With Football Manager 2024 officially released on 6 November 2024, the Gentleman Ultra’s Andy Wallace picks out 10 lower-league teams you should consider managing, even if it’s only to experience the thrill of one of Europe’s most contested playoff systems.
The FIFA series (now rebranded as FC) has cornered the computer gaming market by overwhelming players with star-studded ultimate teams, virtual Panini packets and 21st century graphics. And that’s all great… if you’re a desperate glory-hunter!
Football Manager, on the other hand, is all about the gavetta: muddying your loafers on lower league touchlines as you plot your ascent up the football pyramid, rather than parachuting in Pirlo-style at the top
fare la gavetta = to rise through the ranks
Some succeed in climbing rapidly through the divisions, driven by wonderkid regens and having their scouts scour the far reaches of the Amazon jungle. For others, it’s just about avoiding relegation and the inevitable sacking that comes with dropping out of the league altogether. Less Carlo Ancelotti, more Giancarlo Ansaloni.
In FIFA gaming terminology, a regen is a player who has been rejuvenated in place of a retired player.
We also look at a couple of fun challenges you might want to incorporate along the way.
Triestina – Catenaccio Revival
It was in post-war Trieste that the term catenaccio entered the Italian footballing lexicon under the monumental, cigar-toking figure of Nereo Rocco. The bedrock on which it was built – the sweeper system – went by the wayside with Arrigo Sacchi’s zonal crusade in the 1980s, but trends in football are cyclical and a libero revival is long overdue. Can the infamous 1-3-3-3 formation – with its tight man-marking and uncompromising tackling – still prove effective some 75 years after its inception?
It’s time to find out.
Quite what Nereo Rocco would make of Triestina’s present-day moneyballing owners is anyone’s guess. All in all, though, he’d probably just be glad that someone – anyone – has stepped in to save the club from the brink of extinction.
Their new ownership has brought in a cosmopolitan cohort of young players including Omar Correia from Slovenia’s FC Koper and Kristófer Jónsson from Iceland, while Argentine striker Facundo Lescano has proven an effective target-man up front.
If you want to recreate Rocco’s system, you’ll be hard pressed to find a natural sweeper, so some positional adaptation might be needed. You could do worse than try out 35-year-old full-back Matteo Ciofani in that role.
Lanerossi Vicenza – The Paolo Rossi save
Arguably the coolest team in Italian football, Vicenza’s red-and-white striped Lanerossi-branded shirts are an institution in the Italian game. Some might remember them from their European Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final against Chelsea, but it was Paolo Rossi who first brought them to international acclaim.
In a three-year spell at the club, Pablito scored a then-impressive 60 goals before being banned for his involvement in a betting scandal (changed days, eh?). Post-ban and post-Vicenza, he would fire Italy to World Cup victory, a path so nearly trodden by his successor on Vicenza’s frontline: a 16-year-old named Roberto Baggio.
Can Vicenza launch another striking sensation to international glory?
This season, Lanerossi are built to win the northern Girone A, with a catalogue of creative players that would have any striker licking their lips, from seasoned midfielder Ronaldo Pompeu to flying wingbacks De Col and Costa. But who’s your striking centrepiece? Naturalising 28-year-old Argentine Franco Ferrari seems a stretch. But perhaps you can keep hold of on-loan Jacopo Pellegrini (23)? Or how about a loan-plus-option deal to bring back out-of-favour local hero Tommaso Mancini from Juve NextGen? He’s 19, which is the same age Paolo Rossi was when he joined from the Old Lady…
Torres – The pride of Sardinia
In Spain, the all-Basque Athletic Bilbao have consistently punched above their weight, while in Mexico, Chivas’s Mexican-only signing policy has historically been a recipe for success. Now it’s Italy’s turn to focus on homegrown talent. Or better still, Sardinia’s turn.
Sardinia is probably the proudest region in Italy. After Cagliari won the league championship in 1970, successive generations of youngsters eschewed the mainland’s Big Three to instead pledge their hearts to the Rossoblù.
One of those youngsters was Gianfranco Zola, who was four years old when Gigi Riva and Co had the scudetto stitched onto their shirts. Zola would start his own professional career at Torres, a club based in the northern city of Sassari, where vociferating obscenities against their southern neighbours on a Sunday afternoon is viewed as a municipal duty.
Torres have never reached Serie B, never mind challenging Cagliari’s hegemony at the top table. But that could change by shifting to a Sardinian-only policy. At least in your save.
Football Manager doesn’t recognise Sardinian as a nationality, but identifying the island’s talent is quite simple: just look for the Sardinian “u” at the end of their name: Mastinu, Ragatzu, Biancu, Pusceddu, Garau…
Cesena – La Fabbrica
When Cesena went to the wall in 2018, they lost some of the best young talent in Italy, as Cesare Casadei, Matteo Prati, Riccardo Turricchia, Samuel Giovane and Marco Carnesecchi – who would all go on to feature for Italy in this summer’s Under-20 and under-21 tournaments – were all forced on to pastures new. With that group departed, the club from Romagna has turned its focus to a new generation of kids under the watchful eye of academy guru Davor Jozic, the Bosnian who wore the famous white with black trim back in the 1980s.
