The San Marino Double

[El...Diablo]

I've seen somebody win the World Cup with San Marino on FM08. Took him about 30 seasons but he did it.

 

[Ubernisation]

Never crossed my mind to accept it, I don't find managing the big clubs fun anyways. Incidentally Roma have won Serie A for the past 3 seasons, and the contract they offered me came after Arsene Wenger retired

The aim is to win the World Cup, not sure how long it will take, but I want to qualify for the next world cup, that's the main aim. I think by the time i'm 30 seasons in I could be challenging for the world cup

 

[Ubernisation]

Long time no update, but I am still playing. Here's a mega update:

Final League Position of 2014/2015 Season:

Obviously very pleased with this, got over the extra 10 points that I wanted, had a strong latter half of the season which aided the push for the European places

The stand-out players were Ivanovic who scored 18 goals (2nd highest in the league) and had an average rating of 7.18, Keko with an average rating of 7.08 despite me forcing him to stay at the club, and Todorov as ever with an average rating of 7.22.

Other signings I made in January were Nelson Rivas for £5.25 from Catania (Needed a defender badly), Antonio Valencia for £5m from Udinese and Thomas Mangani for £2m from Empoli. I also sold Zubar for £4.2m, Ivanovic for £2m and Armor for £3m,

So in this new season my aim is to hit the European spots again. Probably expecting to come lower than 5th, but if I can get around 7th i'll be happy.

Early season fixtures:

Luckily I got a relatively easy entrance into Europe so hopefully I can put away the home leg.

Transfers:

Only given £5m for transfers as the club is in fairly bad shape financially (due to constant updates to stadium size and the facilities) but I've spent most of my money on keeping co-owned players at the club. However Song and Wilshere on frees are good signings, neither of them will be first 11 but solid players to use in rotation. The other players brought in are San Marino youth players who I want to train at the club. Besides these signings I'm saving money for if I find a good deal on a full back, but nothing urgent.

On the way out are bad regens mostly, but I sold Taylor for a decent amount as he got less than 5 games last season, Van der Vaart had moved down the pecking order to 5th, and is getting on a bit so I thought I would cash in while I can.

Here's the team:

Essentially the same team except Cole has been relegated to 3rd choice and Garcia has been shoved down the order a bit after a bad year last year. I might be willing to listen to offers for him, Kravchenko and Valencia.

In other news my stadium now holds 13,000, but I am not allowed to expand it anymore :/

National Team:

The first 3 friendlies were fairly predictable scores, but I'm quite happy I can now put away the small teams, I think i've genuinely moved up to being a sort of middle class team rather than one of the minor teams
The 5-0 loss to England was hard to take, but I had no chances at all throughout the game and they could have scored far, far more. As for Israel this was a game I could have got something from had the performance been top notch, but we did fairly well to hold them to 2 and score once ourselves. And the victory against Cyprus probably should have been a goalless draw, but we got a goal from a corner against the run of play
Beating Bangladesh and Lithuania once again shows I can put away these smaller teams, but again against the bigger teams we get put away fairly easily- such as against Norway and England, although the performance against Switzerland was impressive for the difference in quality.

The target is to beat Cyprus and Lithuania, possibly get something from Israel and keep Swizterland from running away with victory

I'm unlikely to get into the top 2 spaces, but with some luck I could hit 3rd. At minimum I want to remain in 4th place.

As for players my top 3 are all being fairly successful. Emanuele Toccacceli signed for Bari in Serie B and had an average rating of 6.8over 25 games, Matteo Rinaldi just signed for Ipswich in the Championship and Simoncini is still my back up keeper who put in some good performances when Fiorillo was injured.

Here's the team

Sorry for the long post :/

 

[iNickStuff]

I've seen somebody win the World Cup with San Marino on FM08. Took him about 30 seasons but he did it.

XD 30 seasons? that's a lot - even for San Marino

 

[Ubernisation]

XD 30 seasons? that's a lot - even for San Marino

To be honest I see why. You have to wait for good regens for the team to be decent. Say you got a whole team of brilliant regens in the first season, it's going to take at least 10 years for them to mature to be good enough to win the world cup. But the fact you get between 0 and 2 good regens per season makes the growth of the team VERY slow. In 2015 I have 3 players who are good enough to play Championship football, none higher than this level. I still have a few players in my squad who arent even professionals.

 

[Ubernisation]

A belated update more for myself than anyone else, but I like the idea I'll look back and read this through when I finally achieve my goals

National Team:

Results:

The draw to Israel was a good result, as they are a far superior team, beating Cyprus was expected but I was a bit disappointed with losing to Lithuania who are probably a team on par with me. The loss to Switzerland was marginal and this was pleasing; but losing to Albania was a major disappointment and the slim win against Afghanistan was also a bit disappointing. Ended 2016 fairly well, a great game against Turkey which could have gone either well, easy win against Cyprus and predictable defeat to Hungary albeit we had a very good first half.

