[FM 23] Minnesota United FC - Did you want to learn how to play MLS?

[Butlee]

Introduction

Hi everyone, welcome to the save! 

We're going to attempt to go on a bit of a journey through the MLS. There are 2 main goals.

1. Show off how fun the MLS can be with it's varying and unique challenges.
2. Create an archive of tutorials to help for when you try your own MLS save.

The Career story will go on like any normal one, and we'll be splashing in some tutorial pages as we gain confidence & experience in various parts of the adventure. The idea will be that if you're here for the Career you can skip the tutorials, and if you just want the guides I'll link them all in this post as they're wrtten!

What to expect?

We'll be taking our time and writing text-heavy posts woven around pictures, graphics and analysis. It'll be a narrative rather than a series of brief progress updates, spending time to discuss decisions and what we're thinking and why we've taken actions. I always use the phrase 'stop to smell the roses' and apply that to my narrative style. I like playing around with a spreadsheet so there should be a lot of graphs and tables coming out of that - nothing too complex though! Mostly we're just here to have some fun.

Who's 'We'?

As terrible-fanfic-writer as it sounds, I write from 2 perspectives - myself (as "Box-2-Butlee" which yes, it's meant to be silly) and as our Manager/Head Coach "Brucey Blues". Generally it'll be like both characters exist and Bruce will talk about the challenges he faces day to day, and B2B will speak directly to the camera/forum thread kind of thing. Mostly it's just so I don't have to go around saying "I did this" and "I did that" and "I thought that" because it sound self-indulgent over a long thread (more or less indulgent that pretending you are two people - you be the judge!).

Also, it lets me use "Brucey" as my Aussie persona.

 

Tutorial Links?

1. Quick Notes to Get Started: xxx

 

 

Credits

FM23 "Increase Realism" - Megapack January Update [by Daveincid]: https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/571140-fm23-increase-realism-megapack-january-update-by-daveincid/

[SKIN] #TATO23 [by Wozzie]: https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/569838-fm23-skin-tato23/

 

 Prior Work (as an example of what this will be like)

Melbourne Victory [A-League Mens save]: https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/553689-fm-21-aussie-football/

 

[Butlee]

Minnesota United FC

 

For all intents and purposes, our Minnesota United FC was established in 2015. Prior to that there was a club known as NSC Minnesota / Minnesota Stars, but upon an MLS licence being awarded to 'our' owners, the old club evolved into this MNUFC.

In our 5 MLS seasons we finished as low as 19th in our maiden run, and climbed up to 7th overall a couple of years later. It's safe to say we haven't established where we sit in the overall reputational pecking order in the US and that puts us in a tough position - we're still young enough to be in our formative years, but we're not the new kids on the block anymore, so we're on a timer to make a name for ourselves.

They call us 'The Loons' which is after the state bird. 

 

Allianz Field was built for us, which is really cool. It sits on the St. Paul side of the 'Two Cities' of Minnesota [St. Paul & Minneapolis]. The rest of our club is still building up as you can see.

Badge

I find the badge interesting. It’s simple, yet stylised. The Loon is the State’s bird, representing MNUFC with 11 feathers for 11 players on the park. The blue stripe shows the Mississippi River which stems from Minnesota and either side the white describes the ‘Two Cities’ history within the State’s metropolitan area – Minneapolis & St. Paul.

That’s the kind of representative, respectful and cultural history that I can get behind on a shirt!
 

2 Loons

 

Why manage MNUFC?

We wanted a club that helped us explore the challenge that is the MLS from as many different angles as possible. Some of the established clubs are just that - established - and they already have all the facilities, finances and some of the better players & veterans - you're really just helping those guys right the ship. Then there are some of the brand new clubs, who have almost too little baggage since they’re usually cashed up, optimistic and change can be fast and fluid. 

Minnesota have had a few years in the MLS, have done fairly well without winning trophies, and since being established for the MLS in 2015 maybe their shine has just tarnished a little. They need time to establish their academy as a realistic place to bring through regularly local youth prospects, there’s room for growth in their background staff roster, room for investment into their facilities, and overall they need to push to improve their reputation and economic situation to be able to sustain themselves in the league.

This is explained well when you see the Board Vision. I imagine every new franchise has to come in with substantial capital investment with the intent to have the club grow to to support itself financially.

