WIP FM22 Change club reputation for ELO and hopefully continental cups workaround

[Jorgen]

As almost always the same few teams win the national title and almost always the same 12 out of 16 teams qualify for the knock-out phase of the UEFA Champions League, I wanted to try something else. Instead of giving teams better players/staff, a better youth academy or more money, I thought about using an ELO rating, which is used in chess as a relative skill rating system. As I am not aware of any other strength measurement index in Football Manager (other than club coëfficiënts, but I didn't want to mess with that), I decided to replace the club reputation with an ELO rating, or to be more specific: an ELO-to-reputation-ratio. I know I am hereby removing things like team history and fanbase that all accumulate in reputation, but by adding a score that says something about the overall team strength, I hope I have a nice replacement for that. Moreover, as far as I know, club reputation decides what kind of players and staff are interested in signing for the club, how big or small the sponsorship deals are and how keen other teams and players are about winning versus another team; I hope this creates a new status quo but in a more organic and real fashion.

ELO and reputation are not in a 1:1 ratio with each other. I could have made something really complex but I decided on using a simple multiplier. As FM uses a 0-10.000 score I had to chose something that stays a decent amount under that cap. ELO, in theory, has no limit, but according to the different (unofficial) websites that use it for football teams each and every club and NT stays under 2200, After some calculations in Excel I came to a 4,5 multiplier. That gave me a lot of teams that stay in about the same region (lets say 50-100 above or below their original score), a few teams that stayed exactly the same, and also a lot of teams that fell down or rised quite a bit. Some even got 3000 extra points (the better teams from nations like Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Estonia or Haiti had a big increase for example). When thinking about reputation that shouldn't fit, but as I tried to classify all teams by relative skill/strength and ELO does just that, it did not matter in a bad way I think. Instead, it makes sure that more different teams qualify for the group phases of the European cups and that these changes are happening faster then with a vanilla database. I am aware that this has flaws, or that there might be better ways to do it, but I couldn't think of another way at the moment.

For these editor files, I chose all teams  from each of the 6 continents that have an ELO-to-reputation-rating of above 6000. That means that I have edited 600+ teams from Europe, 250+ from South-America, Africa and Asia each; almost 250 from North-America and 50+ teams in Oceania. In an unedited 22.4 db there are 75 teams with a reputation of 7000+. In my edited db there are 176 at the start. in october 2028 there are 164 left, so most of those teams kept there high ELO-to-reputation-rating.

So, what does it do, or what do I hope to get from it: A more dynamic range of high rep teams, leading to more diversity in rich teams, transfers, league winners and continental winners. At the least I hope that the first decade in football feels a bit different, but nonetheless real and stable.

The richest teams in the world are now RB Salzburg, Colo Colo, Wolves, Bayern and Rangers.

The Chanpions League group phase has 32 clubs, who mostly come from the top 10 nations. In my test save (I loaded an afwul lot of nations, including ones made by Dave and Timo and set them all at view only) the following teams qualified:

21/22: Zalgiris, Club Brugge, Viktoria Plzen, Trabzon, TNS, FC Kopenhagen, Shakhtar, Dinamo Kiyv
22/23: Club Brugge, Maccabi Haifa, Dinamo Kiyv, Rennes, TNS, FC Kopenhagen, Rangers, RB Salzburg, PAFOS, Shakhtar
23/24: Real Sociedad, Fenerbahçe, Rangers, Shakhtar, Belenenses, RB Salzburg, Iraklis, Young Boys Bern, Slovacko, Slovan Bratislava, Admira
24/25: Shakhtar, Lillestrom, Real Sociedad, Slovacko, Shakhtar Soligors, AEK, Frankfurt, Club Brugge, Rangers, Basel, Feyenoord
25/26: Rangers, Trabzon, Astra Giurgiu, Shakhtar, LIlle, Basel, Farense, AA Gent, Cucaricki, Midtjylland, Feyenoord
26/27: PAFOS, Caen, Galatasaray, St. Gallen, Dinamo Kiyv, Anderlecht, Kavala, Gaziantep, TNS, AIK Topola, Feyenoord
27/28: Dinamo Kiyv, AIK Topola, PAFOS, Zalgiris, Gaziantep, Farense, Thun. D. Chaves, Astra Giurgiu, Cercle Brugge
28/29: Real Sociedad, Servette, Trabzon, RB Salzburg, Midtjylland, Cercle Brugge, Farense, Lille, Ajaccio, Shakhtar, Fenerbahçe, Celta, Slovacko

This looks promising!

