F.C. Pro Vercelli 1892

[JamboMikey]

[Meatwad]

[JamboMikey]

How's the squad shaping up for the top flight, Smurph?

[FauldhouseJambo]

This thread is the best thing ever.

[Smurph]

Last season was obviously a brilliant one for the club. Records were broken and we were promoted to Serie A via the play-offs. I could say that I'm disappointed that I never won the league title (and never won C1/A either) but I'm not too bothered because of the fantastic progress we've made at the club.

The fans decided that Vittorio Ferrero was the player of the season and that is excellent I feel. He's been at the club for four years now (initially on loan from Juventus) but he's been here since we were in the C1/A and it shows how much he's improved and how vital a player he is to the club. Ratings-wise, Andrea De Paolo was the second best player, Ferrero's CB partner. He's been here for a year more than Ferrero and that's brilliant to see. I can't really say much more about last season except at times we rode our luck but obviously delighted with how it went.

I realise that I haven't really introduced my squad at all but now we're in Serie A I should be signing a better calibre of player and maybe get a few that people may have heard of. I don't mean to sound condescending. I haven't heard of most of them either! I thought I'd take the time now to show you the players that I have in the first-team and who I should be hopefully avoiding relegation with this season (this is subject to change as the transfer window has just opened.

Overall, I think we have a decent squad - but I don't know if it's good enough to stay in Serie A. There's a lot of potential and it's a really young squad which will hopefully improve over time, but I might need to draft in a bit more experience during the transfer window.

Goalkeepers:

Ciro Polito was who I thank for the change in form last season. He really, really turned things around and went on two runs without conceding goals in more than four games which is excellent. He's old, but he knows what he's doing and has vital experience. I reckon he'll be our number one again this season unless he starts to decline or we find a significantly better goalkeeper. This is his fourth season at the club and has made 89 appearances since his arrival on a free transfer from Salernitana. He's also the club captain and will probably keep his armband for the up-coming season.

Ettore Oddo was good last season in the first half for a while but declined and was conceding a lot of goals - but he's still really young and has a lot to learn. One for the future and a very similar player to Polito and has been tutored by him so I'm hoping he will be the natural replacement for Ciro. This is Oddo's third season at Pro Vercelli but he's not had many appearances. He was signed on a free transfer from Cavese.

Defenders:

Francesco Civita was amazing last season and although started off slowly, made the right-back place his own and started to pay off his price of €2.6M from AS Roma (obviously in some instalments). I have a lot of hope for this player but I'd be surprised if he was at the club for much longer. There's a lot of high-profile clubs looking for him. Definitely our first choice right back if we can manage to keep hold of him and will be vital in our relegation battle.

Liviu Balaj is primarily a back-up player for Civita and the CB pairing as he can play in either of those positions but he's probably decent enough to start a few games now. I've got relatively high hopes for him and although he was listed for loan last season, I reckon he'll be on the bench a lot this season and get some game time. He's been here for one full season and was signed from Gaz Metan, a Romanian side, for 120K.

Andrea Gavazzeni was our first choice left-back from the past two seasons and I don't expect that to change. This is his fourth season at Pro Vercelli, signed on a free transfer from Atalanta, where he was initially on loan from - though his loan spell was cut short after injury ruled him out for four months. He was signed the season after, though, and has been an integral part of the squad. He's quickly approaching his 100th appearance for the club.

Giordano Maccarone is tallest player at the club and he's a beast. He was signed from Ravenna in January 2013 for €180K on our push for promotion from C1/A but he's only been used sparingly in the two and a half seasons because of how well our regular centre-back pairing are performing. I expect the same from him this season, but he's an excellent player to have as back-up.

Andrea De Paolo is probably my favourite player in the team. This is his sixth season at the club, the first three being on loan from Juventus who he was later signed as a free transfer from, and in those six seasons he's accumulated a massive 178 league appearances, making him the player with the most appearances in Pro Vercelli's history! He's also scored 27 goals for the club too, which is brilliant. He doesn't have the best stats and isn't rated the highest but I genuinely think he's one of the best players at the club and he's got the highest value - so he must be doing something right!

