MLS in FM/WWMS: What's wrong, and how to fix it

Since the MLS season is starting, I thought I'd put together a series of posts on the problems with the MLS in WWSM and ways to fix it. To put it bluntly, the MLS is broken, and the patches did little to fix the core problems with MLS gameplay. It's a shame, because the MLS is very fun to play in WWSM...for about one to two seasons. Then after seeing horrible players in the draft, teams cutting key players for no reason, no designated player signings, and poor AI, it gets frustrating fast. The problems are based on the following:

1) Regenerated players are introducted to the game at an old age (19-22), with very poor current ability (even though they have excellent potential ability). Since the generated players are so poor, they can't get any playing time and rarely get close to reaching their potential, which makes American regens useless. Furthermore, there are other issues with the superdraft that I'll list.

2) The AI doesn't do a good job of dealing with the salary cap. In short, teams will a new player and then dump a key player because they've gone over the salary cap.

3) Teams in MLS have a designated player slot with which they can sign one player over the league maximum salary. However, AI teams do not use this slot, limiting themselves in team quality.

4) No expansion. This may seem unnecessary, but I think that expansion is as central to MLS (and also the A-League) as promotion/relegation is for other leagues.

In my first post, I'll discuss what I think is one of the core problems with MLS: The generation of new players and the superdraft.

Regens/Superdraft

First, an explanation of how the MLS Superdraft works. Domestic youth players and players in college programs that "no longer have college eligibility" can declare to be eligible for the MLS Superdraft. For college players, those that no longer have eligibility have either graduated (around age 22) or declare for the draft (losing their eligibility in the process). For youth players (age 14-18), they can enter the draft by joining the MLS Combine or being signed as a Generation Adidas player (called USY in WWSM, more on this later). Draft order is set with the non-playoff clubs from the previous season picking first (from least to most points), followed by the playoff clubs in the order they went out (and also based on points for each round).

(Note: In American soccer, players are either on youth teams as youngsters or go to play college soccer. Youth teams and college teams are not possible in WWSM, probably b/c of licensing. So instead, WWSM has US Developmental League teams (which, oddly enough, end up being populated mostly by college players looking to play outside of the absurdly short college soccer season). So in essence, US Developmental teams develop both college and youth players in WWSM, without a college system.)

The draft pool in a typical MLS draft has both a combination of former college players (age 19-22) and IMPORTANTLY youth players (age 14-18). For example, the 2007 MLS draft had five youth players, with the rest from the college ranks. These youth players tend to have relatively high potential ability (these five youth players were chosen in the first 15 picks of the 2007 draft).

The biggest problem with the MLS draft is because of poor player generation. First, no players under the age of 19 seem to be generated from the United States. In four seasons (playing with 8.0.2), none of the players drafted (or eligible for the draft) were under 19.

This could be a minor problem, assuming that these players had typical abilities of a 19-22 year old American player. However, it seems like the game generates current ability as it would for a youth (14-15 year old) player, not for a college-aged player. Here is a comparison of the average CAs and PAs, by round, for players from the 2007 draft (real) and the 2008 draft (first batch of regens):

2007-CA 2007-PA 2008-CA 2008-PA

Round 1 100* 130 66 130

Round 2 90 120 65 130

Round 3 87 98 61 105

Round 4 87 107 56 107

* - 2007 was actually a somewhat poor first round with regards to current ability. The average CA for players from the first round of the 2003 draft (taken from a copy of FM 2004) was 111.

The potential abilities for players from 2007 (real) and 2008 (regen) are very similar. But the problem occurs with current ability, as regen CA is 25-30 points lower than it should be. This wreaks havoc with American regen players, as none of them are good enough to even stay on the roster of most MLS clubs. As reference, the average CA of an MLS starter is about 110-120, with backups and reserves ranging from about 80-110. The average player on a USL (2nd division) side has a CA of about 75 (ranging from 50-95). These generated players often can't crack the starting lineup of a 2nd division American squad, and end up being loaned out to US Developmental league squads, playing against similarly poor players.

Because of this, these players do not progress. Looking at the players from the January 2008 draft in January 2011, on average players gained 4 CA points in three years. The player with the highest CA was at 100, with only 7 out of 52 players with a CA over 90.

If these players were generated as 14-15 year olds, this progression might be sensible. But this slow progression at late ages leads to it being nearly impossible for a player to even near his potential. As the years progress, both the MLS and the US national team are filled with below average players.

Furthermore, there are other problems with player regeneration and the Superdraft. As noted before, WWSM does not generate players under age 19 (at least in 8.0.2), and it's necessary to have youth players in the draft. Another problem with WWSM is that every American youth and "college" player goes through the draft process. However, this is not the case, as many youth players (and even a few college players) go directly to Europe and bypass the draft. Some American (and former Americans) that went this route includes Giuseppe Rossi, Benny Feilhaber, Steve Cherundolo, Jay DeMerit, Oguchi Onyewu, Jonathan Spector, etc. Not all regen Americans should go into the MLS draft. Some should go to Europe, whereas others should declare for the MLS.

Top prospects often have a difficult decision regarding whether they should go to Europe or MLS. Freddy Adu, for example, had offers from major clubs before signing with MLS at age 14. Part of the reason for his signing w/MLS was a guaranteed salary of 550k a year. However, for DC United, Adu's salary did not count at all against the cap, because Adu was a Generation Adidas (formerly Project-40) player. These players are a mixture of top college players (that are often on the U.S. U-20 squad) and US Under-17 players. Former Generation Adidas/Project 40 players include Tim Howard, Ben Olsen, DaMarcus Beasley, Carlos Bocanegra, Bobby Convey, Freddy Adu, Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, and Josmer Altidore. Importantly, these players are offered salaries that are well above the 13k a year that a starting developmental player makes.

