International challenge

[MadWoodster]

DodgeeD welcome to the challenge. An encouraging start with the outstanding result against Cape Verde and the draw against Gabon.

Your second round group looks challenging, especially with the experienced Morocco side and the youthful Ivory Coast there but hey you never know. Don't forget to keep the website up to date with your progress so I can award you points.

Talking about points its about time we had a round up.

Leading the field is Axefighter whose mighty Tonga have amassed 61 points thanks to a top ranking of 50, and a runners up place in the Oceania Cup and also taking part in the World Cup Oceania Final.

BS_8's failure to register his World Cup Oceania Final Loser place, means he only has 60 points, but really that should be 61. His top world ranking is 41.

In 3rd place is Combustion he has led Sierre Leone to 78 in the world so far but hasn't registered any competition performances so far.

While in 4th place is relative new comer Scab whose Myanmar team may only be 126 in the world but they have got through as far as the 2nd world of the Asian World Cup qualifiers.

MadWoodster's tour of the world has got him up as far as 5th place, having lost in both the Asian World Cup qualifiers in the 1st round and also coming 5th in the Oceania Cup preliminary group stages with Malaysia and American Samoa

The only other scorer so far is Blowcrapup who is currently managing Nicaragua and has also lost in the 1st round of the Asian World Cup qualifiers.

One performance worthy of note is Konquest[/b[ who has led Belize to 105 in the world, and if he had had the ability to register his competition performances so far, would be higher up the leader board (feel free to update it when you get the chance.)

[blowcrapup]

Hey i'm managing Pakistan but I tried to tell the website that I was using the patch to play as them and it came back as Nicaragua and wont change back although when I log in it says I'm Pakistan.

[MadWoodster]

Blowcrapup sorry about that. Yet another change I had to make due to SI redoing some of the world rankings, why they didn't just leave them alone or at least do all of them with recent values I don't know, but anyhow, if you go to the website now it correctly shows you at Pakistan

[blowcrapup]

Cheers KUTGW.

[Annihilator666]

OK, here goes. I've chosen Belize.

Here's my Profile, I chose Belizean as my second nationality, and Semi-Professional Footballer as past experience.

Here are the leagues I chose.

[electronicmaji]

does Barbados count?

[MachinegunHead]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by electronicmaji:

does Barbados count? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you are using the 8.01 patch, yes.

I've decided to give this a new run, after my shot at Guam felt like it was a dead end. I've decided to take charge of Surinam, as I wouldn't mind to succeed in North America, as it seems no-one has done anything special up here .

Profile

Club Info

I've started with no fixtures what so ever, so I think its time to organize some friendlies against my Caribbean neighbours!

[MachinegunHead]

2007, a year of friendlies, has ended in quite an unspectacular fashion.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

2007 Surinam Results

Friendly(H) v Bahamas 1 - 2

Friendly(H) v Laos 1 - 1

Friendly(H) v Cayman Islands 2 - 0

Friendly(H) v St Martin 0 - 1

Annual Summary

Year | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Goal Dif | Rank | Rank Change |

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

2007 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 165 | -4 |

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

</pre>

*hoping the above code works out alright*

Onto 2008, with my first competitive match in charge of Surinam. A WCQ against Dominica, which I am expected to win... wish me luck!

[MachinegunHead]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

2007 RESULTS

Friendly(H) v Bahamas 1 - 2

Friendly(H) v Laos 1 - 1

Friendly(H) v Cayman Islands 2 - 0

Friendly(H) v St Martin 0 - 1

ANNUAL SUMMARY

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

Year | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Goal Dif | Rank | Rank Change |

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

2007 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 165 | -4 |

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

</pre>

Just had to repost it, seeing as it didn't turn out okay. I figure if I get it right now it'll be a simple cut/paste job later. Also, I don't like things going wrong . Feel free to use my layout or let it inspire your own... or just ignore me

[MadWoodster]

Annihilator666 good luck with Belize

Electronicmaji as Machinegunhead said, Barbados do indeed count if you are using the recently released 8.0.1 patch.

