I’ve started, so I’ll finish: Winding things up with Pisa

It was a love affair that started so hot and heavy, may end hot and heavy, but the months in between just weren’t kind.

New models came along. FIFA raised its head with the lack of European Championships. The Last Of Us played its part too (what a pun), stealing ten hours here and ten hours there. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint eventually surfaced, stealing another 30 hours. Even Need For Speed Heat got a look-in, UFC 4 nabbed ten hours , Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, the list goes on.

All the while, the dressing room at the Arena Garibaldi was calling.

The difference with the games listed above and the likes of Football Manager is in how the game is played. FM, for me at least, is not a quick in-and-out affair. Even in the earliest of Football Manager days and Championship Manager before that, when you played, you played for keeps. Hours, days sometimes.

Maybe I need to adjust, allow myself a few games a night and kick on from there. For FM21, I think I’ve got the formula that will work.

For FM20 though, I’ve got some serious unfinished business in a season that began way back in January. With eight or nine games left to play in my inaugural season at Pisa, I find myself just outside automatic promotion spots.

Having taken over the club with a mission to avoid relegation, maybe establish the side as decent Serie B operators within a season or two and press on from there, I find myself on the cusp of glory with a berth in Serie A now a real possibility.

Whoever comes after me will have their hands full, but this month, the job gets done.

I know it gets done as I’ve booked a week off work to tackle a whole raft of tasks and finishing up with Pisa in time for the beta release of FM21, then we start the cycle all over again.

I’m kicking off again on Sunday 8 November and you can keep an eye on tweets here to see how things are going “live”.