International challenge

Background

Just doing a browse through the general forum and came across people talking about managing Somali and American Samoa, which got me thinking back to my days manging San Marino (only at international level) and wondered if there were any international challenges and had a look here and only found ones which were linked to a club side as well. So I thought as we have this new international module, we should put it to the test and have an international challenge.

The aim

Is quite simple take a small nation and win that nation's confederation cup. Then go on to win both the confederations cup and the world cup.

The rules

The game can have as many or as few leagues as you like running. You will probably need at least the nearest country's league running and of course you may load players from the nation you are managing.

You must tick the attributes masking box to make it realistic as you won't know all the details about all your players playing in far off lands.

You may make yourself any nationality you wish and give yourself any experience, though making yourself a former international does make things a little easier as I suspect the players will respect you more.

Your chosen nation must not have a higher ranking than 180 with one exception. You may manage Boliva who are the worst South America team. This gives you a choice of:

Boliva (South America)

Papua New Guniea (Oceania)

Tahiti (Oceania)

Comoros (Africa)

Nepal (Asia)

Cayman Islands (North America)

Central African Republic (Africa)

Dominica (North America)

Macau (Asia)

Afghanistan (Asia)

Faroe Isles (Europe)

Guniea-Bissau (Africa)

Samoa (Asia)

Somalia (Africa)

Tonga (Oceania)

Peurto Rico (Caribbean)

San Marino (Europe)

Anguilla (North America)

Bhutan (Asia)

Cook Islands (Oceania)

American Samoa (Oceania)

Aruba (North America)

Belize (North America)

Djibouti (Africa)

East Timor (Asia)

Guam (Asia)

Montenegro (Europe)

Montserrat (North America)

Sao Tome and Principe (Africa)

US Vigin Islands (North America)

Note that not all countries are available from the start, no matter how many different combinations of leagues and loading you do, so you may have to manage another poor nation with your 1st/2nd nationality set to that country in the hope that one day enough regens are generated to allow you to manage that country. Also note that not all teams always feature in FM's international tournaments, for example, with the Caribbean cup not in FM, you may have to bide your time as a Caribbean nation until you are good enough to be invited to the North American gold cup and world cup qualifiers. While Montengro declared independence too late to be included in the 2008 European qualifiers so you will have to wait for the 2010 world cup qualifiers.

NO club management is allowed at any stage.

If you are sacked you must either start again or take over another nation ranked lower than 179 in the world, or the worst team in South America.

If you manage to complete this challenge then go on and do it for a nation in each confederation, apply the same rules as before for choosing your new country. Note this may need some foresight as to what leagues you start with. If you are struggling then you could try to repeat the challenge with another nation in the same confederation

These are the only two reasons for changing nation.

Rules for this thread

Player naming is allowed. (This is a warning for those of you who do not wish to see this)

Discussion on tactics is allowed. (This is another warning for those of you who do not wish to see this)

Screenshots for anything are encouraged.

When you join the challenge, could you post what leagues you have running as this will help others know what leagues to run to get the nation you have chosen loaded.

Progress of your club should be documented using this thread, we want to hear the story of your nation all the way through. Please keep us updated, even if you are doing really badly. You can only claim to have completed this challenge if you have reported on each tournament you have entered, ideally with plenty of screenshots.

Suggestions

To get between important dates easily just set the continue timeout under preferences to Instant. Though I would advise changing it to disabled before a game as otherwise you won't be able to give a post match team talk

This is the first challenge I've issued so if anyone has any suggestions they are most welcome.

Thanks to all those who have issued challenges so far as I may well have nicked a few ideas from you for this. Good luck everyone

Background

Just doing a browse through the general forum and came across people talking about managing Somali and American Samoa, which got me thinking back to my days manging San Marino (only at international level) and wondered if there were any international challenges and had a look here and only found ones which were linked to a club side as well. So I thought as we have this new international module, we should put it to the test and have an international challenge.

The aim

Is quite simple take a small nation and win that nation's confederation cup. Then go on to win both the confederations cup and the world cup.

