Hi! My name is Pierran Shearer. I am not related to Alan but he has inspired me to start a career in football management. This is my Football Manager story. I’m 28 years old and used to teach PE in a school in Cornwall.
If you haven’t caught up with the save so far, go back and read from the beginning here
Language Learning
As a linguist myself, I quite like the language learning aspect. Learning languages certainly helps to make training, team talks and touchline shouting more effective.
It’s also really pleasing to see my players taking this seriously too. New boy Serigo Fonte was sent on an intensive course to learn Italian as he doesn’t speak it. I get an email 154 days later saying he has now mastered the language! This is incredible to go from not speaking a word of it to being more fluent than most Italians in the squad! It’s not like he was proficient at languages before as he could only speak Spanish when he arrived! Excellent effort!
January 2031
January marks the start of participating in the Coppa Italia who I think are sponsored by Fanta. I wonder what the cup looks like now…
Our opening fixtures saw us beat Torino and a strong Atalanta side, needing extra time in the Quarter Final. This opened up a Semi-Final tie against unbeaten league leaders Inter Milan. It’s going to be a difficult game! It didn’t help that we had a few injuries to the strikers and our main goalkeeper.
As you can see, we didn’t stand a chance. Our back up goalkeeper turned out to be more useless than asking Stevie Wonder to pass an eye test. It was always going to be bad! The only thing we got out of it was an away goal.
But for the second leg, our strikers and goalkeeper were back. It was an impossible task, what I was asking. To beat the team in 1st place in the league and who haven’t lost or drawn a game since the middle of LAST SEASON by more than 4 goals…
It was a valiant effort but not enough. I feel that given we beat them was an outstanding effort and worthy of progressing to the next round. Would it have been different had we had our main goalkeeper and strikers? We’ll never know.
We’re out of the cup and as I cry into my can of Fanta that I had to buy myself, I turn my attention to revenge in the league. The only thing above us were Inter and now I knew we could beat them, that’s exactly what I set out to do!
We’re coming to get you!
A few months further down the line and with the fixture running out we faced a tricky finish to March. Juventus and Inter were our next opponents.
But winning matches like this were things that only league winners were capable of! Monza turned out to be a bit of a bogey team for us as we lost to them early on in the season unexpectedly. But revenge is sweet! And coming back to win a game with a 94th and 96th minute goal is like pouring sugar into an already very sugary drink… like a Fanta. Inter, the gap is getting smaller!!!
With the fixture running out we had a huge opportunity to beat Juventus and Inter. Our form was good so I was positive about the games.
We beat Juventus 1-0 with a goal from Sieb meaning they dropped further behind us meaning 2nd place was likely. But the game against Inter meant we could close the gap to the top!
It was a close game and a draw against them was a good result.
Although we didn’t win, we managed to close the gap at the top of the league to only 4 points. Juventus in 3rd were 8 points behind us so Operation Revenge is underway!
Down To The Wire
The league was fast running out. And when it got down to the final five games with was between us and Inter. We’d managed to close the gap to 2 points after the rest of the teams in the league found out that Inter did have a goal that you could score in. Juventus could mathematically win but would need a miracle.
Our first game against Napoli was a draw while Inter won putting them four points ahead of us.
Next we played our affiliate team Salernitana. They did us a favour and lost comfortably while Bologna did us a favour and beat Inter with a last minute goal! Legends! Back to 1 point behind them! This would have been unthinkable earlier in the season when they went more than 17 games without losing or drawing!
Then the break we needed happened! Napoli drew with Inter and beat smashed Fiorentina 4-1 meaning we were now in the driving seat! If we won the rest of our games, we’d win the league!
We both won our next game which meant that it came down to the final game of the season. Our opponents would be Roma who were fighting for 8th place. I think they would get European football given that Inter won the cup. So they had something to play for. Inter would be playing Fiorentina who were low down in the table but had nothing to play for.
All Or Nothing
Very quickly we get word from our scouts at the Inter game. They scored in the first minute meaning they would probably go on to win. They were up for it and knew that scoring early would put the pressure on us.
All we had to do was hang on, win and the league title would be ours for the first time in over 20 years.
But we needed to score. Without scoring we can’t win. That’s how football works, right?
YES! Our first goal comes shortly before half time. Yahaya runs down the wing and plays a through ball to Sieb. He then sees Fonte in the middle who is playing instead of David due to injury and he is able to pop it past the keeper to make it 1-0.
Most of the second half passes without much happening. Then we reach the 72nd minute and Sieb finds himself with one defender. He does so and scores after going 1 on 1 with the keeper! 2-0. This is ours, surely!?
Then word comes in that Fiorentina score to make it 1-1 in that game. Inter needed to win to stand any chance so them drawing makes our game irrelevant! So irrelevant that Rincón does something stupid!
He flies into a tackle like superman fighting a bad guy. Unsurprisingly he is sent off after receiving a straight red card. I can’t even argue a tackle like that! What was he thinking?!?!
With the game about to finish Sieb scores another one from a tight angle to secure the win and mean we are Italian champions!
Pele < Jakovljevic
There was once this guy called Pele. You may have heard of him. He was quite a big deal. And recently his record of number of goals scored was beaten by Ronaldo. He wasn’t happy with it. He’ll be even less happy to hear than my lad is going to also beat him!
David scored 40 goals in 35 games this season! Even more in the cup competitions! He’s an absolute beast. I can’t wait to see him in 5 years time with all those Ballon D’Ors!
But that was the season. I have missed something out. The Europa Conference league thing. You may remember that we were still involved in that one. So we’ll have a look at how that got on next time!
Please come back and find out what happens next
FM21 – Yes Man! – Club 05, Episode 01 – The Italian Job
Hi! My name is Pierran Shearer. I am not related…
FM21 – Yes Man! – Club 05, Episode 03 – The ‘Fifa’ Pass
Hi! My name is Pierran Shearer. I am not related…
My FM Story 