The CONCACAF Project: Expanding North American competitions for FM2010

[SaintsCanada]

That's too bad. Doesn't matter to me, personally as I have no interest in making Caribbean leagues playable, but it's unfortunate for those who are looking forward to it.

I guess at least they could put in a CCL that has the CFU as its qualifier, but they would have to play in a universe with two North American champions leagues.

[SaintsCanada]

Jorge, the Scottish Premier League operates on a very similar league split system, so it might be possible. You might have to have non top-six teams play out their season against each other, which I guess isn't quite how it works in T&T, but that's pretty close!

[SaintsCanada]

For the PDL, I assume we're either going to have to set the whole thing up like a giant cup competition, or make 8 different leagues with a "separate" cup competition as the playoffs.

Does anybody know how the regular season for PDL works? It seems like there are 10 teams in each division, but they only play 16 games, rather than 18??

[Coasterkoa]

The PDL will run like one league with 8 conferences (varying amounts of teams in each conference) which will be possible. Each team plays 16 games, but they don't always play a balanced schedule. A conference with 9 teams will play a balanced schedule, but a conference with 10 or 8 or 7 teams will run an unbalanced schedule.

Regarding the Trinidad and Tobago League, we can always make the top 6 qualify for a round robin playoff system, which would be a good enough work around. It's far from perfect, but if its the best we can do, then we shouldn't worry.

The editor is pretty basic, but I think we all knew it would be and we can still expand CONCACAF a lot with decent accuracy, so lets do out best.

[SaintsCanada]

Are you sure an unbalanced schedule like that is possible? Also, are you sure conferences are possible? In the videos, I didn't see anything like that.

[Coasterkoa]

Are you sure an unbalanced schedule like that is possible? Also, are you sure conferences are possible? In the videos, I didn't see anything like that.

Think positive!

In all seriousness, I am pretty sure conferences will be possible, as they are common all around the world. At worst, its modeled how the Blue Square North/South are, just with a playoff between them to decide the winner.

The unbalanced schedule will probably not be possible, now that you mention it. Again, we'll just have to do our best. My guess is that some conferences will play 14 games, some will play 18, and that's just how it will have to be. I'll do my best with the U.S. system, but its a pretty strange system, so we'll see. Who knows, as you said already, perhaps all the rules will be there already, waiting for us to activate.

[SaintsCanada]

I got an answer from S.I. and that's unlikely. The divisions will be there to be ticked to active, but we'll have to set up the competition rules if we want them to be accurate. As I said, if worse comes to worse, we can set up the PDL as a giant cup with a group phase, or we could set it up as eight equal subdivisions, and the playoffs like a "separate" cup competition.

We can get it right, even though FM/WSM might not see it all as one unified competition (who cares!) The only possible inaccuracy is probably that the teams will have to play a balanced number of games, so an extra two games, but that's very minor in my opinion.

The good news is, as far as the CSL, although it is officially two different divisions, the divisions are literally meaningless nowadays. Everyone plays a balanced schedule, and the playoff standings are based on overall record. There isn't even a seeding guarantee for regular-season division winners. So, the league is de facto a single division with no conferences.

Obviously USL 1 and USL 2 no longer have conferences and play a balanced schedule. Same for PCSL. NPSL is similar to PDL but with a balanced schedule, although for some reason the teams in the West played extra games and an imbalanced schedule -- I think we should ignore that as it was likely just a one-year anomoly.

[SaintsCanada]

Also, from those interviews in the blog, it is clear we can 'disable' domestic cups. So we can disable the US Open and replace it with our own version which has correct qualification from the PDL and NPSL. This will be tricky though, as we'll need to keep Toronto FC out of our new cup somehow!

All in all, we're going to be pretty powerful and can make the U.S. and Canada VERY close to completely accurate! :)

[SaintsCanada]

Oh, upon closer inspection, the NPSL is no longer participating in the US Open Cup as of 2009.

[SaintsCanada]

A competition I don't think we've discussed: The Pacific Coast Soccer League Challenge Cup (aka Sheila Anderson Memorial Cup). The top four teams in the PCSL play in a straight one-game knockout tourney basically a week or so after the league season ends. The semi-finals are played on a Saturday (Jul. 25 this year) and the finals are the very next day.

