Leones Negros - Black Lions on their way to Mexican glory

[Dirk Nowitzki]

Leones Negros de la Universidad de Guadalajara - Takeover report

I have been enjoying FM a lot recently and mainly thanks to this forum I also got inspired for some saves that contributed massively to this enjoyment, but the downside of this is that it made me hop saves a bit too often. This time I was looking at the MLS and how it works, and then Mexico caught my eye. At first, I was looking at Chivas Guadalajara and their policy to only sign Mexican players, which is hardcoded into the game like Athletic only buying Basque players. They are already very strong though, so I looked around a little in the area and decided to start with their neighbors, Leones Negros de la Universidad de Guadalajara, or simply Leones Negros. The black lions play in the second Mexican tier and have spend all of the last decade in this league, except for 2014-15 when they went straight down again after winning promotion the season before. Hopefully this will stick, or perhaps makes me move to a different country within the same save after all the work is done at Leones Negros.

The squad I inherited isn't that great, but at least consisted mostly of players we have under contract ourselves, unlike a few other teams who consist for at least 80(!) percent of loaned players. Most players will be unknown to the general public, but we do have 39-year old Omar Bravo and Juan Carlos Valenzuela in the team. Especially Bravo used to be a regular for the Mexican national team. I have signed 4 players that were offered by their agents on a free to fill some holes, but nothing spectacular and mostly short term fixes. We will line up in a 4-1-2-1-2 narrow diamond, since I wanted a change of pace from my 4-5-1 I used in several saves. I did keep most of the other instructions intact, so we play attacking high-press football.

There are currently 12 teams in the second tier, but this will increase to 18 over the years (I holidayed a few seasons in a test save to get a feel for the format since I had never managed in Mexico). Mexican leagues are played in a Apertura and Clausura format, in which the numbers 2 to 7 play each other in a two-legged quarter final after the initial competition where every team played each other once. The top team will join in in the semi finals. The winners of the Apertura and Clausura play each other at the end of the season for the only promotion spot, so it's not that straightforward to win promotion.
The odds for this season show that the quality of teams is pretty even, so it should be an exciting season.

Facility-wise we are okay but not great, with adequate recruitment and academy coaching, and good youth and training facilities. We do play in the massive Estadio Jalisco, a 56,713 all-seater (although it says the maximum capacity is 55,020 for normal matches) that is shared by top tier team Atlas and Leones Negros. We don't come near using its full capacity yet with our 10,000 season ticket holders, but at least this won't hold us back from growing in the future!

The goal of this save is obviously to get promoted as soon as possible, and then grow to become a challenger for the Mexican title using mostly Mexican talent. I think the continental competitions will mostly be challenged by Mexican and American teams, so I'm not sure how important they are compared to the domestic league, but this is something that will surely have to wait for a bit!

[Dirk Nowitzki]

Leones Negros de la Universidad de Guadalajara - 2019-20 Apertura

I had played a bit already before posting the takeover report, and now I have just finished the Apertura. And damn, this play-off format can be frustrating!
Everything started of great with us going unbeaten and winning most of our games. You may notice we have 33 points out of 11 games whilst drawing 2 of them, but this is down to away teams getting an extra point if they win, a weird rule I have never seen before. Finishing first meant we could skip the quarter finals and go straight to the semi final.

Meanwhile, we had also done enough to survive a 3-team group stage in the cup, accumulating 3 draws and a win. We then met Mineros in the semi finals of the Apertura for the fourth and fifth time already in 17 competitive games. They scored a late winner in the first game, and then scored early on in the second. We equalized and dominated the game, but some major fuck up by our defense destroyed our hopes to turn the tie around and leaving our good form in the first half of the season worthless. The positive take-away is that we are able to beat everyone in the league, and that over 38,000 people showed up to watch us. Mineros went on to win the Apertura, and our only shot at promotion this season is to win the Clausura and do better against them in the promotion play-off.

Annoyingly, the board is now unhappy about me not securing promotion in 2021-22, which seems a bit premature must be a bug. Hopefully one that doesn't cost me my job at some point...

There is a winter break in December with everyone going on holiday, and it also meant the youth intake preview came early. Let's see what a golden generation looks like in Mexico!

[dalenichol]

An interesting start Dirk and a nice idea for a save. I've always liked the idea of Mexico but haven't managed there for the last few versions because I'm a bit anal and really hate the fact that most of the big teams have like 4 junior squads and a few affiliate clubs linked to them.

The extra point for away wins is really weird but interesting, and that's a tasty looking intake preview.

Also, those kits... I love all 3 of them, but that away kit is something special.

