Uncle Sam - Comments

It's hard to say. For the expansion teams I did fill out their squads., except for Minnesota. I left their squad as it was. I did give every club a couple of designated players to help balance the clubs. For example, Ronaldinho is on Atlanta United.. LAFC has Adebayor, Inter Miami had Eboue, and Minnesota has Boateng. I really can't say why Minnesota is outperforming the others, although LAFC is only 6 points behind. I may not have done as great a job filling their squads as I thought, although in some of my tests Inter and Atlanta made the playoffs.

Trophy Room

Houston Dynamo

Lamar Hunt US Open Cup: 2015
MLS Supporters Shield: 2015
MLS Western Conference Championship: 2015
MLS Cup: 2015

United States U-23

CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying: 2015

International Record: 0-0-0

United States U-23: 4-1-0
2015
-----CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying: 4-1-0
-----OVERALL RECORD: 4-1-0

Club Record: 29-12-3

Houston Dynamo (USA): 29-12-3
2015
-----MLS Regular Season: 20-11-3 (Supporters Shield Champions)
-----MLS Cup Playoffs: 4-1-0 (MLS Cup Champions)
-----Lamar Hunt US Open Cup: 5-0-0 (Cup Winners)
-----OVERALL RECORD: 29-12-3

2016
-----MLS Regular Season:
-----MLS Cup Playoffs:
-----CONCACAF Champions League Group Stage:
-----Lamar Hunt US Open Cup:
-----OVERALL RECORD

Ha, thanks. Hope to update a little more.

This game uses my modified MLS that adds the 4 real life future expansion teams to the league. I'm playing FM 2016 but set the "Game" to FM 2015 because for whatever reason the career updates don't have any teams in the drop down for 2016.

So about the Dynamo:


I'm currently running the top leagues from:
Australia
Brazil
England
France
Germany
Holland
Italy
Japan
New Zealand
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
USA (MLS-NASL-USL)

Ten Matches In
The Houston Dynamo have some quality, but they are very thin. Erick Torres up front provides a legitimate goal scorer, as he and Andrew Wenger have banged in 3 goals with 3 assists each in 8 appearances. The glaring problem is depth. Once you get past the first XI the quality in the squad drops off sharply and manager Jeremiah Harmon is often forced to rotate the squad due to fixture congestion. Injuries to starters Oscar Boniek Garcia, Giles Barnes, and Ricardo Clark early in the season have complicated matters. The good news is that the team sits within striking distance of first place in the Western Conference. The have a game in hand on leaders Portland and sit a mere four points back.

The Future
Management is encouraged by the play of a couple of 19-year old prospects. Memo Rodriguez (MC) has posted a 7.40 average rating in his 6 starts and has an assist. Striker Mauro Manotas has filled in more than adequately for Erick Torres at times, scoring three goals in 5 starts. 21-year old Leonel Miranda's play at AMR has been good enough for a 7.54 average rating.

In the USA, the PDL - Mountain Division (ID 20031727) has changed its name to the PDL - Central Pacific Division.

I couldn't find anything anywhere on Kuka. Apparently it's a German robotics company.

The team is the Vermont Voltage, the kit brand is honestly a mystery to me. From the label on the kit, it appears to be called "Kuka", which I have been unable to find any examples after scouring the internet. The owner of the club's name is Kuka so it could be a deal where he is trying to get a kit manufacturing business going. Either way, I have not been able to find the brand anywhere. My hope is that it's a ripoff of some other manufacturers' template and that someone recognizes it. I really don't want to try and create that bizarre watermark on the top of the kit.

Are there any existing templates that look anything like the picture below?:

My bad guys. Apologies.

Chicago Fire home and away

Here is the adidas template with the Dynamo kit. Feel free to build upon it, anyone.

Awesome, I'll throw together an Adidas template

OK, I've nicked up a template for the Kit Style found in these articles: Here and Here. I asked for the graphics designer of these kits and he graciously granted permission for the community to use his template.

