As I mentioned in my initial article, we will attempt to take Forward Madison FC from the fourth tier of an American pro/rel database to win the first division title. Today we’ll introduce the squad, league, tactics, and what to focus on in the immediate future.
The League
If you watched the video, then you will know there are 7 playable tiers in the database. Forward Madison starts in the fourth tier playing in the Amazon Prime Division. There are four regional conferences in this tier; Northeastern, Northwestern, Southeastern, Southwestern, Madison being in the Northwestern Conference. Here’s the table as it stands, preseason:
Fans will already be familiar with Union Omaha, so we don’t have to go in depth about who they are. The other teams are unique in their own way. Denver City and Green Bay FSC are the soccer clubs of the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers from the NFL. There are two clubs who more or less share the same history as the Minnesota Thunder, who functioned as the main professional soccer team in the state before financial issues cause them to fold and be replaced by the Minnesota Stars, who competed in the NASL before being rebranded as Minnesota United FC. North Side and Real Chicago are the soccer clubs of the Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears respectively. Nez Perce, Oglala, Uintah and Ouray, and Yakama Nation are Native American tribes that have been implemented.
To get promoted we will need to win the league, while finishing 12th will automatically relegate us (sitting close to the bottom potentially puts us at risk as well). Each team plays 22 matches, playing each team home and away, and goal difference is the first tiebreaker. The tough part of this season will be balancing out the squad. Each matchday squad is not allowed to have more than 3 foreign players and must contain five U23 players. This requires us to make sure player recruitment is monitored correctly and we use our foreign player spots wisely. The Board is expecting us to finish in the Top three this season so we will need to hit the ground running, or risk getting fired.
Speaking of the squad, let’s take a look at who we have on the roster.
Right away we have two notable issues:
- Aaron Molloy is not in the squad and somehow is on Red Bulls 2
- Audi Jepson joins league rivals Minnesota Stars.
It will be difficult to bring them back because we only have $226k transfer budget and only $199/week for wages means we are thin on finances at the moment. I haven’t seen if we have any promising youth players but there’s a good chance that some of them will be getting a look.
Tactics
I am going to have 4-3-3 be the primary formation to start and have a route one style of play. The secondary tactics will be a 4-3-3 vertical tiki-taka and a variation of a 4-1-3-2 that focuses on counter attacking.
Kicking Off
As we get started, there will be friendlies and I will have to see how to add a few players to the squad before the season’s start, especially at left back. It will be interesting to see how the other teams fill out their squads and staff, as Madison and Omaha are the only clubs with filled-out roles. Make sure to follow us on socials (Twitter • Facebook) to see all the new posts, and use the FM22 tag to read along with this adventure.
