If at first you don't succeed, blame the game and try again - A San Marino Youth Challenge 2.0

Right, so...

This isn't my first attempt at this. I managed to go about 120-ish years into this earlier on FM 16, but two things made me eventually call that to a stop. (First, though, if you do want to read that attempt, you can find it here: The rise, fall, rise, fall, rise, fall, rise and fall of San Giovanni.

Firstly - our chairman sold 7 of our starting 11 players in one summer for a combined fee of about £20. The reason? He thought we were desperate for money. We weren't, we had over 16 million in the bank - until he decided we needed a new stadium. So, he paid for the stadium with all our liquid funds, and then decided we were in financial trouble and we needed to clear out our squad. Superb decision making there.

Secondly - there was an issue with the league/club reputation. Despite being moderately successful in Europe, the league never really advanced in reputation - we were stuck behind the English County Leagues when I checked last. smp and Makoto are also doing this challenge, and had overtaken our league ranking 120 years in after about 10 seasons. We never did work out exactly what the issue was, but it's something pertaining to the way our reputation just failed to grow. Hopefully, this second attempt fixes that.

I'm going to be copying over a few posts from the start of my old save because the squad and the club hasn't really changed. We're still San Giovanni, we're still useless. We're just useless back in the present. For now.

Lets do this.

San Giovanni

S.S. San Giovanni is a Sanmarinese football club, based in San Giovanni sotto le Penne, a civil parrish of Borgo Maggiore. The club was founded in 1948. San Giovanni currently plays in Girone B of Campionato Sammarinese di Calcio. The team's colors are white, red and black. It is the only Sammarinese side not to win any silverware.

That's about all there is out there on the internet on San Giovanni. Essentially, they're the worst of the 15 teams who play in San Marino, having finished bottom of their group the last two seasons. By using only the players that come through my academy, my plan is to take both them and San Marino as far in the world as I can. In all honesty, it's probably not very far.

Before I get started, I'd like to just answer any questions off the top of my head that you guys may have.

It's a random choice. Why San Giovanni?

I've always had a real affinity for San Marino - I'm always a fan of the underdog, and such a small country who clearly love football (despite not being all that great at it) really tugged at my heartstrings. It was probably made worse by the English media every time San Marino were due to meet England, with the media debating whether San Marino should even be allowed to enter competitive tournaments. In the real world, San Marino are constantly belittled for trying their hardest at the hobby they love. This isn't the real world. I'm hoping to take San Marino, and at the very least show the world that they're no laughing stocks.

As far as San Giovanni goes - well, that was completely down to Makoto Nakamura. On FM 2012 he took on this challenge, and wrote what is by far my favourite FM story to ever grace these boards. Honestly, you should read it. You won't regret it. I didn't read the thread while it was going on, but came across it roughly a year later, and read the whole thing in one very long sitting. Since then, San Giovanni has been the team for me.

Realistically, how far do you think you can go? San Marino is a hard enough challenge, but to only be using youth players?

Honestly, probably not all that far. I've actually done this save on FM15, and despite getting through roughly 80 years, all I had to show for it was about three or four Europa League group appearances - very brief ones. We never made it to the Champions League. Part of that may have been down to luck - I didn't get a single usable striker through my academy for about 30 seasons, and so had to go strikerless for a long time. Part of the fun of the challenge is having to adapt your tactics based on what you're given, but I wonder how different things would have been if I was able to use a tactic I was more comfortable with. To be honest, a lot of this is down to luck.

The main part of luck is with the Champions League draw - you start off as an unranked team in the second qualifying round, and will pretty much get battered every year until you improve enough to beat one of the weaker seeded teams. But that alone won't improve your coefficient - you then need to get lucky and draw a weaker team again in the next five years, so that your coefficient pushes you into a seeded second round team. From there, getting into the third qualifying round should be a breeze - but you're then relying on lady luck to give you a draw that leaves you with a chance of winning. To summarise, I did this for 80 years on FM 15 and never made the CL group stage. I'm hoping I can at least make it to one this time around, but we'll have to see.

