[FM17] San Marino Challenge

[rycl77]

Considering starting the challenge? Post in the challenge thread here

San Marino Challenge

The Goal - To win the World Cup with the tiny nation of San Marino

The San Marino challenge entails taking international football minnows San Marino to the top with a World Cup victory. This seems impossible however San Marino has an ace up it's sleeve. San Marino Calcio is a club based in San Marino that plays in Italy's Serie D. Getting this club promoted to Serie A and investing heavily in youth facilities, junior coaching and youth recruitment should see higher quality Sammarinese players produced leading to a better national team.

Goals

Take San Marino Calcio to Serie A - DONE

Win Serie A with San Marino Calcio - DONE

Win the Champions League with San Marino Calcio -

Get San Marino into the top 100 ranked National Teams -

Qualify for a major tournament with the San Marino National Team - 

Win the European Championships with San Marino - 

Become the number 1 ranked national team in the world - 

Win the World Cup with San Marino - 

Win the Champions League with San Marino Calcio with a squad of purely Sammarinese players - 

Season Reviews

Club 2016/17: Here

National Team 2016/2017: Here

Club 2017/18: Here

National Team 2018: Here

Club 2018/19: Here

National Team 2019: Here

Club 2019/20: Here

National Team 2020: Here

Club 2020/21: Here

National Team 2021: Here

Club 2021/22: Here

Club 2022/23: Here

Club 2023/24: Here

Club 2024/25: Here

Club 2025/26: Here

Club 2026/27: Here

National Team 2028 Update: Here

Club 2027/28: Here

Club 2028/29: Here

National Team 2029: Here

Club 2029/30: Here

National Team 2030: Here

Club 2030/31: Here

National Team 2031: Here

Club 2031/32: Here

National Team 2032: Here

Club 2032/33: Here

[rycl77]

San Marino Calcio have had a mixed history, however in 2014-2015 they were relegated from Serie C meaning the challenge now starts in Serie D. 

[TheGreat10ne1]

Good luck!

[rycl77]

Season 2016/17 - Serie D

This is the system I will be looking to run in my first season. Trying to play a short passing game with an emphasis on possession however we don't have the best players for it right now so I've tweaked it a bit to try and give us better results. We're about to embark on a bumper pre-season to get some money into the club.

[Bedese]

Good luck!

[rycl77]

Season 2016/17 - Serie D

December 31st Update

League Table

Currently top of the table as we hit the midpoint of the season. We've been in absolutely cracking form but just can't seem to shake Vis Pesaro which is especially worrying because only the top team gets promotion, play-offs is just a cash prize (or so I'm told). Luckily for us we've already beaten them once this season handing them their only defeat of the season.

Serie D Results

The results in the league all in all have been good. We're playing good football and passing teams off the park. Our only loss was to Pineto in a game we had 3 clear cut chances to their 0 and they robbed us off a set-piece. Nonetheless if we can keep this up, particularly the brick wall defense I think we will be good for the title.

Serie D Cup Results

The board said they didn't care about this competition and to be honest neither did I, went with my best team however and got dumped out in extra-time to our league rivals Vis Pesaro. Oh well.

Transfers

Now this is where I maybe messed up a bit. Serie D has a set of particularly stupid rules which says you have to have 4 players under 20, 3 players under 19 and 1 player under 18 within the starting line-up. I didn't realise this until the window was closed and it meant I'd signed mostly oldies and couldn't fit them all into a team. Luckily we signed two loanees from Cesena who are young (Dhamo is under 18 which is a massive help) but it still means at times I'm fielding some awful Sanmmarinese players. Will be looking to maybe rectify in the January transfer window with the acquistion of a few youngsters.

Key Players

Umberto was already at the club when I joined. He's been a fantastic right-back for us this season, extremely solid and contributed well to a defense that's conceded 9 goals in 16 games.

Mattia is my third best ability striker however won himself a starting spot when injuries to starters meant he came in. 8 goals in 13 games has been massive for us and he's been the deciding factor in a few games.

Misc

Our possession football style has taken effect and sees us league the league in average possession per game.

Notes

I do not manage the San Marino national side yet, not sure when I will take them over as the first few years can be extremely boring and pointless as the team just has no hope, if their manager gets sacked I'll apply but I won't force resign him for now.

