[FM24] The Enclave's Elevation

[CameronFM]

The Enclave's Elevation

This thread will follow the progress of the good old San Marino challenge. I have been working away on this save behind the scenes of my Servette blog, and find it enjoyable to break up different styles of play and recruitment. I started an attempt at this on FM23 with Victor San Marino, and despite making progress on the domestic scene, I felt the save stagnated because of the lack of progress internationally. We found players coming through difficult to attain; whilst we struggled massively to get any Sammarinese talents out on loan to aid with their development.

This year, I decided to go with the database provided by Luron on the Steam Workshop (which can be found here) whilst loading Italy's Serie D for the opportunity of managing Victor San Marino at a later date should I wish. 

At this moment in time, we are 10 seasons into the save, and I will bring you up to speed with quick seasonal overviews.

Goals

General rules and goals from the save carry on from the original challenge thread here.

We have the following national goals in place, which will be updated as we go along.

• Winning a Game:
• Winning a Competitive Game:
• Have a player beat Andy Selva's goal record of 9:
• Player to score 50 international goals:
• Player to score 100 international goals:
• Newgen player reach 100 caps:
• Score a hat-trick in a game:
• Beat a team ranked in the top 50 in the world:
• Get San Marino into the top 150 in the world: 
• Get San Marino into the top 100 in the world:
• Get San Marino into the top 50 of the world:
• Get promoted from Nations League D: 
• Get promoted from Nations League C:
• Get promoted from Nations League B:
• Qualify for the European Championship:
• Qualify for the World Cup:
• Survive group stage in the European Championship:
• Survive group stage in the World Cup:
• Win the Nations League:
• Win the European Championships:
• Win the World Cup:
• Become the number-one ranked team in the world:

A lot to tick off internationally, but domestically it is just about making the country's standard of football one of the leading.

_____________________________________________

AC Virtus

Antonio Selva became a semi-professional manager at the young age of 29.

But why AC Virtus? Well for no particular reason. They jumped out at me when reviewing San Marino football history; they are one of the oldest clubs and are yet to win a Championship. Their only trophy is the Coppa Titano in the 22/23 season, which means Selva will be in charge for the Supercoppa and has the opportunity to add to their lone trophy.

Is he going to be the man to lead both club and country to success across the globe?

 

 

Edited March 11 by CameronFM
Additional information concerning current play time

[CameronFM]

Season		Champions League		Europa League		Europa Conference		Club		Position		Coppa Titano		Supercoppa
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2023/24		N/A				N/A			N/A				AC Virtus	3rd			Winners			Winners            
2024/25		N/A				N/A			1QR				AC Virtus	3rd			QFs			Runners-up                     
2025/26		N/A				N/A			N/A				AC Virtus	1st			Winners			Winners
2026/27	        1QR				N/A			4QR				AC Virtus	1st			QFS			Winners			

 

Achievement							Date Achieved
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winning a Game:						07/06/24 - San Marino 3 Bhutan 1
Winning a Competitive Game:
Have a player beat Andy Selva's goal record of 9:
Player to score 50 international goals:
Player to score 100 international goals:
Newgen player reaches 100 caps:
Score a hat-trick in a game:
Beat a team ranked in the top 50 in the world:
Get San Marino into the top 150 in the world: 
Get San Marino into the top 100 in the world:
Get San Marino into the top 50 of the world:
Get promoted from Nations League D: 
Get promoted from Nations League C:
Get promoted from Nations League B:
Qualify for the European Championship:
Qualify for the World Cup:
Survive group stage in the European Championship:
Survive group stage in the World Cup:
Win the Nations League:
Win the European Championships:
Win the World Cup:
Become the number-one ranked team in the world:           
         

 

Edited March 11 by CameronFM
Introducing season history & NT achievements

[CameronFM]

AC Virtus

Season 2023/24

Supercoppa | Campionate Sammarinese | Coppa Titano

Coming into a new nation and league, with no real knowledge of it, I was always going to feel the pressure of getting up to speed as quickly as possible on our opponents. To do so, I organised 8 friendlies against 15 of our league competitors to just see how our team ranks in comparison to San Marino as a whole.

At this point, it was worth noting that we felt Tre Penne and La Fiorita were probably the leading teams in the country. Expectations had to be set, and we knew that we wouldn't be trading punches with them - not yet anyway! The first Tre Fiori game wasn't a fair reflection on our squad's ability due to several fatigued players, so to see a resounding 5-1 win at the second time of asking, I was happy.

