The San Marino Double: Mark 2

[Ubernisation]

The San Marino Triple: Mark 2

It's back! So for anyone who doesn't know, I had a story thread in FM 09 (found here) where the aim was to win the Champions League and World Cup with San Marino club and country. Well I'm starting again on FM 11

My strategy in this game is going to be to get to Serie A asap, improve my youth, training and stadium facilities as best I can to improve the quality of my regens and the potential income. After this I will focus more on the club side, trying to develop youth players from my club into international standard players, as besides players I'm producing the rest are mostly trash.

I am using The Better Half's Narrow Diamond tactic (found here). I tried using Koflok's tactic, but it was too unpredictable and flimsy away from home, and no amount of tweaking would sort it out. So I'm using TBH's tactic because I had great success with other creations of theirs in FM 09 and I feel I'm in safe hands. Also the way the player roles are explained gives me more confidence in tinkering with it myself. I normally prefer a lone striker, but I'll give two striker a go for now. I'm also using SK Senior and Youth Training Schedules (found here) as I have no interest in making my own.

On the national side I have tried 3 times to take over the national team (by retiring a second manager) but so far have not been accepted. If the 4th attempt fails I'm going to try retiring the club manager and applying for the job. If that doesn't work I'll wait until I've built some reputation with the club and try taking over the national team again. For the record they've lost 2-0 to Azerbaijan.

So, here's a pre season view of the club:

Club Information:

Squad:

Transfers:

I spent very little money, except on one player, and think I did extremely well to get the quality of players I did whilst at the same time spending very little money.

So my policy with transfers is thus:
First of all I fired all of the players who had less than 1 star ability and potential or less. Then I tried to strengthen every single position, which I did, mainly targeting older players for instant impact but not a long term future at the club, or players around the age of 20 who will hopefully stay at the club for a good few years, and be sold for a profit when I outgrow them. In my first season I always go wild with transfers, the main aim is to get instant promotion, and then make only a couple of signings in the second season and recoup money lost in the first season whilst not getting relegated. In the third season I will splash out again in an attempt at either promotion to Serie B or to drag myself away from a relegation battle- depending on what happens in season 2.

Key Players:

So normally this guy would be too old for me to consider, but I couldn't pass him up. His stats are fairly amazing for this standard of football, and I'm hoping he could have 2 good seasons in him. He had been at a Serie D club at the beginning of this season, and prior to this had been without a club for 5 years- so he has a bit of a weird background. Still, this guy is easily one of the best players in the league.

Another fairly amazing player for this standard of football, and this time only young! There were about 8 teams bidding for him, including 2 clubs from Serie B, but I managed to ****** him from them. I am not sure whether to player him AML or ST. For not I'm trying him as the loan striker, but if his form dips I have a very good back up and I'll shove him over to the wing. At only 21 I hope he'll be at the club for the foreseeable future. Prior to me signing him he was at Palermo for 3 seasons and was loaned out to a Serie C1 team last year, but only got one appearance. Hopefully he'll be hungry for first team football.

Another player far too good for this league, and at only 24 another good prospect for the future. He made 30 appearances for Serie B Triestina last year so he has proven himself capable at much higher levels than this, and I hope he'll be a fine player for me.



He was my major risk this season. He's only 19, and had been brought up at a very good club in Fiorentina, so he has pedegree. His stats are good and in the right areas, I am hoping he will develop with the club and stay with me all the way to Serie A. He will be playing first team games so hopefully will develop well and quickly. I was sort of forced into this move as I only had 3 centre backs at the club, and there were no good free transfers left available to me. It was a choice between him or a couple of other lesser players costing 160-240k. I thought I'd plump for the good expensive player than the make do cheaper ones; hopefully it'll work out.

The only none Italian/San Marinese player (besides one loaned player) in the squad, came from Lazio after 3 years without an appearance. He has brilliant stats in the right areas, he's young and hopefully hungry. My coaches think he is double the player of my former number one, and considering he was one of the best player at the club in the beginning this says a lot. I have high hopes for this guy. Also the fact the team is all Italian, besides him (although he speaks Italian) should greatly help how quick my squad blends together.

