Creating your own leagues

Cups and tournaments

Write cups into a league file: rounds, dates, draws and who takes part.

Starting a cup

Cups are written into the same league file as the leagues, usually after them. A cup begins with a line starting with *, followed by its general settings and then its rounds:

A national cup for Footlandia

* Footlandia Cup
+ Country "Footlandia"
+ reputation 10
+ round 1 "First Round" 9-24 10
+ draw 8
+ add 8 from "Footlandia - Premier League"
+ add 16 from "Footlandia"
+ round 2 "Second Round" 1-16 20
+ round 3 "Quarter Final" 1-8 28
+ round 4 "Semi Final" 1-4 36
+ round 5 "Final" 1-2 44

What happens: the 8 Premier League clubs take the first 8 places of the cup and wait. 16 further Footlandia clubs fill places 9 to 24 and play the first round. Their 8 winners join the waiting clubs in the second round, and so on to the final.

General settings – before the first round

Line	What it does
`* Footlandia Cup`	Starts the cup. The rest of the line is its name, without quotes. Every cup needs its own name.
`+ Country "Footlandia"`	The country of a national cup.
`+ reputation 10`	The importance of the cup, 1 to 20 in whole numbers. When several draws fall into the same week, the more important cups are drawn first.
`+ international`	An international cup for clubs.
`+ nations`	A tournament for national teams (also written `+ nationalteams`).
`! intro`, `! goal`, `! metar`	Music and weather for the cup's matches (see Music, weather and sounds). Cup music counts more than club music.
`#@cs reserve-teams true`	Allows reserve teams; without it they are left out (see Reserve teams).
`#@cs regions "North"`	Is stored and can be edited, but currently has no effect on who plays in the cup.

Write these settings before the first round: every round copies them when it is created.

Rounds, dates and draws

Every round begins with a round line. The example + round 2 "Second Round" 1-16 20 consists of four parts:

Part	Meaning
`2`	The round number. Winners of round 1 move on to round 2 of the same cup.
`"Second Round"`	The name shown in results. Together with the cup name it is also used in other cups' rules, for example “Footlandia Cup Final”.
`1-16`	The places in the cup that play in this round: places 1 to 16. This is not a required number of clubs; empty places become byes. A range such as `65-164` means that places 65 to 164 play while places 1 to 64 wait for a later round.
`20`	The season week of the match.

The following lines belong to the round line above them. Write them after that round line:

Line	What it does
`+ week 30 33`	Further match weeks. Two weeks in total mean two legs, home and away, decided on aggregate with the away-goals rule. Do not repeat the week from the round line. `weeks`, `match` and `matches` also work.
`+ draw 8`	The week of the draw. A round is drawn in the first week from then on in which its clubs are known; without this line, as soon as it is ready. If clubs come from another competition's result, draw after that competition has finished.
`+ groups 8`	This round is a group stage with 8 groups, every club playing every other club of its group at home and away.
`+ year 2026` and `+ offset 4`	The tournament takes place in 2026 and then every 4 years. An offset below 2 means every year.
`+ exclude "Footlandia Champions Cup"`	Clubs that play in the named cup, in a named round of it, or in a named league are skipped by the following entry rules of this round.
`+ exclude venue "World Nations Tournament"`	Skips the hosts of the named tournament, for example in a qualification whose hosts are already qualified.
`+ venue "Footlandia"`	A host of the tournament. Write one line per host.
`+ pool inherit 44`	Only places 1 to 44 of the previous round are taken over; 0 takes over none.

Round settings belong after their roundA date, draw or entry rule written between the cup's name line and its first round can end up in the previous cup's last round. The game reports misplaced entry rules, but not every misplaced date.

Choosing the participants

Entry rules follow the round that receives the clubs. They are carried out from top to bottom, and each one fills the next free places.

Rule	Who takes part
`+ add 4 from "Footlandia - Premier League"`	Up to four clubs of that league. At the start of a career the order depends on level, reputation and chance; in later seasons mainly on the final league table.
`+ add 16 from "Footlandia"`	Up to 16 clubs of that country, from any level, including clubs without a league.
`+ add 8 from countries "Footlandia" "Otherland"`	Clubs from a shared pool of several countries.
`+ add 211 from everywhere`	Teams from the whole world, used for international friendlies.
`+ add 1 team "Igloo Inter"`	One particular club or national team.
`+ add 1 venue`	The host given with `+ venue`.
`+ add 1 cup-winner "Footlandia Cup Final"`	The winner of that round: the cup name followed by the round name.
`+ add 1 rank 2 "Footlandia Cup Final"`	Clubs from the finishing order of that round, starting with the given place – rank 2 of a final is the runner-up. In a group stage all group winners come first, then all runners-up, and so on.
`+ <32 add 1 from "Footlandia"`	Only carried out while fewer than 32 clubs have entered the round.
`+ noexclude add 4 rank 33 "Footlandia Champions Cup Qualification 3"`	This one rule ignores the round's exclusions – here it lets the losers of a qualifying round enter although the bigger cup is excluded. Clubs are still never added twice, and reserves are still left out.

Good to know

The name after from must be the full name of a league or country of the world: “Premier League” does not find a league called “Footlandia - Premier League”.
A club is never added twice. Two rules + add 4 from "Footlandia - Premier League" therefore bring eight different clubs.
Asking for more clubs than there are is fine. Missing clubs are not invented; their places become byes. A cup whose rules find no loaded clubs at all cannot be played.
There is no rule for “the league champion” or “places 5 to 8 of a league table”. Use several entry rules one after another, together with exclusions.
Cups never decide promotion or relegation.

Useful patterns

Qualifying rounds that protect stronger clubs

Places 1 to 40 wait while the rest qualify

+ round 1 "Qualification 1" 41-256 6
+ round 2 "Qualification 2" 41-148 8

The stronger clubs, entered first, keep places 1 to 40 and wait. With fewer clubs than places, the empty places become byes, and the first real matches may only happen in a later round.

Two legs

A round with home and away legs

+ round 5 "Round of 16" 1-16
+ week 30 33

A group stage

8 groups of 4 clubs, home and away

+ round 4 "Group stage" 1-32
+ groups 8
+ week 14 16 18 20 22 24

Groups of four clubs that meet home and away need 6 match weeks. Groups of six would need 10.

Third place and final

After the semi-final (round 4, places 1-4), give both following matches the round number 5: “Third Place” with places 3-4 and “Final” with places 1-2, each with its own date.

A tournament every four years

Played in 2026, 2030, 2034 and so on

+ round 1 "Group stage" 1-24 24
+ year 2026
+ offset 4

A smaller cup for clubs not in a bigger one

The next four clubs of a league

+ exclude "Footlandia Champions Cup"
+ add 4 from "Footlandia - Premier League"

Give the bigger cup a higher reputation and an earlier draw, so that its clubs are known first. More cup examples are in Editing game data and the Team Editor's cup pages (see Team Editor).