Overall as mentioned, we'll need to making every decision with a conscious mind of how it impacts our ability to invest in the club itself. Which actually makes it quite an interesting save - you get to build a club up, but from the perspective of a club that's actually done ok since inception, with a tiny bit of wavering (we finished 11th last season) while we try and be come self-sustainable.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Butlee

[Butlee]

Major League Soccer

OK, full disclaimer - I've never been to American and I've never followed the MLS. I'm doing my best to learn as we go, so if I get things wrong I'm happy to hear where and why. Just be nice folks, cheers!

 

The Makeup of an MLS Franchise

To understand what we're about to go through in preparing Minnesota for the season ahead, we need to get a briefing on what an MLS club or franchise looks like. The standard franchise model is to have 3 ‘clubs’ under its banner. In FM, this presents as a Main side with two affiliates – the B Team and the Youth Academy.

It doesn’t make the Main Team / B Team / Youth Academy Team dynamic significantly different to a more familiar European approach – players can still be moved up and down the sides as required for example – but some of the rules around Contracts, Registrations and Salary Caps will be impacted differently based on which of the sides a player moves into or from.

Covid19 upset the leagues structure in America/Canada, but coming into 2022 & beyond there is a home league called MLS Next for the Academy teams (along with non-MLS clubs’ youth teams) to compete in and a MLS Next Pro league for the B Teams of MLS clubs. That means there is now an established pathway for academy players to continue developing and pushing for a senior MLS contract.

 

The Academy & Youth Development

Almost every MLS club has an Academy - in FM it will bring young talent through to age 18 – during that time their club can promote them with another type of contract at any time. 

Thursday, Jul 29, 2021 - https://www.charlottefootballclub.com/news/mls-101-why-do-mls-teams-have-academies
 

The league rules are designed to encourage bringing through Homegrown potential so they are a valuable investment for your club. Because the significance of Homegrown players is heavily linked to salary cap and registration rules, we'll need to have an understanding of our recruitment strategy before we dive too deeply into this area.

For now though, it's important to know we'll have about 20-30 academy players at any given time, and each season you could expect 4-10 of them to become too old and to be replaced by 4-10 new, younger academy prospects. It's different to the 15-odd Youth Intake prospects that typically show up each season.

But don't panic, we're going to go plenty deep into our Academy setup! Like this (sample from San Jose, my test file):

 

Squad / Roster Management (Warning)

This is the part where you decide if you are interested in an MLS or not. You have to think of Professional Soccer in this competition, much like other sports in the country - such as Baseball or NFL. Roster management can be challenging, it can be involved, and it can take a lot of time to strategise where to invest time, effort & money. It's also constant. You won't just out grow your opponents by making some good decisions with lasting impacts. The minute you get ahead you will be faced with adversity for being so and need to continue to make those strong decisions to stay there. 

So honestly, this is your chance to get out of your MLS save (and maybe mine to be honest). If you enjoy setting tactics, getting budgets to sign players and having fun growing and hopefully it all coming together so you can blast your opponents away, and anything that arbitrarily gets in the way of that - this might not be your cup of tea. For an MLS save you have to really enjoy micromanaging OFF the field as much as you do ON it.
 

Squad / Roster Management 

Ok, those still with us - here we go!

Really before you can properly assess your players, you’ll need to understand two the distinctive rulesets you need to follow when putting together a roster in the MLS.

• Salary Cap
• Squad Registration

Every player will have an impact on both categories – even those with ‘no impact’ will be on a quota, so in a sense you still need to manage their impact. This is my best way of showing it visually:

 

Salary Cap

For those unfamiliar with salary capped sports, the concept is simple - you put a limit on how much a club can spend on their players so that a few teams can't monopolise all the talent, and every club has a chance to compete in every season. The reality is that there are still wealthy clubs and stronger clubs, but the salary cap helps level the playing field.

In 2022 MLS clubs must adhere to a Salary Cap of USD$4.9M per annum.
This means that unless some or all of a player’s contract meets an exception clause, the club can only spend 4.9M on paying wages/salaries for the year.

Exceptions come in many ways – each club is allowed to sign several star players (Designated Players or “DP”) for example. This is to encourage clubs to try and find those real club-defining heroes who bring extra excitement and can change games. Clubs are also given a monetary allowance to invest in extra salary cap budget, to bank for next season, or to ‘sell’ some to other clubs!

The point being that the MLS Salary Cap scheme has a lot of unique rules and exceptions, and is probably the most complex in the world of professional football. It takes some time and/or study to completely nail it.

 

Squad Registration

Where the Salary Cap concept is in place to create a sense of financial fairness, the squad registration rules are largely in place to ensure & encourage clubs to source, nurture, train and grow local American talent. In that sense it’s a lot like most European nations – your domestic league needs to largely be a vessel for bringing local talent through for your nation.

