Uncle Sam - Comments

Houston rebounds from loss with a 5-0 win over New York City FC. This is a big win because NYCFC is currently the first place team in the Eastern Conference, so it could have been an MLS Cup preview.

Alberth Elis had a stunning performance, netting a hat trick and assisting on the other two goals.

Coincidentally, the victory earns us the MLS Supporters' Shield.


League: 1st (21-5-4, 61 GF - 21 GA, +40 GD, 68 PTS)

We blew a 1-0 lead in a game that we controlled, losing to Portland 1-2.

League: 1st (20-5-4, 56 GF - 21 GA, +35 GD, 65 PTS)

And after a 3-1 win at Real Salt Lake, we have officially qualified for the Semi Finals of the playoffs, rather than the Wild Card. Our next step would be to clinch the MLS Supporters Shield, which is given to the team with the best regular season record.

League: 1st (20-5-3, 55 GF - 19 GA, +36 GD, 65 PTS)

I haven't seen any issues that could be related to that.

The Dynamo suffer a tough 1-2 loss at Sporting Kansas City, coming only two days after the US Open Cup Final.

League: 1st (19-5-3, 52 GF - 18 GA, +34 GD, 62 PTS)

US Open Cup Final

Well, wow. That was anti-climatic. It was like playing against a team of schoolboys. The Red Bulls came in exhausted, having played on Sunday, which meant they only had Monday and Tuesday to recover. They also came in while on a terrible run of form, having only a draw to show for their last four matches. Their fatigue and low morale showed in how they played, hacking and kicking. Six yellows and a sending off were mostly a result of chasing and stomping from behind. Old Man Sanchez slotted home two penalties and then netted his hat trick in second half stoppage to cap off one of the most lopsided finals you'll ever see. It was the first Open Cup win in Dynamo history, and automatically qualifies us for the CONCACAF Champions League.

In news from the Lower Leagues:

PDL: West Virginia Chaos defeated Lane United 3-1 in the final to win the PDL Championship.
NPSL: Kitsap SC defeated New York Athletic Club 2-1 to win the NPSL Championship.

USASA Amatuer Leagues:
American Soccer League: Super Green FC won the championship on penalties after the final finished 1-1 against Lancaster Lions.
American Premier Soccer League: Miami National SC routed Miami Dade 7-1 to win the title.
Premier League of America: Oakland County FC scored in extra time to beat Muskegon Risers SC 1-0 and win the league.
Southern Premier Soccer League: Regals SCA won the league
United Premier Soccer League: Still in progress, but the Santa Ana Winds seem to be the class of the league so far, winning 20 out of 26 matches.

And on the replay the lads play better and come away with a 2-1 victory to sweep the season series against FC Dallas. (I feel a little dirty, but not too bad because I didn't do it on purpose, and, well, it's FC Dallas...)

League: 1st (19-5-2, 51 GF - 16 GA, +35 GD, 62 PTS)

And our great run comes to an end as the choice to rest players before the US Open Cup final costs us a defeat against archrivals FC Dallas, 1-2.

League (1st, 18-5-3, 50 GF - 17 GA, +33 GD, 59 PTS)

Actually I left the house to go to a movie with my wife and my computer updated and restarted itself, and apparently I forgot to save it after the match so now I have to replay it.

And with the results before our match against FC Dallas, we have officially qualified for the MLS Playoffs.

Epic run continues as Dynamo defeat Seattle 2-0.

League: 1st (18-5-2, 49 GF - 15 GA, +34 GD, 59 PTS)

Tomas Martinez's brace at San Jose earns him MLS Player of the Week.

Ricardo Clark scored on a corner kick to pull out a 3-2 win at San Jose.

League: 1st (17-5-2, 47 GF - 15 GA, +32 GD, 56 PTS)

Dynamo get another big win, this time against Toronto FC 2-0.

League: 1st (16-5-2, 44 GF - 13 GA, +31 GD, 53 PTS)

Another dominant performance as the Dynamo cruise through the LA Galaxy 4-0.

-Cabezas took a knock (again), and will be out 4-5 days. This is his 4th injury THIS SEASON. He's a good player, but I doubt I'll try to make his loan from Deportivo Cali permanent when it expires at the end of next season.

