CM2 96-97 Italia - Career of Gianluca Peroni - Season 4

After a strong season last season, finishing 2nd behind Inter by just a point in only our second season in Serie A. Things were going well for me - as Gianluca Peroni - at Cesena. Feeling that staying in Serie A was at least cemented for now, I focussed on developing the team with hopes of mounting a more serious title challenge this season. Starting with the signing of new striker; Vincenzo Chianese from Foggia for £8 million to replace the departed Diego Virille. Top scorer in Serie B last season with 31 goals in 39 games, I hoped he would bring his goalscoring form to Cesena with scoring goals being a bit of an issue for us since promotion to Serie A. Joining with Chianese was a 22 year old Simone Inzaghi, for free, after Serie B Lucchese were relegated. Hopefully he turns out to be as good as he was in real life! And a new starting goalkeeper in Mauro Morello from Castel di Sangro for £375k. Not my first choice, but unable to pry Domenico Doardo from Cremonese, I settled for Morello who, at 21, was young but also a first team starter for Castel in Serie A, and as a team with an impressively low 'goals against' figure, I hope Morello will be key in preventing us from conceding goals and turn more 3-2 losses in to 2-0 wins. I also picked up a new Right wing back in Ilya Tsymbalar from Spartak Moscow for £3.6 million, and schoolboy Central Midfielder; Nicola Campilongo who is more one for the future.

Joining me later in the season, was 24 year old Centre Back' Marc Vivien Foe who I mostly signed because he used to play for Man City in real life before he tragically passed away... but he also because he genuinely looks good in the game and plays well, and will serve as cover / rotation in central defence after some departing transfers. The season started with the news that we would be competing in the UEFA Cup this year which I was excited about, Cup Winners Cup was fun and all, but the UEFA cup was - in my opinion - a step up in competition. And I was looking forward to taking on the challenge!

But before the UEFA Cup first round, the season kicked off with the Coppa Italia as is customary in Italy and we suffered a bit of a scare when we couldn't get passed non-league side Atletico Catania, being held to a 1-1 draw away at their place. This was followed by a 1-0 loss to Juventus and a 0-0 draw in the first round first leg of the UEFA cup against Croatia's Rijeka. Not exactly the start I had planned... We recovered with a 4-1 thrashing of Brescia at home, and Genoa 4-0 at home, both in the league, and dispatched Atletico Catania 2-1 at home in the Coppa Italia. But then we were thoroughly beaten 3-1 away at Rijeka to end the UEFA Cup dream before it had really gotten started! Really disappointing but we were missing a few first team starters and the rest of the team was just not firing on all cylinders.

We suffered another loss after a 4-1 defeat away to Roma in the league, but then started to recover some form with good wins over Vicenza, Bari and Castel di Sangro as well as a great 2-1 win over Lazio in the 3rd Round of the Coppa Italia. This was followed by draws against Fiorentina - a team I was genuinely starting to hate playing... - and Inter, which on balance were not bad results, a 3-0 loss to Cremonese which was a bad result... as well as losses to Milan and Lazio, but wins over Verona, Atalanta and Sampdoria. With 8 wins and 2 draws from our first 15 games we sat at a respectable 4th in the table by January.

In the interim period though, progress in the Coppa Italia was going well. We knocked Roma out in the Quarter Final stage 3-0 on aggregate to set up a Semi Final tie against Bari. We then drew with Venezia in the league, but went on a great run of form, beating Juventus 3-0 and Inter 3-1. In between we may have gotten thrashed 5-1 by Brescia but Morello did get sent off and we were playing a Centre Back in nets... so I'm not counting it! We comfortably beat Bari 3-0 away in the first leg of the Semi before coming away with an unlucky 2-2 draw at Genoa where we bossed the game but conceded a goal in the 73rd minute to lose our grip on all three points... The team responded with an outstanding 6-1 win over Roma followed by a brilliant 4-1 win at home to Bari in the second leg meaning we had made it to another cup final and had a second opportunity at winning the Coppa Italia. This time against Serie A's Sampdoria.

