Custom football worlds

Football worlds and shared content

A football world supplies the countries, competitions, clubs and people used to begin a new game. You can keep several worlds side by side, choose one for a historical career and another for a modern season, and keep the included world available.

Shared content has a different purpose. Name pools, supported replacement graphics, nationalities and stadium audio have a common personal location used across worlds. A ZIP chosen for career creation does not automatically replace the game's graphics or sounds.

The Team Editor is the easiest way to create your own copy. The text-file reference explains the files used by more advanced projects.

Find your personal game folder

On Windows the normal content folder is:

Documents\My Games\Championship Soccer

Use the Documents folder that Windows actually uses for your account. It may be redirected into OneDrive or another location. A typical arrangement is:

Championship Soccer/
├── My Career.ssc
├── DataSets/
│   ├── Community Season.zip
│   └── My Season/
│       ├── Package.ini
│       └── Data/
│           ├── League/
│           ├── Team/
│           ├── Player/
│           ├── ScoutingProvider/
│           └── StartYear.txt
├── Data/
│   ├── Names/
│   ├── Nationalities.txt
│   ├── Graphics/
│   └── Fansounds/
├── Teamsounds/
├── Replays/
├── Snapshots/
├── Editor Exports/
└── EditorScripts/

You only need folders for the features you use. The game attempts to create DataSets and Teamsounds during normal startup. If it cannot, the included world still works. The save guide explains the personal locations on other systems and the separate location of preferences and diagnostic logs.

Changing the chosen save location does not move the custom-content folder. Keep football worlds in the content location described here. Recognised content folders are hidden from the top-level save browser to keep saves easier to find.

Install a downloaded world

1. Download the actual package file to your computer.
2. If it is a compatible ZIP, place it in Documents/My Games/Championship Soccer/DataSets/. You can use it directly without extracting it.
3. If it is already a folder, place that folder in DataSets. Inside it, locate League or Data/League.
4. Return to the main menu and choose Start a new career or start a new Quick Game. Select the intended football world.
5. Choose the datasets to include and check the start year and fantasy-player setting.

Adding or updating a world changes future games made from that source. It does not change a career that is already underway. Keep an older package if you want to create another career from that exact version.

A cloud-sharing page, download link or another archive type renamed to .zip is not a local world. Download and, if necessary, extract it with your normal archive application first. The ordinary product workflow uses local files.

Recognised folder layouts

A source needs a League folder with at least one regular file. Both of these simple layouts are supported:

DataSets/My Season/League/...
DataSets/My Season/Team/...

DataSets/My Season/Data/League/...
DataSets/My Season/Data/Team/...

The second form is convenient when sharing a world with Package.ini beside Data. Team files should match the clubs named in the league files. The Player folder is optional when player details are embedded in team files.

The game searches throughout DataSets, including ZIPs in subfolders. Additional download wrappers and repeated Data folders are recognised. A ZIP containing several distinct football worlds can offer each one separately. A ZIP inside another ZIP is not opened as a second package.

Files directly in DataSets/League or DataSets/Data/League also work. In that case the source is normally called DataSets. Without its own league files, DataSets is simply the container for other worlds.

Older layouts directly under the personal Championship Soccer folder remain supported, including Data, Data2, Data1.4.0, Data_Community, a freely named package folder and local ZIP files. Prefer DataSets for new installations. It makes the boundary between football worlds and shared content much clearer.

Folder names are matched without regard to capital letters. If a package has both a valid flat League folder and a valid nested Data/League, the nested form takes priority. Keep only one intended data root per world when preparing a package.

ZIP compatibility and limits

Use a normal single-part ZIP with Deflate compression or stored, uncompressed entries. Password-protected, encrypted and split archives are not supported. Ambiguous duplicate filenames, unsupported entry types and paths that point outside the archive prevent safe use.

UTF-8 filenames and common historical CP437 and CP850 ZIP names are supported. There is no longer a fixed limit of 128 discovered worlds or ZIP candidates. Very large football worlds still require enough memory, and individual competition structures have their own practical limits.

Archives are opened for reading. Team Editor → Save writes an edited ZIP world as an extracted personal copy. The original archive remains available. If both copies have the same displayed name, (ZIP) identifies the archive in the list.

Give the world a name and description

Without metadata, the list uses the folder or ZIP name. To provide a title, author, version and description, place Package.ini at the package's top level or in its data root:

[Package]
Id = my-season-2026
Name = My Season 2026
Author = Example Editing Team
Version = 1.0
Description = Clubs, squads and competitions for my new season.

Each field is optional. Name supplies the displayed title. Use a short stable Id containing ASCII letters, numbers, dots, underscores or hyphens, without spaces. Keep values on one line, no longer than 512 characters, and the file below 64 KiB. UTF-8 is a good choice for new files. Lines starting with ; or # are comments.

A missing or unusable metadata file does not by itself make the world unusable. Give different versions distinct names so you can recognise the intended one. When one archive contains several worlds, keep metadata beside each world's data instead of relying on one description for the entire archive.

Select a world and its player population

When additional worlds are available, Career football world appears before dataset selection. Choose the world, read its details and continue. The Original Championship Soccer world remains available. Quick Game has its corresponding world-selection route. Quick start uses its prepared world and is not the route for testing imported edits.

Check Always create fantasy players before building the new world:

• Off: the game uses the supplied named rosters and player profiles, while filling gaps where squad creation requires it.
• On: the game creates a fictional player population instead of importing those named rosters.

If the clubs are right but none of the expected footballers appear, check this setting first. When no extra world is available, the separate world screen may be skipped and the value from Options is used.

Select only the countries and divisions you want to simulate. More leagues mean a larger football world, more players and more work when advancing the calendar. The dataset screen's memory guidance helps you choose a suitable size. See Getting started for the full new-career sequence.

