San Marino- Attempting the Impossible

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flez85

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Introduction​

I've decided to attempt the infamous San Marino challenge and to share it with all of you. For details on the challenge and what it's all about, check out this thread. If you're looking for a story that involves success and unbelievable accomplishments, please move on and check out the many other wonderful stories here. I predict that I will fail miserably at this challenge and that this story won't be half as entertaining as you or I would hope.

With that out of the way, let's check out the backdrop of what will surely be many years of pain and suffering. I started the game as an American with Automatic experience, managing both San Marino the club and the country. I loaded leagues from USA, England (BSN/BSS), Italy (C2 & above), and San Marino (custom database downloaded from link on OP of thread linked above).

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Next update, including pre-season transfers and such to come shortly.
 
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Pre-Season 2012/13


​
Club- My goal here is to win promotion to Serie B. San Marino won promotion from C2 last season so this might be a lot to ask, but I'll give it my best. First order of business was to get rid of my Chief Scout, he was Sammarinese but only JA/JPA of 4 so he had to go. In to replace him is this guy:
View attachment 282522

The rest of the staff will remain the same for now, as they're decent for this level and really don't care to search for improvements. Next I needed to improve the squad to hopefully challenge for the league title. I'm satisfied with the players brought in and think we can achieve promotion.

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There weren't any players from San Marino the country that caught my eye, but that was to be expected. I also got rid of Polettie for a club record $90k as I just don't have any use for wingers with the tactics I'm using.

View attachment 282524View attachment 282525View attachment 282526

These guys are going straight into the first team and are players that I believe will have to step up and be key in any promotion bid.

As far as youth goes, which this challenge demands I focus on long term, I was surprised to see that we have a ST that at 16 can challenge for a first team spot not only at the club but also for the nation. He's a long ways from lighting up the world, or even Italy, but according to my scout can develop into the top Sammarinese ST in the future.

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So, overall a good feeling about the start but anything can happen.

Country- At this point my only goal is to not lose EVERY game by more than 2 goals.
 
Friendlies & Italian Cup

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I have no idea what the Competzione Amichevole is, but a trophy is a trophy so I'm glad to have won it. The two friendlies went as expected, Levante drilled us which is no surprise. In the Italian cup, we got a comfortable win over Sorrento but couldn't achieve a fairy tale run against Virtus. That was a disappointment as their only goal in regulation came from a mishandled ball from our keeper who then decided the best play would be to stand and watch as the Virtus ST passed it into an empty net (who says the ME is flawed?). We also had a penalty that their keeper bravely saved, but in reality the match should have ended with Fogacci's stoppage time goal. Oh well, we were never going far in this competition so on to the league.

Players of the Month (Or pre-season/cup run/whatever)

View attachment 282529View attachment 282530View attachment 282531
I couldn't separate these three. Maiorino was extremely impressive in the Amichevole but poor in the Italian cup. Olivieri was good all around, and Gualandi, the Sammarinese youngster, scored in both of his starts.

Idiot of the Month

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His 3 mistakes all coming in the Italian Cup cost us any chance of advancing. So picture this, you're a Bulgarian keeper who has just dropped a ball that falls to your feet. You don't speak English or Italian, the languages that your boss and your teammates are screaming at you. If you had to pick, what are they yelling:

A)Pick up the ball and don't let them score!
B)Let that guy 5 yards in front of you run past and kick the ball into the empty net!

No Mario! It's not B, it's A!


Next up we'll kick off league play with 5 matches in the month of September.​
 
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Oh, and I forgot to mention that the National Team had a friendly against Turkey that we lost 0-4. Next up is World Cup Qualifying.
 
will keep an eye on this, good luck with the challenge!

it is possible, keep it up :)
 
September 2012

(Proving that drinking and managing don't mix)


View attachment 282612
​
After an abysmal start to the campaign, losing the first two, we went on to come back from two goals down in each of our next two matches. Then, in the final match of the month against Como, we dominated the game and were looking to finally get our first win before they took a page from our book and equalized late.

I have mixed feelings about this start. For one, we have done well in possession and have had more chances than our opponents even in the two losses, we just couldn't put them away until we were behind. Also, we had two first team CB's injured for the month in the first match, then in the second had our third CB banned for three matches for a reckless two-legged challenge (although it looked to me like he got all ball and the opponent dove). So, overall not a great start but it could have turned out worse.

