Eternity RPC Board
Il Rosanero
![[Image: UgvMX37.jpg?1]](http://i.imgur.com/UgvMX37.jpg?1)
Ive started a new season (I am not done with my Milan-Italy season however) and I wanted to play with a smaller team playing in the lower regions of whatever league. First I considered some team in the English Premierleague and then I remembered how much I dislike the Premierleague. I went with my favorite small team in Italy (aside from Livorno): Palermo! The majority of the Italians will probably not consider this Sicilian club to be an ''Italian'' club, nor will many Sicilians do so.
After meeting with the club owner, Don Corleone, I set to work out a playing style that is roughly based on that of Giovanni Trapattoni. Trapattoni was a defensive midfielder playing for AC Milan in the 1970's, the heydays of Catenaccio in Italy. After his retirement as a player, Trapattoni became a coach. He started his coaching career at Milan, but was then appointed as manager of Juventus. During the 1980's Trapattoni led Juventus to its biggest successes and dominated European and Italian football. His secret was that he modernized the predictive Catenaccio system, being one of the inventors of the updated variant called Zona Mista. Trapattoni later moved to Inter Milan, then returned to Juventus for more prizes, then went to pick up prizes in Germany with Bayern Munich in the mid-1990's, and from 2000 until 2004 he coached the Italian national team. In 2008 Trap was appointed as manager of the Irish national team, and in 2012 he succesfully helped them reach the Uefa Euro 2012 tournament.
Trap's teams, especially his performance with Ireland, are characterized by highly effective football, teamwork, and strong tactical organization. With Palermo, Trapattoni will be my guide. The football style I'm pursuing has be simple, effective, and functional. No tiki taka a la Barcelona. Italy is the country where they invented a football style that represents the ''right of the weak''. For decades Italian teams have specialized using cleverness and intelligence rather than strength or skill. In a friendly against Olympique Marseille I could see my team at work for the first time. In terms of technical skill, Marseille is superior to Palermo. A perfect opportunity to see how the team holds up against a superior opponent.
My 4-4-2 set up is largely inspired on Trapattoni's Irish 4-4-2. It featured a very deep-lying four-man backline, two defensive central midfielders (with Fernando Gago being the playmaker), and two fast men on the wings. The two strikers are my best players. Alberto Gilardino is a veteran goalscorer, with plenty of experience (he played for Fiorentina and AC Milan), and a ruthless instinct to score goals. The absolute star of this team is Franco Vazquez. Vazquez is what they nowadays call a 9-and-a-half, meaning he is neither striker nor a shadow striker, but something in between that. He posesses a very refined technique, great passing skills, and a splendid vision to see opportunities that no one else is seeing. He is my ''Fantasista'', my specialist at creating scoring opportunities for teammates at the most unexpected moments. Half of Europe, including Tottenham and Bayern Munich are trying to buy this player from me.
Marseille came to Sicily with a 4-2-3-1 formation. The match began with my players losing the ball immediately. The team still has to get used to this playing style (I believe my predecessor implemented a quite attacking playing style). The advantage with my playing style, that emphasizes simplicity, is that even if the team is not used to it, it does function. The counter-attacks did not work well because players found it difficult to reach each other, but defensively it was solid as a rock. Gonzalez man-marked Marseille's striker, while the rest of my defensive players sat as a solid block in front of the goal. Marseille's distance shots had no effect. At half time, it was 0-0 with only 30% ball posession for Palermo.
Shortly after the break, it was Gilardino who scored a beauty of a goal. After a throw in from the left flank close to Marseille's penalty box, Gilardino picked up the ball, with his back to the goal. Suddenly he turned, and beautifully fired into the far corner over the goalkeeper. Less then five minutes later, Gilardino scored again. Marseille lost ball posession deep in my half. Fernando Gago sent a long pass to the left flank. From there the ball was played into the wide open space behind Marseille's defenders. Gilardino picked up the ball and finished it perfectly. Around the 75th minute Marseille came back into the game after an own goal from a corner kick. It was funny when Fernando Gago pretended to be injured to delay the game, and made the Marseille players so angry that the referree gave them yellow cards. Gago came over from Argentina, but he already understands the Italian word ''furbizia''.
But in the 82nd minute Vazquez scored from a long distance shot and determined the result at 3-1. After the match the press reported ''Dominating Marseille brought down by Palermo''. They wrote that ''the experts still don't know how Palermo managed to win'' against Marseille that was so dominant on the pitch. When the press writes stuff like that, I am proud of my eleven foxes. Trapattoni opted for a 4-4-2 with Ireland because the Anglo-saxon players are all used to that formation. But on top of that, it is perfect for a low-level team trying to park the bus/dig itself it/play bunkerball. The 4-4-2 offers a perfect distribution of defenders when defending in your own half: a double line of 4 defensive players, with the center and the flanks all being covered. The 8 men in front of the goal only have to stay compact, and move across the width of the pitch with the ball to block any spaces.
Marseille failed to find a way through, with its attacks ending in futile distance shots or failed passes. There was no way getting through my block of 8 in front of my goal. It has nothing to do with skill; it is simply a matter of movement. And this is achieved through drills. So any player can learn how to move within this system, and become defensively very solid. Another reason why Marseille was (quite easily) robbed of its victory is that French teams, in general and in this FM game, are quite dumb. The French have a habit to select their players on physical abilities (speed and strength). Half of their competition consists of physically intimidating African players. On a tactical level, French players, and French teams in general, have no idea what they are doing. So the physically strong defenders of Marseille were rather easily outwitted by crafty strikers like Gilardino and Vazquez. In any case, I won, which in Palermo's case, means I survived another week. They replace managers literally every 2 weeks. Don Corleone was satisfied for the time being.