We made some amendments to the squad and decided that a traditional 442 was the way forward for now. We had a fine balance between offence and defence with this setup, knowing that we could punish teams on quick transitions. The season preview had us ranked at 7-1 for winning the title - not something I was hoping to achieve in the first season, but it did give me the confidence that we could be in higher positions come the European Playoffs!

Supercoppa

 

I spoke about Tre Penne being one of the big hitters in San Marino, but we devastated them with our quick transitional play to race to a 3-0 lead before the match was even a quarter of the way through! We had to soak up a lot of pressure for the second half, but from some fine defending, hard yards and determination, we secured our first trophy of the save - and a big scalp on Tre Penne!

Campionato Sammarinese

Considering this was the first season in charge at a semi-professional club, there was a lot to take from this maiden season:

• We were good at going toe to toe with big clubs - Our 21 wins were only bested by Champions Tre Penne. 
• 92 goals scored is the highest in the division - Simone Benincasa was the leading scorer for the team with 34 goals.
• 49 goals conceded is not too alarming. However, given that this is higher than the Champions and some clubs below us that found scoring difficult, it was an area for improvement.
• Dropping 24 points through defeats. Tre Penne defeated us at home (3-4) and away (0-1), but it was a defeat against 12th-place Domagnano that stung (1-2). We lost both games to Libertas.

A lot more positives to build on than negatives from the league stage, we went into the European Playoffs open-minded.

European Playoffs

Perhaps somewhat fortunate to progress from the Quarter Finals through the dreaded higher seed ruling, but we would take it nonetheless. Folgore defeated us away from home (1-2) whilst we won our home match (3-1). It was always going to be a close game, but after winning the first leg at home 2-1, we had something to hold onto and we did after Folgore levelled the tie after 10 minutes of play.

We had no real record advantage over Cosmos as both teams won their home league match 4-1. With a lot at stake, we had to hit the ground running, and with our first leg being played in front of our home fans, we ran out winners - yup, you guessed it, 4-1! With the tie all but dead and buried, it was about game management, and we grabbed a goal as early as 3 minutes in to settle the tie.

And then, the big one. A potential spot in European qualifiers for next season, and we had one of the big two to contend with. We had defeated them 3 times throughout the season (twice in the cup to follow) and were narrowly defeated on the road (2-3), so I did have some confidence concerning the game. If we stick to the game plan, then it should be plain sailing, and in fact, it was just that! A straight-forward 2-0 victory was enough to secure that European berth for 2024/25 - continental qualification in our first season!

Coppa Titano

Well, well, well.

A cup double in our first season in charge. It goes to show that this team does have the potential to compete with Tre Penne every week - cutting our errors in our play and coming from behind are the key points to take away for future seasons. However, the major concern I had with our play was that it can be very gung-ho as you can see from the high-scoring Quarter Final against La Fiorita. 

A lot to build upon from our first season in charge. A lot of food for thought. We just need to ensure that we have a successful transfer window during the summer so that we can try to better our very successful season.

Edited March 11 by CameronFM

[CameronFM]

San Marino

Period June 2023 to November 2023

UEFA Euro Qualifying - Group H

🇰🇿🇬🇧🇫🇮🇸🇮🇩🇰🇸🇲

Talk about being thrown into the deep end. I take over the job before the June international break, and the NT comes off the back of 4-0 defeats to Kazakhstan and Northern Ireland.

Realistically, I had no hopes or expectations for this qualifying campaign. It was going to take a few years to develop the country and have knock-on effects of benefitting from better youth players coming through. For now, we had to find a formation that would work for the team and that would soak up pressure and avoid unnecessary heavy defeats.

I put a lot of faith into a traditional 4-1-4-1 shape, with the emphasis on getting numbers behind the ball and being hard to play through. But I didn't achieve that.

Respectable results recorded; 2 x 0-2 against Finland, 0-3 against Denmark and 1-2 against Northern Ireland. It gave me some sort of hope, but the other defeats left a lot to be desired. Our two goals were through Nicola Nanni, the striker we are pinning our hopes upon, and Matteo Vitaioli from the penalty spot in Belfast.

We desperately needed to improve, and with the next set of internationals being a friendly window, I felt we had nothing to lose by moving our LM and RM one further up to try and get more support to Nanni in transitions. 

