Pointless Drivel

There was great rejoicing on the streets of Criciúma — and much praise for their rookie English manager — as we won promotion back to Série B as champions. It came down to the wire, too; Santa Cruz kept us honest right to the last day of the season and finished a single point behind us. Too bloody close by half…

The final standings were:

Frustratingly, we were unable to beat Santa Cruz this season; we draw at home 0-0 and 1-1 away. Our single league defeat was a shocking 0-2 loss at home to Confiança (SE). Despite these disappointing results — and near disastrous 0-0 draw with Americano on the last day of the season — I can’t complain too much about what the Tigre and I were able to achieve in our first season together.

Our cup run was perhaps a little too short, especially given the raised expectations after we eliminated Flamengo. And, believe me, we’re still bitter after losing to our Santa Catarina rivals Figueirense in the next round. Hopefully next year’s draw will be kinder to us.

Criciúma Players of the Season

The senior player of the season, for me, was our goalkeeper Zé Carlos. The keeper played all 64 matches in our season, recording an astonishing 44 clean sheets. For a player who started his career with the Tigre back in 2003 and has seen them steadily slide down the divisions, this must have felt like redemption or at least validation of his quality. To reflect just how good Zé Carlos is, there are currently eight clubs interested in him — including Real Madrid.

The young player of the season was another life-long Criciúma player, our right wingback Patric. At just 19 years of age he, at times, carried the team. His stats for the season were: played 55, scored 3, assists 18, average rating 7.17. In particular, his performance against Flamengo has him surely cemented as a Tigre favourite. He just keeps getting better.

Our top scorer was Zulu, with 21 goals in 56 appearances. The big target man also had 15 assists for the season. He was rewarded with a new three year contract for his good form and the nod as the supporter’s player of the year. We broke the bank to stop him leaving on a free, so I am expecting a serious goal haul next season.

Criciúma Transfer Summary: The Ins and Outs

Following our victory in the Santa Catarina State Championship, the Criciúma board obviously saw some potential in me and the team and coughed up a whopping £1.1M for transfers. This was timely indeed; following the season-ending injury to on-loan striker Michel, and the grudging departure of the out of contract Jean Mossoró, we were facing a striker crisis. I used the cash injection to finance the wages for a few free transfers.

Players bought: Fábio Baiano (free, no club), Fausto (free, no club), Alceu (free, no club), Ugo Casagrande (free, from Palmeiras).

Players sold: Jean Mossoró (free, to Londrina), Alex Sandro (released), Ricardo (released).

I’ve already spoken about Alceu elsewhere, but I’ve also been delighted with how Fábio Baiano and Fausto (my club captain) have established themselves as first team regulars in midfield. Both are extremely reliable players.

As pleased as I am with the other signings, Ugo Casagrande — whom we nicked off Palmeiras for nothing — comes with a weight of expectation. At just 20 years of age, he has all the physical attributes to be a dominating centre forward. As a bit-part player towards the end of our season, he managed eight goals and eight assists (mostly from the bench). The lad was actually born Ascoli Piceno (Italy), however he has declared himself for Brazil. After rotting in Palmeiras’ reserves and not getting first team football, he’s quickly established his credentials at Criciúma and the Italian clubs are already sniffing around. In fact, I was beginning to think the managers of Modena and Rimini had bought Criciúma season tickets — they were at the Heriberto Hülse every week to see him play. Stalkers!

Looking forward

With the few additions to the squad I made, Criciúma were easily strong enough to win promotion. Even though we scraped it as champions, I think we were always destined to be promoted. If we can hang on to most of our team and sign a couple of extra squad players, then we should be able to hold our own in Série B. In particular, I’ll be shopping for a spare left winback and a striker good enough to challenge Zulu’s place in the team.

Until next time: Save Criciúma, equity immortal (or however Google translates their anthem).

Life has been pretty good so far at Criciúma and I am loving the football in Brazil.

Copa do Brasil update

In March we travelled up the coast to Rio for our Copa do Brasil match against Flamengo. As I previously mentioned, we were a goal down from our home leg and we fully expected to take drubbing at the Maracanã.

