Uncle Sam - Comments

Houston can't hold lead, surrender equalizer late in 1-1 draw against Sporting Kansas City.

League: 3rd (5-3-1, 17GF-6GA, +11GD, 18PTS)

Dynamo falls at Real Salt Lake 0-2

League: 2nd (5-2-1, 16GF-5GA, +11GD, 17PTS)

36-year old Vincente Sanchez scores dramatic 93rd-minute winner in 1-0 victory at Columbus.

League: 1st (5-2-0, 16GF - 3GA, +13GD, 17PTS)

Cabezas injured again, out for two weeks this time.

Manotas' hat trick earns him MLS Player of the Week, joins Dylan Remick and Jalil Anibaba on Team of the Week.

Dynamo played a largely second team against the LA Galaxy, and Mauro Manotas takes advantage by netting a hat trick in a 3-0 victory.

League: 2nd (4-2-0, 15GF - 3GA, +12GD, 14PTS)

Boniek Garcia has potential game-winning penalty saved by Stefan Frei in 1-1 draw against Seattle at home.

League: 3rd (3-2-0, 12GF - 3GA, +9GD, 11PTS)

The diaper dandies extend the Texas derby dominance as Dynamo Academy defeat the FC Dallas Jrs 2-0. The lads sit atop the USSDA Frontier Division.

Torres adds to his haul, with his incredible start earning him the MLS Player of the Month for March. Tomas Martinez again finishes third.

Dynamo pick up right back Rafael Ramos off waivers from Orlando City, and also sign free agent Christian Roldan. Both young prospects loaned to Rio Grande Valley for the 2016 season.

Torres' hat trick at Vancouver earned him MLS Player of the Week. Tomas Martinez was 3rd in the voting.

International call-ups and injury led me to employ a 4-1-3-2 DM Narrow (which actually functions like a 4-4-2 diamond midfield) over my 4-3-3 with great success in a 4-0 win at Vancouver Whitecaps. Erick Torres with a hat trick. The Mexican international is on a blistering pace with 7 goals in 4 league matches.

League: 1st (3-1-0, 11GF-2GA, +9 GD, 10 PTS)

1-1 draw at New York Red Bulls, Erick Torres takes a knock that will keep him out of training for 2-3 days.

League: 1st (2-1-0, 7GF-2GA, +5GD, 7PTS)

Juan David Cabezas is out for 4-5 weeks. That hurts the midfield, but with some shuffling Boniek Garcia will slide to the midfield, DeLaGarza out to right back, and Machado will fill in at DC. Shouldn't miss much:

With a 4-0 win over FC Dallas, we have one hand on the El Capitan Canon #texasderby

League: 2nd (2-0-0, 4GF-1GA, +5GD, 6PTS)

Journey begins with 2-1 win against New England.

League: 3rd (1-0-0, 2gf-1ga, +1gd, 3pts)

2016 Preseason

I played 14 preseason matches, including the preseason exhibition tournament I was invited to. The primary goals were obviously to get fitness levels up (check) and master my two primary tactics, a 4-3-3 and a 4-1-4-1 (check). Even better news is that we were highly successful, with a 13-1-0 record. The only blemish was a 0-2 loss to Columbus Crew in our 4th match. In our other 13 matches, we only allowed one goal.

Our exhibition tournament was the Simple Invitational, hosted by the Portland Timbers. It was an encouraging performance on many levels. After a 2-0 win over NYCFC and a dominating 4-0 win over Swedish club Jonkopings Sodra IF by the second team, we came from behind with a 2-minute double salvo to win the trophy against the host side 2-1.


Now the real season begins. Our primary goal will be to qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League. We either need to be one of the top 3 (US) squads in MLS, or we need to win the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. I take the cup seriously. At the beginning of every season I set up four different selections: First 11, Second 11, Youth 11, and a US Open Cup selection that features my best possible lineup for cup matches (max of 5 foreign players). In the match just prior to my open cup fixture I leave the entire open cup 11 off the bench so that they can be fresh. It's basically a 5-match run to a continental bid, and none of the other teams involved take it as seriously as I do.

So I'm starting a new save with my own epic expansion of the US pyramid, based on real life. The file and companion files can be found here:

USA Real Life Pyramid

This file adds the lower leagues, including the NCAA, so that now MLS teams draft players from colleges just like in real life. Your USL affiliates are now active clubs so you can better view how your loaned prospects are developing. The USSDA is also active, so you can keep an eye on potential future stars in your academy.

I've included the top leagues from several countries: Australia, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, and Spain; as well as few leagues from Claasen's db file: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, and Puerto Rico.

So with that said, back to the boring old Houston Dynamo. I'm hoping to use this new career (last one on FM17) as help for those who don't understand the MLS roster rules.



