi, Lukas Behrmann, and Liridon Aliu averaged 2.8 tackles per 90, 2.8 interceptions per 90, combined for 21 assists, scored 9 goals and averaged a 6.98 rating. The center backs were solid as ever. It was Federico Salas and Juan Pablo Leone‘s first full season with the club, and Gerald Brant‘s first season as starter. They won 83% tackles, won 84% of their headers, and combined for 5 goals between them. 

I was surprised when I took a look at our Defensive Midfielders. Ljubiša Dragićević, Samuel Utaka, and Dalibor Verbič did not seem to be contributing much in the defensive phase. The one stat that all three were excelling but was not accounted for was, clearances. Our DM in the Halfback is much of a destroyer rather provides cover and recycles the ball.

The midfield was bit all over the place, (mainly) in a good way. Lapo Assuma contributed the most defensively and Antonio Palumbo contributed the most in attack with his 15 assists and 7 goals. Facundo Maldonado was superb in both phases, excelling a bit more in attack and David Perez (8 goals & 3 assists) was on par as Matteo De Rossi in terms of attacking output. Lastly, Joan Cruz will be shipped out in the summer, he didn’t contribute as much as I would have liked, he finished the season with a 6.83 average rating. 

The departing Lorenzo Lucca contributed to more than half of our goals in the last two seasons so it would take few players to reach those numbers. Gerardo González and Matteo De Rossi became our main source of goals. The young strikers combined for 40 goals (20 each) and 8 assists, although these are great numbers we need them to contribute more next season. Alfredo Donnarumma isn’t the player he was at the beginning of the save, he managed to score 7 goals in 1725 minutes, not a good return at all, I mean, David Pérez scored 8 goals from CM(A)!

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Youth

Intake

Another Intake, another “Golden Generation.” These screenshots were taken at the end of the season which gave me a better idea of how high their potential ability could be. Five out of the six highlighted player are already worth £4m plus. Let’s see how they develop.

U18s, U20s, and Promotions

We’ve had another fantastic season for our youth teams. They’ve continued to outperform their rivals and had a clean sweep of their respective competitions. We also promoted nine players throughout the season to finish with 22 players in the first team under 21 years old. We gave debuts to Diego Roa, Felipe Schmitt, and Emanuele Verza.

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Finances & Infrastructure

Finances:

We finished the season with some insane numbers. The overall balance is at £327m, we made a profit of £163m, and we have a transfer budget of £203m for next season. We’ve used less than a quarter (£662k p/w) of the wage budget (£2.6m p/w).

Infrastructure:

You guessed it, no stadium yet! 😊 We don’t much else to look forward to as we’re maxed out in terms of facilities, youth coaching and recruitment. Let’s hope we can build a new stadium by the time the save is done.

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That’s two titles in-a-row! My aim now is to try and win the Champions League in the next two/three seasons.

Thanks for passing by, until next time!

Best,
José

FM22 | Ternana Calcio: Ljubiša Dragićević

Welcome back! 

I finished the 2025/2026 season a few days ago, a review of it will come out soon but first I wanted to highlight one of my favorite players of the last two seasons, Ljubiša Dragićević. 

As someone who prefers to play long-term saves, I often find myself obsessing over certain players, Ljubiša Dragićević is one of them. Although I am 99% sure that he will leave this summer (wanted by Dortmund, Milan, & RB Leipzig), it’s been fun to watch him develop into such a great player.

Players like him remind me why I enjoy Football Manager so much. I might shed a tear once he leaves.

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Ljubiša Dragićević

Development

Ljubiša has developed wonderfully since he arrived from St. Pauli four years ago. Since his arrival, I decided to focus on his individual training and developing his player traits. He trained as an Anchor in his first season, then as a Halfback in the second season, and for the last two seasons, he has been training as a Ball Winning DM.

It looks like he has peaked in terms of ability, the one thing that you can always continue to develop is his player traits. Never trust your coaches when it comes to traits, at least that is what I tell myself. I knew that most of the traits that I wanted him to learn would take time, as his attributes were just starting to develop, I just needed to be patient.

Although my tactic is set to shorter passing, I wanted my Halfback to be able to ‘try long-range passes’ to the strikers and wingbacks bombing forward. Due to our high line of defense and intense pressing, our Halfbacks normally end up outside the box when attacking, so developing the ‘shoot from distance’ trait was a must. His finishing and long shots are not great, but his technique of 17 balances it out. The other traits ‘dictates tempo’ and ‘knocks ball past opponents’ were developed from his mentoring group. See his overall attribute development below.

See his overall attribute development below.

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Perfomances

2022/2023 – 2023/2024

Ljubiša Dragićević spent the first two seasons in Italy in the youth teams developing while occasionally featuring for the first team. He got his professional debut in his first season and made a further 9 appearances in his second season while providing 1 assist.

2024/2025

In his third season, I decided that he was ready to move to the first team to provide cover in the Halfback role for Park-Yi Young. Injuries and poor performances from Park-Yi allowed Ljubiša Dragićević to cement himself as our go-to Halfback in the starting eleven. 

His performances were crucial, especially during the second half of the season. He was everywhere, clearing & intercepting the ball, winning headers from balls over the top by the opposition’s goalkeeper, and tackling when needed. He also set provided in attack, he lurked outside the area and would shoot-on-sight. He ended up scoring 4 goals and creating another (see his bangers below).