However, in WWSM, EVERY drafted player (even one with a PA of 175) signed for a developmental contract. In WWSM, Generation Adidas players should be chosen from the best young players that choose MLS, and all of these players should be offered a contract that is higher than the developmental minimum. Future stars (like Freddy Adu) can be offered big contracts and other USY players can get 40-100k a year.

So in summary, player regeneration is broken because:

a) current ability is set too low for regens

b) all American regens come through the draft, with none going directly to Europe and

c) Generation Adidas/USY signings are unrealistic.

So how can this be fixed?

1) When generating the first "batch" of players to populate the United States (and Canadian) developmental leagues, they should be a nice distribution of players from ages 14-22. Importantly, their current ability rating should reflect their age and potential ability. The average 14 year old regen should have a low CA, where as the average 17 year old regen should have a higher CA, going up to 22.

2) Players on developmental squads should have the ability to "declare" for the draft or declare for Europe. Basically, players will stay on their youth teams progressing until they hit a point where they are "ready" for MLS or Europe. Before this point, no team should be able to sign them. Precocious youngsters may declare at an early age, whereas late bloomers or players with limited PA will declare later (after more player development). As for how a player would decide whether to go to Europe or MLS, it's a little unclear how to select. Looking at the past few years, about 5-10 players per birth year choose Europe over MLS. One thing would to, out of the top 20 players in a draft class, have 5-10 (at random, perhaps) declare for Europe with the rest declaring for the MLS draft. For those declaring for MLS, the ones with the best CA/PA should be made Generation Adidas/USY players.

With this system, it is possible that a regen will be generated at 14 with limited CA (60) and an average PA (say, 100) and then spend 7-8 years on a U.S. developmental squad and finally have a chance at MLS at age 22. However, another regen with a CA of 80 and a PA of 175 could sign to MLS at 15 or 16.

3) The second season of regens will all be generated young (14-17) and work their way through the system as in #2.

This ensures MLS draftees that can contribute to MLS right after being drafted, realistic regen players, a direct path to Europe for young Americans, realistic usage of the USY designation, and an overall better MLS (and American) soccer experience.

A few other notes regarding regens and the draft:

- The supplemental draft still exists, and is used to fill out developmental rosters.

- The waiver draft still exists, though teams rarely sign players using this, as very few appealing players are made available during this draft.

- Former MLS players should never show up in the Superdraft. (I've seen this happen with David Arvizu.)

In my next post, I'll discuss roster issues for MLS squads in WWSM.

Thanks Murmur, well done.

My only concern is that I don't think SI cares about the MLS. It's American, they don't know enough about it, and there's too little demand for them to begin putting the effort into it.

Great thread, though, murmur. Hopefully they'll take note of it.

Well, my hope is that since it's a licensed league and since they're trying to sell the game in America as its own title, they'd be interested in depicting the league as accurately as possible. However, since it is complicated, and not many people really know the ins and outs of MLS, the American youth system, salary caps, expansion, etc. it can be a difficult league to model.

Will post on salary cap and roster issues sometime later tonight.

Well thought out post Murmur, i have had good times playing in the MLS in FM07 but haven't yet in 08, hopefully SI will have a look into this and try and fix it for 09.

Originally posted by B. Stinson:

My only concern is that I don't think SI cares about the MLS. It's American, they don't know enough about it, and there's too little demand for them to begin putting the effort into it.

Since they are licensed I doubt it. Also the fact that they used a year negotiating to get this license I do think they care a lot.

I, too, have been making a list of issues with the MLS in FM/WWSM, and your list, Murmur, thus far covers all issues regarding the generation of new players and the draft system.

Perhaps if SI asked for more volunteers to provide information for the American leagues, particularly the MLS. I have no doubt the smaller, but very dedicated, American WWSM contingent would respond dutifully to providing SI with a better insight into the MLS

I believe SI once said something on the salary cap and the one over-the-cap player some time back. In essence it is hard for them to program so they just raise the overall salary limit for the team.

However good SI want to make particular leagues there is always going to be limits imposed by the ability to code certain points.

The MLS is also governed by research or ability to research to an acceptable level. If SI can't get the best quality researchers then they are limited as to how good they can design the league.

I think that is a major reason why lower American and Canadian leagues aren't covered by FM; they simply aren't researched to a high enough quality because the researchers either aren't available or are too few. It's a similar reason as to why more African leagues aren't included in FM. Knowledge dictates.

Also, and to be very frank, the MLS isn't really looked on all that favourably by Europe. It's probably respected as much as something like the Scandinavian leagues and the quality really isn't as good as many world leagues.

There are so many odd and different rules in the MLS that in now way can every single one be included and be perfectly implemented.

SI may work on getting the regen production better but I'm not sure they can do much more with all the rules and salary caps. Many people would consider the MLS to be of an adequate quality already. Again to be frank the prospect of sales in the US are likely not to be as great as in Europe so less time is going to be spent on the MLS.

Good work on your post and I hope SI read and take notice of it. Remember that there are many constraints as to how much time/effort they pour into the MLS and there are points they simply can not duplicate adequately so do the best they can.

