Building a Nation: The San Marino Way

[jt]

San Marino Takeover Report

Even as i write this, I think i am a little mad taking this challenge on, but yes I am going to take on the ultimate football manager challenge and try and build the small nation of San Marino into the best side in the world. Well in reality, my limited Football Manager abilities will probably mean i go from the very bottom to somewhere that isnt completely crap, but I am going to damn well give it my best shot. Now, for those that are reading my Redemption save, that save is still very much going ahead but i wanted/needed a 2nd save as a form of palate cleanser and i should have another update on Fiorentina early next week.

So let's look at the mess that i take on shall we

San Marino History

So San Marino, that little Microstate in Southern Europe that is completely enclosed by Italy is my new home. The country is just over 24 Sq M and has a population of just 33,562 which is slightly smaller than the populations of Salsibury or Stirling for the Scottish on the board. This makes San Marino, the third smallest country in Europe (Vatican City & Monaco are smaller) and the fifth smallest country in the world.

So onto the football, The San Marino Football Federation was formed in 1931 but it wasn't until 1986 that the federation decided to establish a national team. In 1988 the country gained affiliation with both FIFA and UEFA thus allowing the nation to participate in major championships. Their first FIFA sanctioned match was against Switzerland on the 14th November 1990 in a 1992 European Championship qualifier with the San Marino side losing 4-0.

Since then it hasn't got a lot better for the National side as they are regularly beaten with only a few highlights to talk about. Their one and only victory came in a 2004 friendly against Liechtenstein in a 1-0 win thanks to an Andy Selva goal. Other than that one victory, there have been just 6 draws (0-0 vs Turkey, 1-1 vs Latvia, 2-2 vs Liechtenstein, 0-0 vs Estonia, 0-0 vs Liechtenstein, 0-0 vs Gibraltar). The last two draws coming in 2020 in the UEFA Nations League. This is a side that has just 24 goals in 30 years of Internationals with Andy Selva the top scorer scoring 8 goals for his country. That is 3rd of all goals from just one man! There is only one other player Manuael Marani who has scored more than 1 goal with his 2 goals making him the 2nd highest scorer of all time. Therefore, it isnt really such a surprise when you see this world ranking

Yup. Joint 209th in the world. Only the little Caribbean Island of Anguilla below us in the rankings and sharing our spot with the mighty Pakistan. At least, I cant get any lower right?

An almighty challenge, however, It is the two recent results that have piqued my interest in this save as perhaps the tide is turning and maybe just maybe it is the right time to take San Marino on. The Nations League is an odd little competition and perhaps it has no place in the football calendar but the one advantage it does give the likes of San Marino is that we will now play games on a regular basis against similarly awful sides and that means we will have the potential to pick up a win or two.

Equally, perhaps the players of San Marino are just that little better. So let's have a quick look at some of the potential San Marino stars.

San Marino Squad

On first glance, there does appear to be some half decent players in the San Marino set up. Elia Benedettini for example is one of three half decent goalkeepers which is always a plus as they are likely to be busy.. Currently without a club he has solid double figures across technical, mental and physical. He wouldn't look out of place at a smaller Serie B side and i am sure he will get snapped up during the summer. In defence it looks a little less rosy, there is an uncapped 18 year old centre back at Cesena named Fabbri who like Benedettini has some low double figures in most of the right places and will likely be a regular over the next 10 or so years.

Our best player is clearly Filippo Berardi who currently plays for Vibonense in Serie C but i think could easily play a league above. However, an attacking winger in a team that is likely to get thumped does cause some problems and tactically I am going to have to work out a way of incorporating him whilst keeping us solid at the back. Up top, our best bet of a goalscorer to beat Andy Selva's record is none other than Nicola Nanni who as a Target Man could become a useful outlet. His 14 for heading means we need to try and get the ball to his head and he should have enough about him physically to cause some issues. With time on his side, he might even be able to get some of the 9's that litter his technical skills into double figures and suddenly look a better player.

2020 Fixture Schedule

So the 2020 fixture gods have given us a nice opening 6 months. We are in the aforementioned Nations League in the League D and we have a three team group with Liechtenstein and Gibraltar. A group that in real like saw San Marino pick up 2 points but also a group that with the right tactic could see us pick up our first ever competitive victory and if we really dream big, see us even get promoted to the C League but lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Ill also book in some friendlies against sides near the bottom of the rankings as i want to make the year a really positive one with the aim of stepping up the friendly opposition a little in 2021 as we start our World Cup qualifying campaign

Short term goals

The obvious end goal is to win the World Cup with San Marino but hey, this isnt Fifa 1998 where you could take even the smallest side to World Cup glory and we are going to have to be very realistic with what we can do. So for the rest of 2020, these will be our goals.

