FM 2015 Sampdoria Guide

FM 2015 Sampdoria Guide — Inspiration for the save?

A number of things come to mind, breaking the Juventus stranglehold on Serie A, enjoying Okaka’s goal scoring exploits or just to bring back the glory days of 1990/91 the clubs only Serie A title. For those who were lucky enough to be out of nappies in the early 90’s you’ll have been blessed by Gianlucca Vialli, Roberto Mancini…but for me I remember Sampdoria for the likes of Seedorf, Karembeu and Ortega who came later on.

In a nutshell, Sampdoria are a challenge of sorts, you don’t have mass resources but do enjoy a decent stadium, facilities and reasonable squad to build on. The club have no European duties so the first season will be spent building a team and getting that top three spot, which won’t be easy with Juventus, Roma, Inter, AC Milan and Napoli sniffing around. Hopefully this FM 2015 Sampdoria guide will help entice you into trying Serie A.

Tip: To experience the game as I have you must load a large database with England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil and Argetina as playable countries.

Club Information

• Reputation: National
• Estimated Value: £31.5 million (Loan debt: £20.5 million)
• Stadium: Luigi Ferraris, 36,599 all-seater
• Training Facilities: Excellent
• Youth Facilities: Great

After Sampdoria’s greatest success, winning the Serie A title in 1991 and then finishing runners up in the Champions League the following season, the club regressed towards the late 90’s and were relegated to Serie B. Four seasons on and Sampdoria enjoyed a good, consistent run in the Italian top flight, stretching 8 seasons before they were recently (2011) relegated again, just one season after a fourth place finish. The club bounced straight back and are now trying to establish themselves in Serie A once more.

Great business in the transfer market has left the club stable financially, selling the likes of Zaza, Poli and Icardi for sizable fees set the club up. Great youth facilities brought through such talent and there are one or two still in the team for you to enjoy, but more on that later.

Finances

• Balance: £8,575,919
• Projected Balance: £22,010,000
• Current Player Wage Budget: £405,780 per week (inc bonuses)

As mentioned, decent finances include a healthy bank balance likely only to increase. There are no ridiculous wages to offload so an easy foundation to build on. There is the small matter of a £22.5 million loan to repay, but this should cost you more than £142K a month.

Board Expectations

You are expected to finish in the top half, but I think selecting ‘Europa League qualification’ is best. That gets you £4.3 million and an additional £48K per week wage budget. I’d also recommed approaching the board and requesting a wage budget increase, this won’t always work but is worth a try. For god sake don’t give them an ultimatum though! Note the January transfer budget may give you the opportunity to gain more wage budget.

Staff recommendations

You start the game with too many ‘other staff’ (these include senior coaches and physios.) The board recommends 9, you have 13. Start by offloading some physios, I would say all bar Baldari and Mazzola. This will drop other staff to 8. Now offload both senior coaches, De Leo and Baldi as well as Catalano (Fitness Coach) and Sardini (Goalkeeping Coach.) You now have 5 places to fill in your coaching staff. I’d also offload Luporini (scout.)

To offload all of the above, just offer mutual termination and they’ll accept. Below are the additions I would make.

• Assistant Manager — Whether you change the Assistant Manager is upto you, hes decent so I’d stick with him as he knows the club.
  
• Fitness Coach — you are keeping the two originals here.
  
• Goalkeeping Coach — Sign Fancro Tancredi.
  
• Coach — You have yourself and your Assistant (AM is good as defensive coach.) I’d recommend also signing John Owens (attacking coach), Giuseppe Colombino, Stefano Bonaccorso (technical coachs) and Andrea Bergamo (tactical coach.)
  
• Scout — Good scouting additions may be David Hamilton, Angel Vales and Stephane Pauwells. They will give you extra coverage in Europe.

The Squad – Key Players & Backups

Goalkeepers: You are well covered here, I’d use Viviano as first choice GK and Sergio Romero should be rotated in to keep everybody happy.

Defenders: Lorenzo De Silvestri is a quality first choice full back for the right and can play any role, you may need to find a backup if there is enough in the budget. On the left Regini is a solid full back, not as great going forward but he still does a job in that department too. Mesbah is a good backup considering you only have the league and one cup to worry about.

Midfielders: This area all depends on your formation, my preferred tactic has three in the middle, one defensive and two more attacking so lets assume you are the same. Polombo is your best and most experienced option, capable of breaking play up or being a creative force at DMC he can also play MC. Acquah is a decent backup for this type of role. In the supporting or attacking role your first choice should be Obiang, a really strong versatile midfielder that can tackle, pass and dribble. Now, if you don’t use wide men, then retrain Correa at MC, he will need to play to develop and is an excellent prospect, he would be my second choice for the attacking MC positions. You have decent backups in Alfred Duncan, Marchionni and Soriano so for the first season at least you may not need additions.

