Welcome back to “Building a better USMNT together”, a series where I play Football Manager 20 to build the USMNT of our dreams with your help. If you’re new, start from the beginning here.
Building a better USMNT together: Season 1 sets the stage for a pivotal 2020
Our better USMNT is taking shape, slowly but surely.
This week, I decided to blast through an entire season. The reason is Sports Interactive’s January data update, which reflects that many MLS players have signed new contracts since the game’s 2019 release. For that reason, there aren’t a lot of good free agents or newly expiring contracts, so I was largely stuck with what I had. I did get my hands on one outstanding American player, though, and he should be a core member of FC Dallas for a decade.
I expect the next episode to focus on FC Dallas’ first proper offseason. Between MLS and USMNT play, I figure we’re going to take 2020 a lot more slowly, and have three or four episodes over that year. But for now, SPEEDRUN!
Pomykal vs. Servania
The only players I picked up for Dallas to start the year were some veteran backups. Our starting tactic looked like this, with Paxton Pomykal edging out fellow young American Brandon Servania for a starting role.
In real life, Pomykal has significantly out-performed Servania and appears to be on a better career track. But in the game, my assistants rate Servania’s potential higher, and he has developed rapidly. His attributes went up loads from just a few U.S. Open Cup starts and sub appearances in league play. I was willing to make a switch if Pomykal struggled.
But he didn’t. Pax scored goals like this.
Pomykal finished the season with three goals and five assists, which aren’t outrageous numbers, but he was a consistently solid performer. He completed 90 percent of his passes across all games and was one of my top players with a 7.22 average rating. I had no reason to drop him, and I think he’s going to retain a key role going forward.
Welcome James Sands and Terry Boyle
Targeted Allocation Money doesn’t work as well in FM as it does in real life, and since I’m trying to focus on young Americans instead of top international talent, I don’t really need it anyway. I offered it out for a bunch of MLS players I wanted to sign and most teams told me to get lost, but New York City FC was willing to negotiate for James Sands.
He’s exactly what I want in a defensive midfielder. He’s big, quick, and a solid passer for a purely defensive player. He can play the half back role well, which is what I like using most when I want to play a defensive midfielder. And honestly, I wanted him in part because I also rate him highly in real life.
We’ve also picked up a player from our academy. 16-year-old central defender Terry Boyle already has the attributes of decent MLS backups, so I’m hopeful that he develops into a good starter in the future.
He’s a big dude, and he’s got a great name for a Texan. Terry Boyle sounds like a jobber from World Class Championship Wrestling.
We won the U.S. Open Cup!
Spoiler alert: We were just OK in the league, and didn’t win either of the big trophies. But we did win Open Cup in pretty wacky fashion, despite starting backups in every single match.
We pulled off a late comeback in the quarterfinals, with Franco Jara coming off the bench to score an 87th-minute winner.
Ricardo Pepi — our ultra-talented 16-year-old striker with crummy work rate — did almost nothing all season despite getting a lot of playing time off the bench. His one moment of glory was a huge one, though: He scored the winner against Los Angeles FC in the semifinal.
The hero in the final was another otherwise disappointing player who did nothing all year. Fafa Picault was terrible in the MLS matches he started and wouldn’t stop whining about his lack of playing time. I offered him out for free just to get rid of him, and no one would take him. But in extra time of the U.S. Open Cup final, he hit an absolute banger.
So, that’s one trophy in the bag. As far as the league, there wasn’t much to report. We were solid, but never anywhere near the Supporters’ Shield race. I ran into a horrible bug that some of you might be familiar with: the Disabled List problem.
My starting central defender and captain Matt Hedges picked up a minor injury and I was asked if I wanted to put him on the DL, which I did not want to do. The game did it for me anyway, and because he was still on the DL at the roster freeze date, I couldn’t use him in the playoffs even though he was healthy.
As a result, we got smacked in the postseason by the San Jose Earthquakes, who topped the Western Conference table all season thanks to Carlos Fierro finally living up to his potential.
But NYCFC completed the Shield-Cup double in the end, beating the Quakes in the MLS Cup Final. I guess they didn’t need James Sands.
Two newgen dual nationals locked down
As far as the USMNT, there’s very little to report because our first five games were meaningless, even as friendlies go. When you start a game in January 2019, players in leagues that play an August-May schedule just do nothing until their 2019-20 season starts, so my players (and my opponents) had no match fitness. That meant that the results weren’t reflective of our quality nor tactics.
Once the meaningful games got going, we were adequate, but not amazing.
Interestingly, though, I did discover two really promising dual national newgen players who were called up to the Under-20s. I decided to play both of them in the final nations league group stage match against Cuba to make sure they were cap-tied to us.
Manuel Zúñiga is a Colombian-American midfielder from Pennsylvania who came up at Christian Pulisic’s club, PA Classics. His vision needs work, but he looks excellent otherwise. We can’t sign him directly, so I’m hoping he lands with a good team abroad very soon.
Hernán Ayala is an Argentinian-American defender from Virginia who came up with Richmond Kickers, and he looks like a future star. He has already signed for Zwickau in Germany, and if he can continue to play in 3. Liga it could be a great place for his development. Zwickau is predicted to get relegated, however, which is alarming. If they do down, we might have to go on a rescue mission.
Next week, we’ll go through our big offseason with FC Dallas, and it’s a doozy. We’ve accepted big offers for some of our foreign players and spent that cash on young Americans right away. Staple players like Pomykal, Hedges and right back Reggie Cannon remain, but they’re the only starters who kept their jobs.
