Australian Tier 1

A-League Men

League Guide & Facts

The top tier of Australian football
12 teams (11 Australian, 1 New Zealand)
Comprises of a regular season followed by a knockout play-off system leading to a grand final
Regular Season teams play each other at least once (26 games)
3 points for a win, 1 for a draw

Playoffs

Top 6 qualify for the knockout stage with the top 2 getting a bye to the semi final
Grand Final decides overall winner

Relegation

None, closed shop

Notable Rules

1 goalkeeper on the bench
2 under 21 players must be on the bench
Maximum of 5 foreign players
Rules on player wages is pretty convoluted, see video below

Wellington Phoenix cannot qualify for continental competition through the league as they are not recognised as an Asian Federation Club
League Reputation is 2 stars

Transfer, Registration and Salary Cap Rules

Australia has a fairly unique rules surrounding transfers, player registration and salary caps the only league that comes close is probably the USA. In the video below Newton Durham outlines the rules really well, you can tell he's passionate about the A-League.

Fair warning for LLaMas, he does name players, but the video is free from tipping, he doesn't ever mention tactics or who to sign or any of that nonsense

Suggested* Additional Nations To Load

An Asian Journeyman

There's plenty of scope for career progression with this setup and having all other nations in Asia running will keep the continental club competitions strong too

*As always this is only a suggestion, feel free to run as many or as little leagues as you feel your system can handle. The setup above gives a nice regional feel and still maintains historic transfer links with the two European Nations mentioned

Media Prediction, Board Expectations and Title Odds

Australia is a bit of a bone of contention for me as a LLaMa as are all of the nations with a single tier, my personal gut feeling is that I would only ever start as one of the bottom 3 maybe bottom 7 at a push.

Anything above that would be a little too strong for my tastes but hey, if you've watched the video and finally got your head around the player allocation and salary cap and you were sent here by the LLMPicker then who am I to argue with the 3 Llamas?

Keep in mind the figures you see below may be slightly different in your game but once you get started you'll see that they are broadly the same

Football Manager 2022 - Australian A-League Men - Club Culture

Football Manager 2022 - Australian A-League Men

Facilities

Facilities Explained

Training Facilities

The better the training facilities the more chance (already visible) players will develop.

Here are the facilities ranking from worst to best -

Poor
Basic
Below Average
Adequate
Average
Good
Great
Excellent
Superb
State of the Art

Youth Facilities

The training facilities available for Juniors (only).

Does NOT apply to visible players already at the club. All visible players currently at the club use Training Facilities regardless of age.

In theory the better these facilities the greater your players will be developed on the day of intake. But there are a lot of factors at play.

Here are the facilities ranking from worst to best -

Poor
Basic
Below Average
Adequate
Average
Good
Great
Excellent
Superb
State of the Art

Junior Coaching

The quality and quantity of unseen youth coaches that affects the quality of players in your youth intake

Junior coaching is ranked as follows from worst to best -

Basic
Fairly Basic
Average
Adequate
Good
Excellent
Exceptional

Youth Recruitment

This determines how large a pool of players your team can recruit from. It is the size of your recruitment network. It increases your chances of getting the best young players from your area, nation and beyond.

Some clubs of course will have no youth recruitment at all, which means no youth intakes.

Recruitment is ranked as follows from worst to best -