Strikers: While Eto’o has the reputation I am not a massive fan. For me Okaka is first choice in an advanced forward or poacher role, with Eder as a false nine and like wise for Bergessio (who gets a lot of assists with his hard work and team player attitude. You then have excellent backup options in Eto’o, Muriel and Correa could be used also.

Young Prospects

I’m not going to label every 4 star potential player here, theres no point, I will instead tell you which players will make it for you once you have made the summit, that is what matters after all. There are two young prospects you want to keep an eye on, they are Correa (player profile coming soon on Scouting Network) and Bonazzoli (see our player profile here.) Both have leading star potential and start at a good age. The likes of Duncan and Pedro Obiang are well worth developing but are a little older.

FM 2015 Sampdoria Tactics

With few high class wingers and lots of terrific strikers the answer is 4-3-3. I recommend using Tinkerman’s Goalscoring Strikeforce. A very attacking, high risk tactic but suited to Sampdoria. The shape is below, note my starting XI, this is very much recommended as you’d be surprised how the strikers are particular about where they play. Okaka was an absolute monster for me. Before using Tinkerman’s tactic I strongly recommend reading his post highlighted above, there are some very important instructions in there like using the full backs to take corners, set pieces won’t work otherwise. Also, do not copy the tactic, download it, there are way too many instructions for the shape to work alone. The download link is at the bottom of the post linked above.

Club Transfers

OK, so you should have £4.3 million and around £50K per week for wages. I recommend offloading the players below, they are dead weight. In terms of signings, I would look to the future and secure some stars on the cheap while you can. The squad is strong enough to cope the first season.

Players Out

• Luca Rizzo — You should get around £250K if offering to clubs.
• Wszolek — Probably have to offer out for virtually nothing.
• Oneto: Will draw in about £500K
• Luigi Luciani: Should go for around £250K

Players In (Note you need a large database and at least France as playable for this)

• Goalkeeper(s): none
• Defender(s): Marquinhos of PSG is transfer listed for £3.5 million and the perfect signing, offer £500K upfront and £3m over 24 months…this will help stretch your budget. Just note you’ll have to max out everything in his contract and before negotiating set the agent and sign on fee to max and lock them so the agent can’t ask for too much money and ruin the deal. Prepare to offer a lot in appearance fees also.
  
• Midfielder(s): Jhon Arango is a must sign in any save, he costs just £5K and is a potential star, won’t join until the following season though. Also look at Humam Tariq available for £250K, hes a future star too, you should retrain him as an MC to suit the system, works well there after a season or so.
  
• Striker(s): Last but not least you want the potential monster that is Luka Jovic, again available on approach to sign and costs your budget about £1.5 million. He won’t join until January 2016 but is well worth the wait as you’ll see from our future profile.
• January: Should they be available, I recommend signing Jon Flanaghan and Andre Ayew with their contracts expiring in the summer.

Pre-season preperation etc

It is very important to prepare correctly in pre-season. You want the tactic loaded from day one for familiarity. Your training should be set to team cohesion high intensity until just before the first game when you should change to balanced high intensity. You want to setup all your coaches correctly, each coach covering just one category to increase their star performance. But have one coach covering them all to minimize the workload.

Bar that, just make sure to set everything up as quick as possible, the longer everyone/thing has to settle the better. Oh, and don’t worry if you lose a load of simple Friendlies should your AM be in charge, he doesn’t use your exact tactic.

The Conclusion

Great season and very enjoyable, as the goal difference shows we enjoyed some huge scorelines and some amazing results. For most of the season it seemed Juventus would lift Serie A, that was until we played the Old Lady at home with just 3 games to go, victory put us in the driving seat as we saw out the title challenge. A real shock considering our 9th place prediction. We even reached the semi-final of the Coppa Italia, losing 5-4 on aggregate to Juventus.

The season finances finished at £18.5 million and the board added to our wage budget as the season progressed meaning we could get a couple of free transfers arranged alongside Digne who was transfer listed for £3.5 million.

De Silvestri was immense, averaging 8.48 rating, while Okaka scored 27, Eder 24 and Obiang 18. My other favorite stat was Bergessio with 27 assists.

• Pros: Large stadium, good finances, good starting squad, able to sign some youth, good facilities, three or four top prospects to develop and the chance of European qualification.
• Cons: A few too many good players are only on loan for one season, board don’t grant many requests and despite upping wage budget in Winter, are fairly restrictive.
• Difficulty: 3.5/10