La Sfida Sammarinese Grande

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Pre-Season 2012-13
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Good start to the campaign with a good pre-season with the highlight being a 7-0 thrashing of Rovigo. In our first competitive game we lost although we had 3 or 4 half chances and a good clear cut chance which we didn't convert so there's no cause for concern yet. Capellini, Coda and Lacarra (who I've signed again) are all showing decent form so far.

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Two centre-halfs brought in on loan: Chara will be first choice alongside Galuppo whilst Benassi will rotate when fitness problems occur. Fazio will play RB in the formation and is the only decent RB we really have and his stats were quite impressive for someone we managed to loan. Vitiello will provide cover for my three man midfield whilst Lacarra will lead the line with Capellini and Coda.

I tried to get rid of Poletti because he doesn't fit into the formation but no one will take him for the 250k or 100k asking price so he will have to sit in the club and be content with the odd cameo.

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Don't think I showed this; it's just the penalties given at the start of the season.​
 
Coda is unreal :O. Also updates may take longer because I've stopped holidaying.
 
September 12 - November 12
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I stopped holidaying after the game again Pavia because we were struggling badly in the league. Coda ripped apart Savona in the cup and got a perfect 10.0 rating but hasn't scored from open play since. Lacarra is still missing due to injury but as you can see the goals from Poletti are once again helping us up the table.

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Here's the table and we sit a comfortable 6th in the league with real potential to get into promotion contention in the next few weeks. As with the last season it's very tight at the top at this point and I look forward to challenging for promotion. Our next three fixtures see us play the dominant Cremonese, Treviso and the struggling Como.

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Internationals
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Awful performance against Estonia in our first friendly.
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Biggest ever loss, for both us and in the competition I think.

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We score an international goal.
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And the table how it stands.​
 
November 12 - February 13
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An unbeaten month in the league even if we did drop a total of 8 points. We had a difficult run in late November when we struggled to put goals past bottom of the table Como as well as underperforming Treviso and Adige but luckily we managed to turn it on in the next few matches to put ourself in a commanding position in the league. Noticeably though Lacarra isn't performing to top standard this time around.

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We sit a respectable 5th position in the league despite bouncing between 3rd and 4th for the majority of the 10 game period. The table system in this division actually works to our advantage as it sorts teams on head to head results rather then goal difference meaning that we can actually do quite well in the league even though we aren't great going forward. At the top of the table I think it'll be down to just Cremonese and Trapani as no one seems capable of catching them.

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Just one transfer in this month because the majority of targets wouldn't make the step down to Serie C football and would rather play for their youth teams in the Serie A. Leonardo Dias Consulin is our only incoming player and will provide cover at RM for Abdou Doumbia who seems to be getting taken off in games because of injury a lot lately without picking up a long term injury.

In the next update you'll see one of the most impressive San Marino results in their history as we manage a great result against the 62nd ranked team in the world. I'll just leave you to speculate on that.​
 
The 17 year old 'keeper has just scored from my own half :O.

Update should be around 30 minutes lads.
 
February 13 - April 13
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Great month with the two preferred strikers Coda and Lacarra being prolific in the league for the first period both have been able to play together undisturbed by injuries. Lunardi has also been impressive in the league. The loss to Carpi ended a 17 game unbeaten streak (which was a new record for the club) and put us back down to earth. Fortunately though the players continued performing in the league which puts us in a great position going into the last two games of the season. Against Cremonese our equalizer came from 17 year old Benedettini's maiden goal in his debut but what's more astonishing is that he is our 3rd choice goalkeeper.

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There league table showing we have managed qualification for the playoffs, a great achievement for the club predicted to finish 16th in the league. Pretty much everything has been decided, as you can see, except for the final relegation playoff place but if AlbinoLeffe win then it'll be decided next game. I'm hoping we can get a 4th place finish in the end as Lumezzane are our next game.

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Internationals
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Here it is; a goalless draw against the team ranked 147 places above ourself in the FIFA world rankings. The result carried us two places higher to 207th I believe.
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Back to losing ways against Poland. I'm actually pleased with this because I'd expect to lose by a lot more against a team of Polands callibre.
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April 13 - June 13
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The final two league games of the season and the playoff results. The final game of the season against Lumezzane proved the most crucial game in our promotion campaign as victory over them and Lecce dropping points meant that we'd end the season in a respectable 3rd position. The playoff semi final match was decided on the higher seeded team ruling meaning that although the match was a draw the team that finished higher in the league went to the final which was fantastic news for us. In the final against Trapani the odds were stacked against us because in our last games against them we'd conceded 5 and scored just one but despite this we soldiered on and managed to earn promotion to the Serie B - easing our financial worries.

