The Great San Marino Challenge

[choices]

Thanks USA for making me play this game a lot yesterday

After the heartbreaking tie yesterday, I decided to stay in the world of football so I went through like 2 seasons. Trying to finish off my third season in Serie A, but here goes...

First Season



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First year I think I ever done this challenge where I wasn't predicted to finish 20th in my first year. Yes it was 19th, but still I will take it. The first 3/4 of the season is terrible. Or well the first five games was fine. I had to play against the two promotion teams and got a lucky win against Sassuolo. Then the injuries came and was 20th for most of the season. I had to play two youngsters and a young striker who started to show promise. We finished 12th which was exceptionally well for my first year. Everyone stated how we were overachievers.

Season 2

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I don't remember what I was suppose to finish. I feel it was 12th place, but the goals were mid-standing finish. We got some lucky draws, and surprising somehow after I finished in the Euro Cup everyone said it was nice to see my team perform to my exceptions for the year. Only reason why I said that cause going into my third year we are projected to finish 9th. I didn't have the ton of injuries and good to finally make some progress in Serie A even if I did get luckily with other teams having the injury buy (didn't have to play against the top 6 strikers in the league due to injuries).



...finishing up my third season which seems to be a good one so when I do I will post just that in a solo one with the up and comer stars of the San Marino team. Apparently some of the youth I didn't pay attention and are only for Italy so need to work on getting San Marino players on my team.

...as for the National team, the coach stepped down, but I wasn't offered the job, so will have to wait. Only one won game and have tied like 5 or so, but everything else has been loses.



​

 

[choices]

They say the best happens in three's

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30 points from first isn't so bad with the team I have. Tied for seventh, but eight place is fine with me. We gave some games at the end of the year to some of the lower place teams. I was afraid of my fitness since I was blazing through the Euro Cup. So I let some bench players get some play in the league and put all my marbles in the Euro Cup.

It worked out as the only time I was challenge in the Euro Cup was the semi's where I was underdogs against Tottenham, and even in the finals it was a toss up. So I won the Euro Cup which made up for the loss in the league (was in fourth as the highest with like a month to go).

Meet the Coach of San Marino

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Yay! Our coach Clint Drippins won Coach of the Year. Don't ask me how. Normally coaches have 1500-2000 points in a season, and yet we had the highest this year and didn't break 1,000 points. Either way it was a good sign. Especially now since he is making our training and youth facilities are finally get up to par with the other teams in the league.

Finances and Team Ranking

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Yes we actually made the list last year, but this is finally getting close to exploding to being one of the best clubs in the world. All we need is getting a good place in the next two years, and working on our facilities and we should start to skyrocket. You might ask how do I have so much money with buying all these players each year...well that's cause all the players I buy are free's. Only have spend 800k on a player and it was at the end of this year since the co-owner of my goalie was up (though it was the backup and not my starter).

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We were in the bottom half of the hundreds last year and with the win in the Euro cup it bump us up a full star and made the top page for best teams in the world (although we are not there just yet in my eyes since we had an easy run in the Euro Cup).

3 Rising Stars

If you know my style I like to try to build up the national team by letting youth get some time on my senior squad. Honestly haven't done it this early, last year started around year 7 or so when I got some good recruits finally...sadly none have been called up yet, although two are capped at the U19 team. So I assume it is for Italy and not us.

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He doesn't play all that much, but it more of a cover guy for the next player. He was the best player to come through the ranks my first year. Still a decent player, but this is probably the best he ever will be...

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I have a soft spot for this guy. His stats aren't overall impressive, at least not compared to the other midfielders on my team, but he is a staple now in the first team. The only problem is throughout the year coaches asked me to give him a rest since he was jaded and needed a rest. Hope San Marino can cap him before Italy does. Makes me wish I was the national team coach as well right now.

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He starts for my senior squad. He is the youngest scorer in our history at 15 years and like 150 days or or so. Don't let him sit on our u19 (if it is our team) should cap him right now for San Marino and not worry about it. He is speed up his training cause of the play time. Luckily I have a bunch of midfielders so he basically starts every other game for me.​

 

[choices]

I will keep this thread alive...

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With projected to finish sixth before the season we overachieve after a disastrous year last year, other than the Euro Cup winners. This year we got to the Semi's of the Euro Cup again before actually meeting an even team and would lose which gave us more time to concentrate on the league.