Pre Season Results:

Overall I'm pleased with these results. Game 1 and 2 were mostly pre transfer spending spree, so they aren't really representative of my current squad. The 7-0 was a fine game and gave me a lot of hope, but the 3-2 loss was a disaster. We were 3-0 down and had no shots after 80 minutes had passed, at which point we scored 2 quick goals. But in all honesty we were absolutely battered in this game. This game was a day after 3-4 signings, so I'll blame it on that, but I hope not to see another performance like this in a long time.

The loss to Ravenna in the cup was a good performance, and they scored their second goal in the 85th minute, and their other goal was a penalty in the first 5. For vast parts of the middle of the game we were the dominant team, it was a good return performance after the abysmal game preceding it.

And then the famous victory over our Serie A parent club. They were 1-0 up within 15 minutes and things looked ominous. But we went into half time 2-1 up thanks to two excellent strikes from lone frontman Conti. At half time I went a little more defensive to try and cling onto this slim lead. Our defensive midfielder scored a long range effort within 10 minutes of the restart- and at this point I was jubilant. Disaster struck however and substitute striker, Cesca, was sent off in the 65th minute- 5 minutes after coming on- for a two footed tackle from behind. At this point I put Conti back into strike (I had moved him to the left wing) and removed a central midfielder as I wanted to keep the possibility of a breakaway goal. They scored immediately after the sending off, and I was thinking all the good work in the first half was being unraveled. But we had 3 excellent breakaway chances through superb runs from the right winger and positioning from Conti, one of this resulted in a goal, leading to a famous 4-2 victory over a team 3 leagues higher and a hatrick for Conti.

That's all for the first post, I'll update this whenever I finally get in control of the national team, or at the start of the transfer window- depending on which comes first

 

[mickiac]

looking forward to this story Hope u succeed

 

[fuelledbypassion]

Sounds like a good challenge, I'm in!

 

[Ubernisation]

Thanks both of you

So update number one, end of January.

Club:

Well I'm 18 games in, that's over half way, and here's my league standing and results thus far:

So, sitting pretty at the top. At one point I went on a record 17 game run without a defeat. We are very good and dominant at home, the main weakness we have is we find it hard to finish off teams away from home. Most away games are scrappy draws or a very narrow victory; I think in the off season I'm going to play around with my tactics when away from home. But so far I can't really complain- star players have been the two centrebacks and Conti the striker. As you can see we've only conceded 7 goals in the league thus far, mostly thanks to our two centrbacks being so dominant.

Nation:

So I finally got in control of the nation, but not before they played (and lost) two more games. Here is the starting rank of the time when I first took over:

Bottom out of all the ranked teams, so I truly am starting from the lowest it can go. Here are the fixtures played so far:

The first 3 games were under the control of the computer, so I can't claim the glory for that 8-1 spanking As soon as coming in I spent a couple of hours finding who I thought was my best squad, got the tactics and set pieces set up, and set their work rate to high so hopefully they'll gel asap. Having awful players is bad enough, may as well try to give them some sort of understanding! So the Hungary game was a pretty turgid affair, we offered nothing and they should have scored a lot more. The Moldova game we showed a bit more spirit, we had 3 good chances in the first half and a missed penalty in the second, as well as a breakaway goal by second string Vitaioli. We in no way deserved anything from the game, but we showed a bit more than in the first game. Against Finland it was a similar story, we played very well in the first 20 minutes and spent the other 70 defending for our lives. The main problem is that when we make a chance, we don't have the composure to finish them off. I'd say thus far the strength of the team is probably in the centre of the park, we seem to pass the ball fairly well and the wingers get into good positions, but their crosses are dreadful and the finishing is worse.

Here's (roughly) our best squad:

The best players are Selva and Simoncini. In game Selva just got promoted to Serie B as his teams first choice striker, and Simoncini is playing for a club who almost got into the Serie C2/B play offs. These are the only professional players.

