F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892

[Smurph]

Where the f**k have you been?

As SLJ said, I was in the middle of moving house last month. It also took me a while to get an internet connection in the new house, and I didn't want to play but not able to update, so I went on hiatus for a while. I'm back now, though. Don't worry x

[Smurph]

February 2026

No problems in the league again. Perhaps shying away from goals against the smaller sides but we're getting the three points and that's all that really matters at the end of the day.

13 points clear. That's not a lot, despite us winning every single game. Inter Milan have done well to keep up with us. They're nine points above third.

We played one other game this month and it was the away leg to PSG in the Champions League last 16.

That was easy. Perhaps a little too easy... Probably the best performance we've had all season. Completely dominated it, and to be honest, I'm a little disappointed we never scored more goals than that. We had nine clear cut chances! Incredibly easy win. I don't see us fucking up the home leg. I don't think anyone does...

Edit- Oh, I completely forgot. We also featured in the Coppa Italia this month against Lazio. The first leg was at home. We won 1-0 with Maringá scoring the only goal, and the second leg will be played some time in April.

[GypsyTillIDie]

Fucking brilliant. Just spent the past 40 minutes reading this full thread after you posted it on Twitter as I had no idea this even existed.

Glorious. European domination is something I've never been able to manage in these type of games.

[TheScarf]

I may have missed it, but is Le Moal still at the club? Him and Maringa seemed to have a good partnership.

[Smurph]

I may have missed it, but is Le Moal still at the club? Him and Maringa seemed to have a good partnership.

His contract expired the season before this (or it was this season, I can't remember) and went to PSG on a free transfer. I'm pretty sure I commented on that when we played PSG in the Champions League.

I've been busy with work recently, and I work evenings so the only time I can play is late at night or in the mornings, and I've sort of lost all motivation with this. I'll try and get it sorted out soon and hopefully I can finish it off soon.

[Smurph]

March 2026

Another perfect month in Serie A but the main disappointment was that we conceded so many goals. Well, three. All were our own fault though, whether they be from a corner or from a pack bass gone wrong. Fortunately, they haven't made us slip up and we maintain our 100% record.

However, there was a dark moment this month, and it was in that Fiorentina game. League top goalscorer, Alessio Esposito, was injured. Not for a few weeks, but for four months. Four whole months. Right, you'll obviously be thinking "But Smurph, you have Cunha and Maringá!" and you're right in that, I do, and they have been sublime this month - Maringá with seven league goals in four appearances - but it's not Pro Vercelli I'm worried about. It's Italy. Esposito was the player we played through up front, and he scored ten goals in our qualifying campaign. That was the most of any Italian player. Yeah, we have other players who can play up front, but Esposito was arguably the best - and moreso - he was a Pro Vercelli player. The way it looks right now, is that he'll miss it. Maybe not all of it. If there's ever a slight chance he's going to make the final, he'll be included in my squad if I'm allowed.

We also had our second leg against PSG to contend with.

and we dealt with them fairly comfortably, winning 8-1 on aggregate. That was us into the quarter final, where we would face...

The second best side in Italy, Inter Milan.

A look at our net three fixtures:

Bring it.

[Smurph]

April 2026 (part I)

There's far too much going on in April. We're in the business end of the league campaign and everything's being finished off in the upcoming two months, we have the semi-final of the Coppa Italia and also the quarter-final (AND semi-final if we progress) of the Champions League. So, I've decided I'm going to do it in two parts. This one will cover the quarter-final of the CL and the semi of the CI and a further update will be the league and the semi-final of the CL providing we can beat Inter Milan.

Let's get the Coppa Italia out of the way first. We were 1-0 up from the first leg played at home in February, thanks to a goal from Maringá. It was quite a slender lead but I had confidence that we'd be all right. We were without Maringá and Reinaldo though, so it wasn't the strongest team possible.

We absolutely battered them, but their goalkeeper put in a MOTM performance and was the main difference between the sides. He saved absolutely everything that was thrown at him. I was obviously disappointed not to get the win - the first game this season we never managed that feat, but we progressed to the final of the Coppa and Palermo await us in the final.

That wasn't our main concern this month, however. I was more interested in the Champions League, where we faced Inter Milan. The first leg was at home and the second leg was all the 50-odd miles to Milan. I see this game as my derby now, due to the closeness of the clubs and the fact we're both the two best sides in Italy. They obviously view AC Milan as their derby, and within rights, but they haven't presented a challenge since Berlusconi left.

