I’ve jumped on the MFL bandwagon last week alongside a lot of Sorare players. It should have been an obvious choice for me, I’ve been playing football management games since the Fifa Football Manager and Championship Manager 3 in the late 90’s. But, despite seeing the game pop on Twitter occasionally for the last 6 months or so, I haven’t looked too closely at it until now.

Hearing Nepenthez explain the game on Andrew Laird’s podcast was what really sparked my interest. In particular, the ability to loan in players for a cut of your revenue appeals to me. I like the possibility to keep playing season on season without the need to invest. That’s not to say I’m unwilling to spend on players/packs, but having the option to keep playing without cash is a really nice option.

Signing Up

The sign-up process is super simple. You will want to sign-up with a referral link. It earns you and the referrer a free common player when you spend $25 in the pack store. Something you’ll almost certainly want to do when you get started.

If you haven’t signed up yet you can use this link and we’ll both earn the free common card.

Dapper, the wallet that MFL works off, is pretty nice to use in my experience. You can deposit in cash from Paypal, so there’s no need for any crypto wallet transactions.

Before you go too much further, I’d recommend checking out the White Paper detailing how MFL works. If you have the time to read through it there’s a lot of useful information in there on how the game works. You can also feel free to message me on Twitter and I’d be happy to chat all things MFL.

Choosing a Club

You have a couple of options here. You can buy a brand new club licence from the Pack Store where you will get a club licence from a random location world wide. Once you set the club up, you’ll be able to register for competitions when they start and get involved.

If you take this option pay attention to the location you receive, some locations are worth a lot more than $80 the licence costs. Locations such as those England, the USA, or cities like Barcelona and Munich are worth a lot more if you do want to cash in on them.

The other option is to buy an existing club or licence from another player on the marketplace. You can buy either an existing club here and immediately takeover managing in the club in whatever league they play in. You’ll also earn any rewards the club earns at the end of the season.

If you take this option, pay attention to the Revenue Share the club has spent the lower number the better for you. The Revenue Share is the percentage of rewards the club has given away for the season to loan players into the squad.

I was in two minds of how to approach getting a first club. Setting up a club from scratch via the new player licences appealed to get the fresh club, but taking an existing Ice club was something I looked at to earn some MFL right away. Either way, I was looking for a location either in the UK or somewhere I’ve visited before. When I spotted the Motherwell Licence on the secondary market, I decided a small premium was worth it.

Starter Packs + Referral Reward

The three starter packs on offer at $10 a piece are great value in my opinion. You get two players in each with a 20% chance that each player could be upgraded from a base common player. Just getting these packs will earn you the referral reward if you do want to pick up a club from the marketplace.

If you haven’t signed up yet you can use this link and we’ll both earn the free common card.

I picked up the three starter packs to get my Agency started and earn the referral reward seeing as I got my club from the marketplace. The results weren’t too bad I’d say – there were no Limited+ players for me, but I did get a couple of 54 rated players that look promising and I’d like to try and get some game time early on to see if they develop well.

Ivo de Arruda (22, LB) is the top option from the starter packs. He’s young and pretty well balanced as a left back between the physical and technical stats. Although a slightly higher pace than 55 would be nice on the flank.

Thiago Almeida (22, CAM/RM) is a close second to Ivo. However, looking deeper into his stats his shooting is really low (34) which doesn’t bode well for an attacking position. I’m hoping I can find a way from him to still be productive despite his shortcomings.

There were a couple of other interesting young players in 48 rated Silvio Delle (21, CM/CAM/CDM) and 47 rated Hans Eichhorn (22, RM/LM). Both have some positional flexibility which is nice, I’m expecting to use them as rotational players and see if they can get some progression.

The other two starter pack players are significantly less interesting. 48 rated Giampietro Gatti (24, GK) is a long shot to ever be playable. The same is true of 43 rated Eduard Großmann (24, LB/LM/RM) but he at least adds a bit of positional flexibility.