The rules

The game can have as many or as few leagues as you like running. You will probably need at least the nearest country's league running and of course you may load players from the nation you are managing.

You must tick the attributes masking box to make it realistic as you won't know all the details about all your players playing in far off lands.

You may make yourself any nationality you wish and give yourself any experience, though making yourself a former international does make things a little easier as I suspect the players will respect you more.

Your chosen nation must not have a higher ranking than 180 with one exception. You may manage Boliva who are the worst South America team. This gives you a choice of:

Boliva (South America)

Papua New Guniea (Oceania)

Tahiti (Oceania)

Comoros (Africa)

Nepal (Asia)

Cayman Islands (North America)

Central African Republic (Africa)

Dominica (North America)

Macau (Asia)

Afghanistan (Asia)

Faroe Isles (Europe)

Guniea-Bissau (Africa)

Samoa (Asia)

Somalia (Africa)

Tonga (Oceania)

Peurto Rico (Caribbean)

San Marino (Europe)

Anguilla (North America)

Bhutan (Asia)

Cook Islands (Oceania)

American Samoa (Oceania)

Aruba (North America)

Belize (North America)

Djibouti (Africa)

East Timor (Asia)

Guam (Asia)

Montenegro (Europe)

Montserrat (North America)

Sao Tome and Principe (Africa)

US Vigin Islands (North America)

Note that not all countries are available from the start, no matter how many different combinations of leagues and loading you do, so you may have to manage another poor nation with your 1st/2nd nationality set to that country in the hope that one day enough regens are generated to allow you to manage that country. Also note that not all teams always feature in FM's international tournaments, for example, with the Caribbean cup not in FM, you may have to bide your time as a Caribbean nation until you are good enough to be invited to the North American gold cup and world cup qualifiers. While Montengro declared independence too late to be included in the 2008 European qualifiers so you will have to wait for the 2010 world cup qualifiers.

NO club management is allowed at any stage.

If you are sacked you must either start again or take over another nation ranked lower than 179 in the world, or the worst team in South America.

If you manage to complete this challenge then go on and do it for a nation in each confederation, apply the same rules as before for choosing your new country. Note this may need some foresight as to what leagues you start with. If you are struggling then you could try to repeat the challenge with another nation in the same confederation

These are the only two reasons for changing nation.

Rules for this thread

Player naming is allowed. (This is a warning for those of you who do not wish to see this)

Discussion on tactics is allowed. (This is another warning for those of you who do not wish to see this)

Screenshots for anything are encouraged.

When you join the challenge, could you post what leagues you have running as this will help others know what leagues to run to get the nation you have chosen loaded.

Progress of your club should be documented using this thread, we want to hear the story of your nation all the way through. Please keep us updated, even if you are doing really badly. You can only claim to have completed this challenge if you have reported on each tournament you have entered, ideally with plenty of screenshots.

Suggestions

To get between important dates easily just set the continue timeout under preferences to Instant. Though I would advise changing it to disabled before a game as otherwise you won't be able to give a post match team talk

This is the first challenge I've issued so if anyone has any suggestions they are most welcome.

Thanks to all those who have issued challenges so far as I may well have nicked a few ideas from you for this. Good luck everyone

So I suppose I had better start things off.

Managing American Samoa, as a former professional footballer, nationality England.

Loaded Australian A-League.

Did a quick player search which revealed there were 37 players for me to choose from, but not a right midfielder/winger in sight.

First few fixtures are friendlies but then the Oceania Cup qualifiers start in December so will have to make sue of those friendlies to work out a winning strategy.

I will give this a try when I get home, I think. Papua New Guinea sounds interesting.

Montenegro have some really good players though. Maybe it would be too easy? There are other smaller European nations like Liechtenstein (not that I want to be them).

I will have a go as Faroe Islands.

I will be a former Professional English player with Danish as a second nationality.

I will load all English and Danish leagues.

I will promptly lose heavily and be sacked (if my one previous International experience is anything to go by).

Again i started with American Samoa , with 32 players to choose from, however no right sided defenders.

