F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892

[Smurph]

Right, I'm doing two things at once here - The World Cup and pre-season with Pro Vercelli. The next few updates are going to be a mess but I'll try and do my best to keep it fairly orderly.

Football Italia spoke to Pro Vercelli manager Steven Murphy about next season and his exploits with Senegal ahead of their World Cup match against Turkey.

"The beginning of the season is one of the hardest tasks a football manager can face" said Murphy "It's got nothing to do with the pre-season games, but seeing players you've built fantastic relationships with departing from the club after years of service. It's my least favourite part of being a manager. I would love to keep the majority of these players at the club but they want first team football and I cannot give them that at this present time." He went on to continue "I have had to release several players this term who have been fantastic servants to the club. Francesco Velardi and Andrea Gavanezzi were both at Bianchi for seven years - but today marks the day where their Pro Vercelli career ends. Both were excellent players at their time at the club and I can only hope they find a new club and continue to perform professionally and do their best for their team." Murphy wiped a tear from his eye. "Grazie, Francesco and Andrea. I have also had to release Mario Balotelli after a very unsuccessful three years at the club. I wish him all the best in the future, but come on, Mario - try"

We then asked him about his up-coming game with Senegal.

No disrespect to Turkey, but I feel we've been lucky in the draw. There are certainly more challenging teams to face in this round and we've been handed one of the easier ties - but I'm pretty sure Saglam [Turkey head coach] will be saying similar!" We asked him how his squad was doing "Well, we're without Diatta and N'Doye who are injured and will be for the remainder of the tournament and Sané is suspended for this game. Oh, we're also without Diakhate and Diandy who have RETIRED in the middle of this competition... That's incredibly annoying as it means we need to change team captain and we only have 18 players available for this crucial game"

You can see Murphy's remaining Senegal team below.

[Smurph]

Turkey was going to be a tough game, actually. I perhaps underestimated their squad. They have some top quality regens - a lot better than the shite Senegal is producing. They're also one place above Senegal in the current FIFA rankings (22nd) so it was going to be tight.

Current top scorer Akturk scored early on for Turkey but a Touré penalty and a last-gasp Khouma Babacar header woke my mum up with my shouting and sent Senegal into the quarter-finals of the World Cup!

Excellent performance. We attacked more, had more chances and possession, and probably deserved to win. Turkey were decent but we would have been really hard done by if we didn't win the match. I was confident of winning it in extra time if we had to - but Babacar saved us having to do that. Quality!

Who waited The Lions in the quarter-final?

Argentina... 2nd in the FIFA world rankings.

If we can hold our own against Italy for the most part, who are 4th, then I don't see how we can't surprise them and get a credible result. It will be difficult and we need our players to perform well.

[Smurph]

Argentina it was, then.

I was really quite gutted. I' argue that we were the better team - we certainly had more chances - but we never took any of them. The injury and the penalty were separate incidents - and the penalty was definitely the incorrect decision. I was raging during the press conference and the FA let me away with it. I'm really, really disappointed to have gone out like that, but getting to the quarter-finals is decent enough I guess.

I don't know whether I want to continue with Senegal or not. They've got an ageing squad with even more players beginning to retire - and their youth set-up is abysmal and I don't see any future. I'll perhaps stay on to see how we do in the African Cup of Nations - but I expect that to be my final tournament in charge of Les Lions.

Now to focus back on Pro Vercelli.

[Smurph]

Pre-season 2018

So it was the beginning of the season again. I'll start with the transfers.

Out goes Gavanezzi, Balotelli and Velardi as I mentioned in the interview. Toplek, who spent just the six months at club, had his minimum fee release clause opened by Napoli and left for €12M - double what I paid for him only six months before. A very good profit but it would have been quality to have kept hold of him. I felt the offer for Giovio was too good to refuse to he departs for France. €2M is a decent price for someone who really wasn't getting goals or games for us. A few more loan spells for some of the younger players and and a few more 'deadwood' left too.

As for arrivals, Gajic, Yeray and Keric are young players and won't get much game-time this season.

Chris Hauck comes from Werder Bremen for the reasonable price of €2.7M. He should in a few years be as good as Toplek was going to be so he comes in as his replacement. He won't get played too often hopefully but he'll be used off the bench quite a lot I reckon.

I didn't really need another centre defender but Felice has been a target for me for some time. €6M over some instalments sees the ex-Empoli man sign for Pro. He could come in straight away but he'll probably be on the bench more often than not. I anticipate Pererya will leave soon as his min. fee release clause is €11M and even negotiating a new contract with him, this doesn't change, so I'm sure someone will come in for him soon. Diego is waiting.

and this is our squad.