From the referral reward I got 50 rated Harold White (26, LM/ST). He’s a little older and has a way to go to upgrade to a limited card. I’ll be playing White in the Redemption Cup, but he’s probably someone to look to upgrade on in the future and have as a back-up.

Pack Drop

I got lucky in the pack drop and managed to pick up a couple of packs – one Limited pack and one Kickoff pack. In all honesty, they weren’t the greatest set of cards although the common card in the Limited pack did upgrade to limited at least.

The Kickoff pack was a mixed bag. Otto Hinrichs (26, CB) is 53 rated and will be a starter in the centre of defence and is a pretty well rounded defender overall. However, Shaker Hashem (23, CAM) is just a 46 and not a particularly great one for a CAM either with low shooting, mediocre passing and reasonably high defending. He’ll be in the squad for now, but it’s hard to see him being a long term option.

Market Purchases

To complement the pack players I’ve picked up a few extra players to build the team. I’ve tried to strike a balance between filling positional needs ready for the Redemption Cup whilst also signing players I’d be happy to use in Season 5. Where possible I’ve tried to pick up some younger options in the hope they can develop nicely.

I picked up two limited players to be among the top starters on the side. Karlheinz Stangl (26, CB/LB/RB) is a 56 rated defender that offers flexibility across the backline. He’ll be starting at centre back for the Eagles this season. He’s joined by Claudio Lombardi (21, CDM/CB) who is 55 rated and will start at CDM. He’s a solid CB as well and hopefully he can progress well over the coming seasons.

I added 54 rated Rex Brennan (22, GK) to be my starting goalkeeper before the pack drop got me Ochoa. I debated keeping him on as the back-up option for the Redemption Cup, but decided to loan him out for game time. I got a 2% rev share from a fellow Spark team, so maybe he’ll bring in a tiny bit of MFL.

I brought in a couple of common rated players to start in Marcelo Domingos (25, CDM) and Henrik Öhman (22, ST). Domingos is 53 rated and will start alongside Lombardi when playing a 4-2-3-1. Öhman is 54 rated and hopefully will develop well in the coming seasons, he would be the second striker when playing a 4-1-2-1-2.

Finally, Mahmood Yoqobe (21, CB) comes in as back up centre back. He’s 51 rated, so not a bad option to start in a pinch. He’s also pretty young and very physical, so hopefully he can be a starter in the future.

Loan Signings

I’ve used loans for a mixture between adding some starting talent to the team and filling out the depth. I didn’t want to go too mad with the loans as I want to give my players game time and see if I can get some progression ahead of the Spark League starting next season. Also, if I do have success in the Redemption Cup I’d like to keep as much of the MFL I earn as possible. Overall, I’ve brought in 5 players on loan for a total of 10.5% revenue share.

Dariusz Tomczak (27, ST) joins as the joint top rated player in the squad at 57 and will lead the line for the Eagles. He’s a pretty balanced forward with 60 pace and 59 shooting. At 4% revenue share, I think he’s a pretty reasonable investment.

The second starter loaned in is Claus Adam (51, RM/LM/CAM). He’s 51 rated as an RM and 53 as a CAM so he brings some decent flexibility to the squad. He will be starting at RM for me this season and cost just 1% rev share.

I added three more players via loan to provide depth costing a combined 5% revenue share. Ljubinko Perišić (22, RB/LB/CM) is the pick of the bunch and provides great flexibility to the squad. Nihat Yücel (23, CDM) and Rade Bojić (22, ST) are purely back-ups I’d rather not play if I can avoid it!

Hopes for Redemption Cup

So there we have it, my first attempt at building a squad on MFL. No doubt with many mistakes made along the way!

Going into the Redemption Cup 2 I’m hoping to at least make it out of the group stage and earn a little bit of MFL. I’m in Tier 2 of the competition and it looks reasonably even between the teams in my group. It would also be great to see a little bit of progression in some of the players I own ahead of the new season.

Beyond that, I’m looking to just get a feel for the mechanics of the game. I want to see how my tactics fare against different formations and see if that can give me insights on how to approach next season. Getting a feel for how much you need to rotate players to maintain fitness is also something I’ll be paying attention to.