MadWoodsters International Management Challenge

I am delighted to declare this year's International Management Challenge open.

This is your chance to launch your international management career and prove to the world that you are a top class manager.

Your chosen nation has picked you to prove to the world that they are a real footballing nation. For years people may have made jokes about their football, of how while there are no easy games in international football surely playing against them is a sure-win. Well no longer, you are going to turn this laughing stock into world beaters!

Your nation is ranked below 150 in the world at the start (which means there are no South American teams) they may even have already been knocked out of the world cup qualifiers by this point, but no matter you are going to take them under your wing, sort out some tactics, find some hidden talent and one day, win the world cup with them.

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 must make yourself the worst reputation available (ideally sunday league but FM09 may insist on you being a certain reputation for your chosen nation's national job)

You must select a nation no better than 151 in the world. A list of available nations is here.

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.

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. You are also invited to keep

my website up to date. This has an automated scoring system which will award you points based on how well you are doing.

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

Good to see this one up and running again. I'll choose a nation and get a game running over the weekend.

Thank you for your support DodgeeD.

I've got my American Samoa team up and running. As I wanted to get on to see what form the Oceanic Nations Cup would take, I only played the couple of friendlies already arranged for me.

A 1-0 win against Fiji was followed by a 1-1 draw with Cook Islands and a 2-1 win over Samoa completed some encouraging friendly results. But would my great team now ranked 183 in the world be able to turn those friendly results into victories at the Oceanic Nations Cup?

The FA only asked that we enjoyed the experience of playing in the Oceanic Nations Cup and would not be worried about our performance.

Just as well as defeats 1-2 to Papua New Guniea and 0-1 to Solomon Islands, while not the cricket scores the media were expecting were defeats nevertheless. However, we managed to beat Tahiti 1-0 which led to fans dancing long into the night according to our supporter spokesperson.

And so we faced our final game against arch-rivals Samoa. Whatever results elsewhere meant, this would be the game the fans would want to win. But alas injuries and tiredness had over taken some of our best players. Midfielders Faalouia and Mulipoli needing resting while injury to Leututu meant we had no right back available to us and midfielder Silao injured before the tournament begun was still not fully fit.

Half time the score was 0-0 but we lost Falimaua to injury which meant Faaloua was needed, rest or no rest. If we can somehow grab a winner in the second half and Solomon Islands lose to top of the table Papua New Guinea we could just sneak through. But despite two good penalty claims, both turned down, we couldn't manage the winner and would have to be satisfied with 3rd place in the preliminaries.

Papa New Guinea did indeed beat Solomon Islands so if either of those penalty claims had been given and assuming they were converted, I would have been through to the Group stages proper of the Oceania Nations Cup but alas it was not to be this time.

These performances boosted my FIFA ranking to 139 in the world as you can see on this screen shot.

Tried to get a game up and running with all players loaded from Montserrat, Anguilla and British Virgin Isles but there wern't enough players to start with straight away. I might run that game on holiday mode and see what regens come up later on (I've got English leagues down to BSS/BSN running in the hope that, as usual, AFC Wiöbledon start signing the Caribbean players ). If nothing comes of that, I may join you soon in Oceania.

I'm wondering, would people be interested in me extending this to including youth competitions and the Olympics? Or should this be a separate challenge?

Having done a quick scan through I'm not sure how this affects Africa as they don't seem to have any youth competitions in the game (not sure how their youth world cup and Olympic competitors are chosen) Also Oceania don't seem to have a world youth cup qualifying competition but they do at least have an Olympic competition will post in the main forum to see if anyone else knows anything.

I'm gonna try this with San Marino

DodgeeD I've done some checking and British Virgin Islands have no players in the database, while Montserret and Anguilla have only 5 and 11 respectively so you might be waiting some time for enough regens to manage them. If I get a chance in the coming week I'll go through the nations and see who has got what.

roberto922 welcome to the challenge and good luck with San Marino, I hope you don't get too many cricket scores in your first few games.

Yey Soloman Islands here I come.

Edit: Have loaded Australian League and English leagues (Prem and Championship) on medium DB

Glad this has returned MadWoodster, will have a crack at it at some point.

Theres a small bug with International news. I left a player out of the side several times and as he had been out of contract he must have retired. However I still get news about him being left out of the side. Does anyone else get this?

I'm definitely going to do this at some point. I enjoy a bit of international management, even though I don't usually have much success Maybe this time will be different.

Not sure who I'll start with, but it could well be Guam.

Nice to see this back for another year. Not sure if I'll be having a crack at it, but we shall see.

Good luck to all those giving it a go.

Solomon Islands July 2008 to December 2009

Started off with a pretty weak squad defensive wise but it was highly rated offensively. However I cocked this up by removing all players from the squad to try and replace the defense and goalkeeper. After refilling the side I realised I had removed and not replaced all of the best midfielders and strikers D'OH.