This is not a league playoffs, the league champion is determined via the regular season standings. This Challenge Cup is more like the German League Cup.

Cheers!

[Coasterkoa]

A competition I don't think we've discussed: The Pacific Coast Soccer League Challenge Cup (aka Sheila Anderson Memorial Cup). The top four teams in the PCSL play in a straight one-game knockout tourney basically a week or so after the league season ends. The semi-finals are played on a Saturday (Jul. 25 this year) and the finals are the very next day.

This is not a league playoffs, the league champion is determined via the regular season standings. This Challenge Cup is more like the German League Cup.

Cheers!

Hmm, if you can get me more details I'll be sure to include it.

By the way, I like your enthusiasm and your contribution to this project, but you don't have to keep adding a new post for every new piece of information. You can just edit your last post .

[SaintsCanada]

Oh, cool thanks! What other details would you like on that challenge cup? It's all played at the host team's ground, which for our purposes, we might as well make the regular season champs (if we can institute a host team).

Basically 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3. Then the next day the winners play in the final. I don't believe there is prize money.

If reserve cups are possible, there is also a reserve version of the Challenge Cup.

If there are more details required, just ask.

[Jorge Campos]

Jorge, the Scottish Premier League operates on a very similar league split system, so it might be possible. You might have to have non top-six teams play out their season against each other, which I guess isn't quite how it works in T&T, but that's pretty close!

Possibly, but this is what I fear about the creation of new leagues. Too many people will be creating and distributing files that are close but are not truly realistic. That's why I've started a new thread on the forum to collect information on who's actually working on 100% accurate leagues.

I realize that it won't be possible to make some leagues 100%, but those will be the leagues that I avoid.

[SaintsCanada]

Well, we'll have to wait and see. You never know, the league split option (if there even is one) might allow for having one split keep playing and the other split stop. Or the playoff feature (there is a round robin option) might allow us to keep aggregate points from the rest of the season. At this point all we can do is speculate.

Coaster: IRL, PDL teams qualify for the US Cup based on who has the best record in each division based on four 'designated' early season league games, which double as cup qualifiers. I have a feeling this could well be impossible for us, so we'll probably need to have a four-round qualification tourney with the top six teams in each division getting a first-round bye. Bboth USL 1 and USL 2 have exactly eight American based teams right now, so no qualifying is necessary, they go into the first round.

NPSL's relationship with the cup is very odd right now. It turns out a handful of NPSL teams enter the qualifying process through the USASA (the bottom tier of American senior men's soccer), but it seems to be pretty random which NPSL teams entered. I don't think any of them made it this year. I recommend we leave NPSL out of the cup.

[Coasterkoa]

Well, we'll have to wait and see. You never know, the league split option (if there even is one) might allow for having one split keep playing and the other split stop. Or the playoff feature (there is a round robin option) might allow us to keep aggregate points from the rest of the season. At this point all we can do is speculate.

Coaster: IRL, PDL teams qualify for the US Cup based on who has the best record in each division based on four 'designated' early season league games, which double as cup qualifiers. I have a feeling this could well be impossible for us, so we'll probably need to have a four-round qualification tourney with the top six teams in each division getting a first-round bye. Bboth USL 1 and USL 2 have exactly eight American based teams right now, so no qualifying is necessary, they go into the first round.

NPSL's relationship with the cup is very odd right now. It turns out a handful of NPSL teams enter the qualifying process through the USASA (the bottom tier of American senior men's soccer), but it seems to be pretty random which NPSL teams entered. I don't think any of them made it this year. I recommend we leave NPSL out of the cup.

We'll just have to wait and see on the Open Cup front. They said that FA style cups are possible to create, so I'm guessing that we have some ability to control qualifiers for that. We're just at a point of "wait and see".

[SaintsCanada]

We'll just have to wait and see on the Open Cup front. They said that FA style cups are possible to create, so I'm guessing that we have some ability to control qualifiers for that. We're just at a point of "wait and see".