We were one point behind the leaders with three games to go, but two injuries (best striker and attacking midfielder were injured on international play) so had to struggle just to hold second. However we did and we are now in Champs League which will hopefully boost our statue.

Still the national team coach stays so no real hope for us to have Clint Drippins as the coach yet. Although we do have now 5 players on the U21 team so that is good.

Didn't really take pictures since I don't feel if they aren't for San Marino national team its not a big deal, but did sign eight new people with five coming from Chelsea (don't know why they would let them go, but oh well and they are all young). New season looks very promising if the new guys can adjust to Serie A. Still working on the young guys so hopefully they can get start to have a team when I do take over the national team.



EDIT:

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First time I had a player win Serie A player of the year! Sadly he is getting up in age and will need my youth players to get some time so he might not be on the team for that much more. This was his second year on the team as well.​

 

[choices]

Finally Champs and youth players coming up the ranks for U21

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There was some weird stuff that went on this season. I am the third most popular club (rankings) for the Italian League, but yet I was predicted to finish fifth. Yet the first year in Champs league and it was the highest perdictions where i had 31.00 odds to win which was good for a top ten team to finish. I highly doubt that four teams from Serie A were better than me. It showed as we made a run at the start and finished strong to hold for first place. More surprising is that Juventus who was suppose to win it didn't do much all year or wasn't a threat as we swept them for the first wins against them.

Coach Clint Drippins

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Moving up in the rankings for a coach. The sky is the limit where we can pretty much sign any of the youth players out of contract. Which basically will be a staple now for us moving forward. We will be getting rid of the older guys and will just sign these guys for free's to keep on the team for a year or two just to cover for the up-and-comers from Sammerese players to build them up. The fun starts now.

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Second time in his career he has brought home the trophy for Best Coach in Serie A.

Champs League and Italian Cup

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With Man City in our group stage you would assume they would finish first and I would easily take second. I took second, but had a chance for first and Man City was irrevelant to the point it was laughable. They didn't have any injuries either. We got the quarters were we lost 2-0 to Barcelona, but hey we did tie them at home.

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Transfer Fee's

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Had to get rid of him, while he was one of my best attacking midfielders, but the oldest one, to let some younger players get a spot. Plus it helps us stay above 50 million in our balance. Does this mean we can expand our stadium? We can hope so.

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With that sale of course would give us the most but we did sell off some very old people to lower our salary as well. Let the good times roll. Lets just hope our young guys don't get tired for getting a ton of playing time now.​

 

[choices]

The Triple, but Barcelona is my nemesis! 2021-2022 Season

The Triple!

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Of course the season would come down to the final two games, hey it at least it wasn't the final three games like the year before, but we even tied our last game. Luckily for us Juventus tied as as well to give us the first place.

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We would also go on to win the Super Cup at the beginning of the year and also for the second straight year the Italian Cup. Which by the way before winning it last year we never got out of the first round. I don't care about the Italian Cup so I play all my young rising Sammerese stars to get them some playing time. Just been getting lucky getting to the finals. This year I won the finals in a shoot out.

Coach Drippins

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For the second straight year, and third in four years we have won coach of the year. Sadly we made it to the quarters of the Champions League before running into Barcelona. Lost 0-3 on the road and again tied 0-0 at home. At the start of the new year they wanted one of my young guys for 22 million more than his asking price but I refuse to make the rich richer. Especially when I will have to play them again in Champs league this year.

Club Stature

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Well we are a five star team. We will need it since half of my team people want and I feel like my board will sell these players.​

 

[choices]

2021-2022 Season. The end of an era, yet might be too soon

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With the last game of the year and only two points (we lost 3 of our last 5) we would only manage a draw and luckily still held on to first. It would be the treble again. The league was ours...again. The Super Cup was ours...again. The Italian Cup...well we would lose in the semi's on PK's. That's right folks we would face off against Barcelona in the quarter finals of the Champions League and would tie on the road, and would win our first game against them at home that would spurn us to the title against Manchester United which was held in London.

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Records

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First we have the youngest goalscorer on our team now. It wasn't even the best player from the youth class we signed this year, and he would actually be the faster goal for the team all year and he is a centerback.

