Robinho Lazaró had settled very nicely into the Italian lifestyle and the Italian football style. He'd bagged himself a beautiful little villa on the outskirts of Milan, and his AC Milan side had only conceded 10 goals in 22 games in his first six months in charge.
Throughout his 35-year Football Manager career, Robinho Lazaró had yet to walk into a club for which he had a genuine affinity. Sure, he liked Sporting and Newell's Old Boys but he'd never watched one of their matches before taking charge. AC Milan, however, was a completely different kettle of fish.
Embarking on a 20th season in charge of Bolton Wanderers, I'd taken the club from the fourth tier of English football and financial ruin to four-time national champions and being absolutely minted in the last 19 years.
Consecutive draws with Juve and Inter had AC Milan sitting a healthy 14 points clear at the top of Serie A, still unbeaten and with a game in hand. But a surprising progression to the Champions League semi-finals meant we had 12 games in 43 days to conclude the season.
Having made a flying start to our Serie A title defence, it was interrupted by a mid-season break while players went off to the Winter World Cup in Qatar.
Season two in Italy had started really with AC Milan, as a club-record winning streak took us just three points behind the Zebras heading into 2022. A key man behind the success had been goal machine Andrea Belotti, supported by a solid start to life from Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Season one in Football Manager 2021 began slowly but gradually crescendoed to Champions League qualification and lifting the Europa League with AC Milan. However, plenty of work was required in the summer of 2021 as we had a pretty threadbare squad that wasn't ready for the Champions League.
Our reign in Milan had gotten off to a solid yet unspectacular start in which we we were seriously lacking goals in the first 30 or so games in Football Manager 2021. Our main source of goals, however, was the 39-year-old Zlatan Ibrahimovic!
My Beta FM21 save sees me begin the new game in Italy's Serie A with sleeping giants AC Milan. Despite winning 18 Italian titles, the club only has two since 1999. It also has seven European Cup titles to its name, but none since 2007. And it only has one cup win since 2011. So there's plenty of space to restore glory to Milan.
With the in-game Football Manager 2020 clock ticking past 20 years, a new challenge was afoot as title specialist Robí di Lathamé took one last gamble in a career that's soon to come to a close. With the new Football Manager about to land, I decided to move on from two titles with Feyenoord and joined Italian giants Juventus.
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