Spanish Continuum

Hey LLaMas, tl;dr fodder coming up so in short: start unemployed and then win the Club World Cup with a non-European/Brazilian club!

I'm a long-time lurker, first-time poster so please be gentle. I've always been fond of starting unemployed but I always seem to come unstuck when choosing which nations to load together. As the languages you can speak depending on your nationality aren't entirely accurate, I decided to trawl through the internet looking for language maps to cobble together some sort of realistic grouping of countries for a career save. Mutur Zikin has done a simply amazing job in this field and the European map in particular is gold dust for those with questionable geography like me. For now let's concentrate on the "Spanish" & "Italian" Continuum.

I have my own version of LLaMa settings I stick to but this time, having only just discovered that you can add unplayable leagues to the database (!), I thought I'd try and research the Spanish language continuum in honour of the great showing of their nations at the World Cup. What I've come up with is by no means exhaustive or academic but with thirty countries you should have enough players/depth to keep that first FM15 beta save going until the next one comes out.

I've chosen to concentrate on a career between the mainland and the Southern Cone of South America with the aim of winning the Club World Cup with a "Spanish" language team other than Barcelona as its not been done before - although a few came close. I'll be starting unemployed but as there is such a cultural link with the team I'd like to win it with (Boca Juniors), I'm going to add in an "Italian" continuum of Italy as a playable nation whilst adding Eritrea, (Libya)**, Malta, and San Marino to the mix to bring the total to 30. If (Gibraltar)* are a playable nation I will remove (Libya)** - if not I'll remove (Gibraltar)* altogether.

Choose Nations:
Europe - (Gibraltar)*, Italy, Spain
North America - Mexico, USA
South America - Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay
All Lowest Active Leagues selected

Game Start Date in Italy
Do not Add Key Staff
Disable First Window Transfer Budgets
Prevent teams which already have managers from being controlled
Prevent use of the In-Game Editor
Database Size: Advanced... but selecting Large, then Add the following before ticking the tick-boxes for the leagues directly below the Lowest Active Leagues:

Divisions:

Europe - (Gibraltar)*, Italy [italian Serie D Grps. A-I], Spain [spanish Third Division Groups 1-18]
North America - Mexico [Mexican Second Division & Mexican Second Division New Talents League], USA [American Second Division]
South America - Argentina [Argentine Third Division], Chile [Chilean Second Division], Colombia [Colombian Third Division], Peru [Peruvian Second Division], Uruguay [uruguayan Second Amateur Division]

Then Add the following before ticking every tick-box:

Nations:

Africa - Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, (Libya)*, Morocco
Europe - Andorra, Malta, San Marino
North America - Belize, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico
South America - Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela

Regions: Central Europe

Of course, with the amazing-sounding Tactics or Tracksuit manager option for FM15, your manager profile going into this is whatever you please. Good luck!

Mods, maybe this should be moved to the Challenges forum as I've moved the goalposts somewhat?

The task is to start unemployed and then win the Club World Cup with a non-European/Brazilian club!

I've done a bit more editing of the OP to accommodate the recommended database limit of 125,000.

If no one takes this up I'll gladly be the LLaMa lone-wolf and update season by season accordingly

Full disclosure: I didn’t get very far with this. But the fire still burns for FM18!

I was looking around for one save to rule them all and for me everything leads back to Spain:

Playable Nations
Europe: Spain, Portugal
North America: Mexico
South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay

All Lowest Active Leagues selected
Game Start Date in Spain
Do not Add Key Staff
Disable First Window Transfer Budgets
Prevent teams which already have managers from being controlled
Prevent use of the In-Game Editor
Database Size: Large but Advanced

The work permit rules in Spain appear to be the most generous in Europe, with players from Ibero-American countries and a few others** able to gain nationality after two years so I’ll load them all.

Advanced Nations
Africa: Equatorial Guinea**
Asia: Philippines**
Europe: Andorra**
North America: Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico
South America: Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela

Real Madrid won the first five European Cups and to this day they remain that number of trophies ahead of the next most successful team. In three all-Spanish finals since the turn of the century they have even beaten Atlético Madrid twice and Valencia once. After finally achieving La Decima, Real Madrid then added two more in the following three years. Barcelona, on the other hand, have won all five of their Champions League trophies in the last 25 years.

In the Europa League, Sevilla have won more than anyone else despite all five of their titles only occurring in the last 12 years - including a defeat of Basque club Athletic Bilbao. Shortly before their recent Champions League finals, Atlético Madrid won the Europa League twice - once with Catalan side Espanyol finishing runners-up in yet another all-Spanish final.

In intercontinental competition, either Real Madrid or Barcelona have represented Europe in half of the Club World Cup finals. Barça built on their runners-up medal with two later wins while Real have won it three times since their fourth place in the inaugural competition.

This dominance has dovetailed with international success, too, with Spain sandwiching two European Championship titles either side of a World Cup win. Neymar may have left for €222m but Spanish clubs have never been more dominant.

My white whale is back! I always start unemployed with the lowest reputation and no coaching badges, and I might even start as a monoglot Englishman to make things harder 

Sounds interesting and wish you a very good luck.

Think the rules of which nations to choose restrains you a bit though, so for me a challenge like Ultimate Football Manager Challenge and then maybe win that World Club Cup during that challenge with a team not from Europe/Brazil would be more a challenge I would like to go for...

I've just had a read of that thread's first post and your last few on it. It's an incredible achievement and to be first past the post too - well done! I'm out of the game since FM15 really (barely played FM16, didn't play FM17 at all) so I definitely need to be eased back in with a find-my-own-way challenge.  As for you though, where do you go from here and whats your FM18 plan?

I have my own challenge now and will stick with that for a while. It includes extra leagues made by @claassen so I will not switch to FM18 until someone makes good extra leagues for it.

I might try something like this, to win the Club World Cup with a team from a lower ranked nation, but it will then be a part of a bigger challenge and longer story.

It's a pretty exclusive tournament if not a special one. I think the hardest you could make it is doing it with an Oceanic team as they have to qualify via play-off against the host so you're not even guaranteed entry! An interesting nation for youth development would be Tonga.  They aren't non-EU for nations using the Cotonou agreement and they also count as a British Overseas Territory, so you could potentially loan players to better facilities in Spain, France, England etc. while you upgrade your own.