Scandanavia Buying All Young Americans WTF

I have the MLS running, but not any Scandinavian leagues and they literally buy every single young American and Canadian players! It's insane Malmo FF currently has more N. Americans than Swedes and so does IFK. Funny thing is they players cost a few million bucks and then get sold back to the MLS for less? Also, currently Bulgaria is buying SE Asians like they're going out of style. Litex is half Thai and half Burmese.

Has anyone else experienced weird player migrations? Or teams where certain nationalities congregate?

It happened for me playing as Norway having Australian league loaded. Currently 15 Norwegians in the Hyundai A-league and more to come...

Also Feyenoord bought a batch of 4 of my U21 players at once, kinda wierd.

Regen imbalance. Got to get their players from somewhere if there aren't any at home.

definitely not to this extent. I notice that players from your nationality will tend to migrate to the league you manage in...for example I'm managing in the Czech first division and pretty much every team has at least 1 Bulgarian.

I'm not sure if it's "regen imbalance" because I also have the South African league running and it has all kinds of nationalities represented that probably wouldn't end up in South Africa. Acuna going there shows that they can attract all kinds I guess, but signing Russians and French players that didn't catch on seems far fetched.

I'm not sure if SI has programmed any tendencies into the game as where players go, although 'a lot' of MLS players do try their hand in European football in Scandanavia first. Primarily players who are clearly not good enough to go to any of the bigger leagues. Several fail and then wind up back.

You could also look at the staff of the teams and see if they are American or have knowledge, that might bias it too.

Also keep in mind that since you have MLS loaded, and not the Scandinavian leagues, so like I said, it's a perfect place for good MLS players to go to Europe, and since they don't have their leagues on (and I'm assuming you didn't load all the players from those nations) it's going to seem unbalanced in two ways (you'll have way more MLS players + lower league players from the US/Canada compared to many other nations aside from those you loaded.)

Crpls makes a good point; there are a surprising number of Americans in the Danish league, for instance.

Something to do with the Draft, I suspect. Don't the MLS have to release a certain number of players for "drafting" which means they can be signed by pretty much anyone?

I only played half a season in the MLS and because I didn't learn the rules I really struggled.

Still, doesn't explain why the Scandanavian teams are snapping them up. Are there a lot of affiliations between the two regions?

Still, doesn't explain why the Scandanavian teams are snapping them up. Are there a lot of affiliations between the two regions?

Speaking for the Norwegian part of Scandinavia:

I suspect the rule change about how many players outside EU can be in the match

squad has something to do with this.

It used to be max 3 non-EU players in the match squad(didn't stop FM's AI teams from

filling up the squads with Brazilians though,very annoying).

Now I think the rule is max 11 foreigners in a squad of 25,no matter the nationality...

plus the 4 club grown and 8 home grown thing.

In a game like FM I think it would be natural for the teams to buy "many" foreigners

in the first couple of seasons to fill the squads then it would start normalizing.

I hope.

In the game I haven't noticed it happening too much to my MLS club. I've had more players go to Ukraine and Russia than Scandanavia but that's just my game.

In real life I think Scandanavia is a popular destination for Americans for 3 reasons:

1. Americans can make more money there than in the U.S.

2. Laws and rules make it relatively easy for Americans to play there.

3. The level of play there isn't so high that only the top Americans in the world could play there

and I'm sure Scandanavians ability to speak near-perfect English helps too.

Something to do with the Draft, I suspect. Don't the MLS have to release a certain number of players for "drafting" which means they can be signed by pretty much anyone?

Something to do with the Draft, I suspect. Don't the MLS have to release a certain number of players for "drafting" which means they can be signed by pretty much anyone?

Here's a guide to the MLS Drafts

This explains the draft.

In the game I haven't noticed it happening too much to my MLS club. I've had more players go to Ukraine and Russia than Scandanavia but that's just my game.

In real life I think Scandanavia is a popular destination for Americans for 3 reasons:

1. Americans can make more money there than in the U.S.

2. Laws and rules make it relatively easy for Americans to play there.

3. The level of play there isn't so high that only the top Americans in the world could play there

and I'm sure Scandanavians ability to speak near-perfect English helps too.

That's not how it works.

And the low wages of the MLS make American players very attractive and affordable for Scandinavian teams who generally do not have large transfer budgets.

Americans also get closer to other European scouts who regularly scout Scandinavia (Holland especially) and probably feel they have a better chance of a big money transfer to Europe than if they stayed in the MLS.

Charlie Davies of Hammarby is a good example of my last point. He would have been hands down the #1 pick in the draft and was offered more money by the MLS, but chose to go to Hammarby as he felt it put him in a better position to get a transfer down the line. Probably a good choice as well. After a horrid first season he lit up the league last year, and has had offers refused from Ligue 1. He will move on to bigger and better things soon.