Friendlies

06.08.2008 - Home Vs Cook Islands, Won 3-1

11.10.2008 - Away Vs French Guiana Lost 3-1

11.02.2009 - Home Vs Wallis and Futuna Drew 1-1

06.06.2009 - Away Vs Samoa Lost 2-1

10.06.2009 - Home Vs India Drew 1-1

05.09.2009 - Home Vs Philipines Drew 1-1

So not a great record but not terrible either.

OCE Nations Cup Prelims

The FA expected us to reach the Final, I was just hoping to get out of the Prelims.

We opened up with a game against old foe Samoa. Going in expecting a draw I managed to pull off a suprise victory after a goal, an own goal and my keeper scoring a penalty.

Solomon Islands 3 (Firisua 13, Slade 59 OG, Maniadalo 66 Pen) Samoa 0

After that we had another team we had played in the friendlies and managed to pull off the same result against them.

Cook Islands 1 (Puroku 83) Solomon Islands 3 (Totori 34, Maemae 72, Rockson 81 All Pens)

Sitting top of the groups after two games my confidence grew and I thought we might actually be able to do this. Until I was brought back down to earth.

Solomon Islands 0 Tahiti 1 (Cervinski 7)

This left us still in first but it was now close. Second place was on 6 points as well, with 3rd and 4th on 4 points with New Caledonia with a game in hand. My next game was against New Caledonia but first they had to play their game in hand. Unfortunatly for me they won it meaning I was in 3rd but only needing a draw to get through to the next round.

It looked like New Caledonia were going to score first after a heavy offensive but Maniadalo withstood a barrage of shots. Then against the run of play we won a corner. It swung in but was cleared by the Caledonia defence after being passed around for a while it was knocked back into the box, again it was cleared but this time it hit a defender and bounced into the bottom corner of the goal. We were 1 goal up.

This sparked us into life and Menapi bagged us a secound 7 minutes later. We had a brief shock just before half time when Moore broke free of our defence to hammer the ball into the goal. However it was decided he moved too soon and it was ruled out for offside. IMO the goal should have stood but I can't really complain.

A slow second half finally got interesting in the 75th minute when a Caledonia player hit a 35 yarder screamer towards goal. Luckily it hit the bar but there were several more shots before the ball finally rolled out of play for a goalkick. This sparked New Caledonia into life and then began a full on assault on my goal. Which came to nothing in the end.

New Caledonia 0 Solomon Islands 2 (Evans 22 OG, Menapi 29)

Preliminary Standings

Will keep you updated with Rankings and the next round.

Ive stated at cook islands got some big games vs italy and australia

italy cancelled

Solomon Islands January 2009

I wasn't expecting this to go well but it could have been better.

OCE Nations Cup

I wasn't expecting to win this one.

Solomon Islands 1 (Fa'arodo 73) New Zealand 3 (Smeltz 23,38, Christie 43)

Fiji 1 (Maniadalo 34 OG) Solomon Islands 0

Solomon Isalnds 0 Papa New Guina

After drawing the must win game I simplely gave up caring and this happened -

New Caledonia 5 (Bozinovski 33, Smith 45, Aucher 61,75,87) Solomon Islands 0

So after this I was promptly fired. If I had known that the Solomon Islands had been runners up in the last Oceniac Cup I wouldn't have picked them. I think I might have a go in Africa in a while. I got the Solomon Islands up to 128 in the rankings.

Cook Islands

ONC Prelim - results

American Samoa W 2-1

Fiji W 2-1

New Caledonia L 2-0

Tahiti D 0-0

Finished 2nd

We did well and are now ranked 136th

blowcrapup welcome to the challenge and thank you for your reports and entering your progress on the website. Yes Solomon Isles shocked everybody by coming 2nd in the last Oceania Nations Cup so sadly their expectations are high.

Gundo look forward to hearing your progress when you are not doing your own challenge.

JSalter likewise look forward to hearing how you get on with Guam.

Razer82 come on give it a go its not that difficult (well actually it is difficult but good fun all the same)

themakam welcome to the challenge, sorry to hear Italy cancelled on you. Well done on finishing 2nd in the prelims, I presume that qualified you for the next round. Don't forget to keep the website up to date

Might try this in between dafuge's challenge.

i think ill give this a go, with The Philippines

I've started this with Central African Republic, and have entered any information so far onto the website. I'll try and do an update here sometime this evening.

San Marino - 2010 Qualification

San Marino 1 - 1 Poland

Claim what could be a famous point in our and my first qualification match, with nine men! \o/ For once, we're not bottom!!

Next match is against Slovakia.

I think I made a mistake on your site.

For the competition performance, I put World Cup European Qualifier with the above result, but I now think that means that I qualified. Am I right or wrong?

Yeah you've entered it as you have qualified for the Euro's. Madwoodster can fix it though.

i resinged

After my reasonable scoring abismal attempt with the Solomon Islands I'm going to attempt this with the Nicaragua but have loaded players from several other nations as well.

Edit: Have started with the MLS in January is this ok? FOr anyone else thinking about going to North America the world Cup qualifiers opening rounds are in February so you can play in them. (If Madwoodster thinks this is ok?)