As an example, in 2022 Minnesota can only register 8 International players – the rest must be American or have qualified for a Green Card. 

Overall it may not sound so complicated, and maybe once you’re used to it, it’s not so bad. But when you start juggling this along with Salary Cap rules, you can soon find yourself in a web of decision making where each thread that gets pulled changes the look of every other decision to be made.

 

Sourcing Players / Player Recruitment

The main reason we needed to cover that up front was so we could understand how recruitment is different for the MLS. Obviously you want to sign the best worldwide talent you can, but you need to be prepared to fight for the best American and MLS / Local signings as well. 

To help put that into perspective, here is how Minnesota found their players with San Jose as a comparison (as at 3 Jan 2022).

You can see that both found half their squads locally - through trades, drafts or finding other free agents who were recently playing in the MLS – and the other half is split between their academy output and being able to lure in overseas players or attracting American players back from overseas.

In terms of the clubs – San Jose has been around longer, meaning they’ve had the time to get their academy functioning. This has lead to more draft/academy cycles to find the players to keep - they've established a nice flow of players coming through their main side.. Minnesota, established in this form in 2015, have had to go out and sign a lot of their players from overseas and snap up MLS players who’ve left other MLS clubs to supplement not having as robust an academy input.

There’s no right or wrong approach though – the point is that your recruitment will need to be diversified and depending on where your club is at & what decisions you've made in the recent past you may have vastly different strategies for recruitment over time. 

 

Strategising Teaser

To whet your whistle on what kind of decisions you make with the squad between the two seasons in my San Jose test run:

Upon arrival I decided a lot of the weaker players were local Americans in their mid 20's - we'd been playing the trading game to get the right deals on decent American talent. As a fresh Head Coach I wanted to replace them with younger prospects that I'd hand-picked - it helps us feel like they have a place at the club. To do this we traded off a lot of our local talent to secure Draft picks so we could dip into the Superdraft. I think we had 3 first-round picks and ended up taking on 4-5 players that 2nd year.
Then we were able to find a couple of Americans playing overseas - so we attracted them back (which I count as 'orange' because they were found overseas), and overall I was pretty happy with a young-and-growing side. 

 

Edited January 14, 2023 by Butlee

[Butlee]

MNUFC / Club Objectives

Let's set ourselves some targets - for the short term and for the save - it's generally good form to have ambitions and to create a plan to get there. We'll work on the plans as we go, but for now, here's what we're thinking.

 

For the Board

Generally the Board just want the club to be progressing, on and off the pitch. At some point the owners will want to stop putting more money in, and probably want to start taking money out! So that's an easy one - help make us financially viable long-term. 

Their feedback is that they’re looking for a top half finish. We’ve been on target for the past few seasons, but the tiniest risk of falling off of late.

Should note that there are 2 MLS conferences [East/West] and 14 teams in each, and they refer to the Supporters Shield (at least in FM) as a combined table with everyone's points. Around 14th is 'top half'.
 

For the Fans

It sounds like the fan expectations are realistic too. They’re keen to ensure we keep making Finals – which if we’re meeting the Board objectives we should be fine with – and there’s no major pressure to be ‘more’ competitive than we have been these past few seasons. 

Looking briefly at the supporter profile (which btw, is exactly the kind off fluff I want in FM.... far better than trying to make fake twitter a thing), it’s pretty cool that 42% of our fans are core. I don’t think you can actively target anything here, but it would be cute to get past 200k social media followers. Honestly, SI needs to coin a phrase for their own in-game-FM social media service! I'll start - how about InSIght!?

14,500 Season ticket holders and Allianz seats 16,680 with room for up to 19,600 capacity. It would be so cool to be hitting >16,680 Supporters in a few years to see if we could get more work done on the stadium!

For the Head Coach

Hopefully you’re getting a bit of a feel for the position of the club in the MLS landscape. Minnesota have established themselves after a large initial investment to get the club up and running as an MLS Franchise. We’re at the turning point in the clubs’ life where our choices will determine the club’s long-term status in the league. 

To that end, we walk a tightrope on things like;

• We can’t ‘rebuild’ if it gives up league positions. 
• We just spent ~4.5M on transfers: we can’t sustain that kind of spend without sales and we can’t sustain almost 40% of our squad being overseas purchases.
• We need to make sure our players are good performance vs economy signings. For example we need to keep a close eye on our Designated players and making sure they are winning us points on match days.

That in mind, let's set some firm targets:

#1 - League Position 14th of greater

We came 11th last season and while we’d love to set that as the hard minimum accomplishment to be happy with, we offset that by looking at how much our squad has changed from 2021 to 2022. 