Ya, sorry. I said "qualifying tournament", but I really meant "qualifying rounds". We should be able to craft an accurate U.S. Open Cup, except I doubt we can use PDL league games to double as cup games. There is a long-shot outside chance we could use the league standings after four matches to qualify teams to the cup, but I doubt it. It will probably require PDL qualifying rounds, but that's not a major problem in my opinion.

[Coasterkoa]

Ya, sorry. I said "qualifying tournament", but I really meant "qualifying rounds". We should be able to craft an accurate U.S. Open Cup, except I doubt we can use PDL league games to double as cup games. There is a long-shot outside chance we could use the league standings after four matches to qualify teams to the cup, but I doubt it. It will probably require PDL qualifying rounds, but that's not a major problem in my opinion.

Seems likely we'll need PDL qualifying games, or just have the top teams from the previous year qualify. I don't know which option I like more, but I doubt we'll be able to qualify PDL teams as in real life.

[thebluesigns]

Not sure if anyone's already planning on working on this one, but I'm looking to do the Cuban league. I love the footballing backwaters and I can't wait to get these up and running in FM2010.

[SaintsCanada]

Seems likely we'll need PDL qualifying games, or just have the top teams from the previous year qualify. I don't know which option I like more, but I doubt we'll be able to qualify PDL teams as in real life.

True enough. I would vote for qualifying rounds as I feel it is more loyal to the character of the cup as an annual open cup, in that in theory every team should have a chance to qualify for it and win it fresh each season, independent of the previous season. But that's the beauty of it, if we prefer different systems, we can do it on our own computer however we like! :D

[Coasterkoa]

Not sure if anyone's already planning on working on this one, but I'm looking to do the Cuban league. I love the footballing backwaters and I can't wait to get these up and running in FM2010.

You're the first to call it, so go ahead! Do you have any knowledge of Cuban football, or are just interested in the league? If its the former, wiki is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campeonato_Nacional_de_F%C3%BAtbol_de_Cuba.

On thing we have to figure out with regards to all leagues, how do we rate players? Its easy enough to find names, nationalities, and birthdays of most players in the smaller leagues, but we have no way to rate them, unless we can find people to help rate them via other forums or such, so I would suggest going to other forums (probably none FM forums) to ask about players in our respective leagues. I will be doing that for as many American/Canadian teams on BigSoccer as I can.

SaintsCanada, I agree with you on the point that every team should have a chance ever year. I just don't like adding games where there aren't realistically games. That is probably what I'll have to do, however.

[thebluesigns]

You're the first to call it, so go ahead! Do you have any knowledge of Cuban football, or are just interested in the league? If its the former, wiki is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campeonato_Nacional_de_F%C3%BAtbol_de_Cuba.

Cheers for the link to the wikipedia page. Actually, I have a decent working knowledge of Cuban football, having spent a few months there last year. The standard isn't great but I was able to take a fair number of games in. Hell, I didn't even need to pay to see most of the matches I went to as nobody really seemed that bothered at the grounds!

[dinamo_zagreb]

I think it will be hard to do so, because there are only couple of teams in previous FM editions and it will be hard to get information about Cuban football.

[Coasterkoa]

Cheers for the link to the wikipedia page. Actually, I have a decent working knowledge of Cuban football, having spent a few months there last year. The standard isn't great but I was able to take a fair number of games in. Hell, I didn't even need to pay to see most of the matches I went to as nobody really seemed that bothered at the grounds!

Wow, that's really awesome. Having seen some games, I'm very impressed. Glad to have you aboard. I agree with dinamo_zagreb that it will be very difficult to find information about players in Cuba, but having a working league, even if its only for regens, will still be cool.

[Coasterkoa]

After mussing a bit in the AFC project thread, I'm beginning to think that no player creation/adjustment should be done for this challenge. This is my post on the AFC project thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=3913670&postcount=41

What do you all think?

[SaintsCanada]

It's probably important we at least create enough players for each club to have a full squad. We could always insert the squad players with zero (random) ratings, couldn't we? I definitely feel the majority of players in the levels we are trying to add will probably be unknown to anybody on the forums.

I was just asking what would happen if you start a game without the 'use real players' option. I wonder if each squad would be full of fictional non-grey players even if they don't have a full squad in the editor?

