[FM21] RSL in the WSL Part 4: Season Preview

Better late than never!

RSL in the WSL Part 4

I think it’s time for a brief season preview.

I know that it feels odd to do this two games into the season, but I figured this is as good a time as any.  Rather than boring you with an endless array of consecutive posts right from the start, I figured that I would try to intersperse the scene setting throughout the progress of the season.

Season Preview

I’ll be blunt – I made a lot of changes.  I mean, I made a lot of changes.

I’ll get into more detail in future posts, but I basically gutted the entire roster, going all the way down to the reserves and under 18 squads.

There is a method to my madness, and it’s not just a self-promoting attempt to play Football Manager on “hard mode.”  I don’t know for certain that my strategy will work, but I figured that the risk would be worth making.  At the very least, the ever-present possibility of the entire season going up in flames should make for an entertaining read.

Anyway, here’s what the media think of our chances:

That’s right – they’re giving us 700-to-1 odds on winning the league.

700 to 1 is pretty incredible, when you think about it.  If you bet £1 on our team winning the league, and we actually won it in the end, you’d wind up getting £700 in return.  I suppose that makes this an event so outside the realm of possibility as to be completely ludicrous.

I took this screenshot right before the first game of the season.  I do know that these odds can change as the season progresses.  I’m not a programmer; however, my experience with Football Manager tells me that these odds are mostly based on in-game reputation ratings.  If you have a very low reputation, as we do, the game concludes that you simply have no shot at winning.

You might think this is unrealistic.  “What about all my wonderkid signings?” you might ask.  And it may be true that your coaches see the underrated possibility in all of your five-star potential players.  Maybe you and your coaches are right and the reputation rating is simply wrong.  That’s why they play the games, after all.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s unrealistic.  If you came in as manager in real life, sold off all the older players, and replaced them all with teenagers (as I’ve done), you’d be absolutely lambasted by the media, too.

Glimpse at Squad Changes

Now, we didn’t sell off everybody.  Just about.

Here is a screenshot of the first team roster as I started the game:

And here is a shot of the same first team roster right before the first game of the season:

You can see right away that the current ability level of these players has decreased, along with their age.  There’s more potential there, as well as more determination.  We made sweeping changes, which is one reason why I’m surprised that we’ve started the season off on such a positive note.

You’ll also notice that yesterday’s hero, Riccardo Tonin, is not on this squad. He joined the team after I took this screenshot.

Board Expectations

Those who have played Football Manager know how important the board of the club can be.  You need to live up to expectations if you want to keep your virtual job, after all.

So what does the board expect of me?

Not much.

I took this screenshot right at the beginning of the game, before I even looked at the roster.  Our goal is to simply avoid relegation.

I think we’re doing well.  Two wins to start off the season is much better than two losses, after all.

By the way, we didn’t have much money to accomplish the task, either.  This is what our original financial split looked like:

Now, those of you who are familiar with FM21 know that the game is notorious for starting teams off with low transfer budgets.  DarthFurion’s add-ons have fixed some of that.

However, with only £2.2 million in the transfer budget, and with no room to budge in the wage budget, there really wasn’t too much room to get established players.  It was basically youth or nothing, and so I went for youth.

This is also the right time to mention the fact that our owner wants to sell the club.  We’ve had takeover talk messages like this one every few days:

These messages usually don’t mean much, until they suddenly do.  Watch out for a potential transfer embargo coming up if the owner actually finds a buyer.

Odds and Ends

Football Manager offers a few cool reports to get a feel for the league in general.  First off, there is the Dream Eleven list, on which we have 0 players:

Tigres and Monterrey will probably prove to be our most difficult competition, if this screen is any indication.

There’s also an interesting list of key players that is fun to look through:

Again, this seems to be calculated primarily by a combination of reputation and in-game value.  As a result, our players are nowhere to be found.

Hugo Sanchez, by the way, is one of the legendary players that I added in at the start.  Older football fans might remember him from his heroics in the 1986 World Cup.  If you’re like me and find yourself completely in the dark, you can find some highlights and analysis in this excellent video:

Other Leagues

World Super League includes numerous feeder leagues at each “Super League” level.  The first place teams in all 12 Super League 1 divisions will advance to the Premier League next season.  If we somehow overcome the 700 to 1 odds (place your bets now) and make it, we’ll join the winning teams from these divisions in the big dance.  In other words, it’s a good idea to pay attention to what is going on elsewhere.

We’ll take a look at those other leagues sometime in the future. My goal is to strike a satisfying balance between playing out our project and taking a closer look at what is happening in the in-game world in general. As usual, we’ll take it a little bit slow, but we’ll also go into a lot depth.

Match 3 is tomorrow!