gogogo golem
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Unbelievable. I was shouting YEEEESSSS for ages and thumping the air.
NOT Another San Marino Story
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kandersson
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San Marino: European Champions
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We did it! After only 13 years since my appointment the tiny San Marino - once ranked 208th in WR - have not only become an international powerhouse but also have won a major tournament. SM had a truly impressive campaign at EURO 2024 and fully deserved the championship after a number of excellent performances against the best teams in the continent.
The whole San Marino team performed greatly, consistently displaying entertaining attacking football as many of their players enjoyed individual success during the competition:
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Luca Tagliani, Niko Micheli, Matteo Leonardi, Gianluca Macina and Alessandro Paolone were selected in the European Championship Dream Team while Carlo Vignoli, Francesco Toniolo and Manuel Conti were selected among the subsitutes. The legendary Alessandro Paolone won both Top Scorer and Best Player awards (Macina and Leonardi completed an all-Sammarinese podium) setting new records for the competion for goals (12) and assists (7). This had to be one of the best individual performances in a major international tournament in the history of football!
After their EURO triumph San Marino reached an all-time best 2nd place in World Rankings, but there were even better news for the NT:
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This probably has to do with our new status of international superpower, well apparently EVERY player of ANY age with dual Sammarinese/Italian nationality is now willing to commit to San Marino! Actually they're stating that they "would only consider a call-up from San Marino" or "want to wait for a chance with San Marino before committing to Italy"! Couldn't hope for a better reward after all these years, believe me this means more than winning a World Cup to me... Welcome to my world, Italy!
We did it! After only 13 years since my appointment the tiny San Marino - once ranked 208th in WR - have not only become an international powerhouse but also have won a major tournament. SM had a truly impressive campaign at EURO 2024 and fully deserved the championship after a number of excellent performances against the best teams in the continent.
The whole San Marino team performed greatly, consistently displaying entertaining attacking football as many of their players enjoyed individual success during the competition:
View attachment 275239View attachment 275240View attachment 275241
Luca Tagliani, Niko Micheli, Matteo Leonardi, Gianluca Macina and Alessandro Paolone were selected in the European Championship Dream Team while Carlo Vignoli, Francesco Toniolo and Manuel Conti were selected among the subsitutes. The legendary Alessandro Paolone won both Top Scorer and Best Player awards (Macina and Leonardi completed an all-Sammarinese podium) setting new records for the competion for goals (12) and assists (7). This had to be one of the best individual performances in a major international tournament in the history of football!
After their EURO triumph San Marino reached an all-time best 2nd place in World Rankings, but there were even better news for the NT:
View attachment 275242View attachment 275243View attachment 275244
This probably has to do with our new status of international superpower, well apparently EVERY player of ANY age with dual Sammarinese/Italian nationality is now willing to commit to San Marino! Actually they're stating that they "would only consider a call-up from San Marino" or "want to wait for a chance with San Marino before committing to Italy"! Couldn't hope for a better reward after all these years, believe me this means more than winning a World Cup to me... Welcome to my world, Italy!
gogogo golem
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Now you don't have to put so many more careers in limbo and can start to go SM only. I'm so happy for you as well, the Italy manager must be crying quietly in his office.
kandersson
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Top Of The World
After a good start in the World Cup qualifiers (and we do have a tough group) San Marino have reached first place in World Rankings! Here are latest WR as of January 2025:
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This has been a very consuming season so far: I have started to use mostly Sammarinese players at the club (though the strict Cantera Policy will only start in season 2025/2026) and things have not been as easy as in the past! For the first time in 8 years Serie A might be a close affair, IF we win the league at all (currently first place with only two points of margin).
Also, now that I can use almost every SM player including dual nationality starlets (exceptions are those who were already in Italy U21 team and are still there, they're only three players now, quite good though) I have decided to fire the U21 and U19 NT managers and took over both roles! I have only played a few friendlies so far but results were encouraging for sure, beating the likes of Holland and Ukraine! My long term goal would be qualifying for the U21 European Championships and then for the Olympics, as well as the U20 World Cup. Time consuming as I said before, but that's the most entertaining part of this challenge for me! Not sure I can accomplish that before FM13 comes out though...
Next update at the end of season 2024/2025, then the NT will be busy with the Confederations Cup
View attachment 276254
This has been a very consuming season so far: I have started to use mostly Sammarinese players at the club (though the strict Cantera Policy will only start in season 2025/2026) and things have not been as easy as in the past! For the first time in 8 years Serie A might be a close affair, IF we win the league at all (currently first place with only two points of margin).