[Jack Rudd]

I think I'll create any players I find in the T&T league teams' squads.

[Ojeda]

I'm interested on this, so count me in

[Coasterkoa]

I'm interested on this, so count me in

Awesome. That was the next league I was going to create after finishing US and Canada, but go ahead and take a stab. So many feeder teams in the league that I think it would be awesome to have that league running.

[Erol]

Puerto Rico is definately an addition to the other leagues. The obscurer the better!

[crash2772]

After mussing a bit in the AFC project thread, I'm beginning to think that no player creation/adjustment should be done for this challenge. This is my post on the AFC project thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=3913670&postcount=41

What do you all think?

Thanks for bringing this up, because I think it warrants a discussion - be it here or in a separate thread. Anyone working on a database will be inherently biased, even if just slightly due to their loyalty to teams, leagues, players, or even against a rival. In some cases this might not be significant enough to drastically alter the realism of a 'global' simulation, but it has that potential.

In the thread you linked to, you advocate a "wet" and "dry" version of the databases. I think this is a great concept.

It's probably important we at least create enough players for each club to have a full squad. We could always insert the squad players with zero (random) ratings, couldn't we? I definitely feel the majority of players in the levels we are trying to add will probably be unknown to anybody on the forums.

We'll have to wait and see to be sure, but I think this is a good compromise for leagues, as you put it, 'will probably be unknown to anybody on the forums.' If, based on the reputations of the team, league, nation, etc.. the game will automatically fill in appropriate random attributes this could be the best solution to the realism of the game.

Assuming the game will give appropriate values to random attributes, I would take Coasterkoa's 'wet' and 'dry' database idea and advocate for a third, in-between category.

The first, 'dry' database would be simply the league structures- ie basic team info (stadium, colors, logo, etc...). Included on the these teams would be any 'real' players that are in the SI database already.

In between we could have this structure, but added to each team are personnel details that are factual- ie, for player's: age, height, weight, nationality, kit #, primary position, even playing history if people had good enough sources. For this type of database all playing/mental/etc attributes would be left 0 (random), including current and potential abilities.

Lastly, the "wet" database, where the researcher has taken his/her experience with the leagues and have tried to give the various players accurate attributes.

Thoughts?

[Veg]

It's a good suggestioan. SInce the editor now only saves the part of the DB that has been edited you can make separate DB's and decide to use or not use them together when you start a new game.

[SaintsCanada]

Sounds good I guess. Personally, I would likely load the 'wettest' trustable leagues and clubs available. It really depends on what you're into. I, personally (just as an example) am mainly interested in a career starting as an unemployed Canadian Sunday League footballer, working my way up through the Canadian/American leagues until I'm ready to move on to the second-flight of a major European league and on to Champions League glory.

So, basically all I want is the wettest version I can get of the lower divisions in the U.S. and Canada.

In other words, I'm not sure we really need all these different versions. I'm willing to trust a homer's subconsciously biased ratings just as much as the computer randomly assigning attributes to players I've never heard of on teams I've barely even heard of! How would I ever know the difference anyways?

Someone was telling me in another thread that if a league is made active, the computer will automatically fill-out the squad to a realistic number of fictional non-grey players (regens or newgens or whatever you want to call them). I'm so excited for FM10 and the new editor, I'll probably activate and fix the divisions I'm interested in (I might have to create the Pacific Coast Soccer League, I'm not sure if it will exist) in a "dry" database and get started playing before others have much chance to post and share their creations.

If I see that somebody else (probably Coasterkoa) makes a much better (more in-depth, more accurate comp rules, teams, etc.) version, then I'll download it.

I'll probably post mine anyways, just for the heck of it (not to step on Coasterkoa's toes, but if I'm creating it anyways, I might as well share), perhaps it could serve as a "dry" version, as I believe Coasterkoa plans on being quite in-depth and accurate (i.e. his version will likely be fairly wet).

Actually, competition rules and proper qualifying procedures, etc. will be my main focus, so if Coaster will be spending most of his time on club/player research, with this .xml individual file loading system, it might end up being symbiotic to create a hybrid. It's up to Coasterkoa. And of course it depends on the objective quality of our efforts.

