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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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!

Something big is about to happen part 2 Juventus has had a bid rejected!

Something big is about to happen! Hopefully...

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.

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...

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...

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Group Stage! For the second season in a row we were lucky with our draw. This season we drew Besiktas seeded first. We have to get through this group in second place. We are a much better side than both besiktas and Antwerp. Interestingly Matias Palacios plays as a midfielder for Besiktas who also have our former left winger Stephan Beuing in their squad. This is looking good!

Champions League Right now I'm just waiting for the moment I can extend Camavingas contract. And It better come soon! He's incredible in this team. Things were going well, so i decided to field some of our San Marinese players in this match with Cesarini in goal, Bonifazi in defense, Podeschi in midfield and Raschi up front. It is valuable for them to get some gametime at high level.

Some spectacular transfers: We actually sold some San Marinese players. Both players have shown huge progress at our club and then it occurred to me that we need to get some new faces in, in order for the national squad to be strenthened. We managed to get some good deals out of it and chose teams where we could see they didn't have anyone else as right midfielder and attacker respectively. I'm hoping they can develop even further this way.

Red Star (H) Our best match in the qualification so far. We introduced our new right winger Karel Hoogma at half time and he made an instant impact. Interestingly when looking at Red Stars lineup we find a few familiar faces: Up front we have our former top scorers Alex Millan and Slobodan Tedic (he was only at the club for half a season and we couldn't extend his contract). In midfield we have former talent Pintado who never made the cut, and on the right wing we have Rodic who is currently on loan at Red Star, from Folgore/Falciano. Anyways... Group Stages it is!

Into the playoffs Nothing special about this match. We did what we came for. Victory.

We're back on track It seems we've gone through the worst of the crisis. Morale is still low, but we are getting the results we want for now.