Thanks for the screenshots and there seems to be some sort of cap on jumping for short players. I'm not the biggest fan of movies though so I won't be watching it.
 
Confederations Cup 2025: Group Stage

Mexico VS San Marino

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Good start of the tournament for San Marino with a convincing 3-0 win against hosts Mexico. Lazzaro Dessi scored after 5 minutes from indirect free kick, then super-sub Emanuele Bartoloni (MoM) stole the show with a beautiful brace coming off the bench. The Mexicans were glad to leave us the ball (60% possession) and tried to be dangerous on the counter, but couldn't do anything to stop the Bart-show.


San Marino VS Brazil

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Even match between two of the most powerful national teams in football (...). Brazil boast a world class squad filled with global superstars, so this 2-2 draw wasn't a bad result for us, especially considering GK Carlo Vignoli had a sub-par game, finishing with a 5.8 rating and a mistake that cost us a goal. Former San Marino stars, CB Leandro and striker Ailton both scored against their old mentor, luckily for us Fabio Scarano (MoM) came up big tonight as he scored a vital penalty and assisted Paolone for another goal. What we learnt today: Brazil will be a team to avoid at the next World Cup...


San Marino VS Australia


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San Marino managed to finish the group stage unbeaten after a harder than expected 2-1 win against Australia. We actually played the Aussies off the park but were unable to convert our chances into goals most of the times. Goals from Dessi (MoM) and Paolone eventually gave us the win, unfortunately this wasn't enough to claim 1st place in our group as Brazil had a better goal difference, which means we'll face World Champions Holland in the semi final instead of U.S.A. or Senegal. Not quite the same thing...


Up next: Semi Final VS Holland
 
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Well done on being unbeaten and Bartolini is good but playing Scarano doesn't seem like too much of a hardship.
 
Well done on being unbeaten and Bartolini is good but playing Scarano doesn't seem like too much of a hardship.

yeah the Bart is one of my favourite players, has just been assigned the legendary No.10 shirt at the club :)

Scarano played great vs Brazil but I'm afraid he's on his way to become third choice at AMR...
 
yeah the Bart is one of my favourite players, has just been assigned the legendary No.10 shirt at the club :)

Scarano played great vs Brazil but I'm afraid he's on his way to become third choice at AMR...
That's good but I thought the legendary no. 10 belonged to Paolone.
 
That's good but I thought the legendary no. 10 belonged to Paolone.

Paolone wears Andy Selva's No.10 with the NT, but with the club he always has No.11, same as iconic San Marino Calcio strikers Scorza and Ailton. Bart ideally inherited No.10 from club legend Eric... It's always a matter of legacy :)
 
Confederations Cup Semi Final: Holland VS San Marino

Another big match for San Marino in this Confederations Cup: after drawing with a star-studded Brazil team in group stage now it's time to face World Cup holders Holland in the semi final. Will certainly be a great experience towards next World Cup.


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Great entertainment at the Estadio Azteca, where a crowd of 105,000 people could enjoy a fantastic game for 120 minutes. Eventually San Marino managed a hard-fought 3-2 win with Dessi scoring the winning goal from a corner kick in the extra time. In a very even match we went down two times (0-1 and 1-2) but always found ways to stay in the game; super-sub Nicola Pedrocchi (MoM) made a tremendous impact coming off the bench as he scored one goal and assisted the other two (Paolone, Dessi), replacing a disappointing Fabio Scarano at AMR. Holland played well in the 90 minutes but seemed to fall apart during the extra time, as several of their players were struggling with injuries and fitness level. European Champions beat World Champions this time...


Up next: Final VS Brazil
 
You really are scraping it against the big teams but well done on making the final.
 
Confederations Cup Final: Brazil VS San Marino

After a spirited draw in the group stage San Marino and Brazil meet again in the Confederations Cup and this time it's for the Championship. We know what to expect from them now, Brazil are truly a world class team and in Ailton & Ronaldo they probably have the best striker tandem in the game right now (luckily San Marino Golden Ball winners Alex and Fabio have retired early from international footbal a long time ago ;)).


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Dramatic finish for this edition of the Confederation Cup, as San Marino eventually won the trophy on penalty kicks (1-1 AET). Brazil took the lead in the first half with a spectacular long range effort by midfielder Tissot, then didn't do much else for the rest of the game as San Marino attacked wildly and wasted a huge number of clear chances (you know, one of those games when Paolone decides to miss everything in front of goal). When I had lost all hope super-sub Pedrocchi managed to score the equalizer at minute 91 (credit to Paolone for a clever assist at least)! Then Brazil GK Alex Granja (MoM) kept the Sele?ao alive in the extra time with some amazing saves, but in the end our keeper Carlo Vignoli confirmed his fame as a PK specialist and saved two penalties to give us the win! Curiously it was former San Marino idol Ailton who missed the final penalty, must have been some kind of bad karma after the infamous 'Ailtongate incident'? (see post #63)


Very pleased with our performance, we totally deserved this as we absolutely dominated Brazil for almost all 120 minutes - no surprise their keeper was Man of the Match. We did an amazing job winning the Confederations Cup as we had to beat two excellent teams to achieve that, certainly this means that our European Championship title was no fluke. With that said if we can avoid Brazil and Holland at the next World Cup that would be awesome...