Loaded the Australian A League

Started 199th in the world

US Virgin Isl H Frinedly 1-6

Turks and Caicos Isl H Friendly 2-2

Mongolia A Friendly 1-3

Papua New Guinea A Friendly 1-2

New Caledonia H Friendly 0-2

Fiji N OCE Nations Cup GrpB 2-0

Tonga N OCE Nations Cup GrpB 1-3

Papua New Guinea N OCE NAtions Cup GrpB 1-0

Tahiti N OCE Nations Cup GrpB 1-1

Group B

Tahiti 7pts

Tonga 7pts

AMERICAN SAMOA 7pts

Papua New Guinea 4pts

Fiji 3pts

Now 174th in World

I've decided to challenge myself and i have started as Guam!!

I am English with second nationality Guamean and former international footballer!!

Loaded all players from Guam and was pleased to find 418 players eligible for the team. Now to narrow it down eh?

This, by the way, is my best player!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by littleliam:

Loaded all players from Guam and was pleased to find 418 players eligible for the team. Now to narrow it down eh? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wow, that's a ton. What clubs are they playing for? Do they have other nationalities?

Most just play for Guamean clubs.

Some classic team names.

Big Blue, Quality Distributor, Guam Shipyard and Orange Crushers FC all great names!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by littleliam:

I've decided to challenge myself and i have started as Guam!!

I am English with second nationality Guamean and former international footballer!!

Loaded all players from Guam and was pleased to find 418 players eligible for the team. Now to narrow it down eh?

This, by the way, is my best player!

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

he looks as though he would be a better olimpic sprinter than footy player, with that acceleration

Good idea for a challenge, saw that thread myself and thought there's never really been an international challenge before.

I might have a go, going to look through the nations now.

I made a DDT file to retain all 30 nations you listed using a DDT generator, which is online here-

http://www.ddtgenerator.co.uk/

Montenegro aren't available as the site is out of date, so I added them to the end.

Is it ok to retain players from all those nations to have a choice of who to manage?

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

#File Generated by DDT Generator 2007 (http://www.ddtgenerator.co.uk)

#Retain Nations

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 1650

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 106

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 129504

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 129514

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 360

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 362

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 131012

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 365

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 13

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 919586

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 1436

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 15

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 368

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 5626837

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 767

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 129508

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 23

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 124

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 129520

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 128

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 1439

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 383

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 1444

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 792

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 40

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 44

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 1441

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 1442

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 129523

"RETAIN_NATION_PLAYERS" 62002127

</pre>

Glad to see I'm not the only one interested in this.

Scohom I see no reason why you shouldn't retain all the players as it will give you more chance of doing the second apart of the challenge and completing it with more than one nation. Would it also may make it difficult if other lower nations have a full squad of players to choose from???

Littleliam good to see that some of the lower nations have this number of players, certainly an interesting player you have there, although whether he is better as a midfielder or striker is hard to tell, let us know how you get on with him.

BS_8 you are doing a bit better than me as you will see from my update below, you must have been gutted to lose out on qualifier to goal difference.

sheffieldtim Faroe Islands should be an interesting experience. A fair number of people have had various levels of success with San Marino, with the help of the Italian league team, be interesting to see how you do.

Recury, Montenegro may indeed be too easy as they will inherit some of Serbia's players, but presumably Serbia will keep the best or will they? But maybe they should be excluded from this challenge. Papua New Guniea as one of the better Oceania teams should give you a chance of at least qualifying from the prelim's.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Recury, Montenegro may indeed be too easy as they will inherit some of Serbia's players, but presumably Serbia will keep the best or will they? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think it'll be down to where they were born?

So how am I doing? (apologies if this I go on too much, let me know and I'll try and be a little more brief in future)

Well things got of to a bad start, losing 3-0 to Wallis & Futuna, who aren't even in the FIFA rankings. But then I was experimenting with playing without a right winger, and I think it cost me down the left side.