- Win at least 1 competitive game
- Draw at least 1 competitive game
- Win at least 1 friendly
- Score at least 6 goals across all fixtures

Yup. I have set a goal for scoring goals. It is that desperate! To help me on this challenge i need to go pick a club that i can use to develop talent. Now who should i pick? Find out real soon

[jt]

SC Faetano Takeover Report

So when it came to picking a club, the most common and obvious side that people pick with the San Marino Challenge is San Marino Calcio who have typically been floating around in Serie C or Serie D over the last few years. However, in 2019 the club ceased to exist and with that there are now no Sammarinese clubs playing in the Italian league system. On the 4th July 2019 the sports title of the San Marino Calcio was transferred to Cattolica Calcio who have taken San Marino's spot in Serie D. Although the club have retained their head office in San Marino the club actually plays in Italy. So they are not a viable candidate and instead I have turned to the Campionato Sammarinese di Calcio (AKA the San Marino football league) for the club that will take this small country to glory. That turns this already hard save into a near impossible task as you can see from below

The league is so poor that is only just rated above the French U17 league in terms of reputation. In fact it is the lowest ranked European league (bar the Crimean league) and is bottom of the coefficient table by someway. There really isnt anywhere else to go but up. So lets look at the team that i have picked

So why SC Faetano?

That Club is Societa Calcio Faetano who are based in the small town of Faetano on the eastern border of San Marino. The club was formed in 1962 and has picked up 3 Campionato Sammarinese titles in its life time and three Coppa Titano's (San Marino Cup) in its history which makes it a middling club in terms of success. In comparison Tre Fiori have the most league titles with 8. So why this middling club? Well firstly look at that badge! They have a tree playing football on their badge and i have all of the time in the world for that but in reality it came down to the fact that they won the League in the year of my birth. It is as simple as that really.

The Campionato Sammarinese di Calcio is a 15 team division and for the 2020/21 season has a new format. Rather than the two groups this will be a normal league campaign with each team playing each other twice. After that the top 12 teams go into a play-off system to crown a League winner. So you really could win the league despite finishing 12th in a maddening format but one that could give us a 2nd chance should we perhaps not play as well as i would like in the league. As we are predicted to finish 11th this season we might just need the play-offs to win the league.

The Squad

So now we come to the squad. It is as expected an interesting mix of part timers with many Italians in the squad. We even had a 49 year old Goalkeeper in the first team who was doubling up as the goalkeeping coach. The League rules dictate that you have to have at least 2 Sammarinese playes in the first 11 at all times meaning it was deadly important to make sure we had a good couple of regulars in the team to succeed. As National team manager i need to be leading the way and try and get that blend between foreigners and nationals right. I am using Claasens database which means all of the clubs are deemed Semi-professional and so all of the players are contracted in but are being paid £0 wages. This created an opportunity as It meant we could release any player we wanted without losing any money whatsoever.

The star man certainly in terms of star ratings was 30 year old Italian striker Manuele Pasolini who looks like he could be useful uptop as he has solid stats all around and should be able to get us the goals we need. In midfield Matteo Bonavitacola is our best bet for creativity from the centre and our 2nd best player. In fact our best Sammarinese player is centre half and captain Alex Della Valle who is one of them players who doesnt look great at first glance but on second expection you can see he doesn't have any real weaknesses but just doesn't have any massive strengths.

Transfer Activity

So we had a stupidly long pre-season. The game starts the season in June yet our first league game isn't to September meaning we had a long window to go and strengthen the side. We had a wage budget of £4k per week of which we were spending £0 due to the weird loophole that all of our players are getting £0 per week. Obviously we will need to fix that and i have been going through the better players and securing them on longer term deals for some money and over the next year or two i suspect all sides will have corrected this weird anomoly and will be spending their wage budget in time. We also had a transfer budget of £3k which was safely not used.

With the restrictions on foreign players it was a case of really thinking about each player and what we needed. I released pretty much all of the poor foreign players who were going to sit on the bench whilst really trying to concentrate on finding San Marino nationals to fill out the squad so they can come off the bench whilst looking out for that killer foreigner who could really lift this club to the next level. I think i did that and here are the new faces at the club. All of whom were free transfers.