My plan is thus: Next season I will consolidate in Serie C1, and will go for promotion either in my 3rd or 4th season, depending on monetary constraints.I'm hoping next season I can coast on just adding one or two minor additions and keeping the team basically the same, the team should be strong enough to keep me up. Once in Serie B I will try to develop my youth and training facilities to a reasonable standard whilst establishing myself in Serie B and balancing the books. When the club is in a healthy state I will make a concerted push for Serie A- although hopefully I'll be knocking on the door through steady year on year growth. Hopefully in this period I'll be getting a few half decent regens coming through to help the national team. This is all assuming I get promoted this seaosn, if not add another year onto those plans.

On the national team front basically expect no progress at all for 4/5 years. I'm just going to keep organising friendlies against rubbish teams to hopefully stop the FA from sacking me through constant losses, and I'll probably pick up a fluke win or draw here or there, but the team will be weak. Unless I get lucky and get some good regens from the San Marinese clubs, the national team will not advance until I have developed my youth facilities in the 3rd or 4th season, as at the moment they are pathetic.

So the short term future is bleak, but I should be burning through this game fairly rapidly as I have a lot of free time, so it shouldn't be too long before we see some results

Oh and I've actually played a couple months past this update, but I'll wait until the off season until I update again.

 

[Brian]

I am following again. Loved this

 

[Frank]

It's back!

good luck pal.

 

[Ubernisation]

Thanks both of you I give myself a much better chance of succeeding this time- last time I started in the summer and by time FM 10 came about it seemed kind of pointless updating an FM 09 thread- I've got a good 10 months at least to be going on with for this thread

 

[Montanaro]

yay! I love the fact that your club success directly effects your national success. A lot of weight on your shoulders!

 

[mickiac]

I love this story keep it up

 

[Ubernisation]

So I've decided how I'm going to format this thread. I'm going to post an update each season before the first league game, in December/January and the day my players go on holiday for the off season. Also I'm going to try and keep a theme of looking at individuals in the national squad so you can see how our potential star players develop.

Season 1: Review:

Club:

League:

We had a bit of a mid season wobble where we fell as low as 5th. We had a lot of injuries at this point though with 5-6 players having month+ long injuries at the same time. Once these guys came back though we played the best football of the season- we started playing much better away than we had before this and started to really put teams to the sword. Bringing in some South American flair with Venezuelan striker Carlos really helped us out up front.

Cup Runs:

So we pretty much killed the Serie C cup. We breezed through to the semi finals with no problems at all. The semi final was definitely the hardest round of the competition and going into the second leg knowing we needed either a win or a score draw to go through was a fairly nice position to be in. We scored a goal in the 50th minute and I made us hold onto the ball and play on the counter and we effectively nullified them and came away with the win The final game in the final was also dramatic. 2-0 down at half time I gave the players a real telling off and took off star striker Carlos. We grabbed a goal in the 70th minute and I employed the same tactic as in the semi final and clung on for the win

Not much to say here, a bore draw with Pro Patria and a routine 2-0 victory over Avelinho and we clinched this (pointless) title

Best Players:

So my gamble seems to have paid off. Splashed all my cash on this guy, and at 20 I'm hoping he'll be with me at least into Serie B, and for the first season he bossed it. Was part of the defence which only let in 16 goals in the league giving us such a solid base to build from. I'm hoping he keeps this form into Serie C1

Brought in to be the star up front, he definitely played better when I switched to a 2 up front tactic rather than him being the lone striker. He made a fair few assists for his strike partner on the way too, again he's going to be leading the line in Serie C1 so let's hope his form continues into the next season. Only 22 so hopefully he can stay with me into Serie B as well.

Initially employed on the right wing, and later moved into the attacking midfielder role his experience really shone through. Being 34 and having played in Serie A and B in the past I was hoping for him to have instant impact, and he did. I'm hoping he can have 2 competitive seasons with me and hopefully be part of a team to get me promoted into Serie B, at which point I might try and get to switch over to a Player/Staff contract if possible.

