[FM17] The Great San Marino Challenge

[AndyFromDonny]

I'm doing this. Season one ended up third as I just could not score.  My midfield were tidy but not creative enough, defence really solid though.

 

Season two I strengthened signing the league top scorer herlein and a few solid loan players (cori from fiorentina) up front who was superb. The key thing was changing the whole midfield and it worked.  Won the league quite comfortably.  Frustratingly the really good Regens that came in got largely picked off as my board post takeover take pathetic bids due to finances.  The top striker went to watford for 1k, so annoying as he went straight in to the first team.  A few good defenders i managed to keep did OK though.

Season 3.  Now just in to this. Solid start so far with 7 points from four games.  I'll take a mid table finish but could do better, it's hard to tell.  At least now we're professional it should help retain youngsters and I've got the junior coaching up too so I'm hopeful of some progress there.  It will be interesting to see how long the owners hang around, they are already dropping in the board happiness area.

[oulzac]

I always see people talking about this challenge around the FM sites, but have never done it myself. Now that I have just finished up a very long Journeyman save, I think I'm going to give this a go. It seems very interesting. I'll probably start it tonight and post an update once I finish the first season.

Edit: Shortest challenge attempt ever. For some reason I suck when managing in Italy.

[syemo]

Just about start this challenge. So i thought about holidaying to the end of the season and then save it just before relegation teams come up into Serie C. And keep reloading until San Marino come up instead of getting the extra database. Have to restart as i didn't select Serie C or lower, but i checked the national teams fixtures and this result surprised me. 

[JoeyBaldwin]

I've just begun a San Marino challenge as well, lots of fun this! We've missed out on promotion in our first season in Serie D because we've drawn a staggering amount of games (currently played 33 of the 34 league games and our record is 15-14-4). Had some fun with the national team, we scored in our first competitive match against Norway (obviously these are still the RL World Cup qualifying fixtures) and we nearly held Azerbaijan to a draw, losing 2-1 to a late penalty. We also kept the score down against Czech Republic and Northern Ireland, losing both 2-0. 

I do have a question though - some of our youth recruits are Italian, would they qualify for the San Marino national team eventually if I kept hold of them at the club? There's obviously a huge disparity between the quality needed to play for Italy and San Marino so would be good if some of these Italian youth players who'll never make it for Italy would qualify for us.

[rycl77]

13 hours ago, JoeyBaldwin said:

I've just begun a San Marino challenge as well, lots of fun this! We've missed out on promotion in our first season in Serie D because we've drawn a staggering amount of games (currently played 33 of the 34 league games and our record is 15-14-4). Had some fun with the national team, we scored in our first competitive match against Norway (obviously these are still the RL World Cup qualifying fixtures) and we nearly held Azerbaijan to a draw, losing 2-1 to a late penalty. We also kept the score down against Czech Republic and Northern Ireland, losing both 2-0. 

I do have a question though - some of our youth recruits are Italian, would they qualify for the San Marino national team eventually if I kept hold of them at the club? There's obviously a huge disparity between the quality needed to play for Italy and San Marino so would be good if some of these Italian youth players who'll never make it for Italy would qualify for us.

No, those holding just Italian nationality will never be able to play for San Marino sadly. It's what makes the challenge as hard as it is. You'll also face battles with players holding both Italian and Sammarinese nationality and having to fight to get them to play for San Marino over Italy. Look forward to hearing more about your progress

[fabreth]

@rycl77 what about your progress?

 

[rycl77]

2 hours ago, fabreth said:

@rycl77 what about your progress?

 

National team update coming shortly, had a break for a bit because FM got a bit stale but starting to get back into the groove of it again

[rycl77]

San Marino National Team - 2032 Update

A pretty average year, at least we can say we are comfortably better than the Faroe Islands now as we beat them home and away.

Results

So yeah, we never really got beat by a lot but could only muster wins against the equally terrible Faroe Islands. Canti added two more goals to his goal record and in the last game I decided to throw Volpinari up top. Volpinari was a highly touted regen I had come through the academy but he was a left winger and I don't play with wingers. I was struggling to develop him and in the end sold him to PSG for a tidy fee. He's still amazing for San Marino level so I decided to play him out of position and he scored a banger. I think Volpinari and Canti will be the strikeforce going forward.

Ranking

Down about 25 places from last time but I don't really pay too much mind to the rankings to be honest, they fluctuate a lot and it just depends on the standard of teams we play. Not important until we hit say top 50.