The Goalkeeper area was easily the worst position for us with a 49 year old and a 38 year old mixed with a youngster who was really not great. With the Goalkeeper being that one position where the player is likely to play week in and week out, it is an obvious candidate for a Sammarinese player to fill. Scouring the market and the San Marino youth sides i found Andrea Conti who will join as our No.1 keeper. He isn't much to look at but that is honestly the best we could find so here's hoping that decision won't come back to haunt us. Matteo Giorgi is a young 19 year old Sammarinese left back who provides us with some cover with our only other left back being a 36 year old Italian who is solid but certainly losing the physical aspect to the game. Giorgi's pace and tackling being in double figures should mean he is defensively solid but his 2 for Crossing and 3 for dribbling should mean i wont be getting a lot of attacking flair from him. Defensively we also added Italian Filippo Ferretti as a centre back option. Very strong in the key technical skills of (Marking, Tackling and Heading) he should do well there and that should make up for the slightly below par physicals that need a little bit of work.

Massimo Muraccini was probably the best Sammarinese player i could find on the free market with the central midfielder being a strong contender for a starting position. Physically very good, the press asked if we could finally get the best out of a player who was at one point i believe deemed to be one of the best Sammarinese prospects. I am not quite so sure on that but i think he should do a solid job for us. On the left flank we added another Italian in Vicenzo Mistretta who again gives us good pace in the final third. My theory is that in lower league saves, physicals can become a major difference maker and we are certianly going to try and exploit pace in our forward line this season. On top on that i have added two young Sammarinese players in the forward areas to give us options off of the bench. Marco De Angelis and Thomas De Marini are the two youngsters in question.

So i'll probably come back at the half way mark. See you soon!

[jt]

SC Faetano - October 2020

I havent quite settled on a plan for updates in terms of frequency and to be honest i will probably keep it fairly fluid compared to the Redemption save. Therefore expect probably a few more updates at the beginning of the save before becoming probably as and when something interesting is happening. As i hopefully establish myself as a dominant domestic force it will likely move to Seasonal updates.

On the field

Well it has been a busy 4 or so months in charge of Faetano as i have got used to the squad and a playing style that seems to be working. We played a lot of pre-season games as i looked to gel the team as quickly as possible having made quite a lot of changes to the personnel. Also with the pre-season being so long i wanted to get as much game time in to make sure we would go into the season as fit as possible and i think the plan has worked. Out of all 15 teams in the league we were the only one to get a real pre-season in with many of the teams playing just 1 or two friendlies and the teams in Europe having just their european qualifiers in play.

That pre-season consisted of 9 games and more importantly 9 victories as we played a mixture of our U19 side and various Italian lower league opposition. Over then 9 games we scored 39 goals as our play was able to cut through the opposition with ease. Defensively we conceded 9 albeit 4 of them came from just one game giving me hope that although we can attack we can still keep it relatively tight at the back. However, these results could be just based on the opposition being weaker than us but at least we went into the season with confidence.

As the league campaign has gone on, it was a shaky start as we picked up just 1 point from our opening two games before winning the next 5 on the bounce to leave us like this at roughly 25% through the league campaign.

A solid start and considering the points we have dropped were against last seasons league winners (La Fiorita) and the runners up from last year (Folgore / Falciano) i think we have found a winning formula. Goals are certainly our strength as we are 2nd highest goal scorers but defensively we havent been as compact as we were in the pre-season friendlies which may highlight a weakness in our tactic. At the moment, we are relying on the fact we can outscore the opposition with our goals coming from multiple sources as everyone is chipping in with goals from all over the park. In fact we could easily have won goal of the season in most leagues with some of the screamers on show. Leading the goal scoring charts is right winger Jacapo Muggeo with 4 goals from 8 appearances. Muggeo completely highlights one of two types of player in the Sammarinese leagues. They are either physically solid but technically a little bit of a mess or the complete opposite. Muggeo is the former as he has some pace and he does have a bit of flair but the 3 passing and 5 off the ball show his limitations. However, he seems to get in at the back post enough and right now he is a clear starter in the team.