Vittorio Ferrero is top class. For us, anyway. 156 appearances for the club and him and De Paolo make an incredible partnership. He was also on loan from Juvetus and signed afterwards on a free transfer. That's the key - I feel. Both were at Pro Vercelli on loan at the same time, and both went through the youth ranks at Juventus at the same time. They know each other inside-out. This is his fifth season at the club.

Thomas Mascia is probably going to spend this season on loan but I reckon he'll be good enough to feature more for us next season if we stay up. Signed from Parma for €22K it's no great loss if he flounders, but I reckon he'll be decent enough soon. Had a great season with the youths last season so I've promoted him.

[Smurph]

Midfielders:

Felice Vecchione is our main right winger whenever we play that formation. He's a solid enough player and does his job fairly well. He was signed from Stuttgart three years ago for €65K and excelled in the C1/A but in Serie B his performances dropped drastically and doesn't play very regularly, although our change in formation doesn't help his case too much. Good enough player though.

Ezequiel Carboni has been here for three full years now and is the oldest player at the club but he oozes experience and is a vital part of the squad. Signed from Catania to bring some experience he still gets quite a lot of games and comes off the bench just to slow the pace down and acts as an anchor man to break up attack and ensure we don't concede. This will probably be his last season at the club, maybe the last season of his career, but he's done brilliantly for us.

Donato Disabato is another player who's been here since my first season, on loan from AlbinoLeffe initially but was snapped up on a free transfer in my second season in charge. He's racked up 140 league appearances for the club and scored 12 goals, and he's had 24 assists too. He wasn't used an awful lot last season, and probably won't be this season again, but he's still a really good squad player to have who can play in the centre of midfield or in a more defensive position.

Francesco Velardi wasn't needed by Palermo five seasons ago and they offered him to everyone. No-one wanted him but I saw potential in him and signed him for absolutely nothing in January 2012. He's been here for three and a half seasons now and has made over 100 appearances. He's been a cracking player for us despite not being rated too highly and scored some vital goals in the tail end of last season.

Douglas Packer was signed for back-up on both flanks as he can play on both, and he was used for that exactly. He's made 32 appearances for the club in the two seasons he's been here but he's done a fairly decent job. He was signed for €70K from Juve Stabia and he's more than paid off the small fee paid for him. Good back-up player to have on the bench.

Toninho is a class act and I have massive hopes for the young Brazilian. He was signed for €1.4M from AC Milan after they signed him from Vasco De Gama in Brazil and he had a slow start for us, but he flourished towards the end of the season and scored a total of 9 goals and got 5 assists. His technical attributes are probably the best at the club and his mental and physical ones will continue to improve. A key player this season no doubt.

Emmanuel Jorge Ledesma is about to enter his fifth season at Pro Vercelli after signing from Genoa in 2013 after his loan spell at the club. He's Mr. Set-Piece for us, scoring 25 goals 136 appearances. Oh, he also has 50 assists in that time - which is a fantastic return. He's usually used on the left wing but because of our formation switch he now gets used in an attacking midfield position where he's brilliant too. Excellent player and a vital one to have at the club.

Filippo Maria Scardina started his career at Roma and moved to use for free in 2011. He can be used as a centre-midfielder or a striker, the latter is where he's used mostly for me. He's made 60 appearances for Pro Vercelli and has scored 26 goals in that time, although he spend last season on loan at Ascoli because we never really needed him. I don't think he's good enough for the team any more but he's reasonable back-up I guess.

Alessandro Sau is a left winger who was on loan at Monza last season in Serie B. They may have been relegated but he played 23 games for them, scoring two and assisting two. I'd expect him to be on loan again next season but after that I reckon he could be a top quality player for the club. He was signed for the small fee of €30K from Gela.