Machinegunhead not doing too badly in the friendlies there, hope you get a good result against Dominica (which looking at the website I guess you did)

[MachinegunHead]

Hah yeah, I did do quite well against Dominica, well in the home leg at least. I comfortably made it past them, but Trinidad & Tobago in the 2nd knockout round were too much for my squad to handle. A lot of that squad has retired, and I'm now left with a squad of mostly regens and rejected dutch players. I also bit off more than I could chew in 2008 with my friendlies. I was hoping for a big jump in rank by beating some class teams, but the upset never came. Feels like a wasted year for the Surinam national team.

2008 RESULTS

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

WCQ 1st Phase 1st Rnd(H) v Dominica 3 - 0

WCQ 1st Phase 1st Rnd(A) v Dominica 2 - 3

WCQ 1st Phase 2nd Rnd(H) v Trinidad & Tobago 0 - 2

WCQ 1st Phase 2nd Rnd(A) v Trinidad & Tobago 0 - 2

Friendly(H) v Germany 0 - 3

Friendly(H) v Portugal 0 - 3

Friendly(H) v Czech Republic 0 - 1

</pre>

ANNUAL SUMMARY

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

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

Year | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Goal Dif | Rank | Rank Change |

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

2007 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 165 | -4 |

2008 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 6 | -9 | 167 | -2 |

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

</pre>

2nd year down in charge of Surinam, and further down the rankings I slip. Hopefully bad things coming in threes isn't a common sentiment in Surinam.

[MadWoodster]

Maybe it will be third year lucky and you will go up the rankings instead!

At least you beat Dominica that will help a little.

My Faroe Isles team had a poor first year, losing every game, though we should have got a draw against Cyprus, 3-0 down at half time, we pulled it back to 3-3 when with just minutes to go they got a 4th and won it.

My World Cup qualifying group doesn't look too great though: Spain, Sweden, Scotland, Slovenia and Lithuania. If I get a point I'll be amazed, but then I have supposedly got some good youngsters coming through, just trying to work out when best to blood them in the first team.

Mind you with my back room staff, I should be working wonders: Franco Baresi, Brian McClair, Liam Brady, Rene Skovdahl, Ebbe Sand, Edorta Murua, Ricardo Moniz, Joao Alves, Eijert Borkman, Bjorn Anderson. At least if I leave it won't be difficult for them to replace me.

[MadWoodster]

Breaking news 06/09/08: Faroe Isles have won a football match. The team everyone loves to beat, have finally beaten someone!

This shocking news just in from their home ground, they have beaten the mighty American Samoa, 3-2 in an end to end friendly match.

A lone researcher has pointed out that some 4 years ago, Faroe Isles did beat Malta on the 18/08/04 in a friendly.

Business as normal was resumed a few days later as we lost 5-1 to Spain.

[DodgeeD]

Quick update

Sierra Leone rounded off 2007 with two friendlies against similar opposition. The first was a 1-0 home victory against Central African Republic. That was followed by an away game to Swaziland. Despite taking an early lead, Sierra Leone were unable to capitalise and nerves started to show as Kallon missed a penalty with 15 minutes left (third miss in 3 games ). Following that, the Swazi's scored on 81, 82 and 86 mins with my boys managing one more on 84 mins. A frantic push to get back in the game was futile as we lost 3-2... but at least it was only a friendly Bring on the World Cup Qualifiers!

[Guest thedevster]

I decided to take up the Challenge and chose Bermuda

I'm using the patch 8.01

My best prospect is no doubt ]Reggie Lambe[/url]

Right now only a friendly with Anguilla at the end of the year. Will set up some more friendlies and report back with results.

[spikeh92]

I decided to take up your challenge on the 8.0.0 patch....the challange i faced was American Samao, i have been playing for a while now and well i'll post my rankings and fixture list to show you how i'm doing

american samoa rankings

american samoa fixtures 2007

american samoa fixtures 2008

[spikeh92]

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s102/spikeh7/americansamoafixtures2007.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s102/spikeh7/americansamoafixtures2008.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>

[spikeh92]

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s102/spikeh7/americansamoafixtures2007.jpg[/img]]

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s102/spikeh7/americansamoafixtures2008.jpg[/img]]

if this dont work they were my fixtures in 2007 and 2008

[Annihilator666]

Annihilator666 - Belize - 2007 - End Of Year Update

Fixtures & Results - 2007 Results | 2008 Fixtures

World Ranking - 192nd | Ranking Graph

For some reason, the records section hasn't updated the country's all-time top scorer, etc. so all that information is empty. I'll screenshot all that stuff when it finally updates.

