[Discussion Thread] - League reputations at game start

[Jason the Yank]

The add/remove leagues function in FM '12 has made me a bit curious about league reputations, mainly because of a save concept I have (start in the lowest rated leagues, then add higher-rated ones in when/if I ever dominate the lower-rated leagues and conceivably could get a job in a bigger league).

So I've fired up a new game, and looked at all the leagues that are playable out of the box (plus a couple that I know FMCUers have used edit files to get - those leagues are listed inside parentheses).

The new game I fired up in order to check league reputations has MLS as the only playable league, and there are only 11,000 players in a large database. But I figure since this list is from the very start of the game, it's what SI has coded them as and should hold true across all game setups.

The list:

(Algeria - League One - 2 stars)

Argentina
Premier Division - 3 stars
Second Division - 2-1/2 stars

Australia
A-League - 2 stars

Austria
Premier Division - 2-1/2 stars
First Division - 2 stars

Belarus
Highest League - 2-1/2 stars
First League - 1-1/2 stars

Belgium
Pro League - 3 stars
Second League - 1-/2 stars
Third Division A/B - 1 star

Brazil
First Division - 3-1/2 stars
Second Division - 3 stars
Third Division - 2-1/2 stars

Bulgaria
"A" Group - 2-1/2 stars
"B" Group - 1-1/2 stars

Chile
First Division - 2-1/2 stars
First Division B - 1-1/2 stars

China
Super League - 2 stars
First Division - 1-1/2 stars

Colombia
First Division - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division - 1-1/2 stars

Croatia
First Divison - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division - 2 stars

Czech Republic
First Division - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division - 2 stars

Denmark
Superliga - 2-1/2 stars
First Division - 2 stars
Second Division - 1 star

(Egypt - Premier League - 2 stars)

England
Premier Division - 4-1/2 stars
Championship - 3 stars
League 1 - 2 stars
League 2 - 1-2/ stars
Blue Square Premier - 1 star
Blue Square North/South - 1/2 star
(Isthmian/Southern/Northern Premier - 1/2 star)
(Isthmian/Souther/Northern First Division - 1/2 star)

Finland
Premier League - 2 stars
First Divison - 1-1/2 stars

France
Ligue 1 - 3-1/2 stars
Ligue 2 - 2-1/2 stars
National - 1-1/2 stars
CFA - 1 star

Germany
First Division - 4 stars
Second Division - 3 stars
Third Division - 2 stars

Greece
Superleague -3 stars
National B - 2 stars

Holland
Eredivisie - 3 stars
Jupiler League - 2 stars
(Topklasse - 1/2 star)

Hong Kong
First Division - 1 star

Hungary
Division I - 2 stars
Division II - 1-1/2 stars

Iceland
Premier Division - 1-1/2 stars
First Division - 1/2 stars

India
National Football League - 1/2 star

Indonesia
Super League - 1-1/2 stars
Premier Division - 1 star
First Division - 1/2 star

(Iran - Premier League - 2 stars)

Israel
Premier League - 2-1/2 stars
National League - 2 stars

Italy
Serie A - 4 stars
Serie B - 3-1/2 stars
Serie C1 - 2 stars
Serie C2 - 1-1/2 stars
(Serie D - 1/2 star)

(Japan - League 1 - 2-1/2 stars; League 2 - 2 stars; JFL - 1

star)

Malaysia
Super League - 1 star
Premier League - 1/2 star

Mexico
First Division - 3 stars
Promotion League - 2 stars

(New Zealand - ASB Premiership - 1/2 star)

Northern Ireland
Premier Division - 1-1/2 stars
First Division - 1/2 star
Second Division - 1/2 star

Norway
Premier Division - 2-1/2 stars
First Division - 2 stars
Second Division - 1 stars

Peru
First Division - 2 stars

Poland
Ekstraklasa - 2-1/2 stars
First Division - 1-1/2 stars

Portugal
Premier League - 3-1/2 stars
Second League - 2 stars
Second Division - 1 star

(Qatar - Stars League - 2 stars)

Republic of Ireland
Premier Division - 2 stars
First Division - 1 star

Romania
First League - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division - 1-1/2 stars

Russia
Premier Division - 3-1/2 stars
First Division - 2 stars

Scotland
Premier League - 2-1/2 stars
First Division - 2 stars
Second Division - 1 star
Third Division - 1/2 star

Serbia
SuperLeague - 2-1/2 stars
First League - 2 star

Singapore
S-League- 1 star

Slovakia
First Division - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division - 1-1/2 stars

Slovenia
First League - 2 stars
Second League - 1-1/2 stars

South Africa
Premier League - 2-1/2 stars
First Division - 1 star

South Korea
K-League - 2-1/2 stars
N-League - 1-1/2 stars

Spain
La Liga - 4-1/2 stars
Liga adelante - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division B - 2 stars
(Third Division - 1/2 star)

Sweden
Premier Division - 2-1/2 stars
First Division Elite - 2 stars
First Division - 1 star
Second Division - 1 star