80 years? How did you get through that?

I want to make this clear at the start, just so there's no confusion. Once I've got a firm grip on the domestic side of things, I'll usually go on holiday for a lot of the league season. I understand that some people might have a problem with this, and that's fine. If you don't like the way I'm planning to do this, you don't have to read it - it's just the only way that I can feasibly get through enough seasons to make progress. Presuming I get knocked out of Europe, I'll holiday from the end of the summer transfer window to the start of the January one. I'll then play through until youth intake day, sign the players, sort out their training and then, barring any problems holiday until the beginning of the league playoffs. The league has a very strange format - it randomly splits into one group of seven and one group of eight. You play the teams in your own group twice and the teams in the other group once, bringing you up to 21 league games for the season. The top three teams of each group then go into double elimination playoffs, where losing one game (unless it's the final) doesn't knock you out straight away. It's a complicated system, but hopefully we'll be winning the playoff and that CL spot most years.

If you did this last year, did you notice anything special or out of the ordinary? San Marino actually produced two world class midfielders last year relatively close to each other. It was really strange - these guys both played for Champions League teams. They played together for the National Team, but never really had any success.

The second thing would be Belgian teams - they're my worst nightmare. These guys would come in for all my players on frees until I could turn semi-professional, and my players would always join them due to the higher reputation. I wonder if it's the same this year, or if there's any reason that it's almost exclusively Belgian clubs.

The third thing isn't really strange, more of an annoyance. The league system essentially means that the CL spot is up for grabs in a single match at the end of the season. No matter how much better I was than other teams, I could never avoid losing the playoff final some of the time (usually on penalties) and dropping into the Europa League. The money's much worse there, and the teams you face are harder, so that's something I need to avoid this time around.

How are you using a team from San Marino?

I downloaded the excellent Leagues World Pack, fantastically put together by Claassen. If you want to download it, you can do so here.

Before I get started, I'd just like to say that this is my first time posting a career thread on these forums. I'll probably make mistakes, so bear with me. I also don't know what sort of things you guys want to see, so if you have any requests feel free to ask!

The Club:

San Marino isn't big enough to allow each team to have their own stadium, so instead the teams groundshare. The picture above is the Stadio Borgo Maggiore, which Wikipedia lists as their 'home' ground. It might not be impressive, but it's certainly pleasant.

Manager Profile:

The squad:

I don't want to read too much into the star ratings, because: my "assistant" is actually a goalkeeping coach with 1 JPC and JPA, and the players are likely all terrible regardless and will be replaced quickly by youth. However, if we take a look at my best player:

He's actually not too bad. For San Marino, he's rather good. Quite a few of the squad are better than I'd have anticipated - it seems that San Giovanni have improved since last season. However, when your best player featured for "unknown club" in 2008, he may not be the worldbeater that you hoped.

In terms of potential, there's not much, and I'm not expecting any of these young players to ever play many games for us. I suppose the best talent is Edoardo Cecchetti:

There's a long way to go from here, and these players will all be long gone before San Giovanni ever do anything of note. One or two of them, however, might help us win some silverware for the first time.

One player that you wouldn't have seen on the squad list is Fabio Giardi. He's a 44 year old CB. So what's special about him?

That's right. He's also my chairman.

As far as staff goes, there isn't much. I have one fitness coach who has a 5 for fitness coaching, and one goalkeeping coach who has a 4 for goalkeepers. I also have a director of football, and two terrible physios. The good news is, since they're not on contracts, I can get rid of them for nothing whenever I choose. Considering our chairman is also a player, not having to spend any money might be quite important.

Looking forward to this Jamie

Looking forward to this Jamie

Cheers mate

First of all i have to say i love your project, and your last save! I stumbled upon it searching for motivation, and i certainly got it. I feel blessed and excited, since i can now follow this save from the start!