[Dirk Nowitzki]

Jul 13, 2020 20:08:34 GMT dalenichol said:

An interesting start Dirk and a nice idea for a save. I've always liked the idea of Mexico but haven't managed there for the last few versions because I'm a bit anal and really hate the fact that most of the big teams have like 4 junior squads and a few affiliate clubs linked to them.

The extra point for away wins is really weird but interesting, and that's a tasty looking intake preview.

Also, those kits... I love all 3 of them, but that away kit is something special.

Thanks for reading Dale! I haven't really figured out the links of all these affiliates yet. There are 4 other teams named some version of Leones Negros or Universidad de Guadalajara, 1 of them kind of functions as my B-team. Then there is Oro, whose only player in the squad is a 45-year old Portuguese and play in a stadium owned by me that is also used by my B-team, yet Oro owns the massive stadium we play in. All of this is weird haha.

I guess the extra point functions as some kind of incentive for playing more attacking as an away team? The top tier doesn't have it fortunately.

[Dirk Nowitzki]

Leones Negros de la Universidad de Guadalajara - 2019-20 Clausura

After the disappointing ending of the Apertura, we had to regroup ourselves and win the Clausura for a chance on promotion. With Omar Bravo being a thousand years old and quickly declining, I decided to go a bit over the wage budget to sign Christian Novoa on a free to add some quality up front along with a good personality. The regular competition was pretty straightforward again, although we scored a bit less and conceded more than twice as often compared to the Apertura. Oddly, Apertura winners Mineros didn't even make the playoffs this time, but they did manage to go all the way to the final of the Mexican cup, in which it took Chivas Guadalajara penalties to defeat them. We got eliminated by top tier side Atletico San Luis in the second round after penalties.

The first hurdle on our way was Atletico Zacatepec and it turned out to be a massive struggle. After both games ended in 1-1, I was afraid of a potential penalty shoot-out, since I found out in the cup that besides Bravo nobody had a penalty taking attribute of above 7. However, apparently the best ranked team in the standings advances to the final in case of a draw, lucky us!
Up next was Atlante, and after an even game at their place we took care of them pretty easily in the home game in front a 55k people crowd, so we were crowned Clausura winners! It was then time for revenge on Mineros to win promotion to the Liga BBVA Bancomer MX. Winter signing Novoa came up big in those games and saved us at home, helping us win promotion! After the frustration from the Apertura the season eventually was very successful.

The outlook of a golden generation made me properly excited, but it wasn't that great unfortunately. I think I remember a mod over at the SI forums say that teams from the same region are competing with each other for the best regens, with youth recruitment being a crucial factor in determining where the best talent goes. Fishing in the same pond as Chivas and Atlas doesn't help us in that case. We got our fair share of terrible personalities in this intake and the overall quality isn't great, but maybe Josúe Chacarito and Rogelio Romano can make it to the first team at some point. Chacarito looks like the best of the bunch, but has some atrocious attributes in key areas that make it unlikely for him to become a great player.

This is the squad that won promotion, and we'll need strengthening in order to be competitive next season since there are quite some bad players in the team. The top tier is currently in a transformation from 18 to 20 teams, and next year there will be 19 teams of whom nobody will be relegated. This is good news, but the relegation in Mexico is based on the average amount of points over the last three seasons, so we can't be too terrible. I'll be looking for players with good personalities since we have way too many balanced personalities in the team, and I want to increase professionalism. Going through the list of players that are willing to come to Leones Negros, it seems that it will be hard to do this with mostly Mexican players though because there is an abundance of players with the balanced personality and low/very low determination levels.

I have done more than the board wished for by winning promotion, but the bug that made it seem like I failed to win promotion before 2022 still causes the board to rate my performances C+. On a more positive note, they have approved improvements to the youth facilities in recruitment, which should help with catching up with Chivas who produced some amazing youngsters, most notably Renato Rivera.

[chaodck]

Great start to this save Dirk mate, as Dale says wonderful kits as well. Some weird rules and the lurking disaster that can playoffs be will this interesting. Good luck in the Liga Bancomer mate, you will need it as there are some big teams.

[Dirk Nowitzki]

Fuck me, I'm an idiot! When I was holidaying before starting this save to get a grip of the league structure I had turned off that the game cycles 3 save games, and I had forgotten to turn it back on. Then my laptop got stuck while saving and the file got corrupted... Pretty frustrated now, ffs.

I had played the Apertura and was about to start the Clausura, but still had to write it up. We sucked in the beginning and were in 18th place with 5 games to go, but things started to click in the last few games and we even almost made the playoffs. This league is crazy and I was having a lot of fun, so I'm pretty gutted that I didn't put the setting back to cycle saves.   I don't think I can put myself to start over, so I'll probably on the lookout for a new save.