[US Pro-Rel] Nashville FC - Our Town Our Club

Basics

This story will take place in a universe where the US has adopted a three-tiered professional league system. MLS has bought out the NASL, and as part of the buyout, has expanded to 72 teams, dissolving the NASL and USL and incorporating two extra tiers with promotion and relegation. They are:

1. MLS Premier
Eastern Conference:
Atlanta Silverbacks
Chicago Fire
Columbus Crew
DC United
Inter Miami (all new team)
Montreal Impact
Boston Revolution (formerly New England Revolution)
New York City FC
New York Red Bulls
Orland City SC
Philadelphia Union
Toronto FC

Western Conference:
Colorado Rapids
FC Dallas
Houston Dynamo
Los Angeles Galaxy
Los Angeles FC
Minnesota United
Portland Timbers
Real Salt Lake
San Jose Earthquakes
Seattle Sounders
Sporting Kansas City
Vancouver Whitecaps

2. MLS Elite
Eastern Conference:
AFC Cleveland
Carolina RailHawks
Chattanooga FC
Cincinnati Saints
Detroit City FC
FC Buffalo
Fort Lauderdale Strikers
Jacksonville Armada
New York Cosmos
Ottawa Fury
Tampa Bay Rowdies
Virginia Cavalry

Western Conference:
FC Birmingham
FC Edmonton
FC Wichita
Indy Eleven
Memphis Rogues
Milwaukee Bavarians
Nashville FC
New Orleans Jesters
Oklahoma City FC
San Antonio Scorpions
San Diego Flash
San Francisco City FC

3. MLS Challenge
Eastern Conference:
Baltimore Barons
Charleston Battery
Charlotte Independence
Halifax United
Harrisburg City Islanders
Knoxville Force
Louisville City Coopers
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
Richmond Kickers
Rochester Rhinos
St. Louis FC
Wilmington Hammerheads

Western Conference:
Albuquerque Sol
Arizona United
Austin Aztex
Calgary Owls
Colorado Springs Switchbacks
Las Vegas Mobsters
Oklahoma City Energy
Omaha ONE
Orange County Blues
Sacramento Republic
Tulsa Roughnecks
Winnipeg Bison

Player Registration

Gone are the draft, salary cap, and other byzantine rules. Player acquisition and development is purely Europeanized. The player registration rules follow a hybrid MLS/PL model:
- 25 players max
- must have at least 8 homegrown players (same rules as England for homegrown)
- no match day restrictions
- limit of 10 foreign players - Canadians and Puerto Ricans don't count as foreign

League Schedule, Promotion, and Relegation

- Due to the large size of the US and Canada, teams are grouped into Western Conference and Eastern Conference. Each Conference has 12 teams.
- Teams play a 34 match schedule, double round-robin their own conference and single round-robin the other conference.
- Due to the unbalanced schedules, a playoff is necessary to determine promotions and league winner. The top four teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs, for an eight-team playoff total.
- The quarterfinals and semifinals are two-legged, the final is single-leg.
- All semifinalists win promotion (if not already in the Premier Division), and the bottom two in each conference are relegated (if not already in the Challenge Division).

Nashville FC, who will be playing their first season in MLS's new Elite division (the 2nd division of MLS), have made a shock appointment of 26 year old Nathan Limior as their new manager. Limior has bought into the Nashville FC concept since he first heard of it, and is excited to get his chance to manage his hometown team in the new American league system, and hopefully show the world how great American soccer can be.

As part of being incorporated into MLS, all new MLS teams must dissolve their previous playing squads and create all new ones, so Limior will have to dig into his contacts to find a new playing squad and coaching staff.

About Nashville FC

(This is about the real-life club, not the version in the story. This is from Wikipedia.)

The team was founded by two separate groups, Nashville Atlas FC, an ownership group, and a supporters group that intended to form a team as a fan owned group. Club president Chris Jones cited existing fan-owned clubs as inspiration for NFC's foundation, in particular English club F.C. United of Manchester.[1] In February 2014, the two groups merged to form a single club for the 2014 NPSL season. The club has two teams currently participating in the Middle Tennessee Soccer Alliance, Nashville’s largest competitive adult league, and has already partnered with the TN State Soccer Association (TSSA), an organization with over 20,000 registered players in the middle Tennessee area alone. [2]

On May 24, 2014, Nashville FC held its first ever home match at Vanderbilt Stadium, defeating the Atlanta Silverbacks Reserves 3-1 in front of a crowd of nearly 2,000 fans.[3]

After a maiden season in which fourth place in the Southeastern Conference garnered the club a playoff spot, Nashville was eliminated at the Conference Semifinal stage by Chattanooga FC, who finished top of the Conference and went on to lose in the Championship match. The club has ambitions of climbing the American Soccer Pyramid, with the reported target an entry into the Division II North American Soccer League by 2020.[1]

(This is about the club in FM.)