Also, now that I can use almost every SM player including dual nationality starlets (exceptions are those who were already in Italy U21 team and are still there, they're only three players now, quite good though) I have decided to fire the U21 and U19 NT managers and took over both roles! I have only played a few friendlies so far but results were encouraging for sure, beating the likes of Holland and Ukraine! My long term goal would be qualifying for the U21 European Championships and then for the Olympics, as well as the U20 World Cup. Time consuming as I said before, but that's the most entertaining part of this challenge for me! Not sure I can accomplish that before FM13 comes out though...
Next update at the end of season 2024/2025, then the NT will be busy with the Confederations Cup
gogogo golem
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You're on top of the world and if you make the semis of the U21 Euros you compete in the Olympics.
kandersson
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yeah we missed upcoming U21 Euros though as SM never made it past the 1st qualifying round, can't blame former manager as he never had much talent to work with
. I think next U21 championship is in 2027, not sure I can go on that far with FM13 coming so soon...In other news I just had the worst youth income EVER, actually there were four very good prospects but were FULLY Italians! The SM prospects were absolutely hopeless except for a good GK (which I don't need atm) and a decent defensive midfielder (I have so many of them it's getting ridiculous!). This game always seems to find new ways to screw SM, oh well who cares I have all my former defectors available now (H)
kandersson
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Angry April: Worst Month Ever
A very entertaining season is coming to an end (update soon), probably most fun season in my whole SM career! Managing the U21 & U19 national teams and implementing a strict cantera policy at the club since January took the "San Marino experience" to a new level, now that's some challenge...
All in all this has been a successful season so far for the club and NT's, though I have to say last April has been absolutely awful for us. After years of excellent youth intakes this season's recruits were really disappointing, but I guess that's supposed to happen now and then. Still have lots of young players to develop and even most promising prospects with dual nationality have already committed to SM, can't really complain.
In April the club had to face Champions League quarter final against Sevilla (good team, not great though), and despite dominating the first leg our all-Sammarinese squad ended with a 0-1 loss in Serravalle (typical night when Alessandro Paolone decides to miss 10 times one-on-one with the keeper, still love him though !). I was confident we could turn things round in second leg, but this happened:
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After 20 minutes our goalkeeper Carlo Vignoli was shown a red card for a very suspect handball, as we only managed a 0-0 that wasn't enough to advance to the semi final. After my angry comments about the incident the FA was 'surprisingly quiet on the issue' as 'replays have since shown that the officials may have got the decision wrong'. Even more frustrating, Sevilla keeper Matej Delac was again man of the match with a 9.6 rating and a string of ridiculuous saves...
Oh well we can concentrate on other things now: we have to seal our Serie A title, prepare for next Confederations Cup, develop our young players etc. Then in a week's time things like this happen:
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Matteo Leonardi will be out 4 months with a broken foot and will miss the Confederations Cup! Not only that as he might significantly decline as a player during such a long injury. This is terrible news for club & country, Leonardi is a key figure for us and was one of the best performers at last EUROs (even shortlisted for Golden Ball at the end of the year). He's clearly our best option at the left-footed AMR position, not sure how I'm going to replace him tbh.
In other terrible news young trequartista Davide Casadei suffered a torn calf and will miss 3 months of action -including the Conf Cup of course. To be honest Casadei would be currently 3rd choice AML after Gianluca Macina and Emanuele Bartoloni, nonetheless I'm really concerned about his injury: touted as the next Francesco Totti during his time with Italy U21, Casadei certainly has great upside and a bright future for SM but this injury (not the first unfortunately) could harm his long-term development, meaning he might never fulfill his potential.
Leave my SM players alone
!!!
All in all this has been a successful season so far for the club and NT's, though I have to say last April has been absolutely awful for us. After years of excellent youth intakes this season's recruits were really disappointing, but I guess that's supposed to happen now and then. Still have lots of young players to develop and even most promising prospects with dual nationality have already committed to SM, can't really complain.
In April the club had to face Champions League quarter final against Sevilla (good team, not great though), and despite dominating the first leg our all-Sammarinese squad ended with a 0-1 loss in Serravalle (typical night when Alessandro Paolone decides to miss 10 times one-on-one with the keeper, still love him though !). I was confident we could turn things round in second leg, but this happened:
View attachment 276485View attachment 276486
After 20 minutes our goalkeeper Carlo Vignoli was shown a red card for a very suspect handball, as we only managed a 0-0 that wasn't enough to advance to the semi final. After my angry comments about the incident the FA was 'surprisingly quiet on the issue' as 'replays have since shown that the officials may have got the decision wrong'. Even more frustrating, Sevilla keeper Matej Delac was again man of the match with a 9.6 rating and a string of ridiculuous saves...
Oh well we can concentrate on other things now: we have to seal our Serie A title, prepare for next Confederations Cup, develop our young players etc. Then in a week's time things like this happen:
View attachment 276487View attachment 276488
Matteo Leonardi will be out 4 months with a broken foot and will miss the Confederations Cup! Not only that as he might significantly decline as a player during such a long injury. This is terrible news for club & country, Leonardi is a key figure for us and was one of the best performers at last EUROs (even shortlisted for Golden Ball at the end of the year). He's clearly our best option at the left-footed AMR position, not sure how I'm going to replace him tbh.