Anyways, an excellent start for Belize. When I took over there were no fixtures, and only an assistant manager. I arranged as many friendlies as possible, and hired staff from as many major leagues as possible. I now have coaching staff from the top clubs in Brazil, Mexico, England, Germany, Italy and France. In our five friendlies, we won four and drew one, which is fantastic. A lot of my players seem to be better than they should be, and we dominated almost every match we played.

It'll be interesting to see if any Belize regens pop up this year at the teams my staff work for.

[Annihilator666]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Annihilator666:

Annihilator666 - Belize - 2007 - End Of Year Update

Fixtures & Results - 2007 Results | 2008 Fixtures

World Ranking - 170th | Ranking Graph

For some reason, the records section hasn't updated the country's all-time top scorer, etc. so all that information is empty. I'll screenshot all that stuff when it finally updates.

Anyways, an excellent start for Belize. When I took over there were no fixtures, and only an assistant manager. I arranged as many friendlies as possible, and hired staff from as many major leagues as possible. I now have coaching staff from the top clubs in Brazil, Mexico, England, Germany, Italy and France. In our five friendlies, we won four and drew one, which is fantastic. A lot of my players seem to be better than they should be, and we dominated almost every match we played.

It'll be interesting to see if any Belize regens pop up this year at the teams my staff work for. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bah, they need to enable post editing. Fixed the world ranking number.

Also, forgot to mention, if I beat Surinam in the 1st round of World Cup qualifying, I get USA in the 2nd round.

[MadWoodster]

DodgeeD good win against Central African Republic and at least you got some goals against Swaziland.

thedevster welcome to the challenge, good luck with Bermuda

Spikeh92 welcome to the challenge and good luck with American Samoa, for image links just copy the direct text into both boxes and people will be able to work it from there.

Annihilator666 certainly an excellent start with Belize be interesting to see how you get on against Surinam.

[Annihilator666]

I have a question, apologies if it has already been asked in this thread.

How do my foreign coaching staff gain Knowledge of Belize?

[CoachFlu]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Annihilator666:

I have a question, apologies if it has already been asked in this thread.

How do my foreign coaching staff gain Knowledge of Belize? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Automatically, over time.

A "Belize" bar should appear a few months after they're hired, at around 20% knowledge. It'll then fill up slowly over time. (From what I've seen, I think it'll take around 4 years for them to get full knowledge.)

[Annihilator666]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by CoachFlu:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Annihilator666:

I have a question, apologies if it has already been asked in this thread.

How do my foreign coaching staff gain Knowledge of Belize? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Automatically, over time.

A "Belize" bar should appear a few months after they're hired, at around 20% knowledge. It'll then fill up slowly over time. (From what I've seen, I think it'll take around 4 years for them to get full knowledge.) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks man.

But I'm a year in and none of them have Belize knowledge, so I'm starting to worry a bit.

[Scab]

Myanmar 2008

A pretty good year I must say. Some of the regens look alright (read: better than my current players) and I can't complain about the match results.

2008 Results

Defence is holding up very well, but I'd really like to score more. Nontheless, we were unbeaten this year, so yeah, I can't exactly complain.

World Ranking Graph

A pretty steady curve apart from the small bump the Moldova win gave us.

Here's hoping for a more eventful 2009... Or am I stuck in friendly land until the next World Cup qualifiers?

[MachinegunHead]

2009 RESULTS

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Friendly(H) v Bhutan 1 - 1

Friendly(H) v Equatorial Guinea 1 - 4

Friendly(H) v Eritrea 1 - 0

Friendly(H) v Macau (China PR) 1 - 1

</pre>

ANNUAL SUMMARY

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

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

Year | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Goal Dif | Rank | Rank Change |

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

2007 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 165 | -4 |

2008 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 6 | -9 | 167 | -2 |

2009 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | -2 | 150 | +17 |

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

</pre>

Surprisingly, my win against Eritrea and two draws against Bhutan and Macau saw my rank jump up 17 places, to 150. I also realized that I haven't hired any staff, so I decided to hire some Dutch coaches to get the Surinam players some exposure in the dutch leagues. I had to do this because I'm getting about 30% of my first team retiring each year, forcing me to replace them with mediocre regens who are bogged down in the non-leagues of Surinam.