I don't think there's anyone in there who I haven't mentioned before. Our team looks decent but it's still very young. The potential is still there but this is another year of essentially the same players so I'm looking on ever-improving.

Pre-season went really well with good wins over San Lorenzo, Wolfsburg and Racing. The only game I never managed was the one against Sporting. Good to see our strikers get goals again, but I fear I've said this before...

So the 2018/2019 season is just about to get under-way and I'm hoping for an improvement on last season if possible. I'd be content with finishing on where we did last season too. Just as long as we don't get relegated.

I'm up for it, the players are up for it, and the fans are up for it. Forza Pro!

[Murph]

Great stuff again mate, let's see a cup win and pushing for Europe!

[Smurph]

A bit optimistic perhaps! We'll see. I just want to better what I did last season just now.

September 2018

So we started

And we started quite well. A good defensive display got us a good point against Palermo and a win away from home against Cagliari was a good result. It was even better than Izaola scored both the goals. The Lazio and Inter games were always going to be tough, so losing them wasn't unexpected, but losing against Empoli at home was a terrible result I feel. That's the type of team we should be beating if we want to climb up the table. Plenty of time to rectify this though.

The league table is irrelevant just now for us, really. Really close and there's plenty of time to change. Good result against top of the league Palermo though.

[Estragon]

I enjoy this thread so much more than actually playing the game! Keep up the good work Smurph

[Smurph]

Cheers pal.

October 2018

We needed to do better than we did the previous month and propel ourselves up the table.

Izaola has been brilliant so far and is finally getting goals for us. He scored 5 in 4 in pre-season and had 7 in 8 in the league. Three good wins as two of the promoted sides and a struggling Atalanta. No complaints and three clean sheets in the league is pleasing.

I put out a very weakened side against Taranto - a Serie B side. We played well and 4-0 was a good result. Sau scored two goals which may give him a place on the bench and Aguero gets a début goal from off the bench which is good to see. Happy with that. We play Catania away from home in the next round.

League table is looking good.

Last season, with one more game played, we were 12th and had two less points - so regardless of what happens next game that's another improvement. Our goals scored and goals conceded has improved too.

[Smurph]

November 2018

We needed to continue our good form so we don't fall behind and get closer to the relegation places.

I don't know how to take that. On one hand, it was abysmal, but on the other we did well in the last two games.

The game against Fiorentina was incredibly disappointing. We had done really well up until Rizzi was sent off early in the second half and then Fiorentina dominated. The game was end to end and really could have finished 4-4 but we never took our chances and fell apart. The loss against Livorno was really frustrating as well - as that's a game we should be getting points from. Parma we didn't stand a chance against and deserved to lose.

We improved against Catania and with Izaola suspended, Micheli came into the team and did brilliantly getting a hat-trick. I expected to win this game but I was delighted with the performance. Against Roma we deserved a point. We went ahead in the 67th minutes and sat back a little. Roma equalised in the 75th minute and I was content for the point, but Leonard had other ideas and scored a 25-yarder to secure the win which I was delighted with.

We seem to be picking up a few injuries and I don't think we've had a fully fit squad for a few months now. What the worst thing is, though, is De Goisa and Casali are injured. My two goalkeepers. I don't have a replacement for either of them so I'm going to have to use some U21 players. In all positions in the U21 squad I'm covered and have some really talented prospects - but not in goals. f**k.

We're ten points clear of the relegation spots just now which is good to see. Given the injuries we have for the next month of fixtures, I'd be happy to be still outside the relegation spots. I don't think we'll fall that far behind but I'm really not looking forward to the next few games. I'm hoping we can scrape a few points against the easier sides but I don't think we'll keep a clean sheet.

In other news, I was offered the Atalanta job.

I declined.

[Murph]

Solid enough start, good work!

[Dazzle]

Good lad tell Atalanta to bolt! Pro will one day see European football under Murphy.

[Smurph]

December 2018

Well. That was shite.

I knew it was going to be tough, but not that tough. We were actually unlucky in the league games and should have snatched a point or two and maybe a win in some cases. It really didn't help being without a decent goalkeeper though. The replacement score two own goals in the time he was in - which quite frankly is ridiculous. Some of them were close run games but we should really be beating Catania (I know it was only in the cup but I wanted a good Coppa Italia run and I was not happy going out like that). We were 2-0 (two goals to fucking nil) up against Juventus with ten minutes gone but we were pulverised after that and stood absolutely no hope of not conceding.

