San Marino- Attempting the Impossible


December 2020

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Another great month but to be honest we were lucky to beat Man City, but if luck gets us wins like that I'll take as much as I can! Unfortunately we were upset by Lazio in the Italian Cup. I wanted to scream so many times during that game:
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League Table

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So we've now taken firm control of the league at sit at the top with 8 points over 2nd placed Napoli. Juventus have started to regain their form however so we'll have to keep an eye on them.

Champions League Group Final Standings

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So we couldn't top Man City but at least we beat them at home and finished level on points. I'm confident we can make another run at it this year.

Champions League Knockout Draw

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Could have been better, could have been worse. Other than in 2012 making it to the Quarter Finals and losing to Real Madrid, PSG haven't advanced past the first knockout round since. Hopefully we can help them keep that streak going.

Squad

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The big difference this month is that there wasn't a particular individual that really stood out, rather the whole team played well for the most part. Besides, do I really need to say anything about Ogaga? Well, I'm going to anyway. Here's his progression since he joined the club:
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That's just 3 short years so it bears the question, how much better can he get? I can't wait until I can put up screenies like that of a San Marino player.

Facilities Upgraded

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The month of Christmas Joy brings a wealth of awesome news. Here's how our facilities are looking now:
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We're getting closer! The question I have now is, will the talent we produce actually play for San Marino or will they all hold out for Italy?

Awards Galore

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In case you don't want to click on all of those, here's a rundown: I won Head Coach of the Year again, Cordoba finished 3rd for Serie A Foreign Player of the Year, and Ogaga won just about every award he could have.

​
 
January 2021

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Only 3 games this month and we extend our unbeaten run in the league to 11 games. The Padova result was particularly satisfying after losing to them early in the season.

League Table

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We extend our lead at the top to 11 points and it's looking likely that we will win the league for a third season in a row as long as we can stay healthy and continue to play as well as we have.

Squad

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At 30 years old, Fabbrini is showing no signs of slowing down and picked up 2 goals and 2 assists in the three games this month.

There wasn't a lot going on in the transfer window, I tried for a couple of fullbacks but one decided to sign for Stoke instead of us and the other would have cost too much in my opinion to bring in from Inter. I'm hoping that they'll be relegated and lower their asking price which is currently at $30M. We did sell off our backup GK though I'm regretting it now, I put him on the unwanted list before the season started and forgot about it until he was sold.
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It's a **** shame we only got $2.7M out of him, he was really training hard and starting to develop into a nice keeper. At least we made a profit of $1M on him.

In other transfer news, Boris Zmajla was on a highest earner clause that I also forgot about. I tried to offer him a new contract but he still wanted a raise even though he's our 3rd or 4th best striker and now only used for cover, so when I offered him a pay cut without the clause he turned it down and Girondins Bordeaux came in and signed him on a Bosman. He's been great for the club in his 6 years with us and is one of the reasons we're where we are today, but I just couldn't justify using up 10% of the wage budget on a player who isn't a first team starter.​
 
February 2021

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So our form finally takes a dip and it's at the worst possible time if we want to advance in the Champions League. In all games, even the losses, we dominated possesion and had more chances but didn't put them away with the opposing team taking their chances and making it a miserable month for us.

League Table

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Our lead at the top was only cut down by 1 point fortunately and the rest of the table looks fairly even, especially down to 8th placed Napoli. Hopefully teams in that area continue to beat eachother and we find our form again.

Squad

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Ogaga and Rugani are the only ones that continued to perform at a high level this month. I've been extremely disappointed in Sotomayor, who by his attributes should be a world beater but hasn't been living up to expectations. I'm not sure if I want to mess with the tactics much at this point to try and get more chances to my strikers or not, might be risky changing things up now.

Here's a screen of Sotomayor:
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March 2021

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So our league form returns, winning all of the 4 matches convincingly. Unfortunately we weren't able to turn the tables against PSG in an evenly matched game at their stadium. I was really hoping for another run at the trophy but there's always next year.

League Table

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We extend our lead at the top to 13 points and I'm now confident we'll win it for the third time in a row.

Squad

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Rugani wins player of the month for me, he's been dominant in the air and has managed to take a little attention away from Ogaga. Sotomayor also had a good month, finally bagging some goals and playing to his potential.

Youth Intake

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I didn't take any individual screens because frankly none of the players look to be that good. It's a major disappointment after all of the upgrades last season.​
 

April 2021

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That's 8 straight wins in the league and it goes to show just how good we can be when the games are spread out. I think the major weakness to the team compared to the top teams in Europe is still our lack of depth. With these wins comes some good news:
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League Table

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We clinched the league with 5 games left! I'll be playing some of the youngsters in the last matches to get them some first team experience.