Of those teams, Farense, Feyenoord, Frankfurt and Shakhtar managed to reach the knock-out phase, but then struggled. The UEFA Champions League winners are all from the top-20 teams, but that is probably hardcoded for unplayable nations (I only have The Netherlands as playable). The Europa League is won by big teams, or medium teams from the big nations. The Conference League is the most interesting with Cucaricki and Granada winning and 4 new runners-up: Omonoi, St. Gallen, D. Chaves and Novara.

The CAF Champions League was mostly a party for Egyptian, Tunisian and South-African clubs the past decades. Now teams from Sudan, and Zambia are winning too.
The AFC Champions League was mostly won by Saudi-Arabian, Japan and South-Korean teams. Now teams from UAE and Iran are getting there and sometimes even winning.
The CONCACAF Champions League was won by Mexican teams in 100% of the time and only 4 out of 12 matches had a contender from the MLS. Now the final has a MLS contendor in 50% of the time and 2 non-Mexican winners: Jamaica and USA
The Copa Libertadores had only 3 winners and 7 runners-up outside ARG/BRA in the last 2 decades With the new setup it is 0 winners and 1 runner-up. Those 2 nations are by far the strongest of the continent, just as Mexico in North-America.
The OFC Champions League was almost always won by Australian or New-Zealand teams. Now every nation can win and N-Z teams have to work for it.

 

Other than this, one other thing that I really hope to be able to change in my savegame is which teams can win the European Cups  when nations are unplayable. It is one thing to have a better reputation to generate more money and get better players, but FM has some kind of hardcoded rules about which teams from unplayable (unloaded or view only) nations keep signing new managers. In previous versions it was the case that only the about 20 best teams in the world kept signing new managers. Any team outside those teams, did never sign a new manager. Teams without a manager do not reach a European final. Let alone win it. Ever. I have seen some YT videos where FM-youtubers simulate 50, 100 or evern 250 years of FM23 and in almost al cases, this still happens. I don't know why sometimes Icelandic or Swedisch teams win the Champions League, if they are not playable, but in almost every other instance that someone plays or simulates that far in the future, only the big 20 teams + the teams from playable nations can reach those finals and win those cups. My own experiences with FM18 (86 seasons), FM20 (10+) and FM22 (10+) is that it still works the same. I hope that this file can make a change in that too. Or that there is any other workaround to that. To know if this helps, I have to simulate with another league setup, as this big simulation took 21 hours to calculate and find all information. More in depth about this problem: 

 

 

I hope anyone can use it for a more unique savegame. Let me know what you think about the idea and if you have suggestons to improve the organic diversity of the game or to improve the teams that can win without their league being loaded. I hope I can finish the last part of this edit tomorrow (some missing teams around the world and last 100 or so from Europe)

 

 

NB I am not a native speaker. I am sorry if I say something curious/strange/wrong or have some bad spelling/grammer.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Jorgen

[Jorgen]

OK, so my 2nd experiment ran a bit faster. I loaded only Slovenia (as it is a small and minor league). Ran a test until 2028. Champions League works as intended with a big variation in qualifying teams from lots of different nations. 
Again we see the likes of Club Brugge, Celtic, FC Kopenhagen, Celtic, Red Star Beograd, Malmö, Braga, Slovan Bratislava, Rennes, Feyenoord and Slavia Prague, Norssjaelland returning every year. Not always the same teams ofcourse, but teams like that are participating each editon of the UCL.  They never reach the knock-out phase however.

Opened Genie Scout to see how many teams still have a good rep: 185 are above 700. Instead of a small decrease in the previous test, we now see a small increase during this test. They are distrubuted in the following way: 14x GER, 17x ENG, 8x FRA, 11x ITA and 17x SPA. So 118 top rated teams are not from the big 5 nations.

