@Hosaur: The green/red contrast of our jerseys will look great in a breakaway!
@Eden: Thank you! Ciccone, Trentin and Zambanini were my 3 highest priorities going into this thing, I'm very happy to have signed all 3.
@Ulrick: Yea, I don't have anyone with a real chance in the timetrails. Ciccone could do something in a Prologue, but aside that, any race with a TTT I don't have a chance in GC.
@Kandes: Zordan, Ulissi and Vendrame will meet Teuns, Paulus and Gall in Gisbourne. Looking forward to that!
@Nemolito: I don't think I checked all boxes of my sponsor idea, but I'm more than happy to have signed more Italians than I expected. Also my strongest riders being Italian is a nice feel for me.
@Imladrik: I'd love to see more map things
@Ezee: Thank you! There's definitly room for improvement next season, but I'm happy with what I've gotten.
@Bush: I'm very very happy with Zambanini. He's going to be great.
@Abhi: Very content with the Italians!
@Manx: We'll give him every opportunity, proud to have signed so many IRL Italian legends. Colbrelli, Trentin, Aru, Ulissi. Happy to see them ride a Saeco jersey for our first year. Onfortunately it doesn't look like they'll stay after this season, aside maybe Aru.
@Laurens: Can't have it all unfortunately. I'm definitly not winning GCs in stages with TTTs.
@SotD: I love Ciccone IRL, he's definitly my favourite rider. I would've probably signed him if he had <65 on all stats. Very happy to have him. Ciccone and Colbrelli were teammates on Bardiani in 2016 and 2017, happy to see them riding together again too.
Ciccone's first races as a pro was in 2016; G.P. Costa degli Etruschi (1.1). He was 5th, Lampre's Ulissi 3rd. Ciccone's second race, his first 1.HC, Trofeo Laigueglia, Ciccone got 12th place, but put his teammate Sonny Colbrelli in a great position. Colbrelli took 2nd place that day, Lampre's Ulissi 6th. Ciccone won a Giro stage that year, with Colbrelli as teammate. Ulissi won 2 stages. Colbrelli also got a third place. Quickstep's Trentin also rode his first Giro that year in 2016, he won a stage and got 2nd place in the last and 21st stage of that Giro.
Now, all those years later, those three can ride for Saeco.
~~
I want to ask for your guys help, for potential training routes. I have never min maxed stats on PCM, so I'm not sure what would be most viable paths. For every talent I have taken the 2 paths that I think would be good, but would love to hear your guys opinion on them.
That's an excellent group of talents that you've managed to acquire! Zambanini is the obvious standout but I think all of them ought to have a future with the team. I'm far from the best when it comes to talent development; there's definitely several mistakes littered throughout my team's history. Zambanini as a true hybrid makes more sense to me, the gains in FL, SP and physicals simply aren't worth the loss in HL. Silva and Franco ought to become KOM hunters, I've included the second possibility for Silva because it should prevent his wage rising above £50k. Verre and Petrucci will become decent climbing domestiques, but don't have high enough FT to consistently get in breakaways. Skivild is best designed as a stage race domestique, although I did toy with the idea of increasing his TT/PL to 75-77 as that'd retain him as a decent TTT option.
