The Great San Marino Challenge & Discussion Thread

glad to hear that :)

Leandro was already on my radar when we were in serie B but couldn't sign non-EU from abroad back then. Dinamo bought him quite cheaply, but he never adapted to Croatia and was unsettled. I was able to buy him for 5M (including installements and league goals bonus), which was more or less my season budget thanks to a number of sells and co-ownerships that summer.

He finished the year strong and has started new season even better:

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the NT plan SHOULD work in theory... hope to see some results in the next years. Right now (2014) only Juventus managed to produce ONE sammarinese player, a good striker for our standard (wouldn't play him in serie C1...)

the shocking news is we eventually managed to win our first official match, an EURO qualifier against Kazakhstan!

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ugliest game ever but who cares :p
gonna try this as my long term save on fm12. Hopefully I keep myself motivated this time
 
Sounds amazing. Unfortunately for me my save file had a crash dump and the game refuses to open so I'm just going to wait for FM2012 and just make it my first save. Can't wait! Will you be setting up the challenge almost straight away?
 
Sounds amazing. Unfortunately for me my save file had a crash dump and the game refuses to open so I'm just going to wait for FM2012 and just make it my first save. Can't wait! Will you be setting up the challenge almost straight away?

yes I'd like to set up the challenge again for FM12, and probably will add a guide thread for club & country

I'll start them as soon as I get the game, hope nobody will make a thread before me unless it's famous San Marino pioneer Ubernisation ;)

Quick updates from my career: rocking the Champions League atm

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was quite lucky with the draw, Barça is unplayable for us right now (look at Victor Valdés rating though...) but apparently San Marino are unplayable for Sporting and OB (H)

As for the NT here are our best prospects, considered by our staff to have a future as "decent serie A players" (2.5 stars)

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Besacchi was originally at Juventus but wasn't offered a senior contract so I signed him to continue his development. Peruzzi is a product of our newly built academy, will probably get a call up for the last CL match as we're already certain of 2nd place
 
How have you progressed so fast? I mean champions league and you must be in what your fifth season? Also those two regens look great and will certainly be able to do a job for you even now.
 
How have you progressed so fast? I mean champions league and you must be in what your fifth season? Also those two regens look great and will certainly be able to do a job for you even now.

well this is my latest San Marino save that I started a couple of months ago, so I'm using my past experience with tactics, transfers, man management etc and also my specific experience with San Marino. This obviously helped me a lot

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Honestly the first two seasons are not a challenge for me at this point of my FM11 experience ;)

Serie B was tough the first time (I mean in my previous save), but again I learnt from the past especially how to play around with tempo and defensive strategies (esp in away matches). Torino and us had killed any discussion for promotion after about 10 games.

Serie A was surprisingly easy actually, mainly because after a 3-4 years the traditional powerhouses were struggling to replace their old superstars, and the other teams never really stepped up. Napoli is really the only top class club in Italy atm.

Also I always put a lot of effort and time in transfers and scouting, sometimes it just pays off :) Leandro is probably the second best striker in the league only behind Napoli's Cavani (who's injured for 3 months...) and current top scorer of serie A while we're in 2nd place.

What else... tactical consistency is a key in FM11, so I started with a tactic I both trusted AND liked and always sticked with that. Then you need good players who are also good fits for your tactic. I also found that PPM make a huge difference in how players perform (eg my quick striker MUST beat offside trap; my playmakers try killer balls etc)

Players morale is also very important, so private conversations (match performance, happiness, development, training level etc) are a must every week

That's it I guess!

PS this is the tactic I'm using, though my thread didn't seem to have great success at that time....

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...sexiest-football-ever-seen-lower-leagues.html
 
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yes I'd like to set up the challenge again for FM12, and probably will add a guide thread for club & country

I'll start them as soon as I get the game, hope nobody will make a thread before me unless it's famous San Marino pioneer Ubernisation ;)

Quick updates from my career: rocking the Champions League atm

View attachment 197891View attachment 197892View attachment 197893

was quite lucky with the draw, Barça is unplayable for us right now (look at Victor Valdés rating though...) but apparently San Marino are unplayable for Sporting and OB (H)

As for the NT here are our best prospects, considered by our staff to have a future as "decent serie A players" (2.5 stars)

View attachment 197894View attachment 197895

Besacchi was originally at Juventus but wasn't offered a senior contract so I signed him to continue his development. Peruzzi is a product of our newly built academy, will probably get a call up for the last CL match as we're already certain of 2nd place

Those youth prospects are very good for the NT. a few more of them and you would be a 80-40 ranked team. with them im sure you could get to about 100th.
 
