I joined T100 on the 25th October 2020, more or less one year ago. I inherited a decent D5 team, with some oldies (Buffon, Ibra, Fonte) and someone with still something to demonstrate (like Milner). 

I always appreciated young and talented players. Not having a too good first XI, my first idea was to create a good youth sector to make the youths grow and sell them in next years for a great price. Still didn’t really dip into the T100 mentality.

I have been forged by SM playing for years, discovering good leagues and meeting top managers. I built my own ideas of football management, I aspired to reach top leagues and so I did. I compared my ideas with different ones, I always have been better to learn and listen than to teach. Thought that building a good youth sector is always a winning decision, even if I had to sacrifice years before achieving important goals. Time has never been a problem for me, I’m a patient manager and I know that time rewards good intentions. 

But not in T100, not for a D5 team like Twente. 

Despite this, I started building my team based on my own ideas. So “out all the oldies, in the talented youths!”. I made some very good swaps (Spinazzola for Milner), other ones not at all (sold Ibra and Fonte for very low rated players). Anyway, I held on betting on youths and their talent, at the expense of the rating. Season 14 has been great for us, we have been 10th, 2 points away from the playoff zone. “Well achieved”.

So I was very confident for the next season, there may have not been problems continuing my project based on youths. We already had some very good youths (Velasco, Quaresma, Oosterwolde, De La Vega) but we wanted to improve the first team, fans deserved more. So we started dealing, first XI wasn’t too competitive, maybe last season we were lucky. We contacted more than half GW, but no one seemed interested in overpaying our youths. We were looking for 87+ rated players with still some future, we didn’t want to sell off them because we really believed in their potential. This clashed with my point of view, never had a similar situation. “So, no problem if we can’t get what we want, we had a decent season, this one will be similar”.

Season 15 ended with a 19th place. Complete disaster. We had plenty of unlucky matches, but this couldn’t be the only cause. During season 15 we came in contact with different and new mentalities, T100 attitude. Think we had it, but we were wrong. Season 15 demonstrated it! So in the last months we changed our way to see things, and we finally fitted with the GW. We sold our youths for the right price (Velasco, Quaresma, Oosterwolde & a not youth for Berghuis & Ferrari). 6 months ago this deal would have been out of our mind, now we are satisfied (and proud) for it.

I may thank T100 and his managers for this new experience, it’s always good to come in contact with new ideas and new point of views. I will keep my own ideas, that for sure, but I will guard this new T100 attitude for the GW of course, and never say never for other similar GWs. Today I’m a more experienced manager, today I will adapt my ideas in virtual, but not only, games.

FC Twente has only spent 2 seasons in D4, and has had an average place of 12.62 in 13 long D5 seasons, not enough. We can’t wait any more, time is of the essence at Twente. Now, time hasn’t (still) come, but I hope that our effort will be rewarded.

Twente, it’s time to grow up. Now, I think we are ready.