I’ve been running Master League saves for a long while now, especially since Konami effectively killed the series. But this means I have found the need to get creative when it comes to keeping my saves fresh! One of my favourite approaches to take is adding a heavy dose of realism.

With Football Life just around the corner, and my desire to scratch my itch to write some content, I thought I would write a few ideas out in the hope they might inspire some people with their new saves. I have plenty of ideas to write about, as well as some tools (like spreadsheets) that I would be happy to share if there’s an interest. But for now, here’s two things I like to do.

Labelling the players in your squad

As you know, when you move to a new team (especially if you are unfamiliar with them), the squad can seem pretty faceless. You don’t really know anything about them or their significance. Let’s change that, and at the same time, set up a system to dictate our transfer policy.

I think we can break down each player into a set category. The game already has this, to an extent (youth prospects, star players etc), and you should use this information to label your squad, but we want to take this a little further.

• Club Stalwarts. Think of these as the players who make up the spine of the team and effectively create the club culture. The players who were around before you arrived and will still be there when you leave. These players should be untouchable and are starting most matches. You can either identify these players yourself (a good basis is any player around 24 - 27) or you can google and find out who these players actually are.
• Home Grown. Or to put this another way, the number of players in your squad who must be from the country you manage in. I don’t go as far as looking up the limits per country and instead opt to just say a minimum of 10 players must be from the country you’re managing in, but you are free to determine your own limits.
• Rising Star. You know the ones. The young players in your squad who are first team quality and should be playing at a higher level. If you have one of these players, then you must play them every game and be prepared for a sale to a bigger club. But have fun while you have them!
• High Earners. Similarly, you are going to have a few players who earn the most out of anyone in your squad. I will cover this in more detail in the next header, but identify who these players are. Ideally, we want to set a limit of three high earners at the club (aka star players) as it’s uncommon to have more than this.
• Squad Depth. Finally, you have everyone else in your squad who rotate for your first eleven. They might be youth prospects or just generally weaker players, but they make up the rest of your squad and are unlikely to see as many minutes. I have a whole bit about creating your own artificial youth academy, but that’s for another time.

Why should you bother with any of this? The idea is simple. When you understand the makeup of your squad, you can better create an approach to squad development and transfers. Just sold a homegrown player? Then you must bring in a new one. You can’t sell multiple Club Stewarts in one go as that rarely ever happens.

Combine this with a new approach to wage management and you completely change how you make signings.

Realistic Wage Budget

You know the drill. The club gives you a wage budget of £25,000 p/w and you’re free to go crazy. But then it quickly dries up so you flog a few players or renew everyone's contract just to stretch it as far as you can to make that new signing happen. If you’re bored of this approach, then read on.

From now on, we are going to view finances in allocations. You can view this in game, but I like to document them in a spreadsheet as it means I can quickly look at averages (especially the average per Squad Label). For the sake of easy maths, let's say the club currently spends a total of £75,000—a combined total of £100,000 p/w.

Therefore, the board has allocated you a complete total of £100,000 to spread across your entire squad. Consider this your hard limit. Even if you sell a player and that grants you £20,000 to your in-game wage budget, consider these funds made available within that £100,000 limit.

Wondering why you should do this? Here are some reasons:

1. First of all, you should know that there is a clear link between a club's wage bill and their success. The more spent on wages (in total) the more likely they are to achieve sporting success. Consider this a way to cap your growth and not create a team stronger than is realistic. Yes, you can still overperform, but that’s down to you as a player and not having signed all the best players.
2. Having a wage allocation means you can create your own scenarios. I have a bunch of these in mind, but it can be as simple as an increased wage allocation after performing well in the league, or underperforming and therefore you must cut the wage bill down in order to remain sustainable. At the very least, this is a great way to hardlock your squad growth, be that through signings or promoting quality youth players.
3. Going back to Player Labels, we can also dictate averages per label. It might be that on average, your squad players earn around £15,000 p/w. Therefore, you should stick to this range when you make signings for this type of role. Star Players/High Earners will absorb a larger portion of your wage allocation so you don’t want too many in your squad. Maybe the most your club is prepared to pay a Star Player is 30% of your total wage allocation?

This approach effectively removes the hard limitations placed upon you by the game. You have a wage allocation and that’s it. You dictate how this changes season by season, but at the very least, this approach will stop you from creating a squad that exceeds their level prior to when you took over.

That’s all for now. Hopefully this gave you something to think about. Master League as we know it isn’t going to change, so I think any approach we can take to freshen up the experience for ourselves is a big help. To that end, I would love to hear your ideas and approaches too!