[FM22] San Marino build a nation (Folgore/Falciano)

[TheNapalmNerd]

Champions League Odds

Started 6.001 and now we're at 151. I smell progress right there!

[TheNapalmNerd]

Players out on loan

We currently have 72 players out on loan, and these are the top players right now. As you can see our top player Cristophe Martin has benefitted a lot from his loan at Fenerbahce and has gone from being three stars to four stars in just one year. Looking at his attributes he is right up there among the best players at the club.

If only we could add a bit more finishing to his game then he'd be deadly up front of our attack and would surely push either Scamacca or Huerta out on the bench. I'm hoping his progression will continue explosively over the next year. We have a gem in our hands, and he's homegrown at the club. Martin has a bright future at the club as it seems right now.

Other than that Branislav Cvetic is out on loan at Bayern Munich. No one else showed interest in him and I managed to negotiate a bit with them for him to be considered a star player. I'm hoping it will guarantee him some football at a higher level over the course of the next season. Cvetic is another homegrown player, who we really want at the club in the long haul, his progression has also been stalled however, and we hope he will show progress like Martin has.

Other than that we have some talent out on loan to maybe come make a difference once they're back. We just incorporated several of our loan players into the first team squad this season, as we really switched things up. We've sold a lot of youngsters this season as well, and I'm thinking of doing it once more next season to make sure that we have more talented players out on loan. Of course most of the players we buy seem talented when they're 15-16 years old, but many of the players are not turning into superstars and are already stalled when arriving at the club at 18.

We have talented players at almost every position except for goal. The best player we have there is Duncan Stuart scottish national keeper:

He's mostly seen as a backup option to Iñaki Peña, and he'll probably never get an official appearance at the club.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Transfer special Summer 2028

Kill your darlings, summer of breakups, etc... I had been thinking of many things to name this post, as it was indeed a summer where we switched up a lot of things in the squad. This summer saw 37 players permanently leave the club, while "only" 17 new players arrived at the club. I have been keeping a huge youth squad with way too many players out on loan and many players who we had to let go of simply because they were limited in ability and talent.

Previously we had also been able to sneak in a monthly income at about 175K pr player out on loan for most of the talented ones, securing us a heavy income and helping us further the progress of our squad, with immense effect. That option didn't seem to be available this season, and with our aging players out on loan it was time to cash in.

515M Euro! That's a lot of money arriving at the club. Of course some of it will be paid through installments over the next few seasons, so our finances are looking sharper than ever. There is a paradox in all this though. We have sold a lot of players and as a result our club reputation has gone from 1,5 to 1 star.

This limits the amount of players available to us, and we are once more stuck with an enormous amount of money and no one to spend it on. We spend big on Camavinga (whom we have just agreed a two year extension on his contract with), but it is nowhere near the amount of money we have at our disposal.

Interestingly you can see that Tre Penne have gone up to one star reputation as a result of the league improving and them just going with the flow. They were once again severely beaten in Europe, but this is good. We will probably soon see other clubs show the same progress in terms of reputation.

The cleanup however wasn't good on us. We said goodbye to some huge names this summer: Rasmus Kristensen, Joao Pedro, Exequiel Palacios, Matias Viti and Afonso Valente were all huge names in our squad and players who have been important during last season. Joao Pedro has been our number one left winger over the last three seasons, but once we were no longer able to lend out all our players we had to make a decision and he came short, while Marc Aso finally was integrated into the first team furthermore we also have Urko Torres as a backup. Pepi is out on loan as we tried to extend his contract and Huerta is now one of our top strikers. I doubt Pepi will come back, as he might get sold once he returns to the club next summer. Kristensen was a casualty as Gullermo Mena was promoted. Palacios and Valente were let go of as we brought in Camavinga. Baturina is now degraded to being a sub even though we lent out Cvetic, but Karel Hoogma has taken over the right wing. In Defense Mattia Viti was no longer needed as Lucas Royon is brought in.

All in all this gives us a team that has seen lots of changes over the summer, and especially since the start of January:

By far our strongest team so far, and a huge step forward since the start of the summer.

Our weakest link is our goalkeeper. He is an okay player, and has done well at the club, but we are lacking both reflexes and handling from him:

RB:

CD:

Left Back is another "weak link" as Parisi is one the lower rated players in the squad. He is still quite capable though, but one we are looking to improve.