-We're currently on our best run of form this season. We haven't lost in our last 8 matches overall (6 in league play), with only one draw to blemish the run.

League: 1st (15-5-2, 42 GF - 13 GA, +29 GD, 50 PTS)

The second 11 grind out a 0-0 draw at Montreal Impact.

League: 1st (14-5-2, 38 GF - 13 GA, +25 GD, 47 PTS)

It took extra time, but we made it to the Final of the US Open Cup:



We obviously missed Erick Torres, as Manotas isn't ready to step up and make plays yet. But my strategy of resting my Open Cup squad was certainly a big difference. We absolutely dominated the second half and extra time, finally getting the goal we deserved only 3 minutes into extra time. Then we just knocked the ball about as New England chased. This run has been pretty great because all of our matches have been away. We'll play the final in front of the home town fans.

Final: v. New York Red Bulls.

NYRB's path to the final:
-4th Rnd: Minnesota United 4-1
-Rnd of 16: Colorado Rapids 2-0
-Qtr Final: at LA Galaxy 0-0 (4-2p)
-Semi Final: D.C. United 0-0 (5-3p)

After the best game of his young career, Memo Rodriguez suffered a twisted ankle and will be out for 2 weeks.

Mauro Manotas wants an improved contract. I told him earlier this year that we would talk about it after the season and he said he understood, but now he's harassing me about it again. I got him to fire his agent, so hopefully that' the last I hear until the season is over.

With not being able to add any more Discovery signings, I have decided to call up Rafael Ramos from his loan to Rio Grande Valley. He's injured for 2-3 weeks, but when he returns he will give me depth at DR and can begin developing for when he hopefully takes over at the position. He can also play DL as well, if necessary.

Despite resting the first team for the midweek US Open Cup Semi Final, the Houston Dynamo trounce San Jose 3-0. Memo Rodriguez scored his first two goals for the club and took home player of the match.

League: 1st (14-4-2, 38 GF - 13 GA, +25 GD, 46 PTS)

Bob Bradley has returned to MLS to take over the New York Red Bulls after the club sacked Jesse Marsch. The Red Bulls currently sit in 5th place in the Eastern Conference, 8 points adrift from the top. They do sit in a playoff position at the table, but could easily be unseated as only one point separates them from elimination.

After giving up two goals in the first 25 minutes, my MLS All-Stars squad roared back, taking a 3-2 victory on Andrea Pirlo's direct free kick goal.

Dynamo secure a 1-0 at home against Vancouver after one of the more bizarre own goals you'll see:
https://youtu.be/GITgGhZp65Q

Clark's free kick pinged off of two Whitecaps past the keeper into the goal.

League: 1st (13-4-2, 35 GF - 13 GA, +22 GD, 43 PTS)

I have been chosen to manage the MLS All-Stars against West Ham United. This is my squad:

It's a pretty strong team, and a fun little game to manage.

Well I had a loan setup to acquire Thiago Martins, a Brazilian DC from Palmeiras, but it said I met my limit of Discovery Players in a season. This is obviously not true as I have not made a single discovery signing, the game probably thinks that due to the Data Update I use.

Moneyball

So the word "moneyball" here in the United States refers to a strategy for assembling a professional sports squad using principles of fiscal responsibility and statistical analysis. It was made famous by Oakland Athletics baseball General Manager Billy Beane and his staff. Oakland does not have the financial resources of some of the bigger teams in Major League Baseball, and so Beane and his staff began using statistical analysis of players rather than talent scouting evaluation to find hidden bargains and avoid wasting money on players who, while boasted big numbers in statistics that are often glorified, do not produce the most important team statistic: wins. Beane made his team highly competitive despite a comparatively miniscule payroll.