Last season’s star, Stiven Shpendi (12 goals at aged 19), has just left for Empoli (a 2-year loan with obligation to buy), but in doing so he has passed the mantle onto his twin brother Cristian, who has started this season in similarly scintillating form.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Nineteen-year-old Tommaso Berti is one of the most polished talents in the division, while Matteo Francesconi (19), Antonio David (19) and Alessandro Giovannini (18) have also been trusted to contribute to Cesena’s title challenge.
And their Primavera team aren’t half-bad either. They play in the second tier against under-19 teams from Serie A and Serie B, and this season they’re bossing it with young stars such as Valentino Coveri, Nicolò Amadori and Gianmarco Castorri (all 18), a 4-1 dismantling of Napoli the highlight so far. This is a group that can aspire to great things.
As an alternative, Zeman’s Pescara also have an(other) exciting core of teenagers coming through the first team.
Quadrilatero Piemontese – Pro Vercelli / Alessandria / Casale / Novara
Among the vineyards and rice fields of Piedmont, there once lived some of the greatest sides of the Italian game. In their respective white, grey, black, and light blue shirts, Pro Vercelli, Alessandria, Casale and Novara held their own during the first quarter of last century, with Pro Vercelli even winning seven league titles and Casale also snagging one.
This century, though, things aren’t going so well.
In 2010, Pro Vercelli went bankrupt (again). Novara followed in 2021. Casale went to the wall (again) this summer. And Alessandria are currently on life support.
Your mission is to return all four Quadrilatero Piemontese clubs to Serie A. You’ll be playing the long game: Casale, for instance, have restarted from the 6th tier, so you’ll have to be quick once they pop their head above the Serie D parapet. You’ll also be crossing bitter divides not once, but three times.
Not one for the faint-hearted (or the impatient).
Perugia – Intercontinental
Sure, Luciano Gaucci was a controversial convicted fraudster. But his Perugia team were bloody tasty. From 1999 to 2003, only five Italian sides played more seasons of European football. These were the glory days of the Intertoto Cup, and Perugia dominated the tournament’s early rounds with a cosmopolitan collection of calcio cult heroes.
From Hidetoshi Nakata to Ze Maria, Zeljko Kalac to Silvio Reinaldo Spann, Saadi Al-Gaddafi to Jay Bothroyd – all continents (and most nations) were represented. And with the Grifoni currently languishing in Serie C, wouldn’t it be great to see them return to triumph in Europe with a team of global stars (or misfits)?
The Intertoto Cup is sadly long gone, with the Conference League offering the closest resemblance. Win that with a team of players from eleven countries and six continents and, like Lucky Luciano, you too could retire to the Caribbean having secured footballing immortality (and de facto immunity from the Italian courts). Beware, however, that Serie C’s block on signing non-EU players might make things difficult at first.
Taranto
Who are the true sleeping giants of Italian football? Some will point to Palermo or Bari as perennial underachievers at the top level. But at least they’ve had their Serie A day in the sun – decades of them, actually.
If we instead cast an eye to Italy’s largest cities never to have had a team in Serie A, we see Prato and Taranto at the top of the list. Prato have led a particularly miserable existence over the past decade and now find themselves in Serie D, whereas Taranto – the picturesque island city of raw mussels, omni-pollutant steelworks and Birra Raffo – are themselves not long out of Serie D purgatory. And things are potentially looking up.
The allure of the Football Manager series lies in its realism, but it stops short of replicating the kind of bankruptcies, tragedies and arson attacks that have blighted the club’s recent and distant past. Good news for you, as Taranto are currently drawing up plans to build a 23,000 all-seater stadium that might never see the light of day. But in Football Manager 2024, it just might.
As incumbent manager Ezio Capuano is quick to underline, this squad is built to play “the Taranto way”: no-frills and workmanlike, with the same cunning honesty that characterises the city itself. Other than that, your chairman is a penny-pincher, you have no youth development programme to speak of and your fans demand Champions League football. What’s not to like?
Victor San Marino – The San Marino Challenge
Okay, so now we’ve dipped into Serie D, which is notionally a non-playable league. But download the right patch and, soon enough, you’ll have your pick of the fourth tier’s 165 clubs.
Last season, newly formed club Victor San Marino won promotion from Eccellenza (5th tier) to Serie D, a division that no Sammarinese side has inhabited since 2019. “Victor” carry on the tradition of San Marino based clubs participating in the Italian league system following the demise of the San Marino club side that once starred prolific (eight goals!) national team striker, Andy Selva.
Partnering with the San Marino Academy, the FA-run youth system that also produced Cesena’s Shpendi twins, Victor offer the microstate’s talent a chance to develop in a more competitive climate than the Sammarinese domestic league.
Of course, the player pool in San Marino is limited, so most of the Victor squad is made up of Italians, but there are still players to keep an eye on, including the 17-year-old Benvenuti twins, who could become the defensive backbone of San Marino’s national team for the next two decades.
The San Marino Challenge is simple. Win the Champions League with Victor San Marino and the World Cup with San Marino. That should keep you going until the release of Football Manager 2025!