Varying the number of teams in a qualification round

[irish kopite]

I have recreated the old European continental tournaments as they existed from the early 1970s to 1990/91, using the great work of @Carlito85 and @\'Appy \'Ammer i.e European Cup for domestic league champions only, European Cup Winners Cup for domestic cup winners only and the UEFA Cup for the best of the rest.

I'm keen to keep the European Cup to reigning domestic and European champions only. 

The one major problem I'm encountering when trying to achieve this is when I attempt to vary the number of teams in the preliminary round when I bring the previous season's European Cup winner to the following season's European Cup campaign and where that team failed to win their domestic title the previous season.

For example, I have no problem running a 54 team European Cup, put 44 teams into the preliminary round and giving byes to 10 teams who advance to the 1st round.  If a team wins a domestic league/ European Cup double I've no problem.

The problem arises when the European Cup winners essentially have to be invited back to defend their title. In this case, I have to adjust the preliminary round by giving byes to 9 teams and letting 46 teams fight it out in the preliminary round.

I think the data editor is clever enough to do this variation in rounds season by season, when necessary.

I just don't know how to do it and would greatly appreciate any help.

[Dave Fairbairn]

If you make a 64 team tournament as one stage, then untick "number of teams" in that stage, and set the minimum and maximum teams, it will automatically adjust round sizes to fit the number of teams, as long as you make enough rounds to cover the maximum tournament size. In the case there is less teams than the maximum teams allowed, it will give a bye to the team at the end(NOT the start, remember to enter teams in reverse order of seeding) of the team list until it has a valid set of rounds.

[irish kopite]

14 minutes ago, Dave Fairbairn said:

If you make a 64 team tournament as one stage, then untick "number of teams" in that stage, and set the minimum and maximum teams, it will automatically adjust round sizes to fit the number of teams, as long as you make enough rounds to cover the maximum tournament size. In the case there is less teams than the maximum teams allowed, it will give a bye to the team at the end(NOT the start, remember to enter teams in reverse order of seeding) of the team list until it has a valid set of rounds.

Many thanks Dave