Records

Michelotti retires after 121 caps. Came through the club academy, got us promoted from Serie C and was good in Serie B for a few years before I sold him on. A fantastic career and a great player. Kinda crazy I'm at the stage where players that came through my youth intakes are retiring lol. Happy retirement Michelotti.

-------

After a long break from FM I'm back and ready to play.

[rycl77]

Season 2032/33 - Serie A

Season In Review - Championes

Serie A

Ayyyyyy we finally won the league! We started strong and never really faltered. We had a tiny bad patch towards the last few games which allowed Juve to come within 2 points of us but they couldn't win either of their last two games so we won it easily in the end. Hopefully this marks an era of dominance for us.

Champions League

Pretty disappointing to bottle the second leg vs Arsenal so horrifically. Unlike Arsenal in real life they absolutely dominated me from set pieces and scored 4 goals from corners and freekicks and had a penalty. Just an ugly, ugly implosion. Need a bit more cash to compete with the big boys I think.

Italian Cup

Couldn't retain it.

Transfers

Key Arrivals - Only really Martinez was any good, the rest of them kinda sucked to be honest lol.

Key Departures - None.

Best XI

Arzilli makes his first appearance in the TOTY. A few years before he might turn down Italy to play for San Marino but he's a top top player.

Awards

I won manager of the year. Marcelo was player of the year and 20 year old San Marino native Marco Zavoli was named best keeper in the league, what a special special player! He finished with a massive 21 clean sheets and conceded the least goals. Here are his attributes for those wondering at age 20.

Youth Intake

The youth intake this year was pretty good actually. We got two really good youngsters, especially De Angelis who will be world class. Only issue is they both have dual nationality and won't be playing for San Marino for years. Oh the joys.

Takeover

Last few games of the season we were taken over finally after what seems like 20 attempts by various people. These people seem to have more money than the last chairman so I'm pretty happy to have them around.

-------------------------

So that ends this years season review as we finally breakthrough and win the Serie A. Glad to be back playing FM after a short break.

[TrickyTree91]

Started this challenge a while ago. Currently in the third season. Will post an update shortly when I can figure out how to upload the screenshots etc.

 

 

[TrickyTree91]

Season 2016/17 Update

 

First season was a bit of a mixed bag, started and finished really well but an awful run in the middle of the campaign saw a disappointing fifth place finish. Didn't set my squad up very well when it came to having enough youngsters in the team so ended up having to make do until January. Loaned players from Cesena to strengthen.

The biggest plus from the first season was the youth intake, only one player of real promise but he looks like he'll be a genuinely decent player and his single nationality is Sammarinese. Nicola Zanotti, a DM/CM. Unfortunately, the board accepted just over £1k for him and 40% sell on clause from Frosinone so while its good news for the international side, not going to do the club much good.

As far as the national side were concerned, I had some really surprising results. We got battered in every game but managed a draw against Azerbaijan in qualifying and also drew with and beat Andorra in a couple of friendlies.

[TrickyTree91]

Season 2017/18 Update

The second season went to plan at club level. Comfortably won the league, 15 points clear of second. Once again making the most of parent club Cesena. Unfortunately they got relegated from Serie A so it might mean less talented youngsters are available for loan.

From the youth intake there isn't much to shout about, Gabriele Bollini, a winger/forward looks like he could be a decent player. Other than that there doesn't seem to be too much.

The national team surprised again. A very respectable 1-0 defeat to Germany after they had 48 shots to my 0 was followed by draws with Azerbaijan again and the Czech Republic. The qualifying group ended with a 5-0 loss to Norway but unbelievably I finished second bottom, Azerbaijan only managed the two draws against us. Ended the season ranked in 176th position.

 

 

 

[JoeyBaldwin]

I'm going to save all the big updates and publish on the FM Stories board much much later on, but here's a brief update on my progress:

 

• Having finished 2nd in Serie D Group F in the 2016/2017 season, we were moved to Group D in 17/18 and won the league by ten points. We owed much of this to Poggibonsi's inability to capitalise whenever we dropped points - our record was P34 W19 D9 L6.
• Our first season in Serie C has been excellent so far. We only won three of our first fourteen matches, and at one point we scored one goal in seven games as a team, but we recovered from that bad start to the season and with five matches of the season to go we're currently 6th. We have a game in hand on everyone else as I write, and we'll go third if we win that, so we're looking good to finish in the Serie C promotion Playoffs (top ten).

