After four seasons in Naples, I am about to begin the final lap of my Championship Manager 3 adventure.
The 2001/2002 season saw Napoli mount a serious title challenge, as they attempted to win their first scudetto since 1990. I won’t spoil the ending here – but if you haven’t read Part 12 yet, then you probably should.
Caught up yet? Good. Now let’s kick off the 2002/2003 season, which will be my last at the San Paolo…
SUMMER TRANSFERS
How about that? I’ve only been at Napoli for four years, but I am already rated as the best manager in Italy! I have a higher reputation than Fabio Capello, Giovanni Trapattoni, Sven Goran Eriksson… even Gianpiero Ventura!
Of course, despite winning the scudetto last season, I was NOT voted Manager of the Year. That award went to Fiorentina boss Trapattoni – I presume because the awards committee were scared he’d go off on one of his table-banging rants again.
Anyway, I’ve now got my eyes set on finishing my Napoli tenure with some more silverware. While it would be nice to replicate Capello’s Roma by successfully defending the Serie A title, I would love to get my hands on the Coppa Italia at last. And then there’s the small matter of the Champions League.
The board gave me at least £30million to strengthen my scudetto-winning squad and turn them into serious European Cup contenders. While it was tempting to throw cash around like we were Barcelona or Real Madrid, I had a much bigger headache to contend with…
So… Gabriel Bordi‘s in the last year of his contract, and he wants a HUGE pay rise to stay on any longer.
I wouldn’t mind paying him £39,000 per week – but despite having more money than Scrooge McDuck, the board will not stretch our wage budget far enough. The best I can do is offer him £29,000 per week, max out his bonuses, and set a relegation release clause of £0 – and that’s still not good enough for him.
[Sigh] It’s so frustrating.
The sensible thing would be to put him up for sale and cash in now while we still can. But since money is no object for us, and since this is my final season, I’m going to keep my final striker around for one more year.
I’m also going to let his fellow originals Giuseppe Taglialatela and Giovanni Lopez see out the final years of their deals, even if they are no longer regular starters. Fabio Rossitto and Daniel Daino have each signed new contracts and will be here a bit longer. Roberto Goretti is still (somehow) hanging on as well.
TRANSFERS OUT
| DATE | PLAYER | NEW CLUB | FEE |
| 14 June | Roberto Murgita | Empoli | Free |
| 22 June | Roberto De Matteo | Ascoli | Free |
| 27 June | Emiliano Bigica | Udinese | Part-Exchange |
We did say farewell to another of my original players, as target man Roberto Murgita moved to Empoli after scoring 19 goals in four seasons. Emiliano Bigica also departed, because I did a swap deal with Udinese for another midfielder that I thought would work better in my tactics.
TRANSFERS IN
| DATE | PLAYER | LAST CLUB | FEE |
| 14 June | Jonatan Binotto | Bochum | £2.4m |
| 20 June | Andrea Mazzantini | Piacenza | Bosman |
| 27 June | Paulo Vernazza | Udinese | £2.5m Part-Exchange |
| 29 August | Sérgio Conceição | Lazio | £11.75m |
Though we’ve only made four notable signings, it’s still been our most expensive summer – with £17million going out of the club coffers. There’s still loads more where that came from if we need it… but for now, let’s go meet our new boys.
Firstly, here’s that midfielder I swapped Bigica for. Paulo Vernazza isn’t a natural defensive midfielder, but the Anglo-Italian’s man-marking, strength, tackling and athleticism were exactly what I wanted in that role. The former Arsenal youngster is also a great leader, considering he’s still only 22.
And if you can’t beat them, sign them. Andrea Mazzantini put in an unbelievable performance against us while at Piacenza a few months ago. I’ve now brought him in to be our new third-choice goalkeeper… just in case Frey has another stinker and Taglialatela’s arms fall off at the same time.
Lastly, I recruited not one, but TWO quality right-wingers. Ex-Bologna man Jonatan Binotto is rapid, energetic, and he knows how to dribble and cross – which already makes him an improvement on Keith Gillespie. Unfortunately, he’s also injured, but we’ll talk about that later.