CM:

AMR:

AML:

ST:

 

Other honourable mentions on the bench:

 

That's it so far for this season. As always I'm looking forward to the January transfer window as it is where we have been able to buy the best players. This summer has been a low when looking at players who were available in the transfer market. I might have another sellout next season and then try and have a summer without many players leaving in order for us to have some consistency and a higher reputation as a result of that. It will be hard however, as the fun part of Football Manager for me is the transfer business, but it might be the best for the club that we have a season without too many high rated players leaving the club.

And with that. On to this seasons matches in the Champions League. Next up we have Barcelona at home.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Barcelona (H)

Direct Free Kick from De Jong and was the only time anyone came close to something in this match.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Antwerp (A)

Papetti giving away a penalty in the last seconds. I could have killed that guy...

Not a great match, and we should ahve come out victorious. An annoying result.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Stadium expansion:

Having asked for three years, they finally gave in and accepted a modest expansion to our stadium, while being afraid of the financial consequences.

So we went out and spent 1.22M from our overall balance of 598M. Clearly we're taking a huge risk financially...

[TheNapalmNerd]

Besiktas (H)

Back to winning ways. Things went well, so we gave some time to both Marani and Bonifazi in this game. It's starting to look okay in the group.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Besiktas (A)

I think we just blew it... Another match giving away a crucial penalty. This one was on the edge of the box without any real danger. This means Besiktas has overtaken us in the group. Now we just have to assure that we'll at least go into the Europa League...

[TheNapalmNerd]

Antwerp (H)

A match we should have won...

It seems we're going into the Europa League. And we don't deserve more than that...

[TheNapalmNerd]

Barcelona (A)

A draw away from home in a match were we fielded the better team, but ultimately came short. Barcelona fielded a lot of youngsters and a few superstars. We still have a long way to go and I believe our two wingers to be our weak point right now. Aso doesn't like big matches, which means he won't be here much longer, because if he doesn't like big matches then we really don't have space for him in our squad. Because of that Baturina is effectively again our right winger for the time being.

EDIT: Cheers to me totally forgetting Karel Hoogma who is our preferred right winger but wasn't available because of injury. He's back again and still very good.

With this result we assured that we will go into the Europa League in february.

In the Europa League we are drawn against Shaktar Donetsk in the first knockout round.

We should be better than them, but it could be a match between two even teams. For now I'm hoping we can do magic in the january transfer window. Last year we had three big names incoming. If we could do that again, things would be looking good against Shaktar.

Edited September 19, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Something big is about to happen!

Hopefully...

[TheNapalmNerd]

Something big is about to happen part 2

Juventus has had a bid rejected!

[TheNapalmNerd]

Announce Sesko!

Our biggest signing so far, and one I did not expect to become available. We actually have great strikers, but no way I was gonna let this one go. We spent a huge amount of money on him, paid it right away and made sure PSG will pay a big sum every weekend. This also pumped up his price, and with us spending even further, it ended up scaring the competition away. Now we only need to secure a longer contract with the guy. This should be doable as his value is skyhigh at the moment and potential bidders will wait some time before coming for him.

He's only 3,5 stars in our squad right now, but that will change once he gets playing. Massive signing!

[TheNapalmNerd]

January Transfer Window

Another window son and done, and we were once again amongst the top spenders in Europe.

This is mostly due to the fact that up front we brought in Benjamin Sesko. Other than that we didn't really spend big.

Mostly just young talent who we lent out again. We spend some money at Victor San Marino, and are hoping our investment will show in the future when Nanni becomes better, and Victor San Marino hopefully get some better facilities and are able to produce better talent. Other than Sesko we decided to bring in Barto on loan on deadline day.

I was hoping we'd see some more talent be available to us in the transfer list and hopefully we could have gotten a new Left Winger, but nothing showed up and in the end i decided to go for Barto as he looks capable of producing magic on both left and right wing. He'll be a great addition for our matches against Shaktar.

 

On the outs we decided to part with some talent once again:

Most of these players were never really going to make it at the club. I decided to let Scamacca go as we can't guaratee him any matches in the future. We still have Christophe Martin coming back to the club in the summer unless of course we decide to send him out on loan again. That could be a viable option for now. The worst thing about letting Scamacca go is the fact that I believe we once again have taken a big hit on our reputation...

We also sold Roberto Bonifazi as I believe he is capable of playing elsewhere and we then could be giving some gametime to another San Marinese player, this way we now have a few players out conquering europe, while we make sure that the best talent is getting trained well before sending them out.