Nicolás Gianni is at his second spell at Pro Vercelli. He was on loan at us from Manta in 2011/2012 and scored 6 in 14 games, and assisted 4 times in an impressive loan spell. He never scored enough for me, though, so he went back. I regretted my decision so signed him again two seasons later for €50K. He's played an additional 53 games for us in that time and scored 12 more and assisted 14 more times. That might not sound too impressive but he's been really good for us since his return and plays in an AMC role more often than not. His stats are pretty solid too.

[Smurph]

Forwards:

Gaetano Monachello was signed last season from Messina for €400K - but he has the potential to become a really good quality striker. He played 27 times last season, scoring just the 4 and assisting 6 times, but this was solely due to Libertazzi's injury and our lack of depth up-front.

Matteo Columbi was signed on a free from Inter Milan. He's made a total of 12 appearances for the club, mostly from the bench, but he hasn't managed to score yet. He was on loan at Lugano, a Swiss team, last season - playing 13 and scoring 5.

Pierpaolo Guisti cost €575K from Bologna last season and scored 5 goals in 14 appearances last season. Again, he was played so much due to Libertazzi's injury. He's probably got the most potential from the lads we have up-front.

...and there we have it. There's my Pro Vercelli team for this season so far, without and additions or players leaving. I also have a few reserves and a few really good youth prospects but they'll probably be going on loan this season, alongside some of the players I've promoted to the first team who will take a few years to mature.

Looking at the squad, I really need to improve the front-line. I have good players there, but they're all so young, so I need an experiences guy or two to make up for Libertazzi's departure and hopefully find someone who will score as many goals as he did.

*I apologise for the length of this post and I'll put it in spoiler tags if needs be, but I thought I'd give an insight into my squad.

[Smurph]

We're just about to play our first game of the season, away to Bari. A good game to start off with as they were promoted from Serie B too last season and it will hopefully give us a decent idea of how well we're prepared.

I'll start off with the signings we've made for the first team:

I said I didn't really want a new goalkeeper because of how well Ciro Polito was going. I lied. Cristian Luccetti comes in on a free transfer from Tenerife. He's a few months younger than Polito but has a lot more experience I feel, and he really is twice the player that Polito is. He's now my captain, which I feel kinda bad about, but we were in need of a better goalkeeper and this lad is top quality for us.

Luca Doici was signed from Juventus for €1.3M. No instalments, just cold hard cash. He looks brilliant though and slots in the DM position vacated by the loss of Paghera. He looks a lot better than him too and has bags of potential. Really looking forward to seeing him play.

Gorka Izaolo looks a player. His physical and mental attributes look quality for a player so young and his technical attributes look not bad either. He's young enough to improve too. He was signed from Palermo for £550K and was on loan at Bielefeld in Germany last season - where he made 22 appearances, scoring 8 and assisting 6.

A free transfer after leaving Napoli, Marco Giovio brings in a bit of experience to the front-line. Spent most of his career at Grosseto, he was decent in their Serie B campaigns before moving to Napoli - where he failed to make an appearance - last season. Should be a decent enough player for us.

There were a few high calibre players going on a free transfer. Sergio Busquets made his way to AC Milan, Javier Mascherano moved to Inter Milan and Gervinho went to Napoli. Who was my marquee signing?

Mario Balotelli.

He doesn't really need an introduction. You know who he is and you know what he does. He was available on a free transfer after leaving Manchester City. I don't normally like signing players like him but I feel there's potential. He clearly hasn't done as well as he should have done and stalled as a player (which is why he signed for us!) but I reckon I can get him back on track and make him a good enough player. He's rated all right, three stars, but I think I can get him better than that.

There were also quite a lot of youth players brought in but I won't bother posting them. There were no massive departures bar Paghera, Libertazzi and Bagnai, and quite a lot of youth players and reserves went on loan for some vital experience.

Our pre-season fixtures went like this:

That wasn't good at all. Though, quite a lot of our players were away on international duty, so I'll use that as an excuse. I put out a youth squad for the games against Ravenna, Carpenedolo and Gold Coast - and stronger ones against Padova and Lecce. Still, pre-season is just about getting fitness levels up. Results don't really matter...