Comfortable and it puts us in good shape for the second leg. We disposed of them easily and completely deserved to win the game. Possession was equal but we created a great deal more. Maringá got the first and Hauck, yet again, scored a screamer from the edge of the box to make it 2-0. The only down point was Toplek picking up an injury but thankfully it wasn't serious. It was all about what happened in a weeks time.

Not quite as comfortable, but I wouldn't say we were under any real trouble at any point. Cunha eventually got the winner which saw us win 3-0 on aggregate which is a good result. That was us through to the semi-final once again, where this time we would face:

Atletico Madrid.

They beat Lazio and OL to get this far.

We've played them a total of five times in the past, with us a record of 2-2-1. Three of those games have been friendlies, stretching as far back as 2021 where we drew 2-2, 2022 where we won 4-2 and 2023 where we won 3-0. In 2022 we played them in the Champions League Group Stage, drawing 2-2 away from home and losing 3-2 in Vercelli. Given history between the sides, these two games should have a lot of goals.

Atletico obviously have a lot of good quality players, but they have one who stands out, and that's Nuno Leite. Remember him? He's arguably one of the best players in the world right now and came 3rd place in the world player of the year. I'd love him back at the club, and he's up for it, I just can't bring myself to meet his release clause and spend €99M on a player. We don't need him anyway.

[xbl]

They as well call this the smurph dedicated sub forum! Not only that, but you seem like someone who is packing it in at the end of the season too!

[Widge]

They as well call this the smurph dedicated sub forum! Not only that, but you seem like someone who is packing it in at the end of the season too!

There's something to be said for his dedication. I'd also like to say I do actually have a bunch of updates ready, just uni and work is seriously hindering any chance I get to put them up.

Also well done Smurph, escellent work, although is it not boring winning every game?

[djchapsticks]

They as well call this the smurph dedicated sub forum! Not only that, but you seem like someone who is packing it in at the end of the season too!

There will be an upturn in interest for this sort of thing when FM13 is out, I'd imagine.

[xbl]

My issue i have doing this is, im a shitter manager therefor my career is no where near is good as this. I can only take screenshots so therfor im limited to what i post, my storylines i reckon would be rubbish and just feel nobody would be interested in mine

To be honest, I think managerial ability is actually only a side issue. The main issue is in writing good stories and getting people involved in them. Smurph is excellent at that. Even if he'd been fired from seven clubs by now, he'd still be able to get people involved. Too many people just fire up a load of screenshots and say "this is my squad". Smurph gives them stories and personalities. Widge isn't bad at that either, but most of the attempted stories fail because people are willing to do the management part, but not the story writing part, so nobody cares!

[The Troll]

To be honest, I think managerial ability is actually only a side issue. The main issue is in writing good stories and getting people involved in them. Smurph is excellent at that. Even if he'd been fired from seven clubs by now, he'd still be able to get people involved. Too many people just fire up a load of screenshots and say "this is my squad". Smurph gives them stories and personalities. Widge isn't bad at that either, but most of the attempted stories fail because people are willing to do the management part, but not the story writing part, so nobody cares!

This is true of me I'd love to be able to write a story like Smurph or Widge but I've not got the will power, which is a shame as my 14 years in charge of Saints has seen us narrowly avoid relegation, win leagues, lose finals, finally win the Scottish Cup and have some famous victories in the Champions League. With some belting games and heroes on the way. If there was somebody who could have written it then it would've been decent, sadly I'm shite

[Big River]

I read quite a lot of these things as a lurker on SI and this is comfortably my 2nd favourite thread of this type. Smurph being bested in storytelling terms only by the guy with the Tom Cruise story, which is probably one of the best things I've ever read.

[Smurph]

A big thank you to the influx of comments there. Genuinely pleased you're all still enjoying it. To have this compared to Mission Impossible is ridiculous though, that's the best career thread on Football Manager ever. Thanks for your kind words though. I was thinking it had gone a bit stale recently, but I'd assume that's just because I've been unable to update it properly in a while, and I'm glad you're all flooding back for the end of the season and then the World Cup.

Edit- Widge, it does get quite boring to win all the time, but I'm determined to just carry on for the meantime. If I had this sort of motivation when I was in school and college, well, I probably wouldn't have made this thread

There will be an upturn in interest for this sort of thing when FM13 is out, I'd imagine.

