[FM16] San Giovanni - A Sammarinese youth only challenge

[Bedese]

Salzburg or Young Boys.

Nope.

[Bedese]

It's a shame we were so terrible away from home.

[Bedese]

It's not that every group is hard - it's just that we keep getting put in the hard ones. I hope that we can at least beat Avellino twice, although Italian teams are always going to be tricky.

[sherwinriga]

When I observed the youth intakes, I think these players are from the U-19 team or not? Is any other Sammarinese teams went to have better youth intakes in the recent years? So, who's the best youth player in your team (San Giovanni)? I will be hoping to see a much improved youth intake next year.

[Bedese]

When I observed the youth intakes, I think these players are from the U-19 team or not? Is any other Sammarinese teams went to have better youth intakes in the recent years? So, who's the best youth player in your team (San Giovanni)? I will be hoping to see a much improved youth intake next year.

If I sign them as a youth candidate they go into our U19s, but if I don't they leave the club. It doesn't look like any other team has had better luck - the best players from San Marino are still all ours.

Our best youth player right now (if that means someone who isn't yet a first teamer) is probably this guy:

Hopefully, he can become our starting striker when Buscarini eventually hangs up his boots.

[Bedese]

They're both out for Avellino, our must win game. Honestly.

[Bedese]

Must win? What a joke. We're not even going to get close to a point this year. It's a hard group, but we just don't have as good a team as we've had in the past. That starts in between the sticks - we've usually been able to rely on our keeper to help us out, but Stolfi is absolutely useless. We really need a keeper through the next intake, but we also need FBs, CMs and a winger. Hmm.

[Bedese]

Luca Stolfi is the reason I drink.

[Bedese]

FM is so cruel sometimes.

[Makoto Nakamura]

Maybe Redouane Yilmaz is the real reason you drink.

[Bedese]

[Bedese]

Maybe Redouane Yilmaz is the real reason you drink.

I think it's a combination of both

[zele]

Just read all from #1 page.

I envy you on your patience and commitment. Great save. Can you put ss of starting eleven and 3-4 best subs or youth prospects? Best wishes in games and seasons to come. Cheers.

[Bedese]

Just read all from #1 page.

I envy you on your patience and commitment. Great save. Can you put ss of starting eleven and 3-4 best subs or youth prospects? Best wishes in games and seasons to come. Cheers.

Thank you

I'll get the screenshots done soon, I'll try to get to a date when most of my players aren't injured first

[Bedese]

So how did we do in Europa this year?

Not great.

[Bedese]

Current Squad:

Zele asked me to do this, and I think it's a good idea to show you the state of the team currently.

Goalkeeper (AKA the bane of my life): Luca Stolfi

He's awful. If we don't get a GK in our next intake, my 100 year old self is going in goal.

LB: Roberto Zavoli (YP127)

He's 32, so he won't be around much longer.

RB: Alessandro Felici (YP131)

He's great.

CBs: Michele Tini (YP132) and Federico Della Valle (YP136):

By far the best player at the club. I don't think he'd be out of place in the Prem.

He's excellent, although a little poor in the air.

LM: Filippo Felici (YP128)

He's old and not that good.

RM: Federico Cervellini (YP130)

The second best player at the club. He's our RM for now, but he's so good in the air he could easily play elsewhere.

CMs: Massimiliano Favaro and Gabriele Ragini

He's superb, but he's about to hit 30.

He only plays because we have no-one else right now.

STs: Federico Berardi (YP135) and Paolo Buscarini (YP125)

He's excellent, and so important for us, but he could be even better. His injuries keep knocking down his pace slightly, and I don't think he'll ever quite reach the level of Federico Bevardy I'd hoped for.

Probably the second best striker in our history, he was so good in his prime (and he's still pretty decent now), but he's at the very twilight of his career.

Subs/Youth Prospects:

I'm not really sure who to show you from these, but I guess I'll show you the best/most promising ones.

