The Great San Marino Challenge

P.S just realised how hard it is to see some of those stats, will change colour for next time
 
Nice update.

LOVE this thread.

Work permits......will these always be such a pain/problem for SM league teams like Tre Fiori? Or as my rep and such goes up will it be less of a problem?? Most frustrating at present you see!
 
Season Twenty Two. Not my best but my last.....

After a great year last year i hoped for highs every better then i have had. On the other side i never got them highs,finished s disappointing 5th,missed out on CL football on the last day and lost my passion for the team. Tried to continue into the next season but retired in September and the San Marino finishing 10th in Serie A without me. Ive left a good squad and happy with what i achieved but not wining a title or any european Competition in that time drained me.
I shall start this again in FM2013 so see you all here. Happy gaming lads. Final screenies below

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Just started my 2nd season with San Marino and here's last season's update.

I ended up 3rd and had to beat Alessandria in the playoff final to get promoted. Extremely happy I got promoted in my 1st try, don't think I would've been very kind on my players if we had failed to get past the first hurdle!

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Want to share a screenshot of my top 2 players of the season - 2 strikers who scored 70 goals between them! Definitely a big reason that I got promoted.

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Finally, here are the transfers I made before the 2nd season - nothing to write home about, again free transfers and just players to fill gaps in my team. I had so many players scouted out, but obviously can't do anything with £1k transfer funds XD Doesn't help that I only get 25% of sales money either!

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My plan this season is to remain in this league, try to get as high as possible in the table and maybe try to get some players on loan from our Parent Team (Cesena) in order to help me achieve this goal. Right now there's not much I can do about my team rebuilding as I need funds for that, so all that is on the backburner for now.

Till next time.
 
I´ve just finished my first season of my San Marino game. However, I do not follow one rule of this challenge: - I didn´t added myself as San Marino national team head coach. I want to earn this position. Well, the first season was good. Did well at Italian Cup, achieved the minimum expected. The league was very easy at the first half, but the second half through the final games did gave me some serious headache. I conceeded too much goals, and that´s unnaceptable for a more cautious counter-attacking approach. My main focus at the first season was to build up a experienced team. I signed good players like the experienced striker Polani, and the creative veteran defensive midfielder Salvetti and Passoni. They gave the team quality ball transition beetween the defense and midfielder, and good leadership. I played most of the time a 4-3-2-1 defensive tactic, with 3 defensive midfielders, one of them was given the deep lying playmaker role, most of times Salvetti or Giraldi, best passers. Coppolla and Passoni played a more defensive role. The best player in the whole season was the Uruguayan striker Abrahim, got second place as top goalscorers at the league, scoring 21 goals. He would be the top goalscorer, but he had a bad sequence of injuries. Which, speaking of it, troubled my team during the season. I had way too many serious injuries, making things much harder. I can´t seem to take screenshots, when I press the print screen button, and paste it at paint, it shows my desktop instead of the game image. Any clue what´s going on? Edit: Alt+ f9 did the trick. I will post the screenshots.
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I posted my signings, both from the first half of the season and second half. Note the signing of San Marino national team goalkeeper Simoncini, got him on a free transfer.
The youth intake was ok, I forgot to add a good MC set piece taker with a good future too. The highlight is the San Marinese enthusiastic midfielder.
Im starting the second season. My main focus in terms of tactics will be a quick attacking football this time. I will release most players and start using the youngsters. My defense primary focus will be physical strenght, Im going to take advantage of this, since I already have a good relaible strong full back , the Argentinian Gimenez. However, I will be looking for pacey full backs for the right side. I will post my new transfers for second season later.
One of my goals will be improving the club finances. I ´ve lost so much money, even spending 24k per week, which is 11k below the ammount allowed per week. I need some ideas on how to make things less heavier at least.
I doubt Abrahim will be kept at the squad, his atributes decreased way too much, plus he is very injury prone. However, I do plan on keeping Polani around. You can´t understimate his awesome 18 finishing rate.
 
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I've decided to add the French/German/English/Spanish leagues to my game - just loading Italy was a bad idea :'( Very limited number of players to choose from.

End of Season 2 Roundup

League
Had a surprisingly good season in Lega Pro Prima Divisione Girone B - finished 2nd in the league and had to face the playoffs.

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Won the playoffs and got promoted! Delighted with my 2nd straight promotion!

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Squad
Here's a screenshot of my squad - as you can see, generally tried to rotate the squad evenly so that everyone got play time and this payed off handsomely!

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Players/Staff Leave!
The downside of our success this season is that I had no money to offer wage increases to many of my players and staff and at the end of the season a lot of them left on a free! :mad: I tried very hard to find the funds to keep my team intact but ultimately there was nothing I could do.