Bodø were lacking defenders, hence guaranteed to play almost every match, and they are alson in contention for european football, so it'll be a good experience for him.

Edited September 21, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Shaktar (H)

A match between two equal sides, and not the result we had hoped for. We're going to have to be better away from home if we are to get something from this draw.

EDIT: Updated with new 2-2 result after crash dump...

Edited September 22, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Crash...

So... I had a crash dump after the Shaktar match yesterday, as I put my computer in sleep mode after the match, and hurried out the door.

What do I do now? Do I save before the match, and go for a draw, or do I just live with whatever result comes up?

 

Edit: I holidayed the match two times, and the second match was 2-2 as the original match. Updated the original post.

Edited September 22, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Shaktar (A)

WIIIIN!!!

Very good result away from home and we dominated them. I switched tactics for this one, as we had three suspensions in central defense with Pavard, Papetti and our Uruguayan newgen Lucas Royon all suspended from too many yellow cards in the prior match, resulting in us starting with Otasowie and Tommy Doyle in defense. We also had an injruy for Benjamin Sesko in this one and had four of our San Marinese talents on the bench. I believe this could be the tactic we're gonna use away from home in Europe, as I'm looking to dominate midfield a bit more, in order for us to really take control of the matches.

We're drawn up against Valencia in the second round:

These are all good teams, and I believe we are luck that we ended up with Valencia, they seem like an equal to us right now.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Valencia (H)

Demolition. Valencia didn't field a particularly good team against us and it showed.

I was a bit worried when they scored their second goal, because Belotti is a player who has always been great against me in most saves, and even at 35 he's still a real goalgetter, but that was the last we saw of them in the match and we were the only ones who showed up for the second half. Valencia have a few injuries among their best players, and showed up with their reserve keeper even though they have Lunin ready. We were lucky to meet a decimated squad, and punished them for it.

 

[TheNapalmNerd]

Valencia (A)

They actually fielded a much stronger team this match:

Still we won again and this is great for our season as we are looking to redeem our poor showing in the Champions League. We will have lots of players suspended in the next round though, and that could be a problem in the next round:

The winner of this draw will go up against either Liverpool or Sporting CP.

 

 

[TheNapalmNerd]

Class of 2029

Not much to see here. I'm hoping we can train them a bit and send them out in europe to play consistently.

[TheNapalmNerd]

NxGn 2029

Two players on the list this season. Huerta has been placed higher before. They are not rated highly because of our reputation. We have three other players in the list incoming soon. That will be interesting to watch.

In 4th place:

20th

26th

 

Gazing through the list I noticed this guy at 27th, who we have placed bid on right away.

Edit: He didn't want to join us yet.

Edited September 22, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Real Madrid (A) part one.

Our squad is lacking depth in this one, as we have four suspensions, and two injuries. Huerta is out for four weeks with a Hernia and Benjamin Pavard is out for two months with a broken leg. We're playing with 16 year old Mazzola on right wing, and two midfielders in defense. Hoogma is small of stature and will probably be struggling for domination in midfield. This is going to be interesting.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Real Madrid (A) Part two

They didn't underestimate us and fielded a very strong team against our decimated squad. This was a horrible match to watch. We got absolutely destroyed, and it was expected...

[TheNapalmNerd]

Real Madrid (H)

An okay result in a match where we could maybe even have won. It didn't help us that Royon played a simple pass for Osimhen to have a free run at our goal and score. In the build up to this match we Inaki Pena got a Herina and will be out for four weeks, resultingin us starting with 18 year old Cesarini in goal. He wasn't the only San Marinese player as we also had 19 year old Raschi up front. we didn't really have anything to lose in this match after all, so we could just as well give some time on the pitch in a big match to the youngsters.

 

And with that our season is over. It ended up being okay, in spite of us failing to play well in the Champions League. Now we're gonna focus on the build up for the next season. We could do with a better defense. They haven't been playing well over the season. A new goalkeeper would be a dream as well, but i really doubt we're gonna see anyone better than Pena become available. The goalkeeping department is really hard to fill in.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Another Domestic Treble

Our Assistant Dennis Bergkamp has secured Champions League qualification for the next season. On to the ninth season!

[TheNapalmNerd]

Out of nowhere!

Didn't even ask for it, but I like their way of thinking.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Soon about to break into the top 20. We should do that after the 9th season as we'll lose our first season in the champions league next year.

