Champions League Style Competition with Secondary Divisions in a Nation

[VolBadger]

I have a situation where secondary divisions are played at the beginning of the season.

Currently, I have made it to where the winners of the top 10 secondary divisions move on to the "FA Cup" (2 play-in games and 6 automatic qualifiers) and they do a knockout style tournament.

 

However, since this nation is not in Europe, I want the new "FA Cup" to mirror the UEFA Champions League style as much as I can (without coefficients etc) to give the season a bit more drama...so essentially, 26 teams will qualify automatically and then the remaining 6 spots will be awarded to teams via play-in games-but that's not important.

 

I believe I can handle seeding and play-in games just fine, but I am struggling to figure out how to prevent teams from the same secondary divisions being matched up in the same group. I know for knockout style stages there is a rule I can tick to prevent this from happening, but there is not one in "valid group rules" in "group settings."

 

Is there somewhere I can tick to stop teams from the same secondary divisions from being in the same group?

If not, is there a workaround that could mimic it?

[themodelcitizen]

Can you give the teams a specific seeding when you're calling them into the tournament? i.e. under "teams" or wherever you're getting them from, set their seeding. Or if the qualifying is done from the secondary competitions themselves, you might be able to set their seeding in the same place you tell it which competition they're qualifying for. Does that make sense? And then do a seeded draw with "treat seedings as pots"

[VolBadger]

That's where I'm going to start, but haven't had time to take a proper whack at it yet. 

I'll comment on this thread if/when I give it a shot.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[VolBadger]

Tried to have both: pots based on place finished in secondary division and pots to keep teams from secondary divisions apart in the group stage. I'm sure there's a nifty way to finagle it, but I didn't find an easy solution to combine them. You can elect to keep them apart in the knockout phase, I did that as long as numbers allowed.

You can either have pots designated by secondary divisions or pots designated by place finish. I elected to prioritize the latter, I wanted to reward teams for their finish in the secondary division.

In my database most of the teams that are in the secondary divisions are at least small rivals, so I think it gives the group stage a bit more spice anyway...and it's not a big chance that they're in the same group, just sometimes that will happen.

[Dave Fairbairn]

You could have a hidden, unranked, 0 game group stage where the teams split into groups with each group only containing teams from a specific other division. Then use "Don't Play Same Teams From Other Group Stage", with the stage index set to whatever your hidden stages index is.

[VolBadger]

Thanks! I'll give it a shot