Hello, friends and welcome to a new post in my Chieti story in Football Manager 2012. As you probably know already, last season we’ve won promotion to the Italian Serie B – the highest league Chieti has ever played in and I had to strengthen the squad quite a bit.

Unfortunately, things started pretty sad for us as we finally lost one of our best players and the engine of the team – Enzo Scorza. Here are his stats below:

He was bought by Real Sociedad who offered 1.2 million for the lad, a sum much lower than his real value (but actually a lot bigger than the in-game value). I’m glad my chairman decided to accept the offer because I would’ve been put in a really tough situation:

Scorza’s departure marked a mass exodus from Chieti: a ton of players were allowed to leave, including our stars like Valtulina and Perenyi and no less than 17 players (including 2 who went straight to the Under 20 team) joined us:

The new Chieti players

Ahmet Karabacak

I am extremely happy with the signing of this young German/Turkish player who has some incredible stats for his young age and I am sure will prove to be an amazing addition for us and become our best central defender.

Alexandru Florean

The young Romanian winger was brought in as a back-up mainly and he might become pretty useful since he can play many positions. We’re not talking about a super star here, but a decent back-up player.

Andrea de Vito

Probably the starting left wingback this season, de Vito has some nice physical skills as well as mental ones and hopefully he’ll do a decent job for us.

Aziz Deen Conteh

I got him for the incredible speed he has, but he kind of lacks in other departments. Will try him out though and see if he can do any good, you never know in these cases…

Daniele Cacia

With Scorza leaving, I had to strengthen the attack and hopefully Cacia will compensate Scorza’s skills with his experience and better shooting, even though he’s a much slower player.

Florian Cuntz

Even though he has a name that might make some Brits blush, he’s a very talented youngster and I’m sure he’ll battle tough with our established Porfido for a place in the starting line-up.

Giuseppe Giovinco

I wanted some extra power for the left side of the pitch and I gambled with Giovinco, a pretty fast winger with decent stats.

Juanma Ortiz

Even though I like my wingers to be fast, Ortiz was highly recommended by the scouting team so I brought him in. Some extra experience can do the squad no harm and since Valtulina was no more, he looked like a good replacement.

Luigi Alberto Scaglia

Another player that can play on any side of the pitch, he’ll provide back-up for both areas and help us with the depth of the squad.

Manfredi Sclopsis

I clearly needed a better keeper this year and Sclopsis seems to be the answer. He has some really decent stats and I am sure he’ll do great.

Mohammed Gulraiz

A player similar to Scorza (even though a lot slower), he should do a great job for us this season a score a ton of goals if his low scores in stamina, strength, positioning and off the ball won’t drag him down too long.

Philip Withers

Another player highly recommended by my scouts, Withers was brought in as a back-up for the central midfielder area, but he could easily become a starting option if he performs good – and that’s something that I would need since our worst area is the center of the field.

Raffaele Maiello

A pretty creative central midfielder even though not that impressive with his defensive stats, I hope Maiello will make a nice figure this year for Chieti.

Renato Ricci

Yes, one more central midfielder because we lack quality here. I like to have competition for a position and have where to choose from!

Uwe Rahn

I wasn’t planning on bringing in any new players (especially a left winger where we already have 5 players who can play on that position), but I liked Uwe a lot when one of my scouts found him so I had to get him, especially since he was available for free. He’s still young but hopefully in a couple of seasons he’ll become a solid first team player.

With the ton of new players ready to go, I didn’t aim for a goal too big: I told my board that we can avoid relegation and I hope that we’ll be able to do that, even though the team will clearly need time to blend (we’re talking here basically about a brand new team this season!):

The odds are pretty low but I’ve seen even worse, which makes me thing once again that we’ll have a chance of staying up this season, even though the bookies believe we’ll finish 20th.

We’ve also played our first games of the 2014-2015 season – the friendlies were completely unimpressive and actually a bit disappointing, culminating with the defeat against Andria in the 2nd qualifying round of the Italian Cup.

But hopefully once the team gels, we’ll start bringing in some better results!