Things learned from signing Bastian Schweinsteiger to the Chicago Fire
On the eve of Chicago Fire’s biggest signing in club history, the rumor mill had already fully percolated and died off. There wasn’t much #Schweini or #Basti going on in #cf97 land on Twitter. Most of us were concerned with Saturday’s 4–0 drubbing that came at the hands of Atlanta United. Sure, he was there, but Bastian had become a sort of avatar for what “could be but probably wouldn’t” ever happen. This thing that had been almost a joke was becoming real, but it still seemed so far away. Even with all the confirmed reports floating about.
I decided to occupy myself with FIFA 17 again for an evening. This has become a regular obsession since around December. I’ve done nearly everything a man can do in FIFA 17, including fielding an awesome FUT squad and winning many a trophy. I even went through the painful RPG “The Journey” with Alex Hunter. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve seen my weekly lineups. I often use FUT to build them. This exercise was to be a little different than my standard FIFA affair. Instead of playing the matches, I decided to start a coaches career and sim everything. Call it Football Manager Semi-Pro.
In order to sign Bastian in game, one must be diligent. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get him in the beginning of the season, so I stowed away cash and tapped a one-off bonus of an extra $40m from “investors” — something you can only realistically do once due to the nature of unlocking bonuses and leveling up/acquiring FIFA points to buy these unlockables.
With my cash reserves hidden away, I went about starting off the season, putting together a squad that could hold the team over until the summer window. This involved changing very little, honestly. Nelson and Pauno should be proud of the players they’ve put together, even if they don’t always line up the way I’d like them to in real life.
The first thing I did was set about loaning as many unnecessary players as I could to free up salary space. Every single player I loaned out is already on loan in Tulsa (the Fire’s USL affiliate), so this seemed realistic. The second thing I did was start scouting fullbacks.
If you know even a shred about the Chicago Fire, then you know they are in serious need of a playmaker at right back. My target ended up being 21 year old Croatian sensation Tin Jedvaj from Bayer Leverkusen. He’s a very good player for his age, and as far as FIFA right backs go, he’s rated 78. So a major upgrade from current LB-cosplaying-as-a-RB Michael Harrington. We’ll get back to those two later.
The simulated Chicago Fire ended up doing fairly well in a 4–4–2 but they really shined when I added Matt Polster to the starting roster as a stand-in for Schweinsteiger in a 4–3–2–1. In this scenario, Alvarez goes on the bench and the team play a diamond shape with Accam and Michael de Leeuw flanking striker Nemanja Nikolic. Adding a 3rd DM strengthened the spine of the team and gets everyone into a nice shape thats ready to plug and play with the German maestro. This so-called “clog” up the middle seemed to actually work wonders for creating chances for both Accam and Nikolic. The former averaging nearly a goal per-outing, which is totally insane and improbable but exciting nevertheless. Niko is streaky, but had a few braces himself leading up to the transfer window. Not bad.
By the time said window had opened, #cf97 had a winning record but were sitting in 6th in the East, just hovering. Probably not really playoff relevant, but definitely playoff-bound given the parity in MLS. I will say, simulated matches are full of unexpected injuries and discipline. Many a red card given to the Fire’s somewhat thin defensive back four complicated things. However, the team has real depth in players like Polster, Campbell and Doody. I am very thankful I didn’t have to go shopping for them myself.
With it now July 2017, the first order of business was to make good on my enquires for Schweinsteiger and Jedvaj. Signing the German proved to be no laughing matter in the world of FIFA and fake moneys. Mourinho wanted $30 million in transfer fees. I was able to talk him down to $24 million. Player negotiations were not fun. I had Bastian’s real life Fire salary (about $90k per week) rejected. He rejected his own asking salary of $145 million. Then he rejected us some more, always writing the same sorry letter about how he loved it in Manchester (who doesn’t love their time there?) and could not move unless he was persuaded. I nearly gave up but finally threw one last Hail Mary pass: 400k/wk for one year’s service. He took the offer. God help us all.
By the way, I know this was a bad deal. I sim’d a bad deal. Nelson Rodriquez also had to make a deal in real life. His deal was better than mine. Way better. Anyone that says otherwise is an idiot. In reality, Chicago didn’t pay a transfer fee and they’re paying Bastian way less money than I ever could have in-game. I also don’t think the Fire really have $50 million to spend, so the $400k in game works somewhat like $90k in real life. Somewhat.
Asynchronous to the Schweinsteiger signing, I was working on a deal with Leverkusen to bring over Tin Jedvaj. This proved to be much easier, but I still had to negotiate nearly $10 million in transfer fees and a $65k per week salary. Somehow he and Schweini both managed to pen multiple copies of the same form rejection letter, multiple times. Quite a feat, really. Or maybe they shared the same agency? Either way, the deal got done and Michael Harrington finally went to the bench.