Having read all that(very interesting BTW) I have been put off s tarting the MLS game that I was about to start.

Could someone tell me if it is worth starting and learning the in and outs of MLS game. Will it all be pointless in a couple of years time?

Also if someone could point me in the direction of a good MLS guide that would be great.

Excellent OP, I wish SI would occasionally think through things as well as you have before they implement them. (Sigh.....)

Originally posted by Sad Git:

Excellent OP, I wish SI would occasionally think through things as well as you have before they implement them. (Sigh.....)

Whatever makes you think they don't? Like Ter said everything they add has the potential of having a knock on effect on what is already in place. Your post shows a huge degree of lack of understanding of what it is SI do.

murmur, point 4 is contradicting itself...I think you mean you want expansion in the game.

Anyways, expanding murmur's point (or making a new point), I really hope SI does for FM09 for MLS is the expansion part. Some franchises are already confirmed (Seattle and Philadelphia) and some might come into the league in 2-3 years (Montreal, St. Louis, Vancouver). I understand this maybe (is) challenging, but like murmur (i think) said, expansion of the MLS is important for the league as a whole, and I hope this gets implemented into future games.

Seattle in 09 and Philadelphia in '10 have been confirmed, and St Louis is unofficially listed as the definite next expansion team after that.

All of these teams have ownership groups, and could thus be implemented into the game with the appropriate chairman/board. A team would be added to the league on Jan. 1 (ingame) and would hire a manager, who would then hire staff, and acquire players through an expansion draft (which should be easy to implement, as it is akin to waiving a player)

Our MLS Researcher is very good and provides us with all the information we need.

He is indeed very good. ...It's the programming side of things that's gone awry.

Originally posted by B. Stinson:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Our MLS Researcher is very good and provides us with all the information we need.

He is indeed very good. ...It's the programming side of things that's gone awry. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

yeah but like he said, MLS is extremely different than the rest of the world. It's a lot of work and changing the MLS can easily throw off the system in another league.

I can see why it doesn't work properly, but that doesn't mean i support it being broken either.

I love the MLS, but I've never played it because I find it useless in FM.

A few notes before part two:

First, I definitely do not think that SI doesn't care about MLS. They've got a license, and have been shown to be very detail-oriented with other leagues. MLS (and the A-League) are very different, and need a lot of "special" work that takes extra coding, testing, etc. However, I also think that there were a lot of big things that were missed in testing, and/or were found in testing but were unable to be taken care of for FM 2008. It was my hope that they'd be dealt with in the patches...but I think that they are a bit difficult to deal with in just a patch or two. However, it is my hope that they can be fixed for FM 2009, hence these posts.

Second, I'm currently running a very long term game (20 years) in order to see the very long term effects on the regen problem with the league. Short term, there seem to be major issues, but I haven't tested very long term (though my guess is that it will be very bad). Will post those results in a few days. (Even with a 2.4Ghz machine with

Third, the MLS head researcher is very good, and I wouldn't knock him for any of this.

Now onto part two: the salary cap and green cards.

Salary Cap and transfers

MLS has a strange system regarding transfers. Within the league, players can't be bought and sold, but must be traded for either other players, draft picks, or allocation slots (more on that in the next post). Outside of the league, players can be purchased. However, the league has multiple limitations:

1) A salary cap of $2.25-2.3 million (with exceptions for designated players, developmental players, Generation Adidas, etc.).

2) 28 roster slots: 18 for "senior" players of any nationality, 10 for developmental players of any nationality, and 8 (overall) for international players (anyone that is not a citizen or holding a green card...and important point to return to in a bit).

* - Toronto FC has even more complex restrictions which I won't get into here.

Interestingly, these restrictions are only in effect from a few weeks before the season to a little after the end of the season. The time in between (December to early March) is used to sign new players, put players on trials, run tryouts, and then trim the roster to the specifications above. So in theory, a team can sign 50 players and 25 internationals...but once the roster deadlines occur, they need to make it to the specifications below.

Players that are cut in the final deadline (where teams go to 28 players) are waived. These players are then put into a waiver draft where they can be chosen by other teams to play, based on the same contract they were under with their previous team.

During the season, if a team wants to make a signing and if that signing would put them over any of the limits above (salary cap, senior slots, total roster slots, international slots), then the team must waive players to make room. Teams can then make claims on these waived players, and are chosen based on prior record and whether they've made a claim before or not (something represented in WWSM).

The problem here is that teams waive key players at random times, possibly because they aren't effectively taking cap and roster limitations into consideration when making new signings. There are countless examples in the MLS bugs thread. For examples, teams will sign a player on the transfer market, and then waive that player shortly afterwards. It's not like this is impossible (see Babayaro, Celestine), but it happens far too often. In one game, I saw Chicago pick up from waivers, and then cut, the same player EIGHT times in a row. In another game, I saw the Galaxy sign and then cut the same pair of players (sign x, cut y; sign y, cut x) three times in a row. DC United spent 575k on a defender in January, only to cut him in March. (And the defender ended up being a lynchpin in the Pachuca defense, so it wasn't that he was a poor signing.) Chivas USA cut their starting forward (Ante Razov) to sign someone that never played all season. In other games, major stars (Eddie Johnson, Juan Pablo Angel, Christian Gomez, Carlos Ruiz, Pablo Mastroeni (after being traded!)) were cut. Moves like this show a clear lack of foresight by the AI

I don't know exactly why the AI lacks this kind of foresight, as this would take a LOT of testing and a deep understanding of how AI teams evaluate their team and the transfer market to understand. It seems like the AI doesn't do an effective job of taking the salary cap into consideration when making signings. But why? I haven't seen similar bug threads with complaints about the A-League, another league with salary cap issues. My guess is that there are a few possible reasons:

1) Poor salary cap AI; specifically a lack of adequate planning that doesn't look a step ahead to take into account the implications of signing a new player with roster, international player, and salary cap implications. This could explain why teams do silly things like sign and cut the same player over and over again.

