Gen0

Glad to see I'm not the only one interested in this.
Scohom I see no reason why you shouldn't retain all the players as it will give you more chance of doing the second apart of the challenge and completing it with more than one nation. Would it also may make it difficult if other lower nations have a full squad of players to choose from???

Littleliam good to see that some of the lower nations have this number of players, certainly an interesting player you have there, although whether he is better as a midfielder or striker is hard to tell, let us know how you get on with him.

BS_8 you are doing a bit better than me as you will see from my update below, you must have been gutted to lose out on qualifier to goal difference.

sheffieldtim Faroe Islands should be an interesting experience. A fair number of people have had various levels of success with San Marino, with the help of the Italian league team, be interesting to see how you do.

Recury, Montenegro may indeed be too easy as they will inherit some of Serbia's players, but presumably Serbia will keep the best or will they? But maybe they should be excluded from this challenge. Papua New Guniea as one of the better Oceania teams should give you a chance of at least qualifying from the prelim's.

retired_stesska

I think it'll be down to where they were born?

Gen0

So how am I doing? (apologies if this I go on too much, let me know and I'll try and be a little more brief in future)
Well things got of to a bad start, losing 3-0 to Wallis & Futuna, who aren't even in the FIFA rankings. But then I was experimenting with playing without a right winger, and I think it cost me down the left side.

So on to my next friendly, against the Cook Islands. Ranked 1 place above me in 198, I thought perhaps I have a chance here, until I saw the odds were 20-1 for me to win! But my team played well with my right back moved to right midfield and another right back in at right back, and we managed to win 1-0 thanks to a goal in the 62nd minute from my midfielder Luvu. Maybe this won't be so difficult after all.

Then came up against Vanuatu in my third friendly and despite battling hard, lost 2-1, but at least we scored a goal again, and we were 50-1 to win!

So the Oceania cup had by this time drawn and I had escaped New Zealand but would face Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tahiti and New Caledonia. What were the FA hoping for? Just that I would enjoy the experience, good to know they are realistic.

Well with everyone expecting a cricket score from Solomon Islands, in real life they lost 12-1 on the 26/08/07. But my team put up a brave fight and only lost 2-1. Again we were 50-1 to win.

Up next against Tonga, well known for their rugby exploits, would they demolish my team? Well in real life they won 4-0 on the 02/09/07 but my defence played well and managed to keep a clean sheet giving me my first draw and my first point! (For the record I was 30-1 to win)

So on to Tahiti who flattened me 4-0, although it has to be said at this point my team's condition had been dropping fast, and so I had rotated my squad a bit and paid the price.

So on to New Caledonia, with a couple of my stars well rested I was hopeful of getting something, but was still 50-1 outsiders for a win. Got in at half time 1-1 , then after a sudden second half burst was 3-1 up after 60 minutes could this be the first competitive win for my brave men, alas not, they brought it back to 3-2 and then as we entered injury time, my brave men tired and let another slip in. Still 3-3 isn't that bad a score and it gave the fans plenty of entertainment.

Well 2 draws and 2 defeats, not exactly what I was hoping for but at least we got a couple of points, finished bottom of the group. So I had a look at my confidence screen. Fans were disappointed with my defeats, to be expected, but I was surprised to see they were disappointed with my draws as well. Though I guess with us 3-1 up in one, they had hoped we would win it. Still the FA were pleased that the team enjoyed the experience of participating in the OCE nations cup and overall saisfied with my management, and my excellent performance in the Oceania Nations cup was a particular highlight.

As for the FIFA ranking well my 2 draws earned me 7 points, lifting me to 196th in the world.

retired_xaoxao

I'm not sure, but while managing in Eastern Europe I see a lot of Serbia-quality players who have Montenegro as a first nationality. I don't know what their FIFA ranking is, but I would put them ahead of quite a few European nations from the players I've seen.

I did get started on my PNG game with a 4-2 win friendly win over Cook Islands. The scoreline could have been better though since we dominated possession and were up 3-0 after 15 minutes.

PNG has 40 or so eligible players with a good mixture of positions for 4-4-2. What is weird is that all except one of them are 24 or younger, so hopefully it will just get easier from now in. They have two pretty good strikers in the Davani brothers as well.

Gen0

I think it'll be down to where they were born? </BLOCKQUOTE>

Just had a look at a holiday game I set in motion a couple of weeks ago (before the beta patch) in 2014 Montenegro are rated at 120th in the world and do have some quite good players. From what I can tell on the internet any existing Serbia national team player born in Montenegro can choose which nation he continues to play for. Of course there are some good players born in Montenegro and this will continue to be the case, so while it would be interesting to see how they get on, they probably should be excluded.
Interesting by this time American Samoa are up to 181st in the world but have yet to get past the preliminary round of the Oceania Nations cup. In fact they have yet to win or even draw a game friendly or otherwise and are only 181st in the world on alphabetical order as there are 29 nations (180-208) with 0 points.

retired_kristy11

well vucinic of roma is a prime example.

Yes madwoodster i was a bit gutted, but it was not the end of the world. However condition was rubbish, and i pciked up lots of injuries, i bought in a few coaches, but as there is not a trianing section i guess it makes no difference?

Gen0

Ok so there's plenty of evidence supporting the exclusion of Montenegro from this challenge so I hereby officially exclude them from the challenge and if I could edit my posts then I would edit the starting post of this discussion.

I think the coaches do make a difference as there is some sort of training done, as I'm sure I've had players injured during training. I've managed to get an U-21 and U-19 managers and a couple of coaches, but have yet to get myself a physio.

Also those managing Oceania nations may find scouting pointless to begin with as none of our players play any competitive games but there is the Oceania clubs cup starting in March which could well feature some of our players.

retired_b4d1l

Hey MadWoodster, nice challenge! I tried something like this in FM07 with the Faroe Islands. My greatest achivement was getting to the European Championships.

I'm gonna take it up this year, though with either Bhutan or Nepal. Infact i'm gonna load the baby up right now.

retired_kristy11

madWoodster just go to the A-League you will find decent physio there, would this increase the liklihood of an average player being signed up by an aussie team?

Gen0

Brigadier, good to have you on board and to hear of your successes with the Faroe Islands just getting them to the Championships is something in itself. Although I do recall someone managing to win the world cup with San marino i a previous version of FM but then I think he was also a club manager at the time, so that wouldn't count for this challenge

BS_8 thanks for the advice, I had nicked a coach and u-21 manager from the A-League but completely forgot about a physio until I read your post. Might reduce injury recovery times and even injuries in the first place. Having an A-League coach or scout as one of your coaches could increase the likelihood of them signing one of your players as they would get increased knowledge about your nation, so this may help, it may even later boost the regens for the nation especially if they go on to manage a team.