Season 3 Review/Season 4 Preview:
San Marino (Club)
League Table and Results:
So the form before Christmas continued and I won the league
The final standings show it being a bit closer than it was, I was about 10 points ahead of the pack, but had won the league with 2 games to spare and the team just didn't perform in those last two games. We had been very, very far ahead but towards the end of the season we got multiple injuries and general fatigue set in.
Player Rankings
So what I thought was my best signing, Sissoko, proved to be my best player
Yet again it turned out that defence was key in our performances, and with our 4 first choice defenders all being ranked over 7.10 pretty much tells it's own story. Another positive was the performances by Laurito, he really did well in the transition from substitute striker to the number one choice. The only other ones to note are Belmonte and Suarez who both underperformed throughout the season. Belmonte was dropped early on after some bad performances and never performed wlel enough to get back in, Suarez was brought in as my first choice AMC but didn't perform quite as well as I wished. I'll persevere with him next season, but if he isn't performing before December I'll look at getting somebody else in.
Season 4 Transfers:
So, as is my way I always make loads of signings whenever I get promotion, no change here.
Coming in we have Laurito, Masi and Romizi on permanent contracts after being on loan. Joost and Salvatierra are 18 year old prospects (CM and ST respectively) both currently on 3 stars and predicted to be leading Serie quality! Hopefully they come though
As for the others you can see how they slot in my team in the image below:
The standout players out of these are:
Portin: Good stats, 26 and 7 caps for Finland- coaches rate him as my best defender.
Hetemaj: Very good mental and physical attributes, and good technically, again 26 with 13 caps for Finland and 2 goals.
Ilicic (A player I've heard of!): Very similar to Hetemaj but slightly more flair and creativity, 26 with 15 caps for Slovenia and 1 goal
My overall philosophy with signings this year has been to go young and use free transfers. Although I was given a much better amount of money to play with (about 800k) I preferred to stick to free transfers, so I went through all the players realeased by Serie A clubs and scouted them- I found Portin, Hetamaj and Ilicic this way, as well as a few more. I also searched for players without a club who had been capped for their country, then giving anyone who had played for a decent nation a trial. And I sent scouts into central Europe and these found me a few more players. I decided to go young because before now my team had been heavily skewed towards older players as they were easier to sign. Now I have more clout in the market and higher wages to play with I have majorly reduced the age of my squad. I now have only 7 players aged 30 or older.
From my outgoing players 5 were older players whom I didn't offer a new contract to, such as Belmonte and Carlos. I also sold any players who got less than 5 appearances last season as my squad was a bit bloated with too many fringe players leeching off me. The only outgoing player I didn't want to lose was Machado, my previous no. 1 left back, he refused to sign a new contract and Lecce stole him from me.
Pre Season Results:
So as usual I organised pre season leagues in order to get some cash in. And I did amazingly well! 2 losses and 1 draw from 8 fixtures with Serie A teams is pretty amazing. Most of the managers were waxing lyrical about my management after playing me which was nice
I'm hoping this season is the season I can go on a good long cup run to also help the coffers. I have developments of the youth facilities ongoing, but I don't want them to be canceled due to lack of funds, which is what happened this year.
One more thing to note is I've not yet gained financial stability. I'm hoping next season I will achieve this thanks to TV revenue and better sponsorship. Normally I lose money each month and end the season in the red. Also my target for this season is mid table, but my squad is actually very strong and I wouldn't be too surprised if I was in and around the play off spots.
San Marino (Nation):
Results:
3-0 seems to be the theme here! All the games were the standard fare, we get dominated, let in goals and get the odd chance on the break. This makes me think the chance of us getting a point from this group very low, although we're keeping the GD down which I suppose is a positive. Another thing which is getting really annoying is the media predictions. Every friendly game I play I'm told I should be winning this game, even though these teams are often of the same or better quality than us. And then when I lose or draw I'm told the fans are disappointed, whilst for example the 8-0 loss against Israel they thought was a fair result. It's a bit of a glitch which is becoming annoying.
Ranking:
A decent steady increase, again until I have majorly improved my youth facilities my only aim with the nation is not to get sacked. This current crop of players are terrible, and I've not had a single good regen who will be getting into the national squad thus far. Before continuing with the game I'm going to comb my way through the national pool to try and find any good regens coming from the other clubs.
Tri Fiori:
So I turned Semi-Pro, yay! I was given a wage budget of £600 p/w which was enough to offer contracts to my 18 best players. My next step is to start getting staff in at the club and keep increasing the quality of player. Hopefully within a few season I can go fully professional. We have over £1m in the coffers thanks to success in Europe, so the developments are being constantly churned out. I'm hoping for this to yield some good regens soon!
The league is steadily getting more prestigious, and moving up the coefficients which can only help
The only problem is we're going to hit a ceiling though as it's only my club pushing us forward. The club who gets into the Europa League has gone out in the first round 3 seasons in a row thus far, but I'm hoping that they might start turning semi pro like me soon and start at least getting past the first round. Also I've noticed that the club who wins the league no longer goes into the earliest qualifying round, but the second earliest one. Hopefully we'll be getting more than 2 clubs into Europe soon, meaning more money in the league hopefully meaning a better standard.
Goals:
And lastly I'll list my immediate aims:
San Marino (club)
Get promoted to Serie A within 3 seasons.
Become financially stable
Improve Youth facilities and develop an academy
Have a San Marinese player in the first team.
San Marino: (country)
Get a competitive win
Get within the top 175 in the rankings
Bring in some good new players
Don't lose by more than a 5 goal margin
Tre Fiori:
Keep winning the league:
Get past the 3rd round in the Champions League
Become Professional
Improve Youth Facilities and Academy.
If there's anything/one you want to see an image of just say and I'll get one up
Will update again In January.
