The playoff system is even more ridiculous than i remembered when previously writing about it:
Round 1: One match: In case of a tie after 90 minutes the higher seeded team advances
Round 2: two legs: In case of a tie after 90 minutes overtime + penalties
Qtr Final: two legs: In case of a tie after 90 minutes overtime + penalties
Semi Final: one match: In case of a tie after 90 minutes overtime + penalties
Final: one match: In case of a tie after 90 minutes overtime + penalties

Six tough matches are behind us and we qualified for the final. The man who is responsible for this run of results is once again German Pomiro who scored six goals in the playoffs already.



Our opponent in the final is Salernitana who finished second in Serie C/C. The team coached by Brazilian legend Zico played more conservative than we did and scored just 48 goals in their 38 league games. Despite that, the bookies see them as favourite:


Both teams start in a 4-3-3 and we trust Pomiro to lead us to another victory:



One match: 90 (or 120?) minutes and the winner promotes. Who will play Serie B next year?



Highlights:

45th: First highlight of the game: Barak (San Marino) hits the post on a free kick.
60th: One long pass is enough to beat our defense as Schenetti scores: 0-1.
74th: Our DC El Hilali can't clear the ball so Odjer gets the chance to score a dream goal from 16m: 0-2.
85th: A perfect cross by our LB Seminara and Ilari heads it in: 1-2.
90th+2: Long ball to the wing by El Hilali. Ilari with a first touch cross and it's Pomiro to score the equalizer.

No highlights in extra time. Penalties:
1. Insigne (Salernitano) scores
1. Suaut scores
2. Bombagi (Salernitano) scores
2. Barak scores
3. Odjer (Salernitano) scores
3. Maleh misses
4. Della Rocca (Salernitano) scores
4. Ravanelli scores
5. Santore (Salernitano) scores

3-5 after penalty. Salernitano promotes, San Marino will play in Serie C again next season. What a dramatic final!

Can I praise Pomiro enough? He kept scoring this season and was key in our succesful cup and league campaigns. He was for sure once again the player of the season for us, having the highest average rating and the most goals throughout the season. Our winger Ilari and loaned in midfielder Filippo Damian have been key players as well.

The change in goal was quickly made after D'Arsie had a bad game in January with an own goal but Grandis performances havent been any better than D'Arsie. Barak was surprisingly only used as AML in the role of Wide Target Man. Overview of all performance stats:

One downside of working with a lot of loans is that you have to rebuild a lot each season. Many loan players will return to their clubs. However, we can already confirm a few key loan players to return: Damian, Seminara, Maleh and Ravanelli will all return for another loan season. This is important as all three of them have been undisputed starters for us. We also managed to sign two current loan players who are on expiring contracts at their old teams: Starting goal keeper Grandi (2y contract for 39k p/a) and H'Maidat (2y contract for 55k p/a). H'Maidat was only backup for us after joining us on loan but after competing in training camp he should be ready for a bigger role. Especially after our three attacking midfielders Bayon, Bondi and Sgrigna have all announced their retirement. The most notable contract expiration is DC Fabio Lebran. Suaut also has an expiring contract but he will remain on the team for now. This will give us the following provisional roster:

Even without any transfers we have a pretty good starting 11 for this level. Biggest need is definitely further quality on the wings but also backups all over the field are needed. I will continue to rely on loans for now as I want to promote this season after coming so close last season. That is definitely possible as four stars is actually considered devent/good Serie B level at this point. The few backup quality players we currently have might be transfer listed even if we only get a couple of bucks for them. But since my board nearly doubled our transfer budget i will bring in a couple of cheap young prospects in with the hope that they might develop into good players for our side or more likely to generate a profit from selling. That isnt necessary for new signings though as the board again gave us a nice bump in wage cap that I won't be capable of using because too many players don't want a permanent move to San Marino.

- Youth Facilities have been upgraded. They are now considered adequate.
- Spain won the World Cup 2018 after a 5-1 win in extra time vs Portugal.
- I still won't be paying any fees for transfers at this point. It's imo not worth it at this level.

knockout wrote:
jaxika - I'm going on holliday for all matches at this point of the save so it's my assistant who decides the tactic. Personally, i prefer 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 but have also made good experiences with 5-3-2 and 4-3-1-2. Also I'm not aware that 3 AMCs are OP?

Before we announce our new signings we say goodbye to three backup players:

GK Alessandro Mirarco: Our third string keeper (1 app for us) was bought by Salernitana (the team that beat us in the playoff final) for 60k. Why they would want him? I have no idea but i am glad they paid me three times what i paid him as wage for his one season with us.

ST Younés Bnou Marzouk: I liked his stats a lot but for selling him for 48,5k to Renate (Serie C) looks like a decent deal after making only three appearances for us in the cup.

MC Yves Benoit Bationo: Another player i liked but after a good first season in Serie D (20 apps, 3 goals, 3 assists, 6.97) he fell out of the team and failed to make a single Serie C appearance for us. Hence, I had to accept the 25k offer by Arezzo.

Very happy about the deals. They werent expected to play a big role but should help towards our next facility upgrades which will hopefully come at some point. And now for the reinforcements:

Once again in this thread those that are seen as immediate starters and the rest of the incoming transfers can be found here. I also included the signings for the youth teams there.




