National Team: European League Division B
In the immediate aftermath of our World Cup campaign national team legend Alessandro Francini announced his retirement from international football in order to prolong his playing career. After making over 100 appearances and scoring over 20 goals he had been a part of the team through the tough, early days of my reign in charge and was an important part of the squad as we made our debut at a major tournament 14 years later. He also has the distinction of being the first player to break Andy Selva’s goal scoring record and the current record caps holder, being the second Sammarinese player to reach 100 caps.
Despite Francini having played for the national team for almost 14 years we still hadn’t managed to produce a suitable replacement so I hoped that we would be able to persuade him out of international retirement before too long as he was still a few months short of being 30.
For the European League we were drawn in a group with Poland and Croatia where our realistic objective would be to finish second and avoid relegation. Despite missing Francini we took a massive step towards survival in the very first game. Reggini was totally dominant as he scored five goals and secured a perfect 10 rating in the process. Phenomenal.
This good form continued into the next game as we secured a 2-2 draw away to Croatia as we conceded a 90th minute equaliser.
A win against Poland in our next match would secure survival at this level despite throwing two points away against Croatia. The return fixture against Poland turned out to be a lot tighter than the first.
Reggini only scored 4 goals this time and Francini’s replacement Cenci notched a goal and an assist on only his third cap for San Marino as we ran out 5-2 winners this time, I have no idea how Poland got to this level as they were woefully short and had lost every game in the group. With Cenci performing so well perhaps we wouldn’t need Francini to come out of retirement?
This set up a huge game against Croatia where, if we avoided defeat we would be promoted to the top tier of the European League thanks to our goal difference from the two hammerings of Poland.
Sadly this wasn’t to be as Croatia seized the game right from the first whistle and exploited our weak defence to win the game 4-0 and with it, promotion. This was a very respectable year for us as we took points from Croatia and hammered Poland twice.
It also capped an amazing year for Reggini as he scored a ridiculous 23 goals in just 14 appearances for us putting him on 80 goals for his country. He was rapidly catching up with Tamagnini as our all time leading goal scorer.
- January 2030 World Ranking – 30th
- December 2030 World Ranking – 16th!!!!!!!!!!
- Biggest Win – 5-1 v Georgia and Poland
- Biggest Defeat – 0-4 v Croatia
- Top Scorer – Massimo Reggini, 23 Goals
- Most Assists – Michele Andreini, 7 Assists
- Highest Rated Player – Massimo Reggini, 8.29
Best Eleven
The best eleven for the national team decided to come back after seven seasons where the game decided not to create one. Surprisingly there are five players still in the team from the 2023 season and I guess our recent success is down to this strong core playing and developing together.
2030/31: Serie A and Champions League
Unlike last season at Calcio I finally had some transfer funds to develop my squad. My objectives in the transfer window were similar to previous season; improve my defence so it can compete at the top level and hang on to my best young players. The latter of these two objectives revolved mostly around my phenomenal Italian striker Francini as his contract expired at the end of next season and I simply had to do all I could to keep hold of him.
Tragically he didn’t have any interest in even negotiating a contract so I didn’t even get the chance to throw money at the problem. Eventually, after several ‘persuasive’ conversations I managed to convince Francini to sign a new contract………if we could win the Champions League. With Francini in our team and scoring goals I guess anything was possible but so far we had only managed to reach the quarter finals on one occasion where we lost in extra time to Arsenal.
With the the potential for us to lose our best player either cheaply or on a free I had to put all my efforts into winning the Champions League when it came to squad rotation. I elected to send fewer fringe first team players out on load this season and could only find one suitable player to bring in during the first transfer window. Bianco was a free transfer after being released by Inter and provide good leadership and depth to my CM though I didn’t expect him to feature much. In goal I was forced to stick with Renaud as my starting keeper as no suitable and affordable replacement was available.
Boosting our efforts to win the Champions League we were drawn into a fairly weak group that contained Real Madrid, FC Copenhagen and Dinamo Zagreb although I didn’t expect to beat Madrid the other two sides were very beatable!
The first month of the season went perfectly as we won our opening five league games without conceding a single goal and even drew 0-0 at home to Real Madrid in the Champions League!
This frugal defending ended on the first day of October away to Copenhagen. It looked business as normal when Calcio went 3-0 and then 4-1 up early in the second half but then the defence completely shut off for the last 40 minutes to allow Copenhagen back into the game. This resulted in a very nervy last 10 minutes with Calcio ultimately scraping a win that was much tighter than it ever should have been. Our CB Hansen was particularly poor in his first game back against his boyhood club, five years after we bought him from them.
