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Welcome to my 2nd story of the year!

After a great start to FM19 with my story "Béticos: long live Betis even when they lose!" (which I will get back to eventually), I posted a poll on here a few days ago and it seems that most people wanted to see a Parma story, so there it is! I actually did a save with Parma back in FM17 when Parma had been relegated all the way to Serie C so I'm really excited for this one since Parma are now back in the Serie A as I'm sure you would all know. Now then, onto the club and manager introduction!

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A Parma local, Marco Bernardi became a Parma fan throughout the 1990s (arguably the club's best ever period) and has always dreamt of managing his local team. At just 34 years old, he's seen the best of Parma but also the worst so he'll absolutely be eager to get stuck into it and build the club from the ground up. As a young manager, he also understands the importance of a great youth academy which shows in his mental statistics. He's completely unknown to the rest of the footballing world so this is will be without a doubt a huge challenge given the quality of the teams in the Serie A.

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The club needs no introduction. One of the best teams in Italy for a while, the likes of Buffon, Cannavaro, Thuram and some of the world's greats have played at the club at some point in their career. A huge downfall in the 2010s forced the club down to Serie D but they are now back in Italy's elite division looking to become of the better sides in the league once again. An impressive trophy cabinet with the former Champions League trophy and 2 Europa Leagues, Bernardi will definitely be looking to expand that cabinet even more and add a few Serie A trophies in there! Stay tuned for the squad introduction next as well as the pre-season schedule for the Crociati!
 
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Frattali (left) and Sepe (right, on loan from Napoli) are the two goalkeepers who will be in the side for the upcoming season. Both over 25 years old, they are clearly experienced keepers who can definitely do a job for us but in terms of Serie A standards, let's just say it's obvious that they're not the best we can get.

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Dimarco (left), Bruno Alves (centre left), Gagliolo (centre right) and Iacoponi (right) will make up our backline for pre-season. A decent defence with some good players on loan in the rest of the squad as well but again, definitely not at the highest level for a high Serie A finish...

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Grassi (left) and Stulac (right) will make up the defensive midfielder partnership that will protect our defence. We have some decent depth in defensive midfield which is a huge bonus for the team and hopefully will mean that even if one of our starters gets injured, someone can come in to replace him.

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Our attack is definitely our stronger area of the pitch. Gervinho (left) brings in a wealth of experience and quality, while our strikeforce of Ceravolo (centre left) and Inglese (centre right, on loan from Napoli) should be great for goalscoring. Sprocati (right) is our right attacking midfielder for now but we have a huge amount of depth in that area of the pitch so again, not an irreplaceable player. You might've tried to figure out the tactical system that we will be using for this side from the positions on the left of the screenshots, let me just show you what the team will play like.

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A very odd type of formation for sure, but one that I believe will work best for us as an underdog in the Serie A. With our 2 full-backs effectively acting as wing-backs, they'll be both supporting attacks on the wings and coming back to defend when needed. Normally, wing backs are used in a system with no wingers ahead of them but with Gervinho and Sprocati cutting inside and acting as central attacking midfielders more than anything, the width that the wing backs will provide will be huge. Our two defensive midfielders sit deep since we have so many players forward already. On top of that, our defence isn't exactly incredible so having two more players to help out will be huge. Finally, having two strikers should hopefully allow us to score plenty of goals in this first season back in the Serie A. As you can see in the instructions, we're playing a mix of a classic Italian catenaccio style of football and a German gegenpress style of football. In possession, we won't be looking to keep the ball but more actually pass it forward with speed with a very high line and high pressure, allowing us to counter teams efficiently. Out of possession however, again it's a mix of a compact system at the back like a normal catenaccio sort of system but with the gegenpressing included in there, allowing us to gain the ball back quickly and counter with our pace on the wings.

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In terms of potential arrivals, our small budget of just €4 million means we're not going to be able to bring in that many incredible and expensive players but we should hopefully be able to bring in another player or two on loan from better Serie A sides or foreign sides.

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Our first official game will come in the TIM Cup 3rd qualifying round in mid-August which will be a nice way to start off our season but we do have plenty of friendlies to bring up the familiarity of the tactical system we'll use within the team and get the team to gel a little bit as well. I've got my work cut out for me now, my main objective is to survive this first season in the Serie A and I can definitely see us doing that considering some of the quality in this side so far! Stay tuned for the pre-season update.
 
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Looking forward to seeing how you get on. It's going to be a tough time as if I remember rightly the money initially isn't great so will be relying on make good profits from players to boost your balance until champions League football can make up the rest
 
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As with all your stories, I will be following closely!
 
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Looking forward to seeing how you get on. It's going to be a tough time as if I remember rightly the money initially isn't great so will be relying on make good profits from players to boost your balance until champions League football can make up the rest
Cheers mate, I wanna say I have a decent base but not really considering some of the quality in the Serie A! Hopefully can get to European football sooner rather than later...

As with all your stories, I will be following closely!
Cheers mate, glad to hear :)
 
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DIMARCO!!! :wub:

And also DA CRUZ, i think can be a really good player!!
 
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2018 pre-season, new signings and season preview

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Despite our depth on the wings, I noticed that we didn't really have many players who were Serie A ready, hence the arrival of Berenguer on loan from Torino. After spending the last year in Italy in Turin, he has plenty of Serie A experience and I'm sure he'll be a very important player for the team this season.

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This next signing is an interesting one to say the least. As one of the most promising Italian talents in the world at the moment, he'll be an incredible asset to the team for the season to come and even though we will be helping a Juventus talent to improve which isn't ideal, we're getting a terrific player for the team. You may wonder why we signed him though since we already have good enough strikers but the truth is, if one of them gets injured, we're left with very few good options up front...