Nation:

So here's the 2011 fixtures and results thus far. The match with Anguila we dominated and should have scored more goals, against the Virgin Island we played really badly and should have been defeated- but second fiddle striker Marani scored a very late goal. Finland and Hungary were just like the other games I played against them, we got completely mullered and did well to keep the score down- we really do look out of our depth! And against the Cook Islands it was basically a repeat of the Virgin Islands game where we were lucky to even get a draw.

I decided to conduct a bit of an experiment to judge the quality of our team. The media claims we should be easily beating teams like the Cook Island and Virgin Island, so I saved before the Cook Islands and holidayed through the game 10 times to see the results and how good our team really is. The results were 0 wins, 2 draws and 8 losses. In the losses there was a 6-0, 6-1, 5-1, 4-0 and 4-1. So it seems the San Marinese media are delusional about what the quality of their team I don't really mind this, as as I said I don't expect anything for the first 4 years, but I just hope this doesn't mean I get sacked for any bad results.

I'll update again later today with a Season 2 preview.

 

[Kris]

Really enjoyed following this last time. Will do the same again.

 

[scotth1995]

nice idea man, good luck... following. follow my southampton story too

 

[Ubernisation]

In interest of full disclosure I better say that I started this again and holidayed through the first season- I did this so I was able to load the San Marinese league (as inspired by hh12345 here) and hopefully improve it drastically enough to also improve the quality of the regens. I did everything the same, tried to sign all the same players, arranged the same friendlies etc. The only major differences is that Conti (my star striker) wouldn't sign for me and instead is plying his trade in Serie B, and rather than losing the home draw to Moldova I got a 0-0 draw.

I will not give full updates of my management of the San Marinese league unless something of note happens. I will basically be holidaying all the games and putting all my effort into improving the club facilities and getting as far as I can in Europe.

On with the update:

Season 2 Preview:

Club:

So basically I was given no money at all for transfers, and actually had less money for wages than in the previous season, so the only option was letting ago fringe players, cutting down the squad, sacking all bad youth players (all but 3) and getting in more loan players. Also Verachi and Villanova were rubbish co-owned players who deferred to me and who I have since sacked due to wage constraints.

As for the guys I brought in:

A 27 year old Brazilian who had been plying his trade in Azerbaijan for 2 years, and has previously played in Serie B and for CSKA Sofia. Good stats, a definite improvement over my previous left back and is actually on a couple hundred quid less than my previous left back

I needed numbers, and this is the best loanee I could afford, he's a decent player and hopefully if they sack him at some point I can pick him up for free. As for the other players you've already seen Masi and the others were squad players.

Mainly the same players as before, the only new player here is Belmonte who I had to sign due to the failure of getting Conti again (that really annoyed me)

Nowhere near as good as Conti, and he's not going to develop much in the future- my major aim when I have some money to spend will be to buy a young good striker with future development. But still, he will do me for a few seasons and he came for free. Hasn't played for any notable clubs, basically just been floating around the Spanish lower leagues. He got an average rating of 7.03 with 11 goals and 10 assists in 27 games, not as good as Conti but not terrible either.

National Team:

There have been no new games to report on since the last update, so I'll just give you an updated ranking:

So we've gone up 12 in the rankings, I'm pretty happy with this. The remaining games for this year are: Holland (away), Sweden (Home) and Moldova (Away) in the Euro qualifiers, I'm hoping to keep the first two games respectable and maybe get a point at Moldova. I then have two friendlies both at home against Andorra and Anguila. These teams are both a bit above me, with Andorra being ranked 172 and are the closest ranked European nation to me.

San Marinese League:

So basically I holidayed every game and just signed whoever my coaches recommended, I picked the biggest club as I'm not in this for the challenge, and I'm not using it to develop any San Marinese players until I start getting good regens- for now it's all about improving the league rep.