Although the league form has been solid, our Coppa Titano run falls at the first hurdle as we were knocked out in the 1st round by Cailungo 4-3 on aggregate. It was a game where i rested a few players and tried to get the squad some minutes and it cost us our place in the cup. We did though manage to get our revenge in the league as we beat them 1-0

Squad / Results

Tactics

So tactically this is our line up and probably our strongest line up as we look to play a counter attacking direct style. Really win the ball back and try and get forward as quick as possible. I mentioned in my last update, i believe pace and physical attributes count for a lot more when you are playing low level football and we are the quickest side in the league across the park and so if we can break quickly i think it gives us a good chance to get behind the opposition and get ourselves in a good goalscoring position. So far it is working a charm but when we do look like we are struggling, i just tweak up the mentality to positive and make the passing a bit more direct and that is normally enough to see us through. Can we keep it up thats the question

[dalenichol]

I am absolutely on board for this save, JT. Let's gooo!

[jt]

San Marino 2020 report

Results

Time flies when you are having fun and i have certainly had that with the National team as we have had a great first 6 months in charge. In fact almost too good as i smashed all of the goals that we had and some. So it turns out the key to getting a victoy for a San Marino side is to turn away from European sides and instead take your attention further afield and take on some nations from other continents - in particular South Asian sides.

San Marino's 2nd ever victory and my first victory happened in my very first match with the side as we took on Pakistan at home. Joint 209th in the world it was the perfect opposition to play and we got our victory thanks to 18 year old debutant Lorenzo Capicchioni bagging two 25 yarders one minute apart to give us a 2-0 victory. Not only was that only the 2nd time in San Marino's history that they have scored 2 goals, it made Cappichioni the youngest goalscorer ever, the first Sammarinese player to score two goals in a match but also the 2nd highest goalscorer in their history. Not bad as debuts go i guess. The match was a tight affair and it wasn't until the introduction of Matteo Vitaioli on the wing that we got out two goals mid way through the 2nd half.

In fact Vitaioli has been sensational over the last few months and despite not looking like much he has become one of our best players. Just a few days after Pakistan we had the first of our UEFA Nations league games at home to Gibraltar. They had just beem thumped 7-1 by Liechtenstein in the group opener and i was hoping they would be in bits after such a battering. Unfortuantely they came out of the gate fast and scored the opening goal in the 11th minute but it was a goal that seemed to awaken us as we then went on the score 3 goals in just 17 minutes. Targetman Nicola Nanni bagging his first for his country before centre half Filippo Fabbri did the same from a corner. The third came from star man Filippo Berardi to put us 3-1 up at halftime. consolation from Gibraltar made the last few minutes a little tetch but we held on for a 3-2 victory. A win that gave San Marino its first ever competitive victory and ticked another of the targets off the list.

Moving on to October, we had another friendly against South Asian opposition this time against the mighty Nepal and just like the game against Pakistan we came away with a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Nicola Nanni and Filippo Berardi. A nice little warm up before the game against Liechtenstein, which was also my first away day with the National side. A tight first half led to very little highlights but we went 1-0 down in the 67th minute and it looked like an uphill battle to get much from the match. However, I was so wrong as we scored through Matteo Vitailoi before Fabio Ramon Tommasini scored in the 75th minute to put us 2-1 up. A late penalty from Vitaioli sealed it and we had just won our fourth match on the bounce!

The year ended with an away trip to Gibraltar and a home tie against Liechtenstein and we were in pole position to go out and do the unthinkable and win the group. The Gibraltar tie was certainly a lot tighter than the first game and there was only one goal in it. Thankfully it was us with the goal as Nicola Nanni scored for the 3rd time in his short International career to seal a 1-0 win. It meant we just had to avoid defeat to Liechtenstein in the final game to seal a League D win and secure a promotion to League C. A draw is what we got when Fabio Ramon Tommasini scored on the stroke of half time to equalise and give us a 1-1 draw.

Results

I cant believe it and i never would have guessed my record as San Marino manager would be P6 W5 D1 L0 as i am now officially the most succesful international Manager of San Marino in their history and it only took me 6 months! Now don't get me wrong, it was a kind calendar year all with sides that are in and around our ability level. The real challenge is yet to come. We go into 2021 ranked 201st in the world. Up 8 places and now the 2nd lowest ranked side in Europe as we have leapfrogged Gibraltar in the standings. The next Nations league campaign is going to be interesting as i am not sure we will survive that but if we can become a yo-yo nation between the Leagues C and D then ill be fine with that.

