Belgrave

Tried this a few times as YA only and Sammarinese only but always get to a tipping point where the enjoyment fades before the club is capable of competing, decided this year just to focus on getting the club up and running in Europe and dragging the rest of the teams along with me long term. Been running the San Marino challenge in FM23, playing as Juvenes Dogana (& NT manager) - About halfway through Season 3 and suffice to say club management is simple, have been raiding the free agent market pretty reliably and have had a strong team in place across all 3 seasons (after my first round of signings I think I was 1-50 on to win the league and has been shorter odds than that since) - Season 1 - Campionato Sammarinese & Coppa Titano Champions - 58 players signed (15 sold), Best signing - Seybou Koita - 20 Goals in 15 games - 7.89 Average Rating Season 2 - Campionato Sammarinese & Coppa Titano Champions again. Ater falling at the UEFA Champions League 2nd Preliminary Round to Valur (Iceland), proceeded to beat Lincoln (GIB), Rakow (POL) & Shkupi (N.MAC) in the Europa Conference League Qualifier's and qualify for the Europa Conference League group stage, a nice £2m bank balance boost and approx 3-4 seasons earlier than expected. A Europa League group of Sevilla, Genk and Olimpia meant I didn't hold out much hope of progression but did upset the apple cart a little at home, only losing 2-1 to Sevilla (who scored a 92nd minute winner), and beating Genk & Olimpia 1-0, although despite this we still finished bottom of the group (2nd-4th all had 6 points) Thanks to the sudden massive boost in funds tried to persuade the board to go Semi-Professional but was turned down, much to my frustration, did get a couple of youth and training upgrades through though. 38 players signed (44 sold) Best signing - Andres Garcia - 31 Goals in 23 games - 7.62 average rating Season 3 - 17 players signed so far (11 sold) Beginning of season 3 and the board came and offered an upgrade, always expect these to be increased wages for Physio's or some such nonsense, in this instance I was pleasantly surprised as they requested to turn Professional skipping Semi-Professional altogether, which I have never seen in all my years of FM. Able to tie some of my key players down to contracts, but have been very stringent with the budget and have set £1,600k p/w as max wage I will pay (before the CL qualification), means half our players are still on Amateur contracts, but have been buying any promising 16/17yo San Marino youth players to try and improve them and drag the National team up a level as well in the next year or two. Still the lowest ranked nation in UEFA club co-efficients, so taking the long route to European qualification but suffice to say the boys were up to the challenge... Qualifying for the group stage of the new Champions League, an unexpected £12m payday that should secure the future of the club for many years to come. Blessed with trips to Monaco, Astana, Dortmund & Juventus, while welcoming Wolfsburg, Real Madrid, Benfica & Lazio. Arguably the crowning moment of the season so far, a 3-2 win against Wolfsburg in our first ever CL game proper, after being 2-0 down at HT. Lost 5-0 away in Monaco before turning over Astana 3-1. We sit 16th after 3 games above such notable names as Juve, Napoli, Real Madrid, Dortmund, Arsenal and Liverpool, crazy. Kicked off the league winning 11-0 and 10-0 in our first two games. something tells me I'm on for a three-peat.