Major League Soccer management in Football Manager is a nightmare. Let's talk about why. More here: fmprojects.substack.com/p/man... #fm24 #footballmanager2024 #footballmanager
Every month i start thinking about playing in the mls and then randomly give up on it lol i love managing in nba or nfl in videogamez but the mls makes no sense to me cause these rules only work when your league in the best in the world
American sports leagues are like fast food chains having an internal competition. It's your McDonald's playing a soccer match against the McDonald's across town. Great video man! Side note, you're looking at your script alot during the parts where the camera is on you, try to memorize the parts of your script when we we can see your face so we don't see you checking it
I'd argue that my club - Detroit City FC - buck the trends you've cited. No big-money backing, huge supporter base, active culture; founded by five thousandaires in 2012, and now in the second division. But the powers-what-is have been, and continue to be, a roadblock at every turn. US Soccer is a captured regulatory body, as is FIFA. Sigh
As a Brit Of a Smaller Team The Salary cap sounds pretty good Because in all honesty the premier league is won every year by The UAE Wearing a Manchester City Shirt
me in Gibraltar on FM we pay 4 players a huge salary Lionel Messi, Sergio busquets and jordi alaba .plus my bulgarain striker who helped us go invincible in the league scoring 40 goals .everyone else is either youth or players on £200-850 a week
Problems is MLS is not fun in FM because theres real rules you can sign some older players on a high wage but theres a cap . On fifa /EAFC theres like one rule you have to have release clause rule i signed a player for £700k that aussie wonderkid winger hes now worth £117.7M
I did a few seasons in the mls. It's the trade thing that stops it being enjoyable - not being able to sign other American players freely stops it being fun.
I tried... And I got it. Took me practice, some retries, some knowlege of USA leagues and routines (and I mean, NFL/NBA knowlege) But, took me a excel help, because I don't like of the way of FM calculates the salary cap at all, nor only the MLS. And what I discover its shocking: Nor only us can have difficult with the rules, but the AI suffer a lot, witch makes the league surprisingly easy. Mid season in my first season for real and I got immediaty on All Star team Coach. You can pretty much bulid a good team quick if you are smart, scout the draft and use the annual alocation money do the rest for ya. But, I recomend taking over in the start of the season. If you try to take command in the middle, you will easily find yourself with your hands tied. But, it does. You need patience, it's one of the most complicated challenges in the game, but it can be done.
I would love a database that takes almost all the MLS-ness out of the MLS and makes it more European. Keep the conferences, but let me sign who I want to sign without all the fuss of being like "you don't have the money to do that" when in fact, as a club worth a billion dollars, I in fact do have the money to sign who I want. Remove the registration rules, too, they're just obstacles to fun.
I hate the idea that MLS doesn't have promotion/Relegation because their isn’t enough teams. The League of Ireland runs a promotion/relegation system with just 20 teams, ten in the top/Premier Division,ten in the second/First Division
I could see the only relegation system happening to players only. Like in Major League baseball, if a player is playing bad there team sends them down a level.
american sports is all about viewership for ads and hype, if a team relegates the's a real risk of the low viewership in the lower league which advertisers despise and losing "hype" which could damage the brand and franchise. imagine they implement relegation and your team is the first to relegate, it'll stain the brand history.
I love MLS and have probably been to over 300 mls games over 15 years. If the league continues to improve at the rate it is, more dpi/higher salary caps are inevitable.
salary cap is good though seen in the nba but the 3 player rule makes it fall apart. if the nba had that they can have 3 top stars count outside the salary cap and win every year like man citeh.
it's pretty easy to change the salary cap in the FM editors as well as change the baseline for contract values, but it's stupud they haven't programed the MLS salary cap to grow beyond what the league has announced
I wanted to do a San Jose save because I’m a San Jose fan and 2 hours in I was so incredibly lost I just gave up and did a save with a Mexican team instead
There are players on the national team. 4 players on the current call up play in MLS while many others on the squad come out of MLS academies (though some went to Europe directly from the academies and skipped out on MLS like Weston McKennie who's a product of FC Dallas but never played there professionally). However Tim Ream is from MLS, Joe Scally is from MLS, Tyler Adams is from MLS, Gio Reyna (MLS academy though he never played in MLS). MLS is still building a future for the USMNT and now even USL teams are selling to teams in Europe as well. The quality may not be great but the leagues (mostly MLS & USL Championship) are molding players that, with the right training eventually (preferably in Europe unless the U.S. has a drastic increase in better coaching) players that'll be great for the national team.