[TheNapalmNerd]

FK Sarajevo (H)

Start of new season, and we're back with a bang. Much better start than last season.

We're looking into a few positions where we can optimise the starting 11. We've integrated Jevremovic and will be training Huerta as a Left Winger, as both Guillermo Mena and Urko Torres didn't perform in the continental matches last season. Jevremovic is much better defensively. That could be very important once we (hopefully) reach the latter stages. Huerta has everything to be an inside forward and can also perform as an inverted winger. We have Christophe Martin back in the squad after two years away from the club. He is a much better player now than when he left on loan. He scored his 150th goal for the club in this match. Great to have a club icon back in the team.

[TheNapalmNerd]

FK Sarajevo (A)

Great allround performance and a debut assist to our new goalkeeper on his birthday, 19 year old William Hamilton.

He's not exactly better than Peña, but the potential is there, and with the potential of him becoming homegrown as well it just seemed like the best option available to get him. 31M Euro from West Brom due to a relegation clause. I'm hoping to see him develop into a reliable player for the next many seasons.

 

We're up against Bohemian in the next round:

Edited September 23, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Taking a step down, take two up:

We've had lots of players coming in and out of this club over the years, and it shows in our club reputation. This season I have totally destroyed it by having a clearance sale among many of our players who I deemed had no future at the club. I will be trying to replace them with better talent, who we will loan out in the future. But for now we have a good team who have been in two Europa League Quarter Finals and one Semi Final, and also have been in the first knockout round of the champions league two times. With all that in mind, it pains me to show you this...

The good tendency is that we now have two teams that are considered one star, but we have really taken a huge fall... As a result of that I have been looking into what would be the best thing to do in order for us to have some succes, and I have set a new aim for this season. The Conference League.

We have only participated in it once, our first season, but ever since then it has been either Champions League or Europa League, but having gazed at the latest winners of the Conference League I believe that we are stronger when comparing us and them.

Of all these teams I only believe we would come short against Chelsea, and Tottenham. We would ahve to be very unlucky if we were to end up drawing someone like them in the first knockout round, and our coefficient both club and national would really benefit from it.

This might not seem like the most ambitious plan, but we have more money than we could ever need, and both the Champions League and The Europa League are long shots at the moment hence the conference league would provide a platform where we would at least get into the final. That's the goal this season, now we only need to not qualify for the Champions League or Europa League. We have to lose the next two rounds...

[TheNapalmNerd]

Bohemians (A)

We fielded a team of San Marinese players and our new goalkeeper and they got a result. I'm not really disappointed...

[TheNapalmNerd]

Bohemians (H)

Our San Marinese players actually got in front before I changed every position for them to lose. We could not have done something like that in the first season, so the general level of the San Marinese players have gotten a lot better through these last eight years. We're drawn into another round with FK Sarajevo this summer.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Sesko four year contract

It's expensive to extend contracts sometimes, but this one is definitely worth it. I extended it in may and now again in august. He only wants to extend one year at a time, but I managed to sneak in the optional extension in this one, but it cost a lot in loyalty bonus.

[TheNapalmNerd]

FK Sarajevo (H)

Another great result from the San Marinese players. This will be good for national coefficient.

[TheNapalmNerd]

FK Sarejevo (A)

We had to lose by a big margin, and it was actually a bit difficult against the opposition, so we ended up opening a highway for them to come through and get the necessary goals for us to go into the Conference League. This is what we wanted this season. I'm looking forward to competing in this cup again. I have never won it in FM. We're gonna go for it!

Edited September 23, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Group Stage

We had the second highest coefficient of all teams only Roma were higher. This group is favorable in every way. We will be going for six wins!

[TheNapalmNerd]

AEK Larnacas (H)

The start we wanted. good performance all over the pitch.

[TheNapalmNerd]

The New Saints (A)

Another win in the group and the tendency shows already that it is us and Slavia Prague who are going through to the next round. Jevremovic has been an upgrade at right back (of course also on a cheap note, but still). Huerta is still not familiar with left wing, but will soon be an important player on that side.

 

[TheNapalmNerd]

Slavia Prague (A)

We take the lead in the group with this victory. The result was never in any real danger.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Slavia Prague (H)

And with that we've secured first place in the group.

[TheNapalmNerd]

The New Saints (H)

Another win, and we're eight points ahead of Slavia Prague in second.