 

• The national team failed to score a single point in 2018 World Cup qualifying, but we did have some encouraging results. Azerbaijan needed a late penalty to beat us 2-1, and we also scored goals in a 3-1 defeat in Norway and a heavy 8-2 loss in Northern Ireland. Friendly victories over Seychelles (3-0), Bangladesh (2-0) and Andorra (1-0) gave the side some confidence, and we managed to pick up a couple of points in the European Nations League, in which we faced Kosovo, Cyprus and the Faroe Islands. 0-0 draws with the latter two sides saw us finish bottom of the group with two points, but we scored once in each of the four defeats, so there are some positive aspects to our performances.
• Our European Championship Qualifying group is made up of ourselves, Sweden, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Montenegro and Azerbaijan. We've played two matches, losing 1-0 at home to Azerbaijan and 3-0 in Sweden. We're currently ranked =189th.

[JoeyBaldwin]

Just been screwed over by Football Manager here. We ended our first season in Serie C/B in an impressive 3rd place, despite our pre-season prediction of 18th, and in the first round of the Playoff, we were drawn against Foggia, who finished 10th in our division. The match ended 0-0, but Foggia progressed due to being the higher seed?!?!?!

We finished 3rd, they finished 10th, but they were the higher seed? How does that work?

[rycl77]

On 28/06/2017 at 02:00, JoeyBaldwin said:

Just been screwed over by Football Manager here. We ended our first season in Serie C/B in an impressive 3rd place, despite our pre-season prediction of 18th, and in the first round of the Playoff, we were drawn against Foggia, who finished 10th in our division. The match ended 0-0, but Foggia progressed due to being the higher seed?!?!?!

We finished 3rd, they finished 10th, but they were the higher seed? How does that work?

Lol that is horrendous mate. Sorry to hear. Would suggest just going back and replaying the game vs Foggia until one of you wins

[JoeyBaldwin]

1 hour ago, rycl77 said:

Lol that is horrendous mate. Sorry to hear. Would suggest just going back and replaying the game vs Foggia until one of you wins

I have already gone too far ahead for that unfortunately. We'll use the injustice as motivation for next season. It's undoubtedly the worst rule in football - should just be extra time and pens!  Italian football eh?

[JoeyBaldwin]

Just been cruelly denied my first competitive win for the national team. We were drawing 0-0 deep into an away game with Montenegro in a Euro 2020 qualifier when Battistini headed a breakaway cross goalwards, the keeper tipped the ball onto the post and then collected it. The commentary suggested that the ball did cross the line! It wasn't given and we drew 0-0. I just have no luck at all at the moment 

[TrickyTree91]

2018/19 and 2019/2020 Updates

As far as the club were concerned, our first season in Serie C/B was pretty tough. Just managed to stay up by beating Lupa Roma in the playout at the end of the season. However, the board upped the wage budget considerably for the next season and I managed to get rid of a lot of the deadwood which meant I could strengthen the side throughout. Managed to win the league comfortably, forward Marko Dugandzic the main man firing in 26 in 34.

Youth intakes were disappointing both years, had one left sided/central midfielder Alex Gasperoni who has dual nationality and has rejected a call up. Decided to replace my HOYD when I went up so hoping this will pay off in future.

National Team

Quite enjoying the challenge with the national team. As I'm well into my 5th season I will update my national team progress to where I'm currently at. In the European League I had 4 losses sandwiched between an opening game win with Georgia and a last day victory over the Faroe Islands. Finished 3rd in the group, 1 point ahead of Faroe Islands. A good friendly draw with Estonia but disappointed to lose to Gibraltar in probably the first game we've actually had more of the play.

In the Euro Qualifiers, we lost 9 out of 10 but a 1-1 draw against Croatia (not a clue how) meant we shot up in the rankings to 164th. Soon slid back down into the 180s again.

Very happy with performances in the EIL second time around, 7 points from 6 games and once again not finishing bottom of the group. Rankings are fluctuating constantly but at our peak so far of 163.

Got 3 regens that are good enough for call ups but dual nationality so it will be a while yet. Does anyone know what kind of age players tend to change their mind and accept call ups if they're not called up by their favoured country?

This lad is one of the players that has just come through in my youth intake, could see him being a real asset to the national team in the future

Maybe even take the place of the national teams record scorer with a mammoth 13 goals, Mattio Vitaioli!