This is a look at the first two I've created, the Houston Dynamo:



I'm also attaching the template. I really hope some of you guys who are better at photoshop can run with this and eventually get our own subforum. I love this simplicity of this style and it looks good in game. The shorts and socks also adds a dimension that is cool too.

Blank Template

OK, got approval from the original creator:



So let's nick up a quick template for the Harsky Kits. I'lkl do MLS if someone can get me a base template.

I've emailed the designer of the kits to see if he would grant permission. I'll let you know his response as soon as he gets back to me.

I think that looks good.

I don't know what to say, they're both working for me. Try going to espnfc.com and searching for "most valuable euro kits" and "kit deal more important"

I know! Some kit make needs to nick up a clean template!

Yea, I think this would look good in game.

I've always wanted a kit template that displayed shorts and socks, and this would be a simple one. I'm just not good at making a base template, if I tried to do it, it wouldn't look as "clean". I can work with templates though, so if someone could nick it up that would be cool.

And this article:

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11354724/kit-deal-more-important-ever-premier-league

I like the look of the kits found in this article:

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11389002/top-10-most-valuable-euro-kits

So some graphical expert needs to nick up a template!

The MLS ones are default, except San Jose. The rest are a mix of logos I made myself and some I've downloaded from I can't remember where. Probably multiple sources. The style of logo are just the standard logo.

April/May/June

-Champions League
The Semifinal drew us against Club America from Mexico. We got a nice 1-0 win at home in the first leg after Carlo Costly's goal in the 11th minute. We controlled the game from start to finish and probably deserved a second:

In the second leg we held on for dear life, grinding out a scoreless draw thanks to a missed PK:


In the final we played Toluca, also from Mexico. The first leg was down there, and although they had more shots they were mostly hopeful efforts. Our chances were more well carved out and we dominated possession and earned a 1-0 win:

The second leg was a bit more wide open. Toluca pulled level in the 16th minute but we quickly replied with a pair of goals that sealed the deal and earned MLS its first CONCACAF Champions League trophy:


In June we also learned our draw for the group stage of the 2014/15 edition. We'll play the Montreal Impact (Canada, MLS) and Herediano (Costa Rica).

-US Open Cup
Fixture congestion and World Cup callups have basically forced us to play our backups and youth players in this competition. Our competition has not been very stiff, however. We were drawn into the tournament in the third round and beat Virginia Cavalry 4-2. Next we went to Atlanta and defeated the Silverbacks 3-1. In the quarter final we faced our first MLS opposition in the Cup and beat the Columbus Crew 3-1 to advance to the semi final where we will face the Los Angeles Galaxy at home with a chance to advance to the final.

-MLS
Our league play has been outstanding, considering the players who have been on national team duty and the fixture congestion to boot. We have scored the most goals in the league while surrendering the fewest. However, Sporting Kansas City is 8 points clear of us. We do have three games in hand so three wins would put us in first place by 1 point:




-New Signings
I did make several acquisitions. Most of these players were drafted or claimed off of waivers and will not contribute significantly this season but will solidify our team for the future.

I did manage to find a player in Brazil who is not partially owned by his agent so I could loan him. Sadly, like 11 minutes into his first game he suffered an injury that put him out for months.


These are hopefully the next generation of Dynamo players. Because I have some players called up for the World they are getting a good amount of playing time:








These guys are on loan to other clubs:

MARCH

-Champions League
I was fortunate enough to be drawn against another MLS side in San Jose Earthquakes for the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal. I am going to have several disadvantages starting out. First of all, I began with a Sunday League reputation so the players aren't going to listen to me until we've had some success. Also, we had not yet achieved full familiarity with the tactic, so things weren't going to go smoothly. So it was a help getting to play a team who was at least on our quality level. The first leg was at home, and we played respectable well:

We controlled most the match, really limiting San Jose's chances. Tally Hall only had to make one save. Brad Davis playing the left wing knocked home a short cross from Giles Barnes in the 69th minute and we took a 1-0 lead into San Jose.


We weren't quite as dominant in the second leg, but we were still the better side. We won the possession battle and San Jose did not put a single shot on target in a 0-0 draw that saw us through to the Semifinal to face Club America from Mexico. The other Semifinal is Toluca from Mexico and upstart San Miguelito from Panama.