The injuries exposed our lack of depth on the defense, so I went hunting for a free transfer and found this guy:
View attachment 282615

He's another that might have a problem with communication, but he did spend some time in the US so I'm hoping that will help (since I'm American, maybe we can learn Italian together!). He comes in as cover for the first team at the CB position as well as both WB spots.


Player of the Month
View attachment 282616
Del Sole played in all 5 matches, scoring 2 and creating 2 goals on the way to picking up a MoM award in the final game of the month.
​


In a previous post, I posted a screen of a native of San Marino who was only 16 that my *** man thought could develop well. In my drunken haze, I took his word for it and completely overlooked another youngster that is actually somewhat promising. Looking back now with a clear(er) head, I don't think that Jacopo Gualandi is going to light anything up (though he did do well in the pre-season). Below is a comparison of the two:
View attachment 282620View attachment 282621

Touted by the national *** man as the best striker from San Marino already, Stefanelli looks the more likely to develop into a decent player. I'll be getting him as much first team experience as I dare. Who knows, maybe the two of them can develop something of a partnership and go on to be international heroes (hahahaha).


League Table: View attachment 282631

The one good thing about our standing is that we can only look up! With only 32 games in the league however, we're going to have to start winning matches (and soon) to have any shot at promotion.

San Marino the Country

No surprises here as we lost both WCQ matches, 0-5 to Ukraine and 0-2 to Moldova. Ukraine even had two goals disallowed and probably should have won by even more. In the Moldova game however we looked the better side but just couldn't get it done.​
 
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kandersson said:
will keep an eye on this, good luck with the challenge!

it is possible, keep it up :)
Click to expand...

Yeah bud, you proved that it was possible last year! I followed that for a while until life stuff got me busy, and I gotta say that coming close to your achievements would have me grinning ear to ear. Hopefully I'll stick with it that long.
 
October 2012

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Finally some good results! We kicked of the C cup in fine fashion picking up a much deserved 5-1 win against C2/A side Savona. However, the next cup match against Pro Patria from the same C2/A division was a real disappointment. We let an early goal in then fought back to a 2-1 lead, only to concede a late penalty and have a player injured after all 3 subs were made to play all of extra time a man down. Despite this we held out only to go crashing out on penalties, which is frustrating because we had 5 ccc's in regulation but could only put 2 in the net.

In the league we finally got our first win 2-0 over Alto Adige due to a fine brace from San Marino youngster Stefanelli, who unfortunately was twisted his ankle late in the match after scoring a hat trick in an amazing 6-2 victory over Carpi away from home. He won't be back until early December. I decided to spring a tactical surprise at home against then league leaders Trapani to impress the viewers watching at home from their couch by coming out much more attacking. However, we won only 2-0 but a win's a win (funny because I tried playing defensively in our 6-2 away win over Carpi).


Player of the Month
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This was close, but had to give it to Maiorino, who played in all 5 games in Oct and showed some lethal passing with 7 key passes on his way to scoring 3 and adding 2 more assists.

League Table
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Not where I wanted to be at this point, but more months like the last and we'll soon be at the top.

Transfers

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He's from San Marino and with my scout giving him a 5 star recommendation I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try and develop this youngster into something. Looks poor but hopefully that determination will see him develop quickly. We agreed a deal and he'll be joining us come January.
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Signed for cover and because of his experience and high determination. Hopefully I can get him to tutor a youngster and rub that determination off on him.

And now, for the shock signing of my career (drum roll, please...)
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I was absolutely floored that he was willing to listen to an offer from us, and even more surprised when I could afford his wages! Granted, he's old and probably won't be with us for more than a year or two, but this man has played for Parma, PSG, Verona, Genoa, Bologna, and now evidently wants to lead San Marino to glory!