We’ve brought on 13 new First Team players (Juan & Molik are in Minnesota "2") and most significantly we’ve signed 2 new strikers for 4.5M – that potentially means we're redesigning our whole attacking approach by bringing in 2 Designated players up front. There may be some teething issues.
 

#2 - Squad Age Profile

There’s nothing inherently wrong with our squad age profile, except that we’re supposed to be transitioning into a club that can grow players for sale to try and bring in extra money. 

A few quick things that stand out;

• We have 3 GK’s in their mid-late 20’s and a hot prospect who’s 17. We need to establish a pecking order and cut that list.
• Our 3 Senior DC’s are all over 30. We have no succession plan there.
• We need to try make use of initiatives like the U22 contracts or the Generation Adidas high-potential players.
•  

#3 - Academy Output

We want to get to a place where there are 1-2 players coming from our academy into the Senior squad each season. There are handy Reserve contracts that let us loan them back to Youths or the B Team as needed, but we need to ensure they have enough long-term talent that they could contribute to Seniors in time.

Those facilities are probably not going to reward us with what we're aiming for up front so we'll need to be pushing to get upgrades and improvements. We just spent 5M in the transfer window and while maybe we needed that to get the team up to scratch for this season, we're going to have to eventually start putting some of that money into these kind of facilities. I'm sure a 2M striker purchase could have got a boost to Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment for example.

If I didn't share this link earlier, here's a rating of all Youth Acadamies in Real Life, 2022: https://chasingacup.com/2022-youth-series-mls-club-youth-talent-rankings/

And no, I didn't know that before deciding on Minnesota

#4 - Establish a Tactical Style & Culture

Last point is a bit subjective, but our football philosophy is that all the best teams have a style or brand of football. Factors like intensity and/or pressing, your passing and possession game, your affluence in attack or sturdiness in defence etc... We're not looking to bring a styel, we're going to unearth a style that suits Minnesota and make it known to the rest of the MLS fans! It might not be season #1 - maybe we need a few transfer windows to get the right mix of players - but it's an essential part of the plan!

Edited January 15, 2023 by Butlee

[Butlee]

Squad / Formation / Tactics

Ok now we're onto our lads. Let's see what we've gotten ourselves into!

 

First Thoughts

A few random thoughts about the team I've picked up before looking at each player individually.

In researching the club, we learned that in 2022 goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair became the First Choice Goalkeeper. That is interesting because Dayne was a former Superdraft pick (hopefully he’s a bit of a fan favourite!) and it explains why the incumbent Tyler Miller is commanding a higher wage despite being only a backup option – St. Clair has only recently surpassed him! It's something we'll likely need to address, because the reality is we shouldn't carry so many keepers.

Our oldest defender – Michael Boxall is from New Zealand. As someone reporting in from Down Under it’s always nice to see former A-League players going onto competitive leagues overseas. Boxall’s career post-Wellington was in South Africa, before Minnesota lured him over in 2017, and since then he’s been consistently in the First XI despite a few injury troubles.

Boxall's All Whites! Note: his little brother Nikko also has 7 caps for the National team!

Our most famous American player is Will Trapp [20 int caps] – played his entire career in the US/MLS and we grabbed him from Inter Miami last season. Bloke is only 28 and will likely lead our midfield.

For 2022 the club signed a pair of strikers – Columbian Garcia (23) and Paraguayan Amarilla (26) which seems a pretty clear intent from the recruitment department prior to our arrival. When you put 4.5M on the table combined for those two players, you probably expect them both to be playing regularly.

https://www.mnufc.com/news/wil-trapp-10-things-you-don-t-know-about-me

 

Strategy, Formation & Tactics - in theory

There are generally two ways to approach your SFT when you arrive at a club.

1. You bring your own style and approach to the game and expect everyone to fit or they’ll be moved on.
2. You take stock of what players you have and you find a style that suits the majority of how they should play, expecting only minor changes.

There are pros and cons to each, but for the start of this save we’ll be starting with the 2^nd ideal. I generally go this way anyway, but it’s also not a bad idea since a lot of our transfers are done now and we’re in a salary-capped league where it’s a bit more difficult to make wholescale changes if we need to fit a certain formation. 

 

The Squad

First think we look at when initially assessing a squad is what I've been dubbing 'my timeline' for years. But let's jazz it up a little - the Arrivals Lounge!

Note: This isn't our full transfer history per season - it's a note of when our current Senior Squad members arrived at the club.
We're looking to get a feel for which players are the veterans, leaders and club favourites, which ones are the stars, and which ones are new and shiny and we just don't know yet. 