Squad

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Ogaga returns to top form and Ibrahim puts his technical skills on display, creating chances (not converted), winning headers, and making vital interceptions in the middle of the park. Sotomayor has also been impressive with 5 goals and an assist in the 4 games this month.​
 
May 2021

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Not too concerned with the Sampdoria result, played some youth and they just didn't perform. The rest of the games turned out nicely however, though I didn't play they youngsters as much as I had planned.

League Table

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89 points isn't a lot more than we've racked up the past couple of seasons but the gap at the top is. Juventus finished outside of the top three for the first time since 2010 so now it's our turn to take over the reigns. AC Milan finished 2nd despite a shaky start to the season. Inter put up a fight towards the end but still fell short and will be relegated. They still have some players that are very good for the league that I'm going to be trying to poach.

Squad

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Ogaga continues to dominate and Cordoba really put on the type of season-long performance I was hoping for after the amount I spent on him. The other two new signings for the season, Rugani and Ibrahim, fared even better. If I can bring in a couple more players that match their success in the off season I see good things happening for us next season.

Italy Cup Final

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AC Milan wins the Italian Cup for the second year in a row after not having won it since 2003. Since winning in 2018, I've been disappointed with our performance in the competition and hope we can make a run at it next year.

Champions League Final

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Man City wins after overcoming some top notch teams. In order, their wins were over Juventus, Real Madrid, Barcelona, then of course rivals Man U at Old Trafford even.

Serie A Team of the Year

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5 players in the Team of the Year for the second time in a row.​
 
2020/21 Best Eleven

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Ogaga was once again the pick of the players. The new signings all made an immediate impact with the three of them in the first team Best Eleven. I utilized Zmajla more than I thought so I'm a little disappointed that I let him go but I think in the end it was for the best. Sotomayor was the biggest disappointment for the year, although he did turn up towards the end of the season and will hopefully pick up from there.

Overall Best Eleven

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Kirev, Zmajla, and Liviero all leave this year. As much as I like holding onto players that have made an impact in the past, I need to look to the future and in order to do that need to let some of those players go.


July 2021

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Good to see Boschetti getting on the score sheet. Hopefully now that Zmajla is gone I can give him some more time in the first team to aid his development.

Transfers

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A number of players who have turned up big for the club in the past are on the outs.

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This kid is the left back I was trying to get back in January, but I'm glad I held off because he was $8M cheaper after Inter's relegation. He'll come in and start at left back, a position I expect him to hold down for many years to come. I'll also be training him to play on the right side so he can act as cover there.

Depth Chart

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I'm still on the lookout for a right back to start ahead of Murru, who has done well but really should be used as a backup rather than a starter. I'm also keeping an eye out for a young right winger to come in as an eventual replacement for the aging Fabbrini as well as possibly a backup keeper. I really regret selling Alvarado on, not sure what I was thinking there.

​
 
August 2021

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A great start to the season as we win the Super Cup for the third time in club history and dominate our first two league games highlighted by the 7-1 thrashing of Spezia. We also won the Competzione Amichevole yet again, this time playing only players under the age of 23 that don't have a First Team squad status.

League Table

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Only two games in so doesn't mean much at this stage, but this year is the first time the media have predicted us to win at 3-1 odds.

Squad

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Peruibe's two games came in the Competzione Amichevole so his rating is inflated, but several other players had great games for the month. There was more bad news on the nationality front as Ceccoli, the man I saw as the future GK of the national team, accepted a call up to Italy U21's.

Champions League Group Draw

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Should be a group we qualify easily from and will hopefully challenge At. Madrid for the top spot. We've been dominating domestically, now we just need to prove we can hang with the big boys of Europe.

Transfers In

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Batata comes in for a $15M fee from Cesena and will look to be the long term replacement option down the right wing for Fabbrini. I feel like he was a steal at that price as he was just starting to get hot in his 3rd full year at Cesena last season.

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The former Inter youth product wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but after making my interest in him public he handed in a transfer request to his then employers Lazio and was cheap at $2.6M.​
 
September 2021

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Wow, another great month and we're looking amazing. The closest match was against Sampdoria, we were pretty even but took our chances better. In the rest of the games for the month we dominated and could have scored more in most of them.

League Table

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Juventus, Cesena, and Sampdoria our hot on our trail but I expect Juventus are the only real threat out of the three. AC Milan have had another disappointing start but it's better than last year when they managed to rebound and come 2nd.

Champions League Group B

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Two games in and looking good. I think this year could be our year.

Squad

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Ogaga has been even better than usual, which is really saying something. The surprise so far this season has been Giandonato, a player I was planning on using mostly for cover, though he's been injured so we'll see how he recovers.​
 
Great story mate KIU! You've made unbelievable progress with the club. If you could, please check out my Real Madrid story and give feedback on it. Thank you and great story!
 