One way to look at your squad in MLS is to divide your players into two categories: (1) Senior and (2) Off-Budget. Senior players count against the Salary Cap, while Off-Budget players do not. What that basically means is that all of your Senior Roster players had better be contributors, or at least be players that you KNOW will contribute in the future. If you have dead weight Senior players then you are hurting the team because you only have so much salary cap money to go around ($3.65M at the beginning of the game).

Your Off-Budget players is where you have a little leeway. These guys are not eating up any salary cap space, nor are they being paid a great deal, so if you whiff on a player in this category then it won't hurt you too badly. The contract types you can get here are "Senior Minimum Salary", "Reserve", or if you draft a "Generation Adidas" player in the MLS SuperDraft. Having a strong group of Off-Budget players helps to provide you with depth without hurting the salary cap.

You don't have to have 8 Off-Budget players, but by having a full complement you will also be able to have a full 28-man squad with 20 Senior players. If you have fewer than 8, then in order to have a full 28 you will have to have 21 or more senior players which will spread your salary cap money thinner.

So looking at Houston Dynamo right now, I have 18 senior players. I'd like to sign two more, but that simply isn't going to be possible because I am butted right up against the salary cap. Six of those players are on the wrong side of 30-years old. Vincente Sanchez is still capable of producing on the Wing, but this will be his last season as a player. He is doubling duty as a coach, so I'm hoping that in the offseason I can make him a coach full time. All of the older guys are under contract through NEXT season (2017, I'm in 2016 now), so I will look to move them at some point this season.

My Off-Budget squad is a bit hit-and-miss. Juan David Cabezas is a SMS player and he will likely be in the first team as a holding midfielder. He is an excellent passer at the MLS level, so he will compliment Ricardo Clark well. Jalil Anibaba (D RC) and Dylan Remick (D/WB L) will give me some depth in the back, and there is hope for Robby Sagel (DC) to develop into a rotation player that I can trade, but the rest are simply scraps that won't be with the team in 2017.


Cabezas has very good attributes for a player on a SMS contract

My Designated Player situation is interesting. I have DaMarcus Beasley who will occupy the DL spot, but Erick Torres and Mauro Manotas are both ST. I only play with one striker, so in essence I'm wasting a DP spot. I could look to trade one, or I could retrain Manotas as a Winger, but I'm pretty heavy in that position as well. It's a tough decision that I will probably just hope takes care of itself.


Torres is obviously a top MLS player right now, capable of scoring and creating.

Manotas could be as good as Torres is in the future.

When looking at my international slots, I see that I have 10 when I can only register eight. That means one player had to go, and the odd man out was rookie MC Joseph Holland (ENG). There are a couple of players at my USL affiliate (Rio Grande Valley) at the MC position that I actually believe will develop into better players than Holland, so I decided to find another club to send him off to. The other international player I'll be looking to get rid of is Agus. He's a good defensive player, but he's 30 and I have some other guys who can play alongside Leonardo that will actually fit the system a little better, like A.J. DeLaGarza or Adolfo Machado.


Machado has the ball skills I like for a center back while also having adequate ball winning skills.

I also see that it will be necessary to reduce my wage bill.  I normally don't like doing this, but I will use my allocation funds to reduce the wage impact of one or two of the players' salaries against the cap. My 28-man squad looks solid, albeit a bit aging:

The transfer update from this site should work with my update just fine. It's when they mess around clubs and competitions that run the risk of messing up the file.

USA kits for the Gold Cup:

They're my favorite since the red and white hoops.

Ha, are there any questions that you have specifically?

That should work, that's what I do.



Yes, the file was built off of the one that is downloadable from this site. It will rename all of the competitions in the game without messing up the competition names in my file.

Some of them do turn out to be very good, national team quality. I often "take a risk" on GA players that my scouts rate highly because I can pay them whatever contract they demand without taking up a Senior slot and taking up salary cap space.

The draft is a bit of a hit-and-miss prospect. Every time that I think I've gotten the draft figured out, I end up with a dud. Basically, what I've found to be the best strategy to handle the draft is this:

First Round: I look for guys who can play right now. These are players whose attributes are at the level where they can step in to the first or second team immediately. I don't get cute and try to draft a position of need, I just take the best player available. If this means that I draft a striker when I already have 2-3 good ones on the roster in my single-striker tactic, then so be it. I'll either loan one of them out or look to trade for a player at a position of need. Exceptions: first of all goalkeeper. Unless it's a can't miss world class goalkeeper, I'm only drafting a goalkeeper in the first round if the ones that I have are absolute donkeys. I'll also draft a mega-high potential player with mediocre skills in the first round if available. If the scouts list a player as a 4-5 star guy, then I'm drafting him here no matter how good he is right now.