They should strengthen the team a lot and looking how close the team was last season already i feel like the title might be possible and should be the target. This will be the starting 11 for the first part of the season:

- The Season Preview has as second highest rated teams with 9-2 odds behind Modena
- I always end up collecting too many central midfielder
- Winger is probably still the weakest position but with Kerin, Pattarello and Ilari they still look good enough
- most of the youth signings won't play any role at any time but i just need one or two of them to be good Serie B players one day to get my investment into them back.
- i will continue to rely heavily on loans until San Marino is established in Serie B
- Can De Marchi eventually replace Pomiro as our leading striker or is 2 determination harming him too much?

TheManxMissile wrote:
Well i saw you start this challenge and thought, "I should open my long FM17 career and check how San Marino were doing, i've not played FM17 in many months it'll be fun to look"... and now i'm back playing FM17 and that career properly and more invested than ever, because goddamn FM is a near perfect sports sim!

Anyway, how are San Marino doing in September 2025, when no-one has been trying to improve them? In spoiler below



Also it's totally about the obviousy classic 4-2-3-1 Wide formation, or my current 4-3-3 Narrow... or do what i did with Parma for a while and play a 5-2-3. That secures a good defensive record, and with a dominant striker you can really fight for promotion effectively.

The season started quite badly as Salernitana defeated us once again. Just months after eliminating us in the playoff final they dominated us 4-0 in the Italian Cup qualification and I'm starting to hate them...

The league matches however went better: After a troubling start with two September defeats we only lost one more game. The number of draws is too high but the recent form is looking good:



24 games into the season and San Marino climbed to the top of the table. However, the top teams are so close to each other that five teams are still within four points and all of them could easily get away with the automatic promotion spot.



I felt the team was strong enough and didnt need any new signings this time so we only had a couple of riders leaving:

- DC William Suaut was released (contract expired already in summer, failed to make a single app this season)
- ST Marco Valotti was sold to Serie C team Juve Stabia for 51k € and 50% of the next transfer profit. He was only a depth signing in summer without any chances for a starting job.
- AML Dario Meadows was sold for 140k to Serie B team Spal. He supposedly has the potential to develop into a good Serie B winger but we don't need him right now (only two apps in the Serie C cup) and his stats are weak enough that i doubt he will reach his potential so I was very happy to get that offer.

Also:
My assistant seems to have a a too high opinion about our loanee ST Miguel Calado starting him too often ahead of better guys. 1 goal and 6.63 average rating is not enough for us in 14 starts. I want to force him to let other players play so I moved him into my U20 for the rest of his loan.

None of the transfers is weakening us so the question is can we defend the top of the table?

Youth Intake Day is always a fun day - except when the talents you find are not looking good at all. Once again I'll present the best player and the best Sanmarinese talent of this intake:



Luca Busi ain't looking too well. He has three things i like: Pace, a great personality (resolute, 15 determination) and excellent first touch. However, i don't particularly like him. His potential isn't looking too exciting (hopefully i'm serie B once he's developed and three stars is probably only good serie C at this point) and i don't know what to do with him. My first thought was that he should be trained as winger but 6 balance, 5 OTB, 5 crossing and 5 work rate is simply not good enough for that. Instead I'm gonna train him as an advanced midfielder in the hope that someone pays us a small fee in the future.



Massimiliano Righi is a double nationality leftback and the player i like the most in this intake. Yes, i have rather low standards for sanmarinese talents right now. Professional personality with good determination is great and his physical stats don't look too bad. He should quickly develop into an alternative for the NT but he will never be useful for the club.

Honorable mention: Diego "Mertesacker" Agostini



Davide Giovagnoli*** developed quite well over the last year and developed +1 nearly all over the board. His mental stats are looking awesome and imo he is already the best player in the country. I'm not sure why he isn't part of the NT yet as he added two caps for the U21 team but perhaps he is still sitting out for an Italy callup?
Currently training as a central midfielder.

Luca Giardi*** is currently trained as an advanced playmaker and he shows steady improvements all over the board. Same NT situation as for Giovagnoli.

Michele Laghi** continues to improve very slowly. Tutoring helped to improve his determination but aside of that, there are very few stats going up and even several downgrades.

We start with the Serie C cup in this recap where we were kicked out by Foggio in the semi final. Foggio? You might remember that they were our opponent in the Serie C cup final last season when we beat them 8-0 in the second leg. I guess they got their revenge this time.



Our team enjoyed the spring as it took until 28/4 to lose the first league game. This helped us to achieve this:



Promotion to Serie B! The final table looks much closer than the season actually was since we lost two of the final three games. But i don't care whether it was close or not - promotion is all that counts!



The final two games of the season were the Serie C Super Cup which is played in a round robin between the three directly promoted teams. And once again Foggia is one of our opponents. And this time they are chanceless again. A double digit victory against another promoted team is special! That we could add further silverware makes it even sweeter.




I think we haven't hyped Pomiro up enough. Third season, third time player of the year. In fact he got 74% of votes for the Fan's player of the year award this season. Sick!




Winning the league makes this obviously a great season. H'Maidat stepped up as we expected previous to the season and both wingers helped setting up Pomiro for goals. Tough to single anyone else out because we hadnt really any other outstanding or disappointing starters. Disappointment of the season are definitely our backup strikers. Calado was quite disappointing and De Marchi didnt even hit the field - despite being the second most expensive player in terms of wages. That was surely a bad deal.

The step to Serie B should be quite big so I will look to strenghen the team further with one goal for next seaon: Avoid relegation. A lot to do in transfers as we once again have so many loaned in players to replace/extend.