I agree with this. I still think it's a great idea for a sub-forum and hopefully it kicks off when FM13 is released with more and more people creating stories, and hopefully this time being able to keep them up. The updates I post take quite a while to build up, but it's quite sad to see people with awesome ideas for a career story and just not put the time and effort in to complete it. Perhaps they don't have the time though, which is something FMC will hopefully be able to resolve.

April 2026 (part II)

Part two is here!

League duty first, as always.

Two very comfortable wins against Inter and Empoli, with Piovanelli getting a hat-trick against Inter (5 goals in 2 games after his two against Roma!) Two not-so comfortable wins against Napoli and Pescara, with Cunha scoring in 45+2 against Napoli and Ritter scoring a penalty against Pescara. They were both sandwiched between important fixtures though, so I'd just take a win, and a win we got.

Three more points and we've equalled our record from last season, 11 more goals and we've equalled our record from last season, and if we concede just one goal we've equalled the record from last season. I'm hoping to beat the points and the goals conceded, but goals scored looks like it may be a problem. We're not disposing teams quite as easily as we have done previously. It's all about winning these final three games though. I want 100%!

The most important thing this month was of course the Champions League though, and after beating Inter Milan in the quarter-final, we faced Atletico Madrid. The first leg was at home and we wanted to make as good as an advantage as possible.

Big Pio getting another goal! This guy's been doing superbly recently! Maringá got the second and we ran out comfortable winners at home. We really dominated the whole game and thoroughly deserved the win. We held a decent advantage and we hoped that we could hold on away and reach the final.

However, and as a caution, I refused to let Hauck, Ritter or Cunha participate. They weren't on the bench either. They were all on yellow cards and I just couldn't risk them for this game, another yellow resulting in them missing the final. All players in the best starting eleven, but I couldn't have them miss the final.

MATTEO PIOVANELLI! YOU BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL MAN!

We went 1-0 down and it just didn't look like happening for us. We were hitting the crossbar and missing really easy chances, but then Pio towered above everyone and headed another goal. We went 2-1 courtesy of a Mario Toplek free-kick and then that man Pio stepped up again and secured our win. 3-1 on the day and 5-1 on aggregate. You can't argue with that and that was us, once again, in the final of the Champions League.

But who dared face us?

Arsenal.

We've only played them a handful of times, four I think, once in the Super Cup, twice in the Champions League (both group stage) and once in a friendly. The friendly was earlier on in this season AFAIK and we ran out 3-1 winners. More of the same would be nice.

Arsenal beat Sevilla 5-2 on aggregate to reach the final.

[the_bully_wee]

I gave up on my career story due to getting too engrossed in the game and racing ahead with the gameplay, and subsequently I couldn't really be bothered with the lengthy updating process. If anyone cares, I'm in my 8th season now, and am on the brink of winning the SPL, 2 points ahead of Celtic with 2 games to play.

Anyway Smurph, this is fantastic, keep up the good work and win every single trophy this season!

[Smurph]

May 2026

Right, where do we start? Let's make a change and go for the Coppa Italia. We faced Palermo in the final.

Oof. That was a close run thing to be honest. Palermo held up well but when it got to extra time we exploited the space and our midfield scored two goals. A reasonable performance and another trophy to add to the collection.

Serie A now, and you know the script already. 100% record with three games to go. We need to NOT concede to better our defensive record and we need to score 12 goals to beat our goalscoring record. A tough task awaited us but could we do it?

A good start with Cunha bagging a hat-trick. Gómez in for the injured Reinaldo getting in on the act too. 100% still in tact, and 8 goals to go.

Holy f**k. What a result. I thought this was the game we were going to struggle with but we kept our cool and absolutely dominated them. I'm not joking. We had over 30-shots and 8 clear-cut chances. 4-0 was the least the result could have been. Probably the best performance of the season, it was just a shame we couldn't convert all the chances we created. 100% record still in tact, and 4 goals to go. We needed to come up big against already relegated Sampdoria...

Despite heroics from Hauck we couldn't score that fourth goal. Not that it particularly mattered. I just wanted to see if I could better myself and better each season, which in a way we did...

We may have scored the same as last season, but once again, our defensive record improved, and therefore our goal difference was better. I'll take that. Look, it's easy to go buy the best strikers all the time and watch them score goals for fun, that's easy to do, but I find it a lot harder to get a defence to work well together and understand each other, and there's not a defence better in my whole game than Leonard - Reinaldo - Piovanelli - Antonioli. Granted, the CB and RB have only been here for one season, hell, so has Kitchenin in goals, but to have Gómez, Káka and Mazz on on the bench is a brilliant thing to have.