Fortunately, Casali is back, and I signed a new goalkeeper with potential, so we shouldn't have to deal with such horrible goalkeeping like that again.

Those four losses in the league obviously did damage to the league table - but now that we've got fit players again we should hopefully start getting our results back on track. Need to keep it up, though, we're not too far off the relegation spots...

[Mr. Brightside]

Smurph, what's Toto up to in your game? If he is still about.

[Smurph]

Saving people's lives.

He's retired, but I assume he's still being a hero.

Edit- He is listed as a Legend on the Udinese information page, though. Deserved.

[Mr. Brightside]

Tru dat. You should hire him as a coach or something.

[Smurph]

Tru dat. You should hire him as a coach or something.

He's retired

I mean he's retired from the game completely otherwise I would.

I currently have Flavio Roma as my assistant manager but Alessandro Del Piero has become available - so that's quite tempting. I wanted Clarence Seedorf as a coach but he retired straight away. I'm trying to lure Gigi Buffon in as a goalkeeping coach and I'll probably scout around and see if I can harvest any more Calcio legends to my backroom staff. The only sort of "big name" people I have in my staff are Flavio Roma (ass man), Fabio Firmani (1st team coach), Cristiano Zanetti (coach) and Cristiano Lupatelli (scout) - the rest floated about Serie C1/2/D for most of their careers or are regens.

[Mr. Brightside]

Aw, well as you said he's probably a bit busy for football, saving lives somewhere.

I always do that too, look about for ex-pros as my assistant. In my Everton game I have Duncan Ferguson, two mad Scotsmen. And in my Barca game I have Pierre van Hooijdonk.

[Smurph]

January 2019

We can buy players again! I signed a few players who will be in the youth squad, again, but I only signed one player who will be in the first-team just now. Gorka Izaola signed a new contract for us in January which I thought would stave off clubs looking about him: Unfortunately not. His agent wanted a minimum release clause of €4.5M and sadly this wouldn't budge. I thought him signing a new contract would have been enough to keep him but he left to Atletic Bilbao for €4.7M. Damn him being Basque! He had scored 10 league goals before departing so I needed someone to replace him. I signed this guy:

He looks decent and should hopefully fill in where Izaola left off. His fee was a bit heavy but it's hard to sign a player of his age and calibre for any cheaper than that.

Two points is better than none but that was still pretty disappointing. We need to start winning again soon.

The bottom three look hopeless - but so do we just now! I hope we can keep our heads above water and pick up a few more wins before the end of the season. I don't know what went wrong but we really have been awful recently.

As for Senegal, we were participating in the African Cup of Nations. We had a group consisting of The Ivory Coast, Guinea and Uganda. I really expected to qualify.

And qualify I did. We went ahead against the Ivory Coast but they scored two fluke-y goals and won the game. A solid win against Guinea and a demolition of Uganda (Senegal's biggest ever win) saw us qualify in second. Content with that. We needed to play Ghana next which was going to be tough.

Took it to extra time and conceded at the last hurdle. It wasn't a very good game but I was disappointed in how we lost - our centre back and captain fucked up monumentally. That saw us out the competition to the eventual winners.

The board were happy with my performance as manager and I had led Senegal to a record high of 13th in the FIFA world rankings. I was pleased to have reached both the quarter finals of the African Cup of Nations and the quarter finals of the World Cup. However;

I decided enough was enough and quit after the AFCON. I feel I took Senegal as far as I could and with very little in youth prospects and the older players starting to retire, I can see a downfall for the national team. I enjoyed international management though and if the chance were to arise again I'd certainly take one. I can only thank Senegal for the opportunity.

[54_and_counting]

i have read many FM career threads and while all are good this is the only thread that makes me wish to buy the game, and i havent bought FM since 2009 or 2010 i think

keep it going smurph

[Smurph]

Cheers. I want the next few years to go as quickly as possible until my players mature. It's going to be 12th-16th placed finishes for the next few years I feel until my superstars flourish and hopefully we can start climbing up.

February 2019

Needed points from somewhere.

Le Moal He has been excellent. 4 goals in 5 appearances.

We were unlucky against Inter - losing to an own goal - and losing to Empoli was tough. However, an improved performance against Mantova and a win against Fiorentina (which was completely unexpected) saw us pick up six points in the final two games. I want this form to continue.

Certainly looking more promising. Drifted away further from the relegation places and back into mid-table mediocrity. That's what I want!

In other news:

I don't know how to take this. I guess some massive consortium could take over, but I quite liked Secondo. He sold a few players without my permission but he's been fairly lax and has started work on a new stadium - which is worrying now, given the take-over... My main concern is keeping my job though.