Next update will probably be youth intake although I'm not expecting much, thanks for reading.

[rycl77]

Currently playing a game on Mars 

 

[rycl77]

MASSIVE win against our tital rivals Vis Pesaro who have been chasing us the whole season. Opens up a 5 point gap and with neither team losing many games this could well be the difference at the end of the year. 

We actually played pretty poorly and they more CCC's but for once we had the luck and managed to snatch and grab a 2-0 win.

[rycl77]

Season 2016/17 - Serie D

Youth Intake

All in all a pretty decent youth intake considering we're in Serie D. The only problem is all of our Sammarinese youngsters have terrible personalities and poor determination. Nonetheless they should all be able to contribute to the national side in the coming years I would guess. Gonna try and work on them to improve their personalities etc with tutoring.

Andrea Michelotti 

Looks pretty promising with good marking, tackling, positioning and pace. Needs to work on his heading and I will try to improve the determination but this guy will definitely be a feature for the national side if I can develop him decently.

Andrea Canti

I don't really know what to do with Canti. He's good in random areas. Exceptional in the air and a good first touch, also good at dribbling. With poor determination and average physicals I don't really hold a lot of hope for him to be honest and I doubt he usurps Vitaoli, the national teams starting striker unless he improves a lot. Weird one.

Mirko Bugli

Not as much potential as the other two in terms of stars but looks like a decent player. Passing and dribbling need work but he has a balanced personality at least and there is definitely something to work with here. I think he can definitely star for the national side in the future. Going to re-train him as a left-back as he's got good marking, tackling etc

<><><><><><>

All in all a pretty decent one. The Italian prospects are useless to me as they aren't eligible for San Marino.

[Ropotas]

17 hours ago, rycl77 said:

Season 2016/17 - Serie D

Youth Intake

All in all a pretty decent youth intake considering we're in Serie D. The only problem is all of our Sammarinese youngsters have terrible personalities and poor determination. Nonetheless they should all be able to contribute to the national side in the coming years I would guess. Gonna try and work on them to improve their personalities etc with tutoring.

Andrea Michelotti 

Looks pretty promising with good marking, tackling, positioning and pace. Needs to work on his heading and I will try to improve the determination but this guy will definitely be a feature for the national side if I can develop him decently.

Andrea Canti

I don't really know what to do with Canti. He's good in random areas. Exceptional in the air and a good first touch, also good at dribbling. With poor determination and average physicals I don't really hold a lot of hope for him to be honest and I doubt he usurps Vitaoli, the national teams starting striker unless he improves a lot. Weird one.

Mirko Bugli

Not as much potential as the other two in terms of stars but looks like a decent player. Passing and dribbling need work but he has a balanced personality at least and there is definitely something to work with here. I think he can definitely star for the national side in the future. Going to re-train him as a left-back as he's got good marking, tackling etc

<><><><><><>

All in all a pretty decent one. The Italian prospects are useless to me as they aren't eligible for San Marino.

[Ropotas]

Have fun my friend i begin something like this with Vaduz and Liechtenstein..For me take control national team you can make some good results..I will watch you're sorry..;-)

[rycl77]

Season 2016/17 - Serie D

Season In Review - Serie D Champions

League Table

In the end we kind of walked it, Vis Pesaro finally started slipping up and we pulled away, even when we did go through a small tough patch they were unable to capitalise. I was expected to win this division so it's not surprising but satisfying.

Results

Team of the Season

Surprisingly our left back was actually voted 2nd best player even though at times I was dropping him for a youngster to abide by the Serie D Youth regulations. De Lucia was by far most deserving of the award however.

Transfers

In January I added Poletti, a club legend from previous years as our back up left winger. I loaned two more Cesena youngsters to help us with the stupid Serie D youth rules which stipulate you need at least 4 under 20's playing etc and lastly Zandrini who was a first choice keeper, same goalkeeping ability as our other number 1 Dini but Zandrini was more comfortable as a sweeper keeper and a better passer.

Finances

Finance wise we are struggling really bad, even though I was 2k under the wage budget. Looks like I need to have a big pre-season or we're screwed lol. Bit worrying.