It's a fascinating picture in my opinion. This year we've really pushed hard to get O/S players (note again; O/S just means we found the players from overseas, not that they're all non-American-citizens), after last season of mostly shopping locally in the MLS. You can see we've not made anything of the Superdraft since 2020 or earlier, and we're only carrying 2 academy products as well. 

You can see Reynoso must be a pretty big deal (26 is his CURRENT age btw, not the age he was in 2020 when we signed him). And we've also bought in 4 new strikers this season - a complete refit up top!

 

 

Goalkeepers

The reason it’s been so difficult for the club to decide between Miller and St. Clair is because they’re two different types of keepers. Miller is big & strong and a commanding presence in goal, where St. Clair is a bit more agile and is a little better as a shot-stopper. 

In terms of our initial squad, I think we’ll let Miller go – it’s more of a commercial decision than anything to do with loyalty – we have two similar enough keepers, but one is younger and on less than half the wages. 
The others can probably stay and we’ll see how Emmings (a local Academy graduate!) progresses over the next 12 months before we decide on the long term pairing here. 

 

Central Defenders

If I were a betting man, I’d wager that Dibassy played as a wingback during some of his time in France. Not sure when he made the transition to a more Central role – while still at Amiens SC or when he came over to the US – but he’s solid and athletic and at 32 he looks like he could play for a few more years yet. Boxall’s just a little riskier. Right now he’s great – a very strong, professional centre back but can the big guy keep up his speed as he gets older? They both have contracts until the end of next season so we’ll be able to monitor their progress.

Regardless we’ll need to start looking for some future Central Backs. Kallman is fine without being remarkable and I can see Montgomery being ok in some circumstances, but neither is the kind of guy who will lead this backline long-term.
 

Full Backs

It was set up as a pretty clear Meanire DR and Lawrence DL starting duo, but Metanire has been off (and will continue to be off) having specialist treatment for his hamstring. That's likely why Benitez was brought in this season. The new Paraguayan is handy - and he's very quick! But he lacks some of the defensive skills. We may even go with the dual-footed Fisher instead. That would give us a cute Jamaican fullback pairing if nothing else!

 

Quote

If you're wondering what all the letters are;

• S - Senior Player (20 allowed)
• Sup - Supplemental Player 
• R - Reserve Player 

"I" is International and "HGN" is Home Grown (ie, from our academy) - with the trickiest one to explain is "SMS" or Senior Minimum Salary. Essentially Reserve Players are what they're described as - they're reserves, will often play in the B Team, and they don't count towards the Salary Cap. SMS on the other hand do count towards the cap. We'll explore if there are other nuances between the two over time. For now it's probably just important to know that the Senior Players expect to play often and the others understand they may not be needed.

So on the left we have Lawrence who’s superfit and he also brings another element to the role that I'm really interested in these days - the Aggression / Bravery / Determination combination. More and more at the high level's of football, overall commitment in any given challenge, aerial duel or free ball situation is vital to your overall strategy. Whether it's the success of a high intensity press or the ability to be patient in defence, but still ready to strike when the half-chances to steal the ball are there, more and more I think you can't have passive defenders anymore. Our lefty Kemar being around 14-15 in all those areas helps him physically dominate any fragile wingers he's defending and his pace to get up and throw in crosses is a key attacking outlet.

Which is also why Benitez will be interesting. He’s an extremely offensive player - in another team I'd want him at WBR in a 5-man defence.  If we get the structure and the possession game (if we go for that) right, this would definitely be a strong overlapping option. But Fisher is a more traditional fullback - he's got a good head on him, he's a bit more aggressive and he can mark a lot better. Which style fits our tactics? Which tactics do we want to play that can make use of these styles? What happens when 31yr old Metanire comes back from a long-term injury? Is he going to come good or will these pair have cemented their spots!?!

The others aren’t even that bad – Taylor's not too far off the other guys when needed. Academy prospect Padelford probably does have a long term future here if he trains hard - he has the right framework of a fullback, he just needs to get 1-3 pts everywhere and he'll be a competitive MLS player. Lad has 16 teamwork - nothing more satisfying than having a home grown prospect in a role that's difficult to fill that has determination / teamwork / work rate - that's club legend stuff right there! IF he continues to train hard.