So on to my next friendly, against the Cook Islands. Ranked 1 place above me in 198, I thought perhaps I have a chance here, until I saw the odds were 20-1 for me to win! But my team played well with my right back moved to right midfield and another right back in at right back, and we managed to win 1-0 thanks to a goal in the 62nd minute from my midfielder Luvu. Maybe this won't be so difficult after all.

Then came up against Vanuatu in my third friendly and despite battling hard, lost 2-1, but at least we scored a goal again, and we were 50-1 to win!

So the Oceania cup had by this time drawn and I had escaped New Zealand but would face Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tahiti and New Caledonia. What were the FA hoping for? Just that I would enjoy the experience, good to know they are realistic.

Well with everyone expecting a cricket score from Solomon Islands, in real life they lost 12-1 on the 26/08/07. But my team put up a brave fight and only lost 2-1. Again we were 50-1 to win.

Up next against Tonga, well known for their rugby exploits, would they demolish my team? Well in real life they won 4-0 on the 02/09/07 but my defence played well and managed to keep a clean sheet giving me my first draw and my first point! (For the record I was 30-1 to win)

So on to Tahiti who flattened me 4-0, although it has to be said at this point my team's condition had been dropping fast, and so I had rotated my squad a bit and paid the price.

So on to New Caledonia, with a couple of my stars well rested I was hopeful of getting something, but was still 50-1 outsiders for a win. Got in at half time 1-1 , then after a sudden second half burst was 3-1 up after 60 minutes could this be the first competitive win for my brave men, alas not, they brought it back to 3-2 and then as we entered injury time, my brave men tired and let another slip in. Still 3-3 isn't that bad a score and it gave the fans plenty of entertainment.

Well 2 draws and 2 defeats, not exactly what I was hoping for but at least we got a couple of points, finished bottom of the group. So I had a look at my confidence screen. Fans were disappointed with my defeats, to be expected, but I was surprised to see they were disappointed with my draws as well. Though I guess with us 3-1 up in one, they had hoped we would win it. Still the FA were pleased that the team enjoyed the experience of participating in the OCE nations cup and overall saisfied with my management, and my excellent performance in the Oceania Nations cup was a particular highlight.

As for the FIFA ranking well my 2 draws earned me 7 points, lifting me to 196th in the world.

I'm not sure, but while managing in Eastern Europe I see a lot of Serbia-quality players who have Montenegro as a first nationality. I don't know what their FIFA ranking is, but I would put them ahead of quite a few European nations from the players I've seen.

I did get started on my PNG game with a 4-2 win friendly win over Cook Islands. The scoreline could have been better though since we dominated possession and were up 3-0 after 15 minutes.

PNG has 40 or so eligible players with a good mixture of positions for 4-4-2. What is weird is that all except one of them are 24 or younger, so hopefully it will just get easier from now in. They have two pretty good strikers in the Davani brothers as well.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Scoham:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Recury, Montenegro may indeed be too easy as they will inherit some of Serbia's players, but presumably Serbia will keep the best or will they? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think it'll be down to where they were born? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just had a look at a holiday game I set in motion a couple of weeks ago (before the beta patch) in 2014 Montenegro are rated at 120th in the world and do have some quite good players. From what I can tell on the internet any existing Serbia national team player born in Montenegro can choose which nation he continues to play for. Of course there are some good players born in Montenegro and this will continue to be the case, so while it would be interesting to see how they get on, they probably should be excluded.

Interesting by this time American Samoa are up to 181st in the world but have yet to get past the preliminary round of the Oceania Nations cup. In fact they have yet to win or even draw a game friendly or otherwise and are only 181st in the world on alphabetical order as there are 29 nations (180-208) with 0 points.

well vucinic of roma is a prime example.

Yes madwoodster i was a bit gutted, but it was not the end of the world. However condition was rubbish, and i pciked up lots of injuries, i bought in a few coaches, but as there is not a trianing section i guess it makes no difference?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BS_8:

well vucinic of roma is a prime example.

Yes madwoodster i was a bit gutted, but it was not the end of the world. However condition was rubbish, and i pciked up lots of injuries, i bought in a few coaches, but as there is not a trianing section i guess it makes no difference? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ok so there's plenty of evidence supporting the exclusion of Montenegro from this challenge so I hereby officially exclude them from the challenge and if I could edit my posts then I would edit the starting post of this discussion.