The salary cap isn't because teams are poor but is intended to promote competition which you can argue works as there are 8 MLS Cup winners in the last decade...
@@danielevensen84 I think they are in a bit of strange position sustainability wise and a lot of the exceptions are just attempts to try and grow the league. But in regards to competitiveness the cap system does seem to work better than what we see in Europe's top leagues where it's almost always the same clubs winning. It obviously doesn't translate well to the games but I also think it's because FM isn't doesn't put enough emphasis on ensuring players are working within the rules. An admin assistant who took care to notify and highlight these rules whenever you're signing players or renewing contracts would help massively.
The reason for the salary cap has always been to stop domestic players from negotiating the best contract for themselves. It exists to suppress wages. Competition isn't the intention, controlling player costs is and was. If it wasn't, they'd do away with single entity and allow players to be free agents.
@@danielevensen84I think that they have to deal with the fact, that they are not biggest league in football. The American system is designed around leagues, that are the uncontested biggest league of that sport in the world. In football they have to tweak it here and there to make it compatible with the rest of the world
Not even close to be the richest country in the world. Still bullcrap rules. Played 4 seasons with Seattle. It gets more clear and better after a season or two when the rules get cemented in your memory but I will never again play in the US.
I think you're forgetting one crucial aspect: exclusivity and demand in this capitalist world. Exclusivity sells, and the reason why American sports teams sell for so much more is that the value of their franchise is significantly higher. If an upstart wants to buy into a league rather than create its own club, it has to pay a premium. For example, in 2013, when Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers, was found making a racial slur, the board of owners voted to kick him out of the league and forced him to sell. Despite the Clippers' net worth and value being at $600 million, he sold the team for $1.3 billion. This happened for two reasons like you mentioned extensively there are far more guarantees for profit in the long run. Most American sports teams actually lose money year over year where they money is made in that sale is where the money is
There's a benefit, but it doesn't mean clubs/teams are smart with them. The Edmonton Oilers had soooo many first round draft picks for a few years straight and only one player is still on the team. It still took them about a decade to get out of the gutter.
Nothing new, and that's good. Look at Premier League - relegated clubs are getting parachute payments. Also TV rights are split evenly when United or Arsenal are bringing much more to the brand them let say Luton or Ipswitch. Only diferencial is how often your game are shown in TV (in UK). But clubs who Play that game have cash splited by half.
@@user-pg2zc4oi6rfalse, forcing teams to have the same budget, thus making teams equal is literally socialism, that's why Man City doesn't like the new proposals for the premier League, imagine if Man City couldn't have both Haaland and Grealish, they can only have one whether it be because of budget restrictions or parity, one of them has to go to Wolverhampton or Fulham.
Off Topic, but here's what I want from FM. I want to OWN a Team. I want to OWN a Team way down at the bottom, and dream of doing all the things to get it to the top. Maybe I hire the Coaches, or maybe I hit the pitch and Coach myself. Maybe I hire a GM, or maybe I handle all that GM stuff myself. But it's MY Team. I own it. No Board, no one to kick me out. I'm here until I die. Give me that Owner Option. Let me establish relationships with other Owners, let me dictate what I find to be the acceptable goals. Let me decide if that Coach goes and gets a License... or if I send myself for one. Let me set the Ticket Prices, let me decide if we're building a Youth Academy and how invested we're going to be in it. FM is great, it's already a really good game. But that's the game I'd like. It's better than Madden or NBA, because there is no relegation there. You own the Team, but it can never go anywhere... it's already the only place it can be, in THAT one League. But in Soccer, we can go up a ladder, we can go down a ladder... we can go up numerous floors to find ourselves out on the rooftop yelling our barbaric yawp. THAT'S INTERESTING. Being the Spurs or the Patriots, not so interesting. But being a Team that can Relegate, or climb... THAT IS SOMETHING!
And yet, bad teams can still be terrible, and good ones can still be good. At the cost of not allowing teams to spend 1 billion dollars to get the best players...