 

 

 

 

[AndyFromDonny]

Still doing this will update soon.  Battling it out for promotion from serie b in my 5th season. Will probably look to take national team job soon too.

 

Still annoying that all my youth players that are good leave and that the board still won't invest in facilities.

[BitesizeFM]

HI guys, really like the idea of this save. It's something I've seen around for a while and always takes my eye but not sure I have the skill or quality to try it!

 

[JoeyBaldwin]

Just finishing my 5th season. I'm still stuck in Serie C, though I'm in the Playoffs. We lost in the Playoff Quarters to Livorno, who eventually won them, last season, having finished 3rd in the league, but this season was more disappointing. With six games to go we were joint top on points with Ascoli, but incredibly, having lost only four of our first 32 league games, we contrived to lose five in a row and ended up finishing 4th, just seven points off the top. A massive chance squandered, for sure...

We're still in the Playoffs though, and we beat Viterbese Castrense in the first round and we won the first leg 1-0 away at Renate in the first of the two-legged rounds. Hopefully we can make it through the Playoffs - morale is back up after winning our last three matches and we have a strong side, but the fact we have to win four playoff rounds is a daunting and unlikely prospect.

[CJEngleby]

Serie D/F title sewn up

[JoeyBaldwin]

7 hours ago, CJEngleby said:

Serie D/F title sewn up

 

Why can't the AI be as pathetic in Serie C?!?! 

[superhamps]

Only just found this! I'm in July 2034. Finally got San Marino NT into the top 100. Ranked 4th in world as a club side but board starting to set unrealistic expectations. Did an Arsenal and just about snatched fourth last season and lost to PSG in the CL final. Having to sell three decent players every season just to keep afloat. Starting to think that there's only one way to go from here: Get Titani set up financially and with an under 20s squad full of wonder kids and then leave to take over a San Marino League side and see how far up the ladder I can take them. I'm producing decent enough San Marinese youngsters through the annual intake but most won't accept a call up anyway and half of the intake are Italian. I'll post a few snaps of what I've done so far and the two decent players I'm hoping will take me to an international tournament. Want to go a season unbeaten in Serie A then I might hang up the Calcio boots and step down to the San Marino league. Anyone else spunked as much time away on this as me? 

*Got very lucky with a sell-on clause/ solidarity payment for a player early doors (image attached). Board sold him for pennies which I was livid with but he ended up getting bought by Juve and I got about 5mill which in the lower leagues was huge!

Has anyone ever actually done anything with the national team?

 

[couttinho]

Yeah antone know if there is an Italian lower league patch for FM18 out? I can't find one.

[MShing]

On 07/11/2017 at 08:22, bigjack.se18 said:

me neither mate. ill let you know if i come across one

If you holiday a year they will appear promoted in serie c 

[heyhowie]

What date does the game decide which teams were promoted?

[heyhowie]

Just FYI someone has uploaded "Italy League System" on the workshop which should do the trick. Any link to a plain emblem/logo for San Marino?

[NonLeagueHero]

Finally decided to give this a bash...

First season was a real step into the unknown - took me quite a while to get my head around the age rules and couldn't quite get my tactics to work well enough.

Still, I managed to secure the title with a stellar run of form despite never really managing to hit my stride.  For some reason the version of the game I've downloaded splits the seasons on 1st of January so the best XI is only as far as the end of 2016. Spare a thought for the league whipping boys Chieti, although I only managed to put 8 past them the league runners up put 17 past them over the season. Ouch!

I alternated most of the season between a strikerless 3-4-3 and a 3-4-2-1 formation depending on the opposition.  Normally I would have preferred the strikers option but there were too many times where the striker was not making intelligent enough runs and this led to far to many long shots (one game had upwards of 20 long shots!).

None of the players really managed to stand out, but one man who is more than worth a second glance is German Pomiro (signed from Sangiutese), although he only managed 6 goals in the second half of the season (partly down to my tactics not really suiting him) he has some serious sell-on potential for those worried about the finances.

The season ended in further success as I managed to win the Poule Scudetto against the winners of the other Serie D leagues.

[NonLeagueHero]

I also decided to start out in charge of San Marino, just to get an idea of the challenge trying to get into the World Cup - let alone win it!

It did not get off to an auspicious start - losing 3-1 to Andorra despite dominating the game, the high point was a 1-1 draw with Azerbaijan thanks to a last minute, 30 yard screamer from Jose Adolfo Hirsch, one of only 3 shots I'd mustered in the entire game!