I'm hoping next year improves result wise once again, and I'm also hoping that I get some more competitive matches! Although this probably wont be the case until 2011, as 2010 is a world cup year... one that I was miles away from competing in.

[Annihilator666]

Annihilator666 - Belize - 2008 - End Of Year Update

Fixtures & Results - 2008 Results | 2009 Fixtures

World Ranking - 130th | Ranking Graph

Records - Nation Overall Records | Nation Season Records

An up-and-down year for the team. After getting hammered 5-1 at home by Surinam in the World Cup qualifiers, we managed a respectable 1-1 draw in the 2nd leg. We then lost to Barbados, who were below us in the world ranking, then followed that up with a win over Haiti who were in the world's top 100. Our world ranking peaked at 126 during the year.

Also, my staff finally started gaining Belize knowledge, so hopefully some decent regens might pop-up at their clubs in Europe and South America.

[Annihilator666]

Oh, sweet, I just got entered into the North American Gold Cup.

[MachinegunHead]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Annihilator666:

Oh, sweet, I just got entered into the North American Gold Cup. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

GAH! Lucky bugger, I felt my heart break in two when I noticed the Gold Cup party was underway, and Surinam and I weren't invited. Now I have to wait until 2011 to see if I'm in the Copa America.

[cr4z3d]

I just started a game with Bermuda, wish me luck

[DodgeeD]

Sierra Leone 2008 Round-Up

An active year for Sierra Leone with 3 friendlies and 5 World Cup Qualifiers. We began the year ranked 122nd in the world.

Friendly v. Djibouti Won 3-0

World Cup Qualifiers home v. Namibia at home(ranked 138th) Won 5-0, as easy as the scoreline suggests

away v. Republic of Congo (ranked 47th) Lost 2-0, spurred o by the result against Namibia we went out to win and matched RoC for large parts of the game. We also had a goal ruled out for offside on the stroke of half-time and hit the bar in the last 10 right before their second. Overall, an encouraging performance

home v. Ivory Coast (ranked 12th ) drawn 2-2, easily the best result so far. We were 2-0 down at half-time and getting run ragged until Sankoh popped up from centre defence to nod in two corners in quick succession to te delight of the home crowd. Nearly nicked it in the dying seconds as Toure hacked a shot off the line.

away v. Burundi (ranked 134th) won 1-0, a solid result away from home

home v. Morocco (ranked 51st) lost 2-0, had high hopes of getting a result to stay in the qualifying hunt but instead had my first poor performance in charge. We were never in it

After 5 games, we are 4th in the group and qualification looks unlikely. Best hope is to move into 3rd in the group and give the world rankings a boost but it will be tough as we still have to face Ivory Coast and Morocco away.

Rounded the year off with two more friendlies:

home v. Sri Lanka (ranked 160th) won 1-0 but played pretty badly

away v. Sao Tome and Principe (ranked 184th) won 3-1 with a squad made up of new caps and promising re-gens

End of year ranking: the wins in qualifying and draw with the Ivory coast saw us jump up to 98th.

[DodgeeD]

MadWoodster: I updated my results on the website but at first entered my new ranking as achieved in Jan 08 by mistake. Changed it to Jan 09 but couldn't remove the Jan 08 entry. Whoops!

[Annihilator666]

Bah, the greyed out players bug is killing me. Just got thumped 4-1 by an all-grey US Virgin Islands, who were ranked LAST in the world. I then lost 2-1 to Cook Islands, ranked 200th in the world, in a match they dominated.

This bug really ****ed me off in the dafuge and Gundo challenges, and I was really hoping it didn't affect international teams, but oh well.

[cr4z3d]

BERMUDA 2007

-FRIENDLIES

0-1 H Bahrain - The team deserved a tie here.

2-6 H Algeria - We were simply outclassed, but managed 2 late goals.