-Results

March was largely a good month. The league opener against Montreal we completely dominated but couldn't find the net. We held off the Red Bulls in New York for a 2-1 victory. Then we had two games were the guys up front couldn't miss. At Chicago we put away 3 of our 9 shots and at home against Columbus we scored 4 of 9. In the last game of March we went at New York (AGAIN) and this time we were unable to hold our 2-0 lead and the Red Bulls stole a point late. It was frustrating, but I think we have to be satisfied with 4 points from two matches away to New York. They have one of the top 2 or 3 squads in the league. And it was a fine month, putting us 1 point behind Kansas City for the top spot in the East Conference with a game in hand:

Friendlies
I use friendlies for three purposes: Fitness, Familiarity, and Morale. The only other conceivable purpose for friendlies is to tour another country for marketing purposes. I do that sometimes, but the first year I just want to get my club ready for the first season. For that reason I only schedule minnows. This allows my team to gain fitness and have great success while doing it. Wins improve morale more than draws or losses to equal or better competition. So if I do take a tour, I try to make the opponents weak.

I do not use friendlies to perfect my tactic. The AI does not approach a friendly the same way they do a competitive match. So there is really no point in trying to work out the kinks of my tactics. Whatever adjustments work in a friendly may turn out to be useless during the season.

With all that said, I will sometimes not cancel any friendlies that the computer set up for at the beginning of the game.

The three away friendlies were already set up when I took charge. The two Russian clubs will be a test but they're no Real Madrid, so I will just leave them. All of the other friendlies I scheduled and they are all very poor teams. We should be able to win all of those as I try to get my team fit and familiar with my tactics for the Champions League.

Scouting
The first place I look when scouting is my Academy team. Right now I have a strong team but they are aging with several of my best players over 30. That means my focus needs to be on securing talent for the future. As I look, there are obviously a lot of high potential players here:

It's always difficult to just go by the assistants opinion on potential, but typically players with 5 stars are safe bets to develop into players at least MLS quality. So these are guys I can sign and count on to be the future of the club. I can loan those guys back to the academy to develop for a season or two, but the Left Back (Olvera) I can probably even leave with the main squad for reasons I will get to in a moment.

Now, when I start sending my scouts I usually focus on a couple of regions and a handful of nations specifically. I usually stay away from Europe unless I find the right player. My favorite place to find international players is Brazil. I can usually get them at a price and there are tons of MLS quality players there.

I also scout Central America. My favorite countries there are Costa Rica and Honduras, but occasionally a quality player will spring up out of Guatemala.

Asia is another good place to find MLS quality players. I have an update for Japan I got from the SI forums, so I don't know if you can get could Japanese players without it. But I do have it and I find contributors from there.

And I often try to beat the European clubs to players from Africa. There are usually a few high quality players from Western Africa to be found.

Trades
Domestic transfers in MLS primarily function as player swaps. Here in the US we call them "Trades". Most trades are player-for-player deals, with one team often also acquiring extra goodies like allocation funds (Basically transfer budget money) or draft picks (we'll talk about the SuperDraft later.

I have specifically had DC United approach me for Corey Ashe:

International Slots are tradeable commodities in MLS. Right now I have 7 slots. I do like acquiring international slots because that means I can improve my squad with foreign players. I need an international slot because I have 8 foreigners, and although I am planning on sending Jason Johnson (Jamaican) on loan to my USL affiliate Pittsburgh, I would like to go find a center back to shore up my defense. However, I HATE temporary international slots. Sure, I might be gone in 5 years, but I just feel better when the International Slot I acquire is permanent. I am open to trading Corey Ashe because I do have DaMarcus Beasley and Jermaine Taylor can fill at Left Back in a pinch. I also have a youngster in the Academy who is the left back of the future and if Ashe is moved that means he will get more playing time. I am going to negotiate the deal to try and make that International Slot permanent, and I'm going to try and squeeze a first round SuperDraft pick out of DC as well. If they reject it, I can count on them or another club making another offer for Ashe.