 

Edited March 11 by CameronFM

[CameronFM]

AC Virtus

Season 2024/25

UEFA Europa Conference League | Suppercoppa | Campionato Sammarinese | Coppa Titano

Our second season in charge, and with the bar set high after season 1, I knew that we had to get things right this season to continue the momentum. The summer saw 26 new players arrive into the club, with 6 departing, and I believe this could have been the first error in my ways.

I elected to move away from our very successful 4-2-4 shape for some reason and led with this formation going into the new season. Error number two; if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

UEFA Europa Conference League

First Qualifying Round

FC Flora | 🇪🇪 

I will be the first one to put my hands up and I expected these rounds to be far easier than they are. FC Flora was no small team. Most successful team in Estonia, and we were about to see why that was the case.

"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail" Benjamin Franklin

From memory, I think I underestimated the amount of time I had between the season changeover and had anticipated another couple of weeks before our first leg tie. We only managed two friendlies in this time, and despite winning these comfortably (2-0 and 4-0), we were not in a position to compete with Flora.

It was disappointing to exit the competition in the first round, but it was expected. I knew after the first leg that we had not prepared enough for these ties, and that would come back to impact us massively. It was time to turn our focus onto the domestic scene and pray that we could recover.

Supercoppa

Our defence of the Supercoppa was up first before the league campaign commenced, and it would be Tre Penne we would square off against. Both teams provided plenty of entertainment last season, but it would be the turn of the league champions.

Another disappointing result so early in the season. We had to pick ourselves up and dust off ahead of the league campaign. We proved we could compete at the top end of the table - it was time to show that ability.

Campionato Sammarinese

Arguments to be had that this was significantly a backwards step of a season. Where we lost fewer games, we somehow managed to go backwards and draw more games from winning positions.

Fewer points. Fewer goals for. More goals against. Defeats to 16th and 14th. Not good enough.

Overall, a disappointing league campaign, but it was not over yet. We had to contend with the European Playoffs, but if the league form was anything to go with, I was going to be uninspired entering these.

Uninspired, with good reason. We were not convincing against Libertas all season (0-0 away and 1-0 at home), so when the draw was made I had severe reservations.

We lost the opening home leg 0-1 and the pressure was mounting already. We did take control of the tie by the 56th minute as we were leading by 2 goals away from home, but a goal on the hour mark swung the game back and forth. A goal on 75 was enough to give us the lead in the tie once again, but it was a nervy finale to the game as Libertas found the net with 5 minutes to play. Thankfully, we were saved by the whistle and went into the Semi-Finals due to the higher seed rule, but it was here embarrassment awaited.

 

After the home leg, the task was simple: shore up the defence and see out the game. But Tre Fiori had other plans. By the 40th minute, they were leading the second leg 2-0 and 4-3 on aggregate, we managed to claw one goal back just before half-time to level the tie once again, but a capitulation in the second half saw us ship another 3 goals with no reply.

Truly and utterly embarrassed in the semi-finals, and our European dream through the playoffs was over. A lot to reconsider over the summer as I look to fix the season's mistakes and go again.

Coppa Titano

Our defence of the domestic cup was just as inspiring as our domestic football all season - poor!

We made tough work of the QF stage against San Giovanni, and laboured to that 2-1 victory at home. On the road, however, it was not to be as we had no answer to their first-half goals. Out in the QFs with a whimper, it was overall a dreadful season for the club.

 

[CameronFM]

San Marino

Period March 2024 to November 2024

Friendlies | UEFA Nations League D

🇱🇮🇸🇴🇧🇹🇦🇮|🇱🇮🇱🇺🇫🇴

With the friendly window rolling around in March, I went bold and brave by changing our 4-1-4-1 into a 4-1-2-3 by moving the wingers into a more advanced position. The idea would be that they could both get closer to Nanni and support him, and I felt it was a good test coming up against another lowly-ranked European side, particularly given we would be playing them two more times before the end of the year.

Unfortunately, the test of moving the wingers further up bore no fruits for the nation. We lacked any cutting edge, but despite making it tough for our hosts, it was going to be another red mark against our record. It's becoming more and more unwanted with each passing game, and something has to change.

So like every FM player, I changed the tactics again! I must admit, it is difficult to find a system to suit a pool of players, especially when your domestic club plays in a particular style.

The idea in principle would be that both wing-backs could offer more support to the wingers by doubling up on the opposition's wide players, whilst also supporting the CM with a further 2 options. Having the DLP sitting back in front of the back three would mean that 4 players would always be on the halfway line or in our half, which meant transitions were not leaving us very open. I had the opportunity to test this with our game against Somalia just days after the Liechtenstein defeat, and I was impressed with how the squad took to the system.