The Mengão lined up with a diamond-shaped 4-1-2-1-2, which wasn’t exactly a genius move by their coach Cuca. Against our wider and more flexible 4-2-2-2, it gave our fullbacks — Patric and Wellington — lots of space down the wings to deliver crosses. However, despite plenty of early possession, we conceded a goal when Ronaldo Angelim headed in from a corner. Sadly, it then got much worse when our in-form striker, Michel, got injured. An injury that would rule him out for the season and see his loan cancelled.

In Michel’s place I brought on unproven youngster Jean Mossoró and it was looking like a case of damage limitation for the Tigre. (Mossoró, by the way, looks to be one for the future; check our this goal on YouTube.)

No doubt thinking victory was in the bag, Cuca persisted with his 4-1-2-1-2 — but our fullbacks continued to create chances. Finally, on 54 minutes, our target man Zulu headed in a Patric cross. Our consolation goal only lasted four minutes, though; Flamengo striker Obina then dribbled around Anderson Kanu and blasted it into the roof of the net to make it 3-1 on aggregate.

At this point, I adjusted our tactic from evenly balancing the distribution of our passing to focusing it entirely down the wings. Nothing to lose, I thought.

Things then started to get weird at the Maracanã.

On 73 minutes, Luis André got on the end of another Patric cross to make it 3-2 and the Mengão seemed to fall apart all over the field, having no response to our wing play. For the last 17 minutes they barely managed to get the ball into our half, until, with 8 minutes left, yet another cross from Patric flew into their box and Jean Mossoró headed home to send us through on away goals.

Epic stuff, and I rubbed Cuca’s nose in it to the press afterwards. A few of my players were unhappy at my claims that he was “tactically outclassed”; but bollocks to that, he was!

In the next round we faced state rivals Figueirense. This was a real horror show and — with Alceu, Patric, and Zulu all unavailable — we were comprehensively beaten in both legs. A freak 35 yard goal from Wellington the only consolation in a 4-1 aggregate defeat.

State Championship update

The Santa Catarina State Championship is over and it was a breeze for us. We won all of our matches, aside from one draw away at  Avaí and a loss to Figueirense. The final standings were:

The Brazilian third division proper starts next week, so we’ll see how we fair against teams we are more evenly matched against.

My first season with Brazilian third division outfit Criciúma is off to an impressive start (click here if you missed the first installment). In the Santa Catarina State Championship we have played nine and won nine, with only our neighbours Avaí looking anywhere near our pace. Life is good for the Tigre fans and their new English manager, even though I only know two words of Portugese so far (nenhum comentário, in case you wondered).

On top of the nine straight league wins, we’ve only conceeded two goals. One of these goals was particularly annoying, though. It came against a ten man Figueirense (great website, available in English) who were already comprehensively beaten. The goal was a comical defensive cock up between our keeper Zé Carlos and new star signing Alceu. Admittedly, I was playing Alceu as a centre back due to an injury to Felipe Figueiró, but it was woeful stuff. Both Zé Carlos and Alceu got an ear-full after the match, but I was more pissed off about losing Felipe Figueiró to injury. It leaves us with just two first team centre backs.

In other news, I think there’s unlikely to be a repeat of Big Phill’s famous victory with Criciúma in the Copa do Brasil. We drew the mighty Flamengo in the first round. Ugh. Next week we take a one goal deficit to the Maracanã and I’m not hopeful of turning things around. Even if Felipe Figueiró comes through a reserve game in one piece, we’re hopelessly outclassed against the Mengão.

I’m loving managing Criciúma so far and have been doing a little background research on them. Although their website is all in Portugese, I’ve discovered they have a rather good club song — Anthem of Criciúma. You can download an MP3 of it from here. Sing-a-long-tastic, although maybe not as catchy as the Sky Blues Song of my own Coventry City. Here, courtesy of Google, is a translation of the lyrics:

Remembering the heroes of the past
They wrote their names in history
Oh! Tricolor preordained
A present and future glories of

Save the Criciúma
In the National Sports
Save the Criciúma
Equity immortal
At the time of decision
A voice shouted happy
My povão

Criciúma, Criciúma
Our Club of love
Soul, heart and claw.