I far exceeded expectations in the Champions league. Santa Coloma are an Andorran team, so beating them wasn't too hard, but then we got BATE. They're a big team for this level of football, and I thought I'd be totally overwhelmed. I played both these games as I saw them as important, the first game was a skin of your teeth type of much, just keeping the scoreline down was the aim. Then the next game really was remarkable. We were dominated in the first half, but they didn't score and we got a goal from a rare chance through a converted corner- then they got a man sent off around the 50th minute and I sensed my chance, so I switched to an attacking formation but we still couldn't score. They buckled under the pressure of penalties and we won the shootout 4-2. Was delighted. I had got further than I thought I would at this point, but got battered by the Norwegian team. Now in the Europa League the first leg was basically a carbon copy of the first leg vs BATE and the second leg was, unfortunately, a routine loss. Still a very good run which will hopefully do something for the rep.

So the league ranking went up 2 this season (although I heard your actions do not effect it until the second season) and we're a pretty measly 833rd, lol. My aim for this is to get it competitive with the worst of the playable European leagues.

So that's update 4 done. Got a question, does anyone know how/when my league will become semi pro or pro? At the moment people aren't on proper contracts and people can just poach your players at will. I have 0 wage budget and 0 transfer budget and won't be able to make any real inroads into Europe until I can buy people. What's the tipping point for the league becoming semi pro?

Will update again in December/January

 

[scotth1995]

Pretty good, not a big fan of holidaying... Good Luck though, going well, i guess!!!

 

[Ubernisation]

I only holidayed it because I didn't fancy playing the same season again And I'm holidaying the San Marinese league because fully managing two club sides will just take far too long

 

[sammyt]

if you do well financially at your san marinese league club then you should get an option to turn the club semi pro, i'm sure that when you've done that the league standard will increase quicker and otehr clubs will soon follow your lead.

 

[Ubernisation]

Ahh that's cool I have about 700k in the coffers from my European matches so hopefully it'll happen sooner rather than later.

Mid season Review:

Club:

So my media prediction was 11th, and I set my goal as finishing mid table, so I'm over achieving thus far. This again has been built upon a strong defence, as our attack has been pretty weak this year, at one point star striker Carlos went 11 hours without a goal :/ We tend to win most our matches by a one goal margin. In the January transfer window I have no money to spend on transfers, so I can't bring in any new faces and to be honest the team is looking a bit jaded. I'm hoping for considerable investment in the summer, no matter what happens, to freshen up the squad.

So a few things to point out here, got a pretty hard draw in the Italian Cup, I was hoping for a bit of a run but alas no. Next year maybe. The 4-1 against Lucchese near the end of the list was a game of note, prior to this game the team had been playing very badly for a good 6-7 games. We were mainly getting goals from set pieces, the whole attacking line was playing abysmally and I was running out of ideas how to improve it. I decided to have private chats with 4 of my offensive players telling them to shape up, and entered the game with an attacking set up from the go, it seemed to work out and I'm hoping it'll spur the team on for the future. Also the 'Copa del Marino' was just a money spinning friendly league during the winter break designed to earn me some money.

On the financial side I'm currently about £500k in the positive and generally lose about 80k per month, hopefully with pre season friendlies and tv money and such I'll have enough cash next season to actually be given a transfer budget. Also I have a Youth Academy being built, it'll be done in about 5 months.

Nation:

So Holland completely dominated us, no surprise there, and Sweden did the same, although we got lucky in that game and Simoncini (GK) played a blinder, we got a consolation goal via a corner too. Against Moldova we pushed them pretty tight and could have potentially got the win, but our strikers squandered a few chances, still the results was probably fair. Against Andorra Selva got a brace and now has 12 goals for his nation, he has actually been fairly mixed in his performances but is the one player I can never really drop as he does have the ability to do something a bit special, unlike everyone else on the team. Against Anguila I decided to play our 3rd choice young striker rather than 2nd choice older guy and boy did it play off, he got 2 goals and set up Selva for a 3rd with the 4th goal coming from a corner. On that performance I'm going to give him more starts and hope the partnership up front continues.