In other terrible news young trequartista Davide Casadei suffered a torn calf and will miss 3 months of action -including the Conf Cup of course. To be honest Casadei would be currently 3rd choice AML after Gianluca Macina and Emanuele Bartoloni, nonetheless I'm really concerned about his injury: touted as the next Francesco Totti during his time with Italy U21, Casadei certainly has great upside and a bright future for SM but this injury (not the first unfortunately) could harm his long-term development, meaning he might never fulfill his potential.
Leave my SM players alone
!!!gogogo golem
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Dreadful month and I feel some of your pain. Haven't you still got Scarano or Vitiello for AMR though?
kandersson
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yep Scarano will most likely start at AMR for the Conf Cup, he's a good playmaker and a solid performer but never really changes the course of a match the way Leonardi does. Vitiello has been pushed out of the NT by the new group of ex-defectors, should have joined the squad many years ago, he'd have 100+ caps by now like fellow stars of his class Tagliani and Micheli...
kandersson
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Club Season 2024/2025: Testing The Cantera Policy
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Make it 9 consecutive Serie A titles for San Marino, as we won the league quite comfortably despite a less than stellar first half of the season. Curiously the team really started to fly after the X-mas break, when I decided to test the famous Cantera Policy - ie using only Sammarinese players in competitive matches (I did use foreigners in emergency situations as I had no real depth, as many SM players were out on loan this year). Team chemistry and morale really seemed to have a boost after that! Unfortunately we couldn't add success in the cups as we suffered unlucky defeats in CL Quarter Final (see previous update) and Italian Cup Final: I have to say when Paolone is in poor form and Leonardi is out for the season we tend to struggle to score despite dominating our opponents...
Top perfomers of the season were well-known striker Alessandro Paolone and brand new defender Lazzaro Dess?:
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Paolone had another fantastic year as he once again surpassed the 50 goals mark this season (51 goals in 37 apps), winning Serie A Top Scorer and European Golden Boot awards in the process. Former defector Dess? became undisputed first choice at CB forming an excellent partnership with wonderkid Jacopo Villa. Paolone and Dess? were both selected for Serie A Team of the Year, with the striker also winning Serie A Player of the Year and Foreign (?) Player of the Year in December.
All in all a very promising season for the club, several young players have improved nicely and performed very well at Serie A level (legit wonderkids Villa, Bartoloni and Monti looked particularly promising), I am now confident we can actually win Serie A using a strict Cantera Policy (IF our players can stay relatively healthy...), which will officially start in 2025/26 - already sold some of our world class superstars like GK Santi Carroza and CB Ezequiel Rossi. Champions League will probably be much tougher to win, mostly because back-up players aren't at the same level of the starters (especially CB's and attackers) and it will be hard to rest/rotate players between league and cup matches, which was always the key for our club's past success.
Next update with a preview of 2025 Confederations Cup
Make it 9 consecutive Serie A titles for San Marino, as we won the league quite comfortably despite a less than stellar first half of the season. Curiously the team really started to fly after the X-mas break, when I decided to test the famous Cantera Policy - ie using only Sammarinese players in competitive matches (I did use foreigners in emergency situations as I had no real depth, as many SM players were out on loan this year). Team chemistry and morale really seemed to have a boost after that! Unfortunately we couldn't add success in the cups as we suffered unlucky defeats in CL Quarter Final (see previous update) and Italian Cup Final: I have to say when Paolone is in poor form and Leonardi is out for the season we tend to struggle to score despite dominating our opponents...
Top perfomers of the season were well-known striker Alessandro Paolone and brand new defender Lazzaro Dess?:
View attachment 276590View attachment 276591View attachment 276592
Paolone had another fantastic year as he once again surpassed the 50 goals mark this season (51 goals in 37 apps), winning Serie A Top Scorer and European Golden Boot awards in the process. Former defector Dess? became undisputed first choice at CB forming an excellent partnership with wonderkid Jacopo Villa. Paolone and Dess? were both selected for Serie A Team of the Year, with the striker also winning Serie A Player of the Year and Foreign (?) Player of the Year in December.
All in all a very promising season for the club, several young players have improved nicely and performed very well at Serie A level (legit wonderkids Villa, Bartoloni and Monti looked particularly promising), I am now confident we can actually win Serie A using a strict Cantera Policy (IF our players can stay relatively healthy...), which will officially start in 2025/26 - already sold some of our world class superstars like GK Santi Carroza and CB Ezequiel Rossi. Champions League will probably be much tougher to win, mostly because back-up players aren't at the same level of the starters (especially CB's and attackers) and it will be hard to rest/rotate players between league and cup matches, which was always the key for our club's past success.
