What I learned from...rebuilding an MLS team on Football Manager 2024
This is an episode of me procrastinating and not finishing my main projects and other articles.
I will be honest. I have been lazy and procrastinated for the past couple of weeks from finishing the articles and a couple of projects that I had originally planned to release at the start of July. Yet, here I am, with another Football Manager save that I had sunk…*checks time played*…40 hours into. The cold Australian winter has made me felt a bit lazier than usual, and along with my mental health acting up to block my motivation, it was a bit hard to find the time to sit down and write some articles. So, this will be an attempt to make up for that as I try to squeeze in a couple more in the next few weeks.
But going back to my latest FM save, I decided to challenge myself and dominate the Major League Soccer having done countless amount of saves in Europe. I have heard about the reputation of the MLS being too complicated, particularly their transfer system, and hard to keep track of all of the rules. For a squad building and recruitment nerd like me, however, that just sounds like a challenge waiting to be overcome. I used my existing save file from FM23 to give me another year to work with an MLS franchise because I already had the perfect team in mind.
The background
After a successful period that saw them won an MLS Cup and a US Open Cup within their first three seasons of starting out as an MLS franchise, Atlanta United have found themselves in a rough spot. Long were the days of Miguel Almirón, Josef Martínez and Ezequiel Barco terrorising opposition’s defence and leading an attractive playing style that Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino applied for the team. Nowadays, they can be found languishing in the bottom half of the Eastern Conference and barely made it into the Playoffs, even missed out completely during a few seasons.
Changes to the front office were made, most notably Carlos Bocanegra leaving the technical director/vice president role, and arrived Garth Lagerway from Seattle Sounders as the club’s new CEO along with new sporting director Chris Henderson, who joined in 2024. A few hopes of a good season were shown here and there, particularly through a new recruitment strategy that is shifted to European-focused from unearthing raw South American talents, but so far (at the time of writing), Atlanta still find themselves far from their glory days during the late 2010s.
That was the situation that I found myself in, starting the 2023 season replacing manager Gonzalo Pineda and inheriting the squad that finished 11th in the Eastern Conference and missed out on the MLS Cup playoffs completely. From the perspective of a long-time Atlanta follower, I thought there were a few things that the club did and planned wrong. But I tried to be rational with my decisions while also retained the knowledge of Atlanta’s club model and playing style, which is to focus on bringing young talents through.
And while I won’t try to brag, I did do a complete domestic sweep in my first season and am heading into my second season with the aim of winning the Concacaf Champions Cup to complete the cabinet. So, here are the things that I learned and did, particularly on squad building and recruitment, as tips if you ever want to dip your toes in an MLS save on Football Manager.
Waiver list is your biggest friend
While this might not be true in real life, the waiver list is an incredibly powerful market to shop from and to find surprisingly good players for the cost of…free! Basically, the waiver list acts as a second chance for clubs to claim the contract of players who are about to be released by their clubs into the free agents market. From what I have seen so far, AI clubs can sometimes waive players who are surprisingly good to the free agency, and that is where you can find players to build out your squad.
Even though it might sound like a dream land to sign players for free, it is also important to be cautious when approaching the waiver list. As mentioned above, the key function of the waiver list is to claim the contract of players who are about to be released. When you claim a player off the waiver list, that player will be on the same contract at your club and will earn the same amount of money as their previous club paid them. For example, if you claim Inter Miami’s Sergio Busquets, who is a designated player and is reportedly earning €7m per year (according to Capology), off the waiver list, then your club will have to pay Busquets the same amount of money and he will be occupying one of your club’s designated player spots. That means you will not get a chance to renegotiate his contract until he is signed to your team, so be cautious when claiming a player off the waiver list and always consider the available space in your club’s salary cap and registration spots.
My approach to the waiver list is to always monitor for potential players that can be useful to my squad. There is usually a notification email sent to your inbox about ‘player A has officially been placed on the waiver list’, which is when I look into the attributes of that player to see if they can be a part of my squad. If they can get decent minutes (usually more than 10 league matches) in my squad or if it is a young player (usually 20 y/o or younger), I then look at their contract to see how much money they are earning to estimate their effect on my salary cap, and what kind of contract are they on. If there is a player that I want but is earning slightly more than what I want to pay, I will shortlist that player and wait until that player is released into the free agents market (or clear waivers, which is the official term), then immediately jump onto negotiation with that player as a free agent. But if that player is on a contract that I am happy to take on, then I will claim that player as soon as possible, and then wait for a couple of days until I am notified if I have succeeded in claiming that player or not.