[Ojeda]

Assuming the game will give appropriate values to random attributes, I would take Coasterkoa's 'wet' and 'dry' database idea and advocate for a third, in-between category.

The first, 'dry' database would be simply the league structures- ie basic team info (stadium, colors, logo, etc...). Included on the these teams would be any 'real' players that are in the SI database already.

In between we could have this structure, but added to each team are personnel details that are factual- ie, for player's: age, height, weight, nationality, kit #, primary position, even playing history if people had good enough sources. For this type of database all playing/mental/etc attributes would be left 0 (random), including current and potential abilities.

Lastly, the "wet" database, where the researcher has taken his/her experience with the leagues and have tried to give the various players accurate attributes.

Thoughts?

Couldn't agree more.

[Magnakai Haaskivi]

There are a fair amount in Mexico as well. To be fair, all the clubs mentioned aren't truly "University Teams" in the sense that you have to be enrolled at the university to be able to play, and meet the eligibility requirements (which are extremely strict in the NCAA). They are simply affiliated with these universities. Even in the United States, there is already a University team in the database. BYU (Brigham Young University) fields a PDL team every summer, but they aren't directly affiliated with BYU's University Team.

Just some food for thought.

In US college soccer, you aren't allowed to have ever played professionally, or alongside professionals, in order to be eligible. I doubt this will be able to be replicated well, so some work around may be required. Again, I simply might include D1 teams as unplayable and without the ability to sign players.

The BYU PDL franchise was actually purchased by Brigham Young University after their men's soccer team won something like seven national championships in ten years; this is their only soccer program. Their website goes into it a little more; basically, they felt that the competition in NCAA soccer sucked and wanted to give their players more of a challenge. It's essentially a college team that doesn't play against other colleges.

[Coasterkoa]

The BYU PDL franchise was actually purchased by Brigham Young University after their men's soccer team won something like seven national championships in ten years; this is their only soccer program. Their website goes into it a little more; basically, they felt that the competition in NCAA soccer sucked and wanted to give their players more of a challenge. It's essentially a college team that doesn't play against other colleges.

You learn something new everyday I guess .

Thanks for bringing this up, because I think it warrants a discussion - be it here or in a separate thread. Anyone working on a database will be inherently biased, even if just slightly due to their loyalty to teams, leagues, players, or even against a rival. In some cases this might not be significant enough to drastically alter the realism of a 'global' simulation, but it has that potential.

In the thread you linked to, you advocate a "wet" and "dry" version of the databases. I think this is a great concept.

We'll have to wait and see to be sure, but I think this is a good compromise for leagues, as you put it, 'will probably be unknown to anybody on the forums.' If, based on the reputations of the team, league, nation, etc.. the game will automatically fill in appropriate random attributes this could be the best solution to the realism of the game.

Assuming the game will give appropriate values to random attributes, I would take Coasterkoa's 'wet' and 'dry' database idea and advocate for a third, in-between category.

The first, 'dry' database would be simply the league structures- ie basic team info (stadium, colors, logo, etc...). Included on the these teams would be any 'real' players that are in the SI database already.

In between we could have this structure, but added to each team are personnel details that are factual- ie, for player's: age, height, weight, nationality, kit #, primary position, even playing history if people had good enough sources. For this type of database all playing/mental/etc attributes would be left 0 (random), including current and potential abilities.

Lastly, the "wet" database, where the researcher has taken his/her experience with the leagues and have tried to give the various players accurate attributes.

Thoughts?

So you're advocating a 'damp' database then? Moist perhaps? Far be it from me to come up with a good name for it, but this is a good third option. Most of the research I will be doing for the league structures I am creating is purely going to be factual, and perhaps rating a few of the more known collegiate players who I have seen play a few times (i.e. Brian Perk).

The only problem with leaving players with blank CA and PA is that most of them will be terrible. To the point where it wouldn't be worth it to have them on your team. For instance, if I create the NPSL and put in the real players of the teams, those players will not be up to the standard of the league, and the standard of the league will drop.

[SaintsCanada]

You learn something new everyday I guess .

