Welcome back to The Enclave’s Elevation. In the last post, I spoke about the goals for the save and introduced you to Antonio Selva – our protagonist for the save.
This update will cover the 2023/24 season.
As mentioned in post 1, I have created a spreadsheet to document the progress in the save. This spreadsheet covers both the domestic side of things and international. The spreadsheet can be found here.
Selva thought writing his letter to both the Sammarinese FA and the board at Virtus was a bit out there, but he didn’t actually expect the opportunity to take over both jobs. Straight in the door for both jobs, he had a lot to get up to speed with – his first game was just a fortnight away against Finland and then Slovenia in the EURO Qualifiers.
Without really knowing his national pool of players yet, Selva elected to park the bus against the Finnish, and despite recording a respectable 2-0 defeat, he was concerned and the severe lack of chances. With that in mind, he opted to go a bit bigger and bolder against the Slovenians, but that massively backfired on him as they slumped to a 6-1 defeat. Selva was quite glad these games were over, as the next international break was in September, giving him time to assess the options.
The key for Selva was improving the side quickly. With a squad of 16 at his disposal, he needed more numbers in to improve the side, and he immediately went about sorting that out – the summer window alone saw a total of 14 players arriving, whilst 2 were let go on free transfers. A lot of the arrivals were going to be more bit-part players, as the current options in the starting 11 are far better options. Key signings at the time were Alessandro D’Addario, Davide Fabbri & Danilo Mullembach.
Selva felt a bit more content with the numbers arriving, and he could begin to form his team around this. Not wanting to over-complicate matters at this level of football, an attacking 442 was introduced to the players and initially looked like this:
At 7-1 odds to win the league, Selva fancied those odds after his additions. Mullembach would go straight into the side at LW to bring Tortori into the middle as Benincasa’s partner.
The team were starting to gel, and it was promising to watch. A great pre-season against rivals from their league meant that Virtus had the best preparation for their opening game – The Supercoppa against Tre Penne. A tremendous performance saw both strikers getting their first competitive goals of the season, whilst the defence and Fabbri kept a clean sheet – the best possible start to the season in Acquaviva but it was all about momentum now.
After the highs of a Supercoppa victory, Antonio Selva led his team to 9 leagues wins up to the 30th December. After an unbeaten start to the season, a very poor November proved to be costly for AC Virtus as they sat 8 points off the pace of Libertas, and 4 behind their predicted 5th placed finish. It wasn’t perfect, but it was far from disastrous. There was going to be opportunities to claw this deficit back before the end of the season, and given the cup record, Selva has proved that his side can beat anyone on their day.
Knowing that a huge second half of the season was lying in waiting, Selva made moves in the market to try and further strengthen the side with either players from the bench, or players to come in and claim a starting berth.
9 further players arrived in January, whilst a further 2 left the club. The biggest signings of this window were Canadian Anthony Aromatario from Tre Friori; he would go on to claim the CM spot in the side despite his young age. Sammarinese CM Matteo Giorgi also joined the club – Selva attempted to sign him in the summer, but his demands at the time were unrealistic, Selva was willing to compromise this time around.
A much better start to 2024 meant that Virtus were back in contention for a title shot. 24 points gained from a possible 27 moved the club to 2nd and only 5 points behind leaders Tre Penne, there was still a lot to do, but it was certainly encouraging. What made it all sweeter was the 6-2 aggregate win over the league leaders in the Semi-Final of the Coppa Titano – we would have a chance of banking a spot in Europe through the cup and it was going to be a huge opportunity for the club and Selva this early on.
Moving away from results on the park, it was time for Selva to review the results of the most recent youth intake for the club. It wasn’t fantastic, but it did appear that Selva would have 2 players around the first team in the near future. Young goalkeeper Angelo Di Francescantonio will certainly be around the senior squad from an early age as Selva is encouraged by his ability in net. There doesn’t appear to be a lot that separate him from current number 1 Davide Fabbri, so it is good to have two solid goalkeepers at this level. The other Sammarinese talent coming through is midfielder Denis Faetanini. Selva believes he can be involved in the senior squad in season 2024/25, but the youngster needs to become a bit more smarter on the park to claim a berth of his own in the future.
With 6 games remaining, the task was simple: win them all. Knowing if they won all their games, Virtus would be in control of their own destiny, but they let that slip with a narrow 1-0 defeat away to Tre Penne. That result gave the power over the reigning champions, and it would prove to be costly along with a defeat to Folgore. Those two defeats were the difference between the 3rd place finish Virtus settled for and the league title.
Selva was torn in two over the final slump; it was an incredible achievement in his first season to achieve third, a spot in the Coppa Titano final and a Supercoppa win. However, it was bitterly disappointing that they blew their big chance at a title-shock. The reassuring part was, that Virtus would have two opportunities at banking a place in Europe next season, and the first opportunity was upon them in the Coppa Titano final against Tre Fiori.
Thankfully, Selva wouldn’t need to rely on the dreaded play-offs to try and win a spot in Europe, as his 4-1 thrashing of Tre Fiori secured a place in the UEFA Europa Conference League qualifiers next season. A huge moment for the club, as they held onto the Coppa Titano for the second season running.
With the play-offs now being a free-hit, Selva could have sat back and let the boys go on holiday sooner. But that wasn’t in his DNA. He wanted to keep the winning streak going, and that was achieved.
5 games played, and 4 of them were comfortable. The only game that wasn’t pretty to watch was the 1-0 defeat to Folgore where their goalkeeper received the Player of the Match award; Selva was quoted “we could still be here in three days’ time and not score” – it was just one of those days. But a winning end to the season was massive for Virtus as they ship off on holiday and begin preparations for next season and their Conference League qualifiers.
On the international stage, things were not as rosy for Selva as he would have hoped for. Selva attempted to go for a style that worked for Rangers under the leadership of Walter Smith in the late 2000s, by going for a 4-1-4-1 look.
Hoping for a change in fortunes against Denmark and Northern Ireland, San Marino lost 3-0 at home to the Danes and 2-1 away to the Irish. A much better look in terms in results but the same thing was outstanding. Chance creation.
Selva wanted to keep at it with the formation, and perhaps tweak a couple of things with individuals as opposed to the full team. Kazakhstan and Finland inflicted further 3-0 and 2-0 defeats, before Slovenia and Denmark ended the year in misery with 7-0 and 5-0 wins respectively.
When the next international break rolled around, Selva pushed his LM and RM further up to become a more traditional 4-3-3 and put it to the test against Liechtenstein in a friendly. That test resulted in a 2-0 defeat and Selva was back to the drawing board.
Concerned that the nation wasn’t defensively sound enough, he finally gave in and elected to play with 3 CBs in an attempt to get numbers behind the ball:
The idea being that both the left and right WB can support the SM and wingers effectively enough, whilst providing defensive cover was massive for Selva. A body sat in front of the defence makes going through the middle of the team difficult but offers a threat when on the counter-attack with passes from deep. Both wingers are tasked with supporting the striker and Selva thinks with time this could be the short-term answer to his problems. This opinion was based on a narrow 2-1 defeat to Somali, where San Marino actually carried a threat in the attack.
No change in the rankings for San Marino – they remain at the foot of the rankings in 210th, but Selva has seen some promising signs that a first win under his command is not too far away. With friendlies against Bhutan and Anguilla coming up in June 2024, he will be hoping for a positive display like the one against Somalia and perhaps a win to follow.
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