Very early on into my first season, I used that approach and was able to get two promising youngsters from Toronto FC in Jayden Nelson and Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty. Since then, Nelson has become an important player in my system and I have upgraded his Senior contract to €1m per year from his original €330k when I claimed him. Marshall-Rutty also became a good rotational player (also on a Senior contract for €330k) and had the potential to be a very good player, but I traded him to Charlotte FC for an estimated trade value of €5.75m. In my second season, I was closed to claiming Julián Araujo from LA Galaxy but I was hesitated to claim his €700k contract that he was earning. Once he became a free agent, I immediately jumped on negotiation and was able to get him on a Senior contract that paid €600k per year. Usually it might take a pretty significant trade to get these players from their respective clubs, but the waiver list gave me an opportunity to get these players without costing me a limb.
Another tip with the waiver list is always look out for the first waivers of the season because that is usually when AI clubs make questionable decisions to release players who might be good or very good. You might be able to claim a player or two from that list who can become a very important player in your squad, either right away or in a few years time. Then, throughout the season, look out for those notification emails to find young players or squad players who are on Senior Minimum Salary contract or low Senior contract to build out depth for your squad. They will help you fill registration spots without impacting your salary cap too much, if not at all, and can be helpful for rotating with your key players during the season.
The waiver draft and the re-entry drafts at the end of the season are also decent places to find free agents, and they function almost exactly like the waiver list, but the only difference is you cannot claim any player that you want, instead you have to wait in order. Also approach both drafts with caution and evaluate the contracts of the players made available for the drafts. But I usually don’t consider these drafts to be of high priority, and the same goes with the next draft…
Draft picks are valuable and the SuperDraft is overrated
Another aspect that probably is not the same in real life as the SuperDraft has produced many domestic talents for the MLS since its introduction. Atlanta themselves have also benefitted from the SuperDraft with Miles Robinson and Julian Gressel became the club’s household names before they got traded to FC Cincinnati and D.C. United respectively, and Jon Gallagher was a promising prospect before his rise to the first team at Austin FC.
But in Football Manager, however, I have found the SuperDraft to be less important than its real-life value. Unless you are targetting the top five or six prospects or one of the Generation Adidas prospects from the draft, the rest of the draft picks can be very hard to develop and they usually only have the potential to be, at the very best, a squad player for your team. This is made even harder if you are one of the top performing teams in the league since the better your team perform, the lower in the drafting order you will be, so you are very likely to miss out on the top drafting prospects. Those of you who are familiar with the NBA will already be familiar with this, but without the Draft Lottery that comes with it to determine the drafting order.
My approach to youth development and the SuperDraft is to still focus on the talents that come through your club’s academy since they tend to be younger and have more potential to work with. The SuperDraft can sometimes provide decent talents, but do not count on it to be the place where you find your next big star. If you still want to give the SuperDraft a try, then I highly recommend making it a high priority in your planning for the season and during the early weeks of your season. Why planning so soon for an event that will only happen in January of the following year? That is where the draft picks come into play!
Draft picks are super valuable even though you only get three per season (for the SuperDraft). However, if you see the SuperDraft as high priority in your planning and you have identified that your team are one of the high performing teams in the league, work with the draft picks and your assets to get the best possible picks for your team. This is where you need to do your business early since teams will be eager to trade their draft picks during the early weeks of the season, and it presents a great opportunity for you to secure top picks. The ‘Season Preview’ tab in the League screen will be super helpful as it can give you a clear idea of which teams are expected to finish close to the bottom of the Supporters’ Shield table, which will, in turn, give them the top draft picks. You need to make trades with those clubs as soon as the opportunity arises, which includes when one of those clubs express interest in one of your players. You should evaluate whether that player is important to your team, and can you find a replacement at a similar or lower value through trades, international players, or designated players?
At the other end, if you expect your team to finish high up on the league table, find opportunities to trade your first and second round draft picks away during pre-season and the early weeks of the MLS season. I tend to recommend trading for players who you might want from the other team since it is probably the easiest way to estimate if a trade is of equal value or not. Usually, a first round pick for the closest year tends to worth close to €1m, and that can increase when getting closer to the SuperDraft. The first round pick for the following year will be worth close to €900k, and combine, they are the two most valuable draft picks that you can use to plan your squad or your trades to get better draft picks. Second round draft picks are also good to consider as they can add values to your trade and sway the trade in your favour.
If you are confident with the young players that you have in your squad and do not intend to make the SuperDraft as a high priority event, then I recommend not keeping any potential draft picks laying around. Why? For the simple reason, because they are free money just sitting there and being wasted. At least, you should be entering the SuperDraft with just a single third round pick because they are more or less invaluable and can be wasted. Always find opportunities to send your first and second round draft picks elsewhere for values that can be reinvested into your squad.