So how does this work in MLS in Football Manager? Well a couple of years ago I read a book on the transfer market in real life football titled "Soccernomics", which was an attempt to apply the Moneyball strategy to football. The two sports are far too different for there to be an accurate clone, but there are some principles in the book that do translate. Here are the ones that I operate by:

Sell any player when another club offers you more than he is worth. In my most recent game with the Houston Dynamo, Erick Torres was tearing up the league in the first season. He had 16 goals in 13 league appearances. His value rose to $5.5M, and suddenly some German clubs started coming in with offers to purchase. At 23 years old, he was still relatively young, but was unlikely to develop a great deal. On one hand, the traditional logic would be that I'd be crazy to sell a 23 year old striker that leads the league in goals. However, Soccernomics logic dictates that if I pass on this offer, I may not get a better one. What if Torres stops developing altogether? What if he's injured? Or what if he flat out stops scoring?

There are a few reasons why selling players in MLS helps. First of all, more money in the account balance is good. It helps to improve facilities, it expands the transfer budget for purchasing players on the foreign market, and perhaps most importantly it adds to the Allocation Money. Allocation money, in reality, is play money. Think of it like the board game Monopoly. The League distributes allocation money like Monopoly dollars, and the teams spend it and collect it to try and improve their situation. Clubs within MLS can use this allocation money for domestic transfers, for example to swap for players, for draft picks, even international slots. One very helpful function that the allocation money can serve is to reduce the impact of player salaries against the salary cap.

Going back to my Erick Torres situation, I chose to sell Torres for an initial fee of $5.5M (although it will very likely rise to around $11M after incentives). This transaction brought my allocation from a meager $130K to $1.32M. While I don't need it yet this year, in the future I will possibly (if not probably) need to try and get my wages under the salary cap. Below is a screenshot of a box in Ricardo Clark's "Contract Info":

If I needed to reduce the impact of Clark's salary I would just have to slide that blue ball to the left which would make that $313,000 number go down. I could take his all the way down to zero and still have $1M of allocation money left.

So to conclude this section, selling players when clubs offers an amount more than their value it helps to keep the team salary down by removing that players' salary from the books, but also lets you buy down the salary of another player. Eventually it's going to become excessively expensive to resign a quality player when he comes in with an absurd contract demand. So the best thing to do is sell him before that happens. In my experience I rarely give a new contract to a player more than once. By the time that second contract is about to expire he's hit his prime and will only start deteriorating and meanwhile he is insisting on a contract well beyond his worth.

Adopting this transfer strategy requires you to practice another important Soccernomics principle: Replace your best players even before you sell them. I am always rotating my squad in order to discover and develop replacements for every member of my first team. It's great to sell a player for a large fee, but it's foolish to sell if you are just replacing the player with a donkey. In the case of Torres, I have Mauro Manotas who my scouts are very high on and who has a respectable 7 goals in 9 starts. His value right now is $1.2M, and that's sure to go up as he moves to the first team and starts banging in more.

This whole situation also confirms another Soccernomics principle: Center Forwards are overvalued. Because they score a lot of goals and provide a lot of assists, their value tends to be higher. I've found this to be true in FM. I always get more money for strikers than a player at another position with similar quality attributes.

You can't find them because they folded in real life, so they were folded in my file.

Oh, and my Skin is the Flut "light" skin. I changed the background to the lightest possible.

The Seattle result was epic. It's rare when everything comes together like that and the guys are just ruthlessly clinical. I started with my Counter strategy, and after it was 3-0 they went defensive and I immediately went to my control strategy and kept pouring it on. I usually have a fitness advantage over the MLS clubs in the Open Cup because I rest my players in the weekend match before the Cup game, but Seattle hadn't played a match at all for a week prior so their guys were just as fresh.

Yes, if you click on the player and go to Contract -> Contract Info, there is a box for "Salary Cap Impact for 20XX Season". Here there is a slide bar where you can use your "Remaining General Allocation Money" to reduce the impact of the player's contract against the salary cap.

Below is Ricardo Clark's salary cap impact:

As you can see, I have $1,321,000 of General Allocation Money left (mostly the spoils from the Torres transfer). You can drag that blue dot as far to the left as you can, reducing the "Salary Cap Impact" of the player contract. I could reduce Clark's contract all the way down to ZERO if I needed to. So obviously, allocation money can really help you in MLS. You can acquire allocation money through trades within the league, by selling players to foreign clubs, and through league performance (winning the Shield, winning MLS Cup, qualifying for the Champions League, etc).