Switzerland
Super League - 2-1/2 stars
Challenge League - 2 stars

(Tunisia - Ligue Professionnelle 1 - 2 stars)

Turkey
Premier Division - 3 stars
First Division - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division - 1-1/2 stars

Ukraine
Premier League - 3 stars
First League - 2 stars

(United Arab Emirates - Professional League - 2 stars)

United Stars
Major League Soccer - 2-1/2 stars
(Second Division - 1-1/2 stars)
(Third Division - 1 stars)

Uruguay
First Division - 2-1/2 stars
Second Division - 1-1/2 stars

Wales
Premier League - 1 star
(First Division/Cymru Alliance - 1/2 star)

In general, you can see there's a logical order of descent: Leagues are rated either a half star or a full star lower than the league above them, and a half star or a full star higher than the league below them.

What is interesting to me is that pattern doesn't hold in Belgium, England, Portugal, Russia and Spain: There is a 1-1/2 star difference between the first and second divisions in Belgium, England, Portugal and Russia, and full 2 star difference between La Liga and Liga adelante in Spain.

The Belgium one is probably the bigger surprise to me, as I wouldn't think there would be that much of a difference the Pro League and Second Division (I can't remember if the Second Division is a semi-pro league. Someone who has played there can clarify that). I can see a 1-1/2 star difference between the Premiership and the Championship, just because the Premiership is a massive league worldwide. Portugal and Russia are a mild surprise, only because they don't fit the pattern.

But the 2-star gap between Spain's top 2 leagues is very interesting. Theoretically, this suggests the step up should be a major problem for teams promoted from Liga adelante (especially if your assistant reports that your players tend to be "in awe of" teams with higher reputations). But it also suggests they have a shot at players your assistant manager would leave off his search list as being "unrealistic" transfer targets.

The England setup is also interesting, because everything from the Blue Square North/South has a 1/2-star reputation, which could help explain when a poster is playing with a club that rises rapidly through the non-league structure: The next league up is really no bigger than the league it promoted from. It might also suggest that SI needs to tweak the reputation models, as 10 slots (each half-star increment) isn't enough to account for leagues being further down than Level 5.

[Jason the Yank]

Also, there's a 1-1/2 star gap between Italy's Serie B and Serie C1, but that makes sense to me since Serie B is a nationwide league, whilst C1 is a regionalized league.

[Nobby_McDonald]

SI's 10 slots is designed for the leagues out of the box... ie Conference North/South.

Good job putting it altogether Jason. Shame I haven't got FM2012 to give these a whirl.

[Jason the Yank]

SI's 10 slots is designed for the leagues out of the box... ie Conference North/South.

That's true, but it also allows for less variance in league reputation than, say, player attributes. The attributes give you 20 "slots" to pick from for each category.

Granted, those all funnel in to give you a scout report based on the same 5-star rating system (10 slots, 1 for each half star). But I suspect there's a lot less info being processed to determine that a player is 4 stars, than to determine that a league is 4 stars.

[CoachFlu]

The Belgium one is probably the bigger surprise to me, as I wouldn't think there would be that much of a difference the Pro League and Second Division (I can't remember if the Second Division is a semi-pro league. Someone who has played there can clarify that).

I don't know the (real world) numbers off the top of my head, but yeah, the Belgian Second Division is largely a semi-pro league, with perhaps a few pro clubs who relegated from the top flight in the last decade or so.

[caravanmaster]

Portugal and Russia are a mild surprise, only because they don't fit the pattern.

When I heard about the add/remove league feature, I looked the league reputations up in FM11 (as I had a slightly similar idea to yours), thinking that the league reputations would stay pretty much the same between '11 and '12 (there's been a lot of changes, though). IIRC, there were a lot more one-and-a-half star difference leagues in '11. I remember Ukraine and Croatia, in particular. What I noticed was consistent between these patten-breakers was that they typically featured one or a few teams that completely dominate the domestic top division: Dynamo Zagreb in Croatia, Shakhtar Donetsk and Dinamo Kyiv in Ukraine etc. This also holds true for Portugal, as there's a huge gap between "the big three" and the rest of the teams, bringing on a reputation-increase that is mostly team-dependent.

This is definitely the case for La Liga, too. Take away Real and Barca and there's no way it's a five-and-a-half-star league.

[Jason the Yank]

That's a good point, caravan, and one that hadn't occured to me.

I don't know the (real world) numbers off the top of my head, but yeah, the Belgian Second Division is largely a semi-pro league, with perhaps a few pro clubs who relegated from the top flight in the last decade or so.

Cheers, Flu.

[Fantastic]

There is certainly a difference from last year. This year I've seen people receiving job offers from clubs like Goias when beginning the game with Sunday League reputation, which is in direct contrast to the previous year where only South Africa/Sweden were particularly interested. It'll also be very interesting to see what it's like to get a new job after being moderately successful. I recall last year, having won won a slew of cups with Kaizer Chiefs, not even being able to find a job in continental Europe, yet out of nowhere Palmeiras offered me a gig.