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Billy Alexander grabs the scoring title for the year in Serie A and with that is also the top marksman in Europe. So what do we do with the 24 year old striker. He sell him to the EPL that's what we do.

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Coach Drippins of course with the treble this year, and being better than the last treble, won the Coach of the Year again. What are the fans going to think about what the coach has just done with his top goal scorer...

Finances

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We claim the top spot for sponsorship this year, and it only got better in the off-season for us. We are racking in money now and since we don't ever spend any money on transfers this is only helping us to be the richest teams in the world (currently 5th).

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We racked up a lot of money for the new season with selling off seven players, while we only brought in one, so we are kind of short of players for our senior squad. Don't get me wrong, 10 of the 11 are world class players. Problem is that with the first picture we should our goalkeeper for the top spot, and now we have two youth players fighting for that spot. Why you ask of selling my best keeper without a viable option. Well one of them started half of the league games for me last year, and got a new one at the end of last year who is apparently better than him. Plus why sell off all these guys. Good question. It's time that we start switching over to just Sammerese players to work on the national team. Sadly two of our top players were capped by Italy already and are world class players. Sadly I am not the coach so this might backfire on me with more players being plucked by Italy before I am coach. San Marino national team is on the rise to 175th in rankings, but if I was in charge probably could of been a top 50 team if I got these players. Time will tell...time will tell if it is a good decision to switch over and make San Marino one of the top nations in the world!!!

Serie A on the Rise

For some reason I can't post the picture, but all it was that we moved from fourth the third now for the best league in the world. Spain actually is below us now. ​

 

[theresonlyoneandyselva]

Season 6 - Close enough

Serie A
After the turmoil of last season I decided to go against my old principles and spend money on a non-youth player, instead of only snapping them up on a free. I was heavily lacking in the DR position and there were no sufficient players available on a free, so I splashed almost 5M on Seamus Coleman, while signing Adam Maher and Jonas Hofmann on a free. The season started miserably, 7 points out of 7 games, and we were hovering over the relegation zone when I decided to tamper with my tactics, switching to a more attacking one and from then on, we were nigh unstoppable. We started to slowly work on the huge gap that we amassed in the first 7, and went on long winning streaks with the odd defeats (against Milan, most likely - we lost all of our first 14 or so games against them, even friendlies, talk about a bogey team). Juventus and Genoa held on for a long time, but then the Grifoni started to bottle it early spring, and after Round 36, it was me on top, one point ahead of Juve. Two wins in the final two games would have meant our first league title - we ****** it up magnificiently, drawing both and settling for the silver medal. Still, strong season, Champions League for the next year, not bad.
Coppa Italia
Strong showing in this one, eliminated Juve in the semis and then beat (relegation-bound) Napoli 2-0 in the final, to obtain our first silverware.

National Team
Not much of a progress, lost all of our qualifiers but managed to score some wins in friendlies.

 

[theresonlyoneandyselva]

Season 7 - Finally
I felt that the team needed further strengthening, so I bought Sven Bender for 6M and a young French regen DC for 9M, to make sure that my defense is strong enough for this year's double challenge. The Serie A was a walk in the park as Juve were in a pretty bad shape this season and we ran away with the title 14 points ahead of Samp and 16 points ahead of Juve. Also, we qualified for the Cup final second time in a row, facing our nemesis, AC Milan, who we literally always lost to. However, we managed to beat the curse in the penultimate round of Serie A, drubbing them 3-0, and we had no trouble repeating it one week later in the Cup final. We won the cup twice in a row, we got this thing going at least. As for the CL... We got handed a seemingly easy group with Anderlecht, Porto and Chelsea. We started off nicely, home game against chelsea, leading 2-0 and then 4-3 in the 81st minute - then conceded a corner and an own goal to help them to a 4-5 win. It was downhill from there, we salvaged only 5 points and got eliminated in the 4th position in the group,thanks to an unlucky loss against Anderlecht in the final round. Preeeetty disappointing...

National Team
Really unspectacular year, lost all of our qualifiers again, with friendly wins against Malta and Singapore meaning the only silver lining...We have some quality regens now, but they reject the call-ups,playing in the Italy U19s instead (one of them is not even invited to the Italy U19, still does not want to join the mighty SM).