World Cup Qualifiers

2021 is going to be a much tougher year and we now know how it will look as our World Cup 2022 qualification group has been decided.

Certainly no Pakistan, Gibraltars or Liechtensteins there as we will go up against the French and co. Estonia are going to be our best bet of any success and there is history there as San Marino have managed a draw with the Baltic nation before and another draw there will be a great little result. For some reason i also think we could do something against the Northern Irish but that is complete fantasy thinking at this stage. What it does mean is that 2021 is going to need a new tactical approach as how we have set up for 2020 is just not going to be appropriate.

Tactics

So tactically this is how we have lined up all season formation wise and the above is probably our best 11 as it stands in terms of performances. It has the same basis as my club tactic but just with the AMC flipping to a DMC, partially because i couldn't find an AMC i was comfortable with but also i sense DMC's are going to be needed a lot more on a regular basis. So i will be parking this formation for now and instead i am going to need to find a tactic using the park the bus or the catenaccio playing styles which will be a first for me. Interestingly my best players are attack minded players (Vitaioli, Berardi, Nanni) and that goes completely against the grain of defensive tactics and currently that is a dilemma that i need to work out. My squad selection will also need to change, as i have realised Battistini is the only DMC i have been picking in the squads and i kind of think we are going to need a few more than just him. So another scouting job over the next 3 or so months before we go into our triple header qualifying week starting with the French!

[jt]

SC Faetano - January 2021

On the field

The half way stage is now met and with all teams having played 14 games we have a good idea of where we stand... and right now it is in a fairly good position as we sit in 2nd just 1 point off the leaders Murata.

Squad / Results

We are now undefeated in 13 league games, the longest undefeated run in the league but we have also gone 3 games without a victory meaning we are also the team on the longest run since a victory which is a bizarre stat. It certainly hasn't been our best football and suspensions are starting to tot up quite quickly. We have the 2nd most yellow cards in the league, a fact that shouldnt be too surprising as we have commited the most fouls in the league as well. Our stuck in approach has largely worked as you can see from our league position but our lack of depth is now starting to come through.

If we get injuries as well then we could be in a real bother. In fact Jacopo Muggeo who has been our best player is now out and his absence does correspond with the 3 back to back draws and we now do look a little shaky on the right flank and a winger is a must. As he is a foreign player i dont mind going in for an Italian so i am currently scouring all of the young italian free agents to see if there is anyone out there that can kick a ball and also run. Something akin to finding a needle in a haystack but if we dont try then we will never know.

I have a young central midfielder lined up who looks pretty tasty from a technical stand point as right now we could do with another central midfielder to go alongside Sammarinese Muraccini which will allow Bonavitacola to go into the AM slot where the youngster De Angelis is struggling a little. If we can get the two players i am hoping for, i think we should make the top 4 but whether we have enough to beat the bigger sides to the title. That i am not too sure on.

Youth Intake Preview

The first glance of our very first intake doesn't exactly scream brilliance. No golden generation and by the sounds of it we might get a full back and a striker at best. The full back particularly a right back could be very useful but what i have been described hasn't filled me with confidence so i went to the board and got this

I didn't realise there was anything worse than a basic youth recruitment before this save. What does limited mean? I have visions of them picking up random kids in the street and giving them a football to kick. At least with basic i hope we might do a trial day and hopefully some local kid decides to turn up

[jt]

SC Faetaino - Season 1: Youth Intake

Ah Youth Intake day! Is there anything quite like it. So our first youth intake has come through as from the preview i wasn't promised a lot other than some full backs and possibly a striker. With lower level teams i tend to find the potential ability provided as being ridiculously high and so i mainly concentrate on their stats for now as a better indication as to what we have. This is what we got.

So as i expected a lot of "5* / 4* players" on paper and with virtully all of them having awful personalities. Again a common trait with lower level sides and again justifies why we have got the board to up the recruitment in the vain hope that we might pick up a player who can play football and isnt a complete arse. Now unfortunately due to league registration rules i can't play anyone this season but there are a couple of players here that could be quite useful.

Alessandro Francini is the best rated on current ability and the 15 year old and has some promise. Technically he looks relatively accomplished with double figures for Passing, First Touch, Technique and team work a good indicator. A high natural fitness will come in handy with the main downside being his poor mentals to go with that unambitious personality. Either Marco Gobbi or Claudio Corbelli must have been the striker they highlighted in the preview. Corbelli has the stand out stats with high finishing and pace but he has a lot of weaknesses to his game which is the worry whilst Gobbi looks to be the more rounded of the two and could be a solid back up next season.