Bank balance is particularly interesting: the top 20 teams in the world are from all over the world. Viktoria Plzen (500M+), Slavia Prague, Bodo, Man Utd, Olympiakos, Sparta Prague, Molde, Shenhua, Celtic, Villa, S. Soligorsk, Ferencvaros, West Ham and Bate all own more than 300M. Colo Colo was 2nd in the world in the previous save (400M+ iirc) but is 25th in this save, still accumulating 240M+.There are now 66 teams with a bank balance above 70M and only 25 of them are from the traditional top 5 leagues. Top 7 English teams own about 2B, top 7 Chinese teams have about 1,6B. Other rich teams are from Argentina, Colombia, Hungary, Switzerland (obviously 😂) and others. Norway, Greece, Czech Republic have done very well with 2 or 3 teams each surpassing the 250M or even 400M.

Those teams perform well in their leagues, reaching the CL but not the knock-out phase. So the 1st part of my project is working (participation, bank balance) but the 2nd part isn't. That could have something to do with the hardcoded restrictions for unplayable leagues, and thus the way I did this test, or for example limitiations of lower reputations leagues. Might be even both. Other restrictions are the players ofcourse, but I hoped that those teams got better ones too. IRL Ajax, Celtic and Benfica have the same problems. A few very good years, and then it's always the Mickey Mouse league again where the greats won't come. I looked at the distribution of 140+ CA players. As usual they are mostly playing in ENG, FRA, GER, ITA and SPA, followed by Portugal and The Netherlands. Distrubution of 140+ PA max 20 year old players is a bit more even, though a lot come from England and Spain.

I'll have to find a way to find out where the problem lies and what to do exactly about it. Does anyone know about a website that not only rates the teams and nations in another way, but the leagues too? Preferably with ELO or something similar?

And perhaps I should just have more patience. Seeing so many things already in the 1st few years is a good start.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Jorgen

[Jorgen]

After this I did a test without my ELO files until 2031. Used Iceland this time (don't know if that makes a lot of difference). Though the smaller nations are still present in the group phase, there are less of them and less minor nations. Without the ELO files the UCL is won solely by topteams, the Europa League won by topteams + Leicester (Torino a runner up) and the Conf.League has 1 Bulgarian win (Ludogorets) and a bunch of minor runners up. There are only 82 clubs in the db with a reputation of 7000+. Moneywise there are differences too. Now Colo Colo only has a 70M bank balance. Greek teams are still there, but with far less money and no teams from the Czech Republic or Norway won the jackpot.

I compared the top managers in the world between my savegames with/without ELO. Still only the best teams sign new ones. If a team performs well and has a manager, it is still the original one.

So I think my ELO files do partly what I want, but not enough. Any suggestion on what to do with the league reputation? Or what to chose as test save setup? Or another train of thought to follow?

Edited November 6, 2022 by Jorgen

[Wolf_pd]

4 hours ago, Jorgen said:

After this I did a test without my ELO files until 2031. Used Iceland this time (don't know if that makes a lot of difference). Though the smaller nations are still present in the group phase, there are less of them and less minor nations. Without the ELO files the UCL is won solely by topteams, the Europa League won by topteams + Leicester (Torino a runner up) and the Conf.League has 1 Bulgarian win (Ludogorets) and a bunch of minor runners up. There are only 82 clubs in the db with a reputation of 7000+. Moneywise there are differences too. Now Colo Colo only has a 70M bank balance. Greek teams are still there, but with far less money and no teams from the Czech Republic or Norway won the jackpot.

I compared the top managers in the world between my savegames with/without ELO. Still only the best teams sign new ones. If a team performs well and has a manager, it is still the original one.

So I think my ELO files do partly what I want, but not enough. Any suggestion on what to do with the league reputation? Or what to chose as test save setup? Or another train of thought to follow?

The fact you use Iceland only can be a factor. If possible load as much nations as you can.

[Jorgen]

15 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

The fact you use Iceland only can be a factor. If possible load as much nations as you can.