We also played one cup game.

Izaolo was replaced by Mario Balotelli when he was injured and he scored a brilliant hat-trick on his début. Decent start to his Pro Vercelli career.

[Mr. Brightside]

Eight grand a week, that is some fucking business young Smurph!

[SodjesSixteenIncher]

Woah. Looks like some noice transfer activity there Smurph.

I must admit when you first posted the player profiles, my initial reaction was that you'd acquired a team with brilliant potential (3 or 4 really class youngsters in particular) but that it would be a massive struggle to stay in Serie A. However it looks like you've played a blinder with some of those players.

If you can get them to gel and stay up, you'll have some squad after a few years of maturity and big league cash. Mon the Vercelli.

[Smurph]

I'd like to think that too but I really don't know yet. We'll see how the first few months go and we'll see whether the players are good enough. I still have a decent transfer budget left and wage budget to play around with so if needs be, come January, I can bring in some more players if we're struggling.

August 2015

The transfer window slammed shut and we managed to squeeze two more signings. One experienced player and one for the future.

Gaby Mudingayi. We probably don't need him but it gives us an extra player in the centre of midfield. He brings us another option on the defensive side of things and will take over from Carboni as the old guy who keeps it together. I've always been a fan of Mudingayi from his days at Lazio (2005-2008) so it's good to have him in the squad. He was signed from Bologna for €140K which is a good piece of business.

Van Der Woude won't be deployed 'til next season and will spend the season in the U20's squad (hopefully on loan in the latter half) but with potential to be the best player at the club, I couldn't resist signing the young Dutch midfielder. Signed from PSV for €1.8M (most of it in the next 48 months) he should be a cracking player in a few seasons if he behaves himself.

A few more youth players went out on loan but they all have the clause active where I can take them back which is good to have. Unlike Serie B, I don't need to register players, so we're sorted on the depth frontier.

And so our Serie A campaign started.

Decent. Two 1-0 wins isn't a bad return at all. We were probably the better side against Bari and were a bit lucky against Atalanta, but it's a vital six points very early in our campaign, and two excellent defensive displays which is very pleasing to see.

4th place and currently in Europe! Yeah...

[Smurph]

September 2015

Those six points may be vital...

The only game I'm disappointed with is the one against Cesena. That was a heavy defeat against a team who should be in the same position as us next season. Juventus we were never going to beat, Palermo the same and Genoa were always going to be very tough opposition. I hope we don't rue that Cesena game too much.

We're not in the relegation zone which is obviously a good thing, so we can take positives from that. We obviously need a few more points, though. Looking at the teams currently below us: Lazio, Roma and Sampdoria should definitely be clear of any harm come the end of the season, so they'll go on runs. We play Lazio next, though, so a win against them whilst they're struggling would be nice.

[Smurph]

October 2015

Slightly more encouraging results. We definitely deserved a share of the spoils against Lazio and it was a good point against a team who should really be doing a lot better. Losses against Inter and Udinese were hardly surprising, but I'm a little disappointed with only a point. They were probably slightly better but we were at home so the three points would have been nice. Still, it's a point. Better than none.

Overall, it's fairly tight at the bottom. Two wins in a row could propel us up the table and be more a more encouraging state of affairs, but I very much doubt that will happen any time soon.

Our main problem seems to be up-front. There's a distinct lack of goals. The players aren't getting too many chances, though, so I might need a change of formation in order to make these chances. I'm currently in a 4-2-2-2 (2x DM, 2x CM) which has stopped us leaking so many goals, but I think I'm going to have to develop this into a more attacking threat. Maybe against the bigger clubs I can use this to stop them ramming people forward, but against the weaker teams I think I'll use a more attacking one. What's the worst that could happen? A loss - Oh, right.