So you're advicating a 'damp' database then? Moist perhaps? Far be it from me to come up with a good name for it, but this is a good third option. Most of the research I will be doing for the league structures I am creating is purely going to be factual, and perhaps rating a few of the more known collegiate players who I have seen play a few times (i.e. Brian Perk).

The only problem with leaving players with blank CA and PA is that most of them will be terrible. To the point where it wouldn't be worth it to have them on your team. For instance, if I create the NPSL and put in the real players of the teams, those players will not but up to the standard of the league, and the standard of the league will drop.

Mild database? Newcastle in the fall database?

So the unknown players aren't just created to average towards the same standard as the known players in leagues and clubs of similar reputations? Could that be different in FM10 than it was in previous versions?

[Coasterkoa]

Mild database? Newcastle in the fall database?

So the unknown players aren't just created to average towards the same standard as the known players in leagues and clubs of similar reputations? Could that be different in FM10 than it was in previous versions?

No, leaving the CA and PA as 0 will not approximate them to be around the same standard as average players in the league. However, I haven't fooled around with reputations of these 0 CA and PA players, so perhaps setting a certain Current Rep for these players will affect their "randomly" generated abilities

[crash2772]

So you're advocating a 'damp' database then? Moist perhaps? Far be it from me to come up with a good name for it, but this is a good third option.

The only problem with leaving players with blank CA and PA is that most of them will be terrible. To the point where it wouldn't be worth it to have them on your team. For instance, if I create the NPSL and put in the real players of the teams, those players will not be up to the standard of the league, and the standard of the league will drop.

Mild database? Newcastle in the fall database?

Thanks for contributing-- I couldnt think of good term for the third category-- moist kept coming to mind, but that didnt seem ideal. Damp is a bit better, lets run with that?

No, leaving the CA and PA as 0 will not approximate them to be around the same standard as average players in the league. However, I haven't fooled around with reputations of these 0 CA and PA players, so perhaps setting a certain Current Rep for these players will affect their "randomly" generated abilities

This might be the solution for the 'damp' database that works the best. Even if it inherently biased, if the league, team, and player reputations are needed for the game to create accurate players this could be a fair compromise. With this solution, if someone disagreed with the strength/weakness of a league, team, or player, it is much easier to adjust a few reputation numbers than an entire league of player attributes. Personally, I'd look to download a 'damp' database, so that I can easily tweak things as needed.

It seems likely that for most first division leagues people are looking to create the the database will already have the basics- the team, most players with their attributes and reputations, and we simply need to recreate the league and tournament structures. My concern has always been for some of the more obscure leagues, such as the 2nd division of Puerto Rico. Surely the league reputation, and team rep, would be fairly easy to determine in a fair way. Naturally it will be lower than the 1st division, and that first division should be one of the lowest possible reputations. Not everyone may agree with this assessment, but if all we have to do is change a few rep numbers, then its easy for all of us to enjoy the game the way we want it.

[Coasterkoa]

Thanks for contributing-- I couldnt think of good term for the third category-- moist kept coming to mind, but that didnt seem ideal. Damp is a bit better, lets run with that?

This might be the solution for the 'damp' database that works the best. Even if it inherently biased, if the league, team, and player reputations are needed for the game to create accurate players this could be a fair compromise. With this solution, if someone disagreed with the strength/weakness of a league, team, or player, it is much easier to adjust a few reputation numbers than an entire league of player attributes. Personally, I'd look to download a 'damp' database, so that I can easily tweak things as needed.

It seems likely that for most first division leagues people are looking to create the the database will already have the basics- the team, most players with their attributes and reputations, and we simply need to recreate the league and tournament structures. My concern has always been for some of the more obscure leagues, such as the 2nd division of Puerto Rico. Surely the league reputation, and team rep, would be fairly easy to determine in a fair way. Naturally it will be lower than the 1st division, and that first division should be one of the lowest possible reputations. Not everyone may agree with this assessment, but if all we have to do is change a few rep numbers, then its easy for all of us to enjoy the game the way we want it.

I just ran a test, and it turns out player rep has no noticeable effect on CA and PA. Club rep, apparently does, but the difference is small, from ~15 CA for the lowest rep to ~40 CA for the highest. League rep doesn't seem to have an effect either.