That's not true? In the United States' last call up (March 24, 2024 v. Mexico). The United States squad had 4 MLS players (Sean Johnson, Miles Robinson, Shaq Moore, and Timothy Tillman). In the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the United States had 8 MLS players (Sean Johnson, Kellyn Acosta, DeAndre Yedlin, Shaq Moore, Cristian Roldan, Jordan Morris, Aaron Long, Jesus Ferreira, and Walker Zimmerman).
Much of the video pointed out MLS' real life issues...and I can't argue with them, but why managing the MLS in FM sucks was not talked about enough. I can't tell if the issue is poor SI programing or a limitation of FM "operating system" but vanilla MLS in FM always has bugs, some of which have been knowingly carried over by SI from one version of FM to the other. (Think about that for a second) The issue with FM is that they attempted to replicate the unique MLS rules and had to "hard code" not just MLS but CONCACAF also. For example, the video talked about using "modded" databases to get a good American league experience, but because of the hardcoding that SI has done all of those modded databases that I've tried (or I created myself in the past) have issues because of various issues caused by the hardcoding. For example, you can "retire" the MLS in it's current form and recreate a new top American division, but that new American league has to have at least 24 teams in it otherwise the new league will not be be able to play in CONCACAF Champions League. Then because of the previous hardcoding of player contracts there are contract issues with the modded leagues. Anyone who has tried to mod the MLS or American soccer will tell you that the "hardcoding" impacts the "new" league many times in unexpected ways. SI could help with this issue by giving us a "generic" MLS...along the lines that other soccer video games do because you don't see anyone else trying to implement the correct MLS rules in their game. What I mean by that is just give us a league that has no hardcoding, one were we can edit the league and make it what we want. I mean if they could code the MLS correctly I'd deal with the rules and play the league. But they've really NEVER been able to do that. SI clearly just doesn't give a crap about about the MLS, otherwise they would fix the bugs that have been carried over from previous versions.
Got fired one saved from who knows where, got hired mid way through the season with ohio won the title. Them immediately quit after trying to understand thier transfer system
I truly think if they just did what we do in Europe they would be fine Just create an amateur league and grow from there ... Easy in 1 or 2 decades you will have a amazing atmosphere with 1 first divisions and at least 4/5 leagues deep You already have the players development kinda sorted with university sports ... So the love for the game would win In Europe love for football moves the game, not money ... Money just win inside the game, doesn't create it
The interesting thing is that the United States did have amateur leagues, once upon a time. There were amateur and semipro regional leagues all across the country. The American Soccer League was an attempt in the 1920s by big business interests to turn everything professional. They abandoned it once the money started to dry up. The NASL came in during the mid-1960s, and was another attempt by big business to completely ignore the actual history of the sport in the United States and just dump money on top of everything. It was built up quickly, and fell apart just as fast. I agree with you. I think that a European system would absolutely work in the United States, if it were given the chance to develop and flourish. The frustration is that there's this constant emphasis and demand for quick profits. If we had a little bit of patience, things would work out just fine.
The US has lower tier football, but unfortunately the US Soccer Federation has intentionally hamstrung it in favour of the MLS, designating it a 2nd tier competition. The USL Championship and USL League One are 2nd and 3rd tier competitions with 24 and 12 teams in it, with promotion/relegation between the competitions. Adjacent to the 3rd tier competition is also the National Independent Soccer Association, another professional league with 9 teams. It is also national. The US has a framework that, should the franchise system be reworked and promotion/relegation be implemented, it could have a very rich, deep, league system that would create more local professional teams that would make the sport so much more accessible for fans, but because the MLS benefits so heavily from the closed shop franchise system, they'd never agree to any changes that would hinder their ability to make money.
I know us have other leagues apart from the mls But they are different competition Now only the fans have the power to change that I not to family with the usl, i don't know what is different from European leagues ... But if similar, just make usl fan base bigger And specially, making the young players in favor of the usl over msl and slowly it will overtake msl If the fans feel connected to the club and have some power over his future, it will be almost like a religion
The reason why it's not fun in FM is because of how it's structured in real life. FM tries to replicate that structure, turning your FM save into a chore.