I thought about starting a similar save for myself, but maybe with another country. Is there any countries who can even compare to San Marino? I thought about Gibraltar, but i believe its not downloadable from claasens thread? If someone know where i can get it, i would be very grateful if you could link me to it. If not, is Faroe Islands a huge step up from San Marino? I know they are better of course, but are they comparable at least? I also wonder how you can play as the San Marino national team. Does it come with Claasens download, or is it something else?

Sorry if my english is kind of bad, its not my foreign language. And good luck with the save! Cant wait to follow it.

First of all i have to say i love your project, and your last save! I stumbled upon it searching for motivation, and i certainly got it. I feel blessed and excited, since i can now follow this save from the start!

I thought about starting a similar save for myself, but maybe with another country. Is there any countries who can even compare to San Marino? I thought about Gibraltar, but i believe its not downloadable from claasens thread? If someone know where i can get it, i would be very grateful if you could link me to it. If not, is Faroe Islands a huge step up from San Marino? I know they are better of course, but are they comparable at least? I also wonder how you can play as the San Marino national team. Does it come with Claasens download, or is it something else?

Sorry if my english is kind of bad, its not my foreign language. And good luck with the save! Cant wait to follow it.

Thank you so much! Your English is superb, so don't worry about it.

San Marino are pretty much at the bottom of football, but there's definitely some teams who compare to them. Gibraltar are one - I think you can download the league from the Steam workshop, but there's a bug where you get way too much TV money when you hit the top 30 leagues and they aren't FIFA members so can't play in any WCs, so personally I wouldn't choose them.

Faroe Islands are probably the one I'd recommend - the standard of football there is pretty poor and they're not that much bigger than San Marino. What I'd recommend doing is googling about the NTs of weak countries, reading up on their story, and seeing if there's any team that really makes a connection with you.

The San Marino NT are available because I have the San Marino League loaded - but if you ever want to manage a NT without that league loaded, when you're setting up the database go to advanced settings, and add all players from that nation (e.g. add all players from San Marino).

The Chairman's vision attribute of 1 doesn't bode well for his non-playing days. (What do you mean it's not that sort of vision?)

I say play him!

The Chairman's vision attribute of 1 doesn't bode well for his non-playing days. (What do you mean it's not that sort of vision?)

I say play him!

He seems to have twisted the ear of my assistant while I've been on holiday, because he's played 18 games with an average rating of 6.48 despite being rated 1/2* for me

18 users browsing this thread already? You guys are awesome

This felt really weird naming him YP1... and then stopping Regardless, he actually looks pretty good. 3.5* CA already, and he should be a starter from day one.

Possibly a decent winger.

Hello. I don't usually comment or haven't done for an awfully long time but just want to say your original thread and hopefully this one are awesome. Not taking too much away from the other two San Marino threads because they're also fun but this has provided a break now and then and the occasional chuckle. Well done. I just hope this save is not bugged. Have you checked before loading?

I look forward to another 130 years of mayhem around the continent!

Hello. I don't usually comment or haven't done for an awfully long time but just want to say your original thread and hopefully this one are awesome. Not taking too much away from the other two San Marino threads because they're also fun but this has provided a break now and then and the occasional chuckle. Well done. I just hope this save is not bugged. Have you checked before loading?

I look forward to another 130 years of mayhem around the continent!

Thank you so much

I haven't 'checked' that the save isn't bugged, because I can't really do that until we get further down the line and see how the league and club rep improves. We are now using the newest DB though, so I'm confident that should fix things. If it doesn't, I'll guess that it might be an issue with the current version of the league I have, and download Claasen's latest file.

Campionato Sammarinese:

Table

Schedule

Right, this is interesting. I thought we'd come bottom by a mile, but we did a bit better. Check out that late run in the season, though. What happened was when I went on holiday for the first part of the season I forgot it was a new save, so the buttons to get my assistant to use my tactic and lineup weren't ticked. When I came back I realised that and put them back on, and there was definite improvement. It might not be too long before we're competing for Europe.

Coppa Titano:

Table

Schedule

Tre Penne won this but aren't in Europa, so it looks like this is still worthless.

