Kuji Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 So after numerous hours in FM15 with nothing to show for, restaring, playing a season and then restarting again, I decided to try writing a journal of my progress as I move up in the world using a custom database. The database consists of giving the USA a leg up in the world of soccer to make them competitive against the typical superpowers. Now, I am not looking for the success of USA (no offense), but of a tiny little island in the Caribbean called Puerto Rico. The database comes from Graaa's USA World Class http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/395969-FM15-USA-World-Class-MLS-%288-levels%29 Basically a 8 level USA Pyramid, 4 pro, 3 semi-pro, 1 amateur, with cups and trophies and everything at every level. Full Pro/Rel although everything is against the team up for promotion. Playoffs and a replacement for every Continental Cup as a 3 tiered Club World Cup. While there are other teams in the database (1 pro, and a smattering of semi-pro/amateur), I am choosing the pro team. The Puerto Rico Islanders are currently in the third level, east division. The schedule will get a bit hectic, with multiple competitions which will make for crowded weeks, and potentially injure players. What is your goal? My goals are the following: 1) Get promoted – I want the Islanders to reach the very top of the mountain. 2) Win competitions 3) Go as far as possible in the CWC or Club World Championships. Obviously some are more achievable than others, and it will take a number of seasons before I encounter giants. Overall, I want to have fun. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 Good luck! You're going to need it! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuji Posted March 24, 2016 Author Share Posted March 24, 2016 Thanks Paul, can you clear up your inbox though? It says I can't send you pm because you are a popular guy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuji Posted March 24, 2016 Author Share Posted March 24, 2016 The History of the Puerto Rico Islanders The Puerto Rico Islanders are a professional football team based in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. They have played in several different leagues from 2004 to 2012. In real life, they suspended operations in 2012. In their last two seasons they played in the North American Soccer League (NASL), the second tier of the American soccer pyramid. The Puerto Rico Islanders have always played their home games at Juan Ramon Loubriel Stadium in the city of Bayamón, which is located about 10 minutes from the Capital, San Juan. The stadium was originally a baseball stadium scheduled for demolition, and in 2003, it was converted into a soccer stadium for the Islanders. It is also home to all levels of the Puerto Rico national football team as well as the Islanders' affiliate team in the local Puerto Rico Soccer League, Bayamón FC. In this database, the Bayamon FC play somewhere else. The Stadium has a capacity for 12,500 spectators. In 2008, the USL did not allow the #1-seed Islanders to host the USL-1 Championship match, citing that the Stadium was unsuitable. The match was played in Vancouver, where Puerto Rico lost to the Whitecaps, 2–1. On December 8 of 2008, the Finance Vice-President of the club Jorge Pierluisi, established a preliminary meeting with the firm CMA Architects and Engineers along with Positive Impact-Sports and Entertainment Management Consultants to discuss and evaluate improvements of the stadium and the remodeling of such. The stadium has welcomed the Spanish National Team (in a friendly vs the PR NT) and, very recently, from NYFC. There have been concerts here as well, most notably Madonna and Aerosmith, but this is not the venue for concerts anymore. I visited the stadium in 2015 for a game with the Puerto Rico national team against either Bermuda or Granada. The stadium looked a bit rough on the edges but it serves its purpose pretty well. I haven’t visited since, but I plan to visit soon. In 2015, the team was reformed as the Puerto Rico FC and will participate in the NASL in 2016 thanks to being bought in June 2015 by none other than Carmelo Anthony - an American of Puerto Rican heritage. On August 14, 2015, announced Adrian Whitbread as head coach and Neil Sillett as technical director. He followed that by appointing Thomas Payne as president of the club on November 10, 2015. This database currently uses the Puerto Rico Islanders FC name. Any modifications to the database throws it on a loop, so I decided to maintain the name and just roll with it. Would have been fun to listen to Carmelo Anthony too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 Thanks Paul, can you clear up your inbox though? It says I can't send you pm because you are a popular guy It should be clear now! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuji Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 Puerto Rico is considered a separate country from the US according to FIFA, hence the participation of a National Team in competitions (Officially, Puerto Rico is a territory or commonwealth of the US, but this isn’t the forum for that). Puerto Rico has not had any worthwhile representation or efforts in the international scene. It mostly competes with neighboring countries before losing and not qualifying for recognizable competitions (Olympics, CONCACAF, etc). I found this to be the only database that I can get Puerto Rico as far as I want them to be. Puerto Rico (as a nation) in this database is 125th in the World Rankings (185 IRL as of this typing) and I wanted to get them as far as I can. A recent blog posted an interesting event in PR soccer history, for perspective or soccer knowledge. http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/mar/22/puerto-rico-soccer-world-cup-1994 