 

Midfielders

Typically I would slice the midfield into two broad categories called “Balanced/Defending” and “Attacking” midfielders. And within each category I can easily get a feel for which players are better sticking to their zones and which are more transitional between the zones.
Per the image below the left guys where the ‘offensive’ and the right guys were the ‘defensive’. Even though there were a couple on the fence, I figured we had the kind of 4-2-3-1 kind of setup with wingers and AM’s aplenty.

The reality (now I’ve reviewed everyone properly) is that there’s a lot more fluidity in what we have here. The defensive options are hard-working B2B-styled central midfielders and of the offensive options, both the big guns Lod & Reynoso are happier in deeper roles – with just as much work rate and fitness as the rest. It changes the dynamics of our midfield options entirely!

This is 58-capped Finnish star Robin Lod. And the question is, where do you play a guy like that!?

FM defines him as a winger - and what he lacks in pace, dribbling and flair he probably makes up for in overall work rate, movement and ability to finish at this level. Same logic could be used if he were playing as a deeper central striker in a 2-up-front combination - he's got a bit of strength about him to battle challenges as well. But he's also just so well-rounded by now (he's only 28 mind you) that you might just want him deeper in midfield - just get him on the ball more often as a bit of a playmaker or someone who can break from midfield after shaking his marker. 
 

Midfielders - Other Big Guns

We can't talk attacking options without giving proper attention to million-dollar-per-year man, Argentine attacker Emanuel Reynoso. 

If in 2021 (keeping in mind our save starts on 03/01/2022) Lod was the club's top goal-scorer with 9, Reynoso was the top assister:

This if from www.mlssoccer.com - damn I wish the Aussie leagues were this efficient at publicising their player & team stats!

As you can see from the Key Passes (KP) metric, no one in the club comes even close to the output he has. If there ever was a pivotal playmaker at a club, it's Reynoso! I'm really stuck for ways to describe him - he's quick and agile, he's got beautiful technique for both passing and dribbling, he's creative (high flair & vision) and he moves well with great anticipation to boot. The only weakness in his game is that he doesn't defend. But you don't want him too! You want Emanuel to spend all of his energy looking for balls to feet and creating chances for himself and his teammates. 
He wants to play AMC, Lod wants to play wing, and we know we have spent money on strikers - going forward we look alright. All we need now is a good anchor.....

Ladies and Gentlemen, please meet Will Trapp - the engine room! 
Every team needs someone like this. Sometimes they play deeper as an anchor, sometimes they play as a midfield pair alongside a playmaker and sometimes they're just box-to-box in a chaotic fluid midfield. Whichever strategy we end up with, it's going to end up with Trapp on the ball more than anyone else. And he's not just the work-horse; his passing is nothing to be ashamed of and he's got the composure and vision to go with it - he'll keep the ball moving under pressure, but will also be able to pick a key pass when it presents. He was born in the US, he's played his entire career in the MLS and he's played for the US National team - the guy can not be more perfect for understanding the culture of football in this country and he's built to lead teams like ours on the back of it!

You can see why I made the quip about initially thinking 4-2-3-1, but now I'm also considering - if we've got 2 good strikers and Reynoso behind them, Lod who's a bit flexible and could play deeper, and maybe we want to play Trapp box-2-box and put a more defensive-minded DM to screen the backline, we could easily be playing 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield. If our central defender stocks weren't so thin* we could play 5-3-2 with no specific midfield ancho - just the 3 centre backs giving more ballplaying duties to find the mid-3. Our tactical options are starting to open up!

I won't go into the rest of the midfielders too much. You can see from the stats from 2021 above that Fragapane is probably the next most proven attacking option. We've picked up a winger all the way from South Africa in Hlongwane - who doesn't impact the cap very much (because of the U22 Initiative contract status) and he's not quite there tactically, but damn is he fast! He'll get chances I'm sure. 

On the defensive side, Dotson has been here a few years since he was Superdrafted. I'm not 100% sure what his role is here. He's another fit midfielder who's got a bit of everything - and it's one of those things where you look at him and Trapp and wonder if that's two of the same player and they should never play together at the same time, or if them being so similar is a dream combination and we should definitely pair them up??

Hayes is actually out for 7-8 months so I think that's why we've loaned in Gonzalez from his home club in Mexico. Despite being a smaller guy Jonathan is the [insert dog analogy here] of defensive midfielders - he will chase players around all day, nipping at their heels! Superfit (a running theme in this squad!), quick, hard working, pretty great marking for his age (22) and a brave combative midfielder - he's tipped as 5 star potential in our club!
But we also have Arriaga - almost a foot taller and big, strong and dominant in the air. He's like a central defender in a midfielders shirt! And to be honest I don't think you can pick who's better on paper - you have to figure out what your tactics need and that's the guy who'd get the nod!