2025/2026

This season it was more of the same from Ljubiša Dragićević. As you will see below, his defensive output was outstanding. He ranked high in defensive headers, clearances, fouls, and blocks per 90. In terms of ball retention, he was the most accurate passer in the league, had an average of 88 passes per 90, and he won the ball back more often than most midfielders in the league. Although it doesn’t seem like it in the scoring graph, 5 goals from the Halfback role throughout a season is more than decent in my eyes (see more bangers down below).

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Thank you for making it to the end, I hope y’all enjoy the post as much I did.

Feel free to reach out on Twitter or Slack!

Best,
José

FM22 | Ternana Calcio: 2024/2025

Ciao, welcome back! 

Last season could have ended up in heartbreak if we didn’t qualify for the Champions League. Luckily, the FM gods were on our side this time and we’re through for another season of European football. 

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Summer Transfer Window

Transfers Out

We sold a total of 13 players for a total of £68m, breaking the club record that from last season. The most notable transfers were, Ben Brereton Díaz to Hertha (£32m), Finn Becker to RB Leipzig (£24m) and Luca Ghiringhelli to Benevento (£1.1m). We also loaned out a few youngsters and unwanted players.

Transfers In

We brought in 6 players for a total of £23m. Two players for the first team and four for the U20s. We somewhat continued with our original recruitment policy, four out of the six players are Chilean, one German (from St. Pauli), one Korean (not St. Pauli).

First Team

Joan Cruz was main target to replace Finn Becker as our CM(A), he joined from Colo Colo (£700k). It wasn’t until I tried to register him that I realized that I fucked up again and forgot that I can only sign one foreign player per season so I wouldn’t be able to register him, that worst part is that he won’t join another club on loan 🙄. I now had to look for a replacement. That replacement is Woo-yeong Jeong, who joins from Freiburg (£14.75m). He comes in on a three year deal with a £30m release clause.

Under-20s

Sebastian Rubio – Colo Colo (£100k), Pablo Peralta – Universidad Católica (£350k) joined the club straight from Chile and will spend two years in Madrid with Rayo Vallecano. Lukas Berhmann has been one of my main target for the last two years, he comes in from St. Pauli (£5.5m), my scouts love him, he will spend the season on loan. Carlos Cortés – Malmö FF (£1.5m) is half Chilean and will spend stay at the club.

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Player Promoted and Pathway

Promoted

Here are the eight players that have been promoted to the first team. Some of these players came from the intakes and the rest came in within the first two seasons at the club. 

Defenders: Dani Degli Esposti (18), Guiseppe Paderno (18), Gerald Brandt (18), Lorenzo Carrara (18)

Midfielders: Ljubiša Dragićević (18), Samunel Utaka (18), David Peréz (20)

Forwards: Matteo De Rossi (17)

Pathway

I was beginning to get frustrated with my transfer dealings early on the save as I wasn’t able to give the youth team players as much game time as I wanted. We currently have 8 of youth players in the first team. There are 15 players in the U20s and another 5-7 in the U18s that have great potential of making into the first team. So I needed to be more realistic about the chances of them one day playing for the first team. 

I decided that I was not going to get in the way of any youth player if they really wanted a move away and I was not going to block any transfer for any first team player regardless of which player it was, as long as the offer was within their value range. Youth team players who are not ready for first team football will continue to develop at our superb facilities with the best youth coaches in the country. The ones who are knocking for some first team minutes but can’t make into the team will be loaned out for further development. I will then reassess next offseason to see where they fit into the team.

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First Team

At the end of last season, I decided that I would be making room in the first team in order to promote several youth players. Our average age went down from 25 to 22, the goal is to maintain that number in the next couple of seasons. The first team will include 24 players for the season, as usual some youth team players might make appearances depending on injuries and fatigue.

Goalkeepers:

Defenders:

Rightbacks


Centerbacks




Leftbacks

Midfielders:

Defensive Midfielders


Central Midfielders

Forwards:

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Serie A

We fucking did it, we won the league!

I mean, what can I say? Where do I start? 

We began the league with a thirteen-match unbeaten run. September was an especially hard but successful month with four matches against top-8 clubs, Lazio (2-1), Inter (2-1), Atalanta (0-0), and Juventus (3-1). Milan handed us our first loss (1-3) on match-day 14. We bounced back a ten-match unbeaten run between mid-December to mid-February. We had some fun matches in that winning run – Cagliari (6-2), Bologna (4-0), Fiorentina (4-1), and probably my favorite match of the season, against Lazio (3-3).

The second loss of the season was at the hands of Juventus (1-2). Four wins on the bounce followed, including a win against Napoli (3-0). Benevento handed us our third loss (1-2) of the season, they’ve been a pain in the ass. Two matches later we lost our fourth and final match against Roma (1-3). After that there was no looking back, we finished the season with a six-match winning run and we were able to get revenge against Milan (4-0). 

As you can see, we scored the most goals and had the third-best defense in the league. Lorenzo Lucca and Alfredo Donnarumma dominated their opponents combining for 45 goals and 10 assists. We scored 3+ goals in 19 matches (eleven 3-goal-matches, seven 4-goal-matches, one 5-goal-match, and one 6-goal-match). We kept sixteen clean sheets throughout the season, which was rewarded by having the back five (GK and defenders) all named in the team-of-the-year.

This season was truly a group effort. We played a total of 31 players through the season due to injuries and fatigue. We had the third-lowest wage in the league at £19.4 p/a, as well as the second-lowest transfer expenditure with a net of +£37.42m. We also had the youngest team in the league at 22 y/o, with youngsters Ljubiša Dragićević and Lorenzo Carrara having their breakout season and won over their respective starting spots, renewing their contracts is a priority.