 
Club Season 2025/26: Winter Update

First year implementing the famous Cantera Policy at the club - using ONLY Sammarinese players in competitive matches - and the results have been excellent so far:

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We have been almost perfect in Serie A, comfortably leading the league with a solid 8 points margin at the Christmas break. We played some great fooball so far, have been lucky to avoid injuries to our key players while a relatively easy CL group gave us the chance to rotate players and keep starters fresh for league fixtures.

As you can see our Sammarinese players dominated the yearly Serie A awards: Carlo Vignoli won Goalkeeper of the Year (back-up Rino Mancuso also finished third!), Lazzaro Dessi was Defender of the Year, Emanuele Bartoloni won Young Player of the Year and Alessandro Paolone scooped Foreign POY, Serie A Fans' POY and Serie A Player of the Year awards.

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This was just an appetizer for Paolone though, as the striker was finally recognized as one of the top players in the game after his world class performances with both club and country:

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Paolone won Golden Ball and World Player of the Year awards (Gianluca Macina finished 3rd in both) further cementing his status as a living legend for Sammarinese football. Bartoloni and Matteo Leonardi also joined the striker in the World Team of the Year.


The strict Cantera Policy also meant the end of an era for San Marino Calcio, as we decided to sell all our foreign superstars with expiring contracts to get some cash and prevent them from signing with other Serie A clubs (I'm keeping those with longer contracts only to use them as mentors for our youngsters). We really made a ton of money from those sells, and without those huge contracts we have one of the lowest team payrolls in the league :). Say goodbye to world class striker and perennial Serie A top scorer Alex, who joined Real Madrid for a hefty 50M euros!

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National Team Year 2025

The highlight of 2025 was certainly the NT's triumph at the Confederations Cup, but San Marino also had to play several important matches of World Cup qualifying group. All in all this was an excellent year for the national team:

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First place and undefeated in a pretty dangerous group that featured EURO 2024 runner-up Germany. We won 9 games out of 10 including two solid wins against the Germans as we earned an automatic spot for the next World Cup. Back-up striker Nicola Pedrocchi set a new record for most goals in a single match for the NT with 5 (Manel Di Marco and Alessandro Paolone shared previous record with four goals), as he led a second-string San Marino squad against a weak Kazakhstan side.


We finished the year as the best national team in world football according to latest FIFA Rankings, which actually seemed to help a lot during the draw for World Cup:

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San Marino will join Slovakia, Cameroon and Honduras in Group B: honestly anything except first place would be a major disappointment here...
 
great story, by the way ur 4-3-3 tactic works a treat!!

thanks mate :)

Had created the tactic for FM11 as a combination of what works in the game and the style of football I like to play. Didn't get much feedback at the time, seemed to work just fine for me though ;)
 
Lovely, keep it up dude! Your awesome at it! I wish I can do something like that but never got the patient to do it!!
 
San Marino: News From 2026

Misc from the beautiful world of San Marino as we're close to complete a very entertaining 2025/2026 season.


San Marino still have a World Cup to play so we can't really think about EURO 2028 now, though I have to say our qualifying group will be ridiculously easy this time:

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Georgia, Armenia, Bulgaria and Latvia: I mean, seriously!?


Meanwhile San Marino icon Alessandro Paolone was subject of controversial media speculation recently:

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'Out in the cold'! Paolone's international career is apparently in doubt as the striker shockingly missed a useless, mid-week friendly against Armenia... will he make the World Cup squad??? Eh we'll see (stupid tabloids).


Luckily Paolone didn't seem to be really affected by media speculation in the following month:

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Udinese decided it was a good idea to use a ultra-high defensive line against us, and Paolone responded with five goals in the first half en route to a typical 6-0 away win. They never learn...


Important news for San Marino U21 as the young Titani have been invited to join the Toulon Youth Festival (French Youth Invitational in FM) in June. I have to say the best U21 players in the country will be busy preparing the World Cup at that time, nonetheless this is a nice event for SM.

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And finally, there are excellent news from the youth intake this year: there are a very promising keeper with the potential of becoming much better than Carlo Vignoli and a gifted, versatile attacker who could develop into a leading Serie A player. But this kid here, he's really something else:

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Alessandro Montemitoli
has to be the most impressive prospect ever produced in the country. Actually he could very well be the most impressive prospect ever produced in any country. The 16 year-old midfielder already looks good for Serie A standard, scariest thing is he's going to improve A LOT in the years (1 star CA, 4.5 stars PA) with his PA comparing favourably to world class midfielder Antonio Manas. I'm afraid I won't play long enough to see Montemitoli fulfilling his potential, he'd become a beast for sure!



 
That intake is unbelievably good and everything's going your way at the moment isn't it?
 
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