Their stadium is the Vanderbilt Soccer Complex, which seats 2,400. (They play at the Vanderbilt football stadium in real life, which is much larger, although it is artificial turf. In the game, they are due to move into a 20,000 seat stadium on January 1, 2016.) As part of the MLS deal, the teams have been given improved facilities, and Nashville FC is no exception. With a strong philosophy of developing youth, there will hopefully be some impressive players coming out of Nashville in the coming years.

This looks like a really good idea. I've never tried an American save myself so I'll be watching. Good luck!

Looks interesting, good luck

After careful deliberation, here are the players who make up the first MLS Elite Nashville FC squad. Also, due to a quirk in the rules players can both be homegrown and foreign. If you recognize any of these names, you are a better person than I.

Goalkeepers (2):


Defenders (9):

(Marshall Leonard not registered due to long-term injury.)

Midfielders (9):


Forwards (4):


The wage expenditure is $60k/week, a far cry from the $150k/wk I was given, but I assume things will normalize as better American players get created.

Since I was building a team and fitness was the main thing, I instant resulted the friendlies. I will post results starting with the regular season matches.

If you recognize any of these names, you are a better person than I.

You mean you have THE Anthony Calvano?

In seriousness, good to see the squad taking shape. Continuing to follow.

Good luck, if it's half as good as Leicester is, we're in for a treat!

(Disclaimer: I'm playing on 2D because crap computer, so my commentary may not be as good. Instead, I'll try to compensate with humor and facts about the teams and players.)

Matches

Ottawa Fury 0 - 1 Nashville FC

Nashville FC started the season with a road trip to Ottawa. It seemed like both teams were nervous, and Omar Jarun's clattering of Stefan Jerome in the box earned Nashville a penalty, which Jerome sent home for the only goal of the match. Both teams seemed nervy, as they had some good chances to score goals, but for whatever reason most of the shots were off-target. Tom Taylor played most of the match with a damaged elbow, but he will have to miss 2-3 weeks with it to recover.

Weekly Awards: GK Ian Joyce was named to the MLS Elite Team of the Week.

Lamar Hunt US Open Cup 1st Round
Nashville FC 4 - 1 Washington Crossfire

We came out to a storming performance, and that was reflected in Dennis Chin's hat trick. The only blemish was Adam Osman's goal for Washington on a corner kick.

Cincinnati Saints 0 - 0 Nashville FC

A tough performance as despite our efforts, we couldn't break through and score a winning goal.

Nashville FC 3 - 2 Jacksonville Armada

Jacksonville, as you may or may not know, is a city in Florida. You may know their NFL team, the Jaguars, because their owner also owns Fulham. Anyway, Randi Patterson and Dennis Chin both had outstanding games, with Chin setting up each of Patterson's goals in his hat trick. Chin drew two penalties, and had an assist to Patterson to score the winning goal. Jacksonville battled hard, pulling back after each of our first two scores, but we pulled away for good late.

Nashville FC 4 - 1 Chattanooga FC

Chattanooga and Nashville are both cities in the state of Tennessee. Chattanooga is also 132 miles from Nashville, which is roughly the same distance from London to...Cardiff. Tennessee's major cities are so spread out, it takes forever to travel between them, but that's an aside. Mark Geiger is refereeing this match, so much lulz are about to be had, but there wasn't much controversy because this was a blowout. Maxwell Griffin got two goals in the first six minutes. Peebles pulled one back for Chattanooga but their lack of confidence and ability was apparent as we got two second half goals to win this one handily.

New York Cosmos 3 - 1 Nashville FC

This is a bit of a marquee early-season matchup, as we're 2nd in the Western Conference and the Cosmos are 2nd in the Eastern Conference, and the Cosmos are one of the few well-known names in American soccer, albeit this is obviously not the original NASL Cosmos, but a revival. We had such a poor performance, we barely got a sniff at goal, and Andres Flores and Ayoze killed us with their skillful play. It was our first loss of the season, and a bit of a wake-up call.

