Introduction: How do these articles work?
Each Sunday I examine a different team in detail and look at why they’re a good team for FIFA 14’s career mode. The teams are broken down into the following categories:
- Tier 1: Teams in tough divisions that can push on to challenge for silverware
- Tier 2: Teams that will have to fight for survival in a challenging division
- Tier 3: Teams that start in a lower division but can hope to get promoted and work their way up higher leagues
- Tier 4: Teams that start right at the bottom of the pile, with few funds or high potential players
If you’re looking for a team to work its way up the leagues to (eventual) glory, you can’t go far wrong with this week’s selection: Pescara in Serie B.
Pescara (Tier 3)
Contents
- Why choose Pescara?
- Lineups
- Recommended purchases
- Suggested sales
- Future considerations
Starting transfer budget: £5,000,000
Starting wage budget: £15,000
Default formation: 3-4-3
Board expectations: Achieve a high league table finish, reach cup round of 32
Key player: Marco Capuano
Best young prospect: Marco Capuano
Why choose Pescara?
I realised a little while ago that I am yet to do an article in this series on an Italian team. And while it was tempting to write up a post on Palermo – £10,000,000 budget, tons of talented players – I thought that would be too easy. Pescara, on the other hand, present more of a challenge. Smaller budget (but still very strong), they have good players who aren’t exceptional. That might be OK for Serie B, but you’ll need to improve if you want to survive in the top division. And that’s another good thing – there’s no immediate pressure to get promoted, so you can stay a season or two in Serie B while you develop your players, ready for the challenge of Serie A survival.
I feel like they’ve been dealt a rather harsh hand when it comes to high potential players. A lot of their squad members are young and have decent starting OVRs=, but are only set to grow a few points. People like Marco Capuano, Gianluca Caprari and Uroš Ćosić are set to grow far less than (I feel) is realistic. Still, they can exceed their potentials and the team has plenty of excellent players. They also set up in a 3-4-3 formation, something I haven’t covered in previous articles, which gives you a chance to explore a different play style.
Pescara’s key player is Marco Capuano. When using a 3-4-3 formation it’s vital that your centre backs are multi-talented, and that’s certainly the case with Capuano. While his strength, aerial presence and tackling are superb, Capuano doesn’t lack in pace or passing ability in the way many centre backs do. He’s also got good interceptions and high stamina, two attributes that will make him an ever-present element in your defence.
He’s also Pescara’s most promising young player. Coming in at 72 OVR at age 21, his potential is 78. As I alluded to earlier, this is a little disappointing, but I feel he has the ability to put in the good performances that will see him grow beyond that. If that’s the case, he should grow into the 80s and become and invaluable squad member.
Strongest starting lineup
Here’s the strongest starting lineup at Pescara, with OVRs in brackets:
Suggested formation and starting lineup
Sticking with the 3-4-3 formation, here’s Pescara’s highest potential lineup. As usual, potentials are in brackets. Note that Hrvoje Miličević, a CDM, also has potential 75 (but there was no room for him in this lineup).
Recommended purchases
Key signings required: GK, CB, LB, ST
I’ve been a bit more ambitious this week and aimed to improve four areas of the team, rather than the usual three. However, the problem with using a team for Serie B is that it’s very hard to convince players in the top divisions to join you. But then again, you probably wouldn’t be on this site if you didn’t enjoy rooting around the hidden corners of the world to find unknown gems and turn them into superstars. As you’ll soon see, there are plenty of fantastic players in the game’s lower leagues that can make a real impact at Pescara.
NOTE: I’m making these purchases without selling players so that you can see what it is possible to do with this budget. It was quite tricky to get the following players for the amounts I did (a fair amount of reloading was required), so just be aware that these prices are the best I was able to get, not necessarily the prices I paid at the first attempt. I find a good idea is to bid around £100-£200,000 under the prices I’ve given below, then work your way up £50-£100,000 at a time.