Those youth prospects are very good for the NT. a few more of them and you would be a 80-40 ranked team. with them im sure you could get to about 100th.

Well we had jumped all the way from 208 to 144 with that win but then had the usual 0-5 against Polonia so we'll see...

It's hard to climb up the rankings as you need to win/draw official matches to do that and all the NT in europe are generally out of our league. Kazakhstan was a good draw, hope to face Andorra in official matches someday...

I'll show you the other minor prospects that still have a future with the NT (1 star):

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Diego Salina is a half-argentinean that I bought from the amateur Sammarinese league, I think he could be a decent playmaker for the NT so I'm retraining him

And here are the non-regen "stars" of San marino. These are all real players:

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All contracted to our club, I loan them out to keep them in good shape :p. Ragini and Battistini have developed well (again, for SM standard) since the first year
 
What is it with San Marino and left backs eh.....
 
Another update for those still following: completed 2nd season in serie A, now 2nd place was excellent but left me with some regrets

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confirming the decline of serie A, Atalanta won the league with a very average squad and a lot of luck especially when playing against us :mad:. Next year should be tougher as the likes of Milan and Juventus are buying their way back to the top with some world class signings, and Napoli will recover from their injury crisis. Daniel Agyei from Fiorentina and Lucas from Sao Paulo are my high profile signings for 2015/16 :p

As for the CL, after a good run in the group phase we were thrashed by Real Madrid in the first knock-out round.

Leandro was absolutely on fire and went on to win the European Golden Boot (and obviously serie A top scorer) after some truly amazing performances:

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...started new season with a typical hat trick (H). Scary thing is he still has 1.5 stars to fulfill his PA according to my staff...

As for the NT, we have the occasional friendly win against other dubious countries (ranked higher than San Marino though!) and try to avoid humiliation in the official matches (also had a 1-10 against Swiss :p):

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Besacchi doing great with the NT, he has loan requests from serie B clubs let's see how he does there!

Sad news is the 2015 youth intake is absolutely hopeless (all rubbish with 0.5 stars PA), and the other clubs aren't helping despite my "brilliant" plan (one club from serie C1 has produced a rubbish sammarinese this year and that's it)
 
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what might help more tehn getting foreign coaches into the national team setup so they know alot about san marino would be doing it the other way around as i think i heard somewhere that sometimes you get regen's of the manager's or coaches nationalities coming through your youth system.

so if clubs like inter milan and barcelona had a san marinese coach then it might help, also with fm2012and the new youth system if you find any san marinese youngsters don't make the grade at bigger clubs you could sign them yourself which might help.
 
Just started my San Marino challenge and I'm loving it so far, lost my first league game 1-3 but then sorted my tactics out and came away with a 3-0 win away from home. Anyway when I get a bit further in I'll give you guys an update. Btw I've read the whole thread and it was an excellent read.
 
what might help more tehn getting foreign coaches into the national team setup so they know alot about san marino would be doing it the other way around as i think i heard somewhere that sometimes you get regen's of the manager's or coaches nationalities coming through your youth system.

so if clubs like inter milan and barcelona had a san marinese coach then it might help, also with fm2012and the new youth system if you find any san marinese youngsters don't make the grade at bigger clubs you could sign them yourself which might help.

this is true, in fact Juventus start with a sammarinese coach and they prduced our star striker Besacchi. Unfortunately I can't control other clubs' strategies I can only hope they hire sammarinese staff! Only Juventus, Catania and Bellinzona (Switzerland) have staff from San marino atm

It's disappointing when I have improved dramatically our club reputation, scouting network, youth recruitment, staff quality, built the academy and then... I get worse regens than before!? Seriously that is frustrating

Foreign players can't get SM nationality and I accept that. Other clubs producing sammarinese youngsters are extremely rare and I'm ok with that. But to see my "academy" coming up with WORSE players year by year despite club progress is painful to watch! Hope FM12 will be more rewarding with this
 
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Just started my San Marino challenge and I'm loving it so far, lost my first league game 1-3 but then sorted my tactics out and came away with a 3-0 win away from home. Anyway when I get a bit further in I'll give you guys an update. Btw I've read the whole thread and it was an excellent read.

thanks mate, enjoy the challenge! first years and lower leagues are always my favourite part that's where amazing happens :)

btw after a heavy loss against Kazakhstan we managed an unlikely result away vs Polonia:

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GK Aldo Junior Simoncini on fire!
 
this is true, in fact Juventus start with a sammarinese coach and they prduced our star striker Besacchi. Unfortunately I can't control other clubs' strategies I can only hope they hire sammarinese staff! Only Juventus, Catania and Bellinzona (Switzerland) have staff from San marino atm

It's disappointing when I have improved dramatically our club reputation, scouting network, youth recruitment, staff quality, built the academy and then... I get worse regens than before!? Seriously that is frustrating

Foreign players can't get SM nationality and I accept that. Other clubs producing sammarinese youngsters are extremely rare and I'm ok with that. But to see my "academy" coming up with WORSE players year by year despite club progress is painful to watch! Hope FM12 will be more rewarding with this

don't forget that they are being compared to your superstars rather then serie c2 level players now so they will seem worse in comparison but actually better.

