San Marino Calcio - Resurrecting the Titans
The Most Serene Republic of San Marino /ˌsæn məˈriːnoʊ/ (help·info) (Italian: Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino) is a country situated in the Apennine Mountains. It is a landlocked enclave, completely surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over 60 km² with an estimated population of almost 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino. One of the European microstates along with Liechtenstein, the Vatican, Monaco, Andorra, and Malta, San Marino has the smallest population of all the members of the Council of Europe.
San Marino is the oldest recorded sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world, having been founded on 3 September C.E. 301 by stonecutter Marinus of Rab. Legend has it that Marinus left Rab, then a Roman colony, in 257 when the future emperor, Diocletian, issued a decree calling for the reconstruction of the city walls of Rimini, which had been destroyed by Liburnian pirates.[1] The constitution of San Marino, enacted in 1600, is the world's oldest constitution still in effect. History The club was founded as Società Sportiva Serenissima in 1960 by the San Marino Football Federation,[1] in order to have a professional team represent the Republic of San Marino in the Italian league. The club was later purchased by Sanmarinese and Italian entrepreneurs.[1] The foundation year is sometimes disputed, because the previous season another team with the same goal, called Libertas-Tre Penne (also sponsored by the San Marino Football Federation), took part to the Italian championship. The crest of Tre Penne is still visible on San Marino Calcio's one.[1] San Marino Calcio is the only professional football team in the Republic of San Marino allowed to play exclusively in the Italian football league system. Since the San Marino Football League is completely amateur, the club is also the only professional team in the Republic.[1] Another team from San Marino, A.C. Juvenes/Dogana, competed in both the amateur levels of Italian football and in the Sanmarinese league in the past, but has since retired from the FIGC. Colours and badge The club's home kit consists of a light blue shirt with white and black inserts, black shorts, and black socks.[7] Their away kit consists of a white shirt with dark blue inserts, white shorts, and black socks.[7] San Marino Calcio released a third kit for merchandising, which consists of a red shirt with dark blue inserts, red shorts, and red socks.[7] The golden frame of their badge contains the team name and the phrase "Titanus aggressurus Olympum", which refers to the Titans in Greek mythology. Pictured in the center of the badge is a Titan. In Italian, the word "Titan" signifies both the race of mythological gods and Monte Titano, the highest point in San Marino. The left-hand circle represents the badge of Tre Penne, one of San Marino Calcio's two founding teams, and the right-hand circle represents the old San Marino Calcio badge. |
Note: I'm going to try to use LLM-rules to the best of my knowledge for this game, with one exception. Since I'm playing as San Marino and it's an incredibly small country (30,000) I will allow myself to use player-search in order to filter for all players with San Marinese as a nationality (I loaded all of them). I think this is an acceptable compromise and will help me to make the team more “San Marinese” which is one of my personal sub-goals.
|
Our first chance comes in the 31st minute as central midfielder Agyriba hit a very weak volley off of a Federico Furlan ball into the box that somehow managed to trickle past the keeper. 1-0 to San Marino! Heartbreak in the 75th minute as a header off the bar is finished by Bellaria’s Crisci to draw them level. The match finishes in a 1-1 draw. We also get the bad news after the match that Agyriba’s goal is actually being counted as an own-goal against the Bellaria keeper Michele Camillini, as apparently it bounced off his ass into the goal. Still, I am happy with the play of at least some of my players. |
**
August 10th, 2009 ** This might be as important a day as the day we signed Edwin Congo. At least that’s what I tell myself when I get off the phone at 4:45 in the afternoon to hear that Mutilvera’s Oscar Murillo has agreed to a deal with San Marino. Murillo is a 27 year-old Spanish central attacking midfielder/striker. He agreed to join us for free, although his wages do come in at a hefty $150,000 a year. But he’s one of the best players we have at the club now. He’s much better than Omar El Kaddouri, so perhaps I can play him “in the hole” in an unbalanced formation. At worst he is still fairly young and thus if he performs he may get snatched up and provide me with some transfer income. I decide upon consideration to tell the board to leave my win bonuses at normal. I don’t want to motivate the players to succeed too much, as I would like to strengthen the squad a bit further before aggressively pushing for promotion. ** August 14th, 2009 ** Friendly vs. Gela I’m experimenting with an unbalanced formation, pulling one of my support midfielders out to be a wing midfielder and maintaining one central and one wing attacking midfielder. This way I can have both Murillo and Congo on the pitch at the same time – although with Cesca also my best bet might be a traditional 4-4-2 with 2 strikers and an attacking midfielder. Gela were still favored in the pregame odds, so this will be a good test for us in that sense. Gela score a late consolation goal in the 88th minute, but a pair of first-half strikes, one a volley off a corner and one a clean break of the offside trap by Congo via Murilla propel us to a 2-1 lead. Belforti missed a penalty-kick in extra-time or it would have been a 2-goal win again. My 3 forwards were given ratings of 7.3 (Guaita – AMR), 7.5 (Murilla), and 7.7 (Congo) for the match by the postgame reporters. All-in-all definitely a game we can build on I hope. ** Sunday August 16, 2009 ** I awoke with butterflies in my stomach. Today was the day that the bigger-fish of Pescara were coming to San Marino. The media had been downplaying the match all week, trying to cushion the blow of what was sure to be a loss to the larger club. I got to the stadium early and took several restless laps around the field and through the locker room as I waited for the team to arrive. My plan for this match was to play more defensively, hope to catch Pescara on the counter as they press forward hoping to exploit their talent. But I was realistic about our chances. For what it is worth, my advance scout Cristian Gasperoni agrees with my plan to try to exploit their defense through speed and crosses into the box. Copps Italia di Lega Pro Group F – Match #2 against Pescara Location: Olimpico, Serravalle Referee: Andrea Chiocchi Weather – Dry, 80 degrees San Marino News: None Odds: Pescara: 4-6 (Fav), Draw: 9-4, San Marino: 7-2 Attenance: 398 |