No need to adjust the budget allocation this week, so let’s head straight on to the purchases.
Nicola Leali
Club: La Spezia
Position: GK
OVR: 70
Potential: 84
Age: 20
Cost: £1,900,000
Wages: £3,000
Pescara’s goalkeeper problem is a pretty obvious one. Their two keepers are aged 35 and 32 respectively, and their OVRs of 67 and 68 leave much to be desired. If you’re to make this career a long-term project, you’ve got to improve this area swiftly.
No, I couldn’t believe it either, but I was actually able to afford Nicola Leali of La Spezia. Though he’s not quite the 88 potential monster that he was in FIFA 12, he still has a whopping 84 potential. With a starting OVR of 70, he’s going to instantly be one of your best players, while his well-rounded stats mean he won’t often let you down. Grab him while you can because he’ll be a whole lot more pricey if you wait a season for him.
Indeed, he only cost me £1.9m with £3,000 in wages. Though his wage demands when offering a contract are £6,000, you can ignore this and he will happily accept £3,000.
Trent Sainsbury
Club: PEC Zwolle
Position: CB
OVR: 66
Potential: 79
Age: 21
Cost: £950,000
Wages: £2,300
As I mentioned before, with any formation that uses three centre backs you need your defenders to be multi-talented. They need to have pace to meet threats if your wide players get beaten, but they still need all the traditional centre back attributes as well. While Pescara have two very decent centre backs in Capuano and Ćosić, really they need one more to complete the lineup.
Trent Sainsbury meets those requirements and more. His 73 acceleration and 77 sprint speed will enable him to keep up with attackers, while his 80 strength and 75 jumping will enable him to compete physically. He’s a fine passer and can even cross and dribble reasonably well, meaning he’ll be able to cover at wingback or in the centre of midfield if needed. Moreover, he can run for days and his 82 stamina enables him to play game after game, thereby meaning he’ll get more game time and should grow more quickly.
His team (PEC Zwolle in the Eredivisie) accepted my bid of £950,000 for him. His default wages are £1,750 and I had to bump these up, but only up to £2,300 before he accepted. That’s a very affordable price for such a well-rounded defender.
Bryan
Club: Portuguesa
Position: LB
OVR: 68
Potential: 77
Age: 21
Cost: £1,200,000
Wages: £750
Now before you say it, I know Pescara’s 3-4-3 formation doesn’t have a space for a left back. However, while Pescara have some very decent wingers, they’re not exactly proficient at defending. One problem with 3-4-3 is that centre backs can get overwhelmed when the ball goes wide, and if they lack decent cover that could spell trouble. I therefore wanted either a midfielder who can defend or a defender who can attack to play on one side of the midfield four.
Bryan of Portuguesa in Brazil looks like a perfect fit. He’s got a lot of stats that will make him feel a lot better than 68 and help make him a superb attacker. Stats like 75 crossing, 73 dribbling, 84 acceleration, 81 sprint speed, 78 stamina and 71 ball control will make him a breeze to play with, and while his defending stats aren’t quite as good, they should improve rapidly because of his position. In short, he’s exactly the type of player who can excel in the 3-4-3 formation at Pescara and, as we’ll see, he’s very cheap too.
How cheap? Portuguesa accepted my bid of £1,2000,000 and his wages are a measly £750. This is one of the (many) benefits of looking for players in the less famous leagues in the game – they often have extremely affordable wages, making highly talented players very affordable.
Nixon
Club: Flamengo
Position: ST
OVR: 67
Potential: 78
Age: 20
Cost: £500,000
Wages: £6,000
The final problem position at Pescara was up front. The team has a few strikers, but only Riccardo Maniero is set to grow; the others have reached their potential. Even then, Maniero only grows to 73 and is 25 years old, so he’s not a long term solution.
