I took over as manager of Liverpool with the intention of turning the "nearly men" and the "...this is our season" quotes into champions! At the start of the season, I told the board my plan, and promised the league title. I was handed a big transfer fund to aid my title charge.

With such a large transfer fund, I wasted no time in bringing two quality players in Goran Pendev & Andrea Barzagli to bolster the attack and defence respectively. I added Matías Fernández to the squad in the January transfer window to add a bit of creativity and flair to the attack.
Jermaine Pennant, John Arne Riise, Peter Crouch, and Xabi Alonso were all sold during the season.



Transfers In & Out

League Cup
Chelsea 3-2 Liverpool
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Woeful finishing and a defence like a sieve cost us dearly in this match, as we exited out of the competition at the quarter final stage. =[

Premier League
Pos 1st | Pld 38 | Won 29 | Drn 8 | Lst 1 | For 74 | Ag 19 | G.D. +55 | 95
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With my job depending on succesfully winning the league, failure was not an option! =|
I had gone through most of the season playing catch up to Man Utd who were absolutely killing everyone, and were looking dead certs on winning the league again....that was until they came to Anfield and lost. That set the wheels in motion, as results began to fall my way, and with 6 or so weeks to go, I finally took the lead in the Premiership and didn't look back. =]
Credit must go to Man Utd though, who kept the title chase going until the last day of the season!

FA Cup
Liverpool 4-1 Arsenal
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In a match billed as a tight affair, it was most certainly not the case! Fernando Torres had given Liverpool the perfect start by scoring after only 6 minutes, but after that it was all Arsenal in the first half, and they deservedly got their equaliser with just over half an hour played through Robin van Persie. José Reina was in inspired form as he limited Arsenal to only the one goal. A few bottles and chairs were flung in the dressing room at half time as I told the side how shit they were playing, and how I expected to see more from them in the second half!
Fernando Torres took those words to heart, and restored Liverpool's lead on the hour. Dirk Kuyt would go on and add a third for Liverpool 8 minutes later, before Fernando Torres completed his first hat-trick for Liverpool and finished the scoring with 9 minutes left on the clock. It was a fantastic game of two halves, with Liverpool owing a lot to Reina in goal for keeping us in the match at 1-1 at half time.

Champions League
Liverpool 3-2 PSV
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I went into this match thinking it was going to be an easy victory since it was only PSV....The match had barely kicked off, and Dirk Kuyt had already given Liverpool the lead after 36 seconds! I thought to myself...treble is in the bag! =]
The following 11 minutes came and went in a flash, as PSV netted two goals in the 6th and 11th minute through Danko Lazovic. They could have gone 3 or 4 ahead, but Reina was making top saves left right and center. The defence had fallen asleep, and Mascherano was having a poor game. I switched to a more defensive 4-1-4-1 formation to try and plug the holes in midfield, because we were getting raped through the middle. =|
A controversial moment happened in the 69th minute, after one of the PSV defenders had apparently fouled Fernando Torres in the box. The referee was having none of their protests, as Fernando Torres picked himself up, and converted the penalty to bring Liverpool back into the game! I immediately switched to an attacking 4-2-2-2 formation, and I knew it was only a matter of time before we got the third goal. 76 minutes in, a free kick was awarded just outside the area in Fábio Aurélio range...He whipped the free kick in, and Dirk Kuyt glanced it into the near post past the keeper! 3-2 Liverpool! The remaining minutes of the game was spent playing on the counter to avoid leaking any late goals.

Key Players
Goran Pandev - 22 goals in 59 apps - 21 assists - 7 MoM - Av R: 7.41
Fantastic debut season from the Macedonian forward. Created loads of goals, and scored a fair few himself.

José Manuel Reina - 37 clean sheets in 63 apps - 37 conceded - 3 MoM - Av R: 7.25
You know you've got half a chance with a keeper like Reina in goal. Was an absolute rock and solid when called upon.

Fernando Torres - 39 goals in 62 apps - 16 assists - 11 MoM - Av R: 7.35
Not a bad start for Torres. He did well playing upfront by himself for almost the whole season. Hopefully he has adjusted to the way Liverpool play and will do better next season!

Jamie Carragher - 7 goals in 61 apps - 3 assists - 3 MoM - Av R: 7.38
He has formed a great understanding with Andrea Barzagli at the back, which has greatly helped the team. We all know he is a great defender, but he popped up with a few goals and assists this season as well, showing us that he is not afraid of getting forward.