Squad

Aims for next season:

Is it too soon to challenge for a Playoff spot? We'll see.

Other teams:

League Winners: Murata beat Juvenes Dogana on penalties.

Cup Winners: Tre Penne beat Murata... on penalties.

How the team in CL qualifying did: Folgore were actually really unlucky. They lost 4-3 to Santa Coloma in the First Round.

How the teams in Europa qualifying did: Juvenes Dogana lost 6-0 to Neftci from Azerbaijan and La Florita lost 4-0 to Birkikara from Malta.

San Marino National team:

2015 Results -- 2016 Results

This won't change for a while.

Wrong way Although with none of our teams winning a game, it's not unexpected.

Also I forgot about retirements - we've lost 10 players to retirements so far, so we'll probably be at the foot of the table again next season.

There's my proof it's fixed. We never got anything close to 25k in my 130 years on the old save, and we've just gotten it first time round here. Superb stuff.

He actually looks pretty good - his physicals are weak, but for this stage of the career I'm very happy with him.

He has some decent stats.

Glad it's not bugged mate. Heres to another 100+ years.

Best of luck mate, never seen so much dedication in this game.

You know you're in for another long ride when your top scorer has 6 goals in 25 games

Heres to another 120 seasons of giant killings

Now since you have started the save from the scratch, it's getting good right now. I'm count on to see San Giovanni again. Can I see the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifiers and main tournament standings including the knockout tournament?

Cheers guys

Euro 2016:

Campionato Sammarinese:

Table

Schedule

I'm really happy with how this season went. I thought we'd be at the foot of the table but we stormed to second place in our group before losing in the Playoffs. Hopefully, we can push for a European place next year.

Coppa Titano:

Table

Schedule

Doesn't mean anything, so I'm not fussed we didn't get out the group.

Squad

Aims for next season:

I'd like to make Europe.

Other teams:

League Winners: La Florita beat Domagnano 3-2.

Cup Winners: Juvenes Dogana beat Tre Penne 1-0 AET.

How the team in CL qualifying did: Murata lost 8-0 to Shirak from Armenia.

How the teams in Europa qualifying did: Libertas lost 3-0 to Domzale from Slovenia and Juvenes Dogana lost 4-0 to Xazar from Azerbaijan.

San Marino National team:

2016 Results -- 2017 Results

We got a draw!

Behind Gibraltar? Damnit, guys

A couple of good intakes so far Jamie and progress in the league

Have you thought about getting the Instant Result button instead of holidaying? If you use the "Simulate Match" option, your tactics are adhered to.

A couple of good intakes so far Jamie and progress in the league

Have you thought about getting the Instant Result button instead of holidaying? If you use the "Simulate Match" option, your tactics are adhered to.

Is that what you've been doing? I thought about it, but I'm too forgetful, so I'd alt tab out of FM for a couple of hours and come back to realise I've forgotten to advance it Especially with exams around this time, I can just go on holiday and go away to revise. (There's also the options to tick the two boxes to make sure your assistant uses your tactics and preferred lineup, and it looks like it's been working).

Is that what you've been doing? I thought about it, but I'm too forgetful, so I'd alt tab out of FM for a couple of hours and come back to realise I've forgotten to advance it Especially with exams around this time, I can just go on holiday and go away to revise. (There's also the options to tick the two boxes to make sure your assistant uses your tactics and preferred lineup, and it looks like it's been working).

Yeah it's what I've been doing otherwise the domestic campaign would be pretty tedious. I manage to get through it quickly, though you're whizzing through on holiday and if its working for you keep going!

Yeah it's what I've been doing otherwise the domestic campaign would be pretty tedious. I manage to get through it quickly, though you're whizzing through on holiday and if its working for you keep going!

Both work just as well, instant result means you have more control and don't miss out on any important news, holiday gets through the game a bit quicker. It's just whatever one you prefer

He doesn't look overly good, but I couldn't not tag someone with 14 finishing.

I don't think he's that special, but my assistant rates him as the best player currently from this intake.