Yeah, I did that for my first test too. Took 21 hours to holiday 7 seasons. Might do it again tonight though.
would you have them all as view only, or playable? I am afraid that if I choose playable, then my 2016 laptop would freeze.

 

I have found a list of ELO ratings of each of the European top leagues. They take the avarage ELO of the top 10 clubs of each nation and then another ELO of the European cup performances of the clubs. So I avaraged that and translated that to my ELO-to-reputation-ratio. Had to decrease it all a little to still leave some room for the UCL to be the greatest club competition in Europe. Only thing is, I couldn't find such a list for the other continents, so now the European leagues have all a higher rating, but the others haven't. 

 

Edit: Only thing is, if I load more nations, I can't see if I have a workaround for the hardcoded manager-signing-problems.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Jorgen

[Wolf_pd]

View onlyt is good enough.

[Jorgen]

Loaded about 120 nations, all highest division only; and all view only.
Only San Marino highest level and playable.
Level of detail = standard, but more detail at continental cups.
Tested until sommer of 2029.

Few things I notice: there are things that keep returning like the money in Norway, Greece and Czech Republic. Seems they benefit the most from their higher reputation. They won't buy players though.
Also there are 4 new teams that did sign a manager: Lille, RB Leipzig, Frankfurt and Freiburg. That's promising, but I have no clue why these teams do that, as all others don't (except for the top 20 that alwasy do that) It could be that the higher league rep did something for that, but there would be other clubs that would be first then.

Amount of 7000+ rep clubs has decreased to only 118. The higher league rep had no positivie influence on that. 

Continental Cups seem to work as hoped. More different contenders from smaller nations participating in the group stages and advancing in North- and South-America, Oceania, Asia and Africa.
In Europe it is promising, but needs tweaking. In the UCL it's just England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal (mostly Porto), and The Netherlands (Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, AZ) who advance to the next round., with Trabzon (Turkey), Rapid (Austria), Bodo (Norway), Olympiakos (Greece) each one time. In the Europa League and Conference league it's more divers, with interesting winners.

Think I'm losing the file for the ELO league rating for my next test. Doesn't feel as it works as intended, or do anything at all.

 

Positive: 4 new teams signing managers. New teams getting rich. More different participants in later rounds of continental cups. More variation in winners.

Negative: UCL winners are usual suspects. Almost no new teams advancing. Big money is not spend. Teams getting rich very very fast. Just not enough teams signing managers.


Any suggestions on what to edit/try next?

Edited November 8, 2022 by Jorgen

[Jorgen]

New holiday test. 120k players in the db. 120 nations loaded with their highest division. Everything view only except for San Marino.

After 5 years only 133 clubs kept a 7000+ reputation. So about 40 didn't. Some of the teams got rich again (looking at you Slavia Prague and Sparta Prague) some didn't. Looking at the participants in each continental cup, it seems that loading the leagues gives a pretty normal situation, while not loading at all gives more variation. At the moment only 6 teams signed a new manager. (of which Brian Priske and Vladmir Weiss are the most interesting)

 

Gonna let it run for more hours to see which teams sign managers and which teams perform well in the continental cups.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Jorgen

[Jorgen]

I holiday'd until november 2032, with 120 nations. I really hoped that my ELO-to-reputation-ratio made a bigger impact. That teams would use that higher reputation to their benefit. It seems that it's doing something, as smaller nations generate really big money, but those teams do far to less with their new possibilties. For example Velez (Argentina) is the 2nd richest team in the world right now. They win lots of national titles, but perform badly in the Libertadores and only sell youth players. RB Salzburg is the richest team in the world. Once in a while they buy a player, but most of the time you can hear the crickets chirping. They win the Austrian League lots of times, but are just rubbish in the CL. Strange thing is that when view-only, the impact is less than when a league is not playable at all so it seems. 

