Hello everyone and welcome back to The Tactical Annals! Those who follow me on the app formerly known as Twitter will know that about two months ago I started a save with Roma, and I’m absolutely loving it so far, with a club I’ve always loved going back to my childhood watching Italian football on Channel 4 🇮🇹. Back then, one of my absolute favourite teams were the Roma Scudetto winners of 2001 with Cafu, Totti and Batistuta, and even now in my 30s, I still remember that team, and their clinching of the Serie A against Parma. Ideally, through this save I’ll be able to recover Roma’s (isolated) glory days, and return the club back towards the top of Italian football. Personally, as much as I find Mourinho a guilty pleasure, I think he’s wildly underachieved with this Roma side, which has plenty of individual talent, and is certainly better than the ninth in the league the Special One had them.
What’s great to say is that I’ve really found myself becoming immersed within the world of this save, the system a d the team I’m building, and I’ve found Roma a legitimate challenge with their financial constraints, the first time I’ve really felt challenged by the game in a while. You can see how into the save I’ve become from this tweet that seemed to go everywhere.
In terms of our current standing as we enter March 2024, we currently sit comfortably 2nd in Serie A. As you can see in the above tweet, we’ve developed a 3-4-2-1 system that has led to us having the best defensive record in Serie A, and this is without a doubt the main strength of our team, as whilst we score goals, I would never say that we were prolific in this measure. We haven’t spent the whole season in the 3-4-2-1, having started as a 4-3-3, before experimenting with a 4-2-3-1 for a couple of games, and then eventually developing this 3-4-2-1. This was largely because to me, the 4-3-3 was fine, but it was never going to really do anything more for us than solidify top four. Right now, with the 3-4-2-1, we are a top team in Italy. As an example, Milan beat us 4-0 in the 4-3-3 at the start of the season. In the return fixture after the move to 3-4-2-1, we drew 0-0.
What I’ve really loved about this save, is the financial constraints. Roma’s financial situation is no secret, with the club having spent big in recent years, and at the beginning of Mourinho’s reign, and now having to rely on free transfers and low cost signings, without Champions League money to offset the spending. This has caused me to be intelligent in order to improve the playing staff, and as a result I’ve been forced to raise funds through the sales of players – that I didn’t necessarily want to sell – like Lorenzo Pellegrini, Gianluca Mancini, Chris Smalling and (painfully) Paolo Dybala. Chris Smalling was the most irritating, signed by Man City as pure depth, when he was my starting central centre back in the back 3, and was our best player on average rating. However, the over €71m that I made in sales allowed me to bring in the below:
Laurienté and Torres were brought in when I was still planning on using a 4-3-3, and were to provide improvement on the left, as well as – in theory – competition for Dybala on the other flank. That competition never really happened, with Torres hitting the ground running with the Giallorossi, and Laurienté taking a little longer, but becoming arguably our best attacking player as we entered the winter period, playing both number ten roles in our system. Van Hecke was a player I’d arranged to sign on a Bosman deal for next season, but when Real Madrid came in for Mancini, I pulled the trigger now to bring Van Hecke in early, and he’s hit the ground running in the WCB role on the right hand side. I think he’ll go on to be one of the best signings I’ve ever made, getting such a quality player in for €7.5m. Ballard was signed when Man City infuriatingly came in for 34-year old Chris Smalling to be depth for them, when he was my best player by average rating and a big part of our back three. Ballard looks like a similar player, though nowhere near as good mentally. He’ll either make the position his, or become a key squad player over the next several years.
Now Martin Baturina was signed purely on impulse. Having decided I did not need to sign a number ten (and tweeting exactly that), I saw his scout report, his high potential and relatively low price tag and just jumped at the chance to get him. I figured he would go on to be the #10 at the Giallorossi for years to come – which I why I gave him the 10 shirt, the first since Totti to wear it – and slotted him in as the first choice AM-S, linking play between midfield and attack. However, he’s been incredibly average since signing, never really scoring above a 6.9, making little impact on the game, and it’s got nothing to do with the role selection within the tactic, as Laurienté does very well when he plays there. I hope it’s just taking him a while to bed in, but I’m a little concerned I’ve just made a stupid impulse signing that I’m going to regret in 18 months time in game. He’s been dropped to the bench in recent games, and Torres and Laurienté have regained their starting spots, leaving me a little concerned to say the least.
In terms of Europe, we came through our group stage very well. After struggling against Sporting Lisbon when using the 4-3-3 (one of the big signs that it wasn’t a long term system for us) we started to really hit our stride with the 3-4-2-1, meaning we went through as group winners. We’re currently midway through our First Knockout Round tie against La Liga leaders Villarreal(!) and lead the tie after coming away from Valencia with a 2-1 win. Hopefully we can make the advantage count at the Olimpico, and get past a very tricky opponent. Personally, I’d love to go far in the Europa. Usually I’m not fussed about European competitions first season, but with our Serie A campaign going so well, and top four seeming nailed on, a European cup run would be awesome.
I want the remainder of this series to be me posting about specific issues that arise within the save, but every now and then I’ll need to update when we reach specific points. I’m absolutely loving this save and it’s the most I’ve been into a save in quite some time, most likely since Pachuca on FM22. So, until next time, thank you for reading and as always if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments or on X (yuck) @JLAspey. Forza Roma!
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