At this point I locked everything down transfer-wise. No offers for Niko were high enough and I didn’t want to rock the boat. I had pretty much spent the lot of what I had left, and I knew I would also be soon dipping into my transfer budget to pay these guys. I kept around the remaining money (about $11 million) to cover expenses, offseason salaries and hopefully acquire depth in the farm system.
So how did the 2017 season pan out? Not too bad really. Schweini was influential, but honestly not much better than Polster in the long run. Nearly every single game simulated followed a similar narrative. Schweinsteiger usually subbed out around 63' for either Polster or Goosens. Unfortunately, he won’t have either of these guys available to back him up when #31 makes his debut in Bridgeview this April. (Polster should be back sooner than later, Goosens is out for the season.)
The final results for fake 2017 ended with Chicago Fire finishing 3rd in Supporters Shield and second in the East. They demolished DC United in the first round of the playoffs but ultimately fell to the Red Bulls of New Jersey 4–2 on aggregate goals. No MLS Cup final, but a damn good season overall.
Some final take-aways:
- This should go without saying for any team but the Fire really need to score early goals. In matches where we scored goals early, we often went on to win. The limited minutes from Schweinsteiger mean taking full advantage of the first half, bank on a goal or two and bunker down for the win. How we beat RSL in week 2 is the statistical model.
- As long as their back line is relatively healthy, the Fire shouldn’t be giving up more than two goals even on their worst outings. Jonathan Cambell proved much better option at CB than João Meira, by the way.
- Bastian Schweinsteiger will sell a lot of t-shirts. The Fire fan store in real life is undergoing renovation to meet the demand and it looks like they’ve already nearly sold out online less than a few hours after announcing the acquisition. In game, his weekly shirt sales combined with Nikolic and Jedvaj usually came back at around $250k a week. This was major for me as it basically cut Bastian’s salary in half.
- FIFA thinks very highly of Matt Polster and so should you. In a pinch, I took the computer’s lineup advice and started him at center back to fill in for an ailing Kappelhof and a suspended Campbell. He performed admirably and became a regular part of the rotation playing both CDM and CB. In reality, the Fire should think about the possibility of him at RB in addition to these positions.
- Although it goes against the model, a “DP” right back makes a huge difference for the Fire. In games when we had Jedvaj, the likelihood of both scoring and winning were much higher than before. We’re talking 2–1 wins instead of 0–0 draws, things of that nature. I still think its okay to sign a DP defender if your team is a) defensive minded and b) counter attacking oriented. And hey, that’s us!
So what does all of this simulation mean? Does it prove that Nelson Rodriguez is a better GM than me because he got Schweini for so cheap relatively speaking? Yes. Or maybe, but the FIFA 17 transfer market is a cruel mistress for MLS teams. I think I did okay.
There are some things to worry about here.
First, there’s the inevitable decline of Bastian Schweinsteiger. Over time, paying his huge salary has become a major burden to the club. We are nearing the end of his contract and I will be attempting to renegotiate at a lower level. If I cannot lower his salary, he will have to move on because the club can’t really afford to keep paying him. In real life, we may have this problem eventually, though probably to a lesser extent.
There’s no more telling in-game statistic than t-shirt sales to describe the loss of value to the club after a year with B.S. He’s a rock in the middle but has actually been eclipsed by Jedvaj in t-shirt sales. Overall we’ve gone from 250k a week on shirts down to 125k a week. His average player rating in 2018 is 65, but Jedvaj is also struggling in his second year for Chicago. So maybe his performance has nothing to do with t-shirt sales? We’ll see how this impacts the real club. Selling shirts in FIFA is very unrealistic compared to the reality of marketing and selling a soccer club to its fans.
Back in simulated Chicago, David Accam continues to thrive in the 4–3–2–1 system playing forward left. Nikolic has also been serviceable in his role. Its currently August of 2018 and Accam has 11 goals on the season with 4 assists. Niko with 6 goals and 4 assists. The Chicago Fire are currently second in the East after going most of the first half of the season without de Leeuw and Kappelhof due to early season injuries.
By the way, Harrington is still on the roster and managed to sneak in time at LB when Vincent was suspended. He even scored a goal in his one appearance! I think he might be a serviceable option as a backup LB. My take: he’s mediocre with his right foot, but maybe he’s actually good on the left? Just don’t write him off yet, that’s all I’m asking. Its early and we might need him, even if we get a world class RB to replace him on the Starting 11.
All digressions aside, it still feels like a good, albeit fleeting signing, having Bastian on the Fire. I think he will stay in real Chicago longer than he will on my fake Chicago club. Probably 2–3 years, opposed to 1–2. The real life Fire are paying the minimum and I’m paying the maximum, so this is really where the story takes a fork in the road and fantasy stops lining up with reality.
If the Fire can keep Schweini happy and healthy, he will be a leader for the team and act as a player/coach in many ways. Adding him to the team also significantly raises the stock of Matt Polster. The Fire need to lock that guy up long term.
He’ll soon have “trained by Bastian Schweinsteiger” on his football resume.