2) There are time periods (from the end of the season to the first roster cut in early March) where teams have no player limitations. It is possible that the AI doesn't realize that those limitations will come back. Then, when it's time to cut down to 28 players w/international and cap limitations, it's forced to make difficult decisions and jettison important players that are either internationals or have high salaries.

3) When there are roster restrictions, team A will sometimes cut a good player. Team B will see that the waived player from Team A fits well on their squad, and cut their own good player. Team C sees the discarded player from Team B, and dumps and signs. This creates a minor cascade of cuts and signings that are exaggerated.

It's difficult to come up with solutions to fix these problems, since these are only guesses as to the core problem. My guess is that transfer AI needs to be tweaked for MLS teams to take into consideration the salary cap and other roster limitations when making new signings (especially in the off-season), maybe by programming some kind of extra planning or foresight that may not be necessary with other leagues. At minimum, the AI should NEVER spend money on a transfer unless they actually KEEP that player (at least for a season). This might take a bit of testing and tweaking, but I figure there are a lot of American fans on the forums that are happy to test, myself included.

A few extra points on the salary cap and rosters. The salary cap should be higher, as for the 2008 season it is reported to be anywhere from $2.25 to $2.3 million, from $2.1 to $2.18 million last year. In WWSM, it seems to go up after each season, about 50k. I would suggest letting it go up about 80-100k every season, to reflect changes in MLS a little better.

Also, teams should take better advantage of having Generation Adidas (USY) and developmental players on their roster, because they don't count at all against the salary cap. Teams should put a higher valuation on USY players, because they don't count against the cap and they don't take a senior roster slot.

Green Card

Players count as internationals, unless they are either (obviously) American citizens or (less obviously) hold a green card. Players that hold a green card in WWSM are given a second nationality, which works fine in the game. However, where it doesn't work well is with new foreign signings and regens.

With new foreign signings, it takes them 5 years to get American citizenship. However, it takes about 2-3 years to get a green card (although this is a little variable). For example, Ivan Guerrero started his MLS career with the Chicago Fire in 2005, and received his green card in June 2007, about 2 1/2 years after his move to America.

My guess is that programming a green card stage on top of citizenship might be difficult. If so, it might be better to decrease the citizenship requirement to two or three calendar years instead of the current five.

Second, the vast majority of foreign players that come through US youth systems (either youth teams or college) have a green card, due to their extended time in the States. So for foreign regens that come up from US developmental clubs, the vast majority of them should have a second American nationality (or a green card, if that is programmable).

In the next post, I'll discuss the new Designated Player rule, how it doesn't work in MLS, and ways to fix it.

murmur,

As you check the regens in the draft, can you see if any are generated with European second nationalities? In reality, many players that have some kind of tie with an EU country get the passport as soon as they realize that they are good at football. I would suspect that most should either be Italian, Polish, or Greek in second nationality. Thanks.

I just finished an 18-year sim, and there are some very interesting issues with MLS…but I’ll save that for another post. (And rovers, I'll check the 2nd nationalities for those regens on that sim). This post will be about designated players (or the lack of them) in MLS.

Designated Players

Simply put, the AI does not sign new designated players. Checking every now and then in a now 18 year sim, I couldn’t find any examples of the AI making designated player signings, except once, where LA resigned Landon Donovan to a five million dollar contract. My guess as to why there are virtually no DP signings are because a) designated players don't want to sign in MLS or b) because team salary budgets in WWSM make it difficult.

As for budgets, MLS team salary budgets need to be more than the salary cap figure. For example, Generation Adidas players (called USY in WWSM), developmental players, and most of the salary of designated players don't count against the salary cap. So a team may have a cap figure of $2.3 million but actually be paying anywhere from $2-8 million a year in salary. By increasing team salary limits, this might encourage teams to use that space and sign DPs.

This can also be modified based on team popularity and market size. Teams such as LA Galaxy, DC United, and NY-NJ Red Bull have the salary resources (and DP slots) to support two designated players. However, other clubs have shown little interest in signing a DP (e.g. Salt Lake, Colorado), possibly because of money; and some clubs have attempted to sign DPs that are not superstars (see Columbus and their almost-signing of Maciej Zurawski). By having variable salary budgets, the different challenges in using LA vs. using Columbus would be more apparent, and would possibly allow for better AI usage of their DP slots.

A second reason for the lack of DP signings by the AI could be because AI players don't want to move to MLS. In a perfect game, MLS teams would target players that are a) free transfers, b) slightly past their prime (age 31-34), and c) have high name recognition in the United States, either as former American stars (Reyna) or former international superstars (Blanco, Beckham, Gallardo, Lopez, etc). MLS squads attract these players partially by paying them a little more than what they would get elsewhere, and partially by supplementing their income with money from ticket sales, merchandising, etc. My guess is that we’ll see more South American stars come back from Europe and, instead of going directly back to their home country (e.g. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia), they’ll go to MLS because of the better pay.