Decided to give this a go as Andorra, will sign up to the website shortly, just loading up the game now.

Welcome MarkTrevor to the challenge, no worries about the website mistake, I have removed it now. If you would like to login and enter your finishing place int he qualifying group then you may still get a point even if you finished 6th. Well done on the point.

Charlesbeams and JSalter welcome and good luck.

blowcrapup thanks for the vote of confidence. Good luck with Nicaragua no problems with the early start date, it makes sense.

themakam sorry to hear you resigned was it really that bad?

gers51 good luck with Andorra.

Thank you all for signing up on the website.

I had a really good game with nepal last year while managing eastleigh as well. Only problem was i only had european leagues loaded, so i'm sure with more asian leagues nepal can be successful. I ended up with 3 world class players in the prem so nepal has potential there.

Started with all asian leagues, Australian, MLS, English and all scandinavian leagues to give myself the maximum chance for any possible regens.

Have managed to sneak into the group stage of the North American Wold Cup Qualifiers after a shock win against Surinam. I've been drawn in a group against Barbados, Costa Rica and Mexico. Guess whos the whipping boy there then

I was reading this article recently and I discovered that Palestine has players scattered as far afield as Chile! That would be interesting for this challenge I believe so I'm going to run a test game now with the Chilean, American and german leagues loaded and see if enough players come up for a squad.

I was reading this article recently and I discovered that Palestine has players scattered as far afield as Chile! That would be interesting for this challenge I believe so I'm going to run a test game now with the Chilean, American and german leagues loaded and see if enough players come up for a squad.

Have you checked in the scandinavan countries?

Not yet - thought I'd see where players come up at first and then restart with the relevant leagues.

Palestine January/February 2009

I have taken over as manger of Palestine starting with a Sunday league rep (personal info screen). After checking the spread of eligible players around the world, I have the following leagues running (all divisions):

Chile

Denmark

Norway

Sweden

U.S.A.

Singapore

Australia

Israel

Singapore and Australia don't have any Palestinian players at present but I wanted leagues from different continents involved. My inclusion of Israel may raise a few eyebrows but seeing as FM has no knowledge of history, politics or recent conflicts (bar the 'fierce rivals' category), I thought the geographical proximity may attract some regens. (As another example, it's quite frequent for FM to offer Cypriot feeder teams to Turkish clubs, which would never happen in real life).

It should be noted that there are a couple of players at lower league Italian clubs but I'm not running those leagues due to the Serie C Cup bug.

I am now trying to assemble a multi-national coaching team in the hope they go and tell their clubs to buy our players. Only friendlies for the forseeable future - I started in January 2008 hoping to get in on the prelim rounds of Asian Cup qualifying but it seems the real lfe results are hard-coded and the qualification process jumps staright to the group stage... Nevermind, that gives plenty of time for regens to develop (there are already a couple of dual Chilean-Palestinian nationality).

I think my San Marino game is going to corrupt due to the Serie C Cup bug.

I will be taking up this challenge!

I'm going to start looking at what country I want to manage, will probably be an African one. Will get back when i've made my choice!

San Marino crashed and I can't change my country to Lesotho. So I registered another user (MarkTrevor2) but accidently registered another one also, if it is possible, could you delete the San Marinese and Indian ones?

Sao Tome and Principe damm I know how to pick them lol

no matter what I do i cant seem to get Sao Tome and Principe in the nations list to manage can some 1 help

no matter what I do i cant seem to get Sao Tome and Principe in the nations list to manage can some 1 help

Some times there aren't even enough players, with all players loaded, to make a nation playable straight awat. You have to leave it a few years and hope one day there are enough regens to make a side but I've never seen it done before.

Some times there aren't even enough players, with all players loaded, to make a nation playable straight awat. You have to leave it a few years and hope one day there are enough regens to make a side but I've never seen it done before.

On FM08 some of the caribbean nations became available after about 7-10 years so its possible

that sucks then wats the point in havin a challenge when you cant go half the teams lol

djwillster - you would have to load all players from your selected nation.

i did that dude lol and i got nothing

I'm having problems picking a team I want to manage that has enough players! I'm still looking though but it takes ages to start a new game!

Just started a new game with all Asian leagues loaded and will be having a go at the challenge with Vietnam. Heres my personal screen after I've given myself a suitable Vietnamese nickname. (Profile). Hopefully this will fool the Vietnamese FA into not sacking me after the what will surely be inevitable inept upcoming performances.

San Marino here i come. after i have done grundo's challenge.

Here is my profile

as you can see I have took over San Marino and replaced Giampaolo Mazza. As of 2007, Mazza is the longest-serving manager of any European national team.

so wish me luck

2008 Results

Friendly

San Marino 0 - 2 Serbia

World Cup Quals

San Marino 0 - 1 Poland

San Marino 0 - 0 Slovakia

N Ireland 2 - 0 San Marino

San Marino 0 - 1 Czech Republic

As you can see I lost most of my games but keep the scores low and I also manage to get a point in the group but still find myself at the bottom I just can't score ether:(