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Transfers
As I mentioned above, I had a lot of players/staff leave the team on a free because I couldn't afford to give them new contracts - this meant I had to spend a lot of time scouting around trying to get players on a free to replace the ever-increasing gaps in my team. I brought in as many players as I could but ultimately was limited to a few decent players and a few old players. Hopefully this will be enough to keep me in the Bwin league.

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My Aim
I am to avoid relegation this season so that my rep goes up and I get some nice player choices for the next season. The TV money from staying in this league will also help me a lot in the long-run..but for now all this remains to be seen. With the loss of a lot of my 1st teamers from the previous 2 seasons I've had to bring in a few new names and gelling could take time - something which I will not have as I need to hit the ground running with this team.

Till next time.
 
Does anyone know if the managers rep helps attrack players to a team? With my Tre team I have set ex player MArlon Harewood (bit of a FM legend) up as the manager, we are 117th in Europe now, a CL group stage regular (even if we get smashed every game) and we have decent facilities, but still struggle to pull in decent players.

I was going to get Marlon a U21 managers role, then go for a proper NT job - will this help Tre Fiori in some way?
 
Does anyone know if the managers rep helps attrack players to a team? With my Tre team I have set ex player MArlon Harewood (bit of a FM legend) up as the manager, we are 117th in Europe now, a CL group stage regular (even if we get smashed every game) and we have decent facilities, but still struggle to pull in decent players.

I was going to get Marlon a U21 managers role, then go for a proper NT job - will this help Tre Fiori in some way?

Yeah manager rep does have an effect, or it always seems to have for me. In the latter stages of my games I have players stating that working with me is the main reason they signed.
 
Season 2 update

Club Progress

Having clinched promotion last season with several matches spare, I went into the second season with high hopes of progressing even further. I started the season by making signings to strengthen crucial weak points in the 1st XI.

Up front, counago took a back seat in favour of new signing Bernado Corradi, a good target man, who I felt would bag himself a few goals. My thoughts were eventually confirmed, as he ended the season with a tidy 20 goals in all comps.
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He was joined up front by a player with a bit more pace about him, to play off Corradi's immense aerial ability.
Simone Cavalli fitted nicely and also ended the season with 20 goals in all comps.
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On the wings, Marco Ingrao and Alexis Carra performed admirably. Both in their second season, they were vital to the success of the team.
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Carra's Progress was astonishing from last season as he developed into an effective winger. Setting up 15 goals and bagging an impressive 14 himself off the wing, He stood out among the rest of the squad and was duly named the league player of the year for his efforts.
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These players all helped to gain the club a big achievement - Their first ever season in Serie B. Although we did have to do it the hard way and go up via the playoffs, finishing 4th in the standard season. A strong showing in the final meant we were promoted after winning 6-3 on aggregate. The great escape was complete, and San Marino fans are looking forward to Serie B football next season.
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Youth Development

Venturini has developed reasonably well since last season, but is still a long way away from the finished article, with 3 1/2 more stars' worth of progress remaining.
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Youth Intake

This season produced a good intake. Again the majority are poor, but there were 2 diamonds in the rough and just to make it better, only one of them has dual nationality! The better of the regens is 100% Sammarinese.

First off, the 4 1/2 star potential regen:

Renato Castiglione

A very adaptable player who can play no less than 4 natural positions and 1 accomplished, I feel his pace and his ability to play ML or AML is making me lean towards making him a winger. That and the fact I already have 1 DM from last year, and another this intake.
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Mario Marino

Mario is a good prospect, with 3 1/2 stars potential. Another DM who already has decent tackling and mental attributes, I feel I can make him into a very strong player for the national team.
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National Team

Once again I have to report I still don't manage the national team. The previous incumbent has yet to retire, so I'll have to wait for him to put away his clipboard before applying for the job.
 
I'm not sure if this has changed - but do we still need FMRTE to fix the tv money issue for San Marino once they join the top league?

FMRTE costs 5 euros...and I'm not sure I want to pay that much for a program I don't want.
 
I'm not sure if this has changed - but do we still need FMRTE to fix the tv money issue for San Marino once they join the top league?

FMRTE costs 5 euros...and I'm not sure I want to pay that much for a program I don't want.

that got fixed in one of the patches but i'm not sure which one.
 
Yeha if your starting a new game from 12.2.2 you'll be fine, as above I also cannot remember the patch but I know it did get fixed.
 
When you start a new game, when selecting database size. Choose custom, then load all players in top division of San Marino, all players based in San Marino and all players of Sammarinese nationality.
 
Seasons 3 & 4 Update

For my first season in Serie B, I tried to sign players good enough to attempt a 3rd straight promotion, however lack of wage budget and competing against higher reputation teams meant that I sadly missed out on a large number of transfer targets. Therefore I signed decent Serie B players with good potential, and also started operating a policy of snatching up good potential players for future sale.