Players with high PA, but low CA. Always tough to actually work out if they are good prospects or not, but it's always best to be optimistic! For example, Morganti for me started as a 1* CA, 4/5* PA and he's turned out brilliant (for SM, anyway).

By the way on my save now a lot of the clubs that had ''Limited'' youth recruitment are now up to ''Basic''. So I think as the league rep improves, you can develop this very gradually.

Players with high PA, but low CA. Always tough to actually work out if they are good prospects or not, but it's always best to be optimistic! For example, Morganti for me started as a 1* CA, 4/5* PA and he's turned out brilliant (for SM, anyway).

By the way on my save now a lot of the clubs that had ''Limited'' youth recruitment are now up to ''Basic''. So I think as the league rep improves, you can develop this very gradually.

I completely agree. It's hard to work out who's worth tagging, because they all pretty much start the same

That's absolutely superb to hear that clubs have developed their youth recruitment already. In my head, that was the thing holding us back, because we could never get it past limited, so our players had pretty low PA and were peaking at about 18. It'll be interesting to see how much league rep affects it - we were 2* club rep but unable to upgrade it, so I wonder how much the league rep will impact things and if it means we can develop it whilst our club rep is still not that high.

I think that the league rep must have a big impact on it considering the clubs that are now ''basic'' have achieved very little. Every club's rep is slowly improving which is nice to see.

I imagine that I had a big advantage with the first few intakes with basic recruitment instead of limited, hopefully you can develop it soon, but as always junior coaching will improve nicely over the years.

Jupjamie. How long are you planning on playing this save for? Until FM17 comes out, until the 1st patch, or until you get an edited database to do the same thing on FM17 again?

[Edit]

Do you mind if I make a tiny suggestion?

I don't know how good you are on Excel, but how do you feel about including a spreadsheet that will allow us to track your progress in certain areas as the save progresses year on year.

If interested, the areas I would love to see tracked, (and I'm sure I'm not alone), are as follows.

Facilities x4.

Club Rep.

Club ranking.

League Rep.

League ranking.

Continental competition progress.

League goal difference at end of season.

Finances at end of season.

Avg Attendance.

Nat Team Ranking at end of season.

It sound like a lot ow work, but actually you report on each and every one of those each season and once you have the sheet created, it would actually be less work.

[Edit2]

In fact, I am probably going to create one in anticipation of my FM17 save, so if you want to use what I create, then send me a pm with your email address and I will send the file over to you once I have completed it.

You don't actually need Excel I don't think, (I don't have it), but you can use Excel Online which has reduced functionality and it should work fine.

Jupjamie. How long are you planning on playing this save for? Until FM17 comes out, until the 1st patch, or until you get an edited database to do the same thing on FM17 again?

It's a good question, but one I don't have an answer to. It all depends how the save goes and how enjoyable it continues to be. I doubt I'll stop it just because FM 17 comes out as long as I'm enjoying it, though.

[Edit]

Do you mind if I make a tiny suggestion?

I don't know how good you are on Excel, but how do you feel about including a spreadsheet that will allow us to track your progress in certain areas as the save progresses year on year.

If interested, the areas I would love to see tracked, (and I'm sure I'm not alone), are as follows.

Facilities x4.

Club Rep.

Club ranking.

League Rep.

League ranking.

Continental competition progress.

League goal difference at end of season.

Finances at end of season.

Avg Attendance.

Nat Team Ranking at end of season.

It sound like a lot ow work, but actually you report on each and every one of those each season and once you have the sheet created, it would actually be less work.

[Edit2]

In fact, I am probably going to create one in anticipation of my FM17 save, so if you want to use what I create, then send me a pm with your email address and I will send the file over to you once I have completed it.

You don't actually need Excel I don't think, (I don't have it), but you can use Excel Online which has reduced functionality and it should work fine.

That sounds absolutely superb! I'd describe my excel skills as 'somewhat competent but very rusty', so using something that you create is probably going to be a lot easier I'd love to use something like it, thank you for offering Sending a PM your way now.

