Campeonatio, di Calcio, Italiano: Episodio Uno

The year is 1997, Juventus rule the roost domestically but surrendering their Champions League title to Borussia Dortmund at the end of the previous campaign still hurts. In their quest to get back to the top of European football's totem pole, the Old Lady of Turin have turned to me in order to bring the famous old trophy back to the Stadio Delle Alpi as well as maintain the club's stranglehold on the major domestic honours. Here's how our Italian affair begins. 

Here is our squad at the beginning of the save, I'm quite happy with the squad depth generally although I'm tempted to bring in another central midfielder to ease the burden on Antonio Conte as the anchorman. In one of the best deals of the decade I manage to tempt Augustine 'Jay-Jay' Okocha to swap Istanbul for Turin in an absolute steal of a £1,500,000 deal. 

Our season gets underway with the SuperCoppa Italiana against last season's Coppa Italia winners Vincenza at the Stadio Delle Alpi. After Fillipo Inzaghi gives us a dream start with a first minute penalty, we wrap things up ten minutes before the interval as the same man doubles our advantage. The visitors pull one back in the opening exchanges of the second half but we're never really in any danger and manage to take home our first (hopefully not last) trophy of the season. 

Following our win in the season's curtain raiser, we're briefed with our Champions League assignment, without wishing to be too dismissive of our opponents, we should be winning this group. 

We're still awaiting our first Serie A outing of the season but we do get our Coppa Italia campaign underway with a trip to Piacenza for a second round clash. Inzaghi gives us a first half lead and we're largely coasting until the home side give us a wake-up call and equalise. Thankfully, Paolo Montero is on hand four minutes later to net what proves to be the winner. A slight downside comes in the shape of Antonio Conte going off injured. 

We finally get our league assignments underway with an almost replay of the SuperCoppa as we travel to Vicenza. We have an off day as the home side gain a modicum of revenge for their earlier defeat when they take their ulitmately unassailable lead just after the hour mark. Our physio's workload increases too when defender Allessandro Birindelli limps off. 

Our injury worries begin to worsen as we lose Zinedene Zidane for six weeks following some broken ribs suffered on international duty with France. 

With our side already starting to look massively patched up, we gain our first three points of the season when our Uruguayan striker Daniel Fonseca nets a double to see off Empoli 2-0 at the Delle Alpi although the injury list continues to grow further when Jay-Jay Okocha ends the game injured. 

(Terrible Roy Kent impression incoming) FUUUCKKKKKK!!!!!

Not exactly what we need as we face our biggest test of the season so far when we travel to the San Siro for a big clash with AC Milan. Injuries aside though we can have few complaints as we're downed 2-0 by the Rossoneri. We struggle to adapt when Leonardo gives the home side the lead and it's a case of when as opposed to if Milan double their lead although after some wasteful finishing on the part of our hosts they only manage to seal the win with three minutes left on the clock. No injuries for a change though, which is a plus (albeit a very small one). 

We end this instalment just about in the top half of the Serie A table, hopefully we can kick on in the next one as well as start our Champions League assignments positively. This is all coming up next Sunday. 

Ciao for now!