**just an example i don't know actual values**

a serie c2 player might be ca 100 and your regen ca 80 so he seems good in comparison however now you're serie a your current players might be ca 150 and regens ca 110, so in comparison to you're current stars they seem worse then the regens did compared to the serie c2 players but in actual fact are better players, and with 12 hopefully those clubs with san marinese staff will find san marinese youngsters that clearly won't cut it at their club and then not offer them a youth contract meaning you can and will have more in the game from the big clubs.
 
don't forget that they are being compared to your superstars rather then serie c2 level players now so they will seem worse in comparison but actually better.

**just an example i don't know actual values**

a serie c2 player might be ca 100 and your regen ca 80 so he seems good in comparison however now you're serie a your current players might be ca 150 and regens ca 110, so in comparison to you're current stars they seem worse then the regens did compared to the serie c2 players but in actual fact are better players, and with 12 hopefully those clubs with san marinese staff will find san marinese youngsters that clearly won't cut it at their club and then not offer them a youth contract meaning you can and will have more in the game from the big clubs.

yeah I'm aware of that and have to take it into perspective I guess :)

But for example last year (2nd year in serie A, overall quality of first team was very similar to the current) I had just established the academy and improved youth recruitment and results were quite encouraging: centre back Peruzzi came with good looking attributes, 2.5 stars PA and was "one of the best players to ever come out of the ranks" in the words of my excellent assistant manager. Plus there were a couple more decent prospects that looked promising compared to san marino average quality and already had decent stats to play for NT, as well as a full 1 star PA

This year (3rd season in serie A) I further improved recruitment network and facilities, but my assistant introduces the new class with the uninspiring "no one really stands out". I check each prospect and their attributes look absolutely hopeless, plus NONE of them has more than 0.5 stars PA. And they're compared more or less to the same level of players of last year.

the truth is it's always difficult to produce great players from you own youth setup in FM11, even for bigger teams than San Marino. But to see this lack of improvement despite all my efforts is a bit disheartening, especially when this is virtually the only chance to improve the NT. 2015 is still quite soon tbh, but it's hard to progress when a whole class of youngsters goes wasted like this...
 
the only thing i can think of is improving the youth recruitmant network as if it's wider then in theory you're scouts will be looking at more players before promoting some to your youth team. Although sometimes you do find that you get a stand out bunch or a bunch that are really poor quality compared to recent years.
 
the only thing i can think of is improving the youth recruitmant network as if it's wider then in theory you're scouts will be looking at more players before promoting some to your youth team. Although sometimes you do find that you get a stand out bunch or a bunch that are really poor quality compared to recent years.

yeah I always try to improve everything as much as I can, training & youth facilities, stadium, recruitment network etc :)

but in the end it all feels so random. In my previous save I had no academy and worse network than I have now, and then the youth set up produced an excellent midfielder with great stats and 3 stars PA (and we were serie A contenders, so quality of first team was quite good), and european clubs were all over him after a few months. He was actually so good that he refused the call up for the NT and was part of Italy U19 at just 17... I had posted about him back in this thread ;)

I understand some element of randomness is nice with academy and youth setup, but hope I can have a little more control in FM12...

PS actually I had started a thread about that young player! http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2011-players/64191-show-off-your-youth-products.html
 
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shame that thread got closed really as like you said so few people try to develop their own talents and most buy regen wonderkids. i think it's definately worthy of it's own thread and something that you should ask raikan about for fm2012. i'll probably try this challenge myslef on fm12 when you've setup the thread as i'll be able to play this straight away and then when i find the relevant leagues i can start a thread for the virgin islands challenge and give that a go.
 
Slightly off topic, but I love producing my own players, my latest exotic player was from Antigua & Barbuda.

And don't always go by the star rating, sometimes players with **** PA have decent attributes and you can turn them into decent players, maybe not good enough for Serie A but they'll improve the overall quality of the NT.
 
on Fm12 you will be able to choose who you recruit etc so it could be much better for challenges like this
 
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