Here are the results from August through December and January through May.

Coppa Italia & Champions League

For the second year in a row, we were knocked out of the Coppa Italia in the Quarterfinals. Last season it was Atalanta, this time it was Milan’s turn. Unlike last season, I actually tried to field the strongest eleven. We were up 2-0 after goals from Jeong & Nesta. Then in the 68th minute after Brahim Diaz found the back of the net to give Milan momentum to find the equalizer through Ismaël Bennacer tying the match in the 90+2 to take it to extra time. It was a close match but in the 117th minute, Alvaro Morata slotted a header past Titas Krapikas. We go again next season.

In the Champions League, we were drawn against Borussia Dortmund, Celtic, and Real Madrid. I was confident that we could beat Celtic to push for the Europa League. After six matches played we were able to finish second in our group to qualify for the first knockout round. As predicted, we beat Celtic (3-1) in both matches, tied (2-2) & beat (0-1) Dortmund, and lastly, we tied (0-0) & lost (2-0) against Madrid. 

In the first knockout round, we would face Atletico Madrid. We put ourselves ahead at home in the 23rd minute after Alfredo Donnarumma snuck a shot between two of Atletico’s defenders. Thomas Lemar returned the favor in the 88th minute to finish the match (1-1). In the return leg, we struck first from a corner by our towering forward, Lorenzo Lucca. We shit the bed in the 69th minute when Lorenzo Bernasconi got himself sent off. Yannick Carrasco would tie the match in the 88th minute (AGAIN?!) taking the match to extra time. Carrasco would go on to score his second goal of the match in the 114th minute to knockout us out.

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Player of the Year

Our Italian giant had another superb season. He scored a total of 29 goals and 5 assists from 41 matches to average a 7.60 rating. He was not able to match his numbers from last season. Ben Brereton Díaz leaving could have affected his performance, as they had formed a great partnership upfront. He also dropped his conversion rate from 14.6% to 9.60.

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January Transfer Window

Transfers In

I’ve been scouting Juan Pablo Leone (Chilean/Italian) and Facundo Maldonado (Chilean/Spanish) since the summer transfer deadline day. It’s hard to find Chilean players with dual European citizenship. I decided to pull the trigger on both in January as we needed more reinforcements due to injuries and due to the fact that most of our first-team-ready players are out on loan. Maldonado (£500k) joins from Defense y Justícia (Arg) and Juan Leone (£1.4m) joins from Banfield (Arg).

Transfers Out

In terms of outgoing, left-back Bruno Martella joins Lugano (£105k) as his role decreased to impact sub and Francesco Toffanin wanted more playing time so he joins Genoa (£2.1m).

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Youth

Intake

We had another great intake. Although it’s not as great as last year’s “golden generation.” We did have a few standout players. Cream of the crop is Uzbek/Swedish towering striker Rustam Jumayev, he is already valued between £18k-£9.4m. We also had couple of midfielders, defenders and another decent goalkeeper.

First Team

We had fourteen players under the age of 23 playing in the first team. These youngsters were able to step up when needed. We need to keep a hold of these players this summer as we’re bound to lose some of the older starting players. As mentioned above, Ljubiša Dragićević and Lorenzo Carrara had a solid first season in the first team. They also were featured in NxG, Carrara landing in the 3rd place and Dragićević in 11th.

U18s & U20s

We’ve had the best youth coaches in the country for the last two season and has truly paid off. The U20s team didn’t not win their respective league, they did win the Primavera Super Coppa, Viareggio Cup Coppa Carnevale beating Partizan (2-0) and the UEFA Youth League beating Celtic (1-0). The U18s team swept through all of their competitions. 

We gave debuts to a few players: LB – Tommaso Bernardi (17 y/o), Striker – Nicola Luparini (17 y/o), DM – Dalibor Verbič (17 y/o), CM – Romano Conti (16 y/o), CM – Martin Hovarth (17 y/o), GK – Billy Thomas (16 y.o), and Striker – Rustam Jumayev (16 y/o).

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Finances & Infrastructure

Finances – We were able to double our overall balance to £168m after selling £70m worth of players and £20m for winning the league. 

Facilities – No news on the new stadium, I’ve come to believe that it won’t ever happen. Our youth facilities are now “State of the Arts” and we’ve also invested £4.9m to upgrade our training facilities.

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Next season will be more of the same, focusing on promoting more youth players, waving good bye to longstanding first-team players and hopefully another Serie A title.

Here are three of my favorite goals from the season, enjoy!

Thank you once again for stopping by, until next time!

Best,
José

FM22 | Ternana Calcio: 2023/2024

Welcome back! If you’re not up-to-date with the series, you can click here to catch up.

Before we get going I want to thank @okay-fm for putting together our new kits for the 2023/2024 season. The away and third 3D-kits look amazing in the match engine.

Last season was unexpected and I still can’t believe we managed to end up where we did in our first Serie A season. Even after our great success, the board expects us to finish mid-table. I’m confident that we can secure one of the European places. Which one specifically? Depends on how well we do in the Champions League.

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Summer Transfer Window

We’ve had a lot of movement of players in these last few transfer windows. This summer was a lot of the same.

Transfers Out

Twelve players left the club for a combined £22.6m. First-team: César Falletti (£7.5m), Marco Tumminello (£3.3m), Jannes Wieckhoff (£3.1m), Matija Boben (£600k), and Antony Iannarilli (£160k). The rest of the players were U20 or players were that were out on loan.

