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Most interesting league systems


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Just wanted to know what the most interesting league systems on the game are. Have had a look on google but not much info.

Things like....lowest number of games, most interesting play off arrangements, mid-season league splits, large number of teams involved in either the race for europe or relegation (i.e. large number of relegation places in proportion to the number of teams), and any other stuff that could make for an interesting season.

I think I've found the league with the lowest number of games - Iceland with 22.

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Yep, Iceland is very short. I'm managing there right now. There is a League Cup that runs a month or so before the league starts and you'll play a minimum of seven games in that. Then there's the 22 league games and at least one Icelandic Cup game...as many as 4, I think.

From October, when the season ends, through to March is a long old gap though. You could holiday but I wouldn't advise it for the whole time. If you run a lot of leagues, like me, then it will take an age to get through.

The league that I have often enjoyed the most is Norway. There's something rather quaint about it, and it is a nice test to see if you can get the one promotion spot out of the Second Divisional Groups. You'll be playing games against top league reserve teams and they can be seriously differing in form at any time of the year.

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South America is fascinating. I don't understand anything that happens in the Brazillian or Argentinian leagues, but whenever I've tried, it sounds superbly complex. I think (but not sure) that HK also has very few games. Australia has 30 league matches and no domestic cups, that's where I am now. Shoestring budgets and foreigner limits are the order of the day.

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Portugal's third tier has a round robin playoff to decide promotion. The three winners of the three subdivisions play four games, playing each other home and away, with the best two going up and the loser staying in the third tier despite winning their league. I don't see why they can't just relegate three teams from the second tier, but it does make things a little trickier and interesting. It means only two teams gain promotion from something like 33-35, which i guess is among the fewest promotion places available proportionate to the teams competing.

I'm managing in Sweden's fourth tier at the moment and there's only 22 games in the league here too (which goes up to 26 in the third tier and 30 in the second and first tiers). However, it's made especially short because there's no cup competitions for us to compete in. The only cup is the Svenska Cupen and it's limited to only 98 teams; all the teams of the top two tiers compete (entering in the Second Round), and then the rest is made up from lower league clubs. Since there's a limit of 98 and many more clubs than that play in the Swedish leagues, each district of Swedish football receives x number of places depending on how many licensed players they have and i assume those places go to that districts highest placed teams in the league system. I have no idea when i'll get to enter, so until then we have a very short season and a season, of course, which spans from April-September instead of August-May. I can't imagine the havoc that'll cause if we ever manage to qualify for Europe. It's an interesting twist, you could say.

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One thing interesting in the Lower Leagues of Italy is the Serie C Cup (now Coppa Di Lega Italia Pro or something like that) even at that level it's good to give some rotation to your youngsters and fringe players.

Also the Czech League apparently has a wage cap, i've only seen it on the rules, never managed there but it should make an interesting experience.

Portugal's third tier has a round robin playoff to decide promotion. The three winners of the three subdivisions play four games, playing each other home and away, with the best two going up and the loser staying in the third tier despite winning their league. I don't see why they can't just relegate three teams from the second tier, but it does make things a little trickier and interesting. It means only two teams gain promotion from something like 33-35, which i guess is among the fewest promotion places available proportionate to the teams competing.

And it's really frustrating to lose that play-off.. i know i have :(

Spain also has a similar system for the Segunda Division B i think, even if your series doesn't guarantee a promotion.

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The Dutch 2nd Division foxed me first time round. The season is broken down in to four periods, 'win' any one of those periods and you're guaranteed a playoff spot for promotion that season no matter where you finish up in the season long league table. I've finished 9th in the overall positions for the season in the league before...and got promoted. :)

The Croatian Top Division from the 2012/3 season onwards is madly small. From 16 teams culled down to 12 teams (but oddly everyone plays each other 3 times).

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Brazil's great. Top two divisions are just a standard league format. Third division, not so standard: 4 groups of 5, teams play a normal league system against the rest of their group. Then the top two from each group go into a knock-out cup-format competition to decide the overall winner. Teams who make it past the first knock-out round get promoted.

Then, as well as the national leagues, you also have the state championships. They're entirely independent from the national league, played between the local sides from each state. Leads to first division teams regularly playing non-league sides, and each state championship has its own format too. Some are normal league systems, others are weird. I'm currently playing as Icasa, in the Ceara state championship, which works like this:

There are 10 teams. There's an opening stage and a closing stage. Each team plays each other team once in the opening stage and once in the closing stage. Top 4 teams in the opening stage go to a (two-leg) knock-out competition to determine the opening stage winner, and then the same thing happens in the closing stage. If the same team wins both, they're the stage champions - if different teams win, then the opening and closing champions have another two leg play-off against each other to determine the overall winner. And relegation is determined on the overall league table (i.e. results from opening and closing stages combined). And results from the knock-out and play-off stages count for the overall league table, so while a bad team will only play 18 games, a good one can play up to 28 (by winning one stage, and being losing finalists in the other so it goes to a play-off).

The cup can be a little strange, too. Early rounds (maybe all, I'm not sure) are over two legs, and have the lower division side always playing at home first. BUT if the away team wins by more than two goals, they go straight through without playing a second leg.

So there's quite a learning curve involved if you want to play in the brazilian competitions. I'd highly recommend it though, it makes for a very interesting game. Does slow progress a little though, playing two competitions a year - won both stages of the state championship this year, so avoided the play-off. But that still leaves me with 64 'league' fixtures this season (38 national league, and 26 state championship), plus a good cup run (in the semi-finals, with a good chance of progressing to the final) which takes me past 70 fixtures in total, despite not being in continental competition.

Oh, and finishing as low as 13th in the top division can get you into the qualifying stages for the Copa Sudamericana (second tier of continental football, so roughly equivalent to the Europa League, I guess).

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