We've got loads of CBs for once, so let's start there.

They're all pretty good, but none of them are up to European standards. Gasperoni can hopefully grow a bit more.

Pretty much the only FB depth we have:

He's pretty poor. We really need a new LB, because I don't think Gasperoni fits that well there.

We have basically no CM depth, so next up is the wing:

He's the best we have, but he offers very little apart from pace.

Onto our most promising position - striker.

Boero had a really good spell a year or two ago, but he's since lost his third choice spot to these two:

Buscarini has probably had his last season as a starter, and one of these two will need to fill his shoes. I'm not sure which one I prefer yet, but hopefully they can both carry on developing regardless.

[Bedese]

Youth Intake Day!

He might turn out to be a decent CM, but probably not. It's a terrible intake yet again, and we still don't have a keeper.

[Bedese]

[Bedese]

Season Review

Campionato Sammarinese:

Table

Schedule

Another good win, and an emphatic result in the final.

Coppa Titano:

Table

Schedule

Meh.

Squad

Key Players:

Highest Average Rating:

Federico Cervellini (YP130) - 8.14

So. Good.

Top Goalscorer:

Federico Berardi (YP135) - 35

His constant 2 or 3 week injuries mean he probably isn't going to develop further.

Manager's Player of the Year:

Michele Tini (YP132)

He wasn't great in Europe this year, but we didn't really have any other standout players bar Berardi and Cervellini. Gabriele Ragini got the second highest average rating, but that's because he plays in that AP role for us, not because he's any good.

Aims for next season:

CL Groups/Europa Knockouts. We haven't done this in a while, so I'm not hopeful. To be honest, I'd take 0 points in the Europa Groups again if it meant getting a keeper through the intake.

Other teams:

League Winners:

Cup Winners: Juvenes Dogana beat Fiorentino 3-2 AET.

How the team in CL qualifying did: Celtic beat us in the Playoff.

How the teams in Europa qualifying did: We got no points in an admittedly hard group. Pennarossa lost 6-1 to Dacia from Moldova, Libertas lost 2-1 to Ruzomberok from Slovakia and Folgore lost 3-1 to Okzheptes from Kazakhstan.

San Marino National team:

2116 Results -- 2117 Results

That's the closest we've ever come to getting promoted. Here were the final standings:

[Bedese]

[Bedese]

This shouldn't be too tricky.

[Bedese]

A job well done.

[Bedese]

Red Star are the only team there I think we could beat.

I don't see it happening.

[Bedese]

A wondergoal and a penalty give them the win, but our goal through a penalty means we're in with a chance in the second leg.

[Bedese]

We just couldn't hold on.

[Bedese]

We're a fourth seed by the tiniest of margins this year (it's about a 0.0010 difference in the coefficient). I'm hopeful we can do well against Tel Aviv, but there's no chance we'll make it through this group.

[Bedese]

5 bookings, 0 shots, 1 point against the current World Cup holders. That's the stuff of legend.

[Bedese]

That ends the most frustrating campaign I've ever seen. We should have taken at least nine points and gone through (we were much the better team against Tel Aviv twice and Stuttgart at home, and we actually outplayed Sevilla in the 5-3 loss), but some terrible finishing throughout has really cost us. We need to get more clinical in front of goal.

In honestly, I'm pretty happy with our performance - we matched Stuttgart and Sevilla in one game each - but to only get one point to show for it is really disappointing.

[Bedese]

Youth Intake Day!

We really, really need a good intake here.

**** **** **** **** ****.

[lewis999]

Unlucky with both the Europa League group and the youth intake mate. Is your Head of Youth really good or not?

[sherwinriga]

Not the worst youth intakes I have ever seen! And also not to see a worst finish in the Europa League like ever before. I hope San Giovanni will improve the youth intake with their last resort as well as a good keeper.

Is there any small nations aside from San Marino have good intakes? Who won the European Champions League and the Europa League? Is Steatua Bucharest doing well in the ECL Group Stage? Who's ahead and behind for San Marino NT in the World Rankings after a near successful Nations League and a draw against the Netherlands?