However, the one that has stood out for me is Nicola Montanari. He has a horrid personality (Mercenary) but the high mental stats as well as some key technical stats means he is someone i could use next year as the AM spot has been a little tricky. Physically he isnt much but if i can get him finding space and threading through balls through than we could have a decent player.

All in all not too bad without being excellent. We have signed everybody as we have plenty of wage budget and i want to spend a little more time analyising the players. After the intake i also got the board to agree to this

I am hoping that will mean the players come through a little more rounded as at this level a regen could very easily become a superstar for the team straight away. One small side note is that on regen day only 3 or 4 of the 15 clubs produced regens which is a little bit of a shock. It kind of makes sense as between us we produced around 50-60 players which from a population point of view is 0.2% of the population becoming youth footballers. Ill keep an eye on it as it could be a killer especially if no Italian sides produce a Sammarinese regen.

[jt]

San Marino 2021 Goals and hopes

A very small little update as i muse on what the goals are going to be for 2021. Obviously we are not likely to match the feats of 2020 as our fixture list is already a lot harder as you can see below.

The year is dominated by the World Cup Qualifiers with all 10 qualifiers being played this year. As I mentioned before we are going to have to come up with at least one new tactic for the challenges that lay ahead. Currently the way i see it we will have three types of game moving forward with this save.

• Top 100 sides
• 100 - 150
• 150+

So an instant goal for the year is going to be to devise at least 1 tactic. I also want to try and avoid a thumping as that is not good for anyone. I would rather be accused of playing anti-football then going out and getting pummelled 10-0. So with France in mind i think if we can keep all games we lose to within 4 goals we would have done a decent job. I want to get a point, just one point and the most likely candidate would be the Estonia games where i think we can get something. San Marino have only ever secured 2 points in World Cup Qualifiers with the last one coming in the qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup so we would be buzzing. On top of that if we can score two goals i would be happy.

The friendlies againt Andorra and Lithuania I am targeting to stay undefeated in those and with all of that i hope i can break into the top 200 sides in the world. So summary the goals are

- Develop at least 1, probably 2 new tactics
- Not get thumped by more than 4 goals in any match
- Gain a point in the qualifiers
- Score two goals in the qualifiers
- Stay undefeated in Friendlies
- Break into the top 200

Easy right?!

[jt]

SC Faetano - April 2021

Transfers

So we added two more players to the squad, both young Italians to give us some more quality as we pushed into the back half of the season. Bruno Percope comes in as the starting right winger and adds a much needed boost in quality. Although Muggeo had a good first half of a season, he is the wrong side of 30 and if i can get a better younger foreigner in then that is what i will do. Matteo Lucanto is the other and is a really classy technical central midfielder who like Percope has a much higher quality and will operate as our deep lying playmaker for the rest of the season.

On the field

So the regular Sammarinese season is now wrapped up and the play-off spots are confirmed. I would like to say there was lots of drama but in reality we went on about our business pretty well, only losing 1 game from the last 14. In fact it broke our undefeated streak of 25 games (I think my longest on any FM) as we comfortably finished in 2nd spot.

Squad / Results

So now we go into the dreaded pot luck of play-offs to see if our hard work for 7 months leads to anything. I guess this is a nice place to talk about European football. Well as I mentioned, San Marino sit bottom of the coefficient table by a long way and for next year there will be only 2 sides in European action.

The League champions will go into the Champions League and so the play-offs will decide who goes into the elite tournament. Of course the winners will go into the earliest round there is meaning the group stages are a distant light. The other european spot goes into the Europa Conference and is actually rewarded to the Coppa Titano winner so it really is a case of play-off success leading to Europe. This year all of the Sammarinese teams went out at the very earliest possibility so the coefficient didn't get any better.

So moving onto the play-offs, as you can see virtually all of the league qualify for the play-offs and Juvenes/Dogana who scraped in by a point could actually end up Sammarinese champions. As we finished in the top 4 we get a bye in the 1st round and will go straight to the Quarter finals.

As you would expect the quarter finals are seeded and we will take on the winner of 7th vs 10th. Both sides we did the double over so hopefully we won't crash out at the first time of asking.