Looking at the current DPs in MLS, here they are, with their CA and PA ratings and age at the start of the 2007 season:

Beckham 156/184 (32)

Blanco 152/171 (34)

Gallardo 135/179 (31)

Angel 140/152 (32)

Reyna 135/155 (34)

Denilson 135/170 (31)

Donovan* 139/164 (26)

Other rumored DPs of the past year (Edgar Davids, Martin Palermo, J.S. Veron, Ariel Ortega) tend to fit the same pattern. Former star (PA from 160-180) on the back end of a career, but still pretty good (CA 135-160).

Hopefully AI controlled MLS clubs will target these kinds of players in the future. MLS can’t sign players like Ronaldo, Figo, and Shevchenko now (all rumored future DP signings)...but they may target them 2-4 years from now after their skills have declined. DP signings should be made of these kinds of players, and Americans returning from Europe that can (hopefully) still play at a high level.

A few more DP note...designated player slots are tradeable and for a temporary period of time, and should be that way in WWSM. For example, Chivas USA traded their DP slot to NY for Amado Guevara (2004 MVP), and Colorado traded their DP slot (and a 1st round pick) to DC for Christian Gomez (2006 MVP). Rumor is that DC has Colorado's DP slot for at least two seasons, and Chivas traded NY their DP slot for five seasons. If this were the case in WWSM, teams should only trade their slot for a high quality player in MLS (e.g. a former MVP). Furthermore, AI teams would likely not have more than two DP slots (because of the limitations it puts regarding available salary under the cap for the rest of the team).

Finally, the first DP counts 400k against the cap, and the second DP counts 325k against the cap.

In the next post, expansion, more on player development, and other odds and ends.

Thank you very much, murmur. I've posted several times in the MLS bug thread and agree wholeheartedly with your issues and suggestions. Anyone who has tried this league in '08's version knows that it is unplayable after a couple of seasons. Which is a shame, since as an American that is the reason for my purchase of this game in the first place. Why the regen issue wasn't addressed really annoys me. It just doesn't seem complicated to me to have adjusted CA based on age. Of course there are still other bugs that weren't fixed as well (developmental players becoming senior players regardless of playing time), but horrid regens was the major problem.

Not actually read all of the OP as I rarely if ever play in the MLS. But hats off for the effort murmur I'm sure this will be very helpful to some people and I for one would like to see a lot of changes if, in fact, the MLS is as broken as you claim.

A few random notes before I post on expansion:

- One bug (which has probably been remarked on) is that home field advantage for the 1st round of the playoffs is reversed. The higher ranked club should host the second leg, not the lower ranked club.

- I will post later on the 20-year MLS test, answering some of the questions in this thread.

- I think that other CONCACAF national teams are underrated in WWSM. In World Cup qualifying, Mexico and the United States will often go through the hexagonal with early every game a 3-0 or 4-0 victory. (And this is with a database that specifically included ALL CONCACAF players.) It could be that these nations aren't generating enough decent players, or that the home field advantage isn't strong enough.

Expansion

MLS started with 10 clubs in the 1996 season, expanded to 12 in 1998, dropped back to 10 in 2001, then back to 12 in 2004, with two more in 07 and 08 (Toronto & San Jose), with two more clubs to join in 2009 (Seattle) and 2010 (Philadelphia). By 2010, half of the clubs in the league will be expansion teams, and there will definitely be expansion afterwards. MLS plans on expanding to 18 teams by 2012, and will likely expand to 20 or 24 teams in the long term future.

Expansion is as big a part of MLS as promotion/relegation in other leagues, and the ability to play with (or against) a new expansion team will add a new dimension to WWSM. I think I remember someone with SI saying that MLS wouldn’t allow expansion. Well, this might be a good time to see if it’s possible. Seattle will announce their team name very soon, so they could be licensed. As for Philadelphia and other squads, team names could be chosen from a random database of city-specific or general nicknames and logos (or, if the user is controlling the team, they could add the team themselves).

How does expansion work? In short, when an expansion team is awarded, that club is allowed to select 10 players (at most one from each team) from other MLS squads, carrying over their contracts. MLS teams are allowed to protect eleven players, ensuring that they don't lose their best players. Players chosen for expansion teams tend to be decent squad players with low salaries in order to leave salary cap room for other signings. The rest of the team is filled out by signing players from the USL (2nd division) and foreigners. Since these teams have very limited transfer funds, building an expansion club is a challenge.

In playing WWSM, someone coaching an expansion team would have a unique opportunity to start from scratch and build up a team from nothing. Furthermore (if allowed by MLS), WWSM could also add fictional expansion in the future, using teams that are current candidates (and having prepared schedule templates). A realistic time frame would involve adding two teams every three or four years. Cities for franchises could be chosen based on a weighted random selection from current expansion candidates (such as St. Louis, New York, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami, Portland, Detroit, Cleveland, Montreal, Vancouver, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Rochester, and Tulsa), or could even be set in a .ddt file (or something similar) by the user. Furthermore, an expansion setup can be used by other leagues that are growing using the same method. There is a long thread on A-League expansion in the Editors Hideaway, so there is an obvious demand for this mechanism. Hopefully this is something that SI can include for FM 2009.

Originally posted by murmur:

How does expansion work? In short, when an expansion team is awarded, that club is allowed to select 10 players (at most one from each team) from other MLS squads, carrying over their contracts. MLS teams are allowed to protect eleven players, ensuring that they don't lose their best players. Players chosen for expansion teams tend to be decent squad players with low salaries in order to leave salary cap room for other signings. The rest of the team is filled out by signing players from the USL (2nd division) and foreigners. Since these teams have very limited transfer funds, building an expansion club is a challenge.