This is going to be a similar challenge to the ever-popular San Marino challenge. The national team aspect is secondary though. The Puerto Rico Islanders is not the island’s national team. This database has a number of smaller Puerto Rican teams (Bayamon FC, Sevilla FC, River Plate PR, among others), but they are low on the pyramid in this database, mostly semi-pro or amateur. We'll encounter them in a Cup. It also has a Puerto Rican league, but we can’t access it, and it only shows gray players. I could potentially try to pick players from those teams to replenish the team or bring more Puerto Rican players into the database. How am I playing it? I loaded 5 levels of the USA pyramid and have nations like Spain, England, etc in a View Only. As shown in the next picture. I will "Add Players to Playable Teams" because most of the teams in the database are empty, with few exceptions of real life players in it. These will generate a healthy dose of youth, backups, studs, and potential world class athletes as some of you may already know. These are my stats. Went generous on one side, but this is what I will be running with. Maybe the guy played in one national team match and got injured in the first 5 minutes. I plan to limit the use of the in-game editor to nitpicks (like names). Eventually I want to change the team jersey as well, along with the logo, but that's for the future. Aside from that, next update will be about the squad and its composition. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuji Posted April 2, 2016 Author Share Posted April 2, 2016 Sorry for the lack of updates. A combination of grad school interviews, plane flights and school work has delayed me pretty badly. I'll try to be more consistent from now on, so expect new updates between today and tomorrow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuji Posted April 3, 2016 Author Share Posted April 3, 2016 The squad has been generated. As some of you might know It doesn’t exactly balance the roster out, you might get two top notch strikers and no full backs worth playing. I pretty much have to fill in the holes with transfers. Something you might notice though, is that many show up as transfer listed (automatically). This applies to all the teams, which means that a transfer market frenzy begins, trying to get talent generated by the system from anywhere in the US, upper and lower leagues included. If I had not chosen “Add Players to Playable Teams”, the same thing happens, but it gets harder with the limited amount of players that can be considered “good”. The teams would pursue the real life players, and you have to wait a little bit for youth intake. Plus, Puerto Rico only starts with like 6-9 national players without the addition of new players. Initially I wanted to try to add the real life players that are currently in PRFC and get them into the team using the in-game editor. I could just go "Eff it" and transfer whoever I wanted for whatever, but I realized that it might give me a unfair advantage over other teams. So, I decided to just run with regens. I doubt I can buy the real life players though, some are obscenely expensive for what they bring to the table or aren't interested in our lowly team. Okay, so the squad that was generated pre-transfers is the following: Andres Alicea Abelardo Cabrera Fernando Sanchez Armando Aguilar Juan Molina Jose Rexach Esai Fernandez Pedro Perez Walter Villavicencio William Roberts Luis Antonio Martinez Daniel Valle Carlos Alberto Alvarez Josue Cortes Ramon de los Reyes Carlos Borja Antonio Pagan Felix Velez Henry Rivera Jesus Sanabria Pablo Barbosa From the looks of it: GK – Esai Fernandez seems to be a solid choice with a youth prospect Antonio Pagan behind him. Most likely stick Pagan in games with weak teams or nothing games. DR – Jose Rexach is the front runner as a defensive right. Ramon de los Reyes (bad ass name) is the youth prospect that can potentially replace him. DC - Andres Alicea looks like a monster! He is 6’6’’ with 15 Heading and 16 Jumping Reach! I need to try and take advantage of crosses or aerial passes. After him, it is full of youth that can be developed (Cortes, Sanabria, Rivera). I might need to get one or two good defenders so that the drop off isn’t as bad as it looks. Most likely have two solid defenders, one back up and rotate between the more appealing youths to get them experience in the field. DL – Walter Villavicencio seems to be the weak link of the defenders. He seems to be better off as a backup. Borja, another youth, is right behind him. This should be a position to pursue in the market. DM – Pedro Perez does not seem like a bad DM, but he is the only one I have, so I am hoping to get an extra one. MC – I only have one natural midfielder that is also a youth (Luis Antonio Martinez) and a natural AMC that can play MC. Martinez looks like a stud, but I need to look for talent in case he gets picked up by a bigger team. AMC – The same applies here. Abelardo Cabrera could be one of my youth studs to be taken as well. AMR – Armando Aguilar looks good but needs a decent backup, because the natural MR he has isn’t enough. AML – This position is quite crowded (I wish the game didn’t put so many here and could have just evened it out across the field). Juan Molina is the top runner for the position with youth behind him (Alvarez, Velez) and players who can play here as a secondary position. ST – Fernando Sanchez seems to be a pretty decent Target Man. William Roberts seems to be a fast backup, but with not-so good finishing. I may need to pursue players for this spot. I didn’t mention every single player, most can be either backups or won’t stay in the team for long because they aren’t good enough. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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