Transfers In

Eight players came in this summer for a total of £4.4m. I’ll be honest with y’all, I broke my “rules.” I signed two players outside out of transfer policy. I’m sorry, the temptation was real 😂 . Especially when you have a player like Lorenzo Lucca available for £2.2m and a reliable midfielder like, Illias Koutsoupias available for free. We’ve also planned ahead and brought a couple of young Chileans.

First Team:

Goalkeeper: Ludovico Gelmi (free) joins from Atalanta. He will be our cup goalkeeper and backup just incase Titas wants to leave.



Defenders: Rodrigo Guth (free) joins from Atalanta. Lorenzo Bernasconi (£1m) joins from Atalanta, he will spend the rest of the season on loan at Cremonese.



Midfielders: Ilias Koutsoupias (free) joins from Entella. Gonzalo Tapia (£200k) joins from Universidad Católica after being transfer listed.



Forwards: Lorenzo Lucca (£2.2m) joins from Pisa after being transfer listed.

U20s:

Federico Salas (free) joins from Argentinian second division club, Estudiantes (RC). Gerardo González (free) joins from Argentinian club, Racing Club.

Rayo Vallecano

Last season we were able to finally land an affiliate in Spain. Daniel Gutierrez, Gonzalo Tapia, Fernando Salas, and Gerardo González will all be spending two years in Spain so they’re able to gain their EU eligible.

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First Team

We will have a total of 21 players in the first-team to pick from including the three new signings and two U20 players that I’ve promoted, Alassane Sidibe & Francesco Toffanin. We have a long season ahead so there are several players from the U20 team that will be relied upon when needed.

Goalkeepers:

Defenders:

Rightbacks


Centerbacks




Leftbacks

Midfielders:

Defensive Midfielders


Central Midfielders

Forwards:

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Staff

Like last season, we have the best coaching staff in the league. We’ve upgraded in a few roles, Ruud van Nistelrooij joins as my assistant manager, Robin van Persie as a first-team coach, and Edwin van der Sar as a first-team goalkeeping coach. We’ve also upgraded our scouting team, although it’s not the best by a mile. Ex-Napoli manager, Luciano Spalletti joins a scout after retiring from managing. 

Esteban Diaz joins as our new Head of Youth Development. He’s now the third Chilean staff member to join the youth team setup. I’m hoping this will have a ripple effect in our youth intakes.

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Competitions

Champions League

This season, we were drawn against Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund and Zenit. I knew that I have little-to-no-chance in the matches against City or Dortmund, so my focus was to make sure that I beat Zenit twice to us to be able to qualify for the Europa League. 

As expected, We lost to Dortmund (1-3) in the first match. Our visit to Russia was an eventful one, we took the three points (2-3) after a 90+1 minute goal from Antonio Palumbo. Next up was the double header against City. The trip to Manchester went as expected, we got battered (5-2), exactly what happens when you have a team that includes Mbappé, João Félix, and Haaland. 

The return leg was a bit different as Phil Foden was sent off after 30 minutes and were able to salvage a point in a (2-2) draw. Dortmund proved once again that we maybe not be ready for the Champions League, the Black & Yellow were move clinical and finished the match (5-2). The last match of the group stages against Zenit was a mirror of the first leg, Finn Becker scored in the 90+3 minute to take us to the Europa League.

I was hoping to get a decent draw in the Europa League first round but we’ve been drawn against Massimiliano Allegri’s Tottenham. Let’s see if we can beat the odds to push a bit further into the tournament.

Serie A - First Half

We began the season in sensational form by winning the first eight league matches. Some highlights were against Sassuolo (4-0), Bologna (2-0), and (Atalanta (3-0). In those eight matches, we outscored our opponents 19 goals to their 4. Lorenzo Lucca bagged 8, Alfredo Donnarumma with 4, and Big Ben Diaz with 3.

Our form slowed down a bit, we would have the toughest run of games as we would face three of the top six teams in the league and top it off, we would have to use a heavily rotate the starting eleven due to the Champions League. We would draw 4 in 5 matches, Lazio (2-2), Roma (0-0), Juventus (2-2), and Torino (1-1). Winning one those five matches at home against Roma (2-1). (Odd, I know, we played Roma in back-to-back matches)

We finished the first half of the season on a high with three more wins. Lorenzo Lucca helped us beat Milan (3-2) with an 83 minute goal, Antonio Palumbo saved us against Inter (1-2), and lastly, Lucca was the star of the show with 4 goals against bottom of the table Cittadella (5-1). After 16 matches played, we find ourselves unbeaten and top of the league by 8 points. 

The whole team has been performing above expectations but our three strikers have been on fire. They’ve combined for a total of 37 goals between them in all competitions. Big Ben Diaz – 9 goals, Donnarumma – 9 goals, and Lucca – 19 goals. We head into the winter break top of the league and £63m in the bank.

Coppa Italia

We entered the competition in the third round against Empoli. Our b-team was good enough for a (3-0) win to take us to the quarterfinals against Atalanta. Our journey ended here, after a (1-2) defeat against the Bergamo club.

Europa League

We were sent to the Europa Leauge after finishing in the third place in the Champions League group stages. We would travel to London to face Tottenham in the first knock out round. Our trip to London ended how I expected, in a loss (2-1), although there were glimpses we were no match. With barely any hope, we somehow managed to keep a clean-sheet in the return fixture. Lorenzo Lucca would send us to the next round with a 86 minute penalty. 

