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[FM14] Life in Costa Rica - An Alajuelense Adventure


Makoto Nakamura

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As you may have noticed, I've struggled to get into an FM14 save as of yet, I went back to CM01/02 to freshen things up and now I'm ready to give FM14 one last try, and I've decided to manage in Costa Rica, a decent nation behind the powerhouses of Mexico & the U.S.A.

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(Wikipedia History)

Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, often known as La Liga, is a professional football club, based in Alajuela, Costa Rica.

Founded on June 18, 1919 by a group of seven members of the former team Once de Abril, and currently playing at the Primera Division de Costa Rica, their headquarters are located at the Alejandro Morera Soto Stadium in El Llano neighborhood of Alajuela. Alajuelense is a founder member and one of most successful teams of the Costa Rican football history, having won 29 times the Primera División title, being the only Costa Rican club with least one title gained in each decade. They are one of the two teams alongside CS Herediano that has played in every season in the Primera Division and never have been relegated.

They have won 3 UNCAF Club Championships and 2 CONCACAF Champions' Cup, being the first Costa Rican team who won that title, led them to become the first Costa Rican team to play the Interamerican Cup in 1986 against the mighty River Plate. Alajuelense is the only Central American football team who took part in CONMEBOL competitions such as Copa Merconorte in 2000 and the Copa Sudamericana in 2006.

Alajuelense is the Central American team that has reached the highest position in the IFFHS Club's World Ranking, back in 2000 they reached the 27th spot.

The team was created in 1919 when a group of friends that used to play in a team called the "Electra" at first and then "Once de Abril" (April the 11th) met at "Salon París". They wanted to give the city a team that could represent them at a national level. They played their first official game on August 2 of that same year against CS Cartaginés getting their first victory, 3 – 1.

Alajuelense was part of the 7 teams that built and formed the National League in Costa Rica, back in 1921, along with La Libertad, Sociedad Gimnástica Española, CS Herediano, CS Cartaginés, CS La Unión de Tres Ríos, and Sociedad Gimnástica Limonense. They won their first championship in 1928. They are the only team to win the championship with a perfect record; in 1941 they won all 6 games. In 1960, the team made a tour around the world, leaving Costa Rica on September 17. In 78 days the team played 24 games, winning 12, losing 7 and the other 5 ended up tied. They scored 71 goals and received 47, with a remarkable performance from Juan Ulloa Ramírez, being the best player and top scorer of this tour.

Throughout their history, Liga Deportiva Alajuelense has generated a lot of great players and stunning performances. They are known as one of the best teams in the Central America area. Their best decade was the 1990s, during which they won 4 Championships and 4 sub-championships (runner up) as well. In addition to that, by the end of the 90's and the middle of the 2000s, they won a total of 5 local championships (4 of them in a row), 2 Copa Interclubes UNCAF Throphies and a CONCACAF Club Champions, being the base for the Costa Rican football team in the Korea and Japan 2002 FIFA World Cup, with 9 players.

By November 11, 2000 and after participating in the Copa Merconorte, Alajuelense was ranked in the 27th spot, based on IFFHS's Club World Ranking. It has been the best rank by the team and the best any other Central American club have reached.

The club struggled with some financial and administrative problems in the second part on the 2000s decade, so they decided to end contract with a lot of their regular and known players and started to build a team based on their younger divisions and make some structural changes. Nowadays the club is free of debts and with a team averaging 25 year-old players is still one of the best teams in the area and one of the teams with most fans in Costa Rica. They have won the last 3 championships in its country and participated in the last CONCACAF Champions League being eliminated in the group stage for just one away goal.

Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto

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Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto - Scotiabank is a football stadium in El Llano neighborhood of Alajuela, Costa Rica which is the home of Liga Deportiva Alajuelense.

The stadium holds 17,895 people. Named under Alejandro Morera Soto, known as "El Mago del Balon", notable former player of LD Alajuelense, FC Barcelona and Hércules CF.

The project to find a proper site for a permanent home started in 1938 when the director of the club, Carlos Bolaños, proposed that the club should purchase its own land. The land was purchased in 1940, but the site would not be soccer-ready until 1942, when Alajuelense played its first match at the site. The first game was played on January 18, 1942 when Liga Deportiva Alajuelense played Club Sport Cartagines. The Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto is known as the Cathedral of Costa Rican Soccer.

On September 27, 1949, a professor from a local high school named Armando Morux Sancho started what was called "La marcha del ladrillo" (The Brick's March) in which every student would donate a brick to help building the

On July 20, 1966, due to a motion by the Municipality of Alajuela, the stadium was renamed to honor the great Alajuelense and Barcelona player Alejandro Morera Soto. On March 19, 1970 the stadium saw its first night game when Alajuelense faced Honduras Club team Motagua, beating them 4-1.

