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Atalanta Avventure | Part 40: An Apt Conclusion
The achievement of usurping Sir Alex Ferguson in Part 39 feels like an appropriate place to bring this Football Manager Story to an end.
Atalanta Avventure | Part 39: Doubling the Double
January 2035 began with the sale of striker Bjorn Amler for £19 million, after he’d struggled to only 7 goals in 18 league games so far this season
Atalanta Avventura | Part 38: Eight-Two Be Sundowns
We’ve stepped into the past to revive our Atalanta series on the blog today, as we push ahead with the save that’s taken us deep into the 2030s.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 37: At the Quadruple
Last time out we stepped into 2034 on a run of 59 league games without defeat and having progressed to the knockout stages of the Champions League and into the Italian Cup semi-finals.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 36: Meet the Team
Having wrapped up a tenth successive Serie A title, I thought it would be timely to introduce you to the players that wrapped up this feat.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 35: Changes
We moved into our 16th season in charge of Atalanta having not only won a 10th successive Serie A title, but also gone an entire league season unbeaten and become the greatest manager of all time by lifting the Euro Cup.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 34 – Greatest Ever
The Atalanta boys went into 2034 still unbeaten in Serie A as they went in chase of a tenth straight Scudetto.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 33: Cosimo The Great
Atalanta’s hunt for La Decima – a 10th consecutive Serie A title – began with upheaval at the club, as our long-time Chairman Antonio Percassi moved aside with a new tycoon Ty Jenkins completing a takeover.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 32: Cloud Nine
We moved into 2032 celebrating youth product Matteo Giacalone becoming the first Atalanta player in history to win World Player of the Year and World Golden Ball awards.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 31: World Player of the Year
We kicked off the 2031/32 campaign on the back of another Serie A and Champions Cup double, hunting a ninth consecutive league title.
Atalanta Avventura: Part 30 – At the Double, Again
We moved into 2031 with Atalanta sitting pretty at the top of Serie A on a 17-match unbeaten run in the league and having progressed to the knockout stages of the Champions Cup.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 29: Billionaires
Last time out the Atalanta boys wrapped up a seventh straight Serie A title, and we were looking to rack up an eighth moving into the 2030/31 campaign.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 28: Seventh Heaven
We moved into the new decade of the 2030s on a hot streak of league form and having won all bar two matches thus far in the season. The year began with one of our players winning the European Golden Boy for the first time, which is a bit of a surprise given the rich […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 27: Unbeatable
Last time out I established myself as the greatest English manager of all time by wrapping up a sixth successive Serie A title and a third Champions Cup crown for Atalanta.
Atalanta Avventura: Part 26 – Greatest English Manager Ever!
Last time I joked about becoming the greatest manager of all time at Atalanta. Well, we’ve made some progress towards that aim with Robi di Lathamé becoming the greatest English manager of all time
Atalanta Avventura: Part 25 – Ciao Corti
Moving into the second decade of life at Atalanta there wasn’t much left to achieve – other than becoming the greatest manager of all time of course!
Atalanta Avventura | Part 24: 10 Years Later
After 10 years in the job at Atalanta, I thought it’d be interesting to take a look back at what’s happened in leagues around the world and what’s changed over a decade.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 23: Super Cosimo
The Atalanta boys’ bid for a fifth straight Serie A success was off to a great start as we moved into 2028 top of the league still unbeaten.
Atalanta Avventura: Part 22 – An Enforced Tactical Rethink
Having won a fourth straight Scudetto in 2027 a major tactical switch was upon Atalanta in the summer, largely enforced due to yet more major departures.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 21: Tight Title Race
The Atalanta boys moved into 2027 as two-time World Champions and lurking closely behind the two Milan clubs in Serie A with a couple of games in hand.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 20: International Adventures
There was an exciting new beginning for the club as we moved into the brand new Ivan Ruggeri Stadium, named after Atalanta’s longest-serving Chairman from 1994 to 2008, to kick off the 2026/27 campaign.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 19: Meet the Famous Sextuplets
Having just wrapped up a famous and very likely unprecedented sextuple of the European Super Cup, Italian Super Cup, World Club Cup, Serie A, Italian Cup and Champions Cup in 2025/26, I thought it would be interesting to introduce the main stars of this fantastic squad.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 18: Let’s Talk About Sex-Tuplets
Having put our names in history by becoming World Champions for the first time in Atalanta’s history last time out, we moved into 2026 in second place in Serie A and looking ahead to the knockout stages of the Champions Cup. The New Year got off to a bad start as we lost second striker […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 17: World Champions!
Last time out we secured Atalanta’s first-ever Champions Cup triumph, alongside wrapping up a second consecutive Serie A success. Now we look to defend both titles, alongside making the club’s first appearance in the Club World Cup.
Atalanta Avventura: Part 16 – Champions of Europe!
We began the defence of Atalanta’s first-ever Serie A title strongly, heading into 2025 in a fine vein of form with seven straight victories.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 15: Defending Serie A
Having completed the first-ever Serie A title in Atalanta history in the 2023/24 campaign, the expectations were heightened for the next campaign.
Atalanta Avventura: Part 14 – Championes Championes
The old adage of “you can’t win anything with kids” has been well and truly proved wrong by a youthful Atalanta side consisting of just one player aged more than 23. The virtually unthinkable when this game began in 2018 has come to fruition at the end of the sixth campaign, with Atalanta wrapping up […]
Atalanta Avventura: Part 13 – Unbelievable Form!