In the second round, we faced Basque giants, Athletic Bilbao. They gave us hard time over the two legs, we only managed to have 3 shots on goal in 180 minutes. Fortunately for us one of those shots went in, we scrapped by (1-0) on aggregate. Hoffenheim were next, these two matches were the opposite of the previous two. We came back from behind in both legs finishing (5-3) on aggregate to qualify us to the next round.

We were back in London, this time we visited Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea. In the away match, Chelsea brushed us aside (3-1), even though we were the first to strike first it would be the last time we had a shot on goal. They passed the ball around almost 900 times and had 15+ shots on target. That away goal would come in handy in the second leg. Back in Italy, Lorenzo Lucca and Alfredo Donnarumma would get on the scoresheet in the first half, their goals helped us tie the match (3-3). After extra time, it was time for penalties where Goalkeeper Titas Krapitas would be the hero, stopping two penalties to take us to the Europe League final against Young Boys. 

Our first European final would be my favorite match of the 2023/2024 season, it was a beautiful shit-show. By the end of the first half, we were down by three goals thanks to hat-trick by Young Boys’ Jean-Pierre Nsamé. We’ve been pushing our luck ever since the matches against Spurs, the luck continued a bit as we pushed through and managed to scored three goals in the second half to take the match to extra-time and once again, penalties. The luck would end up running out as our fifth taker, Ben Brereton Diaz, hit the ball over the bar. Congrats to Young Boys.

Serie A - Second Half

By the time the second half of the season started we were 20 games unbeaten in the league, a number that extended to last year. It all felt like a dream that was too good to be true and indeed it was. Our unbeaten streak quickly came to end against Napoli (1-0) in the first match back from winter break. We would go on to win four, tie three and lost one out of the next eight matches. We dropped points but we were still top of the league. 

Matches started to accumulate as were deep in the Europa League. Players were getting injured left and right, and instead of focusing my efforts on the league, I rotated heavily in favor of the Europa League. Making that choice would come to bite me in the ass. 

We continued our decent form with two more wins, Cagliari (3-1) and Bologna (1-3) and one lost, Sampdoria (1-0) we still sat in first place. The next match was against Lazio. By the time we played them, they sat in second place one point behind us. That would be the last time that we would sit on top of the mountain as we lost the match (3-2). The lost to Lazio would be followed by another one to Juventus (4-1), as we began to slide down the table to 4th place. 

Torino gave us a false sense of hope after beating them at home (3-1) and took us to 2nd place. We dropped five more points against Milan (3-2) and Inter (3-3) bring us back to 4th place. We visited Cittadella (1-2) taking the three points but with no effect to the league table. The inconsistency continued when we as again dropped five points against Napoli (2-2) and first home in almost two years to Udinese (2-3). 

By now we were down in 6th place and it would take a miracle for us to qualify to the Champions League. All we could to do is win the next two matches and hope that several results could go our way. In the second to last match of the season, we beat Fiorentina (1-3). Although still in 6th place we were now just 1 point behind AC Milan and 2 points behind Inter. 

The last match of the season felt like a Champions League final. Our only option was to win against Hellas Verona and hope that both Milano teams lost. We took the lead four minutes in to the match after a volley by Ben Brereton Diaz. In the 30th minute, Carles Perez tie the match. If the match continued we would end up in the Europa League. We continued to put pressure on Verona time and time again but we kept missing our chances. It wasn’t until the 90th minute when goalkeeper Titas rolled the ball to Park Yi-Young, who passed the ball to Andrea Colpani who then lobbed the ball over the defensive line to Matteo De Rossi who ended up rounding the keeper to give us the lead and the eventual win. 

After the match, we noticed that a miracle had happened both Milano teams lost their matches for us to qualify for the Champions League!

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Player of the Year

Lorenzo Lucca was the star signing that we needed in order to push higher up the league table. The towering forward had a superb season winning Serie A and Europa League player of year as well as forward of year. The guy was unstoppable. 

He finished the season with 44 goals (outperforming his xG by 13!) and 14 assists in 46 (5) matches with a 7.70 average rating.

Due to his superb form he’s wanted by several top clubs. It will be nearly impossible to keep him around for much longer. Luckily, we have a £75m release clause in his contract, if activated, we’re looking at a £72m profit.

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Team Performance

As expected, Lorenzo Lucca made it to the Serie A Team of the Year. He lead the team in both goals (44) and assists (14). Even though we didn’t feature any more players in the TotY, we have several players that performed excellently. Instead of boring you with words, I’ve enlisted the help from @FMstag for some #spreadsheetFM. 

The graph below is something Adam used a lot during his “La Sombra” – Rayo Vallecano save in FM21, I felt like it incorporated everything that one needed to know about the performance of every player. Whether you had a complete player, great in both defense and offense, a solid defender, a strong attacker or simply someone who wasn’t particularly performing well at all.

It’s quite clear from the graph who were the stand out players. There were two players that stood out for the wrong reasons. Finn Becker has been a disappointment through the season and ended up losing his place to Ilias Koutsoupias. I didn’t need the graph to tell me that his place on the team will be coming to an end. The other player, Park Yi-Young, was a complete surprise. He had an avg rating of 7.18 but looking at the graph he didn’t really contribute much to the team. He will stay for another season.

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Youth

Intake

I’ve normally highlighted a small group of players doing the intake but this time around we have eleven players that are part of our first “Golden Generation.” The combination of a new Head of Youth Development – Esteban Diaz, superb youth facilities, exceptional academy coaching and youth recruitment has truly paid off. We have a very diverse group of players coming in – Canadian, Finnish, Slovak, and Slovenian. Not only are these kids from all over, but they’re also giants, with 7 players above 6’1″ tall.