Binotto arrived in June, and I spent the next two months looking for a truly elite winger. Ajax wanted far too much money for Jesper Grønkjær, and we couldn’t agree wages with Porto’s Simão Sabrosa… but eventually, after breaking our transfer record and offering a very generous contract, we got our man.
£27,500 per week. I hope Sérgio Conceição is worth the outlay.
It’s no secret that Conceição is one of the best widemen in Italy, having won the Cup Winners’ Cup with Lazio in 1999. We needed someone who would bomb tirelessly down the right wing, weave past defenders and drill killer crosses into the box – and the Portuguese ace fits the bill perfectly.
SQUAD REPORT
And so it’s time for one last squad report. These are the players who will – I hope – lead Napoli to even greater glories.
Love him or hate him, Sebastien Frey is now our established number 1 goalkeeper – and he’ll probably captain us in most of our matches too. Frey conceded just 12 goals in 33 games last season, but has a worrying habit of losing focus when our opponents launch counter-attacks.
We’re now blessed with plenty of central defensive depth, headed by the imperious Fabio Cannavaro in his first full season at Napoli since 1994/1995. He will usually be partnered by Diego Placente, but the Argentine has a chest injury, so club captain Lopez will fill in for him in our opening games.
Francesco Coco will be our starting left-back again, though set-piece specialist Aitor Larrazábal is keeping him on his toes. There are no questions about Daino’s place at right-back, especially as he’s now a full Italian international and has steadily blossomed into one of Europe’s best young defenders.
Pierre Laigle‘s morale and performances go up and down like a yo-yo, but I’m still happy to have the left-footed French workhorse in my midfield. Rossitto is a similarly no-frills anchor man, and a loyal servant to the Partenopei cause.
In terms of attacking midfielders, I’m intrigued to see if Stilian Petrov can take his creative output to another level after some outstanding performances last term. The high-scoring right-wing enigma Marco Carparelli might have to move into midfield to get more opportunities, especially after the arrivals of Binotto and Conceição.
I certainly didn’t need to strengthen our left wing this season. The explosive Boudewijn Zenden and the creative pass master Michel are both capable of great things when they’re in form. Expect them to set up plenty more chances for our strikers this term.
And here are the two main men up front. Master poacher Filippo Inzaghi and Argentine tank Bordi scored a combined 29 goals last term and will strike fear into many Serie A defenders. Bordi is especially lethal from the spot, converting eight out of nine penalties over his Napoli career.
But if either man is off-colour or unavailable, we also have Kabba Samura, who at 20 years old has already matured into a clinical finisher. We can’t forget Patrik Fredholm either, even if his good days are fewer and further between.
I will once again stick with the ol’ faithful 4-4-2 for most of our matches. The flat back four keeps everything shipshape with some help from the midfielders, while the wingers storm up the flags like Ryan Giggs on steroids to feed the big men up top.
I might switch to the 3-4-1-2 if our opponents line up in a formation that doesn’t have many central midfielders, so we can “overrun them in midfield”. However, that system hasn’t been too reliable of late, so I might adopt a more conventional narrow 4-3-1-2 instead in those situations.
AUGUST 2002
Three months after storming to the title, I wanted us to hit the ground running in pre-season and produce some confident, swash-buckling football… and instead, we served up that.
The signs were there as early as our first friendly, when we only put two goals past Serie C1 minnows Avellino. It was actually 0-0 at half-time until Inzaghi and Samura got their act together after the break! I wasn’t terribly impressed with our performance against Otto Rehhagel’s Kaiserslautern either.
Then came what was, quite frankly, a let-off against Larrazábal’s former club Athletic Bilbao Some classic Frey goalkeeping gave the visitors the lead midway through the second half. They probably would have deserved the win, but then Binotto found top bins, before the Athletic keeper lost his marbles – and likewise the match – by conceding a penalty.
We then continued the theme of making average goalkeepers look like world-beaters as we barely scraped a 2-1 win at Serie B Pescara. Even worse was to come during a mini-tour of Warsaw, during which we lost 1-0 to Legia…
…and then lost Binotto for three months. Not to mention that this was after the Champions League registration deadline – and BEFORE I signed Conceição! Perhaps I should have just quit while I was ahead?
We did get a much-needed win over Polonia in our final friendly, but I really didn’t want to go back to Poland any time soon.
