The old FM24 goalkeeper injury curse hit Empoli FC hard and curtailed their push for a maiden Serie A title in 2027/28. But that disappointment aside, we’d built an exciting young squad in Tuscany and the club was very much on the up.
That was proven by starting the new season with £87m in the bank and the board announcing plans to build a new stadium, and they’re currently looking into locations and investment opportunities. But of course, to keep moving forward we needed to continue our transfer policy of stealing the best youth prospects from under the noses of big teams. And we wasted no time in doing exactly that.
Five exciting youngsters arrived when the transfer window opened led by Mexican striker Damián Valadéz. Amid interest from Chelsea and Liverpool, he signed for £11m from Cruz Azul and is now worth up to £100m! Joining him was midfielder Raúl for £6.75m from Atlético, two centre-backs in Javier Flaschi for £9m from Talleres and Nicolás Martínez for £5m from Nacional and some left-back support as we loaned Marco Albertini from Inter.
The starting 11 looks very similar to the end of last season. Valadéz comes in as the advanced forward with Nelson Weiper shifting across to be the complete forward and Fiaschi starts at the back.
Kicking Off Season 6 at Empoli
Our improvement saw the bookies now predict us to finish 7th, slashing our title odds to just 25/1. Milan remain favourites at 8/5 followed by Inter (3/1), Napoli (6/1) and Juventus 17/2). Echeverri was made favourite to be Serie A Player of the Year and he and Valadéz are in the media dream 11.
For the fourth successive season, we started against a newly promoted side at Monza. We got a great start as Claudio Echeverri strode out of midfield and sent Weiper through to spank it into the top corner. Weiper doubled his tally and was gifted his hat-trick by the keeper after 34 minutes. Echeverri made it four 52 seconds after the break before our keeper let two in, but a brilliant run by Valadéz teed up holding midfielder João Paulo and João Veloso put Weiper in for his fourth to wrap up a new club-record high-scoring game, usurping a 7-0 loss to Pescara in 1948.
Valadéz got off the mark in our first home game as we beat Parma 2-1 before Weiper scored a hat-trick but the defence let him down in a 3-3 at Torino and Veloso inspired a 2-1 win at home to Sassuolo. Our first big test of the season came with a trip to Milan and we scored our only shot, played pretty terribly and buckled to the pressure late on. And that’s 12 defeats in 14 meetings with Milan.
Our defence finally woke up to secure a 1-0 win over Lazio thanks to Echeverri’s second-half strike. But we conceded to Genoa’s first shot before Sebastián Miglioli came off the bench to score two as we somehow beat Udinese 4-1 from three shots! We then had our first clash with local rivals Pisa, who’d just been promoted to Serie A for the first time, and laboured to a 1-0 win. Veloso had been fairly quiet but stepped up to dominate at home to Verona, laying on goals for Weiper and Valadéz to inspire a 3-1 win.
Champions League League Phase
We qualified for the Champions League through the league for the first time, and our reward was having to play Juventus away. I presume this is a bug? We also have to play Atlético, Spurs and PSG.
We began with a must-win game at Qarabag and delivered with Weiper and Echeverri strikes earning a 2-1 win. Paulo nicked a 1-1 in the annoying Juve clash before we were fantastic in a 3-0 win over Sociedad, leaving it until the 70th minute to score but dominating the game completely. A Weiper double downed another Spanish opponent as we edged past Atlético 2-1 to go top of the league! I rotated heavily for the trip to Spurs and we lost 4-0 before a Weiper strike edged a win at home to Frankfurt. That good start left us sitting 6th going into the final two games, one of which is a write-off away to PSG.
Facing Italy’s Big Boys
Last season, we missed out on the title due to our performances against the big sides. So a tough run of games at the end of the year would be the ultimate test of our credentials. With those struggles in mind, I decided to take a more pragmatic approach against the bigger clubs.
That run began at Napoli and we delivered as Weiper scored early on then we nullified everything they threw at us to win 1-0. That took us two points behind leaders Inter, who we faced next after an international break during which Valadéz got injured. Without him, we struggled a little but led early as Diego Coppola headed home a corner before Inter did exactly the same, but I’ll take a 1-1.
We confirmed our improvement against Roma, who’ve just gone into administration, scoring twice in the first half through Echeverri and Miglioli to claim our first win against them at the 11th attempt. The tough run continued at everybody’s least favourite Italian side Juve and our more considered approach seemed to be working only for Vlahovic to equalise then seemingly nick it after a scandalous injury-time penalty award. However, straight from the kickoff, Echeverri bombed down the left and crossed for Miglioli to tap in a dramatic equaliser. And the whole of Italy rejoiced at justice being delivered.
That leaves us 3rd at the halfway point of Serie A. Despite only losing once, we trail Napoli by five points and Milan by three but are six points clear of Inter, who won their first nine matches but fell apart and have lost their last four. Our attack has improved with 46 goals only bettered by Napoli’s 50 but the defence has suffered a little with 23 conceded. Weiper is the league’s top scorer with 14 goals and Miglioli has the third-highest rating of 7.55 from 14 games.
The Future Is Bright At Empoli
The main aim at the start of this save was to develop the club’s youth academy and, where possible, rely on youth products. And a big step towards that was our academy being named among the world’s best, with four star graduates not including current European Golden Boy Primoz Kompara! But this is very much a sign that the club is heading in the right direction.
We certainly seem to have arrested our issues against the bigger sides, but still have a big gap to overcome to try and mount another title challenge.
Can Empoli push Napoli and Milan into a title battle? And can we make the Champions League knockouts? Join us on Wednesday to find out!
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