GAM and TAM. Keep It Simple Silly.
Two of the things that you can trade your draft picks for are GAM (or General Allocation Money) and TAM (or Targeted Allocation Money). These two are probably two of the biggest reasons why many do not prefer to manage an MLS team, or even learn and watch more of the MLS in general! What is the point of having two separate budgets along with a transfer budget and a wage budget? Why so many budgets that you have to monitor, keep track of, and use? These are probably very common questions from European fans about the MLS.
I like to keep it this way, and in the simplest way that I can think of.
GAM is used for trading players and draft picks, and for buying down salary cap impact from players even when I am not signing a new contract with them.
TAM is for getting Designated Players down to Senior contracts, which makes space for me to sign another Designated Player without having to spend €125k at the beginning of the season to buy another slot that will expire at the end of the year. I can also use TAM when I renew player contracts to reduce their impact on the salary cap without having to use the GAM.
I can trade for more GAM if needed, and I prefer not to waste my GAM once the season concludes.
I am okay with having my TAM reset or wasted, though, since it is a kitty that I probably will not be using that often throughout the season. Maybe I will only use it a few times, especially when resigning with players who are asking for big Senior contracts.
I found myself using GAM a lot more often during squad planning as I try to squeeze all of my players into the €5.5m salary cap of the second season, probably due to habits. It is also the reason why I have players like Jayden Nelson, Federico Viñas, Branco van den Boomen, or Santiago Sosa on more than €1m per year, yet their salary cap impact is just one-third of their actual salary (for Nelson) or even one-tenth of their actual salary. However, I have used TAM twice (I think?) for getting Van den Boomen’s contract down from a Designated contract to a Senior contract, and when increasing Nelson’s wage up to €1m from €330k.
But, in general, these two budgets are not directly involved in buying players, especially TAM. You can use GAM to ‘buy players’, but it is more on the trading players side than actually ‘buying’ like you normally would when getting players from outside of the MLS, which still counts as buying players I guess…
Don’t be compelled with incoming trades
Speaking of trades, one of the things that I constantly run into when managing an MLS club is FOMO, or fear of missing out. It happened to me when I considered a trade and during my planning for a draft. During the early weeks of the season, clubs will bombard your inbox with trade offers, some of which can be very tempting to accept at first consideration. Or when planning for a SuperDraft, seeing other clubs picking young players make me want to get involved at the cost of losing valuable assets.
But I chose to lean on the confidence that I have in my squad since I know who I have in my squad and how much value is at the club’s disposal. It is probably the strongest thing that help me navigate through FOMO and make the right decision for the club and the playing squad, because it can be tempting to trade away your best player for a couple of draft picks and €1m in GAM, like many teams have tried to do in order to get Jayden Nelson away from my team.
Another thing that makes me feel more confident to make the right decision is that, even though a different MLS club express interest in your player and they make a trade for that player, you can still reject the trade knowing it will not upset your player. Unless a team from outside of the MLS comes in with an offer and my player will get unsettled if I turn down the move, I can reject trades for even the best players and their morale will not be damaged.
So, it is important to remember that you are the person in control of your team when managing in the MLS. Be confident with every decisions that you make, and consider all aspects before making the final decision.
Your GM or DoF is your next best friend
If you ever need a friend to guide you through trades, your General Manager or Director of Football is your best friend. Before making a trade, always tick the ‘Ask for DoF opinion before offer’ because your Director of Football will give you an idea about whether the trade is of equal value, or are you or the opposing team giving more. It is probably the best opinion that you can get before submitting the final offer, which the opposing team can either turn down or back away from suggesting terms.
When dealing with trades in the MLS, you usually do not get plenty of attempts to negotiate with the opposing team and ask them to suggest terms again and again like when you deal with buying players from teams outside of the league. You only get one shot, like Eminem always says. So make the most of your Director of Football and get his opinions before you engage in a trade if you do not want to waste your time assessing all of your assets, balancing values, and all of the complicated stuff that you probably do not want to deal with when playing Football Manager.
There are probably a few more tips that I can give, but these four are the main ones that I found myself using a lot during my save with Atlanta. I am also a huge squad building and recruitment nerd, so these stuff scratch an itch in my brain and get me to think critically, which is something that I found to be very undervalued in current society.
If I have somehow inspired you to embark on an MLS save, I wish you all the best with it and enjoy the ride! The league can be tough to overcome at first and it can be hard to understand for someone who has only watched European football, but it is a very fun league to get in and it is challenging in a way. And I hope these tips will help guide you through the first steps and make the journey a bit more enjoyable.