Misc

That's all for this update, Serie C awaits us next season!

[the--dud]

Congrats on the swift promotion back to Serie C - well done! Onwards to world domination now I suppose?

[rycl77]

6 hours ago, the--dud said:

Congrats on the swift promotion back to Serie C - well done! Onwards to world domination now I suppose?

That's the plan but might take a little while

[rycl77]

Woohoo. Didn't expect this with how bad our finances are but I guess they've done the math and it makes sense? 

Also the board are expecting me to win the league again this season? Not sure if they're still referring to Serie D or not lol

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

Season Expectations

The board initially wanted me to attempt to avoid relegation but I told them I would avoid it for a bit of extra wage budget. To be honest I'd probably quit if I got relegated back to the depths of Serie D, I hated it there

Budgets

As I always do in these lower tiers I set it all into wage budget and focused on getting free agents and free agents only. I feel that you can get similar players to those transfer listed for free if you look hard enough and that spending on transfers really isn't neccessary. Might be completely wrong but it's worked before. This budget is a significant upgrade from last season, pretty much doubled it so we were able to go after some decent players.

Transfers

A loooooot of activity. Essentially most of the players from the side last season were out of contract and barely any of them were good enough for Serie C and even if they were the chances are I could sign a better free agent. So I let them all go. 

This meant we had a squad of about 9 when all the loanees we took from Cesena returned so I had to go out and pack the squad out with a lot of new players. You'll see I raided parent club Cesena again, this time for 5 players which is an absolutely massive help. Not much to note on any of the players, some of you might recognise Dale Jennings, the guy from a few years ago who went from Tranmere to Bayern, well his career didn't really take off and he's ended up with the mighty San Marino. Sadly he's not actually that good and is a backup winger for us.

Key Signings

Two pretty good players for Serie C. Stendardo has some amazing stats in heading, tackling and marking and despite his age his physicals aren't atrocious. El Hilali was released by AC Milan at the end of the season so I snapped him up. He's a good player for this level with the potential to improve so I was more than happy to snap him up.

Early season update to come shortly as I've played a few games this season.

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

August/September Results

So a mixed bag. We got eliminated from the Serie C Cup very early. We lost 2-0 to Fano in a game we probably should have won. Fano then lso beat Tuttocuolo the other team in our group straight after meaning it was impossible for us to qualify despite winning our last game 3-1.

Then we started the league with three 2-0 defeats in a row. After that I was expecting an awful season and felt we would be waiting a while for us to be stick together a run of results however we then hit a bit of form. A great win vs Lumezzane boosted our morale and then we went on 4 match unbeaten run with a few good performances. You can see from the table the crazy amount of teams that get into the play-offs and I don't think it's too far fetched that we could make it in. 

Although I don't think the Serie C play-offs is an opportunity for promotion which is a bit weird? If that is the case then I guess we'll have to settle for another season in Serie C as Parma somehow didn't get promoted last season and are still around in our division.

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

October Results

What a month!!! After a shocking 3 losses in a row to start the season we have really hit form now. I've pretty much settled on my best 11 and it's clearly paying off. We've scored bucketloads of goals this month and won all but one game. We now have Parma in our sights although it'll be tough to overhaul them.

Also I googled the Serie C Play-offs to clarify the situation, one team is promoted from the playoffs across the three groups. So we would need to beat the playoff winners from Group A and C should we win the play-offs in our division. Forza Titani

If pics are too small, click to enlarge to a nice size.

[kandersson]

good luck Titani! 

[Bedese]

Superb start to Serie C, and well done on the promotion + professionalism  

[rycl77]

1 hour ago, kandersson said:

good luck Titani! 

Kandersson no way! I never realised you were on this forum, your San Marino exploits on what I wanna say was FM12??? on fmbase inspired me to start in 2012 and ever since then I've usually ended up doing the San Marino Challenge every year from FM12 onwards.

Absolutely love you man and the way you posted your updates for your FM12 save is still my favourite save of all time to follow.

[rycl77]

41 minutes ago, Jupjamie said:

Superb start to Serie C, and well done on the promotion + professionalism  

Thanks mate!