Starting 11

Full Squad



Well that's the end of my season review. I hope you've enjoyed reading it, and if you haven't.....PFFFFT!
I will be starting a new story from season 2, so keep an eye out for that!

Credit: Super_Spurs07 tbh!!

» [Football Manager 2009 forum]

quote xpronic

PSV beat Barcelona in the semi final to reach the final.

As for not winning the League Cup....

Nice one i thought the big cheese,the cheif,would win the quadruple, c'mon X i expected more of you *tut* *tut*

I decided to take the job at Stadio Artemio Franchi, after playing around with a few teams but never getting into any game decent enough. On FM2007 I had a really enjoyable game with them and although Luca Toni was lost to German Giants Bayern München I eagered to get the game going. Fiorentina as European giants, set as my ultimate goal.




The board's minimum expections were to achieve a safe mid-table position and after having a good look around the squad I decided it would be possible to get La Viola In a EURO Cup spot at the end of the season. I offered the squad an extra bonus if they would win a continental competition, and after implementing my training schedules I started working on the tactic. With Christmas approaching I felt a Christmas tree formation should suffice this season. My basic formation was as you can see in the picture below:



The tactics applied were often tweaked throughout the season depending on which players were in the starting eleven. The two attacking midfielders often got arrows with them, sometimes going wide and on other days going straight forward to uphold pressure on the opponent's defense. Three midfielders with the center one often having an arrow backwards to cut off supply of opposing playmakers.





The transfer window was restless and especially some of my players were targeted by the European elite. Speculations were everyday's news especially Adrian Mutu and Sébastien Frey were highly sought after, as well as Ricardo Montolivo and Marco Donadel. Transfer kitty on the back I jumped in the transfer madness and signed Jérémy Ménez, a promising forward from AS Monaco. However I wasn't able to keep hold of Mutu. He was sold to league challengers AC Milan, but not after I declared interest in signing van der Vaart. I had problems signing him however and as the Transfer Window's end was closing in I had to make a move somehow. To prevent ending up with no replacement at all, Bofo Bautista was brought in. Luckily, just when the Transfer Window was about to close its gates, van der Vaart signed his contract and we were able to start the season.

The January Transfer Window was as restless as the one before, with Serie A leaders Inter trying to pull Ricardo Montolivo to Guiseppe Meazza from december on. I felt like keeping him and asked for a whooping £22.5M + sell on clause, hoping that would scare them of. Nothing could have been further from the truth! The Nerazzurri probably had some cash to splash and came back with the offer I requested! I accepted and as a replacement Javi Martínez, the Athletic de Bilbao wonderkid was brought in. Mario Santana, Christian Vieri, Franco Semioli and Martin Jorgensen were offloaded and I had raised enough money with that to sign my favorite Football Manager defensive midfielder, Lorik Cana.





La Viola battled in three different competitions this first season, Serie A, the Italian Cup, and the Euro Cup. We were expected to at least reach the semi's of the domestic cup and one of my personal aims was to survive in Europe for as long as possible to let the young team gain international experience. With the average squad age being only 24 we should try and learn where we can!



Our start in the league was close to marvelous, as the team set a record string of wins straight of the start. We won 11 games in a row. That vast performance put us in the top three when we were approaching Christmas. Some nice results were recorded, including home wins against AS Roma and AC Milan. Straight after new year we recorded our first loss. We were outclassed by Inter Milan, who had been on fire the whole season and lost 0-2.

With the season progressing we managed to upkeep a nice record overall. Finding ourselves firmly on second place, trying to keep up with leaders Inter. However, injuries and players getting tired made us loose points when we reached late march. There we found out that the squad lacks depth compared to giants Inter and Milan. We lost pace with the leaders and instead of trying to keep up with them we were forced to look down and try to keep of the challenge of Milan.

We kept winning most of our matches though and due to Milan dropping points every now and then and us keeping them to a draw at San Siro we managed to become league runners up! On the last day of the season we drew away to Inter, we were very lucky in that match. Inter were constantly pressuring us but the defense was like a brick wall and therefore we managed to survive.

A picture of the final Serie A league table:



On a personal note, I really had not expected to finish this high this season as I rated my squad just below the giants, being Inter, Milan, Juventus and Roma. My tactic though greatly helped as it was easy to tweak. Also I had a lot of long shot-artists in the team and they eventually allowed the team to play slightly defensive and be a danger anyway.





As explained before, the board expected us to reach the semi's of the domestic cup at least. I wasn't to happy with that, considering the longer we would be in the cup the more matches we would have to play. I doubted that the cost of that would match the prize money that we would be granted for winning the domestic cup.