Looking at Ter's comment, it's probably kinda hard to program this correctly. So I doubt it'll be in for FM09. Might be better to aim at FM2010, that way you have a much better chance that the job gets done properly.

Originally posted by murmur:

A realistic time frame would involve adding two teams every three or four years. Cities for franchises could be chosen based on a weighted random selection from current expansion candidates (such as St. Louis, New York, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami, Portland, Detroit, Cleveland, Montreal, Vancouver, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Rochester, and Tulsa), or could even be set in a .ddt file (or something similar) by the user. Furthermore, an expansion setup can be used by other leagues that are growing using the same method.

The only problem I have with expansion is the fact this might even be buggier than board confidence. SI's going to have to program a lot to make expansion work with the additional picks in the superdraft and supplemental draft, the effects of MLS teams with a USL team in the same city (Miami, Montreal, Vancouver, Atlanta, Rochester), the possible addition of divisions instead of just Western Conference and Eastern Conference, and would probably involve a division model similar to the NHL and NBA, the new schedules that must be included when there are new teams, and if the USL will actually become playable, the possible "relegation" of that team who has an MLS franchise in the same city, which requires a lot more programming (when Toronto FC was awarded a team, the Toronto Lynx demoted itself to the PDL to save money).

I want expansion, but it's going to take a while to make this work. Of course, the idea of USL teams "relegating" themselves might not happen, but all my points above must be looked at.

Might be better to aim at FM2010, that way you have a much better chance that the job gets done properly.

Not only will it not be in 2010, it won't be in FM ever.

There's way, way, too much to program in order for an expansion system to work. They could probably knock-out a couple entirely new games before they got working expansion in place.

And all that for one league... one league that not many people enjoy playing.

It'd be great to see, but I guarantee it won't be in our life-time.

I'm quite sure there are licensing issues associated with adding in expansion, anyway.

Excellent thread, Murmur; keep up the good work.

Rancer,

I don't think it has to be that buggy. Basically, the game would have to have the expansion teams in hibernation (no signings, no scheduling) and then "promote" them to the league when expansion happens. Currently, the San Jose Earthquakes are in the game database, but are in some generic league that doesn't play any games. You could put future expansion teams in there and then "promote" them to newly opened slots in MLS. The question would be whether the # of teams in a league are coded in such a way where expanding a league at certain points is prohibitively difficult.

It would take a little more work, as there would need to be new schedule templates for each expansion round, and new templates for the draft. But a lot of the other problems aren't that big. The conference system can be kept, with expansion happening two teams at a time (one in each conference) to make scheduling easy. If a team expands into an A-League market, as long as MLS attendance isn't destroyed, there wouldn't be a need to demote the A-League team.

I do think that they'd have to work to get it right (by making sure, for example, that expansion draft AI isn't crazy). But I do think that it is very possible to add expansion IF SI thinks its worthwhile. The fact that it can also be used w/the A-League might help...but then again, it might not.

One other point, that I didn't mention in earlier posts:

- There is a HUGE bug that I forgot to mention earlier. Developmental players, when on the second year of their developmental contract, get a pay increase from $12,900 to $17,700 a year, and are called "Senior Developmental players". The game treats players under these contracts as Senior players for roster purposes, when they are actually developmental players. This actually has a big impact on rosters, as (unless the player is very good) teams waive lots of players that are in the second year of their developmental contract. This probably exacerbates some of the problems with youth players that have been noted previously. This is a gargantuan bug that has been mentioned in the bugs thread...but I thought I'd bring it up again (in the hopes that it gets fixed for next year).

Originally posted by murmur:

Rancer,

I don't think it has to be that buggy. Basically, the game would have to have the expansion teams in hibernation (no signings, no scheduling) and then "promote" them to the league when expansion happens. Currently, the San Jose Earthquakes are in the game database, but are in some generic league that doesn't play any games. You could put future expansion teams in there and then "promote" them to newly opened slots in MLS. The question would be whether the # of teams in a league are coded in such a way where expanding a league at certain points is prohibitively difficult.

It would take a little more work, as there would need to be new schedule templates for each expansion round, and new templates for the draft. But a lot of the other problems aren't that big. The conference system can be kept, with expansion happening two teams at a time (one in each conference) to make scheduling easy. If a team expands into an A-League market, as long as MLS attendance isn't destroyed, there wouldn't be a need to demote the A-League team.

I do think that they'd have to work to get it right (by making sure, for example, that expansion draft AI isn't crazy). But I do think that it is very possible to add expansion IF SI thinks its worthwhile. The fact that it can also be used w/the A-League might help...but then again, it might not.

One other point, that I didn't mention in earlier posts:

- There is a HUGE bug that I forgot to mention earlier. Developmental players, when on the second year of their developmental contract, get a pay increase from $12,900 to $17,700 a year, and are called "Senior Developmental players". The game treats players under these contracts as Senior players for roster purposes, when they are actually developmental players. This actually has a big impact on rosters, as (unless the player is very good) teams waive lots of players that are in the second year of their developmental contract. This probably exacerbates some of the problems with youth players that have been noted previously. This is a gargantuan bug that has been mentioned in the bugs thread...but I thought I'd bring it up again (in the hopes that it gets fixed for next year).