In 1979, the enlargement of the stadium was initiated with the project of building a second stand on top of the first already built and add an additional stand over the dressing and conference room (south) and also, add roof to the stand located on east and the one located on south after was finished. The project was fully completed in 1984. The stadium was re-inaugurated that year along with the new illumination, which was at the moment, in the top illuminations systems.

Costa Rican football started getting more attention by the international press after the national team participated to the World Cup in 1990 and with footballers playing abroad. The club decided to build a royal box in the top of the west stand, which would have a two-floor royal box with TVs, carpet, bathrooms, elevator and air conditioner. The royal box was finished in 1999 and is the only team in Costa Rica with such an amenity.

In 2002, the illumination system was upgraded, being the stadium with the best illumination in the country.

Until 2005, the Morera Soto's grass was known as the best natural one in Central America, but a combination of fungus and hurricanes affected the grass and it never fully recovered. By the end of 2008, the management of the team decided to install a fifth-generation synthetic grass, in order to have the field always ready for games no matter the weather, also have the availability to rent the venue for music concerts and/or special events and have the possibility for the younger divisions to train in the same field. The last game the team played on the natural turf was the first game of the 2008 winter's final, beating their archrival Deportivo Saprissa 2–0 on December 17, 2008.

In 2009, the club installed a synthetic turf called Xtreme Turf from ACT Global Sports. This football turf has achieved FIFA two-star certification for approval for top international matches. This is the only FIFA two-star installation currently in Central America. After a long delay, the field was ready to be used by July 18, 2009. The field's re-opening game was held against Caracas FC from Venezuela; the game ended up with a tie 1–1.

On July 3, 2011, the stadium name was changed from "Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto" to "Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto Scotiabank", due to a newly acquired sponsor from Scotiabank to the team.

The aim? There is no aim as such, develop Costa Rican talent? topple the Mexican dominance? That would be nice, but I won't lose sleep over it.

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Leagues Loaded:

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Fairly straightforward, loaded the North American leagues for the added competition, I've also loaded Spain because Alajuelense have Real Madrid as a parent club so hopefully I can get a player or 2 on loan sometime.

In terms of players, I've loaded players with national reputation in North & South America as well as players based in Central America & the Caribbean which brings the database size up to 24,000 players.

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March 2014

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We managed to overcome Houston which sees us in the Champions League Semi-Finals against Mexican underachievers Toluca who are currently 18th and last in the Mexican Closing Stage and 13th out of 18 on average points, can we take advantage of their form and sneak into the Champions League Final? In the league our defence has shored up as we've only conceded 1 goal and that's helped our title hopes greatly as we've definitely finished 1st, all we need to do is with the League Final.

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End of Season 1 - 2013/14

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A very strong season sees us easily be league champions, but none of that mattered if we didn't win the closing stage final, which we thankfully did, hopefully we'll be able to bring some better players in for next season to start to dominate Costa Rica.

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Champions League and Copa de Costa Rica winners in the 1st season! Is it too soon? Maybe, but I'll enjoy my moment in the limelight whilst I can.

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Key Players

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Transfers:

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Incoming Transfers:

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All of these players will be coming in between 2014 & 2016 and are all rated 4* PA or higher and from the USA.

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September 2014

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A perfect month sees us open up a 9 point lead over 2nd after just 10 games! We have 1 last Champions League game and it's highly unlikely that we're going to qualify but I don't know what the rules are exactly on who goes through, whether it's on goal difference or on head to head results.

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November 2014

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Managed to easily win the Opening Stage, well, sort of, we have the 2nd leg of the Semi-Final and hopefully the Final to play yet. I'm annoyed with the board as I've been manager for 19? months now and managed 100 games but they won't let me upgrade the scouting range because I'm a new manager and should accept what I have already...

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December 2014

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A great month saw us get over £1m in prize money thanks to our efforts in the Club World Cup as we lost 6-0 to our parent club Real Madrid, that wasn't the biggest result though as in the other Semi-Final Velez beat ES Tunis 9-0. Now onto the transfers:

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Key Transfers:

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January 2015

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Bar the Puntarenas game it was plain sailing, I'm hoping that the signings of Samuel Eto'o and Panamanian defender Roman Torres will make a difference on the pitch. I've changed screen resolutions now so hopefully screenshots after these will be smaller/

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October 2015

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We beat Chivas but thanks to goal difference it wasn't enough, Robbie Keane is the current Champions League top scorer so far with 7 goals in 4 games, in the league our unbeaten run has finally come to an end and I'm still not as far ahead as I would have liked but we have breathing space for a couple of slip-ups.

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