jerzy59

Some players yes, but not the best. Usually when they reach 24-25yo and still don't have an international game with Italy, they sometimes come and play for San Marino instead. But they're not exactly starting 11 players anyway. The only one that made a difference was Marco Tisseli (his player profile is on a post above on this page). I've had a weird issue with 2 naturalised players though. San Marino does not produce a lot of good keepers, but I managed to get 2 naturalised after 12 years playing in the league. They accepted to represent the country and I took them for the World Cup. I didn't give them any game time but technically they are World Champions. Anyway, after the competition they refused to come back in the national team and they are now considered Italians again. A while back I also had the issue of a young player who decided to switch nationalities even though he had a few appearances with the San Marino team. He came back a few years later though.

Oops, I did it again. An easy straightforward run to the final that allowed me to put good rotation and keep my best players fresh throughout the whole competition. B team played South Korea, then all of the games were decided at half time during the whole playoffs until the final. The team was carried by this player who scored 11 goals in the competition. The team now has 14 straight victories in the World Cup, which is a record. I thought this would be my last WC but I might push for the next one, see what happens. A new generation is coming in, probably a bit better than the generation that is now retiring.

They have done it ... It comes as a bit of a surprise, my personal goal was to reach the 1/4 finals for the first time ever and preparing for what I believed could be a potential victory in the next WC with a golden generation coming in. But anyway, I enjoyed a fairly "easy" run until the 1/4 finals, I had the opportunity to put a good rotation in place and so my best players were all fresh for the last 3 games, which may have made a difference. I've always felt that some weird things happen sometimes in big Tournaments. I didn't just win those games, I dominated the xG/shots game. Here's the stats for the semi against England for instance: To be clear, one of my DCs scored 5 goals in the playoff stage and yes, I do (ab)use a Corner formation that allows him to score quite a lot. Here are the key players of the team: Next to them I have an interesting supporting cast. A group of maybe 12 players, roughly at the same level that are a bit interchangeable. This allows the team to stay roughly at the same level when I go into rotation mode. They're not world beaters by any means but are capable to hold the fort when required. For me the key point to doing this challenge is to go to Victor at some point, win a few Serie A, a few Champion's leagues, because they will absolutely produce incredible players for you. In my 26 players squad for this WC, 19 of them were produced by Victor. Half of those players being produced during my time over there when I was winning everything. Doing this challenge without improving Victor's status seems next to impossible to me when I see all the players they've given me. Even many, many seasons after I left, they still produce future superstars such as this guy: With the San Marinese teams, I have occasionally produced great players (Di Vincenzo, for instance), but not consistently. I have also struggled during the whole game to have 2 San Marinese clubs capable of producing world class players simultaneously. Even if it is possible to produce those great players, it's a lot more unreliable than what Victor can do. In any case, to me it looks like there is a direct correlation between the results of a club in European Competition, and the level of players this club produces. The year after a European win, I always had at least one superb player generated at my club. So with this, this is the end of this challenge for me. I'll keep managing the San Marino national team for a bit, but I'm going to stop focusing on them. I've never won the Nation's League, never been world #1, but that's ok. Good luck to everyone. Win a game: March 29th 2024 : 2-1 vs US Virgin Islands - 2-1 Win a competitive game (inlcudes Nations League): Oct 15, 2024 -- 3-2 vs Liechtenstein, Nation's League group D Have a player beat Andy Selva's 8 goals scored record: Nicola Nanni Have a player score 50 international goals: Riccardo Ceccoli, Ricardo Finardi, Andrea Piacentini, Giovani Bottone, Marco de Luigi, Andrea Muccioli Have a player score 100 international goals: Riccardo Ceccoli (155), Andrea Piacentini (156) Have a new gen reach 100 caps: Too many to list, first one was Riccardo Ceccoli Have a player score a hat-trick in a game: March 30th 2024: Nicola Nanni against Virgin Islands Beat a team ranked in the top 50 in the world: April 3rd 2035: Ukraine (3-1) Get San Marino into the top 150 in the world: 2026 Get San Marino into the top 100 in the world: 2033 Get San Marino into the top 50 of the world: 2041 Get promoted from Nations League D: 2026 Get promoted from Nations League C: 2038 Get promoted from Nations League B: 2040 Qualify for the European Championship: 2040 Qualify for the World Cup: 2042 Survive group stage in the European Championship: 2040 Survive group stage in the World Cup:2042 Win the Nations League: Never Win the European Championships: 2048 Win the World Cup: 2058 Become the number one ranked team in the world: Never

Right now I have 3 teams with perfect facilities in the San Marino league + Victor in Serie A. Inter also has produced a really good youngster for San Marino recently. I have noticed that every time a club performs well in Europe, their next youth intake has at least a very good youngster. In any case, with those 4 clubs there's pretty much one very promising player coming up every year.

Haven't been updating in a while as nothing of significance was happening. This just happened, it's a good one. These are the two best U23, they're already in the A team also.

We have done it. 8 years after losing in the Finale, San Marino is European Champion. It was the last major competition for the players of the first great generation and they retired with a bang. I didn't think I'd be able to go that far with a team that's in between generations. The group stage was what I expected, tough games against teams that I used to beat. I can't really explain how the team transformed into machines once we reached the playoff stage. And to top off an amazing season I won the Conference League with Tre Fiori.