All friendlies next year, waiting for the WCQ draw. All the teams are roughly around me in the rankings except Liechtenstein who are around 50 places above me. My general aim here is just to have more positive than negative results. 3 wins is about the minimum I'm aiming for.

The FA told me my results in the ECQ were acceptable but that they expect better in the future. I take this to mean that a win or more than one draw in the WCQ will keep me in the job, so I suppose I have my immediate goal laid out for me: get a win in a competitive game. Here was how my group finished:

So my goal difference is pretty terrible, lol, but I think getting a point and running Moldova close in the away leg was very good for our team. I would also say we had a fairly hard group, Hungary Finland and Sweden are all pretty good teams who realistically I had no chance of beating, hopefully in the WCQ I'll get a bit of a weaker group (although I wouldn't mind getting Moldova again!). Also I should point out that last season I got no good regens really. I have one guy who was 2 star potential say he could become a good Serie C1 player, so maybe he'll be good enough to get into the main team at some point, I'm going to keep training him at the club until he hits around 21 and then see if any professional team will take him, my main aim at this point is just trying to get as many professional players out there as possible, at the moment.

Here are all of our professional players:

Keeping my eye on this one, I think I'm going to sign him when I get in Serie B and have some good Coaches at the club, train him for a year or two and then loan him out to people Also I'm going to cap him soon, Selva will surely retire in the near future and I think this guy could be the future. He hasn't been brilliant for his club this season, 11 appearances in Serie C2 with an average rating of 6.00, but at least he's a professional player.

A good goalie, should be a staple of the national team for many many years to come. 26 apps last season, 16 so far this season with a decent 6.7 average. His team are pushing the play off spots- so hopefully he can get promoted

Been a disappointing season for Selva, not had any apps in Serie B and looks to be on his way out. If I don't get promoted I'm going to sign him and use him as my 3rd choice striker to at least give him some games. I'm not sure how long he'll stay in the game- hopefully as long as possible!

That's it, besides my two youth player who it's not worth showing. Hopefully with the academy being built I'll get some better players next season.

Also another question, for my San Marinese team I improved the youth facilities last April, it still shows the completion bar in the boardroom section and won't let me request any further development- do I have to wait a certain amount of time for it to be improved? I certainly have the money to do it, but it's just a grayed out choice in the Boardroom requests :/

Will update again either at the end of the season or with a season 3 preview.

 

[Nick.]

again, this was amazing for 09, and it's still amazing this time

Hope you can sign van der Vaart again

 

[Ubernisation]

Hah yeah, van der Vaart would be amazing I did put in a few contract offers for the likes of Gary Neville, Doni, and Ronaldinho in the summer as they were all without a club, but no such luck

Also I should probably say that these updates have still been a bit behind, try to keep them as logical and staggered as possible. I'll update for the end of second season/beginning of third now- but I'm actually nearing the end of the third season Got lots of time to play as exams are over and I'm not going home until the 19th, so it's all FM

Season 2 Review:

Club:

Final Table and Results:

So the theme of the season was a fairly impotent attack coupled with a strong defence. We managed to finish so high by having a good defence. When it came to the play offs we lost out because they had a higher seeding which was annoying >_< But to say my target was mid table got to put it down as an overachieving season. This has made me pretty certain next season it is time to push for promotion. Nothing special happened in the cups, got to the semi finals in the Serie Cup in which I was mostly playing my bench, and went out in the third match against a superior team in the Italian cup.

Star Players:

Player of the season, average rating of 7.06, had offers of 70k for him but decided to hold onto him, I think he'll be a good player in Serie B too. Very good defensively, and also fairly good at bombing up the wing. The fact 7.06 was the average score of my best player sort of shows how average we were, we managed to get results without always playing amazingly well.

The only other player of note this season, began the season as a CM and moved him back to a DM as the 38 year old Fresi struggled with form and injury. Played better as a DM and I think that'll be his position for the future.