I think the coaches do make a difference as there is some sort of training done, as I'm sure I've had players injured during training. I've managed to get an U-21 and U-19 managers and a couple of coaches, but have yet to get myself a physio.

Also those managing Oceania nations may find scouting pointless to begin with as none of our players play any competitive games but there is the Oceania clubs cup starting in March which could well feature some of our players.

Hey MadWoodster, nice challenge! I tried something like this in FM07 with the Faroe Islands. My greatest achivement was getting to the European Championships.

I'm gonna take it up this year, though with either Bhutan or Nepal. Infact i'm gonna load the baby up right now.

madWoodster just go to the A-League you will find decent physio there, would this increase the liklihood of an average player being signed up by an aussie team?

Brigadier, good to have you on board and to hear of your successes with the Faroe Islands just getting them to the Championships is something in itself. Although I do recall someone managing to win the world cup with San marino i a previous version of FM but then I think he was also a club manager at the time, so that wouldn't count for this challenge

BS_8 thanks for the advice, I had nicked a coach and u-21 manager from the A-League but completely forgot about a physio until I read your post. Might reduce injury recovery times and even injuries in the first place. Having an A-League coach or scout as one of your coaches could increase the likelihood of them signing one of your players as they would get increased knowledge about your nation, so this may help, it may even later boost the regens for the nation especially if they go on to manage a team.

i was hoping it would, i forgot to put my second nationality as AS, so hope i don't run out of players , just lost to PNG again, i think they are my bogie team

Also i released my american samoan ass man, hoping he will get a job, my new aussie ass man is much better though and doing a better job, i think the increase in the backroom staff has boosted results?

I forgot about my second nationality as well so we could both have a problem there.

Will we still be allowed to manage if we have no players? Or do we get the sack if our team becomes unmanageable???

Sorry to hear about your struggles against PNG.

Be interesting to see if your assistant manager does get a job in the A-League and starts bringing through the youngsters.

Might have to change my assistant manager and see if that helps me in future games.

Well i finally started as... Bhutan!

I have loaded the leagues of-

England, france, China, India, Indonesia, italy and Spain. With added databases of Nepal, Bhutan, China and India.

Just started to bolster my backroom staff first, hired one guy from Liverpool another from Man U and also a dude from AC milan. Hopefully in the future their knowledge of my country will go up and so increase the chance of a Bhutani coming through a top teams youth academy and being quite special! Fingers crossed!

Brigadier do you get to play in the World Cup 2010 qualifiers? As according to FIFA's website they actually pulled out of the qualifiers, but I guess it was probably too late to be included in FM08.

Ok so we have

3 Oceania competitors

MadWoodster (American Samoa)

BS_8 (American Samoa)

Recury (Papua New Guinea)

2 Asian competitors

Littleliam (Guam)

Brigadier (Bhutan)

1 European competitor

SheffieldTim (Faroe Islands)

Interesting that no one has chosen an African, North American or South American team.

Yeah I am in the run for 2010 world cup, however my first qualifying round has been drawn against Kuwait who are miles ahead in terms of talent. Looks like i'll be out straight away.

good luck brigadier, you may only beat kuwait 3 times in 100, however there is no reason this can't be one of the three, Up the minnows

Gah, this challenge looks like fun, I guess I'm gonna have to join in. Will make my first post in 30 mins or so

Well I lost 6-0 in the first leg. X(

However on the brightside, maybe if one of my men didn't get sent off it might have been only 3-0

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a60/brigadier_/bhutan1.jpg

have loaded the English, French, South African and Spanish leagues, and loaded all players from:

Comoros

Central African Republic

Guniea-Bissau

Somalia

Djibouti

Sao Tome and Principe

Gaudeloupe

Nationality: French

2nd Nationality: Guadelopian

Managed Team: GUADELOPE!!

My wish to be the first manager of an African team was eclisped by the prospect of managing Guadelope, so now I am the first North American manager instead.