I have left Victor to go back to the San Marinese league. The regens Victor has produced since I have left are incredible. Way better than those produced when I was there. It was the same at the beginning after I left Cosmos. The national team is in good shape and the future looks promising. Qualifying for the European Championship is pretty much a given now and I have won my Division A Nation's League group 3 times in a row. The team isn't strong enough to win the competition though and I finish 3rd or 4th. Bit annoyed that the National Team still plays in the San Marino Stadium. Victor now has a 35000 seat stadium and it would be nice to play there.

Through Genie Scout yes. It's 36. And reputation is 6500. Youth Rating is important but it's clearly not everything. If you were to set Brazil's youth rating to 1 and Bhutan's youth rating to 200, Brazil would still produce the better players. Reputation clearly has something to do with it at country level. I'm not entirely sure what comes into play at club level, but as I said, I have a suspicion that performances in European competitions have a strong effect.

San Marino qualified for their third international tournament, the 2044 European Championship. And we did fairly well. Solid group stage. Very surprised that the B Squad managed to grab a draw against Spain. We finished first and then beat Scotland in a game that should not have been that tight. Bit frustrated with the loss to Germany, I was dominating the game until my center back got a red card at the end of the first half. From there it was too difficult to do anything really. France won the tournament. With this, San Marino is now sitting at 29th in the World Rankings. Here's the key players of the team. Andrea Piacentini : Produced by Cosmos. The Superstar. Current Golden Ball holder. Cosmos produced him the season after I left. I managed to get him at Victor and he grew with the team. Riccardo Finardi: Produced by Cosmos. The first world class player produced by a Sanmarinese team. He was paramount to get the team in the Top 100 in the World Rankings and now he also get to play major tournaments. He's nearing the end of his career and will be difficult to replace. Pierangelo Barberio: Produced by Cosmos. Well, this guy appeared right when Colombo, the former GK, was retiring. 20 international goals as he's my penalty taker for absolutely no reason. He scored one in the 2040 Euro final. I'm lucky with this guy as the country has failed to produce any other decent keeper. Should be in the team for 10 more seasons. Will likely reach 200 caps. Giovanni Bottone: Produced by Cosmos. I poached him as soon as Cosmos produced him and trained him myself. Solid striker. This player pretty much forced me to play with 2 guys up front, which has been going well anyway. Alberto Zavoli: Produced by San Marino Academy. I poached him as I was still coaching Cosmos. Part of the first generation that helped with winning the Nation's League C and B. Michele Imperiale: Produced by Cosmos. Produced the same year as Finardi. Also part of the backbone of the national team. Riccardo Ceccoli: Produced by San Marino Academy. He's not really a key player anymore, but he's a Legend. Paramount in all the early success and the growing process. I still start him in friendlies to have him reach 150 international goals. Some of those players are getting towards the end of their career and will have to be replaced. With Victor, I'm starting to get decent prospects for the future. Maybe not at that level just yet but it's looking alright. Cosmos, however, has not produced anyone interesting in a few years now. Which leads me to an observation. I have discussed this with people doing a similar save in countries like Liechtenstein and Faroe Islands. The quality of the players that are produced seems to be directly related to how the clubs from that country are doing as a whole in European Competitions. It seemed weird to me at first, but when it was brought up to my attention, I made the same observation. In essence, all those players here were produced when San Marino only had 3 teams going into European Cups. Then, with good performances from Cosmos (they still reach the CL Group Stage 12 years after I'm gone) a 4th team started to play the Conference League. They never did well though, so the average performance from San Marinese clubs dropped. And the quality of players produced also dropped. Then with Victor, I've had everything maxed out for a while now (except the usual youth academy that no one can max out anyway) but never really produced anyone interesting ... until I reached the Champion's League final. The quality of the players Victor produced has massively improved since. I did not change my HoYD, didn't have any more increase in infrastructure and such. I really seems like European performances boost massively the quality of players. Everything is going well with Victor. I've won 4 Serie A in a row, 3 cups and the Champion's League. I'm getting confident that the club will survive without me so I'm probably going to go back to the San Marinese league to improve other clubs. Maybe try to have 4-5 clubs maxed out, see if it helps.

I had everything maxed out except the youth facilities (there's some issues around those). Do you also have a good Head of Youth Development ?

I did 10 years at Cosmos and after 5 seasons I started to produce at least one "good player" (for the San Marinese standard) per season. Even produced a proper wunderkid at one point. Around that time, San Marino Academy also was producing useful players for the national team. Then I moved to Victor San Marino and at that point for a few seasons, Cosmos started to produce a major player every season. I'm now 10 years in at Victor and I'm starting to produce decent level players.

When I was on my way up I definitely had the feeling that staying more than two seasons in Serie B might very well bankrupt the club. At that stage you don't have enough money to get a new stadium, your 700 seater doesn't generate any money and the prize pool in Serie B isn't all that great either. And because of the balance always being slightly in the red, you can't really improve your facilities either.

Ok, there are extremely weird things happening in my game right now. I might make a more comprehensive post soon, this is just not normal.

Historic day for San Marino ! The team did an incredible job in away games with massive victories in Turkey and Netherlands. Getting the upper hand against Turkey in those games was crucial as it allowed us to stay in front of them almost the whole time. The victory in the Netherlands was the cherry on the cake. With that, we're now sitting 80th in the world rankings. I'm hope we can get out of the group stage during the European Championship and keep on improving the ranking to get an "easier" group for the WC Qualifiers.