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

November Results

After a great September we had a pretty disappointing November. We just didn't create enough chances. 3 goals the entire month is pretty appauling. We would have been winless but for an extremely late winner in our last game. Not very good but we're still in the play-ofs, Parma maybe just too far ahead though!

Sammarinese Prospects Update

 

The image on the left is Canti on youth intake day, the one on the right is him now roughly 6 months later. Other than him gaining a tan you'll notice his determination (a key stat in deciding whether a player reaches their potential) has flown up a massive 5 points from tutoring which is fantastic. He's already been capped twice by San Marino and is for sure going to be their main man if he can keep improving at this rate. I'll keep him with us at the club for the next one or two years before loaning him out. Sadly I can't see him ever making the grade here at the club but he's better than the San Marino League!

[rycl77]

San Marino National Team - 2016/2017 Update

I don't currently manage the national team. I will obviously in future but right now I'm focusing on the club as managing the national team through defeat after defeat is pretty boring haha. 

They had an extremely rough 2016, losing every single game without even scoring a goal. A 2-0 loss to Montenegro probably their best result. 

2017 saw two goals scored both from San Marino legends Vitaoli and Stefanelli both in 3-1 losses. Much better than 2016, a 1-0 friendly defeat to Georgia maybe their best result. These less than stellar two years have obviously not done much for their ranking as they currently sit in.....

Ranking

206th, we've got a job on our hands.

 

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

December Results

A month to forget....

We just can't create anything atm it's terrible. Thinking of changing tactic up a bit but not sure where exactly. Maybe shifting from a 4-3-3 with a DM to a 4-2-3-1 wide. Our only goal was a free-kick too. 

One of those months where you swear the game hates you and you want to punch your laptop screen in.

[rycl77]

Well it looks like our promising 17 year old Sammarinese target man is being bought off of us already for 100k. Don't think this will be good for his career as I've focused a lot on developing him but best of luck to him I guess.

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

January Results

Only a few games this month but we struggled again, I've changed to a 4-2-3-1 wide.

Youth Intake Update

Canti is gone, a promising player but we do need the money to be fair. The board took the decision out of my hands.

On a different note, Michelotti's determination has more than double in just under a year and his personality is now fairly professional

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

February Results

Slightly better, desperately need to STOP giving away penalties and goals from set-pieces but at least we picked up some points this month. Need a strong finish now.

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

Youth Intake

Not as impressive as last year. At least our best product is Sammarinese but I'm only really thinking two of these guys will achieve a successful career for the National Team. Colombini the 4.5* product also has a fairly professional personality which is pretty cool as last year the personalities were terrible.

Colombini

Quite like the look of this guy, already got very good passing and first touch with a fairly professional personality. Will get to work on his determination immediately with some tutoring but this guy looks so promising!

Capicchioni

This guy also looks pretty good but again needs work on the determination. For sure we have something to work with here.

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

March Results

Struggling so much, 5 points outside of the playouts now. Jesus. Went to back to my old formation but didn't really get much from it. We can't even beat 10 men at the minute. 

[rycl77]

This sums the season up to be honest, both strikers on over 10 hour goalless streaks. Not good.

[rycl77]

Sums it up at the minute, concede a last minute penalty in a game we deserved to win, save the penalty but concede the rebound anyway. Ffs

7 Penalties conceded this season 

[kandersson]

13 hours ago, rycl77 said:

Kandersson no way! I never realised you were on this forum, your San Marino exploits on what I wanna say was FM12??? on fmbase inspired me to start in 2012 and ever since then I've usually ended up doing the San Marino Challenge every year from FM12 onwards.

Absolutely love you man and the way you posted your updates for your FM12 save is still my favourite save of all time to follow.

thanks for the kind words mate, it's always nice to see fellow Titani managers going deep with the challenge! Make San Marino great again 

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

April/May Results

Finally, some good results! After the Mantova game where we got absolutely battered I decided to completely throw out our old tactic and move back to a formation I used to good success on FM14. We deserved to win the Parma game but conceded a stupid last min penalty and then went on a decent run to end the season.

And as you'll see in the league table, crept into the play-offs! Frustrating season to say the least but it's not finished yet. With this formation we actually look capable of beating many teams so who knows how well we'll go. Parma annoyingly haven't gotten promoted so I have to fight them again next year.