2-3 H American Samoa - We were favourites to win this one, but we didn't.

0-4 H Canada - I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for some good regens to pop up somewhere in Europe.

-RANK

We started the year in 159th, and have no dropped to 164th.

-PLAYERS

There's one player in the MLS, Khano Smith, who plays for New England, while the rest are in the Domestic League. Our main striker John Barry Nusum was previously drafted in the MLS, however he is also in the domestic league. So I'm just hoping for some killer regens to come and save my job...lol.

[Annihilator666]

Annihilator666 - Belize - 2009 - End Of Year Update

Fixtures & Results - 2009 Results | 2010 Fixtures

World Ranking - 108th | Ranking Graph

Records - Nation Overall Records | Nation Season Records

We had a good start to the year with a decent performance in the North American Gold Cup, finishing the group in 3rd place. This helped boost our world ranking to a peak of 101st.

However, for the rest of the year the team played poorly, and could only manage one draw and four defeats.

Another problem is that over 100 of my players retired, and only 11 regens have been created since I started, so I only have a choice of 48 players. This will definitely cause problems over the coming year.

[DodgeeD]

I've noticed the strange 'disappearance' of players and think it may cause problems long term. When I selcted my first squad in 2009, the message said I had 18 players selected yet my last squad in 2008 had been full at 26. Closer inspection revealed that 8 players had just vanished. They hadn't retired; most of them were between 18 and 25 years of age. Even players who had featured in all fixtures had gone as well as some promisinf re-gens who had only been in the game for 6 months!!! This will make my task in 2009 much more difficult as I now have to call up players who were overlooked before for the very good reason that they are crap

Hopefully later on my European coaches will gain more Sierra Leone knowledge and take some of these guys to pro clubs. So far, I've put this problem down to exisiting players leaving their clubs and re-gens not finding a club to join. Strange though that they don't even join the domestic sides...

[cr4z3d]

BERMUDA 2008

RANKING

We are now 141st going up from 164 at the beginning of the year.

WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

0-5 A Dominica - Another craptastic performance from the players.

1-0 H Dominica - Surprisingly we won this game, we were without our star player Khano Smith.

Dominica wins 5-1 on aggregate.

FREINDLIES

1-2 H Barbados - First half was one sided, however the second half was pretty much even, with the team coming close to tieing it.

0-2 H Cuba - We had our chances, but we didn't put them away and Cuba did.

1-0 H Cambodia - A decent win for the team.

3-2 H Cook Islands - Smith scored 2 and Shakir scored the all important 3rd goal.

2-3 H Belize - The visitors went up by 2 early. We tied them, however they scored the winning goal with a dodgy penalty halfway

thru the 2nd half.

PLAYERS

Our star player Khano Smith has been putting in good performances for both club and country. Also, a new regen and soon to be young star Derek Turner has jumped straight up to the first team of Oxford in League 2, so he'll be earning a call-up very soon.

SUMMARY

GP W D L GF GA GD

7 3 0 4 8 14 -6

[cr4z3d]

err *Tucker

[The Shaman]

Well after following this thread for awhile and with the crash of my current long term save game I think it might be time for me to jump in here.

Leagues loaded - USA (MLS) and Mexico (First Division A)

Load all players from...Not going to bother typing them all out, but assuming I didn't miss one or accidentally add an extra, I've loaded all CONCACAF nations.

If it's not obvious by the setup, CONCACAF is my home federation in real life, so where do I start?

In addition to soccer (sorry, football), being American I also happen to be a huge baseball fan. Nicaragua is a huge baseball country, so why not there? They also happen to be the only Central American side I haven't actually seen in real life, so I feel like I'm broadening my horizons here.

Thus far I've named a new captain (based on nothing except having a name that I recognize) and set up a few friendlies against my neighboring Central American countries. I'll probably be outclassed by my nearest neighbors, but by keeping my matches within the confederation I should avoid the dreaded curse of the greys as well as remain somewhat true to life as I don't believe Nicaragua has ever played outside of CONCACAF (Ok, wikipedia proves me wrong, they've played Venezuela once and Brazil once 0-14, ouch!).

In any case, I start the year off with a ranking of 153 and a schedule of friendlies as follows...