 

[djwillster]

hey guys back again after some time off due to personal reasons im starting as club manager and national manger once game has loaded

 

[djwillster]

ill update at half way period

 

[djwillster]

just a quick up date won both cup games

also made 2 transfers

 

[djwillster]

woooooooooooooo lost 4-1 to ukraine but we got a goal and it was the first of the group for them

 

[djwillster]

seriously what are all the injures about in this game a new one every week

 

[choices]

seriously what are all the injures about in this game a new one every week

Have no idea. I hardly ever get them. Well...usually I go a year without any injuries and the next its like make up time as i lose a lot. My best attacking midfielder has been hurt 3 different times in one year and only played in like 4 games. Its fine since he shunned San Marino for Italy so I am okay with him being injured. Even if he is amazing...

 

[djwillster]

Have no idea. I hardly ever get them. Well...usually I go a year without any injuries and the next its like make up time as i lose a lot. My best attacking midfielder has been hurt 3 different times in one year and only played in like 4 games. Its fine since he shunned San Marino for Italy so I am okay with him being injured. Even if he is amazing...

yeh dude in international team im have team subs an 1 player outwith that lol

 

[choices]

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If you asked me before the season if we had a chance of winning the league, even though Juventus and us were odd favorites, with a 16 year old keeper I would assume we would get a top 5 finish. Well our keeper played his mind out as we went on to win four trophies this year with one even being Champions League. We had to play Barcelona in the knockout stage which somehow we manage to win, and then almost lost the quarterfinals before playing two Italian teams to win it.

Coach Drippins

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So now coach Drippins is starting to get worldwide recognition for being one of the best coaches ever in the game. With that the second picture is about him winning the Coach of the Year again. Hopefully we don't sell a lot of people in this offseason.

Records

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This was how we started the year to help us ease our new goalkeeper in the starting lineup as we score the biggest game of our young history.

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The first picture is a guy who still is staying on the senior squad after the year (centerback), while the second guy is a striker and after the year didn't have the production of what we wanted to see so we decided to send him down to the reserves. Which basically means he will sit until his contract is up.

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I am so sad. This guy is amazing and now he is capped for Italy cause the San Marino coach decided to never call him up. Maybe I should sell him for like 60 million since its heartbreaking to see us lose such a good player.

Serie A moving on up

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Another year and another year we climb. A little of us winning our second straight Champs League but at least the other teams are making strong pushes as we had 3 of the final 4 teams in Champs League. Now let us be able to sell people for a profit and things will be great for our club.​

 

[djwillster]

going well dude

 

[djwillster]

so im half way through my 1st season and its looking fairly promising at the moment although form has been very dogdy at best of time

below are the results that iv had

as u can see my last game was my biggest defeat that was due to my left back being injured in first 10 mins and the my forward 5 mins later.

now my tactic is somewhat different for the rest as the shape is very different but i tried my best to impliment a counter attacking tactic with a strong defense and midfield in a way that there's space being opened in the oppositions half and it works iv had high success rates with it.

and finally transfers still only 2 made so far

a very consitant right back and has been solid for me in the short time iv had him

and the guy below is the same and you cant complain with 5 goals and 5 assists in 15 games

 

[theresonlyoneandyselva]

Season 8 - Solid
After a pretty fruitful last season, I decided that my team has sufficient depth with the large amount of promising youngsters, so I chose to have a very quiet off-season, purchasing only a couple of hot prospects (only one of them really promising, mind you, but could be used to gather some money off of them later) and two veterans to help tutor youngsters and provide some more depth - Guaita and Sergio Ramos, who was the first signature signing for the team, with the staggering wage of around 80,000 GBP/week. Also, this marked the last season where I resorted to signing loanees, in order to avoid being down to the bare bones in case of an injury spree.