Despite this almost upset Calcio carried on well in both the league and Europe as was standard for us these days. The only defeats we suffered in the first half of the season were to Inter in the league (1-0 defeat) and Real Madrid in the Champions League (5-3 defeat) and the only major concern during this time came in this entertaining defeat to Real Madrid when GK Renaud broke his wrist. This meant our good friend Gallo would once again be stepping in to cover until the end of March so hopefully he could help maintain our lead in the league and get us through the first Champions League knockout round!
A disappointing 0-0 draw against Kobenhavn sealed second place in the group for Calcio so we would have a tougher route if we wanted to win the Champions League. and our first hurdle saw us drawn against Liverpool!
In the January transfer window I only made two signings but they were both major improvements in defence. Firstly Mijailovic was a bargain at only £2.6 million with massive potential so he could provide a long term and top class replacement option to compatriot Bojovic who had begun to decline. Rota was a different prospect altogether. Mainly he added top class depth at CB with Postma starting to pine for a move to China and Hansen proving to be inconsistent at the highest level but the fact that we had taken the best defender away from our closest rival in the league was a massive bonus.
Despite having a seriously improved defence on paper the first game that both of my new signings played in proved to be something of a disaster as Rota was booked and played poorly while Mijailovic was sent off late on! Not a good start.
We recovered from this minor set back to win our next four games (even managing to reach our first ever Coppa Italia semi final) and this great form carried over into the first leg at home to Liverpool. After a tight first half, three second half goals totally blew away any nerves from the tie as Francini really showed his class to score his 23rd and 24th goals of the season!
In the return leg Bonafizi scored a goal after only 3 minutes to effectively put the tie to bed. Despite a Liverpool equaliser later in the half there was never any real danger of an Istanbul style comeback as Calcio did exactly what was needed to get through. The draw for the next round was a cruel one as we were drawn against Real Madrid, the game was throwing everything at us as we tried to keep Francini at Calcio!
Before the next round Renaud finally made his return to first team football where he had mixed fortunes. We won the second leg of our Coppa Italia semi final 3-0 to beat Roma 4-1 on aggregate before we lost only our third league game of the season away at Fiorentina.
Such a leaky defence was a worry as we were travelling to the Bernabeu in our next game but my worries were unnecessary. Despite Madrid taking the lead we put in a sold defensive performance with Rota playing particularly well and we were rewarded with a Reggini equaliser early in the second half. One away goal was a narrow advantage but it was more than i expected!
The second leg was a total contrast. Alarm bells started ringing immediately as the German/Lebanese CB Ammar scored during Madrid’s very first attack of the game. We needed to hang on in the game or we could very well be out of it before half time. This set up a tense period leading up to half time as Rota scored his first goal for the club to put us 2-1 up before Teixeira increased our advantage with a great solo goal.
Madrid hit back again quickly to make it 3-2 with just under 20 minutes to go. All they needed was one more goal and they would knock us out on away goals. They threw everything at us. I decided to play a counter attacking style with more direct passing and this turned out to be devastating as we scored three late, almost identical goals. Three long passes over the top of a high defensive line caused three goals to be scored from 1 on 1’s.
The result may have flattered us in the end but it was a devastating display of counter attacking football. It also gave us our first ever Champions League semi final against the mighty Barcelona! UEFA weren’t making it easy for us.
On the 30th of April we finally sealed the league title as we beat our nearest challengers Atalanta. After throwing away a 2-0 lead we eventually secured victory, and the league title in the 90th minute thanks to yet another Francini goal. This was out 4th title in 5 seasons and cemeted our place at the top of the Italian game as we were creating a real dynasty at the club. The loss of Rota in January had really affected Juventus as they looked set to finish in 3rd or 4th place, their worst season during this save.
This domination in the league ensured that we could focus all of our efforts into both the Champions League and the Coppa Italia as we attempted to win both of them for the first time and complete a treble!
Back in the Champions League the first leg at home started perfectly. Francini and Reggini used their pace to tear holes in the Barcelona defence and give us a huge advantage. At the start of the second half Bonifazi really put us into dreamland and gave us a 3-0 lead. I literally couldn’t believe what i was seeing. One of the best teams in the world were 3-0 down away from home and had barely got into the game after 50 minutes!
The last 40 minutes then turned into a display of classic Football Manager. Zivkovic scored just short of the hour mark to give Barca an away goal in the tie then Calcio decided to completely fall apart. We could barely get out of our own half even after switching to a more counter attacking tactic. I expected Barca to hit back at some point but never to this extent. It felt almost inevitable when Barcelona scored a second and then a third goal. I was gutted at throwing away a massive lead in arguably the biggest match of the season so far but at the same time we were so poor in the second half we could easily have lost this game 4-3. We needed to regroup before the second leg.