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As you'll see here the two teams going up are Cremonese and ourselves, San Marino Calcio whilst at the other end of the table it's misery for Treviso, Tritium and Como. Overall a good finish for us, finishing 13 places above expectation.

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Not many statistics that a San Marino player is at the top of although the distance covered shows how hard our wingers worked for the team; rarely missing a game Doumbia and Poletti were key in our promotion ambitions this season. Poletti managed a respectable number of assists this season.

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The last image just highlights how difficult this promotion has been - far harder then I'd expect.​
 
you got any tips mate e.g. tactics etc.. cause every time I try this I fail, great achievement getting promotion btw
 
Congrats mate, solid effort :)

Thinking of giving this challenge a go, hard to get into anything atm
 
Pezz96 said:
you got any tips mate e.g. tactics etc.. cause every time I try this I fail, great achievement getting promotion btw
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Strengthen the squad with loans and find a decent tactic. I'm using a version of Modern Warfare I've tweaked at the minute which I used in my Monaco save and it works a treat.
 
Pre-Season 2013/14
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A pretty good pre-season all in all, the highlight of which being our 7-1 thrashing of Internazionale's reserve team. A worrying start with 3 losses in 3 but that was obviously the new signings just getting used to my tactics. A big talking point is the Italian Cup which I'm not sure if I want to be in or not. Obviously it'll bring in big amounts of money to ease the financial crisis but with my paper thin squad I don't know if we'll be able to handle the rigors of a 42 game league season. The final match in the Italian Cup shown here was against former Serie A team Sampdoria who still had stars such as Andrea Poli in their starting eleven but amazingly we beat them performance-wise (no hoofball here) and where it counted which makes me think the 100-1 odds of promotion may be more unreasonable then you all may think.

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The transfers - once again dominated by loans. Chara was brought in despite having an injury plagued season with us last year as well as AC Milan reserve Diniz who can both play at CB. Consulin and Mannini also return to San Marino Calcio this season despite the former struggling to break into the side in his first season. Perhaps most pleasingly of all Bologna loanee Capellini joins on a free after his contract with the Serie A giants expired.

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Finally the sort of teams we'll be up against this season. We get the campaign started with a home match against Pro Vercelli at the 24th of August.
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August 13 - October 13
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Our first ten games in Serie B shows we have a side that will either win or lose the majority of games with few draws in between which could be helpful in our quest to be promoted. A good bit of news is that we are unbeaten at the Olympico in the Serie B - something I aim to hold on to all season because that is pivotal in any teams promotion ambitions. In the games from Spezia to Cittadella we were missing commanding centre-back Ricardo Chara due to injury so I was stuck playing Diniz who, to be quite frank, is no where near as good as any of the other centre-backs in the squad.

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After ten games we sit 5th in the league matched on points with Verona - a team who we'll play in 3 games time. The games preceding that match are fairly easy (in theory) as we play the 20th and 22nd team in the league so we should go into that match atleast on level points with them. Looking further up the table Spezia have tough fixtures against 6th, 12th and 1st place teams so we could be sitting 3rd come the start of November.

In between pre-season and this update I've played around 6 international matches, so they'll come in a separate update later.​
 
Internationals
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A good set of internationals here where we managed to score 3 goals (albeit one of them the opposition scored) but sadly we failed to record a single win and as a result we didn't manage qualification to the World Cup this time as expected. Hopefully things will be different in 4 years time. On a more positive note veteran midfielder Federico Nanni scored his first goal for San Marino against Montenegro.

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England and Poland make it through and we ship a ridiculous number of goals.​
 
doing well with both club and country, good luck with this great challenge!

oh just to be ****, in italian 'La grande sfida sammarinese' would sound more natural but who cares really XD
 
kandersson said:
doing well with both club and country, good luck with this great challenge!

oh just to be ****, in italian 'La grande sfida sammarinese' would sound more natural but who cares really XD
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The traslation is from google - I can't speak a word of Italian myself.
 
October 13 - December 13
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An unbeaten month in the Serie B which puts us in a fantastic position in the league which you'll see soon. Lacarra is really struggling in the league unfortunately but thankfully Coda is more then making up for it, costing the club 200k in bonus' - something we could do without. Poletti's goal against Siena made him the highest scoring player for San Marino Calcio ever with 29 goals (something seems wrong here but it's what FM makes out) and I plan to keep him even if we get to Serie A. Fitness has been a small problem for us because I'm struggling to maintain a decent midfield but we're battling through.

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We sit an amazing 2nd in Serie B at pretty much the half-way point in the season a whopping 20 places above expectation. We could be first had we not been a game behind leaders Spezia who have also been in tremendous form this month. Pro Vercelli was the first club to sack their manager this season because they've been bouncing around in the relegation zone all season.

Also for some bizarre reason teams from Serie C2 assume I want to manage them... It's two offers from clubs of that callibre so far.​
 
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