![[Image: inYxQjI.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/inYxQjI.jpg)
Ive started a new season (I am not done with my Milan-Italy season however) and I wanted to play with a smaller team playing in the lower regions of whatever league. First I considered some team in the English Premierleague and then I remembered how much I dislike the Premierleague. I went with my favorite small team in Italy (aside from Livorno): Palermo! The majority of the Italians will probably not consider this Sicilian club to be an ''Italian'' club, nor will many Sicilians do so.
After meeting with the club owner, Don Corleone, I set to work out a playing style that is roughly based on that of Giovanni Trapattoni. Trapattoni was a defensive midfielder playing for AC Milan in the 1970's, the heydays of Catenaccio in Italy. After his retirement as a player, Trapattoni became a coach. He started his coaching career at Milan, but was then appointed as manager of Juventus. During the 1980's Trapattoni led Juventus to its biggest successes and dominated European and Italian football. His secret was that he modernized the predictive Catenaccio system, being one of the inventors of the updated variant called Zona Mista. Trapattoni later moved to Inter Milan, then returned to Juventus for more prizes, then went to pick up prizes in Germany with Bayern Munich in the mid-1990's, and from 2000 until 2004 he coached the Italian national team. In 2008 Trap was appointed as manager of the Irish national team, and in 2012 he succesfully helped them reach the Uefa Euro 2012 tournament.
Trap's teams, especially his performance with Ireland, are characterized by highly effective football, teamwork, and strong tactical organization. With Palermo, Trapattoni will be my guide. The football style I'm pursuing has be simple, effective, and functional. No tiki taka a la Barcelona. Italy is the country where they invented a football style that represents the ''right of the weak''. For decades Italian teams have specialized using cleverness and intelligence rather than strength or skill. In a friendly against Olympique Marseille I could see my team at work for the first time. In terms of technical skill, Marseille is superior to Palermo. A perfect opportunity to see how the team holds up against a superior opponent.
USC Palermo:
![[Image: aE8dY6p.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/aE8dY6p.jpg)
My 4-4-2 set up is largely inspired on Trapattoni's Irish 4-4-2. It featured a very deep-lying four-man backline, two defensive central midfielders (with Fernando Gago being the playmaker), and two fast men on the wings. The two strikers are my best players. Alberto Gilardino is a veteran goalscorer, with plenty of experience (he played for Fiorentina and AC Milan), and a ruthless instinct to score goals. The absolute star of this team is Franco Vazquez. Vazquez is what they nowadays call a 9-and-a-half, meaning he is neither striker nor a shadow striker, but something in between that. He posesses a very refined technique, great passing skills, and a splendid vision to see opportunities that no one else is seeing. He is my ''Fantasista'', my specialist at creating scoring opportunities for teammates at the most unexpected moments. Half of Europe, including Tottenham and Bayern Munich are trying to buy this player from me.
Marseille came to Sicily with a 4-2-3-1 formation. The match began with my players losing the ball immediately. The team still has to get used to this playing style (I believe my predecessor implemented a quite attacking playing style). The advantage with my playing style, that emphasizes simplicity, is that even if the team is not used to it, it does function. The counter-attacks did not work well because players found it difficult to reach each other, but defensively it was solid as a rock. Gonzalez man-marked Marseille's striker, while the rest of my defensive players sat as a solid block in front of the goal. Marseille's distance shots had no effect. At half time, it was 0-0 with only 30% ball posession for Palermo.
Shortly after the break, it was Gilardino who scored a beauty of a goal. After a throw in from the left flank close to Marseille's penalty box, Gilardino picked up the ball, with his back to the goal. Suddenly he turned, and beautifully fired into the far corner over the goalkeeper. Less then five minutes later, Gilardino scored again. Marseille lost ball posession deep in my half. Fernando Gago sent a long pass to the left flank. From there the ball was played into the wide open space behind Marseille's defenders. Gilardino picked up the ball and finished it perfectly. Around the 75th minute Marseille came back into the game after an own goal from a corner kick. It was funny when Fernando Gago pretended to be injured to delay the game, and made the Marseille players so angry that the referree gave them yellow cards. Gago came over from Argentina, but he already understands the Italian word ''furbizia''.
But in the 82nd minute Vazquez scored from a long distance shot and determined the result at 3-1. After the match the press reported ''Dominating Marseille brought down by Palermo''. They wrote that ''the experts still don't know how Palermo managed to win'' against Marseille that was so dominant on the pitch. When the press writes stuff like that, I am proud of my eleven foxes. Trapattoni opted for a 4-4-2 with Ireland because the Anglo-saxon players are all used to that formation. But on top of that, it is perfect for a low-level team trying to park the bus/dig itself it/play bunkerball. The 4-4-2 offers a perfect distribution of defenders when defending in your own half: a double line of 4 defensive players, with the center and the flanks all being covered. The 8 men in front of the goal only have to stay compact, and move across the width of the pitch with the ball to block any spaces.
Marseille failed to find a way through, with its attacks ending in futile distance shots or failed passes. There was no way getting through my block of 8 in front of my goal. It has nothing to do with skill; it is simply a matter of movement. And this is achieved through drills. So any player can learn how to move within this system, and become defensively very solid. Another reason why Marseille was (quite easily) robbed of its victory is that French teams, in general and in this FM game, are quite dumb. The French have a habit to select their players on physical abilities (speed and strength). Half of their competition consists of physically intimidating African players. On a tactical level, French players, and French teams in general, have no idea what they are doing. So the physically strong defenders of Marseille were rather easily outwitted by crafty strikers like Gilardino and Vazquez. In any case, I won, which in Palermo's case, means I survived another week. They replace managers literally every 2 weeks. Don Corleone was satisfied for the time being.