Just looking at that league table gives me an incredible sense of pride. It's all well to go a season unbeaten, it doesn't happen regularly but it's a possibility, but to go 100% unbeaten is a thing of absolute beauty. I'm not going to go into it that much just now, I'm saving myself for a 5000-word essay/summary on my career in the coming days, but it's an absolutely fantastic achievement and I'm delighted that I managed to do it eventually.

We still have one game to go and that's the Champions League final against Arsenal. Let's see what we can do.

[Smurph]

It was Champions League final time. We faced Arsenal in the final this time. We were looking to win the trophy for the third time in a row, and if we did this, we'd be only the fourth side to do it behind Real Madrid (5), Ajax and Bayern Munich - all European heavyweights - but the first side to have done it since 1973. It was going to be a hard task obviously, Arsenal are an incredible team, and especially in Football Manager where they seem to dominate the scene after a few years. I intended on stopping them in their tracks, of course, and was aiming for the third title in a row. Surely no-one could stop us?

The teams lined up.

And the referee blew his whistle.

29 minutes

Palmieri collects the ball in midfield and plays it to Hauck. Hauck finds Mario Toplek who looks to see what he can do.

He plays it through the middle of the defence!

and it finds Cunha!

GOAAAAAAAAAAL!

Pro Vercelli get the first goal of the game. What vision from the captain who slots it through to the Brazilian who pokes it past De Gea in the net. 1-0 Pro!

87 minutes

Mario Toplek collects it in midfield...

What a fucking goal, son. Dribbles it past two defenders after collecting it in the centre of midfield and secures the win, surely, for Pro Vercelli, dispatching the shot through De Gea's legs. What a goal by an incredible player. Top, top, Toplek class.

And that was it. The full time whistle had blown and Pro Vercelli had won the Champions League for the third time running. Delighted with that and it was a super performance from the guys. Mario Toplek getting an assist and a top class goal. The whole team played well, and we got a clean sheet too, which is always nice. It was a fairly simple win and at no point did Arsenal really threaten us and put us under any real pressure, but it was a very good performance from us, and it's great to have won the most prestigious trophy in club football once again.

Talking about prestigious trophies, the World Cup is just around the corner, and I'm managing Italy...

[forameus]

To be honest, I think managerial ability is actually only a side issue. The main issue is in writing good stories and getting people involved in them. Smurph is excellent at that. Even if he'd been fired from seven clubs by now, he'd still be able to get people involved. Too many people just fire up a load of screenshots and say "this is my squad". Smurph gives them stories and personalities. Widge isn't bad at that either, but most of the attempted stories fail because people are willing to do the management part, but not the story writing part, so nobody cares!

Absolutely 100% agree. If all it took was managerial abillity, then most stories would be pretty boring, as they'd all win everything, have zero troubles and generally all be the same. It's the writing that makes a story - you can be the shittest manager there is going, but it matters not as long as the story behind it is good. In fact, some of the best stories I've read have been relative "failures" either by not achieving the goals they originally set out, or by taking a real long time to achieve them. The Mission Impossible and Pilgrimage stories are probably the most perfect examples of these.

On the subject of this story, I really do need to read it over from the start. I've dipped in and out, and it's easy to see that it's worth the effort to read through. Will you be getting FM13 when it's out and writing something similar Smurph?

[Smurph]

On the subject of this story, I really do need to read it over from the start. I've dipped in and out, and it's easy to see that it's worth the effort to read through. Will you be getting FM13 when it's out and writing something similar Smurph?

I'd quite like people to do that. I've only just realised it's been going on since February! The last few months we've really stalled though and sadly I can't dedicate as much time as I used to and the updates are few and far between. I hope I haven't lost any readers due to that. As for FM13, I'll definitely get it at some point seeing as I missed out on FM12, but whether I'll do a career thread or not remains to be seen. I'd like to do something, but I can't think of any ideas yet. You should put your idea on Susie on this though. That was great until the forum collapsed.

So we were in sunny Mexico for the World Cup 2026 and my squad of 23-men had been announced.

These men were here to make history and hopefully lead us to World Cup glory and we hoped we could make Italy and a Scottish internet forum proud. I'll give a little run down of the squad.

