Young Llama Suggestion:

Club: Philadelphia Union

City: Philadelphia

Media Prediction: 4nd (Conference), 7th Overall

Why Them?: Ah those heady days when we first met, and our first Christmas together was spent in the City of Brotherly Love. There was nothing "brotherly" about our love that festive season, I can assure you. And whilst it was our first holiday together, it took a nasty turn on Christmas morning.

Julia was on top of the world having just done that movie named after the Roy Orbison song - Penny Arcade or Working for The Man, can't remember which (memory still not right after the Rocher incident). It was the second highest grossing box office smash that year. Then, Christmas morning, she got the call. Bumped down to the third highest grossing film of the year thanks to Home Alone. She was inconsolable.

I know, because I tried. I did present to her the cold hard truth that her movie had been devoid of booby traps and that the scene in which Mrs McAllister is stuck in the back of a hire van with John Candy's polka band was worth the Oscar on it's own. She disagreed. We agreed to disagree. At a distance of about 8,500 miles.

Julia spent new year in the Maldives leaving me to kick around Philadelphia.

Which brings me to the football. Pre-'94 World Cup, there was pretty much nothing. The MLS was formed in 1993, but Philadelphia Union didn't join until 2010. Of course, the thing that puts most of us Llamas off the MLS is that it is a single tier league with no promotion or relegation. As the Anonymous Llama is yet to authorise an expansion league to allow us to play as lower level clubs, it's MLS or nothing I'm afraid. And nothing would be a shame, because there is still stories to be written and history to be made.

The structure of the MLS is quite different to anything else in top level football, and certainly owes more to the way US sport is arranged than European "soccer". It's divided into regionalised conferences, with a number of clubs from each conference entering a play off system to decide the MLS Cup Champions, a bit like the Spanish lower leagues. Union play in the Eastern Conference and in fact, won it in 2020. Indeed, if the MLS had been a single, combined league, they would have won the whole lot because they achieved more points than anyone else overall meaning they won the Supporters Shield for the first time in their history. They then lost 2-0 to New England Revolution in the first round of the playoffs.

The great thing about this is that, in FM terms, this never happened. The FM MLS season begins at the start of the 2020 season - can you, young Llama, emulate Union's Supporters' Shield victory and then go one better and bring home their first MLS Cup?

Probably not.

But good luck, young Llama!

Things to do when you are inevitably left alone in the city to consider both your life and movie choices:

I bet you thought I was going to say you should see the liberty bell or run up and down those steps recreating the scene from Rocky, didn't you? No chance.

That is the Philadelphia equivalent of starting a save with Liverpool. Instead, go and look at Einstein's brain. Yes, his actual brain (well, 46 small parts of it set within microscopic slides) are on display at Philadelphia's Mütter Museum.

Clever bloke, that Einstein. I have no doubt that if it were him and not Julia that I had shacked up with, he would have been in full agreement about the brilliance of the knee slide Kevin does across the ice allowing him to nutmeg an ill-fated policeman as if he were a human football, resulting in ownership of a free toothbrush that may or may not have been recommended by the American Dental Association.

Random Llama Suggestion which has taken into account lots of specific factors:

Club: Albion Rovers

City: Coatbridge - Scotland

Media Prediction: 9th (Out of 10) - League 2

Why them:

Well, as you know, I always have myriad (one) thing(s) to consider for this suggestion, and the theme of the day meant I also had to chuck an extra factor into the mix and consider places I'd been with Julia.

Although Julia has of course never set foot in Coatbridge. She doesn't like coats (prefers cardigans) or bridges (prefers to swim) so she would hate it there. I kind of ended up there on my own having agreed to disagree about something. We had spent a lovely few days in Edinburgh seeing the sights and were on our way to Glasgow on the train to do the same. I had refused to be drawn on her new film, a sequel to a crime romp with an ensemble cast of 12 but she wouldn't leave it alone. The scene she was most proud of was without a doubt by far the worst, because she was playing a character who needed to cause a distraction and thus pretended to be Julia.

Yep - Julia, pretending to be a third party who then pretends to be Julia.

I think it was supposed to be meta, but just came across as naff. And, as the train neared Glasgow and stopped a while near Coatbridge due to haggis on the track (or something), I told her what I thought. Unlike the other times where this had happened, Julia was fine with it, and rather than argue she offered to give me something called a "Glasgow Kiss". Intrigued, I accepted and puckered up, but she must have slipped because her head connected with my snout, the doors flew open and I ended up on a grass bank outside. In an attempt to raise the alarm, Julia locked the door as swore at me. It was quite unfortunate.

Anyway, Julia spent the next month or so approximately 8,500 miles away enjoying the sights and sounds of Papua New Guinea, whereas I was left to enjoy the sights and sounds of Coatbridge, which I imagine is quite a different experience.

Albion Rovers are a great team for a one club llama save because they are a real blank slate history wise. They also have a single red rose on their badge which is nice. Journey Llamas will love them too for a few reasons. Firstly, Coatbridge is just on the outskirts of Glasgow, where of course there are two massive clubs to aspire to.

There are other much bigger local clubs too, like Partick, St. Mirren, Hamilton and Motherwell allowing you to stay local and better yourself over the seasons. Not only that, but the big Edinburgh clubs are only 50 or so miles away so there is loads of scope.

Last season Albion came second bottom of the Scottish fourth tier and are expected to do much the same this season, but to be honest there is very little between 7 of the 10 teams at this level, so it could go either way.

I always think Scotland allows for something a bit different too because teams play each other at least four times a season (often more as there are three cups to play in too) which means you can really get to know each opponent - great for supplementing your no doubt dog awful scouts and nicking slightly better players from regular opponents.

Albion haven't been higher than the bottom two divisions in Scotland in 30 years and have come second bottom the last two seasons. They are expected to do little other than not be relegated for the foreseeable, and have no money, no facilities to speak of, and a stadium that holds about the same amount of people as the Virgin Pendolino that led me to them. Don't worry though, you'll never fill it with all those bigger clubs around unless you actually achieve something special.

Which is unlikely.

Oh and their kit has been styled over the years to look like a Tunnock's Caramel Wafer wrapper. On purpose.

Good Luck, random Llama!

Things to do when you are inevitably left alone in the city to consider both your life and movie choices:

Take up a new sport at the Golf Asylum, which seems to exist solely on the basis that the weather is so poor that you can rarely play outside.

TripAdvisor makes clear that Bobby is the go-to man to assist with your driving and putting, but that the lady who runs the snack bar is slower than your entire defence were to react that fateful day when Stranraer's wingers ripped you to shreds for the fourth time last season.