This is the second chapter of my new Championship Manager 3 series. The year is 1998 – and while Cher is asking us if we believe in life after love, I’m making Napoli fans believe in life after relegation.
In last week’s opener, I took over a Partenopei side who had just slid down into Serie B after years of steady decline. Our season so far is off to a strong start, thanks in no small part to a young Argentinian striker who could become the next Diego Maradona… or at least the first Ezequiel Lavezzi.
We pick up this story in November, where Napoli are looking to consolidate their position in the promotion places. And after knocking out Parma in Round 2, we are aiming to complete another Serie A scalping in the Coppa Italia…
NOVEMBER 1998
I had never heard of Gabriel Bordi before I started this save. Bordi’s real-life career at Napoli was a disaster that ended after just two matches (he was even named as one of the Partenopei’s WORST signings of the 1990s), and he wound up playing for Linares and Granada in the Spanish lower leagues.
In this universe, however, ‘El Tanque’ has rolled over opposition defences like a tank. Six goals from his first seven games had fired Napoli to 3rd place in Serie B, and hopes were high that Bordi’s brilliance could continue into November.
Obviously, Bordi drew a blank in our first game of the month. It was another away win, sure, though some great keeping from the Cesena goalie meant that we could not follow up Claudio Bellucci‘s 11th-minute penalty. That probably won’t be the last ‘super-keeper’ we come up against in this save.
After refilling our Argentine tank, we then watched Bordi destroy Monza with two more goals and an assist in a 5-0 thrashing. Big target striker Roberto Murgita scored his first goal for Napoli, but it was an even bigger day for winger Massimiliano ‘Joe’ Esposito.
In Round 3 of the Coppa Italia, Joe went all Karate Kid on Empoli with another goal to strengthen our 1-0 lead from the first leg. Two more strikes late on completed a 4-0 aggregate win – over a Serie A team, no less!
We were into the Quarter Finals as the last Serie B team left standing. Though we avoided the likes of Inter, Juventus and Roma in the draw, we were instead pitted with Bologna, who were flying high in 4th place.
Speaking of flying high…
…we were soon top of Serie A! Our relentless promotion push continued when we put FIVE goals past 10-man Ravenna, including two more from a certain Argentinian fella. Meanwhile, leaders Brescia suffered their first defeat of the season after going down 3-0 to Reggiana, which meant we replaced Le Rondinelle at the summit after 10 games.
At that point, I was wondering if this game was too easy. Perhaps I had accidentally found a game-breaking 4-4-2, just by pushing the wide players forward. Or perhaps this Napoli team was simply too strong for Serie B.
You might not remember, but five years ago, I did a brief retro series on Championship Manager Italia with Fiorentina. That 1993/1994 Viola team absolutely dominated Serie B and the Coppa, and all those victories quickly got repetitive and tedious. I really hoped this challenge with Napoli would be more of… well, a challenge.
Anyway, we then lost 1-0 at home to Reggiana. Bellucci and Bordi just couldn’t hit the target, while our usually-reliable goalkeeper Giuseppe Taglialatela had his first howler of the season, conceding from Reggiana’s first shot on target.
And that was it. Our first loss at the San Paolo this season, and Brescia were back on top.
We were then very lucky not to suffer another defeat at Genoa. It took a 90th-minute equaliser from supersub Murgita to cancel out a first-half opener from Dragan Vukoja and keep us four points clear in the promotion places. If Genoa had held on, they would have moved up to 5th and cut the gap to just one point.
DECEMBER 1998
Napoli were on their worst run of the season, having gone a whole TWO games without a win. How, then, did you imagine we would get on in the first leg of our Coppa Quarter Final – away from home against a Bologna team starring the likes of Gianluca Pagliuca and Nicola Ventola?
Of course we beat them… well, almost.
We were off to the perfect start when captain Giovanni Lopez headed us into the lead after just five minutes. But then midfielder De Paula Gerson started an argument with the referee, meaning we had to play the entire second half with 10 men. To our credit, we tightened up and shut Bologna out… until Ventola produced a moment of magic right at the death.
That meant the tie was still up for grabs heading into the second leg, which would be played at the San Paolo at the end of January. In the meantime, we wrapped up 1998 with three more league matches.
We stopped the rot with a thrilling 3-2 win at Verona. It was an eventful first league start of the season for Murgita, who scored twice in the first 20 minutes… and was then sent off for violent conduct in the 90th. He wouldn’t be starting any of our next eight league games, that was for sure.
Bordi was back in the XI at Treviso – and he was back on top form too. A hat-trick took Gabriel up to 14 goals in as many league matches (the league’s next-top scorers were on 8 goals), and also took us back to top spot!
Lopez then headed in a couple of Bellucci corners to give us a 3-0 home win over Reggiana. Wait, hold on… didn’t we already play them at home?
Ah, that’s Reggina! They’re a completely different team – and not a very good one, apparently, as they were down in 17th. Reggiana finished the year in 5th place – eight points behind us.
By the way, Stefan Schwoch scored his first Napoli goal against Reggiana. It was also his last, as we had already agreed to sell the German Italian to Sampdoria for £2million in the new year. Obviously, that transfer was confirmed before Murgita decided that he didn’t fancy playing for two months.
