The arrival of the Beta version of Football Manager 2024 means that, as is now customary, we’re heading back to Italy for the fourth year to begin our FM stories for the season. Having managed Sampdoria, Milan and Roma, we’re doing something a little trickier as we take the reigns at Empoli FC.
Who Are Empoli FC?
Empoli Football Club is based in the town of Empoli, a comune in the Metropolitan City of Florence in Tuscany that’s well-known as an agricultural centre and lends its name to variety of artichoke. So hopefully there’ll no art-choking during this save (sorry).
Empoli play at the catchily-named Stadio Carlo Castellani-Computer Gross Arena, which has a 16,284 capacity and was built in 1965. They have great youth facilities, good academy coaching and youth recruitment and average training facilities. The club competes in the Arno Derby with Fiorentina, has fierce rivalries with fellow local sides Pistoiese, Pisa and Siena and a mass of other rivals, including competitive rivalries with Brescia, Cagliari, Monza and Piacenza. Empoli also counts Antonio Di Natale, whose son Filippo has apparently just left the club, and Vincenzo Montella as club legends alongside Francesco Tavano and Carlo Castellani, while Massimo Maccarone is one of several icons and former managers Luciano Spalletti and Maurizio Sarri are among the fans’ favourites.
The club was founded in August 1920 after a merger between Foot Ball Club Empoli and Unione Sportiva Empoli. The club got off to a shaky start as it didn’t take part in the Tuscan Promozione due to financial issues, instead joining the Terza Categoria (Tuscan third division) and finishing 2nd. It finally gained promotion to the Italian third tier in 1928 and stayed there until 1935 the breakout of World War 2.
Empoli enjoyed an upturn in fortunes after the war, reaching Serie B for the first time in 1946 and finishing 3rd in 1947 but fell back into tier three in 1950, Serie D in 1956 and very nearly dropped into the regional leagues in 1960. They returned to Serie C in 1963 and stayed there for 20 years before a swift rise saw Empoli reach Serie A for the first time in 1986 – beating Inter Milan 1-0 in their first top-tier match. And they avoided relegation despite getting just 23 points and scoring 13 goals from 30 games thanks to Udinese being docked nine points – never change Italia, never change.
However, the next season, Empoli were docked five points and relegated, then dropped into Serie C in 1989. Another rise saw promotion to Serie B in 1996 and an immediate promotion to Serie A. Led by new real-life Italy head coach Luciano Spalletti, Empoli recorded their best-ever finish of 12th before again suffering second-season syndrome. However, around this time the club earned a reputation for developing outstanding footballers – which is part of the reason I fancied a save with Empoli.
Empoli soon became a bit of a yo-yo club but finished 10th in Serie A in 2006. However, thanks to the Italian match-fixing scandal, they qualified for Europe but didn’t take part as they failed to apply for a UEFA licence. A year later, they officially qualified for Europe for the first time, only to be knocked out of the UEFA Cup qualification stage in 2007/08. More yo-yoing has followed since, culminating in promotion to Serie A in 2021, and they survived last season.
Gli Azzurri Challenge
Our task during the FM24 Beta period is to lead Empoli away from the seemingly ever-lingering threat of relegation and establish them as a Serie A club. I also want to maintain the club’s youth prowess by focusing on our own homegrown talents and prioritising youngsters with potential. Achieving that may be challenging, considering the media expect us to finish 19th in the first season, we only have £11.6m in the bank and a £5.1m transfer budget.
The Empoli board has expectations that I feel match my approach, wanting us to develop players through the youth system with the aim of having the best system in Italy by 2027/28. Other than that, they only expect us to establish ourselves in Serie A over the next few years.
While the Empoli supporters want us to stay in Serie A and get the better of rivals Pistoiese, Pisa and Siena if we play them, which I hope we never do.
Empoli FC in 2023/24
The player I’m most excited about managing at Empoli is Tommaso Baldanzi, who starred at the U20 World Cup over the summer. I’m considering retraining him to play up front given a lack of strikers at the club. Other players to look out for include his fellow Empoli youth products midfielder Jacopo Fazzini, who is worryingly wanted by Spurs and worth very little, and brilliantly-named striker Herculano Nabian, who I’m considering promoting to the first team. We also have a few exciting loanees at the club in Lazio winger Matteo Cancellieri, Atalanta winger Nicoló Cambiaghi, Milan attacker Daniel Maldini and Napoli goalkeeper Elia Caprile.
Other key players to look out for include even more loanees in Sampdoria right-back Bartosz Bereszynski, Cagliari midfielder Razvan Marin, Juventus midfielder Filippo Ranocchia and Spezia midfielder Simone Bastoni. There’s also centre-backs Sebastiano Luperto, Ardian Ismajli and Sebastian Walukiewicz, 22-year-old New Zealand left-back Liberato Cacace and 34-year-old goalkeeper Etrit Berisha. While backups include veteran strikers Francesco Caputo, who’s oddly rated as a 3.5-star player and is on way too much money for two years, and Mattia Destro, winger Emmanuel Gyasi, midfielder Youssef Maleh and Alberto Grassi and left-back Giuseppe Pezzella.
Having assessed those players, it looks we’re probably best suited to a pretty bog-standard 4-3-3 approach. However, I’m toying with the idea of using Baldanzi as a false nine. I’m also considering a 4-2-3-1 with two holding midfielders and Baldanzi in his more natural attacking midfield role. And, this being Italy, I’d like to develop a three-at-the-back approach, but we only have three half-decent centre-backs so that’ll have to wait for now.
So there you have it, this is our Empoli side we’ll be looking to improve during the FM24 Beta and, realistically, probably at least a few days into the main version. I’ll crack on with securing the transfer market, exploring the new features in the game, and hopefully moving a few players on ahead of our second blog on Monday.
Let me know any thoughts on this Empoli side and any, ideally cheap, transfer targets we could prioritise in the Comments below!
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