Nixon of Brazil’s Flamengo was my choice, and he’s a player I’ve wanted to include in a guide for a while now. Don’t be fooled by his OVR, he is adept at a number of different skills that are all in the 70s. Let’s take a look at his key stats: 72 finishing, 71 heading, 73 dribbling, 70 ball control, 72 acceleration, 74 sprint speed, 73 jumping and 68 positioning. His long shots lag behind a little bit, but he can finish, head and dribble much better than you’d think given his OVR. He’s a brilliantly versatile attacker and could well make it into the 80s.
The effect of his deceptive stats lowering his OVR (combined with his one year contract) is that he is very cheap. I managed to snag him for as little as £500,000, and his wages were £6,000. In my tests he wanted a squad role and wouldn’t accept anything less than ‘Crucial 1st team player’, but that shouldn’t matter seeing as he’ll instantly become Pescara’s joint best striker anyway.
Now, those transfers have left us with £500,000 in transfer funds and £2,950 in wages. That’s not bad considering you can get four very good players with Pescara’s starting budget, but you may still want to free up some cash. In that case, you could try selling some of the players below.
Suggested sales
Aniello Cutolo will sell for a decent amount before he declines
Bringing in Bryan means you can afford to get rid of a winger if you wanted to, and Aniello Cutolo is certainly the most valuable of your available options. Pescara only have two players whose values make it over the £1m mark, and Cutolo is one of the more valuable players under that number with a price tag of £550,000. His sale would also release £7,000 in wages. Furthermore, he’s 30 years old and so his OVR and price will only go down, so it may be a good idea to sell before while you can still get a decent price for him.
Pescara also have plenty of strikers who won’t grow any more, so that’s an area where you could definitely make some money. Ferdinando Sforzini (66 OVR, age 28) and Mamadou Samassa (66 OVR, age 27) can both fetch around £450,000 and would free up £4,000 each in wages. Given that Nixon wants to be given as much game time as possible, selling one or both of these players could save you some headaches and make you plenty of money as well.
Future considerations – get a new backup centre back
Fabricio is free and will add competition to your defence
Trent Sainsbury certainly shores up the defence at Pescara, but you may feel you want another good centre back to provide extra cover in case one of Capuano, Ćosić or Sainsbury gets injured or tired. While these three are excellent players, the quality and potential drops off once you look past them. But as this player would probably only need to be a backup, you don’t want to be spending loads of money on them, if any at all.
The free transfer market proves useful here as it so often does. I’d recommend putting an offer in for Fabricio once January comes around – he plays for Fluminense in Brazil. His starting OVR is 69 at age 23, but he has 78 potential. This means he should arrive at Pescara in the early to mid 70s – perhaps around 73 OVR. This will be a fantastic boost for you as you either bid for promotion or try to survive relegation in Serie A. You may use him as a backup, but if he comes with an OVR like that you could find him playing more regularly. With wages of £6,000 and no transfer fee he’s also super affordable.
Future considerations – get a new wide midfielder
Bryan Carrasco offers both defensive and attacking flair
Despite bringing in Bryan, you may feel that you still need another decent wingback. Given the lack of defensive ability among the other wingers at Pescara, that’s not a bad idea.
Luckily Bryan isn’t the only cheap player who matches the criteria – although my choice was actually another Bryan: Bryan Carrasco of Audax Italiano in Chile. He’s 22, starts at 67 OVR and has 79 potential. He already has the speedster speciality (93 acceleration, 92 sprint speed) and is just as good attacking as he is defending, making him ideal for the wingback role. Added to that are his four star skills and 91 agility, making him a real threat going forward. Get him in January and he’ll cost £1,300,000, with £750 in wages. Once you’ve sold a few players you should be able to get him.
That’s all for this week’s guide. Though Pescara may not be the first team you think of when considering a Serie B career, they can be great fun to use as you aim for promotion and, later, survival. If you’ve tried them out or are considering them, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
I’d also like to hear if you have any thoughts about the format of the article itself. Did you find it useful? Conversely, do you think it was missing something that you’d have liked me to include?
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