A game where we showed some attacking intent, but denied a famous draw right at the death. A lot of positives to take from this result as we look to the future, and it is a system that will be applied for the next friendly window in June - games against Bhutan and Anguilla.

A first win of the save for the nation, albeit in a friendly, but it was a massive confidence booster to know that we are capable of scoring goals and competing. The defeat to Anguilla was a tough one to take, if we had taken our chances when presented and hit a different angle of the woodwork it could have been a win - but that is all ifs, buts and coconuts. It was time to put this to the test with the looming Nations League in September, October and November - could we better our win over Bhutan?

No. Not really anyway. A couple of close encounters over Liechtenstein, both Luxembourg and the Faroe Islands were streets ahead of us and the realisation sunk in that this was a marathon, not a sprint.

One win doesn't determine our ability to win football matches, its the core of the team and the work put in on the park to attain respectable results, and we were lacking both. After a poor showing in competitive football, I decided to revisit the tactics board to see what we could come up with. 

 

NOTABLE NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS:

Win a game - San Marino 3 Bhutan 1

[CameronFM]

AC Virtus

Season 2025/26

Campionato Sammarinese | Coppa Titano

I would like to believe that I had learned from the previous error of heavily recruiting players, but I haven't. The summer of 2025 had lots of activity: 4 players left our ranks and 17 joined us. I would like to point out that I granted my DoF (AM if DoF is vacant) to make signings, and they have been fleshing out mostly the U21s and U19s, with some first-team additions here and there.

After the failures of season 2, I elected to go back to something I felt a bit more comfortable with. The original 4-2-3-1 has served Football Manager players very well over the years, I wanted to bring something in that would steady the ship and give us a platform to build upon. It felt dirty to resort to the tactic, but we needed to breed confidence at this stage, and I knew I could rely on it.

Coppa Titano

With no Supercoppa this year, I feel its right to focus in on the domestic cup before we look at the bread and butter that is the league campaign. We exited the cup last year to a lesser opponent, and I was keen to ensure that we did not make the same mistakes.

We made things difficult for ourselves in the cup opener as Libertas resurged late on in the day to put us under some pressure with two goals in 6 minutes. Thankfully, the presence of the home supporters was enough to drive the team to a resounding victory, and we put on a show to secure our name in the hate for the QFs. Another edgy game, but a late winner at home gave us the platform to pick Fiorentino off away from home before La Fiorita was beaten heavily 7-4 over the SF games. Our second final in three years, and who else would be our opponents? San Giovanni.

The side that dumped us out last year in the fashion they did was all that stood between us and reclaiming the cup. 

But they couldn't stop us this time. Despite the numeric advantage, San Giovanni dug in deep to try and cling to their title, but our quality shone through as we secured the Coppa Titano once again. A far better showing in the cup, and we were looking forward to the Supercoppa in the summer.

Campionato Sammarinese

CHAMPIONS.

AC Virtus secure their first-ever championship and in some fashion! It was the perfect mixture of a plan coming together; we resorted to basics like our first season in charge but massively improved on the results output generated in seasons 1 & 2. Our 25/26 record matched that of Tre Penne's title-winning season at the start, and we could look to the future. There is still work to be done for the future; our goals scored were massively down compared to the last two seasons (27% on S1 and 22% on S2), whilst our goals against were significantly decreasing (37% on S1,  39% on S2).

I wanted this momentum to continue into the summer, and after learning from the lack of preparation for Europe last season, I did not make this mistake twice.

The players had earned some time off after the cup final, but the players were back in for pre-season nice and sharp, allowing us to work on a few instruction changes within the system ahead of our European campaign. We would be entering the Champions League qualifiers for the first time, and I really did not want to be vacating the competition at the first opportunity.

 

[CameronFM]

San Marino

Period March 2025 to November 2025

FIFA World Cup Qualifiers - Group B

🇦🇲🇷🇴🇹🇷🇱🇻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

The football Gods were not kind to us at all with this draw. No side close to us in the rankings, full of players playing to a much higher standard than us, it was going to be a long year. 

