Archief - Football Manager 2012

How the MLS works


Starting with how the league works:
You face everybody (from Eastern and Western Conferences) twice across the season to total 34 games.
Now the divisional conferences are looked at with the top three from each conference qualified for the playoffs. The other two teams are then determined from whoever finished next highest in the overall league.
If five teams have qualified from the West and three from the East (for example) then the fifth place side from the West will go into the Eastern playoffs.
The playoffs are then done similar to other playoffs with fourth facing first and third facing second in a two legged tie.
The winner from each tie face each other to play for the divisional trophy in a one legged match.
The winners of each division then face each other to win the MLS Cup.
The top two from each division also receive entry into the CL unless a team outside those four win the US Cup; in which case they take the place of those four teams that did worst in the league.

Now onto the more confusing part of the MLS: The Transfers

The main thing to look at is your squad registration restrictions. I shall go through some of them individually now:
Maximum squad size of 30 players - speaks for itself
Maximum of three designated players - the designated players are the big names players who you can sign on big contracts (with only £4k going towards the wage cap)
Maximum of 8 internationals - This means 8 non-Americans (or Canadians for the two Canada clubs)
Maximum of 20 senior roster players - These are non-Generation Adidas players so pretty much most players
Maximum squad salary of £32,211 p/w - I believe this changes with rep but this is the main thing I have to look out for
After roster guarantee day (the day of submitting squad registration) players released will still count towards the salary cap
Drafts

Players that do not get registered on the roster guarantee day (early March) are released from the club and put into the waiver draft. Going from lowest placed to highest (from previous season), teams can pick players from the draft but you will need room in your squad registration to get players from the draft.

Sticking on topic to drafts, from the second season onwards regens from non-MLS clubs are put into a draft and are picked (around January time I believe) in order, once again, of worst place to best (from previous season). Here is where you want to get your quality regens and it is a hard process to do if you have just won the MLS and the good players do get snapped up.

What you can bid for players with
Buying players outside the MLS, you just use hard cash and although you can spend more than your allocation fund (board will determine if transfer put through or not if you spent large amounts), your allocation fund may go down due to foreign transfers.
Now buying from other MLS teams, you can use many things for bidding on players;

- Allocation fund - pretty much a transfer budget
- Draft places - You can give one of your future draft positions
- Designated player slots - I wouldn't but the option is there
- International slots - Based on how good the player is would determine on if I was willing to part with a slot
- Players - Finally you can put your own players in the transfer bid