[crash2772]

I just ran a test, and it turns out player rep has no noticeable effect on CA and PA. Club rep, apparently does, but the difference is small, from ~15 CA for the lowest rep to ~40 CA for the highest. League rep doesn't seem to have an effect either.

Thanks this is helpful, albeit disappointing. I assume you did this with FM09? I suppose we will assume its the same in FM10. If this is the case, how do we find a fair 'median' CA and PA for leagues, so the game can create level appropriate players?

I suppose one, complicated way, is to take all of the players in the various leagues and average their CA's and PA's. We could use those as a standard to help guide people, but that would end up in a 'wet' database I think. Once we determine what reputation the newly created league and team has, we mimic the players with an already existing league's players CA and PA. It seems rather labor intensive though, and how would we account for the countless leagues that are so low down they dont have a good comparison league already in the database? (to be honest its these very low leagues I worry most about-- in reality, most of these leagues probably need a 0 PA and CA)

PS- did you see the thread I created about the 'wet' 'damp' 'dry' concept?

[Ojeda]

Hey Coasterkoa, I came up with an idea regarding US college soccer. In FM2009 I created some college teams and put them on the PDL, so their players could be picked up in the draft, and it worked pretty well. What do you think of creating some college teams and putting them on the PDL, then renaming the PDL and moving the original PDL teams to a created competition and make it playable? I mean, that way the drafted players will be picked from college teams and not from PDL, making it more realistic.

[Coasterkoa]

Hey Coasterkoa, I came up with an idea regarding US college soccer. In FM2009 I created some college teams and put them on the PDL, so their players could be picked up in the draft, and it worked pretty well. What do you think of creating some college teams and putting them on the PDL, then renaming the PDL and moving the original PDL teams to a created competition and make it playable? I mean, that way the drafted players will be picked from college teams and not from PDL, making it more realistic.

That's interesting, I'll have to play around with the editor when it comes out and see what I can do. I want things to be as realistic as possible, so we'll see how it goes.

[SCIAG]

Put me down for Honduras

[alexandrian]

The BYU PDL franchise was actually purchased by Brigham Young University after their men's soccer team won something like seven national championships in ten years; this is their only soccer program. Their website goes into it a little more; basically, they felt that the competition in NCAA soccer sucked and wanted to give their players more of a challenge.

That's not quite correct. BYU never had a varsity soccer team that played NCAA soccer; they had a "club" team that played against other non-varsity "club" teams. They dominated at the club level, and the school had no plans to make soccer a varsity sport, so they set up the PDL team.

[Coasterkoa]

Good news for CONCACAF fans, the Caribbean Cup has been included! This will make managing a Caribbean nation much more fun! This means that we can qualify small nations for the Gold Cup. Good stuff from SI.

[theaub]

This seems really cool.

Quick question though: Let's say that on my own I wanted to turn the MLS/USL/CSL/lower leagues into a tiered system. Am I able to delete the MLS and then completely re-create the entire system? Or can I just only activate leagues?

[dinamo_zagreb]

Good news for CONCACAF fans, the Caribbean Cup has been included! This will make managing a Caribbean nation much more fun! This means that we can qualify small nations for the Gold Cup. Good stuff from SI.

wooooooooow, really????? I am delighted with that news, great addition to the game, great :thup:

[Jack Rudd]

Yay! Well done SI.

[el Chuese]

Hey Coasterkoa, I came up with an idea regarding US college soccer. In FM2009 I created some college teams and put them on the PDL, so their players could be picked up in the draft, and it worked pretty well. What do you think of creating some college teams and putting them on the PDL, then renaming the PDL and moving the original PDL teams to a created competition and make it playable? I mean, that way the drafted players will be picked from college teams and not from PDL, making it more realistic.

This would suggest there will be an option if players from a certain competition will be draftable by the MLS. Or is that a wrong thought?

[thundercracker]

Great to hear that the Caribbean Cup has been added to this years game. Lets hope that the CFU Club Championship is also included, though due to the odd structure and teams not being able to afford to play in it, I can understand if SI left that to do with it as we wish.