Gallego, Mazzon and Casali were our goalkeepers. Gallego was formerly Italy's number one until I took charge and replaced him with Giovanni. They're both much of a muchness and as good as each other but Gio is my man and therefore gets the jersey. Casali should be a familiar name and he used to be Pro's goalkeeper a few years ago. He now plays for Malaga, and Gallego has been a player at Chelsea since he was first conceived.

Antonioli and Trotta will occupy the right back spot. Antonio is the current Pro Vercelli right back so he needs no real introduction and he is our number two. Flavio Trotta is Pro player of old and now plays for Parma. He can play on both sides of the defence which is why I signed him in the first place until the board decided to sell him. If Antonioli gets injured, Trotta will be right in there.

On the left we have the choice between Ciano and Natale, and Marcello/Trotta if we're struggling. Ciano plays in Palermo just now and Natale at Bayern Munich. Natale will be our first choice and our number three, but there's not really much difference between the two. They both like to attack.

In the centre of defence, Matteo Piovanelli should need to introduction. Alongside him will be Chelsea's Luciano Modesto. Marcelo of Inter Milan and Starace or Lazio are our main back-up alongside Diego Felice, who you may remember is another old Pro Vercelli player from seven years ago, still playing for Sevilla.

In midfield, Salles and Palmieri are current Pro Vercelli players and should be in the starting line-up. HSV's Carlo Pagnotta is going to take the third slot in our three man midfield. We have no defensive midfielders, but Carlo loves a tackle, so he is the furthest back of the three while Remi and Salvatore will attack. Nereo Vacca, a player who has been at Barcelona all his career, will play the attacking midfield role in the name of the trequartista. He's our oldest attacking player. Canale is there for width although I doubt I'll be utilising him too often. Loreti of Inter will play more often and can go wide if he wants to too. Moretto or Russo can also drop down to a midfield role.

Up top we have Alessio Esposito. When I found out I was able to have him in the squad I squealed a little. He's not fully fit and won't be for a while, but to have him back is wonderful, and hopefully he can play as soon as possible. Russo is the other Pro Vercelli player up-front. He wouldn't have been involved if Giglio wasn't injured and was able to feature, but we weren't allowed to take him on board. Moretto is a player at Cagliari and he's been scoring goals for fun for them. Not got a great international record but hoping he can come good this year. Massimo Fratti, now of Malaga, is another old Pro player and he's done really well this season. He was top scorer for us a few seasons ago but when Maringá and Cunha started gelling he couldn't get back in. I still rate him after his wonder-season. The other one is the youngest player in the squad. Chiarucci is a striker for Parma and I was very tempted to meet his min. free release clause and get him for €40M. 25 goals in 32 league appearances for Parma last season, and you cannot argue with that. One of the brightest talents in Italy right now, and whilst he's young, I have no reason to think he won't make it on the international scene.

Right, let's do this. Cameroon were up first.

Jean-Paul Leonard starts for Cameroon. Let's hope he doesn't have too good a game...

That was lucky. The only goal of the game was an own goal which came from a corner when Pio rattled it off of the other player. We'll take it, but we must improve. Defensively we were fairly solid but we'll now be without Antonioli for a fortnight. We had the chances up front but we couldn't dispose of any of them. Alessio, Alessio, where art thou Alessio?

Oh, hai.

Edit- I forgot to put in the other game. South Korea were playing Turkey and lost 2-0 so the table looks like this:

We faced Turkey next at a top of the table clash meanwhile Cameroon entertain South Korea.

[Smurph]

It was time to face Turkey now which was probably going to be our toughest game in the group stages. If we win today, it gives us the confidence to go and beat teams of a similar stature, but if we lose, then questions must be asked and whether we'll be able to go all the way.

I made a few changes. The injured Antonioli was replaced by Trotta and Loreti came in for Pagnotta, with a few tactical tweaks here and there. We needed a better performance than the one against Cameroon and we needed to finish the chances we created, especially against a side as ruthless as Turkey.

Moretto's international record isn't great, he said.

Chiarucci's maybe too young, he said.

Alessio Espositio needs to come back as soon as possible, he said.

Pfft. What do I know?

That was a sensational performance and does us wonders. Winning today means we've qualified for the next round and now we have two strikers who are on decent form. We definitely took our chances today and the only low point was conceding, but they scored on the counter. Brilliant performance and means we can take is easy a bit against South Korea.

The other result in the group finished Cameroon 3-1 South Korea, so it's all to play for between Turkey and Cameroon for the final qualification spot. We've already qualified so we needn't worry about what goes on. South Korea unfortunately are out but they'll want to try and finish the campaign on a high.