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[FM22] Forza San Giovanni - A San Marino Youth Only Challenge


Bedese
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Hello!

I could do a long and rambly introduction, but that's not really my style - my updates tend to be very brief, and sometimes sporadic, and detail isn't really my strong suit - oh, and I'm also quite bad at FM, so we may not make very much progress :lol: 

Instead, I'm going to copy and paste the introduction from one of my last attempts, because it's not plagiarism if you admit it, right?

Before that, though, here's the lowdown. Because @Makoto Nakamurainspired me to do so years ago, I'm going to take charge of San Giovanni, the least successful team in San Marino, which puts them on the same level as a midtable U8s Bulgarian team. The ultimate aim from the club side is to win the Champions League with San Giovanni, but because this challenge is really about San Marino, the real goal is to win a World Cup with the mighty Titani - or, failing that, maybe just winning a competitive game or two. To do that, the challenge is going to be youth only - we're not going to sign anybody with San Giovanni (I'm undecided on whether or not I'll allow myself to re-sign any ex-youth players yet...), instead relying solely on youth intakes to bring through new talent that's hopefully slightly better than what we currently have.

Normally when I do this, my 'realistic' aim for the save is usually just to make it into a Champions League group stage. However, with FM adding in dynamic youth ratings this year, I'm really intrigued to see how far we can actually drag this tiny nation up - it should be a fun ride, hopefully!

With thanks to @Pompeyboyzfor his work on investigating youth development on the new FM, @Jimbokav1971for inspiring me with his saves to think a bit more in depth about FM and youth development (and maybe goalscoring GKs down the line ;)) and to anybody who fancies coming along for the ride!

 

So... why San Marino?

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San Marino are, quite literally, the worst team in world football. Sitting at 211st out of 211 national teams, they're below such giants as Eritrea (who's entire National Team seems to flee and seek asylum every time they play an away game), The British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat... you get the point.

With a population of 33,000, San Marino have as many competitive wins as they do traffic lights in the country - zero. One of the smallest countries in the world, they have a National holiday every time the team scores a goal. They don't get those holidays very often.

The players in the national team are essentially the same as you and me. Outside of one or two professionals, they all work real, 9-5 jobs. They head into every game knowing that not only is a win unlikely, but to keep the score down to less than 5 would be a good day at the office. They're underdogs in every sense of the word. With club football being increasingly dictated by the size of the owners wallet, many fans are instead looking towards international football. There's no money in international football, no buying better players or skirting around financial fair play rules. It's a question of sport, rather than finances. There's always a chance of an underdog causing an upset, and San Marino might be the biggest underdogs there are in the sporting world.

These are ordinary people, going out to compete for their country against some of the best players in the world. My favourite story about the National Team is this:

In their final pre-match warmup before taking on England, Nicola Chiaruzzi's boots fell apart. Chiaruzzi went off to Wembley in search of a new pair of boots, and had a shop assistant begin to explain to him how best to break in the boots. Chiaruzzi calmly explained that, actually, he wouldn't have the time to do that. He was looking for boots that he could wear in two hours time at Wembley.

Despite being continually ridiculed by the press in every game they play, they continue to compete, hoping that one day, an upset might come.

Let's see if we can get that upset.

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Some more fun anecdotes from the National Team that I've found over the years:

- When San Marino earned their first ever point against Estonia, the players celebrated by.... drinking strawberry vodka and smoking cigarettes all night long, a thought that would certainly upset the fitness staff for a bigger team but sounds like one excellent way to party.

- San Marino were 'sponsored' by Adidas - I say sponsored, because Adidas would only give them blank shirts, on which they'd have to sew the Sammarinese badge on themselves.

- When Manuel Battistini swapped shirts with Wayne Rooney, he tried it on 'to see where Rooney's muscles were'.

- Against Lithuania, San Marino won a free kick. Nicola Chiaruzzi told Matteo Vitaioli to try the 'dead leaf' free kick technique. Vitaioli didn't know what that was or how to do it, so he just smashed it as hard as he could. That was San Marino's first away goal in 14 years.