Fingers crossed

[Marshdweller]

You're smashing through this jt! I'm following with interest

[jt]

SC Faetano - 20/21 End of Season Review

On the field

So our fairytale of a season did not have a happy ending as we had all hoped. The danger and unpredictability of the play-offs came to bite us on the arse as we went out at the semi-final stage. To be honest, our form over the last few league games was an area of concern and we just went into the play-offs looking tired and it showed in our performances. We did manage to get past the Quarter final vs FC Fiorentino 3-1 on aggregate but we lacked spark and failed to create as many chances as we had done all season. I was right to be concerned as in the semi-finals against Cailungo we still didn't look at the races and an awful first 45 minutes in the 2nd leg killed the tie and our title hopes were gone. We managed to bounce back in the 3rd place play-off to officially come 3rd beating Tre Fiori 5-3 in a game where both defences failed to show up. Cailungo would go onto win the title beating Murata 2-1 in the final.

Squad / Results

Look, it was still a good season. We were meant to scrape into the play-offs this season but instead were one of the best sides in the league for most of the season. The attack was our biggest strength as we finished the season as 2nd top scorers, whilst also having the most shots on goal all season and the highest XG of all of the sides. To me that shows we caused problems, created good chances and always gave ourselves the best possibility of winning. However, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to see that we had some issues defensively. We conceded 44 goals in just 33 games whilst also facing the lowest XG of all sides. We were still the 6th best side defensively but if we want to win a league comfortably we have to be conceding a lot less across a season. Improvements are going to be needed in the defensive areas for sure.

Thoughts for next season

That image there tells a story. Just 2 players averaging over a 7.00 all season and one of them joined in January. We need consistency from our players and too often we had players go missing. Manuele Pasolini was the one player that managed that consistency and his 21 goals were invaluable for us. We need to add more goals but i am confident Percope on the right wing can do that with a full season and Mistretta also has that ability if i can get him performing on a regular basis.

The aforementiomned defence / keeping situation is a worry. The problem being though that is where the majority of my Sammarinese players are currently that i need to meet the league rules on team selection. These local lads are the achilles heel right now and that is something we are going to need to look at. The transfer window has to be about bringing in higher quality Sammarinese players whilst looking to see if we can replace the current sub par back ups with more exciting options to give us a little more variety in our play. The board want to back me in the window. Admittedly we are not going to need much if any of that transfer budget as you can pick up a lot of players for £0 but we will keep an eye out for a gem if we can spot one. The wage budget is more than double what we are spending and again we shouldn't get anywhere near the top end of that.

In fact the club's financial health has been good and way more stable than i had predicted. We started the save on £74k in the bank and hovered in and around that figure all season until all of the sponsorships etc came in and it meant we started this season on £160k in the bank. So i asked the board for a little and they duly obliged.

So in one yer thats youth recruitment, junior coaching and training facilities getting an upgrade. We are building quite nicely and we havent even played in Europe yet. Times are good

[jt]

San Marino July 2021

The first half of 2021 has been and gone and we now have an idea of how we fare against some slightly larger nations. It has been a baptism of fire and we have two new tactics that will likelybe our go to for many years to come. Are they perfect? Hello no but we will keep on tweaking and i am open to suggestions. So before i get into the results lets look at how we are going to set up.

Tactics vs Top 100 Nations

You can ignore the players themselves but instead look at the roles, instructions and positions of players as an indication of our shape. Quite simply the aim is to keep as many players behind the ball as possible and to show absolutely no attacking threat at all. Anti-football to many but i believe our only chance to not get absolutely smashed against sides that are far too good to slip up against us. I wanted to pack out the middle of the park and really try and force teams to go around the outside of us so if they do get a cross in we will have numbers and more importantly bodies in the way. So far it has performed pretty well and done what it said on the team. It has led to virtually no chances for us but we have frustrated the opposition immensely as they get a lot of chances but often they are blocked or with low XG. Our biggest challenge is we dont really have many if any half decent DM's and we are certainly lacking ball winners in that area plus our best players are more attack minded and i have to make the choice of playing inferior players who slightly better suit the roles our play our strongest players but out of position. I am contemplating dropping the striker all together as to be honest he is just a token and going full defensive. It would mean we completely give up hope of winning but if it stops a goal or two it could just make a small difference.