[Smurph]

November 2015

Injuries caught up on us. We were without Civita and Balaj at right back for most of it so had to use our right-winger Vecchione. In the midfield, we were without Mudingayi for the most part and Ledesma was out too. For 3/5 of this months games, we were without Balotelli, Izaola, Giovio (two games) and Giusti due to suspensions and injuries. Alas;

A few draws, one loss and one vital vital vital win. Balotelli was sent off two minutes in against Napoli and we were very lucky to get a point but I'm delighted with that. Our goals against Cagliari and Livorno were in the last ten minutes of the game. The game against Sampdoria trumped that though, with De Paolo's winner coming in the 90+2nd minute. Yas.

Three points above the relegation zone now. Our win against Sampdoria was superb and propelled us up a few places. Decent enough. The only worrying this is that Bologna and Livorno are getting points again, so we need to keep going with how we've been doing. We've four more games to go until the half-way point of the season and we can make a far better analysis.

[Smurph]

December 2015

We finally managed to pick up a win, so we wanted to continue this good form.

Good result against Empoli in the cup. No chance of winning it, but I feel it's important to go as far as possible. Our main aim is obviously avoiding relegation though. We play Genoa away in the next round, so I assume we'll go out anyway. No surprise we lost against Milan, but the two draws away to Roma and Catania were brilliant results. Yet again, that man Andrea De Paolo, with a last minute winner for us. I love him.

13th. Great position to be in. You need to look at the points, though. It's incredibly close. It's actually quite scary how close it is. We're getting a lot of draws which is promising, but we need to start turning one or two of these draws into wins if we want to be more secure. The teams below us don't look like winning too many either, so I guess I have to be content with how things are going. I doubt ALL of the teams below us will start gaining a lot of points, but we need to make sure we keep our end of the bargain too.

Looking at the last few seasons points totals (20th-17th):

2014/2014 - 19, 35, 39, 45

2013/2014 - 24, 36, 39, 41

2012/2013 - 22, 30, 37, 38

2011/2012 - 21, 26, 38, 39

2010/2011 - 29, 33, 34, 35

In order to prevent relegation, in the past five seasons, it's been an average of 39.6 points to finish in 17th. We have 16 so far and one game to play before we're at the half way mark. Presuming we reflect the first half seasons, we'd have 32 (+0/1/2/3/4/6) points come the end of the season. We might need to improve a bit in the latter half of the season. We'll see what happens though.

[Smurph]

January 2016

I'd like to ignore this month, please.

That's a lie. Three draws and two losses in the league, and one in the cup, isn't too bad at all - but that's five games without a goal now and that doesn't look like changing. The game against Parma was ace. I was 2-0 down, 20 minutes to go, so I decided just to attack. As always, De Paolo was there when I needed him, and Toninho scored the equaliser with a few minutes left. Brilliant start to the month.

The games against Bari and Atalanta we were really unlucky in and should have won it. We had more shots and possession in both but couldn't take our chances. Atalanta had a man sent off very early on and we had a penalty too, which Giovio missed, so that was two points dropped. No chance against Juventus or Palermo, but it was encouraging that they never scored a lot.

Yeah. Relegation places now. It's still really tight, which is encouraging, but we need to get a win at some point in order to have any chance of staying in Serie A. Our next game is home to Cesena - so a win here is vital. We'll see how it goes anyway.

As an aside - It's taken five and a half years, but I was finally offered another job! I was in the running for a few so far this season but didn't take notice and was ruled out eventually, but Siena came calling for me to stop them plummeting down the Serie B table. I obviously declined, but it's nice to feel wanted. Sadly, my "untouchable label" has fallen to "secure". I hope that doesn't fall again. I reckon it would be really unfair if I got sacked if we get relegated...

Edit- Oh, signings. Er, no-one bar a few youth players came in, and no-one left. At all.

[itzdrk]

this is a top notch thread mate makes mine seem even shitter than i already thought it was

[JamboMikey]

Fucksake, its a real nail biter

[Dazzle]

this is a top notch thread mate makes mine seem even shitter than i already thought it was

I was thinking the same. I really is an incredible amount of effort you put in Smurph with all the different Screenies and spoilers. Really enjoyed reading this so far and looking forward to the relegation survival and future Serie A title.

[DarkBlue62]

MOAR!