[FM 20] Assuming All American Whiskey is Bourbon is a Cardinal Mistake

[Hootieleece]

Interesting Save.

I am an Alum of a small but up and coming college soccer program UMASS-Lowell. IRL for some reason we are getting 3-4 players from Croatia before Covid.  Our best player in 2018 was a Cape Verdean.

Are you planning on trying any interesting Tactics with your team or is lack of training time a constraint?

[Timetxu]

5 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

Interesting Save.

I am an Alum of a small but up and coming college soccer program UMASS-Lowell. IRL for some reason we are getting 3-4 players from Croatia before Covid.  Our best player in 2018 was a Cape Verdean.

Are you planning on trying any interesting Tactics with your team or is lack of training time a constraint?

That's very interesting to hear! I'd like to get some input from people who can judge this save for some level of realism. Unfortunately UMass-Lowell didn't have the best season:

Regarding the tactics, I've tried some wacky stuff, but you're right that the lack of training time is an issue. Especially as we're playing midweek games during the season too, there's hardly any time to train left. That's why the biggest part of the season I played with a simple 4-4-2. Maybe once my players have spent a couple of seasons with me, I'll be able to do some more advanced stuff.

[Timetxu]

2019 SEASON - MLS SUPERDRAFT

Prior to starting this save, I had high hopes of posting an MLS Superdraft update where players from all NCAA teams have the possibility to get picked and have a future in professional football. I was very anxious to see what would be happen once I'd reach the the Superdraft date.

However, as unfortunate as it may be, I did not receive any information of any sorts regarding the Draft. Prior to the draft, there was a combine that saw a selection of 72 players who would be either 21 or 22 years of age in the 2020 season. They played a friendly competition to get in the spotlight of MLS scouts. Unfortunately, I did not receive any news or info about this either. Two days later, the actual draft was held and all 72 combine players, as well as an additional 18 players, were picked in the draft.

There's a couple of things to mention here. Let's start with the positive: it's cool to see that the mechanism of this editor file works in that way that 21 or 22 year olds were picked. In real life, a player has to have spent at least three years in college to be picked from an NCAA team. Also, the total amount of picks in my draft (88) comes somewhat close to the ones in real life (there were 77 players picked in total in the actual 2020 MLS Superdraft).

The negative side is, as I mentioned, that I did not get any messages of this. The update that I planned to write regarding the draft therefore has to be adjusted a little bit. I'll be using a little bit of imagination of what actually happened, but here goes.

TOP DRAFT PROSPECTS

Of all the drafted players, these were the players who played at least 10 games in the last season and had the highest average rating. As the season is already over, and this list of players didn't appear before the season cutoff date, we'll have to make do with the average rating of their last five games.

TOP FIVE PROSPECTS

I'll give a short rundown of the top five players in the list I posted above. 

PAUL ORPIANO - ST (C)

Orpiano was pivotal in Gardner-Webbs success in 2019. They won the Big South Conference Tournament and reached the third round of the NCAA Championship. Orpiano scored 16 goals in 22 games and scored an average rating of 7.44 over the season. He won a player of the game award 5 times.

PABLO TOWNSEND - ST (C)

Another striker here. His Pacific University didn't have the best of seasons as they did not reach any postseason whatsoever. Townsend did have a 7.16 rating over 15 games, netting 7 goals.

DANNY KEOGH - ST (C)

We continue with the strikers. Keogh might not be the most technical of sorts, but his natural leadership and determination really stand out. Had a terrific season at Dartmouth with 11 goals in 17 games. He started off losing the first game of the Ivy League at Yale, but never lost since and finished second, just behind Cornell. Unfortunately, they did not receive an at-large pick to the NCAA Tournament because of the lower reputation of the Ivy League. 

BRYAN DELGADILLO - GK

Delgadillo is the best keeper on the board. Had only 5 clean sheets in 25 games, but for a Horizon League team, that's pretty impressive. Gained a lot of fame in the postseason by only allowing two goals in all their tournament games, which gave Valparaiso the Horizon League tournament title and got them to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

MADE RAMDANI - M / AM (C)

Another player whose mental attributes really stand out. Won the Atlantic 10 Tournament with St. Joseph's and reached the quarter finals of the NCAA Tournament before being eliminated by Virginia on a golden goal. Had a passing percentage of 76% and a shooting on target ratio of 85% in his 10 games with the university from Philadelphia

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TOP FIVE PICKS

Now as the actual draft wasn't visible to me, I'll just have to deduce who were the actual first five picks. I know the draft order, so I'll just assume that the best players they eventually got were their first picks. So here goes:

#1 - NICK RODRÍGUEZ
D (R) - BUTLER -> INTER MIAMI

#2 - SERGEY MALIN
M / AM (L) - DEPAUL -> NASHVILLE SC

#3 - BRYAN DELGADILLO
GK - VALPARAISO -> CHICAGO FIRE

#4 ASH JOLLEY
GK - VCU -> REAL SALT LAKE

#5 SEAN DUNKER
M (L/R) / AM (L) - DUKE -> FC DALLAS

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LOUISVILLE 2020 DRAFT PICKS

Now the most interesting part. For the depth of this narrative, did we get a player picked? Obviously with all players being about 21 or 22 years old, there wasn't a lot to pick from in our team as most newgens that I started out with are 19 years old. But we do have one lucky guy:

 

Played in 25 of our 26 games to an average of 7.06 last season and will be packing his bags for the high Northwest. Eduardo Durán will be the first draft pick from Louisville under our helm!

[Timetxu]

2019 SEASON RECAP

RESULTS

 

 

BEST XI

 

 

BEST PLAYER

 

 

AWARDS

(ACC ALL-CONFERENCE FIRST TEAM)

 

 

PROGRESSION TRACKER

 

[roversawh7]

Boo, we were eliminated by Buffalo.

It is sad irony that Cincinnati announced that they have cut their team.

[Timetxu]

7 hours ago, roversawh7 said:

Boo, we were eliminated by Buffalo.

It is sad irony that Cincinnati announced that they have cut their team.

You're actually right, I forgot about that! I believe @Uncle_Sam actually took them out in his updated file. I'm still playing with the pre-updated file, so we'll have to beat them on our own terms.