8.9.07 Netherlands Antilles (H)

12.9.07 Costa Rica (H)

13.10.07 Bahamas (H)

17.11.07 El Salvador (H)

21.11.07 Panama (A)

Wish me luck.

[MadWoodster]

Annihilator666 glad to hear your coaches are now getting knowledge of Belize, I think the time period depends on what other job they have and also their own adaptability stat. A mixed year indeed for you in 2008, well done on being entered in the Gold Cup, I thought you would have had to get past the first couple of stages in the World Cup qualifiers to be entered, but perhaps there is some other complicated formula used for it. Good to see you even managed to win a game in it against Cuba, even if you struggled for the rest of the year. Let's hope you get some regens in soon.

Scab certainly making good progress through 2008 there.

Machinegunhead well done on the good results during 2009 (ignoring the blip against Equatorial Guinea) hope you get some good regens soon. Sorry to hear you didn't get entered in the Gold Cup, I will have to do some research and work out what they are using to decide the qualifiers for it.

cr4z3d welcome to the challenge and good luck. Good to see you bounced back after a difficult start and managed to get a few wins under your belt in 2008.

DodgeeD not a bad 2008 for you there considering some of the opposition you were up against. Well done on getting into the top 100 (I've removed your 2008 entry).

The Shaman welcome to the challenge and good luck with Nicaragua.

My Faroe Isles side are struggling a bit. After finally winning a game (against American Samoa) we started our World Cup Qualifiers with the following results:

1-5 A Spain

2-3 A Sweden

1-2 H Slovenia

All I can say is at least we were scoring goals and we should have had a point against Sweden but they got a last minute winner against us.

We then lost 1-0 to Benin, they scored in the 78th minute as my team tired. But at least we managed a 0-0 draw against Afghanistan ending 2008 in 181. We actually had less ranking points now, as results against Malta and Kazakhstan years ago were now forgotten.

So into 2009, my youngsters seemed to be rated highly by my coaches so it was time to blood a few more of them and see if we can start getting some competitive results.

0-2 H Scotland, never stood a chance

1-3 H Cayman Islands (friendly) the curse of the grey players!

1-2 H Lithuania, nearly got our first competitive point

0-5 H Sweden, never stood a chance

1-6 A Slovenia, at least we scored a goal

0-1 H Spain, if only the referee hadn't disallowed our perfectly good goal, we would have grabbed a moral boosting point.

0-3 A Lithuania, after the Spain game we have gone backwards again.

A Scotland

So needless to say without a point from our qualifiers we came bottom, and we are 181st in the world

With all the Scandinavian leagues running, I can select from 7 players playing in Denmark, 28 players in Iceland, 1 in Norway, 1 in Sweden, 1 in England, as well as another 265 players mostly in the national league.

So with a few more of my players going to Iceland and Denmark, more of them are playing games and getting match fit when I need them, not just in the summer when the Faroe Isles teams get knocked out in the first round of qualifying for Europe, at least that's the theory.

[Scab]

I'm beginning to think it was a mistake to put the leagues I loaded on "view only". I figured I might as well since I wouldn't be managing in them, but it looks like the teams have no youth or reserve squads this way. Instead, a very small number of regens appear in their first team squads every pre-season.

For now this doesn't make any real difference - all my players play in Myanmar - but I'm thinking it might long-term...

[electronicmaji]

just starting. Booked friendlies with American Samoa, Afghanistan, Solomon Islands, and the Cook Islands. I am currently plagued by injuries a ****ing sucky team.

Scoreline against American Samoa for our inaguaral game was 2-2. Samao scored a suprise second goal on the 85 and we took it to them at the 90 tying the match.

Against Afghanistan we had the uperhand with two early goals but the individual quality of the two german players afghanistan had allowed them to match us. The game ended 3-3.

[DodgeeD]

Sierra Leone 2009 Update

A very busy year for my team with the remaining 5 World Cup Qualifiers and 5 friendlies. Alas the optimism and momentum of 2008 was dealt a severe blow by the sudden inexplicable dissapearance of several key players and many promising youngsters on Jan 1st Nevertheless, the core of the team remained, determined to raise Sierra Leone's ranking even higher than the 98th enjoyed at the start of the year.