 

That still is as it is in really life. I can live with that. I really love FM. I play it for more than 20 years now. But what I really really dislike the most of FM is that teams don't sign new managers. Teams without managers are pretty dead. They are hardcoded to never reach a continental final and therefor never win it. That means that Anderlecht and Celtic can never grow to outperform Real Madrid if you haven't loaded those 2 leagues. Only once every few holiday tests I see a few teams breaking this hardcoded limit, but that are very small exceptions. If this isn't hardcoded, than I haven't found out why/how. If this is hardcoded as I suspect it is, then I have no clue why you should do that. I can't be the only one playing 20/30 years or more. I still have to find out what I can change/edit to have more teams fighting for glory.

[Jorgen]

Did a crazy test with about 15 - 20 teams per continent with a rep of 9000 and in Europe a few dozen with 9000 and even 9500 rep. just to see how big it's influence can be in potential.
in each and every continent there was a change in strong teams/nations and far more teams buy players (like Kylian Mbappé to FC Andorra) and get new managers! (teams from Bolivia, Venezuela and Mali, did too) So it's good to know that even when teams are from minor / smaller leagues and even if those leagues are unplayable, that those ratings matter. However, if those teams not perform well, or if they lack continental football, their rating wil decrease over time. Some keep it for a while, some loose their reputation, but some will be stable too.

Now i'm gonna think about what I'm gonna do with the normal files. Just use/release, knowing that a higher rep has a real influence, but as long as it's comparable with the normal ratings, the influence takes time to crystalize. Perhaps that's the best I can hope for teams that get a realistic rating. It won't be Disneyland, it stays real within the limitations of the game.

I think it'll be good to do another normal test to see how many teams sign new manager in a long run, If that is more than the top 20, then it's a win. :-)

Edited November 10, 2022 by Jorgen

[rusty217]

On 10/11/2022 at 10:00, Jorgen said:

That still is as it is in really life. I can live with that. I really love FM. I play it for more than 20 years now. But what I really really dislike the most of FM is that teams don't sign new managers. Teams without managers are pretty dead. They are hardcoded to never reach a continental final and therefor never win it. That means that Anderlecht and Celtic can never grow to outperform Real Madrid if you haven't loaded those 2 leagues. Only once every few holiday tests I see a few teams breaking this hardcoded limit, but that are very small exceptions. If this isn't hardcoded, than I haven't found out why/how. If this is hardcoded as I suspect it is, then I have no clue why you should do that. I can't be the only one playing 20/30 years or more. I still have to find out what I can change/edit to have more teams fighting for glory.

I don't think this is true. Maybe the part about teams without managers not doing well in continental competitions, but teams definitely can still hire managers and improve. Got a test in 2167 at the moment and had Slavia Prague win the 2164 UCL. They never hired a new manager straight after their starting one left in 2023. But they finally did in 2088, kept improving from there and ended up European champions. The same thing happened for a number of other teams over the years too including Basel, Rosenborg and Ferencvaros. You can definitely end up with more teams at the top without those leagues loaded.

As for things you can change to encourage that sooner, money. Edit the amount of TV/prize money available in other leagues. I saw you mentioned how rich a few of the teams with boosted reps were, but where is that money coming from? Them having a higher rep wouldn't increase the revenue from their league, so if it's just being able to sell players for significantly more that's making them rich then that isn't actually going to help them be successful.

[Jorgen]

3 hours ago, rusty217 said:

I don't think this is true. Maybe the part about teams without managers not doing well in continental competitions, but teams definitely can still hire managers and improve. Got a test in 2167 at the moment and had Slavia Prague win the 2164 UCL. They never hired a new manager straight after their starting one left in 2023. But they finally did in 2088, kept improving from there and ended up European champions. The same thing happened for a number of other teams over the years too including Basel, Rosenborg and Ferencvaros. You can definitely end up with more teams at the top without those leagues loaded.

As for things you can change to encourage that sooner, money. Edit the amount of TV/prize money available in other leagues. I saw you mentioned how rich a few of the teams with boosted reps were, but where is that money coming from? Them having a higher rep wouldn't increase the revenue from their league, so if it's just being able to sell players for significantly more that's making them rich then that isn't actually going to help them be successful.

