Finishing up the review for MFL Season 7 is Tabasco Fire, the development side in my agency. I’m using the side to give game time to the players in my gallery that don’t make the grade at Motherwell and filling the gaps with 0% loans. It results in a lot of turnover the squad from year-to-year and with loanees tending to fill about half the starting spots in the squad.

Whether it’s the personnel changes or the engine pre-season testing wasn’t very useful for me. Every tactic I tried from 4-3-3 (def), to 3-4-3, to 5-2-3 were neutral at best. It’s resulted in me building a bigger squad than normal, 23 players vs the usual 18 to 20 players. So we had flexibility for the above formation as well as the 5-3-2 to hopefully figure the tactics out as the season goes on.

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The League

A really rough start to the season. As with Motherwell I struggled to get to grips with the match engine. Over the first half of the season we won two games and lost 9, compared to last year the draws against better sides were notably missing. We tried 5 different tactics across the 11 games using 4 formations. Having a large squad certainly came in handy at this point.

In the second half of the season I finally settled on a 3-4-3 that keeps the the two wide midfielders back for the most part to cover the wide areas. I took a while to bear fruit but finally with 5 games to go we strung together three wins on the bounce. It took us from 4 points adrift at the foot of the table to four clear of 11th place in 10th. There was no points for any of us after that and we locked in 10th place with a game left.

It was a tough road to get there, but 10th place was the goal go into the season, so a successful season overall. We’re lucky there was no relegation from Spark this year and we may well need to be better next season if we want to continue to retain our spot in Spark. As well as getting the tactics sorted earlier, I certainly need to improve the quality on the squad compared to this season.

The Cup

The cup campaign got off to a dreadful start. After losing two of the first three games, we looked to be in a precarious position for qualification. However, we found some form at the right time and won all three of the remaining games to qualify in top spot in our group.

The Round of 16 game saw us face Zaiton FC. We got off to a good start, taking the lead in the 16th minute before we were pegged back after half and hour. We took the lead again in the second half but held it for less than 10 minutes before Zaiton drew level again. Six minutes after that we were behind for the first time in the match and we couldn’t find another goal over the last 15 minutes. A disappointing loss, but at least one we were the better side in – we lead in xG 2.05 – 1.28.

Progression

It was a great season of progression for Tabasco Fire. Our starting striker Derek Zwolinski went mad, going up +6 overall in his rookie season. Unfortunately, he was one of the loanees, but he looks like he could be an absolute progression monster for his owner!

It was still really solid season for my players. Ignacio Ordonez was the pick of my starters, going up by +3 overall this season. I picked him up for $1 in the off season at 24 years old. He’s up to 55 overall as CM and should be a useful option for Tabasco for a good few years yet.

The other highlight was back-up goalkeeper Sidnei Mariano who also went up by +3 overall. To go up by +3 despite only playing 5 games is really impressive. I’m very curious how far he could go with consistent game-time. I’ll definitely be looking to find him a starting role somewhere for next season and see if this rate of growth can continue.

Thoughts on Season 8

We need to improve with the risk of relegation growing, simple as that. I want to keep this team in Spark if possible and avoid the lower rewards from dropping to Flint. No teams went down this year, but that might not be the case next year. If it wasn’t for that little run at the end of the season we would have been bottom of the table.

We definitely need a defined tactic earlier than the half way point of the season going forward! Hopefully, I’ll have a bit more success getting a tactic put together in the new match engine. Beyond that we will also need to improve the squad where we can. In terms of my players, that will most come from players flowing down as I improve the Motherwell squad, but I’ll also be aiming higher with the loan signings if I can.

I have prioritised the cup above the league for Tabasco in each of the last two season, but that may change next year depending on how many more new teams we get in Flint. If relegation appears to be a real risk, the Cup will have to be secondary to the league, but hopefully we can manage both.

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