By weird coincidence, that meant us playing Sampdoria three times in a row! Cup Final Leg 1 on the 20th April, Serie A fixture away on the 23rd April, and Cup Final Leg 2 on the 1st May! Before the final though, I continued to focus on the league, but after picking up 3 draws at Vicenza, Bari, and Castel di Sangro, followed by a loss to Fiorentina, any hope of really challenging Juventus and Inter above us in the league was looking faint. We beat Cremonese 1-0, drew with Verona 2-2 and a magnificent 5-0 win over Milan kept us there or there abouts but both Juventus and Inter were not dropping points with Inter having a 11 point lead over us in 1st. In the Sampdoria series we drew our first game and first leg of the Cup Final 3-3 which was really frustrating as we were 2-1 down before an 88th minute penalty to us followed by 2 more goals in the 90th minute! But we went into Leg 2 with the away goal advantage. We easily bettered Sampdoria in the league fixture 3-1 which made me wonder why it had been so hard in the cup fixture. However when it came to playing Leg 2 back at our place we gave the (checks notes) the.. Blue Circled? Fair enough... the Blue Circled a footballing lesson.

2 goals from Giovanni Bosi, 2 goals from Vicenzo Chianese and a goal from Simone Inzaghi and we lifted the Coppa Italia for the second time in 3 years. I was delighted, the board was delighted, the fans were, presumably, delighted? But we added a third trophy to our collection and staked a place in next seasons Suppacoppa Italia! But who would be joining us?! Maybe buoyed by the cup win, we picked up strong wins against Lazio, Atalanta and Venezia to score 9 points from the last 12, meanwhile Inter were starting to slip, losing to Venezia and Juventus and picking up a draw against Bologna which saw Juventus leapfrog them to 1st. Mathematically we had no way of catching either team, with Inter holding a 3 point advantage as we went into the final game but despite Inter losing 4-0 against Vicenza, we only picked up a 1-1 draw at Bologna meaning we finished 3rd but with a 4 lead over Lazio in 4th.

With 18 wins from 34 games I was happy with the teams performance this season and although never really quite competing with Inter or Juventus for the title we were mixing it up in the right half of the table! And we added a 2nd Coppa Italia to the trophy cabinet in the same season so things were definitely going in the right direction. Player of the season was Centre Back: Luis Savio who had been a bit of a rotation / fringe player last season but had cemented a place in the first team ahead of Stankovic who's form had seriously dipped. With 12 goals in 39 games, Savio was sometimes more lethal than our strike force! And at 23 I'm hoping we can hang on to him for a couple more seasons yet if he continues on such a rich vein of form.

Top Goalscorer was new signing Vincenzo Chianese with 19 goals in 40 games and although not quite on par with his goal tally at Foggia he was adjusting well to his first season in Serie A and I fancy him to get better. He'll certainly stay after Bizzari had a poor season this year, barely creeping into double figures in terms of goals and potentially may leave the club at the end of the season as his contract is up for renewal.

Karl Petter Loeken lead the way with the most assists; 17 in 23 games although he competes with new signing Tsymbalar for his place in the squad and the good majority of his assists coming from set pieces. At 33 I suspect he may struggle for his place next season and I see Tsymbalar playing a more active role.

At the end of season awards, Luis Savio was awarded Player of the Year. And in my opinion rightly so as he had a massive season for a Centre Back. But I was mildly surprised to see Nicola Campilongo awarded Young Player of the Year! In my opinion he had a fairly average season for us and only dipped in when we had an injury! But taking this into account, I might try and feature him more next season and see if there's an undiscovered, untapped talent lurking in my squad!

With my sights firmly fixed on beating Juventus to claim my first Suppacoppa Italia next season as well as competing in Europe again, returning to the Cup Winners Cup, there are areas of the squad where I want to strengthen. I brought in new goalkeeper Yurij Afanasenko from IK Start in Belarus for £300k towards the end of the league campaign, initially as a back up to Morello after we sold Prunea back to Romania, but with some promising performances, Afanasenko might just find himself pushing Morello for the Number 1 spot! I also need to add some squad depth up front and potentially look to bring in a back up to Bosi on left wing, however I'm largely happy with the rest of the team and I'll only make signings that I think improve on backup / fringe players we already have. Otherwise though a successful season and despite crashing out the UEFA Cup in the first round, I'm pleased with how the rest of it went.