Longhorn

My income statement shows "interest" and the amount seems to scale with the amount of cash the club has, so it does appear that the club balance produces useful income.

So that's the excuse they use for sending my cash to their secret Swiss bank accounts. Scandalous! I contacted the Football Bureau of Investigation and they managed to recover the funds. To compensate for the lazy auditors I used the in-game editor to add a fixed and recurring income source to the club as "other income" to reflect a reasonable return on the invested sums. The amount of income is 3% of what the board invested for me. I'd like the lazy auditors to do this automatically for me in the future.

From time to time my board puts substantial amounts into a "reserve investment fund". However, when I look at the club's sources of income the line item "investments" always show no income. Are the members of the board using personal Swiss accounts or should I expect to see some return on these investments?

As part of the support in FM for MLS I'd like to see the annual MLS Generation Adidas Cup youth tournament added. It is an international tournament for U15 and U17 academy sides. This year sides from 12 countries will participate - all MLS academies, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, England (Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U), France, etc. Of particular interest to me is that since an MLS academy has won the U17 bracket the last two tournaments, and last year an MLS academy won both the U15 and U17 brackets, I would like to see how FM 202x mirrors real life. Update: in the 2023 MLS Generation Adidas Cup for the third tournament in a row an MLS academy won the U17 bracket and for the second tournament in a row an MLS academy won the U15 bracket. Sides from Man U and Chelsea failed to make it out of the group stage, and a side from Arsenal lost 4-1 in the first knockout phase. Sides from Spain, Mexico, Brazil, etc. were beaten. The only non-MLS academy to reach a semifinal was an U15 side from Genk, and they lost to a side from the Austin FC Academy that has only been in existence for a couple of years. Perhaps the newgens in FM202x should catch up with reality - it is clear that the talent coming through the MLS academies is better than what the game generates.

My club's colors suddenly changed while I was playing. The new colors are a familiar yellow and blue! I wonder if this a random bug that affected me, or is there more to this? Was anybody else impacted? I am also unable to use the in-game editor to change the colors back.

"I have not picked up FM23, but I was curious if anyone has looked at MLS. How does it handle over a five years or more? Do clubs stay competitive? League I want to play, but roster management has been a struggle for AI clubs." I played about half a season with FC Dallas and gave up. The AI is still brain dead in terms of managing teams. For example, Gareth Bale was released on a free waver, as were several other "stars". FC Dallas finished as the 2nd best MLS defense in real life but in the game players just watch opponents blow by them, and the roster is the same as in real life. Some comments would suggest that the problem is tactics but players standing still while opponents waltz past them is not a tactics problem as far as I'm concerned. I tried playing some matches with a few prestigious European teams and saw some of the same things. Perhaps if a squad has a lot of highly rated defenders they might react better, but you can count on the MLS squads to have lower player ratings.

I decided to take a refund on this version of FM for two main reasons: first, the defense is ridiculous in the matches I've played, and I used different teams with good defensive records for this; second, the feedback seems to indicate problems in the development of young players and my play style is to develop young players in long saves. It is possible that I may revisit this decision in the future if there is reason to do so, but for now I'll continue with my FM 2022 save.

I hadn't been planning on buying this year's release because the new features were of little interest to me but I decided to try it out anyway because of the promised improvements to the match engine. Now I regret that decision. In my experience the new match engine is worse. I copied my tactics from previous years, which worked successfully then but in the new me I find my side is often losing by big scores. I encounter a message saying there is a gap between my defense and midfield no matter how I tweak the tactics and my offense just resorts to "route 1" football and taking long shots from outside the box. The main problem, however, is that the defense is a disaster, but not only for my side. In all the matches I've run so far the xg is much less than 1.0, but the scores are always high. I adjusted my match tactics to a very defensive low block system and that helps some, but this means I have to set tactics to match the me, not the match. I also notice that the ai for team managers is still a problem. Various talented players were released on free waivers by their sides, including Gareth Bale. In the present condition I consider the current game to be not worth playing so I expect to see a lot of effort put into fixes.

I'm undecided. I have been in the habit of buying the new version every year even though many/most of the new features usually don't interest me. I guess I always hope for a pleasant surprise. But, I find I play the game less and less of late. I tend to play a national team and one or more club teams, including an MLS team. I find many problems with the support for national teams as well as MLS. Some assurances of improvements in these areas would help. I'm interested to see how MLS Next and MLS Next Pro are handled. I would be delighted to learn that the Generation Adidas Cup (which my club team hosts) would be included, but I'm not holding my breath for that.