[TheNapalmNerd]

AEK (A)

Six wins from six matches. We got what we came for, and so far so good. It will be interesting to see how the latter stages unfold. We have a real chance at winning this competition. Our board thinks that as well. They expect us to go into the final as a minimum.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Transfer update January 2030:

lots of transfers have been happening over the course of the season so far. We are now in february, and deadline day of the transfer window took a bit of a turn as we went out on a huge spending spree.

First of all. Over the course of the autumn season I decided that our Left Winger Urko Torres doesn't have a future at the club. We have Huerta in his place, and would need a replacement.

So we went out and replaced Urko Torres with Ferran Torres:

Technically he is no good compared to Urko, but mentally and physically he is just a huge upgrade. At about the same time Lorenzo Lucca became available. We don't really need him, but we have fallen short in numbers in europe with only two dedicated strikers and it's Lorenzo Lucca, so of course we went out and bought him.

And that was actually supposed to be that. Combined with the transfer we made for central defense with Dennis Robledo in the summer, we actually have a team that allround is looking very good.

Robledo has been a revelation in our squad and has pushed Otasowie and Andrea Papetti down the pecking order. So we went out and sold Otasowie as he wanted away and we really weren't using him, and along the way Club Brugge also placed an identical bid (don't know what that's about, but I have seen the tendency with many of our players that clubs come with identical bids for several players) for our long time starting keeper Iñaki Peña who we would easily let go as I replaced him with younger talent William Hamilton in the summer..

It has also occured to me that Mykhailo Rusyn our Left back talent was actually just as good as Parisi, and we want to guarantee him some more playing time, so we said goodbye to Parisi as well:

Rusyn will become homegrown at the club, at the end of the next season.

having not used Baturina for a long time, we decided to finally say goodbye to one of the guys who has really been pivotal to our succes.

That was supposed to be it. We had cleaned up our squad and filled in with some good replacements and younger talent who went out on loan:

 

 

Then deadline day happened...

Albertini and Valentim went out on loan again, and then suddenly we had several player become available in the transfer list:

Julian Krahl is an experienced backup to Hamilton:

Miroshnichenko is a player we looked at long time ago before he joined Manchester United (on a free) and now he had become available. We already have Jevremovic and Mena (out on loan) in that position, but we have so much money from all our sales this season, so:

Then Van Den Berg became available and seeing that Papetti hasn't been a total revelation at the club and is always unhappy and wants away:

After selling Baturina and with Tommy Doyle finally coming short and being unhappy all the time:

I am constantly watching the transfer list and also who is not yet available. I had hoped for Goncalo Inacio, but then we settled with Goncalo Ramos for now. Mostly just because we could:

And with that. We have gone through January and are more ready than ever to go out and play in Europe. The aim is to win the Conference League. I might have just totally demolished our team cohesion, and we have way too many strikers now, but we still have lots of time to make everything click.

 

With that our squad looks like this:

 

Ready for the next chapter!

Edited September 24, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd

[TheNapalmNerd]

Next up

Wolfsberger AC - Two matches we are supposed to win. Interestingly none of the big teams (IMO) drew each other. Leeds, Athletic, Monaco, Roma and Wolfsburg are probably our biggest competition, with Roma edging the others.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Wolfsberger AC (A)

Wobbly start and much better performance in the second half, after being told it was unacceptable. Robledo was injured in the days before the match and we started with Royon and Van Den Berg who have never played together before. Defesively a bad performance from the players, but so far we can outscore the opponents it seems.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Our road to the final:

Club Brugge or Fenerbahce in the next round and then probably Monaco in the Semi Final.

[TheNapalmNerd]

Stadium Expansion once again:

12th march

16th march

 

[TheNapalmNerd]

Wolfsberger AC (H)

I would have liked a more secure victory, but we'll take it. So far this season our last loss was when we qualified for the Conference League. Other than that it's all wins. We want to continue that. THis victory also secures more points for the coefficient.

Next up we have Fenerbahce who we are supposed to beat comfortably as well. Compared to our squad their best players are 2,5 stars. Let's hope it shows.

[TheNapalmNerd]

NxGn

We have Abel Basto in 3rd place on the list.

No one else on the list and no incoming transfers between them as well..

[TheNapalmNerd]

Fenerbahce (H)

I'm glad we had SSesko in this one. Things were tight until he burned them off the field. We let in too many goals in this one though. Maybe we were a bit too offensive, but I really just wanted to outscore them, especially after their start.