San Marino the Country
Lost to England 0-4 and Montenegro 0-3 in WCQ. Both dominated us but England really should have done better with an incredible 8 ccc's. For those curious, here's the group:
View attachment 282698​
 
Anyone else that's managing both a country and a club within that country having problems with players scouted only having the option of viewing the national report and not the club scout report? Just noticed that the youngster joining in January only has this option available and found that in the news feed my club scout actually only gave him a 1.5 star PA rating. :mad:
 
November 2012

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A decent month sees our unbeaten run in the league extend to 10 matches. I should be happy with those results but I'm not. The 0-0 result against Pavia saw us dominate but have three goals disallowed from offsides. Against Feralpi, I decided to give veteran Perna the nod and he delivered on his debut, helping us to a 3-0 start before they pulled two back and had me pulling at my goatee for the last 5 min (something I do when nervous, don't judge). Against Treviso we again dominated, got an early goal but then yet another penalty given made me think we were giving the game up until Perna sealed the deal in the 80th. The Regianna match was much the same, dominating and getting an early goal but then a bad pass back (where the defender stood and watched the ball instead of collecting it) led to their equalizer, only this time we couldn't grab a winner.

Player of the Month
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The new signing proved invaluable from the word go, scoring 4 in his 3 matches.

League Table
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So a good recovery from an awful start has us sitting in the playoff zone just 3 points out of the 1 automatic promotion spot. Not bad, but with the points we gave up unnecessarily we could have been at the top. Oh well, the optimist in me believes that we can really go on to dominate the league from here. The realist is thinking that we're not at all far off from the relegation playout.


National Team

A disappointing 0-1 loss to Cayman Islands. Evidently I've set the record for most losses in a row and most games played without scoring. Could I actually be feeling my seat warming up?

*Note: As far as my amazing signing that's supposedly capable of playing in Serie A goes, not sure what's going on there. He's got a red deal by him that says he's "Unavailable". I'm hoping that it will just go away sometime but not sure that it will. I checked league rules and it states that you're not allowed to sign non-EU players from abroad, but for one I've already signed him so you'd think that it was allowed. Secondly, I'm not allowed by my board to scout outside of Italy and he's Italian as a second nationality so I'm assuming he wasn't "abroad" when signed.
Also of note, because I've signed more attackers than I had planned, I'm mostly using tactics that I've created. This means that the chances of failing miserably increase greatly, I've not been able to get anything to work yet however it's so far so good.​
 
December 2012
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This was an extremely frustrating month for more than one reason. In the first two we let early leads go. Then we had to rely on magic man Perna to pull a late winner against the bottom team AlbinoLeffe. Finally we lost our first league match in 14 games. The Cuneo result was really disappointing because I had played it twice previously, first time I was up 2-1 in the second half when the game crashed, second time was a 3-1 win that moved us up to 2nd in the table but my comp froze before I saved the game. Of course everything works fine after losing the third 0-2.

Also, I had my first disciplinary problem. In the Cremonese match my first choice WBR was injured in the 16th, forcing me to sub in my backup who picked up two yellows in 45 minutes of play and getting himself suspended for the next match when I have no cover for his position past him. I fined him 1 weeks salary and this is what happened:
View attachment 282782View attachment 282783
Seriously guy, you screwed me over by being a reckless idiot and you don't see what's wrong with that? Good thing your contract expires at the end of the year.

Player of the Month
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Not really great, but had to pick somebody.

League Table
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At the halfway point we're sitting 7th in a very tight league. A run of good form could see us catapult to the top, likewise another month like December could put us in a relegation battle. Good thing I can now unleash my secret weapon...
View attachment 282786
For some reason, he's now available to be picked! Not sure about the wanting to play for San Marino, he's 35 years old, but if he makes it to 40 and is still playing, he'll still probably be good enough for the first team!

Thoughts Halfway through
Things haven't been great, but with the league this tight it seems there's a different club up top every week. I'm optimistic for the second half of the season and think Adailton will be key if we're to take first. Now that the transfer window has opened back up I'm going to try and find a cheap WBL so I can dump Habarugira.

Next up is just 3 games in January, so I might wait to write up an update until after February. The National Team fortunately didn't play in December.​
 
January 2013
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Quick update here, only 3 matches played. I opted to play Adailton in his debut at the AMC position, which might have been a mistake as he didn't really get going in a boring 1-1 draw. However, I moved him up top in the next two and it paid off!

Player of the Month
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Putting away 3 goals in the last two matches, he's proving to be the key signing I had hoped for.


League Table
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With 13 games remaining, the league remains as tight as ever with only 4 points separating 1st from 10th. The bottom teams seem to be dropping off but I'm not worried about that as my eyes are on 1st! I suspect that over the remaining games, one or two clubs will start to pull away, I just hope that we're one of them.

