Season 5 gets underway tomorrow and it will be the first full season for the Motherwell Eagles. We’ve finished building a squad, I have a rough handle on our tactics and hopefully the Eagles can be competitive in their first season.

In this post, I’ll run through the tactics I’ve built and the players who will implement it on the field. I’ll also take a brief look at our opposition in Spark League 90 and assess our chances of a successful season. Finally, I’ll go through our goals for the season – hopefully without boring you all too much!

The Tactics

The squad has a bit of flexibility in it. There is an enough defensive midfielders to play with two on a regular basis if we want. However, the squad doesn’t have much in the way of central midfielders and no-one who can play wing-back so we won’t be straying too far from a back four with a mix of defensive and attacking central midfielders.

I do have some experience with testing 4-2-3-1 and 4-4-2 (B), although I haven’t found them as useful as the 4-1-2-1-2. Otherwise we could play a 4-2-2-2 with the squad we have which might be one to investigate in testing.

The Squad

When I was building the squad I wanted to make sure I developed my own players as much as possible. The hope is I can develop a core squad, add a couple of stars and challenge for promotion either next season or the season after.

I’ve made 5 new signings for this season, otherwise the squad is pretty similar to what we had for the Redemption Cup. I’ve brought in three veteran players to start all of which will have at least 4 years before retirement, they should keep me competitive now and potentially help a promotion push in season 6+.

I’ve also added a couple of backups with positional flexibility who can hopefully progress with some gametime. I did look at bringing in some loans to fill out the depth instead, but the shares on offer weren’t particularly appealing for back-ups.

As it stands, I’ve got a 22 man squad of entirely my own players. This should give me enough options to rotate effectively over the season and deal with any suspensions that come up. It also gives me three spots available if I want to add any reinforcements in the mid-season transfer window.

Goalkeepers – Ochoa is the starter and should be pretty solid for us. I did look at loaning Rex Brennan out if I could get a starting spot for him, but I’m going to keep him as the back-up and hopefully get him a few games over the course of the season. Gatti makes the squad because I have spaces, he won’t play but maybe he can progress a bit in training.

Defenders – I’m running pretty light at centre-back with Mahmoud Yoqobe being the primary back-up for both starters. For the full backs I have slightly more depth, but I’ll be looking to run a three man rotation again with new signing Franz-Josef Schumacher being the primary back-up on both flanks. He’s young and a new mint this season, so I’m hoping I can get some good progression from Schumacher with a decent amount of game time.

Midfielders – The midfield is pretty full, to give me the option to swap to a five-man midfield if needed. For my standard 4-1-2-1-2 the plan is for Domingos to back-up Lombardo in the defensive midfield role, with Delle being the 3rd choice if we move to a formation with 2 DMs. On the right flank, Almeida will be the starter with Hans Eichhorn being the rotation option.

In the attacking midfield role, I’ve brought in Timmy Cooper to provide a well rounded option who can pass and shoot well in a key position for my tactic. His back-up Werner Bruyninckx is also a new signing who will rotate in at CAM as well as backing up Monday Ogbu at left midfield as well.

Harry White is in the midfield list, but he will be actually be the primary back-up for the two strikers. I don’t intend to be playing Hashem outside of an emergency, but like Gatti he might as well be getting some training experience.

Forwards – Finally, the two dedicated forwards in the side. I’ve got really high hopes for Martin Beck. I signed Beck to bring speed up front after seeing how deadly speed was against me in the Redemption Cup. The early results in testing have been really promising, hopefully it translates into competitive games!

Henrik Ohman will be his partner in two striker formations. He’s still pretty young and going into his second season he hasn’t shown any progression yet. Hopefully, a good run of games will get him progressing nicely as well.

The League

The Motherwell Eagles have been placed into Spark League 90, currently it’s an 11 team division. Interestingly the league contains a San Francisco derby between Fog City FC and Golden Bay MFC! Overall it looks like a league of haves and have nots.

At the top of the table MSC Leonding look to be the favourites to win the league, they have 9 uncommon players in the side and are the only team to top 700 overall for their starting XI. Olympique de Grenoble and Unreal Madrid are the closest challengers on paper both in the 680’s.

At the bottom of the table Fog City, Reiskocher Akademie, Sapporo Snow Hawks and ZMSFC all have best XI overalls under 590. I guess for the most part these sides will be feeder teams for managers that have teams in higher divisions. Unless they improve significantly before the transfer window closes, these are teams we will be targeting wins against.

The Motherwell Eagles fall somewhere in the middle of the pack. Golden Bay and Wings of Fury are both slightly above us in the 640’s overall. Whilst Husqvarna Gunsmiths MFC are right around our level at 615 overall. Promotion doesn’t seem on the cards for us this year, but we should at least be competitive against most of the league.

The Goals

Top 6 League Finish – There are 5 teams with significantly better overall than us and I don’t feel confident my tactics are in a place to give me an edge over them. Ultimately, the aim is to out perform Husqvarna Gunsmiths MFC and the teams with significantly worse squads than us.

Make the Knockouts in the IMFF Cup – I’d like to make the knock-out rounds in the IMFF Cup and earn a bit of extra MFL. With the competition being grouped by team strength aiming to finish in the top half of the group feels pretty reasonable.

Player Development – This one isn’t entirely in my control. But I have a core of players that were minted either this season or last season and haven’t progressed yet. Hopefully, I can get some good improvements on a number players that will help us aim higher in the league in the coming seasons.

Gain More Tactical Experience – I’ve definitely got a lot to learn tactically still. It would be nice to think I can get to the point where my tactics are allowing me to out-perform my squads overall level. As well as learning what I can from competitive games, I will be continuing to test over the course of the season.

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