- Nicola Chiaruzzi missed San Marino's game against Slovenia because he couldn't find anybody to cover his shift at a bar. Similarly, goalkeeper Aldo Junior Simoncini once missed a game against Ukraine to stay home and study Algebra for an exam. San Marino lost 9-0, but Simoncini passed his exam.

Edited by Bedese
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89d0699d0cf5965d89d4c084555d2880.png.b26bd7bf9fe56f5d163ddef6ebd0f014.png

9 out of the 15 clubs in the league are predicted to finish 6th, so... :idiot:

All the teams in the league appear to be Semi-Pro now, though! That's a fun change, but a shame we actually have to pay people now :lol: 

 

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In true Sunday League fashion, our best tactic looks to be to put everybody behind the ball and then hoof it long to either a big man or a fast guy, both of whom presumably aren't actually very good at football.

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17 hours ago, The_Slojoe said:

I always loved to read up on this series every FM cycle. I was even inspired to do a San Marino save of my own. Can't wait for the first year, hopefully Ugolini can bag some goals in (He's always quite good every year in san marino)

Cheers Slojoe, really glad you enjoy it! How did your own save go? :) 

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Tactically, here's what I'm thinking:

 

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My theory is that there's no point trying to build a system to fit round our players - the standard of the league is so bad, it really doesn't matter who plays where, aside from a few key attributes, which are always in the single digits, so...

I made this tactic for a quick save with Lincoln and, after a few tweaks, we ended up storming to a L1 title, which is promising. Obviously - and I am aware this sentence has never been said before - we lack the technical ability of Lincoln City. (Also, I think this may have been before a patch which has made players get tired faster from pressing? If so, we're definitely going to have to change that with the state of our fitness).

We scored about 25 from corners in that Lincoln save. I've got no idea if I've accidently set up a really good corner tactic, if corners are easily exploitable again this year, or if every Lincoln player is about 6'6 - I suspect it's a combination of all three.

 

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Youth Intake Day!

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We have so many players in the 'elite talent' category I can't fit any of the others in :lol: 

 

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I'm going back to only tagging my favourite players, rather than tagging everyone - it feels more personal for these little fake men. Matteo gets the distinction of being our YP1 - looks like a decent CM prospect.

 

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I like the workrate!

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Really not a bad first season... but you might notice that the top 4 have all Qualified, and the next 8 all made the Playoffs, so...

I'm more used to the Sammarinese League when it was split into two groups, but I believe that we've made it into the quarter finals of the league, with the next 8 teams all competing in a one legged playoff to join us there. Which essentially means that all our work so far was useless - as long as you stay out of the bottom 3, you only need to win one game to be in the same place as top of the league, but anyway. Win the playoffs, win the league. I don't know if we're good enough - by which I mean if we can keep our discipline enough - but it's a good start considering how poor San Giovanni are in real life.

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Youth Intake Day!

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I'm not a massive fan of the new youth intake screen that means I can't fit it all in one picture, but I am a fan of an entire generation being labelled 'elite talents' :lol: 

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Nicolo becomes the third man in a very strong, entirely too young to drink central midfield partnership.

 

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His technicals aren't the best, but we're limited with options and he's got a decent enough skillset to be converted into a LWB for us at this early stage.

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Regular Season Review:

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I'm genuinely a bit staggered at this. I thought we'd do well to stay out the bottom three - instead, we've gotten ourselves back into the top three and into the quarter finals! The 16 year olds have done good...

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A massive shoutout to Daniel Montinari, who despite being a silver 1* CA, 5'9 RB playing out of position has managed to be our second best player all season :lol: 

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That £1 a week is richly deserved.

 

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Regular Season Review!

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It's our lowest ever finish, as we come 8th and have to settle for a playoff game. If you look at the stats, though, I think it's a clear indication of how weak we are at certain areas - namely, scoring...

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We took by far the most shots per game in the league, had the highest xG, and yet were barely above average for goals scored. Things are going a lot better in the cup, though...

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5 goals scored in each tie, and we're into the final :D 

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