First Team

This season we played the most under-23 players in the first team. Not all performed well but they’ve getting the experience needed. A handful of players were promoted from the U20s squad through the season, as we could needed to cope with injuries and tired legs.

U18s & U20s

We had another successful year for the youth teams. The U20s won the Coppa Italia Primavera as well as the league. The U18s once again won the youth league and the Super Coppa. To top the season off, one of our U20 players, Gerardo González was named in the NxG landing in the 34th place.

As always, I always try and give kids a chance when needed. Here are the few players who either got their debuts or continued to progress.

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Finances & Infrastructure

Finances – The combination of a successful transfer window earning us £32.5m and another year of European competitions helped us finished the season with £86m in the bank.

Facilities – We are close to maxing out our facilities. We’ve invested over £10m in both the training and youth facilities both now regarded as Superb. Our Junior coaching and youth recruitment are now maxed out at Exceptional. There’s no updates on that new stadium that I mentioned at the end of last year.

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This season was a fun one, top of the table by Christmas and fighting for Champions League qualification on the last day. I’m ready for the summer transfer window as there will be a lot of movements in the first team.

Once again, thanks for making it all the way down here. As usual, feel free to message me on Twitter or Slack.

Best,
José

FM22 | Ternana Calcio: 2022/2023

Hello there! In the last post we dove into Ternana’s incredible promotion campaign. 

In Part 1 of the 2022/2023 season we will take a look at the summer transfer window and how the team performed until the 2022 World Cup break.

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Summer Transfer Window

I mentioned in the first post of the save that we had a total of 110 players in total at the club. After this ridiculously busy transfer window, we’ve reduced that number to 58. This includes the players brought in during this window.

Out

We offloaded 50 players for a total of £11.7m. From those 50 players, the majority were from the youth teams, also a further 12 were released. We sold 6 and loaned 2 players from the first team, Stefano Pettinari – £2.7m to Sampdoria, Davide Agazzi – £1.5m to Fiorentina, Fabrizio Paghera – £1m to Salernitana, Aniello Solzano – £875k to FC Midtylland, Felippo Damian – £525k to Brescia, Alessandro Celli – £400k to Crotone, Matija Boben – loan w/ a future fee £350k to Empoli, Lorenzo Mazza – loan to Lecco, and Alexis Ferrante – £275k to Catanzaro.

In

As you can imagine, there were a lot of incoming players. We signed a total of 24 players for about £18m. Two of those transfers were already agreed upon my arrival to the team. We signed 8 players from Atalanta, 11 players from St. Pauli and 4 Chilean players (one of them coming from Atalanta).

Let’s take a look:

First Team:

Defenders: Jannes Wieckhoff (£625k), Jakov Medic (£1.2m) & utility man Park Yi-Young (free) join from St. Pauli. Enrico del Prato (free) joins from Atalanta.





Midfielders: Tomás Alarcón joins on loan from Cadiz with a £6.5m option to buy, Alessandro Mallamo (free) & Andrea Colpani (free) join from Atalanta, César Falletti (£850k) joins from Bologna, and Finn Becker (£1.3m) joins from St. Pauli.





Forwards: Alfredo Donnarumma (£675k) joins from Brescia, Ben Bremerton Diaz (£12m) joins from Blackburn, and Marco Tumminello (free) joins from Atalanta.

U20s:

Defenders: Giovanni Bonfanti (free) joins from Atalanta & Marcel Beifus (free) joins from St. Pauli.



Midfielders Alassane Sidibe (£1.6m) & David Perez (£110k) (half Chilean) join us from Atalanta. Franz Roggow (£230k) & Niklas Jessen (£200k) join us from St. Pauli.

U18s:

Defenders: Gerald Brandt (£100k) joins from St. Pauli & Lorenzo Carrara (£170k) joins Atalanta



Midfielders Lapo Assuma joins as free agent, he has dual Chilean/Italian nationality. Ljubiša Dragićević (£150k), Oliver Schwartz (£90k) & Samuel Utaka (£200k) join us from St. Pauli.

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First Team

The transfer window allowed us to offload some deadwood and upgrade where we needed. This season we will be using 23 players in the first team, 13 returning and 10 fresh faces. Incase of emergencies we will use youth team players.

Goalkeepers:

Defenders:

Rightbacks


Centerbacks




Leftbacks

Midfielders:

Defensive Midfielders


Central Midfielders




Attacking Midfielders

Forwards:

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Preseason

At the beginning of the preseason the bookies were predicting for us to finish in 18th place and go straight backdown to Serie B but by the end of the preseason they moved us to 16th place. I’m not to trust the odds but it did give me comfort knowing that the AI no longer saw us getting relegated.

This preseason was shorter than usual as the 2022 World Cup was due to begin in November. We only had two weeks of preparation in which we played four friendly matches. The team cohesion did not skip a beat, we won all four matches – fellow Serie A teams, SPAL (8-0) and Roma (3-0), Hungarian first division team Újpest (0-7) and Serie B affiliate Catanzaro (0-5). 

Staff – I don’t believe I’ve written much about the staff this time around (or even during my time at SC Verl). Before the end of last season I took a lot of time to assess every single staff member at the club, including youth teams, to find the proper replacement. After releasing the majority of my staff, I began a complete staff rebuild. The only staff member that’s worth a look is our new Head of Youth Development, Boro Primorac. The Bosnian was the perfect candidate, he even has our current formation as his 2nd preferred tactic. Although we still don’t have the best Scouting Team or Medical team, I couldn’t be more content with how the coaching team turned out.