The year started with two friendlies:

home v. Bahrain (ranked 91st) 2-2, a respectable draw.

away v. Luxembourg (ranked 155th) 2-2, a bit diassapointing as we conceded a last minute equaliser.

World Cup Qualifiers:

away v. Namibia (151st) won 4-1, did well to comeback after trailing 1-0 at half time. Oh, and Kallon finally netted a penalty

away v. Ivory Coast (12th) lost 5-0, we finally got brought back down to earth with a hefty bump but a far superior Ivory Coast team.

home v. Burundi (124th) won 4-1, a well-fought victory especially coming just days after the whipping off Ivory Coast.

home v. Republic of Congo (38th) won 3-1!!! Without a doubt our finest victory so far as the pressure told on the Republic of Congo, who needed a win to have any chance of catching Ivory Coast at the top of the group.

away v. Morocco (48th) 1-1, we went into the game level on points with Morocco but placed behind them due to their win against us earlier in the competition. The Moroccans dominated but only managed 1 goal and then up popped Julius Wobay to hit an equaliser on 88 minutes We again had a chance to win in injury time but another Wobay effort bounced back off the post. At the time, the draw was a pleasant surprise so it didn't matter that the post had denied us 3rd in the group so much. That is until later..... *(see below)

Final Standings: World Cup 2010 African Qualifiers Group 2

Three more friendlies were played towards the end of the year:

home v. Bahamas (200th) 0-0, greyed-out players

away v. Barbados (117th) 1-1

away v. Netherlands Antilles (141st) 0-0

We learned our lesson and next year's friendlies will be against higher level opponents with proper players

End of year ranking: Only one defeat (albiet a heavy one) plus a good win against republic of Congo and a more than respectable away draw with Morocco helped us move up to 79th in the world rankings. Maybe we could have gone even higher had we chosen better options for our friendly games.

All in all, another decent year. The loss of a large number of players from the database was quite a blow, especially as no new re-gens appeared at all However, I did manage to persuade the promising Al Bangura (DM) to represent Sierra Leone despite his intial insistence that he wanted to play for England.

*BREAKING NEWS* The year ended on a real sour note as it was noticed that the groups for the African Nations 2010 had been drawn with no mention of qualifying and no participation from Sierra Leone It seems the game is following the same format as rl, where the top three in the World Cup Qualifying groups go to the African Nations..... meaning that Wobay's injury time miss against Morocco was vital after all. Had the ball gone in, we would have beaten Morocco to the final qualifying spot As a result we only have five friendlies and no competitive fixtures for 2010...

[Axefighter]

Tonga Update - October 2021

I thought I'd do an early update because the year has been VERY interesting so far.

At the start OCE Nations Cup, I was ranked higher than New Zealand and so I managed to skip the whole preliminary stages. I'd rather have played them though, as I like the competitive matches and it means New Zealand don't crush everyone. They strolled through the prelims and we both got through the Group Stage to get to the final...again. A 5-2 loss in the first leg left me needing a near miracle to win. It was not to be and I drew the home leg 1-1. A New Zealand player finished top scorer for the tournament with 23 goals

Soon after the tournament, my regens came through With the new players all being pretty damn good compared to what I started with, I crushed everyone in the last 5 friendlies of the year. The wins came 4-1, 5-1, 3-1, 3-0 and 4-0. The regens appeared in the matches and played strongly.

To the start of 2021, and New Caledonia challenged me to 3 friendlies over the year o.O. The first one I won 3-1. I always beat New Caledonia pretty easily so I never expected the next friendly result. After clawing a goal back on 44 minutes I ended the half 3-2 down. As for what happened after the break, well, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6308/tongasikwinpa5.png

The World Cup Qualifiers come around. I am ranked highest out of the Oceania teams, with Fiji second and NZ third. I thought this meant I would face Fiji, but to my despair it was New Zealand again. With my regens in full force, I tried my hardest but still came away with a 2-1 loss away and a 1-0 loss at home. Turns out New Zealand got some regens in as well, and one of them is worth £9.25 million