Ok not quite a whole foot taller, but you get the idea!

 

Strikers

This is what 4 million bucks gets us? This!?!

Haha, hyperbole aside, at first glance I was pretty underwhelmed by what I see as the new, expensive strikeforce at the club. I guess in my mind if you had 4M to spend on strikers, and 2M would get this pair, I'd have preferred we get 1 player for 4M! It'll be easier if we talk to the attributes:

Luis Amarilla; definitely has good traits. He is slippery and has good anticipation so he should be tough to track. He's good with his head and he's reasonable in the air. He's got a reasonable finish on him with alright composure. He's also pretty good in making a pass and his work rate is not too bad for a striker. He's actually a bit of a complete forward when you think about it!

The hard part is that every good thing comes with a caveat - his movement is great but he's not particularly quick. He'll be good when he wins headers, but he may not have the strength or jumping or bravery to win them enough. His shooting and passing are ok, but his technique and touch are not fantastic for a guy in tight spaces. And so on..... 
How successful he's going to be here seems to depend entirely of how well he slips his man with off-the-ball movement in the short spaces. Maybe 16 pts with some anticipation and just enough acceleration is enough to get on the end of great passes. Maybe he can get the defence just enough out of shape that he can play in our overlapping attackers - say like Lod. 

Overall I don't have Amarilla written off as a bad player, I just prefer my forwards to have some things that jump out, rather than a range of middling attributes.

Mender Garcia; speaking of middling, he doesn't stand out in anything. He's not bad, he's just 'OK' in everything. And I'm not sure OK will cut it. 

He doesn't seem to have had a stellar track record scoring for Once Caldas DAF either. 

His saving grace may be that he has come from Columbia - I always feel like moving to a more established set of facilities and playing in a higher league can help players with a bit of potential get an instant kick to all attributes. And that's the double-edged sword when you have (what I call) a bitsa player - since they have a bit-of-this and a bit-of-that and a bit-of-everything without anything being remarkable - they can suddenly turn into powerhouses overnight by just getting a into some kind of form or positive training space that gives them +1 or +2 to everything.

 

Overall Thoughts

I think we're still a fair mid-table squad there. Reynoso is a top player in this division, Model Citizen Lod brings so much in so many ways and Trapp will put in a lot of work to make the midfield (in whatever combination of attacking and defensive players we use there) quite strong. Our backline is competitive - the wingbacks are red hot! I'm worried about depth in the centre of defence though - Boxall is 33 now and a long term injury to him or 32yr old Dibassy (their birthdays a exactly 1 week apart every August!!) would put us under pressure.

The main challenge will obviously be scoring. Amarilla may do a lot of the heavy lifting there, but you can see why I started to favour mentioning a 1-striker attack. We might make a few different formations and tactical combinations and see what we like over the friendlies. Maybe start with a more 4-2-3-1, and make up a 2-striker variation and a flatter, wider midfield 4-4-1-1.

And between the sticks, I honestly have no idea if we're up to par there. Is St. Clair going to bust out and do the job? Do we need to keep Miller just in case? Is youngster Emmings going to be the long-term solution here? We shall have to try them all and see!

 

Edited January 21, 2023 by Butlee

[Butlee]

[Tutorial] Quick Notes to get Started

Sixth & Final Preparation Post

[Long Islander]

Nice intro to MLS. I do a save each year with NYCFC but unfortunately I can’t get past completing one season. Even though I won the Supporter’s Sheild and the NACL Championship, (lost the MLS CUP to Atlanta in the final) I have found the registration page broken at times. Also my biggest gripe is that the Salary Cap effect of many players is higher than their actual wage. And there is no way to adjust this with the in game editor. Very interested in following this career to see how you get around these issues. 

[LUFCspeni]

Will be interested to follow this. I'm a huge fan of US sports and the fact that any fan will likely have their team in with a chance of winning the "big one" at some point in their lives (unless you're a Knicks fan). Also interested to see how the AI approaches their squad building, as I imagine they will struggle with the salary cap much in the way they seem to struggle with squad registration issues everywhere else.

Edited January 14, 2023 by LUFCspeni

[cerud]

Great write-up on MLS and their funny rules. I'm in Vancouver and follow the Whitecaps from my spot in the press bench (credentialed journalist there), and this is a pretty decent explanation.