But in essence, those teams that start signing managers again are exceptions. In most savegames, holidaytests and YouTube videos, only Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Bayern, BVB, PSG, Juve, Napoli, Milan, Inter, Benfica, Porto, Atlético, Barça, Real and Sevilla can win the CL (and thus sign new managers.) (And the teams from playable leagues ofcourse) There are some differences from save to save, like Porto, Inter, Sevilla and Atlético becoming inactive; or teams like Ajax, Lille, Basel, Rosenborg, Flamengo, Palmereis and Al-Hilal becoming active. Sometimes it's from the start, like Flamengo and Leipzig signing a new manager in 2025 already. And other times it's very far in the future, like 2088 as you said. In each case it are exceptions. For a balanced game that is by far not enough. And because it't mostly from only six nations, the European cups stay the same for a very long time.

I haven't found out yet what are the exact triggers for a team to become active. When I increased the rep of the Dutch Eredvisie, Ajax became active too, so it probably has something to do with a combinatie of league rep and club rep. Strange thing is that teams like Al-Hilal have both a lower league rep and a lower club rep than the Eredivisie and Ajax, so there might be a different limit for each continent, because otherwise teams from Korea, Japan, and Argentina could have been active too.

If I have to edit the entire game , to have more variation in the CL groupstages and winners, this will be a very lengthy task...

 

[rusty217]

10 hours ago, Jorgen said:

But in essence, those teams that start signing managers again are exceptions. In most savegames, holidaytests and YouTube videos, only Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Bayern, BVB, PSG, Juve, Napoli, Milan, Inter, Benfica, Porto, Atlético, Barça, Real and Sevilla can win the CL (and thus sign new managers.) (And the teams from playable leagues ofcourse) There are some differences from save to save, like Porto, Inter, Sevilla and Atlético becoming inactive; or teams like Ajax, Lille, Basel, Rosenborg, Flamengo, Palmereis and Al-Hilal becoming active. Sometimes it's from the start, like Flamengo and Leipzig signing a new manager in 2025 already. And other times it's very far in the future, like 2088 as you said. In each case it are exceptions. For a balanced game that is by far not enough. And because it't mostly from only six nations, the European cups stay the same for a very long time.

I haven't found out yet what are the exact triggers for a team to become active. When I increased the rep of the Dutch Eredvisie, Ajax became active too, so it probably has something to do with a combinatie of league rep and club rep. Strange thing is that teams like Al-Hilal have both a lower league rep and a lower club rep than the Eredivisie and Ajax, so there might be a different limit for each continent, because otherwise teams from Korea, Japan, and Argentina could have been active too.

If I have to edit the entire game , to have more variation in the CL groupstages and winners, this will be a very lengthy task...

 

It probably is some kind of reputation threshold as you said. Those teams wouldn't really be exceptions then though, just teams that meet the requirements, which theoretically any team could eventually end up doing.

I don't think there should be more variation in the CL until later years anyway. It's realistic that it takes awhile for new teams to reach that level. Although if you're planning on playing a long term save why not just have some extra leagues loaded in the first place? Should be able to avoid any of these issues you're having that way.

[Jorgen]

@rusty217 Yes, you are right that it is realistic, but I like it better when it becomes a small bit sooner. Instead of waiting 30 years, it would be nice if you will see more variation within 10 years for example, and if more teams can be active. If feels a bit unrealistic if only such a small amount of teams can really influence your savegame. Also, I have a decent laptop (i7 from 2016) but it is not fast enough to run 30/40 or even more divisions and still have a snappy game. (I find about 18 real life hours per season a pleasant gaming speed)

Most interesting new team that developed into being active was Sporting Kansas City. But with a fairly low league rep and a fairly low club rep.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Jorgen

[rusty217]

16 minutes ago, Jorgen said:

Most interesting new team that developed into being active was Sporting Kansas City. But with a fairly low league rep and a fairly low club rep.

Their ranking in the continent is surely a factor then. They may have a relatively low rep worldwide but the MLS is going to have the 2nd highest rep in North America at a minimum. So as soon as Kansas are reputable enough ranked to other MLS clubs it makes sense that they'd become active.

[Jorgen]

I think, for European clubs the limit is about 15000 for a combination of league rep and club rep. Editing each league to have a minimum of 7000 doesn't feal realistic, so I am thinking about how to solve that, or to let that part go.