Nation:

WCQ Group:

VERY annoyed with this group. What I was hoping for would to get the worst or near worst of the 4th and 5th seedings, whilst I get the worst of the 1st and 3rd seedings and among the best of the 4th and 5th. I don't see where I'm going to get any points in this group. Italy are rank 15 and Slovakia rank 11, both far too strong, Israel are 37th and won't be beatable without a miracle, Belgium are ranked 66th but have a very good team which their ranking doesn't reflect and Wales are ranked 70th and also have a good squad. To get any form of result in this group is going to be extremely hard, and I'm worried if performances are too bad I might get sacked :/ not happy.

Results and Fixtures:

The first 2 games of the season nothing of note happened, the similar tale of defending and hitting them on the break, both games were fairly even and we maybe should have got a draw against Kyrgyzstan. This game also marked the last goal for Selva as he retired from international football soon after. The Pakistan game is the best game we've played thus far. Pakistan won the Asia Challenge Cup and were ranked in the 120s when I played them- getting a draw in such an even game was great for us. We dominated the first half and lapsed in the second, scoring a goal in the 96th minute to get the draw. I had hoped that held good omens for the future, but the 8-0 mullering to Israel sort of dampened my spirits, lol.

As for the remaining two fixtures it looks like two certain losses and then hopefully a win to end the season on. :/

Ranking:

At the time of this picture were were ranked 185th, but this image was taken before the Israel game was taken into consideration and that certainly dropped us down a few places!

San Marinese League:

Europe:

Did very well again, exceeding expectations Tarxien are a rubbish Maltese team who I put away with ease (maybe indicating the San Marinese league is now better than the Maltese?) followed by a Bosnian team who were expected to beat me, but that second leg performance was amazing The unfortunately I got drawn with a pretty strong team in Salzburg, but I kept the scoreline respectable and performed better than I thought I would. When put into the Europa League I was hoping for a weak team and the possibility of advancing further- but I got the exact opposite in Sevilla, but the mere fact a San Marinese team has played a giant like Sevilla is pretty remarkable! Got two games shown on TV which gave us a fair bit of money too

League Rank:

This message isn't too clear, but I think it means I get put into the Champions league at a later round? Currently the league winner gets a place in the earliest possible Champions league round and the Coppa Titano winner gets into the earliest Europa League round. Also a bit of an oddity is that the league champions isn't the league winner, rather the top 6 go into a play off and the winner of that wins- which is a bit annoying.

A bit of information on the San Marinese league, the strength is varied. There are 15 teams, the 2 worst teams have 90% or so San Marinese players, the middle 8 have about 50% San Marinese 50% Italian/or secondary Italian, the top 4 have about 75% non San Marinese with a couple of genuine imports from close European countries and the odd Argentinean (there are quite a few Argentinian-San Marinese players, must be some sort of historical link there?) Whilst I'm about 50% Italian, 30% imports and 20% San Marinese. The strongest player in the league gets 2 and a half stars scouting from the San Marino Italian club, and the best San Marinese international player gets 1 star from the Italian club and 3 and a half stars from the San Marinese club (the best player in the league gets 4 and a half stars, but the second best is 3 and a half)

If you're interested here's a screenshot of the best player in the league, a full star ahead of every other player, and bear in mind my club is considerably stronger than the rest of the league)

Well that's the end of this post, I'm only going to do one post for season 3 'cause I don't want to post too much to put people off. If anyone reading this bit could tell me whether my posts are too long/too short that'd be helpful as if people aren't reading the whole thing 'cause of how long they are I can cut them down a bit.

Cheers

EDIT: One last thing I forgot, I've added a new goal- to win the Champions league with a San Marinese club side! It should keep me with something to do whilst the nation is still struggling along I've changed the thread title to the San Marino Triple.

 

[furaiz]

Heya, One post for season 3 would be too little, spread the updates around key dates like end of transfer season, the mid season and end season,while putting in international fixtures around the right time of season ^^

Keep it up, this is a great story.