2017 Fixtures:

My aim here is to win both friendlies and bear Cyprus. I am aiming for draws are better home and away to Israel and maybe home to Denmark. Anything I get from the games against Turkey, Hungary and away to Israel and Denmark will be a bonus.

Squad:

Had a major problem with the striker position, but Sergio Arias, a San Marino club youth squad member, has adequately squatted into the role and has potential. Other mentionable players are Matteo Rinaldi- first choice MC for Nottingham Forest in the Premiership, Emmanuele Toccaceli- First choice DC for Bari in Serie A, Matteo Zonzini- first choice MC for Vicenza in Serie B and Aldo Junior Simoncini- first choice keeper for Braga. The rest are mainly youth team players for San Marino club team.

We have some very promising players coming through the youth ranks, and I would estimate that in 5-6 years we should be seeing some major development.

Club:

I was in a constant battle for 4th position all season and had a great run in at the end of the season to make it into the Champions League A regen I signed, Srdjan Ivanovic has become hot property in Serie A, he was 3rd in highest scorers and I had offers approaching 25m for him- but i'm keeping him. Todorov has remained an awesome player for me. I was tempted to sell him and upgrade, but his performances simply have not dipped since Serie B and he's as good in the Champions League as he was in Serie B. I also finally sold Keko- although being unhappy had not affected his performances I realised he was out of contract in a year, so I may as well cash in- I got 12.75m so I can't complain!

Transfers:

Coming in was mainly people under the age of 20 who are good prospects. The exceptions are Cristian Zapata who came in to usurp Jiri Kladrubsky who is still in the squad as a good backup full back. Also Abdel Wilhelm who is both an up and coming player and also a replacement for the recently sold Keko

On the way out were mainly rubbish regens and youth players for loan. But I also sold Keko and Kravchenko. Kravchenko was no longer finding himself on the subs bench, and I thought I may as well cash in.

Champions League:

First off I had a tough match in Villa in the qualifying rounds. This was especially daunting as they had beat me in the UEFA cup final just a few months previously- but a 6-3 average score was very pleasing.

Got drawn into a tough group, Valerenga were a push over and I beat them 2-0 and 6-0. Dortmund had finished 2nd and 3rd in the top German division for the last 5 years and were certainly a team to be reckoned with. I lost to them 3-0 away and beat them 3-0 at home. And then there was Barcelona, a team who I was fearing coming into the competition. I checked up on their history in my game and they had finished 2nd every season besides 3 where they came 3rd and 4th. This surprised me a bit as Real Madrid and Zaragoza were the two teams who had been winning the league. They have player such as Messi, Pique, Defour, Bojan, Iniesta, Vidic etc. So they appear to be underachievers. I managed to beat them 2-0 home and away

In the next round I have Rangers, a team who I think I can beat and get through to the next round. The Champions League has been a great income for me, and I'm finally coming out of the massive debt and have 8m in the coffers with a net gain of 3m this season.

Current League Table:

I was predicted 7th in the league and told the board I was aiming for the UEFA cup. In my mind I am aiming to finish 4th again but be closer in points to the top 3. But at the moment it seems the top 4 are breaking away from the rest, and I'm within this group I was top for the first games of the season but I'm currently going through a dip in form. Being 11 points away from 5th place already is making me hopeful I can qualify for the Champions League again


If you see this thanks for coming so far!

 

[Ben]

Just read this and it is a brilliant story, well done for keeping going for so long. Just wondering if you play FM 10?

 

[Ubernisation]

Just read this and it is a brilliant story, well done for keeping going for so long. Just wondering if you play FM 10?

I really want to buy it- but I promised I would complete my goals on this game first- and I'm still finding it extremely fun. So I think I might have to skip 10 and wait 'til 11 Although I did recently get the Ipod version for bus journeys and stuff

Thanks for the support!

 

[Ronaldal]

so is this starting backup again, hopefully it is as i loved and followed this story avidly

 

[Aannddyy]

Nice to see this back up Although it could take you until FM12 before you can actually win something with San Marino national squad

 

[Ubernisation]

so is this starting backup again, hopefully it is as i loved and followed this story avidly

I never stopped playing it. It's just that being at university means I have nowhere near the same amount of time to play, and i've become slightly addicted to a few other games as well. But I'll keep updating as and when I play.

EDIT: And I'm glad you both enjoy it It's a very fun and challenging game- i'd recommend trying something similar out!