Off the pitch things were even more interesting! For the first time ever, two of my Tonga stars managed to break into another countries' league! With both my captain and vice captain moving to the N-League in South Korea, I figured this was the start of something great. One was a defender and the other a right winger/striker. The defender seemed to continuously get low ratings, but the winger just kept on scoring and was bought at the end of the season by K-League winners Busan! In his first season there, his value has gone through the roof, and his stats has risen sharply as well. With the highest player in Tongan history being worth only £3k, I was amazed as his value broke the £100 barrier. Imagine my shock when his value continued to surge up past £250k and then £500k! Here are his current stats and his value right now, but I can see him improving further despite his age.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/246/tongastarmanop4.png

In the middle of all this, my ranking has been hovering around the same level, but at one point it had crept all the way up to 43rd!

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2130/tongarankingsfl2.png

Here's to a bright Tongan future, New Zealand SHALL be beaten!

[Axefighter]

DodgeeD - That's an absolutely amazing turnaround that quickly! Can you post some pictures of your top players so I can get an idea to the strength of your squad?

I'm stuck playing mainly Oceanian(sp?) teams because even the weakest African teams have players better than mine

[The Shaman]

Nicaragua Update - end 2007

2007 results

Nothing too unexpected here. Managed to beat the two Caribbean teams (who I expected to be a bit weaker), held my own against a much stronger Costa Rica side as well as on the road in Panama and managed a draw against El Salvador. I'm honestly not sure I ever picked my strongest side as I did shuttle some players in and out to see what I've got. All friendly matches on the year, but I can't be disappointed at all with it.

The year ahead

As you can see I've drawn Belize in the opening phase of WC qualifiers. Not a bad draw, if I go by FIFA rankings the only weaker teams I could have lucked into are Montserrat and the USVI. So out of ten possible opponents I've drawn the third weakest. Unfortunately it gets tougher as a win here puts me ahead to face the Honduras who are definitely a strong side and would probably crush me (if we even get there).

Best 11 on the year

Not much to say here. I'll admit that with just a handful of friendlies and no matches to watch as only one player plying his trade outside of Nicaragua (Wilber Sanchez, who doesn't make the best 11 is in El Salvador) it is a little tough to get a feel, but hopefully as time goes on I will.

Ranking graph

Some slight improvement, from 153 to 147. Hopefully I get some results in competitive matches and we can move up a bit more.

[MadWoodster]

Just a quick reminder to everyone to keep the website as it allows us to at a glance see how everyone is doing and automatically award points for your performance. I will be neatening up the display this weekend of the performances as it is getting a little crowded there.

Electronicmaji welcome to the challenge, don't think you actually said what country you are managing.

DodgeeD sorry to hear about your disappearing players, but you seem to have carried on the good performances even without them, shame you didn't quite sneak into the African Nations Cup, but you are certainly making headway. Be interesting to see if you get a higher seeding and thereby a slightly easier group next time. You are now clearly 3rd on the leaderboard and I have a feeling you are going to be challenging Axefighter and BS_8 soon.

Axefighter well done on becoming the highest ranked team in Oceania, the only trouble is that you won't get the ranking points that you would get for winning the preliminary games. I am sure you are getting closer to that day when you will finally beat New Zealand. As in real life the Oceania nations cup is used as a pre-qualifier for the world cup qualifier (though the rules recently changed making it slightly more complicated, but they aren't in FM08) good to hear your players breaking into the South Korean league, that should be a big boost. You might like to try an Asian side or two in a friendly and see how you get on there.

[electronicmaji]

Im managing tonga

is it just me or does all the Taufahemas in the squad drive you nuts? Its like half the team being surnamed Smith.

[blowcrapup]

Really struggling with Pakistan can't seem to solve my goalkeeper problems.

[Annihilator666]

Annihilator666 - Belize - 2010 - End Of Year Update

Fixtures & Results - 2010 Results | 2011 Fixtures

World Ranking - 126th | Ranking Graph

Records - Nation Overall Records | Nation Season Records

A boring year, with only three friendlies, which resulted in two losses and one draw.

Another bunch of players retired, but there was an influx of regens taking my eligible player count up to 71. However, most of them are absolutely carp and they're all playing in the Belizean league, which means they'll just gradually get worse.