Tactics vs Nations ranked 101-150

So this formation is to be used against the sort of teams that are better than us but the margin is much much smaller. The aim is to accept we are not going to have as much of the ball but to keep a fairly good defensive shape but when we do get the ball to try and get the ball up the field quickly and hope we can nick it. If we are still in the game with 2- or so minutes to go then i will switch it to the tactic I used in 2020 (seen in previous posts) to try and show a little more adventure and perhaps steal a winner.

On the pitch

So the first game we had was a home tie against World Champions France. It really wasn't going to get any harder than this. The fact we kept the score down to a 3-0 loss was encouraging. We may have had no shots on goal and they may have had 45 but we kept their chances down to largely long distance strikes. Kingsley Coman bagged two (9, 79) whilst Paul Pogba scored in the 86th minute. Not bad considering we played the last half an hour with 10 men having had midfielder Giardi sent off. Unsurprisingly our goalkeeper Benedettini came away with a 7.9 average rating.

We then went away to Serbia and again we came away losing 3-0 but it took a Kolarov long range screamer (24), a Milivojevic Penalty (42) and a late Jovic goal (72) to give them the victory. This time we reduced their shots to 28 whilst also hitting the target from our one shot on goal. So far we were keeping teams at bay but our best performance came away to Israel. Now before you get excited we didnt win and we didn't draw either but we did manage to get a goal as we lost just 2-1 to the Israeli's. Our goal coming in injury time of the 2nd half as we switched from the ultra negative tactic to the route one tactic as we tried to get something out of the game. It left the group like this

I have to take the positive and say we are not bottom of the group and our goal difference of -7 is looking quite respectable compared to a few other nations. In particular Gibraltar & Andorra (-12), Latvia (-13), Liechtenstein (-14) Malta (-19) all show how bad it could be for us.

June saw us take our only friendlies of the year and first up were Andorra in a game that would see us go back to the 2020 tactic as we looked for another victory and one that we duly delivered in our best performance yet as we came away 5-1 winners with 5 different goal scorers. We looked excellent and it almost gave us the confidence to pull off our best result yet as we nearly took Lithuania all the way to a draw before conceding a 76th minute goal to lose the game 1-0. If that was a sneak preview of what we could do with Estonia then i feel like we might just be able to pull off the unthinkable and our first ever World Cup Qualifying victory but lets not get too ahead of ourselves.

Results

As we move into the 2nd half of the year, our World ranking has climbed to 197th sandwiched nicely between the mighty Somalia and Brunei and we are well on our way to being a top 200 side by the end of the year! Next up Northern Ireland and France! Wish we luck!

[Reiver]

That 1-100 reminds me of the tactic I used with Albania some 5 or 6 years ago that led me to a World Cup Semi Final, mine was possibly even more defensive, it had a line of 5 in the back, 2 DMs, 1 defensive MC, and 2 strikers. Tactic consisted on forcing the opposition as wide as possible, dominate the center by numbers, making them rely on crosses and long through balls - our defenders sat deep and were tall enough to sort those (tall was the only thing they excelled on). Once on the ball, chuck it to a full back to run or to the strikers either run or hold the ball hoping to get a corner or a foul. Half our games were won with a Lorik Cana free kick.

As far as your results were - considering your footballing level (San marino has like, 2 professional players?) it's amazing.

[jt]

Feb 22, 2021 22:48:48 GMT Reiver said:

That 1-100 reminds me of the tactic I used with Albania some 5 or 6 years ago that led me to a World Cup Semi Final, mine was possibly even more defensive, it had a line of 5 in the back, 2 DMs, 1 defensive MC, and 2 strikers. Tactic consisted on forcing the opposition as wide as possible, dominate the center by numbers, making them rely on crosses and long through balls - our defenders sat deep and were tall enough to sort those (tall was the only thing they excelled on). Once on the ball, chuck it to a full back to run or to the strikers either run or hold the ball hoping to get a corner or a foul. Half our games were won with a Lorik Cana free kick.

As far as your results were - considering your footballing level (San marino has like, 2 professional players?) it's amazing.

I remember that save! That was a great effort. We are certainly trying to do something similar but probably with a plan as half as good as you laid out there. We actually have 5 professional players (1 GK, 1 CB, 2 Wingers, 1 Striker) with a 6th previously at Juventus but without a club (although looking like he should go to a Serie B side). On a side note this happened

A smash and grab if you have ever seen one. Still a first win in a World Cup Qualifer!

[mrcool]

This is very interesting to follow. Keep up the good work its been a good start