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Wow... It's as if I predicted the future. Our best striker at the club is out injured for the next 3 months which is less than ideal considering our lack of options up front. Thankfully, Kean will get his chance now and can impress but it will also mean that I'll be dropping one of the strikers in as a central attacking midfielder to not risk too many strikers with an injury.

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The arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus has boosted their title chances significantly, even though they were already clear favourites before he came in. Inter are close second which makes sense considering the incredible team they have on paper and Napoli finish up the top 3 despite Sarri going off to Chelsea. As for us, we're predicted to finish in 18th and get right back down to Serie B, which isn't great... We definitely have a very weak side and on top of that, it also is a very old squad so it's fair to say that I've got a LOT of work to do before this team reaches the top of European football again.

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One positive thing is that we had a GREAt pre-season. With just one defeat to Trapani when I rotated the squad heavily, we smashed the rest of our opponents and even got a decent 2-0 win against Padova in my first official game as Parma manager. It's a good start for sure and definitely will boost our confidence ahead of our Serie A opener later this month.

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A tough first few games in the league for us. With no European football to worry about, we're actually pretty lucky to face the likes of Lazio and Inter early on when they'll be thinking about the Europa League and Champions League! Genoa to start off with isn't too bad, but I am quite worried about the game against Atalanta even though it's at home. Should be an interesting first few games in charge for sure...

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The Player of the pre-season is, surprisingly, Bruno Alves! The 36-year old centre-back had a great 5 games, scoring twice and even getting an assist as he was a key part of our pre-season success. He's by far our best defender and arguably one of our best and more experienced players at the club so I'm certainly counting on the club captain to perform this season and get us as far from the relegation zone as possible...
 
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Is a 4-2-4 like you put in first or you made a 4-3-3?? Starting is good, and calendar also, take Chievo after national stop and Inter and Lazio with european turnover can be really important....Atalanta and Fiorentina so hard matches
 
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Is a 4-2-4 like you put in first or you made a 4-3-3?? Starting is good, and calendar also, take Chievo after national stop and Inter and Lazio with european turnover can be really important....Atalanta and Fiorentina so hard matches
Definitely will be a tough few matches against teams like Atalanta, Inter, Fiorentina and Lazio! I am using a 4-2-4 but it's now turned more into a 4-2-3-1 with deep midfielders because of Inglese's injury.
 
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What a nice story, what's that skin though? Looks interesting.
 
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What a nice story, what's that skin though? Looks interesting.
Cheers mate, glad you're enjoying it. It's the OPZ Elite skin which you'll be able to find on FMScout! I actually had to use 85% zoom as well since my laptop's screen resolution is too low.
 
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August/September 2018: a tough start

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A decent first result in the Serie A as we dominate Genoa but fail to score and get all 3 points. It was a very good performance and I'm very proud of the team, but I definitely wish we would've done better in front of goal and come out of this game as winners.

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Atalanta are a great side so to get a draw after going a goal down early on is a great achievement. We actually were the better team in my opinion and definitely deserved the draw and after 2 games, we're still undefeated in the league which is a big positive.

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Our first defeat comes against 9-men Lazio who scored in the second half and were just too good for us to break down. It's a big shame as we did so well throughout the game and had a huge chance to get a result considering they got 2 red cards for 2 defensive players.

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Another goal conceded very early on means another defeat as we crumble against Inter. As one of the best teams in the league, I wasn't expecting much against the likes of Skriniar and Icardi but again, it's a shame that we so narrowly lose against those big teams. It is encouraging though.

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With 2 draws, a win and 3 defeats, we've not had the best start to our Serie A campaign. Considering we're predicted to finish 18th, it is pretty good form but I'm certainly hoping we start doing better because finishing in the second half of the table isn't satisfying at all to me, even with the team I have at my disposal.

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After 6 games, we sit in 13th in the league. We're already 4 points behind the first team above us in Roma, which isn't too great considering how early in the season it is. Next month looks like a very tough one with big teams against Fiorentina, Cagliari, Torino and Bologna which are all big teams capable of beating us. That said, we can also beat them if we play like we did against Chievo!

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Leo Stulac is the Player of the month for August and September with an average of 7.32 in the 6 games we've played so far, which is quite impressive given we lost half of those games! The Slovenian international has definitely been the best player at the club throughout these first 6 games and I do believe that he can be a key player in the team if he keeps performing like that as a defensive midfielder, which he'll hopefully do for a while!
 
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October 2018: desperate formation changes

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One of our better team performances so far this season ends up a disappointment as we get smashed 5-2 and lose Kean to a red card late in the game... This is definitely starting to get a lot tougher than I thought it would be, and the difference in quality clearly showed between us and Fiorentina tonight.

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A switch to a 4-1-2-3 possession based tactic certainly helped us out as it's Stulac who once again saves us and gets us a crucial 3 points in our race to stay in the Serie A by the end of the season. It was a desperate formation change to try and get a result and luckily, it worked out!

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With 3 defeats and just the one win this month, it's fair to say we're not looking too good at the moment. We have had some promising performances against the likes of Lazio and Inter so it's nothing to be overly worried about but we definitely need to start turning some of those close defeats to draws at least, to get a few points!

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With just 3 games in November, I decided to do a 'mega' overview for the next update which will see us play against some more of the big boys in Italy in Milan, Napoli, Roma and Juventus. Pray for me... We sit in 16th almost a third of the way through the season but that might get worse with some of the games we have coming up.

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Loanee Moise Kean is the player of the month for October after really one good performance against Fiorentina. He did get a red card, which might've made me want to give the award to someone else but as a young 18 year old, he deserves it. His performances against Bologna and Torino were definitely average but some of the better ones in the team this month.
 
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