Chat Major League Soccer

[Xerexes]

I noticed on the second season of MLS that InterMiami and Nashville join -- nice that has been included in FMM2020.  However, even if it is not set in stone yet, there is almost zero chance that Nashville will be placed in the Western Conference.  One of the more west-situated existing Eastern Conference teams will likely be moved to the West.

Also interesting the game now has a Stadiums page for the leagues.  For DC UNITED though it still lists them as playing in RFK which is WRONG.  They moved to brand new Audi Field in mid-season of 2018.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Xerexes

[Xerexes]

Playing a second season as DC United -- the first season I won the Supporters Shield, the MLS Cup and the Open Cup.  Not quite the result that DC United had real life in 2019 (which was very bad considering expectations)  On the one hand maybe the change in manager in from the current real one explains everything -- I kept Luciano Acosta happier than in real life and probably did a better job of managing the declining (in the game) Wayne Rooney in his farewell season.  But probably the real difference was in the game I was able to obtain on loan several KEY players -- for free -- that made a real difference to the team.  This doesn't actually seem to happen in real life in MLS and I am not sure what to make of this.  Is there anything the game could do to make loan arrangements more realistic? 

[Xerexes]

I know this is a well worn topic, but it is my main complaint with the game -- FMM is just too easy.  Second season in charge of DC we won everything -- NACL, Open Cup, Supporter Shield, MLS Cup and, actually surprisingly, Club World Cup (against Porto/FCP in the final).  I'm not even a "good" player of this game really (although I have used a lot of the tips on this website).

Maybe I need to create a self-imposed challenge to play without taking any loan players for free (maybe no less then 50% of their salary?).

[samhardy]

4 minutes ago, Xerexes said:

Maybe I need to create a self-imposed challenge to play without taking any loan players for free (maybe no less then 50% of their salary?).

The only way to make the game harder is to add your own restrictions.

[Xerexes]

On 02/12/2019 at 07:52, samhardy said:

The only way to make the game harder is to add your own restrictions.

True and without changing the game, playing "challenges" that people think up is an interesting way to do that.  But on loans -- both being "free" and the level of league and team that can get loans of world class talent -- I think that's something the "intelligence" in the game can be tweaked to make it more realistic.

[Xerexes]

Season Three ongoing!  I was completely wrong on Nashville and Miami conference -- MLS just announced that Nashville is in the West (and that MLS schedule in 2021 will not have every team play every other team at least once -- will have to check on FMM to see if that is how they are doing the schedule too).  FMM either had the scoop or just guessed right!

Season Three is another dominant performance by DC United -- helped quite a bit by getting Mario Balotelli for the season, although motivating him for MLS matches has been a challenge.  We won NACL getting a spot in the new-fangled version of the Club World Championship in the summer of 2021.  Was vaguely aware of this but thought it was still a proposal -- has FIFA already adopted this plan?  Anyhow much more realistically we opened against Inter Milan and were probably very lucky to escape losing only 3-0.  The payroll gap between Milan and DC was gigantic.  We finished with a win against GRE but only one team gets out of each 3 team group.  

[DIRECTFX]

MLS messed up with expansion as Nashville will need to be moved back East as they will accumulate a huge amount of excess travel compared to other teams. They have those west coast teams gonna be harsh going basically across whole country . All they had to do was stagger the teams they accepted into league. One West and one East every year not that hard but I guess MLS thought so 🤷‍♂️😂

The other problem with MLS is schedule with big leagues seasons and transfers opposite MLS . Think only other leagues with January start in FMM are Ireland , Korea ,and China so not huge leagues with lots of movement of big players. With no promotion can’t do a rags to riches career . Just be glad they didn’t try to add all the crazy MLS rules which would make it very hard to play following them ; DPs, TAM money , International money, drafts, rights to incoming players or returning ones etc etc . 😳🤯

[Xerexes]

So, so, so many rules in MLS!  They could just raise the salary cap to a decent amount and get rid of the GAM/TAM nonsense.  I have heard there is a possibility of streamlining some of that after the league and the players association negotiate the next collective bargaining agreement (CBA) -- current one expires at end of January 2020.

Pro/Rel in the U.S. is one place where it would be a lot of fun if FMM20 was NOT realistic and added the option to pretend the US had it -- we could play 1. MLS, 2. USL Championship, 3. USL League One, and if you wanted to really go nuts 4. USL League Two (which has like 11 regional divisions)

I do sometimes play trying to restrict myself to some of the MLS roster rules -- see this other thread on that.

 

[Xerexes]

Season 3 done - another smashing season with DC United winning the NACL, Open Cup, MLS Cup and the Supporter Shield.  Mario Balotelli got hurt for almost a month but still led the team with 20 goals.  For season 4, we were able to sign Dominic Calvert-Lewin from Everton for 3.3 million -- he was really unhappy with Everton for some reason and that transfer price was an incredible bargain.  By May 2022, he already has 19 goals -- just tearing up MLS.

It's great that FMM20 included the expansion teams InterMiami and Nashville FC, but too bad they did not include the rest of the already announced MLS expansion -- Austin FC in 2021, St Louis FC and Sacramento Republic in 2022.

[Xerexes]

Trying to develop an MLS specific challenge using the MLS roster and league rules and thought it might be interesting to use one of the expansion teams -- unfortunately you can't claim Nashville or InterMiami right at the start of the game.  But you can holiday through a season of MLS unemployed -- go all the way to start of January 2020 and (for me at least) the Inter Miami position becomes available (Nashville is actually a USL Championship club during the 2019 season and they keep their manager Gary Smith in 2020 when they enter MLS).  After applying and getting the manager job at Inter Miami I started with only 7 players signed to the club so it is pretty close to a true expansion experience.  Not sure if the financial state of okay with just a 3.2 million transfer budget is representative of what the David Beckham owned club will spend before its inaugural season in MLS but good number to work with for creating a challenge in FMM2020.

The Challenge:  Lead Inter Miami to victory in the MLS Cup becoming only the second expansion team in the history of MLS to do so (first was Chicago Fire).

Bonus Points for winning the Open Cup and the Supporter Shield

So I'm going to test this challenge with the following MLS roster and salary rules to see if this challenge works! 

Major League Soccer - Basic Roster Rules

• Max squad size is 30
• Limit of 8 international (non-US or non-Canadian) players on roster (homegrown players do not count against international cap)
• Homegrown player must be a member of an MLS club academy before age of 16 and signs first contract with MLS or a USL affiliate

Major League Soccer - Advanced Roster Rules

*** Set the salary to dollars and yearly in the settings to make this easier to calculate ***

• Salary Cap of 5 million (US Dollars) on the team "salary budget" (this is based on actual MLS cap of 4.3M for players 1-20 plus 700K as a guess for the total salaries allowed by a bunch of complicated rules for players 21-30 that is just to insane to try and simplify.)
• Team salary budget = (1) salaries + (2) signing bonuses +(3) transfer fees pro-rated over length of contract
• The maximum player salary in MLS is 530K.  The exceptions to this rule are (1) designated players, (2) Targeted Allocation Money (TAM), and (3) General Allocation Money (GAM)
• Designated Player Rule -- For three highest salaries on roster count against the cap only the following amounts -- players 24 and older: 530K; players 21-23: 200K; 20 and under: 150K)
• TAM can be used to "pay down" the salary budget for players making between 530K and 1.5M
• GAM can be used to "pay down" the salary budget for any player
• Inter Miami gets 1.2M TAM and 250K GAM (the GAM is a guess because there does not appear to be public information on what teams have)