As an American who as a kid loved and wanted to play soccer I will tell you why soccer just isn't popular over here. "dad can you sign me up for a soccer team" me at 7ish years old. "No, soccer is g**, and you aren't g**. You will play baseball and basketball. Those are sports for real men."
8:31 not really... my whole league is losing important sum of money everyday. Until someday it gonna break. So i don't think the soccer model is a good one. Just look at Man U.
actually, there is one major reason for salary cap and the like: to stop teams from LA, NY and Chicago/Miami from dominating the league. No good player would play for a milwaukee or minnesota team if offered the same salary to play in ny or miami one of the few things I like more about the USA sports system is exactly this, it make for a more competitive/balanced league; except for real madrid or barcelona fans, which spanish fan base could possibly enjoy the spanish league? It has no competition after the 1980's, except for the occasional valencia/atletico title if it was up to me, a salary cap would be implemented in every league
I understand the sentiment - but there's a major problem with that point of view. Where did Beckham play? Los Angeles. If you want a strict salary cap, make a strict cap. Don't make a strict cap with exceptions that were carved out for the rich teams to allow them to pay millions of dollars for declining players. The Designated Player exception was created specifically so teams from major markets could make large signings - which completely contradicts the reason for the existence of the salary cap.
@@danielevensen84 Yep, my point is more to the phrase "the richest country in the world should not have a salary cap in its league" the reason for the MLS exception is to make football attractive there, but it doesn't seem to matter, nobody cares about in the usa; if it were to become popular, those exceptions would be gone in a short amount of time, like they did in the NBA to prevent steve ballmer from outspending half the league on his own with a new cba agreement
You could just watch how many people come to visit the other teams every week and see how many other Spanish football fans there is that enjoys watching football there. And good players dont play in the MLS unless they are excluded from the salary cap.
@@88balloonsonthewall70 you are mixing oranges and apples here. Good players won't go there because football is irrelevant (and, therefore, poorly financed compared to the other major sports) in the US And people going to games is also imaterial to my point: why would you like your team to be a punching bag for two teams? Competition is much fiercer in the us sports compared to europe
@@arthur2588aspm Footballers follow the money, and a salary cap takes away money from good footballers. Football is a way of life here, people watch the games because they love the sport, and they love their team. How fierce is it really when the bottom teams doesn't even have to care, they wont be relegated and next season they will have better draft picks. The US system rewards bad teams.
MINOR NITPICKS: "I find it amazing that my home state of Utah can easily support three major college football team but only a single professional soccer team" Utah has more than one professional soccer team. Real Salt Lake, Real Monarchs, Salt City SC, Utah Avalanche and Utah United are all professional football clubs who play in the state of Utah, albeit only one top flight professional football club exists in Utah. "Nobody in America will pay attention to anything but the highest level of play" I mean, even though the USL clubs are incredibly small, somebody is still watch it. The fact it can continue to exist means there's room for it.
The Real Monarchs are the youth team of Real Salt Lake. I've never heard of the other 3 teams, and defy you to show me anybody in the area who has. The 3 college football teams I'm referring to all play at the highest level - and even Utah State can outdraw RSL on a regular basis. This wouldn't be the case if the league used a structure that created actual competition between the teams. This is what we get when sports are set up using a monopolistic structure straight out of the Gilded Age.
Asking the real questions. Seriously - I've been watching broadcasts of old NASL games, and am flabbergasted by how complicated the commentators make the sport sound. It's a simple sport. You can learn how football is played by watching it for like 30 minutes, lol.
LOL....I think he was referring to the fact that he US has had the top economy in the world for awhile which is rated by a country's overall GDP. You're probably referring to the per capita GDP and yes there are a hand full of countries that have a higher GDP per capita than the US (per capita GDP the US ranks around 7th in the world), but all of them trail the US overall GDP ....by at least 25 T-R-I-L-L-I-O-N US dollars and none of those countries actually has a GDP of over 1 trillion US dollars. Hell, California by itself has an overall GDP that would place it in the top 10 in the world if it was a country. The US overall GDP is more than the entire EU so you can see where he was coming from. To put this all into context, every country in the world, with the exception of China, trailed the US in overall GDP by at least 20 trillion US dollars. China trailed the US by around 8 trillion. LOL (edited to correct spelling)