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Competitions

Serie A - First Half

We did not have any breathing room as the Serie A campaign begun just a couple of weeks after preseason. We were scheduled to play fourteen matches between July and October. Then we would take a month off due to the World Cup and would have us return in early December to play a few friendly matches to get us ready for the rest of what would be a busy season.

The season would go on to have a lot of ups-and-downs in terms of league position and joy. We started off with back-to-back wins against Bologna (1-2) and Fiorentina (5-0). New signing “Big Ben” Brereton Díaz was on fire with 5 goals in two games. Fellow new signing, Finn Becker, also had a great start to the season with 1 goal and 2 assists. Then, our 40-match unbeaten run came to a close after Napoli’s (0-2) win at the Stadio Libero Liberati. 

We bounced back with three consecutive wins in the league. Alfredo Donnarumma broke Ternana’s goalscoring record in a single match with 5 goals against Spezia (5-1). A comeback win against Sassuolo (3-1) was followed by a hard fought win against bottom of the table Benevento (0-1). The excitement from those consecutive wins went straight down the drain as they were followed by three consecutive losses. The first was a competitive match against Joachim Low’s Roma (2-1), then two back-to-back thrashings by Sampdoria (0-3) and Milan (2-0). 

The last five matches of the season were entertaining. Torino had a horrible time in Terni, they didn’t have a shot on goal and lost the match (4-0). We then drew (2-2) against Cagliari, both teams had lots of chances but a fair result nonetheless. Two more wins followed, against Verona (1-0) and against SPAL (2-6). Atalanta was next in the last game before the break. Gasperini was on the brink of getting sacked as Atalanta were in 12th place. Even though the match was quite even, Atalanta was more prolific winning the match (3-0). Things got worse when Chilean DM Tomás Alarcón injured himself. He will be out for 3-4 months therefore, I will be terminating his loan in January.

Fourteen matches in and we find ourselves in 5th place, way beyond expectations. We’ve scored the 3rd most goals in the league, with Alfredo scoring 15 in 14 matches. Our defense isn’t there yet, I’m hoping to find the right combination in back as I’ve rotated the back-four way too often. If we’re able to maintain the current form I have no doubt that we can earn one of the European spots.

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January Transfer Window

Transfers Out:

Anthony Partipilo kept moaning about his playing time and the fact that he was not a natural midfielder made it an easy decision when Torino approached us with a £1.2M offer.

Transfers In:

Afeez Aremu (£350k, St. Pauli) & Daniel Gutíerrez (£650k, Colo Colo)

Aremu and Gutíerrez were signed to replace Chilean DM Tomás Alarcón, who suffered a long-term injury back in November. I forgot that Ben Brereten Díaz counted as a Non-EU player due to Brexit. Having only one spot left, I decided to register Aremu as he's a natural DM. Gutíerrez will now be retrained into a DM.

Coppa Italia

We beat Frosinone (3-1) in the First Round. In the Second Round, we faced Hellas Verona, a 90+3 minute penally goal by Alfredo Donnarumma took us to the next round. Roma would then kick our asses (3-1) in the Third Round. Let’s hope we can go a bit further next season.

Before we get on with the league, let’s take a short break to talk about tactics.

“Ternizilla 3.0”

During the two-month World Cup break, I decided to tweak the tactic a bit as I noticed that we were not balanced when in the defensive phase. Our left-side midfielder and central midfielder were roots of the problem.

After playing some friendly matches and poking around the DataHub, I found that most of the opposition entries were coming from our left-hand side. We kept getting overran on the lefthand side as our CM(A) was not tracking back enough and left a lot of space for CWB(S) to cover. 

Another issue was the position of our central midfielder. For the last two seasons, I’ve switched his role three times – RPM, AP, and DLP. Regardless of the role or PIs, he continues to stay quite deep and too close to our HB. 

Solutions:

1. The CM(A) is now a CM(S) with PIs to dribble more, run wide with the ball, and take more risks. He will only push up when he has the ball otherwise he will support our left CWB(S) while in the defensive phase. 

2. The central midfielder has now become the CM(A) and has the freedom to push as high, he could be thought of as a makeshift Shadow-Striker when attacking. This will naturally have him further up the field in both the defensive and attacking phase. 

Here’s what the updated tactic looks like:

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Serie A - Second Half

Last time around, Ternana sat in 5th place after 14 matches. With no Coppa Italia or European competition to worry about, all of our focus was now on the league. January would turn out be a month packed full of action were we would face four of the top six sides in the league table. 

The tactical tweaks proved have worked as we began the month with three consecutive wins – Udinese (5-1), Genoa (4-0) and Lazio (1-4). Inter brought us back to reality (2-1) and reminded us that we were nowhere close to them. Juventus traveled to Terni and left with 0 points after a (3-0) win to Ternana, our goalkeeper Krapikas was the star of the show and helped us get a clean sheet with 8 saves. Five days later, Lorenzo Insigne would be the better goalscorer that day as he netted a hat-trick to help Napoli beat us (3-2).

We hosted Bologna in the first match of February, the (2-2) draw would end up being the funnest match of the season with both teams have the same amount of possession (50/50), shots (24) and shots on goal (19). It often seemed as if we were both playing defenderless. Three more wins against Sassuolo (0-5), Benevento (3-1) and Spezia (0-2) helped us get into the top 4. 