And I was right. A staggering 61 goals were conceded over these ten games, and it was all about resetting big time to try and restore some faith and confidence in the players. I had to reset myself as some tactical decisions were baffling looking back on this - the 0-9 result against Latvia being the standout. We went into the half-time interval at 0-2 but did create some chances of our own. I elected to chase the gain for nothing more than pride, and it played right into their hands. Despite trying to revert to a more structured and defensive style of play, the damage was done, the heads were gone and Latvia were laughing at us. 

We were the worst-performing nation in Europe at this moment in time. It was embarrassing.

Something has to change. 

[CameronFM]

AC Virtus

Season 2026/27

UEFA Champions League | UEFA Europa Conference League | Supercoppa | Campionato Sammarinese | Coppa Titano

The biggest question on my lips was simple - Have I learned from 2024/25's failures in preparing for Europe?

We continued to proceed into the new season under the 4-2-3-1 formation and utilised it during the final weeks of pre-season.

It could have been a lot better in terms of performance, but we were a team in development. I had one eye on a new tactic to impose throughout the season and beyond, so I was keen to try and get as many positive results as possible.

I wanted to transition into this as soon as possible, but with the important games hitting right at the start of the season, my "Triangles" system would not come into effect until late on in the season.

UEFA Champions League

Bolt Arena, home to HJK Helsinki.

Welcome to the Champions League. Certainly no easy ties in Europe's elite competition, and what a way to make your debut with a tie against one of Sweden's elite. Football is a results business, but the exposure to this competition is massive for Virtus at this period in the save, along with the financial boosts we receive from it. I was not overly concerned with progress at this stage, but I did not want to be left embarrassed.

Well, 8-2 is one way to depart Europe's elite. By far one of the toughest draws we could have faced, so to lose in that manner to a side halfway through their season comes with no shame. It would have been nice to give them a game, but we are learning on the spot. The good news was that we would drop into the Europa Conference League qualifiers; the second round. More of our level at this stage, it certainly was a welcoming bonus.

UEFA Europa Conference League

Boris Paitchadze Dinamo Arena, Tbilisi, Georgia.

Bypassing the second through a bye, I was certainly not complaining about the progress, just that we missed out on some potential financial benefits along the way in the form of gate receipts. However, we would travel to Georgia for a big match against Dinamo Tbilisi and I felt that anything could happen here.

A valiant performance away from home kept Dinamo at bay as we travelled back with a singular goal to chase. We knew we could score in front of our fans, and we did just that. Dinamo were on the back foot for most of the game, and the argument could be had they were fortunate to get a second chance through extra time. A powerful header from our CB erupted the stadium as we took the lead once again, and once more it erupted at the sound of the final whistle - Virtus were one round away from European football.

Sheriff Sports Complex, Tiraspol, Moldova.

Home to one of Europe's favourite underdogs in 2021/22, Sheriff famously defeated Real Madrid at the Bernabéu, along with claiming 4 points from Shakhtar Donetsk. And they would be the opposition for this final qualifier against Virtus. To be at this stage was massive for San Marino, but could we shock Europe and qualify for the League Phase?

Lady Luck was on our side for the round before when the game went to extra time, she wasn't on our side this time around. After leading twice, we managed to equalise late on in the day but just ran out of steam in the end. No shame in defeat at this stage of the competition, but to come so close to the League Phase is bittersweet.

San Marino Domestic Season

Well, the goal here was plain and simple; prove that our bounce-back season was more than just a one-season wonder. We won the league on merit, now it was time to kick on and dominate the country. 

Supercoppa won back.

It wasn't pretty. It was poor scheduling also with the Supercoppa happening just 6 days after our extra-time defeat to Sheriff Tiraspol; we also had a game on the weekend. But a win is a win, and it is our 5th trophy of the save.

League title retained.

Despite being worse off points-wise (70 v 71 in 25/26), we scored more and conceded less. An impressive season by any standard. We secure the lone ticket back into the UEFA Champions League qualifiers once again and look to build a nice pot of cash to spend on the club infrastructure.

Coppa Titano - Lost

Despite going into the away leg 3-2 up, we found ourselves 5-2 up by half-time in this game. And then we just lost all bottle. Pennarossa hit us with 4 goals from the 65th minute onwards - complacency perhaps, but I was fuming with the performance. It was this performance that then prompted the change to our "Triangles" formation that we would continue to use until the latter stages of the 2032/33 season.

An aggressive 4-3-3 formation, that emphasises passing combinations and a high press. We had the better players in the country, it will take time to adjust to the new change and intensity of the tactic, but we adapted well to it for this season. 

A big summer ahead of us this time around as we look to one better our Champions League campaign this season.