What comes from the selected world

Domestic league, team and player data are read from the selected world. They are not silently mixed with clubs of the same name from another world. If the selected world omits International teams and tournaments, the supplied international dataset can fill that specific gap.

Names, Graphics, Teamsounds and Fansounds inside a named package or ZIP do not become private replacements for that world. Install supported shared content in the personal locations below.

The starting year

A world's StartYear.txt sits beside League and Team and contains one year:

2026

The supported range is 1000–9999. The year displayed before import is the one that will be used, and you can change it. The initial suggestion comes from a previously chosen and successfully used year, then the selected world, then the installed data. If no valid source supplies one, the current new-career default is 2025.

Birth years are interpreted against this value. Changing the year does not update historical squads, club names or competitions. After creation the save owns its date, so changing or removing StartYear.txt does not move an existing career into another season.

Shared name lists and country names

Generated footballers use first-name and surname lists. Put your replacements under:

Documents/My Games/Championship Soccer/Data/Names/

A league can retain a historical reference such as:

! Names "Data/Names/Exampleland_1st.txt" "Data/Names/Exampleland_2nd.txt"

The actual files belong in the shared personal Data/Names directory. Use distinctive filenames for custom countries. These lists may be used by several worlds, so replacing a common list changes the names available to all of them.

Data/Nationalities.txt supplies shared country-name definitions and aliases. Use Team Editor → Shared data to edit both kinds of information. A nationality definition does not create a playable country by itself. The data reference explains active countries, recognised nationality labels and aliases.

Supported replacement graphics

Supported custom graphics belong under the fixed personal Data/Graphics folder:

A valid personal file takes priority over its installed counterpart. Keep the original dimensions, layout and format of atlas images. An atlas replacement is not a tool for importing new 3D stadiums or character models. Use the game's video and match presentation options for the supported 2026 appearance settings.

The shared overlay does not replace the match AI, general sounds in the installation's Sound folder, language files, fonts or the settings system. Do not copy the entire installation into shared Data simply to replace one supported image.

Entrance music and goal anthems

1. Put your audio file under Documents/My Games/Championship Soccer/Teamsounds.
2. Open the relevant club, league or cup in Team Editor.
3. Enter its filename in Entrance music or Goal anthem, for example anthem.mp3.
4. Apply and save the database, then create a game from that world to use the new assignment.

For a file in Teamsounds/Club Songs/anthem.mp3, enter Club Songs/anthem.mp3. Use a relative name, without the Teamsounds prefix, an absolute drive path or ... Spaces and accented letters are supported. MP3, WAV, OGG and FLAC are accepted.

The competition's league music is the starting choice. A nonempty home-club field replaces the matching league field. A nonempty cup field has priority over both. Entrance and goal music are chosen separately. The away club's music is not used as the home stadium's music, and the goal anthem plays only after home goals.

Enable sound in the game and check your audio device and volume. The crowd-sound setting controls fan chants separately from the club's entrance and goal music. Invalid or unplayable files are skipped so the match can continue.

For compatibility, the game also searches personal Data/Teamsounds, then installation Data/Teamsounds, then installation Teamsounds. The personal Teamsounds folder shown above has priority. The first playable file with the requested name wins.

Music assignments are part of the career's stored club and competition information. Editing the source assignment affects newly created games. Replacing an audio file with the same name can affect an existing career at its next match. The editor saves the references, not the music files.

Custom fan chants

Put fan chants in Documents/My Games/Championship Soccer/Data/Fansounds. This is a shared stadium atmosphere pool, not a folder selected separately for each club. Use short, suitable audio clips and enable the crowd sound option.

The first available nonempty personal pool replaces the supplied pool as a whole. Custom and supplied fan files are not mixed. If you want a combined collection, place the complete desired collection in your personal Fansounds folder. An older flat Championship Soccer/Fansounds folder remains readable after the preferred Data location.

A goal anthem belongs in Teamsounds and needs a team or competition reference. Simply adding it to Fansounds makes it a crowd clip, not a song reserved for scoring.

Understand import warnings and repairs

After importing a world, the game may display Database issues - Warning or an error report. Read each page before deciding whether to proceed. The report can describe duplicate assignments, missing data, invalid optional player values, league movement problems or competition rules that needed adjustment.

When a safe repair is possible, the game prepares it for this new career. Your source folder and ZIP remain unchanged. Continue accepts that prepared world after the review. Back abandons it so you can change your selection or correct the source. If no safe playable world can be created, return and fix the reported cause.

The dialog shows the actual import-report location when a report was saved. On a normal Windows setup it is %LOCALAPPDATA%/Championship Soccer/Logs/DataImportDiagnostics.log. If the report could not be written, the message says so and shows the attempted location. Keep the displayed cause and the current report when asking the database author for help.

A repair that lets a test career continue is not a permanent correction to your package. Make the corresponding edit in Team Editor or the source files, save it, and test a newly created world.

Prepare a world for sharing

1. Save a named personal copy with Team Editor.
2. Run Check, then create a fresh test career with fantasy players off if the world has named squads.
3. Verify clubs, staff, player identities, ages, positions, kits and the start year. Check fixtures and complete a season when changing competition structures.
4. Add Package.ini with a clear name, version and description.
5. Package the world's folder as a normal ZIP. Keep League, Team, optional Player and ScoutingProvider folders together.
6. If the project needs custom names, nationalities or audio, supply them separately with instructions for their shared destination.
7. Test the final ZIP from DataSets before distributing it.

Include only the material needed for the football world. Career saves, personal logs and editor backup folders are not part of a clean package. Supply graphics or audio only when you have permission to distribute them.

If something does not appear or work

For general startup and display problems, see Troubleshooting.