Second-Third Rounds: This is where I draft for potential. I forget about current ability and look at how my scouts rate their potential. Obviously, this means I'll end up jettisoning some of these guys, but I usually have at least one player drafted in the 2nd-3rd round end up being a first team player. Sometimes it can be hard to decide between 8-9 guys who are all rated the same potential. In that case, I do look at my younger players and try and determine where my greatest future need will be, and also look for GA players.

Yes, downloading all of the files in the original post is a great way to start. If you already have logos that override the ones I've provided, then you'll have to remove them and adjust the config files. That's really not as difficult as you might think at first.

Yes, unfortunately there is no way to make them selectable at the beginning of the game. I tried even putting them into another league but it botched up the game.

Good question.

Real Life explanation: The Generation Adidas (GA) program was started to entice young, talented players to either leave college soccer early (before they graduate) or to skip it entirely. The benefit of college soccer is that players get scholarships and basically get a free education and a degree to help them in their future lives. Many players would rather get that then earn a low-MLS salary. USSF and MLS offer GA contracts to 12 players which guarantees them a much higher salary. If the player accepts, then they enter the MLS SuperDraft where they can be drafted by MLS clubs and will NOT count against the salary cap for the duration of their GA contract.

In FM, the GA players will sometimes not turn out to be any good. This is true in real life. For every Jozi Altidore or Maurice Edu, there are like five Jed Zayners. However, they don't count against the salary cap so they are worthy risks. GA contracts do eventually expire (I don't remember exactly, it's either after three years or when the player turns 23), at which point they became Senior players.

Squad Evaluation

One way to look at your squad in MLS is to divide your players into two categories: (1) Senior and (2) Off-Budget. Senior players count against the Salary Cap, while Off-Budget players do not. What that basically means is that all of your Senior Roster players had better be contributors, or at least be players that you KNOW will contribute in the future. If you have dead weight Senior players then you are hurting the team because you only have so much salary cap money to go around ($3.65M per year at the beginning of the game).

Your Off-Budget players is where you have a little leeway. These guys are not eating up any salary cap space, nor are they being paid a great deal, so if you whiff on a player in this category then it won't hurt you too badly. You can have a maximum of 8 Off-Budget players. The contract types you can get here are "Senior Minimum Salary", "Reserve", or if you draft a "Generation Adidas" player in the MLS SuperDraft. Having a strong group of Off-Budget players helps to provide you with depth without hurting the salary cap.

You don't have to have 8 Off-Budget players, but by having a full complement you will also be able to have a full 28-man squad with 20 Senior players. If you have fewer than 8, then in order to have a full 28 you will have to have 21 or more senior players which will spread your salary cap money thinner.

New USA Gold Cup kit

I have not had this in my experience.

So why does MLS have all of these crazy squad rules? There really is no one simple answer, it's a combination of a number of things. I'll make a list here.

1. Avoid overspending - While there are a lot of reasons that the old NASL from the 70s-80s failed, one pretty big one was reckless spending by some club owners. While it made the league look legitimate to sign big name players like Pele and Beckenbauer, the truth is that the league wasn't making enough money to keep paying their salaries. If you think about it FM terms, there is no way that the San Jose Earthquakes could afford to pay Manchester City's wage bill. They would be bankrupt in two months probably.

2. Competitive balance - Another goal of the league is to keep as many fans tuned in as deep into the season as possible. (This is also why more than half of the league is able to qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs). Going into any given Premier League season in England, you pretty much know which teams are going to be near the top. Obviously, there are exceptions such as Leicester City, but in MLS there is potential to be a Leicester City every season. As I'm typing this, the Chicago FIre sit on top of the MLS Supporter's Shield table (the trophy given to the team with the best regular season), whereas last year they were dead last. That's really not that surprising in MLS.

These goals were achieved by establishing MLS as a single-entity. Basically what this means is that the league is ONE organization with 22 franchises. The league itself owns ALL player contracts. This helps the league ensure financial responsibility. This is an important fact to remember when it comes to "Allocation Money" and the allocation process.

As time passed and the league slowly built a foundation and added owners, these owners wanted to start signing bigger name players to help grow their clubs and by extension the league. Enter David Beckham. MLS added "the Beckham rule" to allow clubs to sign one player with a contract that exceeded the maximum salary, which became called the Designated Player. Now every team is able to sign two Designated Players, with the option to buy a third from the league office. The player's contract counts as one maximum salary against the wage cap (In real life the club owners are responsible for paying the DP player wages that are over the cap, but you don't have to worry about that in FM).

I'll add more as I go, and maybe post some pics with examples.