October 2021

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The At. Madrid game was the first competetive game for the season we didn't win, though in truth neither team deserved to win, the game was a snoozer. Not sure what happened in the AC Milan game, we just didn't show up and they're proving to be a good team, especially after their legitimate 2-0 home win over Barcelona in the Champions League.

League Table

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Even though we've won all but one of our games, we're only 2 points up on Juventus. Them and AC Milan are the only two I'm worried about potentially threatening us for the title as the season progresses.

Squad

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I might as well stop writing anything here, you all know who I'm going to talk about. I will say that it's been tough with 3 of our 4 fullbacks injured, Guilherme has had to make the move temporarily to left back and he'll probably have to stay there for the next 2-3 matches.

National Team Results

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No wins but we've been playing some teams closer than I expected.

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Not a big surprise here. I think it will probably be 2030-34 before we can really hope for qualification.​
 
So I've got an idea but I wanted to get some opinions on it before I decide if I want to go through with it. As you probably know, I've got a custom San Marino database loaded so all teams in the Campionato Sammarinese are playable. My idea is that after I win the Champions league with San Marino the club I'll create a new coach and take over one of the teams in San Marino as well in an attempt to boost their reputation and increase the quality of youth coming through at that level.

There's a couple of reasons I'm thinking of doing this and a couple of reasons I think I might not. First, it will obviously help in increasing the profile of the country and give me some more options for the national team when they get to the point of producing some decent youth. Second, it should help get the national team more competitive sooner in terms of years in game. On the flip side of that coin, it will probably mean more time spent in game managing another team so it might actually take me longer in terms of real time spent playing the game. The other reason I'm thinking of holding off is because it might seem a little "cheap" and make the challenge too "easy", though it really is in the spirit of the challenge in my opinion.

Opinions are welcome. As far as the impact on the story, I'd probably only do yearly updates on the Sammarinese team so it doesn't have much of an impact on the flow of the story.
 
It might be fun to coach in the SM league but if you're doing it to have more/better sammarinese players then I say it's not worth. Sure you might raise the standard of local league but the best SM players will always be the ones produced at your San Marino Calcio club - and it won't even be close.

So if managing in SM league makes your FM experience more entertaining then go for it, it's definitely a good challenge. But if you do it to boost the NT, then no (won't make the challenge easier anyway!)

just my two cents :)
 
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November 2021

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The draw at home against At. Madrid was rather disappointing as I thought we should have won that one. When we get to the knockout rounds performances like that won't be good enough. The other big disappointment was the loss against Napoli. That was another match where we dominated possession and held up nicely defensively but none of our front men could make anything happen. The rest of the games for the month went well.

League Table

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The loss to Napoli causes us to forfeit our lead to Juventus. AC Milan is storming up the table as well so I could see a three way title race as a definite possibility. This could be one of the most exciting seasons Serie A has seen in quite a while.

Squad

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Club top goal scorer Royer was injured for 2 months while on international duty so that leaves the door open for Boschetti and Livaja to prove themselves. Sotomayor has once again been extremely disappointing and despite his attributes being stellar I'm thinking of selling him on to one of the many interested clubs, though I'm afraid that would come back to bite me. I'm not sure if I'm just not utulizing him correctly or if his hiddens are awful, but I don't know if I want to take the chance of selling him and watching him become one of the world's top players at another club. As far as players performing well, Castellazzi has made a trumphant return from injury. I'd like to get Peruibe more playing time but with Ibrahim, Giandonato, and Guilherme all playing well at his position it's hard to justify putting him in.

Champions League Group B

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So we'll qualify from the group stages for the 5th time in a row. I'm still a little disappointed in our performances against At. Madrid but it's hard to guage just how good they are.​
 
kandersson said:
It might be fun to coach in the SM league but if you're doing it to have more/better sammarinese players then I say it's not worth. Sure you might raise the standard of local league but the best SM players will always be the ones produced at your San Marino Calcio club - and it won't even be close.

So if managing in SM league makes your FM experience more entertaining then go for it, it's definitely a good challenge. But if you do it to boost the NT, then no (won't make the challenge easier anyway!)

just my two cents :)
Click to expand...

Good points, thanks for the input! I guess that's another reason I kind of want to do it, I feel like there's a chance it won't be as entertaining when I get the club to the point of consistently winning Serie A (pretty much there already, except this season looks challenging) and consistently contending for the Champions League. Or, at least in between that and the national team becoming competitive.
 
December 2021

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Not a good month, going winless in the league. We're a **** of a lot better than we've been playing and not sure what's going on, just not getting it done on the pitch.

League Table

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Hopefully we can get this turned around soon because the top 3 aren't looking like slowing down. We might have a fight on our hands to even qualify for the Champions League, let alone the title.

Champions League

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We qualified from our group easy enough. Biggest surprises here is Southampton winning their group that contained Real Madrid and a **** poor Bayern, AC Milan winning their group over Barca, and Man City not conceding a single goal on route to winning all 6 of their group games.

