CM2 96-97 Italia - Career of Gianluca Peroni - Season 3

After finishing 8th in our first season in Serie A and taking home the Coppa Italia I was fairly satisfied with where the squad was currently at and not really feeling I needed to make wholesale changes. However having a nice healthy bank balance, I decided to strengthen where it was needed, bringing in Centre Back; Luis Savio for £3.1 Million from Ancona, Defender Midfielder Right; Karl Petter Loeken for £170k from Rosenborg, and Defensive Midfielder Left and Centre; Mauro Zironelli for £2.8 Million from Venezia who I hope it going to be the replacement for Alessandro Bianchi as he wants too much money in wages... During pre-season I was passed the news of a cash injection from the board of £7,250,000!

Which, whilst welcome I think for the moment I will mostly bank as I'm happy with the squad I have, but I did spend a bit of it to bring in Julio Dely Valdes from PSG for £2.5 Million and have hopes that, with 12 goals in 23 games in the French league, he might bring competition with Bizzarri and Virille, and to a lesser extent Vialli, for a first team place and maybe push them to up their game.

We started out the season with the Supercoppa Italiana fixture, as Coppa Italia champions, against Serie A champions; Fiorentina however after a lacklustre performance really from our side, we lost 3-2 to Fiorentina and adding that trophy to the list will have to wait until another time! We then proceeded to knock Reggina out of the Coppa Italia 2nd round 1-0 and picked up a decent 3-0 win against Roma in our opening game of the Serie A league campaign. However as Coppa Italia champions last season we qualified for participation in the Cup Winners Cup, a tournament I don't think I've ever played in before now, and a nice soft introduction to European competition! We had drawn Ukraine's Shakhtyor Donetsk in the first round:

After comfortably getting passed Dontesk 8-2 on aggregate, picking up back to back losses to Bari and Lecce in between... we were drawn to face Dinamo Moscow in the 2nd round, going on to beat them 4-2 on aggregate. In the interim we picked up a draw at Parma, a win away at Padova, a win against Verona and a decent 3-3 draw against Inter in the league, but I was having serious concerns with Goalkeeper Florian Prunea's form. After a mixed debut season last season I'd hoped he might start adjusting but he continued to be poor and after we got unceremoniously dumped out the Coppa Italia 3rd Round by Juventus 4-0, which I was really disappointed with, I decided to make some changes. Not content with having just one Chelsea legend in our squad, I decided to add a second and brought a 32 year old Gianfranco Zola back to Serie A!

For £1 Million he felt like a steal and I hope will improve our Midfield creativity or give us an attacking spark on the central left hand side. And with my patience in Prunea fully exhausted, I brought Valerio Fiori back into the side to see if we fared any better. It started promisingly enough, with a 3-0 win over Genoa, a narrow 2-1 defeat to Lazio and a great 5-1 revenge win over Fiorentina, but results continued to be a bit mixed. We picked up wins at Udinese, and Castel di Sangro but lost to Juventus again 3-1, lost to Brescia 2-1 and drew with Bologna 2-2, it often being the case that our defense was playing well but first Prunea and now Fiori seemingly having very poor form. Despite the mixed results though, after an excellent 3-1 win against Milan we sat in 3rd place by January behind Inter and Verona in the league.

I decided to stick with Fiori, at least for the moment and with no more Coppa Italia fixtures to contend with and the Cup Winners Cup Quarter Finals not until April we had a good few months to focus on league form. We picked up wins against Sampdoria, Bari, Lecce, Padova and Verona, but lost against Roma and Fiorentina again with them paying us back with a 5-0 thrashing... Parma held us to a 2-2 draw but with 5 wins, 2 defeats and a draw we were doing well despite some of the most turgid goalkeeping performances I think I've ever seen... Fiori was picking up 3's, 4's out of 10 in most games and for the Cup Winners Cup Quarter Final legs I didn't have confidence in him to hold firm. So Prunea was re-introduced and, against Norrkoping, a Swedish team who knocked out Newcastle to draw against us, we were held 2-2 at their place but went on to beat them 4-2 at home. Setting up a Semi-Final against a giant of the English game:

I knew Arsenal was going to be a tough challenge, but we had done well to get this far and I'd be content with a semi final exit if Arsenal proved to be the better team. In between the Norrkoping fixtures we lost 2-0 to top of the league Inter who were just a different class. And suffered a blow when Omar Melizza, arguably our best player, picked up a injury for 3 months meaning his season was likely over. We then went on to lose 3-1 away at Genoa which really annoyed me because Genoa were circling the drain at the bottom of the table... but we bounced back with a great 5-3 win over Lazio and 4-2 win over Udinese proving we can win without Melizza. And then it was time to face up to the Arsenal challenge. And I knew we went into the game as the underdogs and...

Yeah, no scrap all of that... we absolutely annihilated them. Arsenal barely even turned up! Prunea's form had been mixed but with 8 shots on target, he only let one of them passed him from David Platt, meaning we took a 4 goal advantage into Leg 2! After the Arsenal match we then picked up a fantastic 5-0 win over Juventus - with half the first team missing through lack of fitness! Before an anti-climactic 2-1 loss to Castel di Sangro. Despite narrowly beating us 3-2 in the return leg, a 4 goal advantage meant that with a 7-4 win on aggregate we were likely going on to face Bayern Munich in the Final! Oh err... wait... or not...