[Darius1998]

That's a bad run of youth intakes. I hope it gets better otherwise it might set you back a few years in Europe.

[HeyyImRyan]

I'm backing Giardi and Rinaldi for big things

Unlucky the past few seasons. Get the squad in, sit them down, and force them to watch your games against Sevilla, Ajax and Liverpool back-to-back. Then throw some boots around and tell them they better play like the San Giovanni of old!

[Bedese]

Unlucky with both the Europa League group and the youth intake mate. Is your Head of Youth really good or not?

Here he is:

[Bedese]

That's a bad run of youth intakes. I hope it gets better otherwise it might set you back a few years in Europe.

Unfortunately, I think it already has done. The majority of our squad are probably 28+ right now, and so many bad intakes in a row mean we're not going to be able to replace them all in time, even if our next few intakes are good. Hopefully, we can just start to get through players who have at least 3.5* PA and decent starting stats in positions we need, because otherwise I think we're going to be in big trouble in a few positions (namely CM, LB and the wings).

[Bedese]

I'm backing Giardi and Rinaldi for big things

Unlucky the past few seasons. Get the squad in, sit them down, and force them to watch your games against Sevilla, Ajax and Liverpool back-to-back. Then throw some boots around and tell them they better play like the San Giovanni of old!

Now that's man management! I couldn't really chuck one at Luca Stolfi though in case he gets hurt, because our other keepers are all even worse.

Having said that, knowing Stolfi I could lob one gently right towards him, and he'd still find a way to let it go through his f***ing hands.

[Bedese]

Not the worst youth intakes I have ever seen! And also not to see a worst finish in the Europa League like ever before. I hope San Giovanni will improve the youth intake with their last resort as well as a good keeper.

Is there any small nations aside from San Marino have good intakes? Who won the European Champions League and the Europa League? Is Steatua Bucharest doing well in the ECL Group Stage? Who's ahead and behind for San Marino NT in the World Rankings after a near successful Nations League and a draw against the Netherlands?

I've got no idea how to check the intakes of every other small country, so I can't answer that one.

Chelsea won the CL, Galatasaray won the Europa League.

Steaua did manage to beat Galatasaray 1-0 in the group, but lost their other 5 games to Galatasaray, Liverpool and Real Madrid.

NT Rankings:

[lewis999]

Here he is:

I would be tempted mate to get someone maybe 'not as good' with a personality like Driven, resolute, determined or professional. I take it your youth coaching is the highest it can go and the youth recruitment?

[Jimbokav1971]

I would be tempted mate to get someone maybe 'not as good' with a personality like Driven, resolute, determined or professional. I take it your youth coaching is the highest it can go and the youth recruitment?

The problem with this is that in some people's opinion, (including mine), Fairly Professional is actually a better personality for a HOYD than Driven, or Determined.

If the HoYD is going to pass on his attributes to the kids, then there is a balance between what you want in attributes and determination, (however good some may view it), is not what drives a player to reaching his potential.

A Driven player will have Determination of 20 and Ambition 10-20, but his Professionalism may well be 1. It could be absolutely anything. That's not what you want to produce at all.

A Fairly Pro player on the other hand will be guaranteed to have Professionalism 15-20 and Determination 1-14. While it would be better if the Determination was 14 rather than 1, it's still Professionalism that rules the roost on player development so it has to be of a secondary priority.

I do agree with your main point however, (about recruiting a poorer HoYD with a better personality), and I would be trying to sign a Model Pro or a Resolute, (although I know it's not that easy).

[Edit]

In this instance however, I don't think that you can lay the blame of the poor Youth Intakes at the door of the HoYD. I think he has probably done adequately well and it is other factors that are limiting the average intake. It could be that past intakes were above average and this is just what is standard.

I haven't been following the thread closely enough to know if the current HoYD was also in the role when the intakes were good, but if not I would like to see a comparison between him and the previous HoYD.