The number 13 may be unlucky for some, but the 13th part of our story with Atalanta sees us go on a run of unbelievable form that undoubtedly required a whole load of luck.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 12: Champions League Push
The mid-way point of the 2022/23 season saw in a World Cup in December, as France defended their crown in Qatar. Heading back to domestic issues, the young Atalanta boys were struggling compared to previous seasons, down in 7th place in Serie A. Another major outgoing came the next month, as club captain Dan-Axel Zagadou […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 11: World Cup in December
With a first-ever European trophy looking pretty in the cabinet at Stadio di Bergamo, our fifth season in Atalanta looked to be one of further strengthening and offering additional experience to even more exciting youngsters. The summer of 2022 saw more sales add to the Atalanta coffers, including our two oldest players departing the club. […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 10: Euro Success
At the mid-way point of the 2021/22 campaign the young Atalanta squad were sitting nicely in third position, albeit a fair way behind runaway leaders Inter Milan who were still unbeaten. However, we had been knocked out of the Champions League, which meant spending the second half of the season in the Euro Cup. January […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 9: Blooding the Youth
We came into the fourth season with Atalanta having broken the club’s record league finish in the previous two campaigns – finishing third in 2019/20 and second in 2021/22. So prospects of improvement in 2021/22 were unlikely – especially as rivals Inter Milan and Juventus spent £229 million and £65 million respectively. We, in comparison, […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 8: Youngsters, Tactics & Staff Overview
My Atalanta save is swiftly becoming one of my favourite ever on Football Manager. We’ve not won silverware after three seasons in charge, but realistically we were never expected to and we’re performing far beyond what I – and certainly the Board – expected. Seasons two and three have resulted in the two highest-ever finishes […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 7: Rewriting History
Mid-way through the 2020/21 campaign we found ourselves once again exceeding expectations, sitting nicely in the top four and with a decent chance of challenging the mighty Inter Milan, AS Roma and Juventus for the Serie A title.
Atalanta Avventura | Part 6: Heady Heights
After recording the best-ever finish in Atalanta’s history, expectations increased heading into the 2020-21 campaign. Indeed, the board bumped our lowest possible expectation for the season from ‘mid-table finish’ up to ‘top-half finish.’ Another summer of outgoings preceded the campaign, with 26 players exiting the club either on permanent transfers, being released or on loan. […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 5: Best-Ever Finish
The summer of 2019 saw plenty of change in Bergamo, with more than 50 players departing the club and a decent handful coming in. With that in mind, and given the fact that most the new arrivals were youth prospects, I wasn’t expecting much. However, I’ve somehow managed to build an Atalanta team that is […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 4: Summer Clearout
Having wrapped up a sixth-placed finish in Serie A in season one, a busy summer was now ahead with a mass of players returning from loans and several players becoming unsettled.
Freddie Ladapo to Champions of Europe: my ultimate Football Manager success
My Football Manager addiction sees me playing the game on all formats: from the standard PC game, to the Touch version on my tablet (which was, frankly, a bit shit), and the mobile apps. The latter in particular I love because they feel like a nostalgic blast back to the fast-paced, easy-going games of old, […]
Freddie Ladapo to Champions of Europe: my ultimate Football Manager success
My Football Manager addiction sees me playing the game on all formats: from the standard PC game, to the Touch version on my tablet (which was, frankly, a bit shit), and the mobile apps. The latter in particular I love because they feel like a nostalgic blast back to the fast-paced, easy-going games of old, […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 3: Exceeding Expectations
Atalanta went into 2019 pushing towards the top six after a couple of strong victories over Juventus and Inter Milan. But that set expectations to keep pushing high through the remainder of the season, especially with Euro Cup involvement out the window. Transfer business I was slightly concerned about our defensive strength, so I moved […]
Atalanta Avventura | Part 2: European Ventures
The 2018/19 season began very early indeed for the Atalanta boys, but set us up for a decent start to Serie A
Atalanta Avventura | Part 1: New Beginnings In Bergamo
Back in 2000, the likes of Fausto Rossini, Fabio Rustico and Cristiano Doni made Atalanta an exciting Championship Manager prospect. 18 years later, our new FM Series will see how their new compatriots stack up in comparison.
Scouse Boys Part 2: Arise Sir Curtis
The injury crisis may be ongoing but amid the adversity, I’ve uncovered a little beauty in youngster Curtis Jones. The 17-year-old midfielder was thrown into my Liverpool side for the visit of Southampton, given we had no other options. I switched up my formation from a 4-1-2-3 to a 4-2-3-1, popped him in the hole […]
Football Manager 2019: Inauspicious beginnings amid injury crises
It’s safe to say that my relationship with Football Manager 2019 has not gotten off to the best of starts. If this was the aftermath of a first date, I’d be avoiding messaging her and holding off on arranging the second date. There’s a few issues I have with the game, but the main one […]
Clubs we’re excited to manage on Football Manager 2019
The likes of Paris St Germain, Manchester City or Barcelona are not for my Football Manager persona. I’ve never managed any of these teams on any iteration of Football Manager or Championship Manager. Instead, I like to look for teams with potential, represent a challenge, don’t demand immediate success and, ideally, give you an opportunity […]
Weird FIFA’s weird awards ceremony
This article was first published on my Medium page. FIFA has always been a weird organisation. From the really awful activities of Sepp Blatter and co through to the modern day weirdness of last night’s very odd ‘Best FIFA Football Awards’ — which in itself doesn’t make any sense. Admittedly, I didn’t watch it, I wasn’t interested, […]
Vamos Valencia: Part 1
It seems rather odd to step into a Football Manager Story some 5 seasons into a reign, but it seemed appropriate to kick off the brand new Football Manager Addict blog with what is one of my favourite FM saves in a while. Down the years Football Manager has been responsible for me forming totally […]