Next update with a preview of 2025 Confederations Cup
gogogo golem
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Dessi looks great except the sideburns those are bad. Doing well considering the cantera policy.
kandersson
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hahaha it's the Dessi style, heard it's quite popular in San Marino now XD
kandersson
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Just read through all of this (I did follow it a while back but needed to remind myself of the journey) and its simply awesome!! Gonna give this a go on FM13 I think
thanks mate this has been the longest, most entertaining save in my whole CM/FM experience. FM12 has actually been SM12 for me XD
don't know if I'll do this again for FM13 but will watch closely any SM career on here
kandersson
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2025 Confederations Cup Preview
As current European Champions San Marino will compete in this edition of the Confederations Cup, the prestigeous international tournament that takes place one year before the World Cup. Our group include the Copa America champions Brazil (5th in WR), Asian Cup winners Australia (38th) and host of 2026 World Cup Mexico (42nd). It is a relatively tough group (Mexico look much better than their ranking tbh) especially compared to the other one: World Cup holders Holland are joined by Gold Cup winners U.S.A , African Champions Senegal and... Papua New Guinea from Oceania!
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Entering the Conf Cup at 2nd place in WR San Marino are regarded as the best team in the tournament, and the Sammarinese FA seems to be aware of that: this time the minimum goal for the mighty San Marino will be reaching the Conf Cup final! Eh I knew someday they would have become a bunch of delusional freaks...
On the other hand despite the loss of Matteo Leonardi and Davide Casadei - both injured - this will be the strongest team ever in SM history: with all due dual nationality players now willing to play for San Marino we have quality and depth pretty much everywhere now. These are some of the new faces that will have a key role for the NT:
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Lazzaro Dessi is the big centre-back we lacked and will make for a perfect partnership with quick but undersized wonderkid Jacopo Villa. Francesco Monti has become automatic first choice at MC, the wonderkid once dubbed the new Daniele De Rossi could very well develop into a world class midfielder soon. Another former wonderkid Emanuele Bartoloni might be very close to take over at AML: Bart is a gifted playmaker who likes to take on defenders and can create tons of chances for himself and his teammates. Finally Nicola Pedrocchi gives us an option when/if Alessandro Paolone is in poor form: once touted as the next Marco Di Vaio, Pedrocchi is an explosive striker that can also handle the AMR position (right-footed though, so would be more of an out and out winger), my staff at both club and NT insist that he has the potential to become much better than Paolone though personally I don't see that happening... I'm planning of using Pedro as an alternative for both striker and right wing position, especially if Fabio Scarano fails to impress at AMR.
Next update with the group stage soon!
View attachment 276724View attachment 276725View attachment 276733
Entering the Conf Cup at 2nd place in WR San Marino are regarded as the best team in the tournament, and the Sammarinese FA seems to be aware of that: this time the minimum goal for the mighty San Marino will be reaching the Conf Cup final! Eh I knew someday they would have become a bunch of delusional freaks...
On the other hand despite the loss of Matteo Leonardi and Davide Casadei - both injured - this will be the strongest team ever in SM history: with all due dual nationality players now willing to play for San Marino we have quality and depth pretty much everywhere now. These are some of the new faces that will have a key role for the NT:
View attachment 276728View attachment 276729View attachment 276731View attachment 276732
Lazzaro Dessi is the big centre-back we lacked and will make for a perfect partnership with quick but undersized wonderkid Jacopo Villa. Francesco Monti has become automatic first choice at MC, the wonderkid once dubbed the new Daniele De Rossi could very well develop into a world class midfielder soon. Another former wonderkid Emanuele Bartoloni might be very close to take over at AML: Bart is a gifted playmaker who likes to take on defenders and can create tons of chances for himself and his teammates. Finally Nicola Pedrocchi gives us an option when/if Alessandro Paolone is in poor form: once touted as the next Marco Di Vaio, Pedrocchi is an explosive striker that can also handle the AMR position (right-footed though, so would be more of an out and out winger), my staff at both club and NT insist that he has the potential to become much better than Paolone though personally I don't see that happening... I'm planning of using Pedro as an alternative for both striker and right wing position, especially if Fabio Scarano fails to impress at AMR.
Next update with the group stage soon!
gogogo golem
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Looks good even with Leonardi out and can I see a screenshot of the attributes for Jacopo Villa and Carlo Vignoli?
kandersson
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Screens of Vignoli and Villa as of August 2025, I did play quite a bit last night when I came back from the movies
- btw "The Campaign" with Will Ferrel is hilariousView attachment 276763View attachment 276764
Tried for ages to improve Villa's jumping, but no success so far. Still a fantastic young CB though.