Murmur:

I'm not a programmer, so I really don't know how SI can approach this, but maybe the use of schedule templates and draft templates with the expansion teams might be possible.

I've seen the bug you mentioned a few times, and I've only just recently (TFC's expansion year) been a fan of MLS and don't know the full extent of the rules, and never knew this was actually a bug. I remember I had to waive some good Senior and Senior International players because of the "Senior Developmental" players.

Since San Jose is in the game in a generic league, maybe SI can actually 'experiment' in FM09 with the MLS and go one step further. Add Seattle for the 2009 season once the 08 MLS season ends, and perform the expansion draft process and the superdraft/supplemental draft process with Seattle getting the 1st pick of each round, and repeat this process with Philadelphia for the 2010 MLS season comes in FM09.

I'm Confused but otherwise brill Thread

Any updates on the 20 year MLS test murmur?

Originally posted by Ter:

Our MLS Researcher is very good and provides us with all the information we need. It's not true that we don't care either.

The problem is that it's one league out of 50-odd and it's very different to all the other leagues in the game, especially with the transfer system. Our game is modelled on the transfer system you see in most other countries in the game and a lot of MLS specific changes have to be made.

This takes a lot of coding and testing time and there is always the risk of the changes having knock on effects elsewhere in the game.

Out of all the leagues in the game the MLS is definitely one which gets a high percentage of coding time compared to the rest.

I've been playing this series since CM 99/00 and it's pretty obvious that a lot of effort has been put into improving the MLS. I've never expected the league to be perfect for the reasons you've stated, but I think it's gotten respectably close.

I guess the only two bones of contention I'd like to see worked on are player generation/superdraft improvement (I'm in complete agreement with what's been said) and expansion. I understand the difficulty of rigging expansion in the game (how will scheduling, playoff format be affected, etc.?) and would consider that a luxury.

But, like I've said, I think the improvements to the MLS in the game have been massive and appreciate the effort that's gone into it. It looks very good now.

I'd like to know if raising the USA's reputation would hep with generating regens for the MLS superdraft.

Where oh where has Murmur gone? Where oh where can he be?

As an American and MLS fan, I'm VERY interested in seeing my favorite league made playable.

Regarding Expansion-I seem to recall hearing that the MLS Liscense was for the current year only(much like most US Sports games) which means any changes, even if known well in advance, can not be coded into the game. So even though we know Seattle and Philadelphia are coming, they can not be "in the game" until the year they actually start(so Seattle should be in next year, Philly in 2010's game)

Once MLS becomes more stablized and has more traditional roster rules, MLS will become easier for them to code and for us to play. Things are moving in the right direction for this...teams are now allowed more International players. In the future I am sure MLS will improve in the game.

Originally posted by bwfcdcutd:

Regarding Expansion-I seem to recall hearing that the MLS Liscense was for the current year only(much like most US Sports games) which means any changes, even if known well in advance, can not be coded into the game. So even though we know Seattle and Philadelphia are coming, they can not be "in the game" until the year they actually start(so Seattle should be in next year, Philly in 2010's game)

Once MLS becomes more stablized and has more traditional roster rules, MLS will become easier for them to code and for us to play. Things are moving in the right direction for this...teams are now allowed more International players. In the future I am sure MLS will improve in the game.

More traditional roster rules? What do you mean?

If you mean getting rid of the international player limits I disagree, and if you mean getting rid of the salary cap I disagree as well. But that's for another thread.

On the topic of expansion, I won't lose any sleep if it never gets put in game. It would be awesome enough to just get a functioning draft and actual player development.

Another problem with MLS is player movement. Half the league waives GOOD players for seemingly no apparent reason (well probably to get below the senior limit), mostly players they just signed just before the season starts, which is totally unrealistic. I also think there might too many trades in the game compared to real life, but I don't have any concrete evidence on that.

Sorry everyone....my wife and I had our first child recently, so I've been ultra-busy. Rancer, I'll definitely make a post on the 20 year test sometime soon. Also, I've found some other interesting reasons as to why American regens are so bad (hint: money and hubris). Will try and post on these things in the next few days.

Originally posted by murmur:

Sorry everyone....my wife and I had our first child recently, so I've been ultra-busy. Rancer, I'll definitely make a post on the 20 year test sometime soon. Also, I've found some other interesting reasons as to why American regens are so bad (hint: money and hubris). Will try and post on these things in the next few days.

Congratulations murmur no need for you to apologize! Our first was back in March too it's fun operating every day on minimal sleep!

Welcome back murmur!!! And congratz on being a father!

And at 17, good thing I'm WAY too early for marriage and fatherhood! And is it a boy or a girl?

I'm having a simillar problem with FM08, saw a player be waived and signed for at least 6 teams in 2 months, also i've reached the MLS Final with Toronto and 8 of my players where in international duty and the game still was played on the normal date, with 8 regens, shouldn't it be postponed or have a way to not send you players to the national team on those dates?? Or at least the possibility of no national team game for canada and usa on that date. IT suck.

Originally posted by Lusitano:

I'm having a simillar problem with FM08, saw a player be waived and signed for at least 6 teams in 2 months, also i've reached the MLS Final with Toronto and 8 of my players where in international duty and the game still was played on the normal date, with 8 regens, shouldn't it be postponed or have a way to not send you players to the national team on those dates?? Or at least the possibility of no national team game for canada and usa on that date. IT suck.