The play-offs start here! How far we will go nobody knows.

And here is the formation we'll be rocking for the play-offs. Our wingers were diabolical and neither of our strikers was able to score when playing up front on his own so I decided to ditch the wingers, focus on playing through the middle and it's worked for the most part. Our attacking midfielder Calvo has been a beast so far too which is a bonus because he wasn't getting used in the old formation.

[rycl77]

God damn it. Went 1-0 down to a free-kick. Equalised. Gave away our trademark penalty and went down 2-1. Had to chase the game and conceded the third when honestly we were the better side. Well that's the end of the season for us.

[rycl77]

Season 2017/18 - Serie C

Season In Review - Good Start, Disastrous End

League Table

Just about made the play-offs. Expectations were to avoid relegation and we did it relatively easily.

Results

Four wins from December 12th onwards. Simply shocking. An absolute collapse. Forced us into a change of systems towards the end of the year. We had such a good start too, not sure what happened. I think our tactic has just been found out by the AI.

Team Of The Season

De Lucia was named player of the year for the second year running. Impressive again so he'll be kepy on. Torelli had another good year also. From that Team of the Year I'd say that Zandrini, Stendardo, Pompei, Romitit, Carcinelli, Pagliarini and Buso will all be gone for various different reasons. Time for us to upgrade the squad if we can.

Transfers

Same as last season with a ton of signings made to try and get our squad to a level in which it can survive in Serie C. One to note was the sale of Canti for 100k. A Sammarinese prospect who came through our youth intake was sold by the board for 100k. Can't say I blame them with the state of our finances. This is how Canti looks, already a regular for the National Team.

Finances

Our finances are bit of a state. I'll do our usual bumper pre-season against big teams to bring in cash and the payment from the league should leave us only about 100k in the hole which isn't bad considering we were about 800k in the red at times this season. Not sure if the board want to cut my wage budget yet or not but I've stuck to it and not gone over.

Formation

This formation was implemented for our last few games to decent success so I'll be sticking with it into the next season, hopefully with better strikers and a more solid defence it can be a success.

Misc

We absolutely need to not concede as many penalties next season. This literally killed us at times and we even conceded one in the play-offs. Seems a bit of a fluky stat so if that goes back to average next season we could gain a few more points.

On to 2018-2019.

[rycl77]

Season 2018/19 - Serie C

Season Expectations

Being expected to reach the play-offs may sound like a lot but when you realise you only need to finish 10th to get in then it's not really a massive challenge. Should be achievable again. The real challenge will be actually winning games in the play-offs.

Budgets

Our finances have actually decreased from last year a little where we had 19k wage budget but it's not really an issue as I was under the budget last year anyway.

Transfers

We've got our typical batch of Cesena's finest in for the season with only a handful of free transfers to date. I shipped out a bunch of underachievers from last season.

Key Signings

Solid CB for this level, should help us shore up our porous defense.

Other than him there isn't really much to shout about so far, I'm still hunting for players.

 

[rycl77]

Season 2018/19 - Serie C

August/September Results

Pretty poor start to be honest. Our defense still feels suspect and I'm still looking for a CB to bring in. We thumped Rimini 6-0 away but sunce then we've just been inconsistent and conceding stupid goals

[rycl77]

Season 2018/19 - Serie C

October/November Results

Usually try to post these in one month updates other than when I combine August and September because there's like 2 games in August but I got so wrapped up in the game I forgot to screenshot after October so I've grouped them together.

Anyway, as you can see we actually had a pretty good run. Some good results in there with one or two poor ones. The victory over Parma stands out and the 1-1 draw with Alto Adige stings as we literally killed them and ended up drawing. Nonetheless we're sat in 5th, firmly in the playoffs but already a cool 11 points behind Parma.

I found a CB to replace the terrible Romeo and he's helped us keep a few more clean sheets but the defense still isn't perfect. Thinking I might look for a new keeper.

As you can see from this screenshot, we absolutely dominate possessionm we're 5% clear of the next team however we don't create enough chances with it. I'm focusing on tweaking my tactic to try and produce more CCC's without success for now but there's defo an improvement from last year.