Goddamnit! And it’s Wisla as well! I’m still hungover from my last miserable experience in Krakow!
To be fair, that’s a pretty tasty Champions League group for us. Sporting are perhaps our toughest opponents, but the good news is that their boy wonder Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t exist in this universe. I’m also not that worried about Dinamo Kiev, even if they still have Sergei Rebrov.
One important to thing to remember is that the CL Group Stage works differently on CM3. There are only six groups of four teams – and only the group winners qualify automatically for the Quarter Finals, along with the two best runners-up.
Our new record signing Conceição arrived just in time to face Coppa Italia holders Roma in our first competitive match of the season – the season-opening Supercoppa Italiana. Sure, this was just the Italian Charity Shield, but it was another trophy that I wanted in our cabinet…
…and we delivered it with a super performance! Conceição hit the ground running with a superb assist for Inzaghi, shortly after Larrazábal had banged in a free-kick. Bordi then put the icing on the cake with his 72nd competitive goal for Napoli. Safe to say we aren’t scared of Capello’s boys anymore!
SEPTEMBER 2002
Mind you, we almost got ourselves knocked out of the Coppa Italia at the first hurdle. Our defence fell asleep fell at home to Sampdoria and we had to come behind to draw 2-2. Things got even worse when Conceição was injured in the away leg – but his substitute Carparelli saved the day and sent us through to face Empoli in Round 3.
This season, I’ll probably keep a note of how many times the opposition goalkeeper is named man of the match. We encountered our first super-keeper in our league opener at Bari, where Alessandro Cesaretti limited us to just a single Bordi goal. Fortunately, Frey didn’t have anything to do at the other end.
Our first home league game was against Udinese. [Groan] You know what that means.
Yep. ANOTHER 0-0 draw against THE most boring team in the league – and yet another super-keeper as well. A French fox named Olivier this time.
The month ended on a high note when Bordi poured hot sauce all over the Bologna defence. A penalty, a second goal, and then a last-minute assist for Petrov. ‘El Tanque’ is back to his best!
Seven points from three matches – I’ll call that a solid start. But I can’t help feeling I’ve forgotten something…
Oh yeah. The Champions League. We easily saw off Wisla in our first group game, as Petrov took a poleaxe to the Polish defence with a goal and an assist.
Next up was a trip to Lisbon. What could possibly go wrong?
OCTOBER 2002
ARGHHHHHH!
No super-keepers here, guv. We were AWFUL at finishing our chances or just staying onside – and Sebastien F***ing Frey flapped at the only shot Sporting had all night. I swear to God one day I’m gonna slice that French cockerel’s head off and SHOVE IT UP HIS-
That’s better. An Inzaghi double, and a 2-0 win at home to Parma.
To add to my utter delight, we encountered our THIRD super-keeper in five Serie A matches at newly-promoted Vicenza. It took Bordi 84 minutes to finally breach the defence and get us another shut-out win, which took us top.
Then came another goalless home draw with Internazionale, though the point was enough to keep up in 1st place. After six games, we were the only team in Serie A who hadn’t yet lost a game OR conceded a goal.
That’s good and all, but why are we not scoring more goals? Why does every other goalkeeper in the league save their best performances for us? And just what in God’s name have Cagliari been feeding THEIR forwards this summer?!
Meanwhile in the Coppa Italia, we coasted to a 3-1 win over Empoli and took a huge step towards another Quarter Final. Samura opened his account for the season with a later brace, but Empoli scored from their only shot of the match – and of course, it was Bobby Murgita who scored it.
We also got our Champions League campaign back on track – breezing past Dinamo Kiev 2-0 in Ukraine, while group leaders Sporting stumbled at home to Wisla. Though that shock defeat in Lisbon means we still have some work to do to qualify for the Quarter Finals, I’m feeling a bit more confident about our chances.
Just don’t go making any more howlers now, will you, Seb?
Can Napoli successfully negotiate their Champions League group – and give me the chance to sign off in style? My final season at the San Paolo continues on Monday!
Here’s one last reminder that you can hit the ‘Follow’ button below to stay notified when a new blog post goes live. You can also follow me on Twitter, Threads and BlueSky.
Fuller FM 