When I first thought of doing this save I wondered to myself how I would fare in South America. Especially in a country I had very little football knowledge of beyond the thought “oh yeah Colo Colo are in Chile!”. Whilst a few things have surprised me a little I am thoroughly enjoying this save and you will be joining me from where we left off after our 3-1 away win at Curico Unido in the 1st round of the Chile Cup.
As you can see from the screen grab above I couldn’t have had a better start to my time in charge at Los Cruzados winning my next ten consecutive games in all competitions! I am very happy with this as it’s showing me that my team is playing well scoring goals as well as proving adept in defense conceding only 5 goals in those games. Typically I had to draw the last game of the month where I wanted to stop my game play and update this blog! lol All runs have to come to an end I s’pose! Please bare in mind that I have been without my first choice goalkeeper and will continue to do so for another 3-4 in-game weeks!
My league campaign has started very well winning my first 6 leagues games home and away with some notable victories including a win at home against one of our main rivals Universidad de Chile (featured game as below) in front of the TV cameras. Averaging just over 2 goals per game and conceding 3 in total. I’m still to play against Colo Colo so that will be my real test. Speaking of TV cameras did you notice how many of my games have been televised?! ALL OF THEM! That’s never happened to me before in all the years I’ve been playing FM(and CM!). I swear this is the best start on FM ever for me lol I’m getting carried away here now I’m sorry lol (oh the giddy excitement!)
There has also been another two signings since my last blog post firstly young goalkeeper Matías Paredes from Coquimbo Unido of the Chilean First Division B League for £30k. Matías is an exciting young player who I will be developing at the club through the reserves with the occasional foray into the first team. Secondly we signed young Peruvian CB Gustavo Dulanto from Universitario of the Peruvian First Division for £300k. Gustavo will be a long term back up defender who I will hope will turn into a starting XI player within the next few seasons!
Copa Chile MTS 2016
Now you last saw me in the first leg of the Copa Chile after beating Curico Unide 3-1 away from home. The second leg at home was a little one sided and we eventually ran out 2-0 winners making it 5-1 on aggregate. We now progress onto the 2nd round where we face O’Higgins.
This fixture was the last we played in this save before writing this blog post and in typical Stephen Simpson luck I drew the bloody game! *groans* All good 100% records have to come to an end eventually! It was the most competitive game so far with Los Cruzados narrowly beating O’Higgins stats wise but we just could’t score the winner after their 59th minute equalizer.
Copa Sudamericana
Now this competition sprung itself on me when I noticed it appear in my upcoming fixtures after tapping CONTINUE. That will teach me to not to do enough research into the league I’m about to manage in! I only ever really heard of the Copa America lol *insert embarrassed emoji here*
The competition is organised by the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) & is 2nd in terms of prestige to the Copa America. The competition is largely dominated by teams from Argentina (7 titles), Brazil 2nd (2 titles) & 5 other teams from different countries. The last (& only!) Chilean team to win was Universidad de Chile in 2011…got my work cut out with this!
So my first opponents in this tournament was a team called Jorge Wilstermann from Bolivia. Now we got off to a bad start with an own goal from Cesar Fuentes but equalized straight after then dominated the game eventually winning 4-1 away from home.
The second leg was a bit more of a tighter affair with a 1-0 home win seeing us into the next round where we would face S.D. Aucas from the Primera Categoría Serie A in Ecuador. Even though we had double the chances of Jorge Wilstermann I think we were still a little tired after playing 3 games in 7 days. This may force me to get a few more squad players in the long run as I’ve only got 5 players outside of my match day squad. But that’s for another chapter!
So the 2nd prelim round 1st leg went very well indeed with us having a blinder of a second half beating Aucas 5-0 away from home. The first half was much more competitive and we conceded more shots this game than any other so far. Even one of my young reserve strikers got in on the action scoring his first senior goal for the club. coming off the bench late in the game.
Featured Game – CD Universidad Catolica vs Universidad de Chile
Our first real test of the season came in the form of Universidad rivals Universidad de Chile in our second league game of the season. I set out the best team I could (sorry for lack of visual reference!) in the usual 4-1-3-2 with a standard mentality and a flexible team shape. We dominated in most areas but failed to make our superior chances count. Roberto Gutiérrez and RB Stefani Magnasco puting in very good performances for the team.
The summary bit!
So we’re at the end of in-game August and I am extremely happy with how the season is going so far! I’m pleasing the fans, which is always a great thing, and most importantly my team is gelling as a unit. The fans are always commenting on how impressed they are with our final third play and attack going forward. While I have noticed a lot of the same stuff in the social media feed I do find it funny what is actually “tweeted” by these “fans” lol
A particularly good area and well oiled unit from my best XI is the in-team…er…team is the trio of Gutierrez, Buonanotte (or “Goodnight Diego” as I like to call him!) & Castillo. I’ve pulled up those first 2 in Gutierrez & Buonanotte stats for you to have a little look over. Them two in particular have performed very well for me and have put together some of the most exquisite build up play I’ve seen for a good while on any of my FM saves.
First up we’ve got Roberto Gutierrez’s stats for the first 12 games of the competitive season. In all competitions he’s rated 7.38 scoring 9 goals with 4 assists & 2 player of the match awards to his name. It’s safe to say he is my star player in the team although Nicolas Castillo is making a late dart for being top dog in my front line!
Next up is my AMC/MC/LM winger/attacking midfield Diego Buonanotte. By his average rating of 7.47 over 10(2) appearances he is technically the best player in the team. After having a brilliant preseason with 3 goals in 3 appearances averaging 7.60 he has scored 6 goals, assisting 5, with 3 Player of the Match awards to his name.
As touched on before I still need to improve my squad depth throughout (I think I need another 3-4 players to give my squad that depth required to deal with playing 2-3 games a week. With at least 1-2 of those being strikers as I don’t want my reserve youngster Matias Rosas to over use him and hinder his long term development too quickly. Also need a defender preferably someone who is an RB with good passing & defensive stats.
ADIOS!
vamosloscruzados 