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I'm pretty confident we can advance as long as we regain some good form. AC Milan have a good shot as well, though Atalanta has a tough ask up against Conte-led Chelsea who are currently on top of the EPL by 7 after 19 games.

Squad

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I can't name anyone as player of the month after the poor performances. Boschetti does deserve a mention for his brace against Djurgarden in the Champions League. Hopefully Italy don't call him up to the senior squad before he stops rejecting my call ups.​
 
January 2022

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That's more like it! Inexpclicably we thrived this month that was packed with matches. Part of it might be that the competition wasn't as tough this month but we did manage to pick apart league leaders Atalanta on two separate occassions, in their stadium in the league then at home for the Italian Cup. The Spezia match was the only real disappointment where we managed to score 7 goals, only two of those were in our own net.

League Table

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We're back where we belong but it's a tight race at the top. Some of the top teams played each other paving the way for us to take the lead back.

Squad

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Sotomayor is great when he's in form like he has been this month scoring 6 goals and creating 2. Ogaga returned to his dominating ways, except in the Spezia match where he suffered an own goal. Guilherme's stock has raised after a couple more caps for Brazil, leaving me to fend off some high dollar offers from Barcelona.​
 
February 2022

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Not as good as last month but we did manage through the month without losing. The first legs, both away, in the Champions League and Italy Cup leave us in good position to advance as long as we take care of business at home.

League Table

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It's looking like it will be a race between us and Juventus again and they may have the advantage after being knocked out of the Euro Cup first round against Bayern. They have a game in hand on us as well.

Squad

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Cortinovis has done well filling in on both sides at fullback, but it's Ogaga who has been putting on superman performances again. I think I forgot to mention that he was made captain at the beginning of the season.

ECQ Draw

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Not looking likely for us to cause a big surprise here. Maybe a positive or two against Moldova.​
 
March 2022

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Not a bad month, highlight is the 4-1 win over AC Milan. The Padova result was disappointing, that's a game I had marked down as a win before playing but we couldn't convert our chances and walked away with the feeling of losing out on 2 points. It took extra time against Juventus to progress to the Italian Cup final where we'll face off against Palermo. Hopefully we can win that trophy, one we haven't won in 3 years.

League Table

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So it's basically down to us and Juventus for the league. After winning 3 years in a row rather easily it's looking like it's going to come down to the wire this time. Funny thing is 73 points would have won us the league last year. Good news is we should qualify for the Champions League yet again barring a complete meltdown over the final 8 games.

Champions League

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The scoreline isn't as dominate as the stats but it's all we needed to progress to the Quarter Final.

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AC Milan was the team I thought we'd have the best chance of getting past. How did the first leg go?

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If we don't advance after that I don't know what I'll do but it won't be good for my health. Southampton drew 2-2 against Man City at home so they're still in it, but I'd guess we'll play Man City if we advance.

Squad

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Ogaga is out for another 6-10 days after having to sit out the last match of March with injury. Giandonato has been doing exceptionally well, but the board won't let me offer him as much money as he'd like to extend his contract so he might be leaving after this season. I could offer him a contract if I bump his status up to first team, but realistically I see him as a rotation option at best now and he's aging. Midfield is a position I feel we're pretty well stocked at as well and letting him go would let Peruibe see the field more.

Youth Intake

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These two were the most promising of the Sammarinese youth. Seems we have a lot of high potential centerbacks come through but I guess that should help at least a couple of them to decide to play for us rather than Italy. I have high hopes for Bianchi, we really need some better quality midfield players before I feel the national team can compete with the lower ranked nations. I'm still waiting on some wingers though, been playing a narrow tactic but would like to switch to a formation and tactic similar to what I use with the club.​
 
April-May 2022

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Got a little ahead of myself and went into May. This was a disappointing period of play, especially the vital game at home against Juventus that went like this:
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I thought after they went down to 10 men we could have a chance but couldn't even equalize.

League Table

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I'd still say we had a pretty good season but I am disappointed to lose the title to Juventus. If only we could have beat them at home it'd be us sitting up top.

Champions League

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Lost the second leg of the Quarter Final but still did enough to get through. As I predicted, Man City was able to advance so we got them next.

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What a great result! I was a little fearful after Donati got sent off and they pulled one back because after halftime we weren't playing well at all, but we held on for the big win.

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We had to weather a storm in Manchester but fortunately Maes was on his game and came up big when needed. This sets up a final clash with Man U.

Squad

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Royer was superb in this period of play and his hattrick against Man City in the first leg pretty much sealed the deal. He also scored another hattrick and two braces in the 9 games he played in over this period of play.

Serie A Team Of Year

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Four players in this year with the wingers, Ogaga, and Maes having great seasons.​
 
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