Enter the Dragon

Having already attempted and failed a Pentagon challenge in the space of one day, I retreated back to the English leagues in search of a new challenge that might restore my faith in my ability to actually play this game and hopefully be interesting enough to read.

Some of you might have heard of the San Marino challenge, it involves managing both the San Marino national team and San Marino Calcio who play in Lega Pro Prima Divisione in the Italian Leagues and taking them both to magnificent glory. Its no small feat and one that I could quite comfortably say was well beyond me.

However it did give me the inspiration for my own personal challenge. One for the homesick, less ambitious and quite frankly not that good at the game.

I will be managing both Wrexham and Wales.

Despite being a proudly Welsh town, Wrexham turned down an invitation to the Welsh Football Leagues and opted instead to remain in the English football league, however their bold decision has hardly seen them light up the English game, with the club sitting firmly in the Blue Square Premier League and a world away from their fellow Welsh sides, Cardiff and Swansea in the top divisions.

Their undoubted success however has come at a cost to their national identity. Swansea have featured just three Welsh players so far this season and Cardiff City representing the capital of the country, shockingly have just one Welsh player in their first team, in the shape of iconic striker, Craig Bellamy.

This is where me and Wrexham come in. My goal is to try and take this small club at the bottom of the footballing ladder to the Premier League using a side made entirley (or atleast as close as I can get) of Welsh players. Hopefully as we rise up the table this should also help me develop the national side, as I strive to return the Red Dragons to former glory.

In short with this career I hope to have either restored a slight bit of pride in Welsh football, or go out in a blaze of glory, having completley hammered the final nail into their footballing coffin...

Such an interesting challenge! As you know it goes without saying I will follow this

Good challenge and good luck

Thanks Gentlemen I'm glad to have your support again!




Whilst Wales struggles to come to terms with the reveloution within their footballing ranks, the board at Wrexham have issued me with their targets for the coming season...



and I was fairly pleased with what was at my disposal.

Sixty thousand pounds in the transfer budget is more then enough for a Blue Square Premier side and with three grand to play with in the wages, I cant complain about not having the backing of the board for my ambitious plans, however a qucik glance at the squad shows that these budgets will certainly come in handy with my remodelling of the team...



Not one Welsh player in the first team. Disgraceful.

With just sixteen first team players in the squad, I doubt I will be radically over hauling this squad anytime soon but my gradual Welshification of this team will be starting immediatley and with the board pushing for promotion already, in my debut season at the club, I will definatley be hoping to get some of the best lower league Welsh talent available to steer us to a dream start.

Good luck!

All the best with this.

Works certainly cut out to find and build Wrexham into the Welsh team you dream of!

Thanks Guys!

Slow and steady wins the race Dan! Im not going to radically overhaul the entire squad in one window but hopefully by the end of next season I will have a nearly entirley Welsh side





With my staff sending out a rallying call to assemble all Welsh men who can kick a ball in a straight line to Wrexham, there was a short amount of time to evaluate the job I've got on my hands as manager of the national team.



Currently ranked a fairly respectable 39th in the FIFA rankings, the Welsh national side would seem to be playing above expectations but having failed to qualify for a World Cup since 1958 and a European Championships since 1976 its fair to say that Wales hasnt exactly made much of an impact upon the national scene and it was only just last year that the Welsh team sank to their lowest FIFA ranking of all time, coming in at 117th, the position currently occupied by Footballing behemoths, Botswana.

Personally I'm not really concerned about the FIFA rankings, when Greece is ranked above Brazil, its really quite hard to take it seriously but non the less it will be intersting to see if I can improve on their current position.

What will be of far more importance to me is to finally take the Red Dragons back to an international tournament and the club is already about to take its first cautious steps towards the 2014 World Cup...


However its going to be a realtivley tough challenge.

Having dodged any of the major European teams, the main contenders for the Automatic qualificaton spot comes in the shape of a robust Croatian side and the up and coming Belgian team led by iconic play maker Eden Hazard.

For us third place is a realistic aim, with a cheeky chance at the second place, playoff spot very much up for the taking, however just beating our British rivals Scotland twice could hopefully keep the people of the Valleys happy and heres the men who could hopefully lead their country back to glory.


My assistant manager is clearly a massive fan of every single player to pull on a Red shirt but judging the squad from my own point of view, I certainly think this team has got some strong potential. With the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Joe Allen and of course Craig Bellamy weve got a good basis to the squad but there is clearly one man who stands head and shoulders above the rest...



Rush might have gone, Giggs might be passed it and Savage has thankfully taken himself into the world of television but Bale at the tender age of just Twenty three is already well on his way to eclipsing all three. As one of the biggest talents in the Premier League, hes certain to be at the centre of all Welsh teams to come for the forseeable future, with his lightning pace causing even the best of defenders trouble down the flanks.

With no International fixtures until next month, its back up North to Wrexham to evaluate the Welsh talent weve managed to assemble for my debut season is the Blue Square Premier League.

I love your stories, always a challenge and when you do them I'm like, why didn't I do that! This is another one of those, a fantastic challenge! Be sure to check mine out some time. Trying to have just the one career this year!

Good luck with Wales

There maybe some gems in the Welsh Premier that maybe able to improve the squad with the 'Welsh' aspect. The league is poor but when I booted up FM13 and took a look at the WPL, I saw one or two that could do a job for Wrexham.

To be honest Dan i based it almost entirley on the San Marino challenge so I cant take any credit but theres plenty of other variants if you ever feel the need to attempt a similar challenge. AS Monaco would be one hell of a tough one and theres a host of Liechtenstien squads playing in the Swiss league but I think your current career could certainly keep you far more interested!

Cheers George

Thanks Cymro, I did a thorough sweep of the WPL and came up with a host of potential players but only a few that could improve our squad on a long term basis unfortunatley. I've got plans for that league as well though eventually...





With an entire squad of Welsh players due to arrive over the course of the next few seasons, theres sure to be a few comings and goings at the club and despite me being in charge for little over a month I was eager to get to work in transforming the squad...



With only two players leaving the squad permanently my attempts to clear some space for new Welsh arrivals might not have been succesful as I planned but with English player Andy Morrell leaving on a free and stand out Cameroonian Goalkeeper, Joslain Mayebi sealing a One hundred and sixty thousand pound transfer to Crewe, I was gifted a lot more breathing space in the wage and transfer budget.

With a large number of Welsh players seemingly ready and willing to join the squad and my attempts to unload players falling flat, I resorted to sending some of the players out on loan for the remainder of the season with English players, Colbeck, Rushton and Hunt all leaving on a season long loan, with hopes that we can offload them on a permanent basis at the end of the season.

With five non-Welsh players now removed from the team, I resumed my intentions of developing Wales into a footballing superpower by sending two of our most promising Welsh under Eighteen players to our feeder club, Airbus in the Welsh Premier League for the coming season. My hopes are that as our squad develops we could in turn help to increase the standing of Airbus in the national league and also the reputation of the compeition itself.

Its and ambitious and quite frankly implausible plan but then again so is this entire challenge...

Good challenge mate, I've never been that interested in San Marino but Wales should be good.

Good to see another update and a little bit more money into the club

It turns out Ive inadvertently copied a challenge from FM Base, the place where I discovered the San Marino challenege. Not sure how i managed to overlook it but as its been done far better and completed multiple times over there, as the Gary Speed Tribute challenge I think its probably right that I leave it to people that can do it justice.

Third times a charm I suppose...