If we are saying that the previous 5 intakes have not been good enough, (not a single player with 3.0 PA), then I think it's time for a change anyway.

The other thing that you have to consider is that what you are actually looking at, (the Youth Intake screen that gets posted), may not always be 100% accurate. Have a think about it. What exactly is it?

It's the personal view of 1 staff members opinion, on the potential ability of young players that he has just encountered for the very first time.

Take a few seconds to digest that and look at all the different variables that it contains.

1. Who's opinion is it? Is it the Ass Man's? If so, what is he like?

2. Exactly how good is he at JPA?

3. Exactly how good is he at WWY?

Has there been much variance over the course of the 1st season between his Day 1 judgement that we see in the Youth Intake screenshot, and what the players report might say during the middle of the following season?

There is obviously something not working as well as it might here, (because better players have been produced in the past), but it's FAR too simplistic to say that it's a lack of preference in the Determination area, and it's more likely to be something else.

The problem here is that there is only 1 other person who has ever played this type of save this degree and he didn't document it in as much detail as Jupjamie is doing.

My own personal opinion is that it relates to reputation and particular National structure reputation, (so San Marino League in this case).

It's currently at 189th.

Previous positions were...... (apologies if I miss some but I'm trying to sift back through the thread quickly)....

189 (post 1722).

187 (post 1699).

165 (post 1678).

160 (post 1650).

189 (post 1627).

180 (post 1590).

188 (post 1562).

180 (post 1518).

Do you see what I mean?

This is the reputation for the whole Sammarinese structure. It's THAT that is causing the problems with the lack of PA coming through. Before you say, but he had good players coming through previously and..... yes, but now these new players are being compared to the better standard of existing players hence why the rating is poorer.

[lewis999]

Ambition is another that helps development too and their attitude towards training.

[Jimbokav1971]

Ambition is another that helps development too and their attitude towards training.

I'm not saying that it doesn't have any impact at all, but I am saying that when it comes to youth development, it's really Professionalism that counts above all else. If you have a very ambitious player do you want to tutor him to become a Fairly Professional player? Absolutely.

[Bedese]

Absolutely great stuff guys, I love discussions like these. I'll try and answer all the questions/thoughts you've had.

It's definitely professionalism that is the key hidden attribute for player development, with ambition second. I can't remember the post I'm thinking of, but it basically did lots of tests of players with the same stats but hidden attributes, and found that professionalism was key in making sure the players developed.

Our current HOYD has been here for six seasons, but unfortunately I can't remember who we had before that. Six seasons means players that have come through under him that we've tagged are Daniele Gasperoni (YP139) who is decent, Diego Rinaldi (YP138) who could be decent, Marco Giardi (YP137) who is decent, and Federico Della Valle (YP136) who is the third best player at our club currently. Three decent players and an excellent one in six years isn't a terrible rate, but it's not that great either. It's possible that it's just been down to bad luck, but I think a change would benefit us, especially if we can get someone with a better personality. Fairly Professional isn't bad, but I'll see if there's anything better out there.

The opinion on the intakes is my assistant manager's. He's got 19 JPA and 17 JPP, so he should be pretty accurate. There are a few times players slip through the cracks - the most recent one is Massimilliano Favaro, who had a 2.5* PA rating by my assistant as a youth candidate, but at age 30 is now 4.5* CA for us. That's partially because our squad is weaker than it was then, but mostly is down to him improving more than my assistant or I ever thought possible. I wish I knew who my assistant was back then because it's not the same one we have now (I can see the name of who it was but it won't let me see what his stats are like because he's now retired), but I'd imagine that he was at least 10 in both.

Could some of our players from our most recent intakes exceed their expected potential? Sure. One or two of them possibly will. The thing is though, looking at their stats, I just don't see anything that stands out. They're pretty poor to start with, so they're going to need to grow a LOT if they're ever going to be useful for us.