Roma paid us a visit in the last match of February, this would be the most important match of the season. Roma pulled us apart, the final score of (0-2) didn’t do justice to them, they embarrassed us. That’s three wins against us this season. This called for some good kick in ass, so I found inspiration from Oaky-FM and fined half the starting lineup for such a miserable display. What happened next was more than what I was expecting, this loss would end up being the last one of the season. 

From the thirteen matches between March and May, Ternana would go on to tie once and win the remaining twelve. Our defensive problems seemed to have disappeared, the team helped our GK, Titas Krapikas, keep 9 cleansheets and only allowing four teams to score against us – Sampdoria (1-3), Milan (3-1), Udinese (1-3) and Atalanta (2-1). Four of those nine cleansheets came in the last four matches of the season, against Lazio (2-0), a hard fought battle against Inter (1-0), Genoa (0-1) and Juventus (0-2). 

The current form wasn’t just about how well we were playing, we also had a lot of help from other teams around the league. Juventus had a horrible time after the WC break, they would only win 8 from 24 matches. Torino and Roma also had their ups-and-downs. Atalanta, Milan and Napoli turned their seasons around to qualify for Europe. In the end, the unbeaten match streak would help us secure not just Champions League football but our highest finish in the Serie A.

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Player of the Year

What else can I say about this man that I haven’t said before the guy just can’t stop scoring.

Alfredo continued last year’s superb goalscoring form into the 22/23 season. The former Brescia man finished with 46 goals and 6 assists in 39 matches with a 7.75 average rating in all competitions. 

He won the European Golden Boot, beating the Haaland, Mbappe, and Ronaldo. He also won Signing of the Year, Serie A Forward of the Year and Serie A Player of the Year.

All the man is missing is an international call up. Maybe we can help him next season.

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Team Performance

Aside from our superstar striker, Alfredo Donnarumma, Ternana featured three more players in the Serie A – Team of the Year. Rightback Luca Ghiringhelli, utility-man Park Yi-Young and homegrown-talent Antonio Palumbo.

Luca Ghiringhelli finished the season as our highest goal provider with 13 assists in 23 (2) matches, averaging a 7.27 rating. He would have had higher numbers if I hadn’t rotated him so much. Park Yi-Young scored 1 goal and assisted 5 more in 28 (3) matches, he average a 7.05 rating. Antonio Palumbo was ever-present this season, he played in allover the midfield, sometimes as a DM. He finished the season with 6 goals and 5 assists in 34 (1) matches, with an average rating of 7.1

There were a lot more players that stood-out this season, but here are three that were exceptionally great. Starting with Titas Krapikas, who won Goalkeeper of the Year after only conceding 36 goals in 37 matches, along with 16 clean-sheets to finish the season with a 7.14 average rating. Ivan Kontek won Defender of the Year, the Croatian scored 3 goals in 25 matches with an average rating of 7.41. His defending numbers were also great with a 83% headers won ratio (313 headers won), 80% tackles won and 220 clearances. Lastly, loanee Ilias Koutsoupias won Young Player of the Year. His stats will be highlighted later on.8.

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Youth

Intake

Our Bosnian Head of Youth Development, Boro Primorac, made a bit difference this season. Although it wasn’t a “golden generation,” he was able to bring through five top talents, including a Croatian player (Primorac spent two years as Hajduk Split’s HYD), as well as four other top talents young Italian talents. I will take over their individual training while they’re in the youth setup.

Sadly, Boro Primorac decided to retire at the end of the season. I’ve already identified his replacement, young Chilean HoYD Esteban Diaz from Chilean Club Santiago Wanderers. I will share his screenshot after I’ve secured his contract.

First Team

Throughout the season I promoted Francesco Toffanin and Gioacchino Niosi from the U20 team. Although they didn’t play much, it was great to have a bit of depth in the team. “Youth players” are first team players that are 23 y/o and under.

U18s & U20s

Our youth setup once again had an amazing season. The U18s won both of their tournaments, the league and super coppa. The U20s finished 3rd in the Primavera 1 division. Because of their good form, a few players made their debuts with the first team and others continued their progress from last season.

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Finances & Infrastructure

Finances – We finished the season with £25.3m in the bank. As you can see above, broadcast revenues were important to keep us in the positive. The additions of the Champions League money will be important for the future of the club as I’m pushing to max out our facilities as soon as possible. We also had the lowest wage budget at £350k p/w.

Affiliates – We’ve signed two new affiliates, Slovakian top tier club – Žilina and Spanish club – Rayo Vallecano. They will serve as great clubs to send players out on loan, especially Rayo so that our young Chileans can gain their EU passports asap.

Facilities – We invested £4m into the youth facilities and £1.8m into the club facilities. We’ve also move from “adequate youth coaching” to “excellent youth coaching.” Our youth recruitment has also had a huge upgrade from “adequate” to “good.” 

If you read my SC Verl, you’d know that I never got build a new stadium in the 7 years that I was at the club. I won’t have to wait too long this time around as I’ve persuaded the chairperson to start working on a new stadium. No plans have been set but the fact that they’re working on it, makes me excited to keep the save going.

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Thanks for making it all the way down here. That’s a lot of f-ing words there. Hope I didn’t lose you. That’s all for the 2022/2023 season. All in all, it was an unexpected season.

In the next post, I’ll be discussing the 2023/2024 Season from the summer transfer window until the winter break. The plan is to offload some players in the summer to try and find the right balance for team, present and future.

Feel free to reach me on twitter or slack.

Happy Holidays!
Best,
José