Soccer Gaming

Football Manager 2009 has been out now for about a month, I have had it activated and ready to go for about a month now and still I have yet to start a full season with the game. Final year at university and the need to go to work and earn money to fuel such a student lifestyle has really eaten into my ability to play the most addictive game in the world. But in an attempt to get myself started and to inspire some Football Manager content at Soccergaming I think it is time for me to delve into a game.

Let me introduce myself firstly, I don’t know how many of you lovely Soccer Gamers have actually followed or experience the Football Manager community, but I would like to think that my name in known within those circles, having spent 10 years producing content and contribution to discussion around an array of sites, even producing my own site from time to time. I have played since Championship Manager 3 and followed the game through to its current incarnation.

The challenge that I am setting myself from the off is to travel to Italy, a league that I have very little experience of and take control of a club with the biggest and most passionate fanbase in all of Italy, AC Milan. The former cricket club, set up by a couple of Englishmen, have been going through a tough period recently, the scandal of match fixing. seeing them docked points and relegated, but after an appeal that was overturned. Decline in league performance as the team has aged and Milan have failed to keep up has prompted President Silvio Berlusconi to look for a new start for the AC Milan team with a fresh young manager and a fresh approach to bring back some league success to Milan. The Italian Prime Minster known for his odd sense of humour also thought it was time for the Italian game to see a fresh faced Englishman with no proven history to lead one of the biggest clubs in the world.

But with a budget of just £8 million and a squad quickly ageing it is definitely going to be a challenge, especially seeing the rest of the Italian football clubs catching up fast on the abilities of the Red and Black team. My aim basically at the club is to discover new and young players using the fantastic array of scouts already at the club, giving Milan a long-term future as a squad of great players meanwhile in the short-term mounting a realistic challenge on the Serie A title.

Maldini who has already set his retirement date and at 41 is the oldest player in the squad and the current captain. Not looking bad for his age, his mental attributes are outstanding, but with a lack of pace and many other physical attributes to knock striker around with I can’t see him getting much game time in my squad resulting in the first task of stripping him of his captaincy, looking for a younger face to lead the team.

Nesta is out for 8 months of this season at 32 he hasn’t got long left in him, this injury might spell the end of his career at Milan, but with great all round attributes the World Cup winner still could prove me wrong and I hope he does. A sure start for the central defence then is 30 year old Kakha Kaladze. The Georgian who is entering his ninth year for the club looks at his peak at the moment a player that we could build our new look defence around and has even been handed an Italian passport. Gianluca Zambrotta, the wide man who will dart up and down the wing in searching for someone to setup. This guy is 31 still has the pace and fitness to keep up with the younger lads, but he will be a stop gap in the transformation of the team. Bonera and Antonini make up the rest of defenders on the books of AC Milan, both I don’t see to be the future of the new look squad. Arsenal man Senderos completes the line up at the back, a decent looking mould of player, he made need some work on building concentration and better decision making, but he could develop into a nice little player at 23 he looks good and with an option of a £6.5 million buy at the end of his loan from Arsenal we will just have to wait and see how he performs, but from the look at the back it definitely seems like a neglected part of the side that will certainly get a revamp with my arrival.

The quality of the team though is undoubtedly in the Midfield, no introduction is needed for Seedorf, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Gattuso, Ambrosini and Pirlo. Players that would walk into every team in the land and a good asset to have at the club. With a bit of youth we have former Arsenal man Mathieu Flamini, the midfield I won’t tamper with for the moment, it will just be about building a tactic that can fit around these players and developing some young players to fill these big boots when it comes for some of them to hand them up.

The strikers too are looking wearing and sparse, with AC Milan legend Andriy Shevchenko on loan from Chelsea is looking like more of a sentiment signing more then anything. The 31 year old still has talent and will surely see game time, but with a £9 million agreed fee for £2.9 million worth of player earning £120,00 a week I won’t look to have this player come my second season. Inzaghi is too old therefore it is time to look for a new striking partner for the future of Milan, Pato. The 18 year old has struck himself to fame, earning 3 caps for Brazil already, he still has alot developing to do, but I am confident in putting him in the first team along side a more capable guy.

The best Milan line up pre season.

So in summary the first season with just £8 million to build a whole new defence and an investment in a new striker required, the season will be about raising some funds for this more a better balanced squad that I want, keeping signings below the age of 27 and trying to form a team that has the ability to still cut it with the prime of Europe. With time needed but the pressure of success from the some of the most devoted Ultra’s in all of Italy, it won’t be easy taking this big club on.