Start from the beginning here!

Pre-season is well and truly underway. We’re in the midst of games and the squad is starting to pick up on the principles of the In the following few days there’s no real transfer activity to speak of. We aren’t looking to buy anybody as, barring any arrivals, we don’t really have the funds to do so. On top of this, we’ve no plans to sell anybody. This summer is just about keeping the squad together and making sure we get our tactics drilled into us.

However, it’s simply not a transfer window if everything goes according to plan. Hajduk Split come in with a bid for one of our centre-backs, Giuseppe Bellusci, however the offer is only a loan deal which, naturally, we reject.

It doesn’t end there.

Soon Giuseppe is in my office, asking for a chat. I really shouldn’t have told the press that my players could come to me with absolutely anything.

He wants to leave. He’d like to go to Hajduk, though he accepts that on loan it probably doesn’t work for either the club or himself, with two years left on his contract. His agent has got wind that a certain Tony Pulis is looking to bring him to Middlesbrough, which Bellusci is saying he’s open to.

I try my best to warn him that Teeside is a far cry from Sicily but he won’t listen. The pay rise is too good for him to turn down, combined with the potential to play in the Premier League in the years to come. Ultimately, we have four other centre-backs in the squad and he certainly isn’t the best one of them, along with Antony Angileri rising through the youth ranks, so I assure him that, should Middlesbrough make a bid we’re happy with, he can leave.

The Coppa Italia draw is made and I watch intently. First up, the 2nd qualifying round played during pre-season, a game against Serie C/C Viterbese. A game we should comfortably win, followed by a game against Udinese in the 3rd qualifying round, which may prove more difficult. Then, should we make it through the 4th qualifying round, we’re given a nice easy draw to begin the official rounds!

Great. Nice and easy.

Later that week, we go into our first official game. Not the ideal management debut, a qualifying round for the Coppa Italia, but it’s low key and the lower-league opposition will hopefully give us a nice easy start to life in Sicily.

Things get off to a great start as, when stepping off the coach, I slip and fall flat on my face onto the concrete outside the stadium. With various media, including a club livestream of the team arrival, at the scene, it’s only a matter of time before videos of “Bill Cosby falls flat on his face” go viral.

The opening line-up is similar to our pre-season line-ups with a sprinkling of the youth players that have joined us in the training camp. Antony Angileri, a 17-year-old ball-playing centre back lines up alongside Pirello with 18-year-old Gennaro Ruggiero sat in front of them. 17-year-old Raimondo Lucera also lines up for us at right wing. With the amount of experience alongside them, on top of the quality of the opposition, we should be expecting to comfortably win this one.

As I step out into the stadium for the first time with the teams, I await the roar of the home crowd as the Palermo ultras give me the welcome I await. Instead, all I can hear are scattered cheers and applause and, as I look around the 37,000 seater stadium, all I can see are empty seats with occasional smatterings of fans. I turn to my assistant, Giorgio Gorgone, as I take my seat on the bench.

“Is this a normal attendance?”

“Si, gaffer.” He replies. “It’s a qualifying round of the Italian Cup. Against such opposition during pre-season, it’s normal. No problem.”

“I’d have appreciated more of a welcome.” I mutter, “Still, I expect we’ll have a full house on the opening day.”

Giorgio tries to stifle a laugh amongst the coaching staff.

“What? You don’t think we will?” I ask, surprised.

“Boss, Palermo hasn’t sold out their stadium for a long time. You don’t know much about Italian football, do you? No stadiums are full here. Only Juventus and Milan can even think about filling their seats and they rarely do so.”

So I’m not going to be playing in Bundesliga-esque atmospheres, it’s going to be virtually empty stadiums for the foreseeable future.

We get off to a good start, as within 12 minutes we already have the lead. A floated cross from Trajkovski on the right hand side finds the head of Pirello who, on his debut, powers it past the Viterbese goalkeeper. 1-0.

We dominate the rest of the game as our defensive play restricts their chances, whilst we create a lot of our own. Salvi and Nestorovski both come closest to doubling our lead, as Salvi hits a shot just wide of the post and Nestorovski cannot direct his header on target from just outside the six yard box.

Then, in the 74th minute, Viterbese get a throw-in on our left-hand side, just outside of our box. Mazzotta intercepts the throw but Ngissah, the Viterbese striker, robs him just inside our penalty area and runs to the byline, playing a quick ball across our six yard box and giving his strike partner, Alessandro Polidori, a tap-in. The visitors’ second shot on target results in an equaliser. 1-1.

We limp to full-time as the wind has definitely been taken out of our sails and I gather the team around me in preparation for extra time. I tell them in no uncertain terms that they should be battering this team and that defeat would be unacceptable. We need to go out in extra time and stamp our authority on the game and remind them that they’re not playing against some bunch of nobodies like themselves – they’re up against Palermo.

So nothing happens in extra time and we find ourselves with the lottery that is a penalty shoot-out ahead of us.

Polidori steps up. Goal.

Salvi steps up. Goal.

Palermo steps up and for a minute I think he’s a huge fan of us and that he might do us a favour and miss. Goal.

Jajalo steps up. Goal.

Luppi steps up. Goal.

Puşcaş steps up. Goal.

Cenciarelli steps up. Goal.

Trajkovski steps up and I can see something is wrong. He keeps looking around. He keeps running his hands through his hair. He’s not focused. He steps up. He blazes it over. We’ve fallen at the first hurdle. My opening game as Palermo manager, against Serie C/C opposition, ends in defeat.

I know the board weren’t expecting any miracles in the Coppa Italia but they were at least expecting us to get past this stage. Instead, we’ve failed to deliver on the bare minimum and to make matters worse, I return to my office to find that a video of me face-planting the ground off the team coach, edited to the tune of ‘Bag Raiders – Shooting Stars’, has gone viral. It’s not even a relevant meme. It’s so 2017. Headlines of “COSBY FALLS FLAT” fill the nation’s newspapers the following day. Humiliation.

The days after are uneventful. I work the players extra hard after a disappointing result and we have another friendly game only a few days later. I look at my emails and find that Tony Pulis has finally made his move.

The initial offer Middlesbrough put forward for Bellusci is £950,000 up front with various bonuses potentially taking the fee up to £1,300,000. They’re low-balling, which is understandable, however when the team trying to buy is still pulling in Premier League parachute payments, we know we can do better.

After some negotiating we agree on a fee of £1,700,000, with a potential extra £250,000 based on appearances. A decent amount for a player who is ultimately surplus to requirements and had no intention of staying anyway. Easy money.

Despite the extra funds, we do nothing with it. We need to focus on being able to keep hold of the players in our squad and, with the contracts of many of them running down at the end of the season, we’ll need some wage budget to tie them down, which is where our money needs to be used.

The transfer window closes and the biggest deals made are basically two outgoings and Sam Allardyce’s right-hand man, Ricardo Vaz Tê, coming in on a free for Verona.

Our pre-season was a success, with the shock Coppa exit aside. Six victories and progress made with the style of play give us a good platform to build on for the rest of the season.

Now that the pre-season is over and the transfer window is closed, my Serie B debut awaits.

Read Part 3 here!