Three away goals was a huge advantage for Barcelona and we would have to win in the Nou Camp in order to reach the final of the Champions League and (hopefully) keep hold of Francini!
Setting up to try and frustrate and counter attack in the second leg both sides scored an early goal. My best chance was still to try and win the game as a 3-3 or 4-4 draw would be way beyond us away from home. Sadly, when we needed him the most, Francini couldn’t put in a match winning performance. I can’t even claim we put Barcelona under pressure in our attempts to find a winner as Barcelona kept us easily at arms length to get a comfortable 1-1 draw. Normally this would be a credible result but in these circumstances it saw us knocked out of the tournament in the semi finals.
Immediately after this game Francini came to speak to me. It was good news. Kind of. He was happy to give the club another season as we were knocked out of the Champions League by a good team and would sign a new contract if we could win it next season. However, with his contract expiring at the end of next season he would be able to sign a contract with a new team before the knockout stages of the Champions League begun. I couldn’t see any way of keeping him unless he underwent a dramatic change of heart.
This left just one significant game in the season; the Coppa Italia Final against Empoli who had done well to get as far as the final having finished 16th in Serie A. Sensing chance to witness Calcio pick up their first ever domestic double, a crowd of 23132 packed into the 70000 seater Stad Olimpico in Rome. Those that bothered to turn up would have seen a dominant Calcio performance as they controlled the game for 90 minutes and won 2-0 thanks to goals from Miranda and Francini either side of half time.
This win secured our second trophy of the season to go with another dominant league title as we finished 21 points clear of Atalanta in second place while Juventus would be playing in the Europa League for the first time this save after a poor season. Calcio possessed both the best defence and attack as we fell 9 goals short of 100 goals in a season.
Arguably this was my best season in charge of the club as we won the Coppa Italia for the first time, had our highest points finish and were narrowly beaten in the semi finals of the Champions League however, in the long run, the inevitable loss of Francini would be a huge negative for the team.
Francini won the Serie A golden boot, player of the year and striker of the year all for the third season running (and 4th time overall) as well as his second Italian player of the year and fans player of the year as he scored 31 goals at the tender age of 23. Other awards picked up included Miranda winning defender of the year for the second time in his career and Reggini finishing third in the golden boot race. Not wanting to blow my own trumpet but I also won my third consecutive Manager of the year award (and 5th overall in Serie A).
Best Eleven
Rota and Mijailovic made the best eleven despite only playing half a season as did Gallo who actually impressed in his 17 appearances for the team. Reggini and Francini were comfortably the teams leading goal scorers and were the teams leading strikers for the third consecutive season.
- Average Attendance – 25074
- Biggest Win – 5-0 v Empoli
- Biggest Defeat – 3-5 v Real Madrid
- Top Scorer – Alessandro Francini, 31 Goals
- Most Assists – Afonso Teixeira, 14 Assists
- Player of the Year – Luca Vincenzi (Not a clue how)
- Highest Rated Player – Massimo Reggini, 7.46
Youth Intake
A pretty good potential RB with solid attributes in good areas. Not one for the national team unfortunately but he may become a solid option for the club team if he develops.
Immediately the third best striker available to the national team when he came through with Serie B potential or even Serie A if he really kicked on. Great mental stats for a teenager to go with great fitness and solid physical and finishing abilities he could be a great asset for the national team and I would do my best to make sure he featured for Calcio.
Another prospect with fringe Serie A/B potential. A solid and creative LM who came through at the perfect time as my existing options were both quite poor and were now approaching a decline in ability. Would be a prominent player for the national side as there were currently no viable options other than him in the long run. Much like Bologna I would have to do my best to develop him for the club side as he could be a useful player for Calcio.
A player that has slipped under my radar a little until I wrote this as he is yet another player who could maybe play at a Serie A level. Good physical stats and some OK mental ones but totally lacking in technical ability. Has gone on loan to Serie D a few times without much of an impact hopefully he’s a late bloomer as my existing full backs will soon begin to decline for the national team.
The fifth player with very similar level of potential who can play on either wing. Very similar to Tamagnini with his strengths and weaknesses as his technical stats were poor. Has a long way to come but again could feature both both club and country.
Overall a good class of regens. No outstanding player but five players who might be able to play at Serie A level was impressive. The fact that all the Sammarinese players also accepted call ups to either the national team or one of the youth teams was also a massive positive with the teams high ranking beginning to pay dividends.
This season marked the 15th year in game! So i guess i’ll do another round up of the game so far focusing on some of the players that have played for both Calcio and San Marino for a long time now as this is one aspect of the game my seasonal summaries don’t cover. I’ll also cover the qualifying for Euro 2032 and my attempts to get Francini to re-sign as well in the future!
Thanks for reading!
StratMan Gaming 