The season was pretty intense, after we lost the Super Cup against AC Milan and managing only 8 points from the first 6 games, I switched to a more attack-minded tactic. With that, we breezed through the Serie A - in the next 30 league games, we drew only four, 3 of which were 0-0-s where our opponent got lucky. However, thanks to our dodgy start, Juventus were sticking to us for a long time, and we had a meager 2-point lead heading into the final round.
It was close to a catastrophe and I thought that the inevitable last-game-collapse would happen again: we were playing terribly, but managed to go ahead in the 45th minute. In the meantime, Juve were drawing against dead-last Bologna. Somewhat later, Stefano Sensi, ex-San Marino legend put one past Juve, giving me a huge edge for the league title. Little bit later, a defender of Juve got redcarded and we could already feel the trophy in our hands. Then in the 84th Genoa equalized against us. In the 89th Chicharito equalized for Juve, and I started to feel that Genoa will definitely score an injury-time winner against me, with Juve doing the same against Bologna. However, fortunately, it was not meant to be, and Bologna scored the winner in the 93rd, handing us our second consecutive title, with 90 points - Juve were crazy good this year, they could have won the title any other year with this performance.

We improved significantly in the Champions League (we did not have to concentrate on the Cup as we were eliminated in the QF), grabbing 12 points in the group, but only managed to scrape through against PSG with an injury-time goal in a matchup that we should have won with a large margin based on the goalscoring opportunities. Juve were next in the QF, and we smacked them easily (2-1, 5-1) in order to let them concentrate on the Serie A. Then came Liverpool, who were struggling in the Premier Division and had a seemingly weak and old team. We had a barrage of shots and sitters in the home leg, but they got lucky with their first chance in the 91st minute to give them a huge edge. During the second leg, 38-year-old Pepe Reina saved their ***** again, stopping 5 clear cut chances, while they managed to score off two huge defensive mistakes and a corner...

Still, the season was quite satisfyin and we will definitely come back for the CL next year.

National Team
Pretty good season all in all, we managed to draw two of our qualifiers (against Norway and Sweden, coming back from 2 goals down against the Norwegians). Also, I finally had a SM regen with huge potential (4*) who cares to play in the national team, so things seem to be improving.

 

[theresonlyoneandyselva]

Season 9 - Stagnation

I realized that I will need a stronger team to be able to compete in all fronts so I went on an unlikely spending spree: bought Andrija Zivkovic and Mateo Kovacic from Bayern (for a total of 13.5 MGBP, so pretty cheap), an exceptional regen DM from 1860 for 16M, a young Paraguayan GK who can replace Nicola Leali in a year, a regen CD who had a 2M release fee while already having a value of 8M and being one of the best defenders in La Liga and a couple of young starlets. As I only sold a couple of fringe players, the transfer total was around -15M, marking the second time it happened and the first time with such a huge imbalance towards spending.

This vast rebuilding did not really take its toll as we strolled past the Serie A again, tying Inter's record tally of 97 points (with a draw in the final game against Pescara,grr...), recording only one loss (0-3 devastation by lowly Catania...) and 7 draws. My great Croatian regen striker was finally able to step up his game and grabbed 37 goals in 37 games to finally become Capocannonieri (after finishing one or two goals off first for 3 consecutive seasons) and winning the European Golden Boot, as well. (He also went on to become top goalscorer and second best player of the WC, so his value skyrocketed.)

We got relegated from the cup early again, so that we could focus on the Champions League, striving to reach the final that we should have achieved last year. We got handed a tough group with PSG, Atletico and Benfica so we had to settle for the second place behind the French as we could not get a single win away from home. The first knockout round was not too tricky, easily coasted past Celtic, then we got Real Madrid in the QF. I figured we have a great chance as both of their keepers were out with long term injuries (and I could even sign the third choice GK for a trial to keep him out of the game) - I could not have been more wrong. The 17-year-old dude with like 4 grey stars played out of his mind and instead of letting in easy shots (like my 4 grey star goalie in the SM NT) made a couple of great saves and we managed a 2-3 loss at home (their winner came from a corner in the 95th). We put in a good effort in Bernabeu for the second leg, but this GK shut up shop and we had to settle for a 0-0 draw, meaning that we are still to win the CL...


National Team

We haven't had any decent SM regens for two years now in a row. We managed to have some progress, conceding a 90th minute equalizer against Jamaica in a friendly (they were in the top 50) and a good effort for another 1-1 draw against Macedonia (also top 50 team, these two wins could have catapulted us in the world rankings) and a 2-0 win against Uganda. We got handed an insanely difficult group for our stature for the EC quals with France, Denmark, Norway and Israel (and no minnows) so we are not very likely to improve our ranking and our chance of getting an easier group for the WC quals...