I had a dabble doing the same thing with Singapore and their league system. But the worst clubs in Singapore are ridiculously bad. Don't own their own stadiums, 50 season ticket holders, ticket prices of like £3, all players on £5 a week. Ouch.

 

[Ronaldal]

well atm im trying a level 10-premier league just been promoted in first season

 

[Ubernisation]

well atm im trying a level 10-premier league just been promoted in first season

That must be using a custom database? Unless FM 10 has even lower leagues than BSN/BSS? If so I might be tempted to try it, i love playing in the lowest leagues.

Anywho, I'm going to try and update this more often seeing as people are still interested. Rather than doing one huge update, i'll try and do more small and detailed ones. So here we go, update on what i've done today:

Nation:

First and foremost I have combed through the squad and weeded out some failing players, sorted out my penalty/free kick takers etc, just sorting out the nation. Completed a few fixtures today.

Not a bad result, a draw was predicted so glad with the result, should have grabbed a few more goals though

Disappointing result, we could have been beat by a lot more. The fact Simoncini (goalkeeper) had a rating of 8.3 at the end of the game sort of shows how the game went.

Very pleased with this. Predicted result was a draw and we battered them. It's probably the first time we've really dominated a team who are not majorly inferior, they were 20 places below us at kick off in the world rankings and have a few players in some of the major leagues.

We are currently ranked 95th in the world. This is lower than where we have been (around 60th out our peak) but we have been steadily rising up the rankings in the last two years coming from a lowest ranking of around 120. The good thing is that this rise is not because of a flukey result (the 2-1 defeat of Italy earlier in the game) but through consistent results. I would say we have established ourselves as a team ranked around 100th, we are not punching above our weight as we were before. And as I said earlier, if the players who are showing potential develop we could have a few more stars on our hands to accompany the three players we rely on: Simoncini, Toccaceli, Rinaldi.

I'll update the club side of things sometime this week.

 

[Ronaldal]

yeh the level 10 database is available to download here on the site quite hard because you are an amateur club and can lose your key players at anytime :/

 

[Ubernisation]

Yeah, playing with amateur clubs is very fun. My favourite games have all been managing really low clubs. A side game i'm playing is with FC United of Manchester- they got promoted a into BSN a few seasons into my Rushden game- so I took over them- it's quite fun playing with a team who're unplayable at the start.

Anywho MEGA update to come tomorrow. A good end to the season with the club, and some big news comes from my first time in the Champions League. Whilst on the national side- nicht so gut.

 

[Montanaro]

I'd like to see some screens of your best regens.

 

[Ubernisation]

I'd like to see some screens of your best regens.

I just posted these up on the regen thread, but here are my 3 best regens for the club:

If you meant for San Marino the country just say and i'll post up screens of my best players and show you some info on them and whatever.

 

[Montanaro]

yeah I actually meant san marino nationals.

 

[Ubernisation]

yeah I actually meant san marino nationals.

Ok, I'll post some at the end of this post, and i'll do an update on the national side while I'm at it. Club update will come later in the day once I've done some revision :/

Very annoying game. Possession was 50/50 , shots and such was slightly in their favour but it really should have been a draw or a loss by one goal. What let us down was terrible finishing from the wingers and striker and constant defensive lapses from me liability of a right back.

Fair result, can't complain

Dare I say we should have scored more? Don't think I should risk it.

Yet again, with a good finisher we would have drawn or possibly won this game. We went down early, had an even first half and were pressing for the whole of the 2nd half to no avail.

So these results leave us 98th in the world ( We fell back 10 places after the losses to Turkey and Denmark) and 5th in our world cup qualifying group with 6 points (2 victories over Cyprus). We have no chance of qualifying, but with a home game against Israel left we could still pick up a point or 3- I'll post the table once world cup qualifying is over.


And here are the screenshots of the best players for the nation of San Marino with their history:

So these 2 are far and away the best players for us, as you can see they've both had some experience of top flight action, especially Rinaldi who seemed to perform well for Forest (my team ) in the Premiership.

And then our 3rd and last player of any experience is our goalkeeper (actually a real person):

I tried to keep him as my reserve keeper at San Marino for as long as possible, but it just wasn't feasible once I was reaching the upper echelons of Serie A, and since then his career has been a bit stale :/

Besides these players the only other of note are Luca Bacciocchi (CM), Matte Zonzini (CM) and Sergio Arias (ST) who are all currently on loan at Serie B clubs.

As a means if comparison here is the worst player in the starting 11:

Yes, he is the best RB by a considerable margin in the whole of the nation- how depressing

 

[Montanaro]

you got a long way to go bud!