Because our youth recruitment is still limited, and the 'Game Importance' of San Marino and Youth Rating of San Marino are both the very bottom or near the bottom of the pile, we're not going to be getting world beaters, but we knew that when we started. The problem isn't that our new youth players aren't going to get us to the CL Knockouts - it's that they're probably never going to be anywhere near as good as our current players.

It's a fair argument that the players we're getting through aren't actually a big drop off but they're being compared to better players because our squad has improved, and I think it's right to an extent - we aren't getting 5* PA players through anymore because the rest of our squad is so much better than it was at the start - but I don't think that's the reason these last few intakes have been so underwhelming. Our squad has been at around the same level for the past 15 years, and we've definitely had better ratings than we're getting now. I'd say that 3* is decent and 3.5* is good, with 4+ fantastic with our current squad. 2.5* is on the periphery and some players with 2.5* PA could definitely become future starters for us - but the ones we've had recently are about 2* or 3* in silver stars CA with terrible starting attributes, and I just don't see them growing enough.

The big thing is Youth Recruitment. In my opinion, that's the most important factor in the quality of regens you get through - and we haven't had the option to upgrade ours from limited once in the 100+ years of this save. Location (ours is bad), Country/National Structure Reputation (as Jimbo pointed out, ours is bad), Population (I believe) and Club Reputation all tie into this, and there are probably other factors too, but I'm not sure. If we ever get the option to upgrade ours, that could be a real gamechanger for us. I don't know how big an increase in talent there would be if we expanded our net past the very limited catchment area we currently have, but I have to imagine it would at least be noticeable.

The problem is, I've got no idea at what stage we can change that. We can't change our location, population or anything like that - the only thing we can change is our club reputation (and to some extent the national structure reputation, but we need help from the other teams too). I had hoped that 1.5* club reputation would definitely be enough to improve our youth recruitment, but it wasn't the case. Will 2* do it. If so, how do we get to 2*? These are all questions I don't have answers to, and it's basically a waiting game to see how it goes.

With all that rambling, there is one thing we can do now - change our HOYD. I'm off to look for a new one, and this post has been long enough, so I'll make a new post if I find a new one.

[JamesBRFC]

Love this thread, really good and ambitious.

[Bedese]

So, about finding a new HOYD...

Holy wow. I don't know how this guy's slipped through the cracks. 20 JPA, 20 JPP and Model Professional. He's literally perfect. The one drawback he has is that he has a PPM I'm not too keen on in 'tries to play way out of trouble' which is going to get passed on to a lot of our candidates, but it's not the worst PPM in the world, and I can untrain it from our defenders if need be. I'm so excited to have him here.

[Jimbokav1971]

One possible suggestion I have is to try and almost work around the restrictions that are placed on you by your location and your own self-imposed restrictions.

One of the areas in which you have made great strides is club raking and according to a recent post, you are now up to 90th place in the European ranking tables. That's done by coefficient though I think rather than reputation, so it's all about performances.

While the National structure reputation is proving outrageously hard to improve, I am guessing that your own club reputation has improved a little more easily, (but I haven't seen posts about that if there are any)?

My suggestion is..... now that you are quite highly ranked, (I think 90th is high considering where you have come from), and assuming your club reputation has improved a little too, well...... how do you feel about applying for a feeder club at small club in a big league with a view to getting some players from that nation in your intake?

The relationship looks like this.

It might be just the workaround that you need to get to the next level.

[Edit]

Great HoYD.

Sign him straight up and don't worry at all about the PPM.

To give you an example, of the 16 players in my last intake, 15 were outfield players. (GK's have fewer PPM's to choose from so let's ignore the GK).

Of the 15 outfield players, 9 of the players shared a total of 14 ppm's, (which struck me as a lot).

My HoYD isn't very good, (I'm just letting my DoF deal with staff at the moment), but he doesn't have any PPM's.