Will vibrate with
Your flag unfurled
Where is the most dear
The champions – our champion

Great stuff, although I’m curious about the world “povão” which Google failed to translate.

In my latest game of Football Manager 2009, I have started out in the Brazilian third division managing Criciúma E.C. — a team from the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Criciúma, Santa Catarina, Brazil

I didn’t know anything about Criciúma until yesterday; I picked them as they were one of the more promising teams in the third division, with a decent squad and above average training facilities. Essentially, given the lack of money in the lower divisions of Brazilian football, Criciúma have a youth academy. The club actually have some rather prestigious history too, having beaten Grêmio in the 1991 Copa do Brasil final. At the time they were coached by the then largely unknown Luiz Felipe Scolari.

As well as having the Brazilian leagues active, I also have England, Spain, and Italy available. My plan — should I not get bored of the game — is to make my name in South America, build up a knowledge of the leagues and players, and then move to Europe to try to build a team in the Brazilian mould. Even if I don’t manage this, I hope to learn more about Brazilian football.

Getting Started

My first order of business when taking charge of a new club in Football Manager is to focus on the coaching staff, in particular the fitness coaches. I’ve been burned by scrimping on this area before, with players never able to reach peak condition for match days. After firing a number — okay, most — of my coaching staff, the Criciúma board would only allow me six coaches in total (despite having had many more than this). This was kind of annoying, but having made them payout a £100,000+ in contract terminations, I wasn’t going to kick up too much of a stink.

After hiring a number of new coaches, my training ratings slightly improved. With one or two more coaches, allowing staff to concentrate on their areas of expertise, things should be much better.

The Players

Next up, Criciúma’s weak midfield desperately needed some new faces. With just three centre backs in the first team, I was after some defensive cover too. The board made no cash available for transfers, so it was time to hunt for players without clubs.

One of the players that I signed on a free was Alceu; a twenty-four year old defensive midfielder who started out at Palmeiras, where he won six youth caps for Brazil. I’m not sure what happened with Alceu’s career, but, after five seasons with the Verdão, he moved to Japan where he played for Kashiwa Reysol and Consadole Sapporo. Quite a step down, even if Palmeiras were not hugely successful during his tenure (2002-2007).

After two seasons in Japan, Alceu returned to Brazil for spells with Clube Náutico Capibaribe and São Carlos. Strangely, as of 2009, Wikipedia has him back at Kashiwa — had they loaned him out? Whatever Alceu’s history, my assistant manager rated him as an excellent signing and the Tigre fans were ecstatic when I got him. I’m hopeful he can prove himself at the Estádio Heriberto Hülse, in particular if he can take free kicks like this one he scored against Paraná.

In addition to Alceu, I signed two other midfielders on a free: Fausto (29), an influential defensive midfielder; and Fábio Baiano (33), a journeyman central midfielder with good creative and attacking qualities who has won bags of trophies with Flamengo and Grêmio.

Next was the small matter of attending a Trial Day arranged by the Brazilian Players’ Association. Here forty-six players without clubs form two teams and play a match in front of managers and scouts. From this rabble I spotted two centre backs who I am now actively pursuing: Leandro Falcão (19) and man-of-the-match Jaílson (22). Jaílson in particular looks a good prospect, having spent time with big boys like Atlético Mineiro and Bahia and never quite making their first teams. If I manage to lower my wage bill, I’ll definitely try to sign him.

The Tactic

I knew before I started the game that I didn’t want Criciúma to play in an English style, even though a direct 4-4-2 probably would have been quite effective in the lower Brazilian leagues. Instead, I wanted to play a typical Brazilian 4-2-2-2: balanced attacking/defending, a slow build up, and a short passing game that keeps the ball on the deck. Criciúma’s lack of traditional wide players made the decision to go with 4-2-2-2 a simple one.

I’m now tweaking this tactic for my squad ready for our first game, a Santa Catarina State Championship group stage match against Concórdia for which we’re massive 1-33 favourites. I’ll let you know how it goes.