A very poor first half of the season meant I had to abandon any pretensions of promotion and concentrate on avoiding relegation. This persisted up until the last quarter of the season, where a run of 6 back-to-back wins left me in a fairly respectable 12th on first time of asking.

The 2 best players I signed in terms of how they did for the club were Miguel Medina, whom I got for a bargain price of £38K (20 to Udinese and 18 to Lecce).
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And the second is Antonino Barilla, a strong left winger for that league.
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However I reset my sights on entering the heights of Serie A again the following season. Signings in preseason and a much improved wage budget of £60K per week for the promotion push meant I had much higher hopes for this season. I went at it with aplomb, and was rewarded by sitting at the summit of the table at the half way stage of the season. However my players were attracting much attention, and during the latter half of the season my squad was decimated by injuries and international call-ups. This led to inconsistent squad selection that caused uncertainty in the camp. In turn, the shaky results saw us slip into mid-table anonymity. My players did come back in time for a late push for the playoffs, and barely edged their way in.

Upon arriving at the playoffs, there was yet more bad news. No less than 24 of my players were to be away on international duty both semi-final matches. A spirited performance by the reserves limited Cremonese's victory to just 3-2 in the first leg, but things weren't looking good for the second leg. Along came the second leg, and an early goal set the scores level on aggregate, although being the lower seeded team, I knew we couldn't afford to do anything but win. Then finally a massive slice of good luck - an early bath on 18 mins for a Cremonese defender for a vicious 2-footed challenge. The loss of a player seemed to be a blow they never recovered from, and a shameful display of 'attempted' goalkeeping meant we scored a number of very lucky goals, with one sticking in memory. CM Malte Wetter with a poorly struck effort right at the 'keeper, which he somehow pushed into the roof of his own net.

We now have to deal with Grosseto in the playoff final.

Youth Intake

The third season's intake heralded some good prospects, the best of them sadly was italian.

Though there were 2 decent prospects for San Marino.

Alberto Di Marco
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Although he looked to me a decent player, he has just 3 star potential. However he did walk straight into the U21's and as such is clearly a better prospect then they had before.

Massimilliano Righi
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Again, a decent looking player who walked into the U21's, he lacks much potential, at just 1 1/2 stars.

Frankly, the fourth season's intake was shocking, with just one player at over 1 star potential, and he is Italian, as such no use to the NT. But after 3 good seasons of Youth Intakes, who am I to complain? I was due a bad one.

Youth Development

Nicolo Venturini
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Venturini (Whose face for some reason decides when it feels like loading up??? Who knows why?) Has spent the latter half of the season out on loan, and has massively benefited from the experience.

Renato Castiglione
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Not yet ready for loan IMO, he is still developing nicely in my youth team.

Mario Marino
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Marino has broken into the NT, and as such I'll be looking to loan him out sooner rather than later for that vital match experience.
 
Update from me,

SM - dominating, won the CL 4 times in a row, although last season I was neck and neck with Palmero for the league right up to the last game...........when I played them away and won 1-0 to seal the title, on 96 points (so you can see how well they did!).
Trying to bring through youth this year, shame my regens all seem to accept italian u19 etc call ups over the San Marino NT - I ahve a couple of 'ok' pure SM ones so giving them some playing time now, shame they aren't really in the positions I need for the NT.

NT - 18th in the world (Italy is 11th for ref), got to the World Cup, a great 1-1 with Italy in the group, a 4-4 with Ghana and a 3-1 over Iran meant we got to the first knockout round, lost 3-2 (IIRC) to France though.

Should qualify for European champs, team has some good starting XI players but a few VERY weak points like the GK, no recognised RB etc, and the bench is WEAK.

Tre Fiori - doing well, CL group stages 4th year running, have bought in alot of really good young players, if I can keep this team together we should have a strong team in a couple of years as most have alot of potential and we have decent facilities now (I push the board to upgrade them every year).

One MASSIVe positive is that Tre earned their first point from the CL groups, in 3/4 years of attemps! 1-1 home draw against AZ. Still got smashed 5-0 at Real Madrid but a point is still huge progress as the gap between quality is still pretty huge.
The League is silly now, I won every single game in the CS and CT last year, most 5-0 or more, same this year even if I play a total B team.
 
Oh and anyone who has played a SM league team - can you comment on stadium upgrades? They expanded it to 1500 but by adding another 500 STANDING, which is pointless as I only get 600 approx for league games and only sell out the CL games.........but they have to be seated so it maxes out at 350! I need more seating but can't specify that in the boardrooms options.

Not sure to push for a new stadium, anyone had that? I wonder how much a 5k (with potential for growth) stadium would cos? I think this current one is limited to 4k expansion potential, which TBH is a long way off before I get crowds that big....

I think I'm now ranked either 97th or 117th in Europe :)
 
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