The half ends with us down 1-0. FOUL IN THE BOX!!! FOUL IN THE BOX!!! I’m leaping up and down as Congo is taken down in the box minutes into the second half. Ruggeri steps up for the penalty…AND BURIES IT! Cool as ice! 1-1 tie in the 50th minute. Congo blows a wide-open chance in the 58th minute as an interception and header by Pedruzzi had put him in clean on goal and he blazes the shot over the top.. Through on goal again in the 62nd minute off a through ball played by Furlan, and Congo doesn’t miss this time around!! 2-1 San Marino!!! 69th minute – Pescare clang one off the wookwork and my heart almost stops. We counterattack and manage to relieve a little of the pressure, for the moment at least. 82nd minute – Congo gets a perfect cross from Furlan. His initial shot is blocked by the Pescara keeper, and his rebound goes off the post. “Damn!” I think. “Watch us lose this game now.” But we don’t! The whistle blows and San Marino have shocked Pescara and taken a 2-1 victory! There’s mayhem among the 398 in attendance. |
|
|
|
|
In the 23rd minute a beautiful ball played out to the wing afforded Furlan the opportunity to float a long cross to the back post, which was headed into the net easily by Davide Poletti to give us a 1-0 lead. We were quite successful during the first half in controlling the play, with the vast majority of the action occuring on the Sangiustese side of the field. The second half was relatively uneventful, with both us and Sangiustese having several half-chances until the 92nd minute when Edwin Congo latched onto a through ball from Agyriba and absolutely scorched the back of the net from just inside the 18. It was a marvelous strike – the Sangiustese striker was completely rooted to his spot as it blew past him into the back of the net to put the game out of doubt. All in all definately not a match where I can find anything to find fault with the lads for. On the heels of these two victories I gave them leave to report a bit late for training the next morning, and send them all on their way before heading out of the stadium a couple hours later to do a little sightseeing and check out the Guaita fortress on Monte Titano ( Guaita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). Unfortunately I got a call at 4:45pm from Marco Benedettini my physio that Bruce Dombolo-Pungu pulled a hamstring during the match and would be out for around the next 4 weeks. “Fortunately I thought ahead and realized that having depth to cover injury and fatigue issues at the lower levels would be an important consideration,” I thought to myself as I toured the beautiful mountaintop fortress overlooking the city and watched the sun setting. It was nice just to be able to get away from the team and the job for a little while and be a regular joe again, even if just briefly. |
Sunday August 23, 2009
San Marino versus Nocerina from the Olimpico in San Marino. The media pegged us going into this first match of the league season as slight favorites. To come out with a win and establish ourselves early in the league would be fantastic, and I told the guys as much before the game. (prematch screenshot is messed-up and no way to go back and get it again) Nocerina manage a goal in the 14th minute on a back-post header that finds the back of the net, putting us down 1-0. Things went from bad to worse for our chances in the 35th minute as Cristian Pennucci picked up a second yellow-card and was sent off by the referee, much to my (very) vocal displeasure. A beautiful header by Edwin Congo in the 43rd minute drew us back on level-terms at the break. My euphoria didn't last long into the second half though as Nocerina's Babatunga scored his second of the game to put Nocerina back up on top in the 52nd minute. That man Edwin Congo popped up again in the 70th minute after a lovely give-and-go with Agyriba beginning about 35 yards away from goal right in the centre of the field. I buried my head in my hands in the 83rd minute though as Congo missed a beautiful flashing header from in-close that would have completed his hat-trick, and the game finished all-square at 2-2. Congo and Ruggeri were the best players on my side, with Agyriba rounding out the top three in my estimation. |
nice start to the dynasty :)
I´m afraid you severely overpaid for a guy like Murillo, maybe look more for specialists (a great Free Kick/Corner Kick guy f.e.) at this level ? But who am i to talk, starting at Serie B and thinking of it as starting low ;) Are you a feeder Club for Milan btw ? (seeing you got several on loan from there) |
i started up a san marino fm09 game cause your posts in the fm10 thread. will play it till i get fm10, once the next patch comes out
|
Quote:
@whomario - i got Murillo on a free, so my only expense is his $155,000/yr wages (which is high, but i actually had like $1m in room in my wage budget). My hope with him honestly is that since he's 27 some team up the ladder a little may swoop in and give me a few bucks for him. I've actually still got 36k in wage room plus around 95k of my 160k transfer budget left. i'm focusing a lot on physical attributes - trying to make sure i have guys with pace+stamina so that I can outwork my opponents, as well as looking at passing and decision-maknig to try to make sure that I don't give away possession or play too many horrible balls. it's all a learning-curve for me though - i haven't ever really played more than a season with a club at this level and that was probly 5-6 versions ago so I'm not even really sure what benchmarks i should be looking at as far as prices/wages/etc. I'm not a feeder team for Milan - I have deals to receive players in on loan from Cesena, Triestina, and Rimini. Triestina is my parent club. I'd love to have a more impressive parent club, but my board said no when I first approached them about it, so I'll have to wait and try again. |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:17 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin Version 3.6.0
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.