Front Office Football Central - The FOFC Soccer Super League

A few years ago I ran a PBeM Soccer league with some friends with great success. Unfortunately we all lost interest after various enhancements to the game never really took off. I'd like to restart this using a more mature crowd who could get a bit of enjoyment out of online leagues without devoting hours of your life on managing your squad.

The game is called ESMS+ and is a soccer management simulator. You will pick your team from the list of 24 available and guide them through seasons to win the Championship Game at the end of each season.

You won't be the Head Coach but rather the General Manager. You don't pick your team before each game, you simply make trades and sign and release players and of course select players from the Draft at the end of each season, all whilst staying under the Salary Cap. You don't even have contract negotiations to contend with. You watch your season's results unfold as you prepare for each off-season.

An example of how a season will play out:

You pick the team called "Jonestown Broncos" who are mid-table side and have never reached the Play-offs in their short history. They have a capable squad but are in a tough Division. Your Youth Team is one of poor quality. Your first move as GM is trading your star back-up Striker for a Goalkeeper from Ocean Point. As the season progresses your team hovers in the play-off spot for some time but ultimately lose out with a 7-5-6 W-D-L record, perhaps next year. Your Youth Team faired much worse with a 4-5-9 record but an 18 year old Defender was the stand out in your team full of no hopers.

After the break, the Salary Cap rules are eased just before the Youth Pick-Up where all 19 year old players are put on the table. You have 5 days to sign any of your own 19 year old Youth Players; you cannot sign any Youth Players from other teams yet. You also have a tough decision to make. You are allowed to sign one 18 year old each season; do you promote that good 18 year old Defender or give him another season to progress in your Youth Team? You ultimately opt not to promote him and pick up 2 of your 4 19 year olds on the table. Once the Youth Pick-up window closes any unsigned Rookies are placed in a pool and a standard Draft ensues, yet no players interested you and you skip your selections.

The 2 Exhibition games come along and you all your players get a run out on the field in both games. The two 19 year olds you signed perform strongly so you opt to release their veteran opposites in favor of the youth so you can fall back under the Cap and Squad size limits before the second season. Will you fair better next season?

It is literally as simple as that, you can of course trade players, including youth players at any time with fellow GMs.

The game is going to be a bit of fun, as I enjoy simming the games; I'd like to think you guys could have a bit of enjoyment as banter flies around and the like. The Play-offs and league in general are worked in such a way that having the best team in the league doesn't guarantee you the League Title, over the last 6 seasons (since the start of record keeping) only two of the 6 winners we're early favorites, and even then they didn't waltz through it.

Here is the list of teams, in order of best to worst as of last season and Squad now. Just simple pick one from the list:

Black Island Mercenaries
Angelsea Armada - law90026
Vizhune Vipers
Clayridge Mercury
Wingrove Bombers
Jonestown Broncos
Saphire Coast Sharks
Elon Dragons (Expansion Team) - Katon
Caron Chargers
Splimopian Shockers
Ruysdael Generals
New Auckland Warlocks
Gold Coast Tigers - MrBug708
Peanut Valley Prowlers
Ocean Point Mercury (Expansion Team)
The Stormers
Cherry City Devils - path12
Independence City Cardinals
Snowflake City Pirates
Megopolis Titans
Saffron Knights
Ulster Hornets (Expansion Team)
Lexington Stallions (Expansion Team)
Grenada Kings

PHP Code:




LAST SEASON

No   Sigma Division A       Pld      W      D      L      GF-GA      Pts     CP
1   y-Splimopian Shockers    18      9      5      4      26-21      32      2
2   xa-New Auckland Warlocks 18      9      4      5      25-17      31      3
3   Cherry City Devils       18      8      4      6      26-18      28      5
4   Saphire Coast Sharks     18      7      5      6      24-20      26      6
5   Angelsea Armada          18      3      6      9      19-28      15      10

No   Sigma Division B       Pld      W      D      L      GF-GA      Pts     CP
1   yz-Megopolis Titans      18      11     3      4      28-15      36      1
2   x-Ruysdael Generals      18      8      5      5      21-20      29      4
3   Snowflake City Pirates   18      8      2      8      21-22      26      7
4   Peanut Valley Prowlers   18      7      2      9      26-26      23      8
5   Ind. City Cardinals      18      4      6      8      19-29      18      9
        
No   Omega Division A       Pld      W      D      L      GF-GA      Pts     CP
1   y-The Stormers           18      8      4      6      29-27      28      2
2   x-Gold Coast Tigers      18      6      4      8      24-30      22      6
3   Clayridge Mercury        18      6      3      9      24-30      21      7
4   Saffron Knights          18      4      7      7      21-24      19      9
5   Black Island Mercs       18      1      8      9      15-25      11      10

No   Omega Division B       Pld      W      D      L      GF-GA      Pts     CP
1   yz-Caron Chargers        18      9      7      2      35-16      34      1
2   xa-Wingrove Bombers      18      8      3      7      29-34      27      3
3   Jonestown Broncos        18      7      5      6      26-23      26      4
4   Vizhune Vipers           18      6      4      8      25-30      22      5
5   Grenada Kings            18      5      5      8      18-26      20      8

x - Clinched Minor Wildcard spot
y - Clinched Major Wildcard spot
z - Clinched Major Wildcard homefield advantage
a - Clinched Minor Wildcard homefield advantage

Maj Wdcard     3/08/2006  Megopolis Titans       Splimopian Shockers     et1-0
Mnr Wdcard     3/08/2006  New Auckland Warlocks  Ruysdael Generals       3-1
Maj Wdcard     3/08/2006  Caron Chargers         The Stormers            et3-2
Mnr Wdcard     3/08/2006  Wingrove Bombers       Gold Coast Tigers       1-1p

Semi           5/08/2006  Splimopian Shockers    New Auckland Warlocks   2-0
Semi           5/08/2006  The Stormers           Gold Coast Tigers       et3-1

Conf. Champ    7/08/2006  Megopolis Titans       Splimopian Shockers     2-0
Conf. Champ    7/08/2006  Caron Chargers         The Stormers            2-0

Championship   9/08/2006  Megopolis Titans       Caron Chargers          1-3

CHAMPION: Caron Chargers

Games will be simmed every couple of days so we should be able to power through season reletively quickly, I'll post al results/standings and what have you on here so it'll all be done in this thread. I'll of course go into more detail about how to do certain things if/once this takes off.

So simply lay claim to your team of choice and once we're full we'll kick this thing off.