Our current world ranking is: N/A, which I think is as bad as it gets in this game

My national pool is an astounding 45 players eligible for the national team, with 32 in the national pool. To my surprise Guadelope actually has some talent, with Olivier Thomert being our most valuable player at 6.75mill

Screenshot: Olivier Thomert

As for my coming fixtures, in 2007 all I had was a friendly against Antigua in October. So I took the initiative to arrange a friendly against... ARGENTINA on the 8th of September. Before my appointment as coach, our record defeat was a 6-0 loss to Martinique on 1.1.1934 ... time to break a 73 year old record!

So 1st July passes, 4 new american samoans appear.

This guy looks as if he has potential..

Now advice please, shall i bring him into the international fold now as he is my only DM or start him in the u19s and see how he prgresses?

only 14, another hot prospet, i also had a 20y/o DC, who isn't very good and an AMLC who could be a bit part player

6.7 million dollars! WOW!

ALL 33 players who are eligable to play for Bhutan don't have a value at all!

Since you don't have a world ranking, are you able to enter qualifiers for the world cup?

I understand why you want to have someone from all federations in there but IMO Bolivia are way too good to be in there. Venezuela are also a poorer team quality wise (in the game anyway). I guess it's impossible to pick a really weak team from CONMEBOL as they all have a certain level...

Now, I'd like to take you up on the challenge. I wanna have a go as Belize. Since none of the Belizean players play abroad and I'll probably have to wait quite a while for games to come around I've only selected the Mexican league...

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by brigadier:

6.7 million dollars! WOW!

ALL 33 players who are eligable to play for Bhutan don't have a value at all!

Since you don't have a world ranking, are you able to enter qualifiers for the world cup? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Haha, at least your in for some fun. I'm guessing all your players are primarily Bhutanese? My problem is that most are primarily French, so if I come across a start, the French team can snap them up before I can .

How can I check if I qualify for the world cup qualifiers?

BS_8: Those youngsters are pretty damn good as far as American Samoa goes. You should get them into the swing of things with a few U19 matches, and if they hit form wing them up to the senior team.

This is a good thread and I'll be following along as long as it's going. When my games hit a lull I sometimes like playing a WC cycle or two solely as an international manager, I always thought I was the only one as most seem to find the international aspect too "boring". Glad to see I'm not the only one who enjoys it.

MachinegunHead, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but (at least in real life) Guadeloupe aren't eligible for the World Cup. They're a CONCACAF member and qualify for and play in the Gold Cup (Guadeloupe actually made the semifinals this past summer), but that's as far as it goes for competitive internationals.

Any top players from Guadeloupe would realistically play for France. In fact, because of their (as well as other French dependencies) somewhat unique status players are eligible to play for both, although it doesn't happen often. In fact, Jocelyn Angloma played in the Gold Cup this year after representing France a number of times.

In the lead up to my first game in charge of the Guadelope national team, my squad confirmation produced quite the delicious news item.

delicious

It seems that nearly everyone in my team will be winning their first cap against Argentina, with most originally thinking they were set for France.

Now to the game.

The lead up was quite pessimistic from the media, telling me I have no hope, and that Tevez will be ripping my team to shreds. So I decided to tell my team to teach that rascal Tevez a lesson, and hit him as hard as possible. They can call it a friendly, but it wont be for good ol' Carlos.

Argentina break free in the first 6 minutes, and Diego Millito manages to just pass it into the net past my keeper... luckily, Tevez was offside , disallowing their early lead.

17th minute: GUADELOPE GO 1-0 UP!!!! Brice Jovial the goal scorer. This game could turn out to be something magical for the small Caribbean nation.

Half time sees Guadelope go in with a 1-0 lead, after only have 3 shots on goal, compared to Argentina's 13.

Second half to come soon...

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by The Shaman:

MachinegunHead, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but (at least in real life) Guadeloupe aren't eligible for the World Cup. They're a CONCACAF member and qualify for and play in the Gold Cup (Guadeloupe actually made the semifinals this past summer), but that's as far as it goes for competitive internationals.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll still stay with them for another year or so at least. Just to see whether the game simulates this fact. Anyway, 2nd half time.