On the whole 7 goals scored over the season was pretty respectable, the last of which came from a 17 year old kid after all the senior strikers decided to retire - something I had not expected!

 

[NonLeagueHero]

A much tougher season ahead on paper, a quick glance at the league showed many names I remembered from the halcyon days Football Italia on C4. Parma, Reggiana, Padova and Venezia against my team of part timers and amatuers - this could be fun!

So I embarked on a pretty extensive overhaul of the squad, 20 players came in, 28 players went out, zero money spent or received.  Of the players coming in about half were youth prospects, a similar proportion of the players leaving were likewise youngsters.  Of the permanent signings only one man stood out, Jake Charles signed following release by Barnsley and chipped in with 18 goals from behind the striker.  Special mention to Jonathan Benteke who joined in January and chipped in with an impressive 12 assists.

One signing Nicola Mosti provided an immediate return on investment and was sold for just over £100k in January.

On the whole the season was a roaring success. Again it stopped and started to begin with but the team finally hit its straps and went on a serious title tilt.  Unfortunately we'd given Modena just too much of a head start and we had to settle for runners up and the lottery of the play-offs.  We were notable over the season for the mean defence, setting a new Serie C record for the number of clean sheets.

.

So into the play-offs I went, not knowing what to expect, and it was by and large a walk in the park up to the final.  Parma, from my own league were one of the teams I'd been unable to beat all season and the only team to score more than 2 against me so I was a little apprehensive.  In the end Parma were their own worst enemy, after taking an early lead they went down to ten men, but it still took until midway through the second period for the equaliser to come.  Then in extra time they went down to 9 and later 8 men through injuries but still I was unable to break their resolute defence down.  It all went to the ultimate gamble - penalties... at 7 all I was getting to think it wasn't going to be my day but their goalkeeper missed and my full back notched - game over and a victory of sorts at last against Parma!

On to Serie B!

International wise there was some positives, a 3 all draw with Azerbaijan masked the disappointment of having been 3-0 up after 36 minutes - a game we were ultimately fortunate to draw.  But the most impressive result was the last, a battling, backs to the wall 0-0 draw with Czech Republic sent San Marino soaring to 175th in the world!

[NonLeagueHero]

Serie A here we come!

A  very impressive season and third consecutive promotion was pretty much secured with 5 games to go.  We did manage to very nearly choke though and throw it all away - the perils of having a team made up of relatively young players!  Eventually at the 4th attempt we got the 3 points needed to push us over the line and celebrate an unexpected promotion.

Transfer wise it was another season of loans and freebies, the stand out performers being Carmine Giorgione my midfield enforcer who joined from Serie D AlbinoLeffe, Luka Bogdan from Vicenza and, most impressive of all, Alberto Tentardini from Padova all on free's.  I did eventually pay a fee for a player, signing a young Irish centre back from Institute for just  £275. I received £110k in for the players I transfer listed and managed to see off interest from Blackburn and Wigan for my captain Jake Charles.  Financially a solid season.

The league however was not the big story of the season, no that was my cup run.  Dumping Serie A Cesana out 5-1 in the qualifying rounds set the tone, a scoreline repeated against league rivals Pro Vercell i, but better was to come...

Can you spot it? I thought I'd done well when we squeaked past Juventus 1-0 in the first round, earning a tidy half a million in prize money and tickets.  Then came Serie A leaders AC Milan at the San Siro, the media were talking it up as an expected cricket score.  Turns out they were right, unfortunately they got the wrong team on the receiving end.  We were simply breathtaking, annihilating AC 7-1, and that could have been more.  AC's form went over a cliff after that game and the ended up finishing 8th in Serie A.

Sadly the semi finals proved a bit too much and we lost by the odd goal in 3 over two legs to Bologna but it brought in a much needed £3m for the coffers.

Serie D to Serie A in three years, pretty pleased with that 

On to Serie A now, with a big rebuilding job needed and £2m to play with!

On the international front it was on for another predictable year, a first competitive win (4-2 versus the Faroes) and a plucky 0-0 with Bulgaria bucking the trend of defeats.  We slipped as low as 181st in the world before returning to 175th.

We then faced a tough round of fixtures, coming up against Italy and Ireland. Losing to Italy 1-0 was pretty good but we went even better against the Irish securing a 2-1 win in the Sammarinese heat and costing Martin O'Neill his job (sorry Martin!).  I'm looking forward to a pretty hefty boost in the rankings as a result!