Haddock

Really enjoying my save in Croatia, but last season was tough. With three games to go my Kustosija was on course for our first league title, sitting one point ahead of Dinamo and about to face last place Gorica. Things went well, in fact very well, and at the break we were 4-0 up. As the next game was a decisive one against Dinamo at home and my squad is far from deep I made some changes. With 20 minutes to go we missed a penalty, but that's not a big deal, right? Right...? What followed was basically one long highlight (despite playing with only key) were they floated four crosses into an outnumbered and completely ordinary striker who suddenly turned into prime Jan Koller. In the next game we managed a draw against Dinamo. On the last day we won, and while Gorica kept Dinamo to a draw for 70 minutes they were unable to hold on to that result. The title therefore went to Dinamo one point ahead of us. To all of you struggling and finding almost impossible ways to screw things up - you are not alone.

Yeah I started out with some good players and won promotion in the first year. It’s probably the easiest to check in the pre game editor which clubs in the third division that have the highest reputation and facilities. On FM24 I think it was Kustosija.

I’m about ten seasons in with Kustosija. They start with good youth recruitment which helps a lot. My experience has been that most players are worth almost nothing, but a few young players that show potential can be sold for good money (and always get a sell on percentage as that could be massive). I think I sold a player for around 2 million euros after my third season. As long as you invest in your youth facilities you should be able to make progress as the newgens in Croatia are very good. In my save money became abundant after qualifying for Europe the first few times. The hardest part is actually keeping the talents you get as the board don’t seem to consider how much money you have in the bank when they deem an offer “to good to refuse”.

The Spanish B-teams are usually competing in the regular league structure, right? In your case it might simply be a case of waiting a few seasons for them to be promoted to the lowest playable Spanish league.

I started with a newly promoted team in the second tier of Croatia. We have since then won promotion and established ourselves in the first tier (consisting of ten teams). We are now among the ten clubs with the highest reputation in the country. The U19 team was not in any youth division at the start and still hasn’t been invited. The U19 league consists of 16 teams and they don’t seem to change from season to season. Does this mean that the youth team of my club will never play in the league regardless of the clubs’ growing reputation? Also, because of the above I have instructed my youth team manager to arrange friendlies every week, but he has never arranged a single game. Is this a bug or is something other than ticking the box under “staff responsibilities” required?

After lurking around for a while I've decided to join in on the challenge. Initially started with Wacker Innsbruck as I thought Austria was yet to be completed, only to later realise that @Perre8 had not only completed the challenge with that exact team - but did it in only 10 seasons! I know it's not really a competition but after seeing that everything I would manage to achieve would pale in comparison. So a new start in Croatia and Kustosija it was. Already a few seasons into the save and really enjoying it! Fun to see a few others here doing Croatia as well.

Finally!

The distant future, the year 2053, The world is quite different ever since the rise of Tre Penne in the early fourties. There is no more unhappines. We no longer rely on Andy Selva, Instead we have uni-browed newgens. Finally, San Marino rule the world! Or well, that last bit might be a bit of an exaggeration. But we're making progress for sure. After going through the divisions and establishing Victor as the strongest club in Italy, Mikel Arteta och and then Eric Garcia continued the work. They now regularly produce decent players for our national team. I moved on to the Campionato Sammarinese and Tre Penne. We're now able to compete with the very best but are yet to produce anything more usable for the national side. The rest of the clubs in the league are struggling a bit to keep up, but the reputation is steadily growing. The national team is now a force to be reckoned with, we qualified for Euro 2052 and made it out of a group of Italy, Serbia and Ireland. Unfortunately we missed out of the World cup by almost the smallest marigin possible... The core of the team is our first generation of players that are actually any good and they're still young. Best of the bunch is the physical monster that is Mattia Cesarini! With him we keep rising on the world ranking. Finally, the two traitors who despite growing up as sanmarinese opted to play for Italy. Let's hope there won't be any more of their kind. Avanti San Marino!

That’s impressive, congratulations! Are you now at a stage where players with dual citizenship chooses San Marino over Italy?

In my save Victor has now established itself as a top club in Serie A, but somehow I can’t upgrade my youth facilities all the way (currently at level 18). Training facilities, youth coaching and recruitment is maxed out (level 20) but I can’t even ask the board to improve youth facilities any more. Anyone else having this issue in FM23?