Empoli FC brushed off the loss of their talismanic striker to work their way into the top half of Serie A, securing a 9th-place finish in 2024/25. That success saw the board get all big-headed and expect a mid-table finish in our third campaign, so the pressure was on to strengthen the squad using the existing cash from the Tommaso Baldanzi sale.
Loan departures and £4m of sales for the likes of Marco van Ginkel and Herculano Nabian left the squad threadbare, but not for long. Three former loanees signed in attacker Stiven Shpendi for £1.9m from Cesena (pre-arranged in real life), midfielder Luca Lipani for £6m from Sassuolo and left-back Álvaro Fernández from Man UFC on a free. Joining them as the window opened were three young strikers in 6ft 6in Sebastián Miglioli for £3.5m from Defensa y Justicia, Tommaso Ravaglioli for £2m from Bologna and Sebastiano Esposito, who I’m going to retrain as a midfielder, on a free from Inter.
But we weren’t done there. We spent £7.5m on Hellas Verona centre-back Diego Coppola and £1.5m on PSG winger Dzenan Pejcinovic. We also signed Bayern midfielder Torben Rhein and Sporting centre-back Eduardo Quaresma, who’s a personal favorite from my Saving Sporting save on FM20, on free transfers. But the most exciting deal may be bringing in Joao Veloso on loan from Spurs (who signed him for £3.7m and ruined him for a year).
I think I’m going to make one small tweak to last season’s tactic, deploying Quaresma as an inverted full back on the right to give Liberato Cacace freedom to get forward down the left.
Season 3 With Empoli Begins
I think we’ve improved the squad, but the bookies aren’t convinced. We’re still predicted to finish 15th with odds of 200/1 to win Serie A. Inter are back to being favourites at 9/4 followed by Milan (3/1), Juventus (15/2), Napoli (8/1), Atalanta (15/1) and Roma and Lazio (16/1). The big teams have spent big, including Napoli signing Elye Wahi for £94m and Milan signing Giacomo Raspadori from Napoli for £74m. And we still have the 19th-highest wage spend in the league, spending £475k per week compared to Inter’s £3.4m, Juve’s £3m and Milan’s £2.8m.
We again began at home to a promoted side as we welcomed Parma, weirdly on a Wednesday night. Nelson Weiper fired us ahead but we struggled to create and Parma punished us, I made changes and Miglioli cut in off the right to deliver a debut 86th-minute winner. Our first away day took us to bogey side Udinese, who scored twice early and, despite Weiper and a Veloso screamer then dominating, we somehow lost 3-2. And that’s five defeats and a draw in six meetings with Udinese! We’d also never beaten Torino, who we travelled to next, but bucked that trend with Lipani and Weiper strikes.
We then welcomed Inter, who spend seven times more than us on wages so I trialled a new more defensive approach. And it worked as Weiper’s goal 25 seconds after the break cancelled out Zaniolo’s opener to nick a point. We took the confidence from that to newly promoted Ascoli as a Franco González masterclass saw him create three first-half goals before Coppola headed home a fourth.
The challenging start continued as we lost 1-0 to Roma and Salernitana, 3-1 to Lazio and 2-0 at home to Napoli, but beat early leaders Sassuolo through González and his replacement Matteo Cancellieri. After 12 games, we’d played all but two of the top 10 and four of the teams we always struggle against, so I thought we’d done well to be 11th. That said, after seven home games, we’ve already lost two more than the entirety of last season.
Our struggles prompted a change in shape, moving to a more conventional 4-3-3 with one holding midfielder. It started well as we won 4-1 at Hellas Verona with goals by Weiper, Cancellieri, Shpendi and Veloso, which took us to six wins out of seven against Verona, then a González double inspired a 2-1 victory at Lecce. We dominated at home to Genoa, racking up 18 shots, nine on target and 2.52 xG but only managed a 1-0 win through Weiper’s early strike.
We obviously lost 3-0 Milan before wrapping up 2025 by entertaining bottom side Bologna. The dreaded goalkeeper injury bug hit for the second time this season, but youth intake star Primoz Kompara kept his first clean sheet and we strolled to a 3-0 victory through Weiper, González and Cancellieri.
That win lifted us all the way up to 7th in Serie A heading into 2026, a position that I find slightly surprising! We’ve won half of our 18 games and lost six, scoring 27 and conceding just 20. And for the first time we have players involved in the top ratings, with Weiper the third-top goalscorer with 10 and Ignacio de Arruabarrena, who broke his arm in that final game of the year, keeping the second-most clean sheets with six, which is three short of his total for last season. However, my favourite player may be González, who’s stepping up his game with solid performances in midfield and out wide.
Worryingly, we seem to be losing around £2m per month, and I can’t see an obvious reason why, other than Serie A being crap for finances. So I am slightly concerned we’ll go broke at some point! That said, the club is currently in the process of a takeover – for about the fourth time in a year, so I’m not holding my breath on that happening or having a positive outcome.
Can Empoli continue their solid form to wrap up another top-half finish? And can they even push on for European football?!
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