Campionato Sammarinese:

Table

Schedule

We made the playoffs again, but again got knocked out early-ish. I'd like to go further next year, but we're not doing too badly.

Coppa Titano:

Table

Schedule

Still yet to get out the groups.

Squad

Aims for next season:

I'm hopeful that next year is the year we go further in Europe.

Other teams:

League Winners: Tre Fiori beat Libertas 2-1.

Cup Winners: Murata beat Tre Fiori 3-0.

How the team in CL qualifying did: La Florita lost 7-0 to Valetta from Malta.

How the teams in Europa qualifying did: Domagnano lost 6-0 to Belshina from Belarus and Cailungo lost 6-0 to Sandnes Ulf from Norway.

San Marino National team:

2017 Results -- 2018 Results

Our first ever competitive win!

Jimbo gave me the idea (and the template for this), so I'm going to be keeping track of how we're progressing through the years on an excel sheet. If anyone knows how to upload an excel file to a post then please let me know, but for now I'll just be taking screenshots.

Still going the wrong way

Some good news in Italy, as San Marino Calcio have been promoted to the playable leagues. Hopefully, they provide the NT with some decent prospects.

Tracking our progress:

Jimbo gave me the idea (and the template for this), so I'm going to be keeping track of how we're progressing through the years on an excel sheet. If anyone knows how to upload an excel file to a post then please let me know, but for now I'll just be taking screenshots.

If you look at the last post in the sticky at the top of the page, I've asked dafuge how he does his using [code ], but if I'm honest, I think yours looks better, (much better).

More suggestions, (hope you don't mind but I love your threads).......

1. If the rating for whatever is an improvement then colour it in green for that year. If it's a drop then colour it in red.

2. 1/2 is ok when it's just 1/2, but when you get to 1 1/2 or 2 1/2, it might be tidier if you use decimals rather than fractions, (so 0.5).

ps. TV money was a great addition.

@Jupjamie, i suggest you to use google spreadsheets. Its an online excel and you can just open it to public (dont forgrt to enable the option, that only you can edit the file) and share your URL with us. With every season review you can include the link... No screenshots, less work for you, cleaner posts, win-win situation

Getting the play-offs again, hopefully you can win it soon.

Jimbokav I've sent you a PM, if you could send me the excel sheet that would be great

If you look at the last post in the sticky at the top of the page, I've asked dafuge how he does his using [code ], but if I'm honest, I think yours looks better, (much better).

More suggestions, (hope you don't mind but I love your threads).......

1. If the rating for whatever is an improvement then colour it in green for that year. If it's a drop then colour it in red.

2. 1/2 is ok when it's just 1/2, but when you get to 1 1/2 or 2 1/2, it might be tidier if you use decimals rather than fractions, (so 0.5).

ps. TV money was a great addition.

I like both those suggestions, I'll be using them from next season onwards. Love the template

@Jupjamie, i suggest you to use google spreadsheets. Its an online excel and you can just open it to public (dont forgrt to enable the option, that only you can edit the file) and share your URL with us. With every season review you can include the link... No screenshots, less work for you, cleaner posts, win-win situation

That's a pretty good suggestion, thank you. What do people think? I'm happy to go with whatever people here prefer

That's a pretty good suggestion, thank you. What do people think? I'm happy to go with whatever people here prefer

I think it's whatever is easiest for you.

Have a look at it and see how easy to use it is, but it sounds great.

He looks great. I wish his dribbling was higher, but I see why he's already 4* CA for us.

Our first ever Englishman! Being English means he might have more room to grow than someone from San Marino, so hopefully he can become a big player for us.

I'm not overly impressed by either of them, but we'll see how they develop.

He looks pretty good, and it's a position we're not that strong at. Very happy with this intake.

Good stuff on the early Junior coaching upgrades

Edit: Ninja post from you great intake!! The upgrades are paying off. The two wingers look great (interesting you got an Englishman) and plenty of players who could add depth.