However, we beat Catania and Parma sternly on the road to the final and the semi final put us up against Palermo. We had to play them away first while the team was greatly being under pressure from injuries. We eventually lost the away match but van der Vaart scored a very important away goal. The home match was as exciting as the away match and although we managed to win 2-0, it was a hard fought battle and I was literally cheering when the match had reached its end.

The final was one hell of a cracking match, against AC Milan. We had not lost to them in the league and they started of like a thunderstorm. We were under constant pressure until in the 33rd minute Clarence Seedorf slotted home the goal that gave them the 1-0 lead. At that point my team didn't manage to be any threat up front and I felt this was going the wrong way really. At half time, I told my players that they had nothing to loose and that turned around the match. The first 5 minutes of the second half it was still Milan who bossed the pitch but then we took over, resulting in Fabio Liverani scoring a wonder strike from 40 yards! 1-1! After that both teams seemed a little afraid to loose the match and it were Milan who were able to sort themselves out first. The last ten minutes were thrilling with chances to both teams and there were to be 4 minutes of extra time. At that point we had already 5 players in the team with condition below 60% and while I was looking at who to sub in the extra time the wonder happened! Donadel, who had just entered the pitch sliced apart Milan's defense and van der Vaart passed it into the net! We had won the Italian Cup Final!





I explained before that one of my main aims was to survive in Europe for as long as we could, because I greatly value the international experience that comes with the tournament.

The first round wasn't to much of a problem with AA Gent from Belgium being our opponents. We were then entered the group stage and shared a tough group, having to compete with Fenerbahçe, Everton, Young Boys and Bayern München. We came out on top there, recording 4 straight wins including a 1-4 away win versus Everton. The next round we were pitted against Greek minions Larisa and they never caused us problems. However our next opponents were Villarreal and I wasn't happy to notice that we played our first leg at home. We won 2-0, which I figured to be a pretty narrow margin for the away match at El Madrigal. Villarreal started of like a whirlwind but we rose to the challenge and managed to scrape away a 2-2 draw. Through to the next round! Dinamo Kiev were our next opponents and they were never going to match my team. two easy wins got us into the semi's. Our opponents: Bolton Wanderers. I thought we would easily proceed to the final. Wrong. Bolton netted three goals in the match at Reebok Stadium and we kept up with two lucky goals, one of them being a controversial offside goal. However, the power they continued to show in their home match was eventually gone when they visited Stadio Artemio Franchi and we recorded an easy 2-0 victory.

The final against Getafe was a cracking match in which we took the lead, with Pazzini slotting home a fine goal. Getafe, however, replied almost instantly and the same trick was repeated. We scored, and again Getafe instantly replied. Like in the domestic cup final, the match was drawing to a close and the score was 2-2 still. Extra time looked to be on its way until Fabio Liverani had his shirt pulled at 30 yards of the goal. The veteran decided that was going to be his moment of glory and flighted in the free kick into the top corner from 30 yards! The EURO Cup was ours!




A number of awards were being divided and I was happy to see that La Viola were named on several occasions.







Before I single out some players I feel that I need to state that the team as a whole has been the strength of Fiorentina this season. The ones picked in this sections are just a little more ace then the others are.







Although Lorik Cana is my favourite player in the squad I left him out. Cana joined Fiorentina in January and has been out almost instantly with a 3 month injury. He hardly took part in the successes that were achieved throughout the season.

• Top youngsters Breno and Sebastian Giovinco being on their way to Stadio Artemi Franchi?

• Fiorentina's manager has been linked with clubs like Manchester United and Sevilla?

• He said there was no chance of him leaving La Viola?

• The Christmas tree tactic supposedly being reviewed after Christmas?

• Further adventures will be readable in a Story Of My Season Thread?

• The rumor stating that hereby this season review has actually finished?

[color=#666666]This message was edited by ViNCeNZo on Jan 27 2008.

quote Lone Warrior

Just a question: Did you rotate formations or did the X-mas tree one suffice for home and away matches?

I used it both in home and away matches yeah. I did have a very attacking minded one and one that would just build a brick wall around the penalty box.

quote Lone Warrior

PS: lol @ signing Bofo My Angel. XD Did he perform?

Bautista was a more then decent stand-in for van der Vaart and M╬nez. He actually played quite some games and scored a few important goals. He isn't as lethal as Rafael though.

quote The Power

Well done Vince that is an excellent season, hope you can go one better and win the league next year:)

It's what I promised.