We also had to fend off big offers for some of our star players. Sampdoria had made a £1.5million bid for Lopez, while Parma wanted midfielder Fabio Rossitto for £2.1million. With our balance having swelled to over £4.5million, we were under no pressure to sell our biggest assets.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s manager Gianluca Vialli (RIP) had offered us £3.6million for Taglialatela. When I told Vialli to look elsewhere, he decided to buy Pagliuca from Bologna for £6.25million instead. That might be good news in terms of us knocking the Rossoblù out of the Coppa…
JANUARY 1999
Let’s kick off 1999 with some new signings – such as this left-winger who can cross the ball well AND run quickly. We forked out £1.2million to bring in the very skilful Michel from Rayo Vallecano. The real-life Girona manager has taken La Liga by storm in 2023/2024, but let’s hope his virtual self can make a similar impact on the pitch in Serie B.
And to replace Schwoch, we signed the powerful Atalanta forward Giacomo Banchelli for £1.2million. He’s quick, agile, and can be as prolific in the air as he is with his feet. And as you can probably guess by his squad number, we’ve now run out of spaces in the squad, so we’ll have to sell more players before we can bring in anyone else.
Hey, wait a minute. Giacomo Banchelli. That name sounds familiar for some reason… [checks Fuller FM archives]
Ah, yes! He was part of my Fiorentina squad in “Viola 93”! He scored quite a few goals for that team, and I hope he can get a few more with Napoli too.
Our year got off to the worst possible start in Bergamo, where Atalanta raced into the lead after just four minutes. A Lopez own goal completed just our third defeat of the season – and our first by a two-goal margin.
Michel and Banchelli made their debuts at home to Pescara, but it was my first Napoli signing who stole the show. Gerson scored the first two goals in a 3-0 win, with Michel later setting up the clincher for our geriatric right-winger Francesco Turrini.
It may not surprise you that our toughest tests so far had come against our top-four rivals. We dropped two more away points in a scrappy stalemate at Torino, who narrowly missed the target twice in stoppage time. But for a few inches, we would’ve lost again.
We did, though, take maximum points from our next two home games. Despite having about 37 shots at goal against Andria, we didn’t break through until Bellucci scored a last-minute penalty. Have I mentioned how much I love Bellucci?
No, that’s Monica Bellucci… but I’m sure she’s lovely too. Sadly, I’m nowhere near as handsome as the fella next to her.
By contrast, Lucchese‘s spirit was broken very quickly when Michel forced a 3rd-minute own goal, and we cruised to a 2-0 win.
Having scored 40 goals in 20 league games, we were now NINE points clear of 5th-placed Verona. Though Brescia and Atalanta were doing their best to keep the title race competitive, promotion was surely ours to lose.
And what of the Coppa? After knocking out Parma and Empoli, could we complete another top-flight giant-killing and reach the Semi Finals?
No, we couldn’t. Bologna prevailed, through a combination of Nicola Ventola being very clinical (I wish he’d played that well for my Millwall team on Football Manager 2011!) and Taglialatela playing like his shoe laces had been tied together. Not even Bordi and Bellucci could keep our dream cup run going any longer.
FEBRUARY 1999
Damn it! This was not what I wanted to see at the start of February!
Even in his advancing years, Turrini had been one of our top performers throughout the season – racking up 10 assists in 18 league games. Unfortunately, a dodgy knee meant Francesco would have to spend the next two matches eating Werther’s Originals (or their Italian equivalent) on the treatment table.
We clearly missed Turrini’s creativity at Ternana, where we failed to score for the third away match in a row. Fortunately, the Rossoverdi had future Blackburn legend Corrado Grabbi up front, so they were never in any danger of beating us.
Next up, we were at home to Chievo, who inflicted our first loss of the season back in September. Could we get sweet revenge?
[Sigh] This was frustrating as hell.
Bordi had the game of his life but somehow didn’t score, because Chievo’s goalkeeper Flavio Roma was even better. Bellucci eventually fired us into the lead from a free-kick in the 59th minute… but just two minutes later, the aptly-named Marco Veronese equalised with the visitors’ only shot on target.
We had now conceded top spot back to Brescia, and our nine-point cushion in the promotion places had been trimmed to five. Having played with a 4-4-2 for practically the entire season, I now had to consider a tactical rethink…
…and here was another headache. Sven Goran Eriksson really wanted to sign Bellucci for his Lazio team and had made an offer worth £8.25million. Claudio had been crucial to our success (17 goal contributions in all comps so far), so I turned it down.
I’m sure Sven will be back in for Bellucci soon. He does seem to have a thing for beautiful Italians.
Claudio added at least another million to his transfer fee when he cured our away-day blues at Cosenza. He opened the scoring and was named ‘man of the match’ in a 4-0 destruction of the relegation battlers, with Turrini also finding the net on his return from injury.
However, Brescia had retained their two-point lead ahead of a crucial clash at the San Paolo. A home win would return us to 1st place, but defeat would put ‘Le Rondinelle’ in firm control of the title race.
It was actually Brescia who started better, missing a couple of early chances before our high-pressing started to put them under pressure. Michel then gave us the lead by converting Gerson’s through-ball just before half-time, and we stayed calm in the second half to close it out. That’s how you manage a game, folks!
And that’s how you take your team back to the top of Serie B! With almost two-thirds of the season complete, it will surely take an incredible collapse for the league’s best attack and meanest defence to NOT get promoted. Of course, this is a Fuller FM story, so you can never say never…
Can Napoli secure an instant return to Serie A? Please come back next Friday to find out, as my first season at the San Paolo reaches its climax!
Fuller FM 