MLS Elite Table

Great first month, hopefully it continues. Thankfully, we don't have to win the table or even our conference outright, although it would help with seeding, and we're in firm position in the top four, though it's very early days.

Fantastic start!

Cosmos are really tough to beat, perhaps even the best team there is apart from Nashville in the league

Matches

Nashville FC 1 - 0 Virginia Cavalry

The Cavalry have former MLS star and Canadian legend Dwayne De Rosario. We struggled to make the breakthrough but Dennis Chin played a nifty little through ball to a surging Stefan Jerome for the winning goal.

Nashville FC 2 - 1 San Diego Flash

I'm not really sure what happened here but they've only signed one player, and the rest of their players are greys. Dennis Chin continued his reliability by scoring a goal. Nortey equalized for the Flash, Randi Patterson was having a bad game so I could put Jerome on, Jerome terrorized the Flash with his runs, scored a goal to give us the win, and could've given us more if he could finish more reliably.

Nashville FC 1 - 1 FC Buffalo

Oh boy, if this is like the games between the Tennessee and Buffalo teams in that other football, this is gonna be really controversial, and indeed, late in the first half, Peter Marlette was called for clattering Dennis Chin in the box, and Nashville FC were awarded a penalty, although FC Buffalo supporters were convinced Chin dived. It didn't matter, as Randi Patterson missed the ensuing penalty. In the second half, Christian Duke's free kick bounced off the keeper, and Michael Kafari got the rebound to score. However, Chino Alegria equalized in stoppage time to end the game in a frustrating draw for Nashville.

San Antonio Scorpions 2 - 1 Nashville FC

Our only road trip of this month. We had to soak up pressure all game, and got the early lead with a Maxwell Griffin goal, but Tomasz Zahorski picked up a brace in the second half and gave us our only loss of the month.

MLS Elite Table

We've slipped to third, although still firmly in the playoff race. Indy Eleven have come out to a great start and have a good lead in the Western Conference. By the way, Indy Eleven have a player some of you may recognize, Kleberson. The Eastern Conference is more competitive.

Love the originality of this!

And good to see a country that's rarely played

Matches

Lamar Hunt US Open Cup 2nd Round
Los Angeles FC 0 - 4 Nashville FC

Although LA FC (a new team introduced in this save, they will start play in MLS a bit later IRL) are a league above us, they played like they were a league below us, continuing their poor form. Dennis Chin and Maxwell Griffin both picked up braces and we advance to the third round.

In the next round's draw, we get the Seattle Sounders, and an away draw.

Nashville FC 0 - 1 Memphis Rogues

Yes, we have to get from Los Angeles back to Nashville in 3 days, and we played like it, tired, sluggish, and unable to score, and Khalif Alhassan crossed to Raffaele Lalas for the winning goal. Dennis Chin's injury left us with 10 men late, but thankfully it wasn't serious.

FC Birmingham 1 - 2 Nashville FC

It was an amazing comeback as in the beginning, Cam Weaver scored for Birmingham with a nice shot. However, Stefan Jerome was subbed on and he was the catalyst for the turnaround. First, Birmingham keeper Chris Blais handled but failed to save a shot and equalized with an own goal, then Jerome drew and converted a penalty to complete the turnaround.

Nashville FC 5 - 0 Milwaukee Bavarians

We're back on a run as we blew out the Bavarians, and had 5 different goal scorers. Dennis Chin had an outstanding game with 2 goals and 1 assist. Milwaukee goalkeeper Ray Burse had an awful game, as all 5 shots on target resulted in goals (the first shot was Dennis Chin's attempt at the near post that bounced off the post, but bounced off Burse into the goal for an own goal.)

San Diego Flash 0 - 1 Nashville FC

With Tyler Bellamy's goal indirectly off a free kick, we narrowly scrape a season sweep of the Flash.

MLS Elite Table

We're closing in on the halfway point of the season and we're 2nd in our conference, and we've cut Indy Eleven's lead down to 3.

Doing really good man, and congrats on the SoTM win

There have been rumors that English center back Jonathan Woodgate has been sighted in Nashville, trying to resume his professional career. He has been sighted training with the Nashville FC first team, although a contract hasn't been agreed to at this time. He has been embattled by injury problems, and they are only increasing as he ages, but Nashville FC want to bolt down their back line even more, and to have someone like Woodgate playing in the back four would make them even more formidable as the season goes on.