A Football Manager Journey
Welcome to the latest and Final Chapter of Florence And The Goal Machine. After ten seasons with La Viola the curtain comes down on one of my all time favourite FM saves and we went out in style by winning the Serie A title for the third time of the duration of the save. The Champions League eluded us yet again but overall I am more than satisfied with what we have achieved over the last 10 years.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : (10.0) The Final Chapter 2027-2028”
Welcome back, its season nine in to the save and things in Florence are starting to change with Abdou Diakhate on his way to China at the end of August after agreeing a deal early in the summer, it feels like the save is coming to an end with the loss of my trusted warrior on the pitch but maybe that gives someone else the chance to step up and replace the Senegalese midfielder.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : (9.0) When The Going Gets Tough 2026-2027”
Welcome to a round up of season 8 of Florence And The Goal Machine. Things are really kicking on in Florence with me taking every opportunity to delve in to the save I made two additions to the club squads with young Brazilian defender Arnaldo (Newgen) coming in to our Under 20 squad after a £1m move from Santos. Another Brazilian 24 year old winger Vinícius Júnior joins us on a free transfer after running his contract down at Real Madrid.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : (8.0) Helter Skelter (Part 1) 2025-2026”
Welcome to the end of our season six round up, yes season six I can’t believe already that I have managed this fantastic club in over 300 games already. My last update saw me reveal our new tactical system The Velvet Revolution which if you have not already read you can do so by clicking here. So without further ado let’s get on with looking at how we got on when it came down to the sharp end of the season.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine (6.1) ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ 2023-2024”
Welcome to the latest from Florence where we are now in our 6th season of the save. You will notice that the header for this save consists of a few managers who all have managed either Ajax or Barcelona or both. Rinus Michels, Johan cruyff, Louis Van Gaal, Josep Guardiola, and Erik ten Hag are the men in question and the ones who I have grown up watching and studying closely whilst admiring their philosophy on how the game should be played.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine (6.0) ‘The Velvet Revolution’ 2023-2024”
Welcome to the latest instalment of Florence And The Goal Machine. We are about to embark on season three in Florence and I am very excited to what lies ahead of us. After finishing 3rd in Serie A in our first season we finished 5th last season and reached the the final of the Coppa Italia only to be denied of our first piece of silverware by Roma after a penalty shootout. Last season we started like a train and by the end of January I really thought we were title contenders however we finished the season in abysmal form.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : (3.0) A New Dawn In Florence 20-21”
Welcome back to the virtual World of Football Manager and my latest blog post about my save with ACF Fiorentina . My last post took us up to the end of January 2020 in my second season at the club with us sitting pretty at the top of the table after 22 games and most definitely looking like title contenders. Our system ‘The Iron Triangle’ was producing the goods then all of a sudden the wheels fell off.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : Catastrophic Failures (2.2) 19-20”
Welcome to the 2nd post from our 2019-2020 season. A quick recap for anyone visiting this blog for the first time, I took over at Fiorentina in the summer of 2018 on an initial 1 year contract with the boards expectations of finishing in the top half of the table and my own expectation of European qualification. The Media prediction was that we would finish 7th. My initial thoughts was that I would work with the players already at the club during the first season before making any big changes to both the playing staff and the backroom staff.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : The Colour Purple (2.1) 19-20”
Welcome to the first post of Season Two 2019-2020 season. No sooner had the dust settled on the 2018-2019 season it was time to get to work on bringing in a replacement for Paris bound Giovanni Simeone and welcoming back a few players who we had out on loan last season non less so than the talent that is Sandro Tonali who I am really looking forward to working with.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : Life Without Simeone (2.0) 19-20”
Welcome to the latest instalment from Florence, my last update took us up to the final 11 games of our first season with Fiorentina with us sat in 4th position in the table. Could we hang on to fourth position and get in to next seasons Champions League? We also welcome Federico Chiesa back from injury and we finish the season off with a transfer story that breaks the clubs record departure of Rui Costa. It’s all happening in Florence so let’s not waste anymore time and get started with this latest update.
Continue reading “Florence And The Goal Machine : No Time For Goodbye (1.2) 18-19”
