Dave — FM2011 Ultimate European Challenge, Fiorentina Title run-in

Hello and welcome back to my story.  I left you last time with 6 games left in Serie A, and still with a shout for the Coppa Italia and the Champions League trophy.  Before I show you how I got on, CsAtlantis wanted to see Kouma Babacar’s profile so have quickly added that in  now.

I have seen in other games that he has a very bright future.  Hopefully I can nurture him and turn him into the World Class striker he is destined to be.

League

I was 15 points clear but still a little nervous that I could throw it all away.  Next up were Lazio in 8th place so a potential banana skin

Not an entirely convincing performance but still better than no points at all I guess!  Gilardino getting injured had me worried as well….

A week later was this home tie against Chievo.  A team I would normally expect to beat, but on current form anything can happen.

Huge relief!  Still a very nervy performance even after we scored the first goal.  Pazienza was then sent off which left me fuming considering he is one of my more senior players.  Luckily within 3 minutes of the sending off, Cavani broke away from the defence and score.  This acted like a huge weight off our shoulders and you could physically see it on the pitch.  Vargas scored a cracking free-kick to finish things off for us.

After the game I received a couple of  lovely messages

So pleased to see them!  I Instantly made the decision to play reserves and get everyone some game time and match fitness, leaving my first teamers to concentrate on the Champions League and the Italian Cup.

Remaining fixtures look like this

Wasn’t too sure about the Palermo result considering I still had to play them in the Cup and it might give them a psychological boost.  Was very happy to still beat Inter and Udinese though!

Final table looked like this

Comfortable in the end and breaking the league record for most points in a season too!

Coppa Italia

The first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final was played between the Lazio and Chievo league games so the team were still fraught with nerves

We were behind twice so to come back both times showed courage.  Dede ensuring that we go into the 2nd leg still with a chance but it won’t be easy going to the Isle of Sicily.  So onto the 2nd leg….

2 very flukey goals to get us off and running then a nicely crafted 3rd means we were off to the Olimpico in Rome for the final!  Even better news was that Catania had knocked out AC Milan in the other semi-final!  Could things be swinging our way?!  Only one way to find out….

We did it but not without a huge scare!  After Gilardino scored in the 4th minute, I thought it was going to be easy.  Slack defending allowed them to equalise on the hour mark.  My side responded in the 76th minute and I thought surely I had it in the bag but then they scored in the 91st minute!  I was gutted!  Desperate not to allow the match to goto a penalty shoot-out, I sent my team into all out attack mode and it paid off.  Matias Silvestre scoring an own goal in the 100th minute was ever so sweet!

I received the above message after the game which I found a bit odd!  Winning the double is an absolutely amazing feat with Fiorentina but I would hardly call myself one of the most successful English managers of all time!

So that was mission accomplished for Italy.  I still had the Champions League to sort out but facing tough opposition (as you will see later), I was treating it as an added bonus and not expecting much to come from it.

Champions League

In my last update, I had played the 1st leg of the quarter final cup tie against Leverkusen and drew 1-1 at home.  Bit disappointing especially after dispatching of Real Madrid in the previous round.  It meant that they had an away goal and I had to try and turn it around at the BayArena.

And I did it!  Reasonably comfortable in the end although I would have preferred more goals to make completely sure!  I was drawn against Bayern Munich in the semi-final whilst the other game would be contested between Porto and Liverpool.  I would have preferred Porto but it looks like if I am going to get to the Final, I would be doing it the difficult way!

First leg was away from home which I prefer but the Allianz-Arena is not an easy place to go to.  I would have been happy with a 1 nil loss, anything better than that would give me a massive chance of progressing.

As you can see, a pretty good result.  Babacar getting an away goal for us after Robben’s superb opener.  I was frustrated with Ribery scoring in the dying moments of the game but overall, a satisfactory result meaning we only needed one goal at home.

What happens next defies all belief.  I still can’t believe it.  Watch the next clip and you will see why

6 nil?!  against Bayern Munich?!  Absolutely stunning!  Babacar took just 6 minutes to open the scoring but the rest of the half was nothing spectacular.  Then in the 60th minute, Babacar scores again and the flood gates just open.  We added further goals in the 64th, 72nd, 85th and 88th as Bayern just crumbled before my very eyes.  Unbelievable!

Luck was on our side in the Italian Cup when we got Catania in the final instead of AC Milan and the same stroke of luck happened for the Champions League final.  Porto beat Liverpool on away goals!  We now have an absolutely amazing chance of completing an unprecedented treble.  3 things I had to be weary of were

— Porto obviously must be a decent side to have gotten to the final in the first place

— The final would take place at Benfica’s ground so Porto had home country advantage of sorts

— In Darren’s European challenge, he lost to Porto in the final so will have to take them very seriously.

I had my first choice starting XI available to me so all I needed from them was one final push.

More extra time but I done it!  Lorenzo De Silvestri my right back didn’t make things easy for us after being sent off for 2 bookings in the 60th minute but we managed to cling on and scoring 2 very well taken goals.  I have completed a treble for the first time in any of my FM games!

That wasn’t all.  My players came 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the best player award just to show our domination

The future

What an amazing season and one I certainly wasn’t expecting.  The question now is where do I go from here?  About 2 thirds of the way through the season Valencia approached me.  I delayed the offer until the end of the season.  I knew I was still in with a chance of winning all 3 trophies at that point, completing the Italian stage of the challenge if I did it.  Valencia come back to me literally after I finished my last game of the season but I still had the Italian Cup final and the Champions League final to participate in.  I tried to delay the offer again for a week but they refused and demanded an answer straight away.  It would have been very foolish of me to have accepted the offer at that stage so I told them to stuff it!

This left me in limbo.  I have really enjoyed my Fiorentina save plus I had Sergio Romero coming in on a free transfer.  Sebastien Frey was after ridiculous wages with his contract fast running out so I snapped Romero up quick.  I also had stirker Guido Marilungo coming in on a free from Sampdoria as well as popular FM 11 striker Alberto Paloschi.  It was very tempting to stay on to see how the new additions fared.  I continued playing the game, uncertain of what to do when I received this offer

I have found a new home :D