Attendence: 14,923 (in Guadelope)

50th Minute: Argentina peg back a goal, bringing the score to 1-1, due to a brilliant free kick from Pablo Aimar's right foot.

60th Minute: Tevez breaks through on goal, and unleashes a brilliant shot. Luckily the Guadelopean keeper manages to get a hand to it... but the ball is still rolling towards the net!! The ball rolls right up to the line and gets slowed down just enough for the Guadelopean keeper to smother it. The horrid weather has saved Guadelope for now.

80th minute: Riquelme unleashes a 40 yard drive, curling into the top corner of the net... looks like Guadelope's dream start has fallen to peices.

Accidentally posted the above before I finished. My bad (forgive the possible triple post).

The score did end up staying 2-1, but Guadelope piled on pressure for the last 16 minutes (yes, there were 6 minutes of extra time), but couldn't find a goal.

Gaudelope v Argentina

Hopefully this result has pumped my team up for a good game against Anguilla in a month's time...

Guadelope win 6-1 against Anguilla. Easy match for the talented team. MachinegunHead is expected to protest out front of the FIFA offices, demanding that his team be allowed into the world cup qualifiers.

(I've got no more games this year, so I'll most likely not be posting for a while, haha)

Hello...reality check.

The Faroese FA on appointment have asked me to make the team 'competitive' and to help 'fulfil their promise as a footballing nation'.

Given they have a population of 48,000 having 116 players available seems ok.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands

Okay, i think Bhutan must be THE worst team ever. I'm loosing like 4-0 to teams who are around me like Virgin Isles ect.

I've done lots of scouting of player stats of the teams around me and they're all miles ahead of me! I don't think any of my players have a single stat at/over 10

MadWoodster This is an awesome challenge mate. I've been waiting for a really good and well thought out International challenge to come along for a while now, apart from Ters San Marino Double challenge, there hasn't been anything i wanted to get my teeth into... Until now!

Super Challenge, i'll be looking to have a crack at this some time soon.

Started as Afghanistan loaded all players and India. Have a total of 38 players to choose from and this guy being the best of them Qhays Shayestah

World ranking is currently 190th with the first fixture on the 13th of August which is a world cup qualifier

So Papua New Guinea did alright at the Oceania Nations Cup:

Preliminary round:

1-0 Samoa

1-0 Fiji

3-3 Cook Islands

0-1 Tahiti

Which qualified me for the Cup where I did not do quite as well:

3-3 Samoa

3-3 Vanuatu

1-2 New Caledonia

1-4 New Zealand

I don't know what is up with all of the 3-3 draws. There should probably be more blowouts, especially considering I am usually either a huge favorite or a huge underdog going in.

Anyway, we ended up going from 183rd before the cup to 172nd, so not too bad.

I left my Guadelope game on holiday mode, and there were only friendly fixtures up until 2012, so I was too disenhartened to continue it. I will start a new one though, with a REAL country .

Well playing my youngsters in the U19s was the plan, however due to many injuries, two MC's retiring due to not being selected originally therefore rejecting call ups and a run of bad results, 3 of my regens started in the midfield. Aged 15,17,18. Two went onto score in a 2-2, my first positive result in 4 games.

MGH which team have you chosen?

my yearly (2008) results consisted of W0 D2 L4 all friendlies.

Lowlight: 1-9 home defeat to the mighty luxembourg, who were below me.

Highlight: 2-2 away to Sol Isl. 2 youngsters scoring, my DM definately has the potential to play in the ALeague, which is my ambition

Good challenge MadWoodster.

I thought i might aswell give it ago and chose to be in africa with Guniea-Bissau. Loading just the south africian leagues and all players from all the africian nations stated in the opening post.

I am just Guinea-Bissau in nationality.

I come in with 2 games left of the africian nations cup qualifying remaining and amzingly we are in touching difference of qualifying, and without cammeroon to play we may just stand a chance.

But with only 74 players to choose from it could be a tough time.