That's real life for you (players being in international duty). That happens every year. I remember last year when key players of the TFC team left because of international friendlies/Gold Cup (Robinson, Edu, Wynne), and because of the numerous injuries we had (O'Brien, Cunningham, Dichio), our expansion season went downhill...

This year, we lose Guevara (big loss), jarrod smith, edu and wynne (olympics), and robinson for a game. At least the team isn't injured...

Yeah I was in the MLS final with the Red Bulls and 7 members of my starting 11 were away on international duties. Somehow I still managed to take it to penalties but I lost out in penalties 4-3. My goalkeeper was away on int duty and I had no decent backup. Horrible.

Sorry everyone....my wife and I had our first child recently,

That's great news. Congratulations!

I would just like to point out that poor regens aren't just a MLS problem... they happen everywhere.

First, thanks for all of the congratulations...it's a boy. I won't have time to get into the 20-year sim with this post, but I will lay out a few more things that I've found out.

Regarding American regens, let me briefly talk about my current game. In it, I started off as manager of DC United, which ended up being relatively easy since (at least for the regular season), since I could easily improve the squad by signing good players that were inexplicably cut by other MLS sides. For example, here is a list of players I signed via the waiver wire, or in a "trade for nothing"* over my three seasons at DC United:

* - Note that after a player passes waivers, the original team still has the cut player's MLS rights (in real life, MLS eliminated this this year). In order to get the player, you offer them nothing in a trade, and then have the rights to negotiate a contract.

Adboulie Mansally

Alecko Eskandarian

Abdus Ibrahim

Bobby Boswell

Kyle Martino

Jared Jeffrey

Khano Smith

Nik Besagno

This, combined with some good trades (a Toja about to leave Dallas for a draft pick, Beckham for Eskandarian) and a highly overrated Franco Niell, got me a two Supporters' Shields, two CONCACAF Champions Cups, two Superliga titles, one MLS Cup and one US Open Cup. A few notes on the competitions:

1) The messed up home field for the playoffs is annoying. Please fix this.

2) Superliga home field is also messed up. It works this way:

American club v. American club - Choose home field from either team

American team v. Mexican team - ALWAYS at the American club's home field

Mexican club v. Mexican club - Neutral site in the United States w/large Mexican population (Chicago, LA, Houston)

There were quite a few matches involving American clubs that were played at neutral sites. That should not happen.

As for youth players, there were a few things. First, I would take my drafted players and have them get some play on the reserve team. However, because of the developmental player glitch (where they become "senior players" after one year), I would have to loan them to my weakest affiliate (Crystal Palace, USL2) so that they would get playing time and avoid being cut. However, the drafted players were SO bad that they got absolutely no playing time and would rot. As poor as some MLS draftees may be in real life, they would get play in the American third division. (Yet another reason for the horrific American regens.)

Getting tired of MLS, I took the job at Feyenoord, who had just fired Ruud Gullit. I wanted to try and sign a few American regens to see if giving them some time in Europe would help them develop. One player who I had previously on DC United (but accidentally cut in a roster move) was James Forde, one of the few three star players in a past draft. He was drafted by Kansas City (1st round, 4th overall), cut, I picked him up, then accidentally cut him, and he moved down to the American 4th division to play for the California Victory.

After moving to Feyenoord, I tried to sign him, and he wouldn't budge on salary demands of $500k/year. Consider that he's playing in the 4th division, getting paid $5k/year, and he's getting an offer from a solid European club. But he would never sign for any of my offers. So I gave up and looked at his CA/PA. They were 87 and 174. The guy has amazing potential, but is terrible and will probably never reach that potential, due to his career path so far.

My guess is that, "knowing" he's got potential, Forde pushed for a high salary. But no team would give him that, since his current ability was so pathetic. I haven't tried signing other former high draft choices, but I wouldn't be surprised if the ones with high potential ability set their standards too high and end up rotting away. More testing on this later...

Interesting findings. I totally support your case for differentiating College/teenage-GenAd-players:

College: Higher average CA, lower average PA.

GenAd: Lower average CA, higher average PA.

Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore are good examples of the Generation Adidas thing. There are exceptions of course, but this is certainly the trend in MLS.

Toronto FC in the championship game: 13 players involved in international duty, including both goalies. I won, despite having 5 "greyed out" players in the lineup.

One trick around the Senior Development dilemma, assuming you just want to continue developing the player (and not use them on the first team.) Send your players on loan one or two weeks before the final squad registration, then immediately call them back afterwards. You won't be able to use the players on the first team, but they can play for the reserves and train with your team. This is especially useful for a team like TFC, where I can bring in a handful of young foreign players (18 or so) and keep them on my team while they earn citizenship. It's pretty much the only way TFC can compete over the long haul, as the Canadian regens are terrible! Another thing, sign your developmental players for only season (assuming you won't be using them for a while.) Let their contract run out, and they'll usually re-sign another developmental deal. Repeat until ready.

I added a bounch of real US-talents to the game, for example Koroma, Renken, and Lletget. What happens is that the MLS-teams draft those players, sign them, keep them for a year, and then free-transfer them. These are 13-17 years old players with good PA.

So what´s up with that?

One way to make the MLS even better would to make the USL leagues playable. That way MLS teams could send some of the younger players out on loan to those teams.

I know this probably won't happen, but NCAA soccer would be cool.

But I agree with CCSUltra. USA only has one playable league, and the MLS teams all have affiliations with either USL, PDL, and CSL teams. So it would be cool to have USL, PDL, and CSL as playable leagues. And it would be nice to try 'true' North American LLM.