Additionally, my HoYD has a Balanced personality, (oh the shame of it and I am immediately going to have to resolve that right now!), and let's have a look at the players that came through this intake.

Pro. x2

F.Pro.

Det.

F.Det. x2

Bal. x4

Amb.

F.Amb.

Sport.

Cas. x2

Low.Det.

Is the sort of intake you would expect from a Balanced HoYD? Certainly there are more Balanced players than any other type, but isn't that to be expected? How has he produced 2x Pro players and 1x F.Pro?

Now I have ideas about this, but if we just look at this intake in isolation, (I'm not but it helps to do so to make this point), it suggests that the HoYD doesn't have quite the impact on player personality and PPM inheritance that many people assume it does.

Now..... add in my other staff and look at it again and...... they have a total of 0 PPM's, yet 9 of this years intake shared 14 PPM's between them. Even if we spread the 14 PPM's out accross the whole 16 players in the intake, that's still high. So... what does that tell you?

Another suggestion is that you employ non-Sammarinese staff in key positions if you can. I have had 1 single player through my intake who was not a Serb, (either 1st or 2nd Nationality). He was Portugese and where do you think my Ass Man is from? That's right. Portugal! Try and get around these restrictions that the game is imposing on you.

How about trying to employ just 1 member of staff per country, and make sure that neither Ass Man nor HoYd are Sammarinese? (I'm not sure how realistic that is given your situation, but the general priniciple should work).

[Bedese]

One possible suggestion I have is to try and almost work around the restrictions that are placed on you by your location and your own self-imposed restrictions.

One of the areas in which you have made great strides is club raking and according to a recent post, you are now up to 90th place in the European ranking tables. That's done by coefficient though I think rather than reputation, so it's all about performances.

While the National structure reputation is proving outrageously hard to improve, I am guessing that your own club reputation has improved a little more easily, (but I haven't seen posts about that if there are any)?

My suggestion is..... now that you are quite highly ranked, (I think 90th is high considering where you have come from), and assuming your club reputation has improved a little too, well...... how do you feel about applying for a feeder club at small club in a big league with a view to getting some players from that nation in your intake?

The relationship looks like this.

It might be just the workaround that you need to get to the next level.

I've been trying to get that for a while, but it's just not an option. The only feeder club option the board give us right now is to find one to loan players out to

(Our club reputation is 1.5* right now).

[Bedese]

Season Review

Campionato Sammarinese:

Table

Schedule

Folgore stole one against us in the Playoffs, but we got revenge in the final.

Coppa Titano:

Table

Schedule

Yay.

Squad

Key Players:

Highest Average Rating:

Federico Cervellini (YP130) - 8.21

So. Good.

Top Goalscorer:

Federico Berardi (YP135) - 32

He's so important for us upfront.

Manager's Player of the Year:

Alessandro Felici (YP131)

That's a superb rating for a FB.

Aims for next season:

CL Groups/Europa Knockouts.

Other teams:

League Winners:

Cup Winners:

How the team in CL qualifying did: Steaua beat us in the Playoff.

How the teams in Europa qualifying did: We got one point, but should have done so much better. Folgore lost 2-0 to Olympjia from Slovenia, Cailungo lost 5-1 to Dinamo Minsk from Belarus and Libertas lost 2-1 to Northern Irish Linfield.

San Marino National team:

2117 Results -- 2118 Results

We drew with the World Cup holders...

[Bedese]

This wasn't completely necessary, and I'm not too keen on a loan.

[Bedese]

Remember that HOYD I posted earlier? I messed up. We didn't get him.

I thought that we might as well wait until our current's HOYD contract was up in the summer so we didn't have to pay unnecessary compensation, but he decided to retire as he'd been out of football for so long. Damnit.

EDIT: Our current HOYD has now decided to retire, so we need a new one. The best personality I'm going to get is still 'Fairly Professional'.

[Bedese]

Ouch. Our two bad group stage performances mean our coefficient is down to 17.725, so we might not be seeded in the CL Third Round anymore.