Transfer Window

I was just about to give up hope of finding a replacement WBL when my scout update came up with this guy:
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Having started his career with Serie A side Parma for 5 seasons, he speaks Italian and is even eligible to add Italy as a 3rd Nationality (his second coming from speding 6 seasons with French side LeMans). He hasn't been able to play for us yet, being away on International duty with Guinea and helping them to qualify for the third round of the African Cup of Nations.

Once again, there was no action with the San Marino National Team.​
 
Going really well, sooo tight near the top
 
February/March 2013
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Plenty of goals scored in this period of play. Really disappointed with ending on the 0-3 loss to Feralpo as I thought they were beatable. I really need to figure out the match preparation, seems whenever I choose defensive positioning we give up more goals than usual but score more as well (Feralpo result aside).

Key Player
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Once again this has to go to Adailton, who scored 5 and set up 3 goals in 7 matches and has looked consistently deadly other than against Feralpo who just had our number. He and Perna have formed a great veteran partnership up top, scoring a combined 15 goals and 7 assists in 10 games.

League Table
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There's finally at least a bit of separation in the table and we're sitting a respectable 2nd, 3 points off league leaders Carpi but also only 3 points up from the playoff zone. With only 6 games remaining, finding a way to win will be crucial in our chase for promotion.

National Team

Lost 0-2 to Scotland in a friendly and 0-5 to Ukraine in WCQ. In both games we finally managed to get forward and challenge the opponent's keeper a few times. Against Scotland we almost even landed an equalizer but the striker missed a wide open net a yard in front of him by launching the ball in the sky. I've set up a couple of June friendlies against Bhutan and Chinese Taipei in hopes that we can at least score our first goal in my reign.​
 
Sam91 said:
Going really well, sooo tight near the top
Click to expand...

Haha, tight it is! I know I should be content with how it's going, but I used up almost all of the wage budget in hopes of getting promoted and earning some more money in Serie B. Hopefully that doesn't backfire, I'm already getting news items about the club being in a financial crisis. :(
 
doing well after a slow start, time to finish strong now!

and about this

flez85 said:
Not sure about the wanting to play for San Marino, he's 35 years old, but if he makes it to 40 and is still playing, he'll still probably be good enough for the first team!​
Click to expand...


I've seen that screen for a few players now, unfortunately I think it's still impossible for foreigners to gain SM nationality and actually you can see there's no info about 'days to gain nationality' for San marino. IRL it would take 25-30 years so I guess it's fair this way...
​
 
kandersson said:
doing well after a slow start, time to finish strong now!

and about this



I've seen that screen for a few players now, unfortunately I think it's still impossible for foreigners to gain SM nationality and actually you can see there's no info about 'days to gain nationality' for San marino. IRL it would take 25-30 years so I guess it's fair this way...
​
Click to expand...

Yeah, forgot about the nationality deal, makes the challenge a bit more... challenging! Thanks for the reply!
 
April/May 2013
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A disastrous month in my opinion and that might have to do with overreacting to matches and trying to play too attacking when games were even. We started off good with Adailton and Perna continuing their fine play with a goal apiece in a win over Treviso. Then away against Reggiana we absolutely dominated the game but couldn't put our 4 ccc's away. Adailton had a chance to equalize late to get something out of it but fired a spot kick over the goal. Things went from bad to worse when Adailton was injured in the next match against Cremonese however some fine defensive work saw us through to a 1-0 win at home.
View attachment 282919
This was horrible news and I think it might signal the end of Adailton's career. He's already been falling off recently and this can only help him detoriate faster.

Against Lecce we really should have lost because they had a ton of chances and the majority of possession in a game where we came out flat. Somehow we managed to scrap a draw. In the next two an early goal against us forced me to play more men forward than we've been accustomed to as we suffered defeat against AlbinoLeffe and a draw against Cuneo in a match that we deserved to win.

Key Player
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If only more of our players had his determination the last run of games might have seen us to the league title. Even with his poor finishing skills, the defender managed to net 2 in 2 and has put in some fine performances since signing back in January.

League Table
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We lost the fewest games in the league, but had far too many draws and in the end have to settle for 5th place and a promotion playoff. We've drawn Trapani in the playoff semi-final, who we've played twice and won each time by a score of 2-0.


​
 
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