Digital Sportspage Blog

Worldwide Soccer Manager 2008 released their first full patch last week. The change list notes many changes in the MLS. However, the most important problem, teams cutting important players continues to plague the game.

After quite a bit of testing, MLS stars are still being cut with regularity. Out of the four games, Juan Pablo Angel, Claudio Reyna, Jaime Moreno, Christian Gomez, and Ben Olsen (all major players for each team) were cut. Other players that have been released include Chris Armas, Ante Razov, Pat Onstad, Chris Albright, Pete Vagenas, Abel Xavier, Matt Reis, Nick Rimando, Maurice Edu, Ronnie O’Brien, and Marvell Wynne. In one full season, MLS teams made on average 10 cuts a season (with the Galaxy making 18!).

Now not all of the moves made were horrible…sometimes the computer would sign a younger player and have to get rid of a solid player with a big contract (e.g. Chris Armas, Eddie Pope). But some of these players that are being cut are young stars with potential that should not be cut (e.g. Blake Wagner, Robbie Findlay, Maurice Edu, Marvell Wynne).

As for why there is so much movement (the average team cut 10 players per season), teams seem to sign players without “thinking” about the salary cap ramifications. A team will sign a player for a $200k/year contract to fill a need, but not take into account that it will put them over the cap. Then teams are forced to cut players to get under the cap, and will do this to important players (for example, Juan Pablo Angel, Ben Olsen, possibly Eddie Johnson).

What is interesting is that when a good player is cut (for example, Ben Olsen or Maurice Edu), another team will pick him up and be forced to cut players to get under the cap. Then these newly released players get picked up, which leads to more cutting and releasing. I’ve seen a season where Ben Olsen was signed and released four times in a season, likely because of the behavior described above.

I would hope that SI Games will address these problems…but considering the severity of the problem, I’m afraid this may not be fixed until WWSM 2009.