[Butlee]

On 14/01/2023 at 22:18, Long Islander said:

Nice intro to MLS. I do a save each year with NYCFC but unfortunately I can’t get past completing one season. Even though I won the Supporter’s Sheild and the NACL Championship, (lost the MLS CUP to Atlanta in the final) I have found the registration page broken at times. Also my biggest gripe is that the Salary Cap effect of many players is higher than their actual wage. And there is no way to adjust this with the in game editor. Very interested in following this career to see how you get around these issues. 

Cheers! I did a test run with San Jose for 18 months - including waivering a handful of players, making use of the drafts and signing internationals & designated players - so I tried to give it a taste of everything. It didn't fall apart too much. But it'll be good for me to see a 2nd club so I can compare notes.

If you're explaining a scenario where a player impacts the cap more than his wages, and how frustrating that can be - just wait until I get up to the strikers here!! grr!

[Butlee]

On 15/01/2023 at 00:05, LUFCspeni said:

Will be interested to follow this. I'm a huge fan of US sports and the fact that any fan will likely have their team in with a chance of winning the "big one" at some point in their lives (unless you're a Knicks fan). Also interested to see how the AI approaches their squad building, as I imagine they will struggle with the salary cap much in the way they seem to struggle with squad registration issues everywhere else.

I'll be interested too. That's why I don't want to commit to a big save - if we get a few years in and clubs around us capitulate we'll just do what we need to do to complete the 'guide' parts of this and move on. 

I live in Australia and our governing ruleset is a Salary Cap + Registration heavily modelled on the MLS. It's kind of "MLS Lite" if you will. In FM clubs completely implode because they can't make simultaneous decisions and always end up overpaying on some players. My hope is that the MLS has more appeal and a lot more effort has gone into making the AI able to follow the rules. I guess it remains to be scene.

I guess I should do 'implosion watch' by checking each club after each transfer window / registration deadline!

[Butlee]

On 15/01/2023 at 13:43, cerud said:

Great write-up on MLS and their funny rules. I'm in Vancouver and follow the Whitecaps from my spot in the press bench (credentialed journalist there), and this is a pretty decent explanation.

It's a lot to take in if you're not living and breathing the MLS so it's great to hear that I'm close enough for now. I really appreciate the feedback from 'ground level' so thank you!!

On FM at a glance, the Whitecaps look to be a bit all over the shop - big roster, a lot of loans out, players Listed - including Cavallini being generally terrible... actually that guy ended up released to no one in real life, sheesh he must have been bad!
But the overall list of transfers in and out through 2022 (in real life, not FM) does have all the hallmarks of a struggling Aussie A-League side, which I'm all too familiar with here.

[Maviarab]

Given how broken the MLS is and always has been good luck.  I enjoyed all my saves there (Vancouver) but long term saves are untennable unfortunately.  Will be following.

[alslammerz@yahoo.com]

On 14/01/2023 at 07:18, Long Islander said:

Also my biggest gripe is that the Salary Cap effect of many players is higher than their actual wage. And there is no way to adjust this with the in game editor. 

This is true in real life though - the salary cap charge of a player includes their transfer fee.

Quote

Before we dive into how the salary cap functions, let’s establish some terms. A player’s salary is what they are paid. This is what you see under base salary when the MLS Players Association releases player salaries. A player’s budget charge is their salary plus things like transfer fees and other associated fees. This distinction is useful because the budget charge really represents their monetary impact on the budget. Their salary will always be their salary, but as we go forward, we’ll see how different mechanisms can be used to change how their budget charge fits into the cap. https://www.mnufc.com/news/understanding-game-show-me-money

 

[cerud]

3 hours ago, Butlee said:

It's a lot to take in if you're not living and breathing the MLS so it's great to hear that I'm close enough for now. I really appreciate the feedback from 'ground level' so thank you!!

On FM at a glance, the Whitecaps look to be a bit all over the shop - big roster, a lot of loans out, players Listed - including Cavallini being generally terrible... actually that guy ended up released to no one in real life, sheesh he must have been bad!
But the overall list of transfers in and out through 2022 (in real life, not FM) does have all the hallmarks of a struggling Aussie A-League side, which I'm all too familiar with here.

Cavallini's not bad...but he's not DP material. He had 10 goals last year, which led the 'Caps, but he would have been way too expensive to try an sell. Add on his injury issues and the fact that he's a walking yellow card liability...and that's why he was released. 

Funny to hear they have a large roster. That's not them at all. Sartini likes small squads with tons of rotation. I think he used the same lineup last year in back-to-back games maybe twice.

And yeah, MLS rules are crazy if you're not used to how North American sports. MLS is closer the NHL or NBA rather than other football leagues around the world.

[Butlee]

Ok that's a long and very elaborate pre-amble. time to get on with the show