 

[rycl77]

I'm in demand, sadly for them they will need to wait until I've won the world cup with San Marino

[ExiledKopite]

Really great start to the thread! Hope you can make it through the play-offs this season! How much do you tend to make during pre-season doing friendlies? I'm playing in the Romanian 2nd division bleeding cash (though nothing like 400k in the red!) and was wondering if I could pull off something similar.

Looking forward to seeing you progress up the leagues!

[rycl77]

29 minutes ago, ExiledKopite said:

Really great start to the thread! Hope you can make it through the play-offs this season! How much do you tend to make during pre-season doing friendlies? I'm playing in the Romanian 2nd division bleeding cash (though nothing like 400k in the red!) and was wondering if I could pull off something similar.

Looking forward to seeing you progress up the leagues!

Thanks for reading mate

I make about 100k roughly doing friendlies although that's because I play all the big teams in Italy (Milan, Napoli, Inter) which brings in about 10k per friendly if not more. Not sure they will be an option for you though as I'm pretty sure they only play me because I'm in Italy? Always worth having a look at who you can ask for a friendly as it can really boost your funds.

[rycl77]

Season 2018/19 - Serie C

December Results

Largely positive month, we got dumped out of the Serie C Cup which I don't really care about as the cash prizes aren't that great and lost just 1 of 5 games in the league. This sees us into third place although we trail Modena and Parma by a large amount.

National team yearly update to come next, they've actually done pretty well haha.

[rycl77]

San Marino National Team - 2018 Update

After scoring 2 goals in 2 years San Marino banged in two in their first game. Albeit it was against Gibraltar, an equally terrible team and they lost 4-2 but you can't have it all right?

The introduction of the European Nations League is going to be the nations best friend over the coming years as it means they can consistently play against teams on their level. Games against the likes of Luxembourg and Kazakhstan regularly means a high chance of better results.

Three games where they didn't lose, an impressive draw vs Malta, a win vs Luxembourg and a draw with Kazakhstan meant they had their best year in history. You can already see Andrea Canti getting in amongst the goals at aged 18, fresh from our academy.

These results meant they moved up four places from last year, not too bad. I still don't manage them and don't intend to until I reach Serie B with the club.

Best Players

10 caps at the age of 18 and already 3 goals, Canti looks a dead cert to beat Andy Selva's legendary 8 goal all time goalscoring record for the country. Although Selva did it in the days before the Nations League.

Anyone who's attempted the challenge before is familiar with Matteo Vitaoli, in past versions he actually played for the club however nowadays he plays his trade away from San Marino. Still easily one of their better players he has been leading the line for them in recent games.

[rycl77]

Just signed this big guy on a freebie. Doesn't massively fit our style of play but he's absolutely quality. Worth 700k too so worst comes to worst I'll flog him at the end of the season.

[jar11]

Awesome start, how did you go about getting san marino into the game (the club in serie d that is)?  Where did you get the custom database?

[rycl77]

4 minutes ago, jar11 said:

Awesome start, how did you go about getting san marino into the game (the club in serie d that is)?  Where did you get the custom database?

I used this one: http://www.fmscout.com/a-italy-serie-d-fm17.html

Also to note, to be able to manage the national team you need to click custom on database size and load all players of nationality for San Marino. Good luck if you decide to start, maybe I could make a challenge thread in the challenge section

[jar11]

7 minutes ago, rycl77 said:

I used this one: http://www.fmscout.com/a-italy-serie-d-fm17.html

Also to note, to be able to manage the national team you need to click custom on database size and load all players of nationality for San Marino. Good luck if you decide to start, maybe I could make a challenge thread in the challenge section

Awesome, thanks for the info!  And quick reply!  Best of luck!

[GloryFan2002]

@rycl77 Show us your best eleven 

[rycl77]

7 minutes ago, GloryFan2002 said:

@rycl77 Show us your best eleven 

Still uses my old formation that I used in Serie D for now. Pompei, Dhamo, Carncinelli were all loaned from Cesena. De Lucia who's been our player of the season both seasons actually starts the game at the club which is a bonus as he's still balling in Serie C.

EDIT - Just considered that you might have been on about my starting XI atm. Here it is.

Also for anyone considering starting up the challenge I made a challenge thread so we can all see how each other are doing etc