Bayern had somehow not been able to get passed Romanian side Arges Pitesti in their home leg meaning they crashed out 4-3 on aggregate! I'll be honest, I've never heard of Arges Pitesti any time before now, however checking them out and they appear to have knocked out Manchester United, AEK Athens and Bayern Munich on route to the final... so they clearly won't be pushovers... I didn't want to feel overconfident going into the final but of the 2 teams, I felt we had more of a chance against them than we might have had against Bayern...

In between dispatching Arsenal from the Cup and our fixture with Arges Pitesti, we picked up 2 more league wins at Brescia and Bologna and had crept up the table slightly to 2nd. I noticed that Inter's form had taken a nosedive and with 2 games to play we sat only a point away from leapfrogging them into first place! We were accidentally in a title race! With an away fixture at Milan and a home fixture against Sampdoria (again? We played them last last season?!) if we picked up a win in one and Inter picked up anything less than a draw in one then we had a chance of winning a Scudetto! However, first there was the Cup Winners Cup Final to contend with.

Another Florian Prunea masterclass... although he's not entirely to blame. My starting right winger; Loeken wasn't fit enough and neither was Bizzarri but in any event 23 minutes in and Arges Pitesti were 3-0 up. If we had a better calibre keeper and if Melizza was playing did we maybe stand a better chance? I don't know. I was disappointed, we'd done so well to get to the final only to throw it away hopelessly, but I was proud we had made it to the final of a European competition. Back in the league and maybe it was the deflation from losing a cup final, but our hopes of leapfrogging Inter took a hit when Milan trounced us 4-0 but with the fixture being so close to the cup final it was mostly my subs and reserves playing. Thankfully though Inter also suffered a 3-0 defeat to Padova meaning they needed a draw or better against Verona and we needed a win against Sampdoria at home. And well, we did our bit; comfortably beating Sampdoria 3-0 but Inter also came through with a 3-0 win at home meaning for this season we were going to have to settle for second place.

But I was really pleased. 19 wins in 34 games and 11 defeats is an improvement on last year and I think 2nd place means a place in European competition again next season? I'm not sure but in any event with a couple of new first team signings I think we can build on what we currently have and start to mount a real challenge for the league title next season!

And we had the war chest to do it! Something I haven't mentioned before now, but in January I made the bold move of selling Diego Virille to Inter for £11.25 Million. His form was mixed to poor last season and he played 7 or 8 games without scoring or really contributing in a meaningful way this season... so when Inter came knocking with a bid I was both confused and eternally grateful! I'd banked the cash until end of season, letting Vialli and Dely Valdes compete for a place alongside Bizzarri, but I will certainly look to put a big payment down on a new striker ready for Season 4, maybe even before the end of the season...

Omar Melizza was once again our player of the season despite (or maybe because of...) missing the last 3 months of the campaign, he scored 10 goals in 18 games and provided 8 assists and in the middle of our midfield three is a potent threat, and only 21 years old, and now on a new deal meaning he can't get snapped up by a bigger club on a release clause!

Bizzarri was top scorer with 19 goals across Domestic and European competition and whilst not quite as lethal as last season, he was still a proven goalscorer for us, and I intend to keep him around for next season as both Vialli and Dely Valdes are not quite at the same goalscoring level, although I feel he might be edged out if Dely Valdes has a better season next season or if a potential recent new signing turns out to be a better goalscorer...

New signing Mauro Zironelli, sat on the left hand side of the middle 3 in Central Midfield, was top provider with 21 assists across Domestic and European competition but as the numbers suggest, his form was very mixed, and he competed with Zola for a first team place. If not for his goal creating abilities he would have likely been sidelined. I'm not sure if he's still a starter next season, it depends if I can recruit a creative Midfielder to take his place, or if Zola's form improves on his, admittedly, slightly disappointing debut season with us.

At the End of Year Awards Giovanni Bosi was awarded Player of the Year and rightfully recognized. He was Club Captain this year and alongside Melizza is arguably one of our best players. And you might have noticed Vincenzo Chianese - top scorer for Serie B is now apparently a Cesena player? Something I've been eluding to but that's cos I just dropped £8 Million to bring him in from Foggia with hopes that he continues that goalscoring form to give us a boost in the Striker department which I felt was lacking a bit this season, and maybe turn some of those 2-1's and 1-1's into wins! However despite losing the Supercoppa Italiana, despite crashing out of the Coppa Italia 3rd Round, despite losing the Cup Winners Cup Final, we did finish 2nd in Serie A and I'm pleased with how the season went. It is clear that I need to recruit a new Goalkeeper. With both Fiori and Stefano Braga likely on the way out at the end of this season, and Prunea demonstrably just not good enough; I don't have the confidence in him that he can hold down a consistent first team place, so that is top of my agenda. And I plan to go to market. I also want to bolster Midfield, and sign a new Right Wing Back as I feel changes there are necessary in order to take us up to the next level and challenge for a title next season as well as, potentially, compete in European competition! With piccolo Cesena!