Starting Anew in DC (18/04/2008 06:56)

The New Start

After 30 seasons running Tashkent Islam United, the team was feeling pretty stagnant. I had finished between 4th and 10th with little hope to see much of a change in that. Playing in the International had changed after so many of the teams left to play in their home nation. With all of those reasons stacked up, I decided to give a new start to a new team.

My first choice was whether to play in the International league, or to play in the USA. I went for the USA in the hopes that I would get a different group of people to play against. So that meant I would need a name. I wanted one that would represent my home living inside Washington DC. DC United is already taken as a team playing in MLS, so I went with a more traditional name, District Metro FC.

The Early Decisions

When I started Tashkent Islam United, you started with 12mil but not a whole lot of choices for sponsors. The sponsors are much better and you start with 17.5mil. The only problem is finding good young players. Tashkent had it easy as Q69 17yr olds were much cheaper then. You could dump 7-8 bad players and pick up a rising star for your team. Not anymore.

The team had a very unbalanced set of players. Very weak with goalkeeping, and pretty poor on defense. The team was loaded with good midfield and up front. That really forced me to consider how I would build this team.

GK - Q53 26yr, Q58 17yr
Def - Q64 23yr, Q65 24yr, Q63 29yr, Q56 21yr, Q56 24yr, Q52 22yr
Mid - Q70 23yr, Q71 21yr, Q75 18yr, Q71 28yr, Q66 28yr, Q63 18yr, Q62 24yr, Q62 28yr, Q62 24yr, Q57 18yr, Q56 29yr
Att - Q70 17yr, Q68 17yr, Q66 29yr, Q65 27yr, Q62 28yr, Q60 21yr, Q60 23yr, Q57 25yr

For starting a team, having your 2 Gk rated in the 50s is really weak. Every team in my division (all 15 bots) has a better keeper than my best. He is 17 so he might be able to develop in a few years, but my plan is to win my division against all the bots. My first task will be to find a GK without spending all my money. I only had 6 Defenders, 3 in the mid-60s and 3 in the mid 50s. My next task was to drop 2 of the defenders and try to live on just 4. That of course means a switch in formation to a 3-5-2 to minimize the defense and try to keep the ball from the goal with possession in the midfield.

I had to set the options to attacking to try to keep the ball way from the other teams. I had 4 good midfielders and another 5 that could fill in as needed. I wouldn't need all 5 replacements so I dropped the Q50s and one of the lowest Q60s. On attack I only needed 4 players so I kept the top 4 and dropped the rest. For a Div 4 team, I have a strong attacking force, as long as the team can keep possession. If I don't get a mid-60s Gk soon, I am going to have to hope for midfield possession for the whole season.

The rest of the starting requirements is to start building the stadium, setting ticket prices, picking a sponsor and deciding on staff. The stadium choice was easy since few teams will make money with only 5000 fans, so I started building that. Dropping so many players gave me almost 3 million to start the building program. I kept the staff room empty for now, but will be looking at the options. Probably going to pick up an attacking coach and possibly a midfield coach. No need for a defensive of keeping coach since I don't expect the defense to be good enough to count in building from the ground level for this team. Defense will only improve by finding new players to come into the team.

Finding a sponsor is very important. I can't imagine not being able to win this whole division, unless my Gk gets injured and I have to go to the backup. That means finding the sponsor with the best payoff for winning the division. Fortunately they also give 3mil as starting money. Coming in second will be a horrible finish since there is no award for finishing outside of first.

I am in the lowest division in the USA. I will be facing nothing but bots for the whole league play. I have a good set of young players to develop. I will be very disappointed with less than first place. And I need the money from first place to get the stadium built.