There are several streaming services that are trying to corner the US Market, and live sports are one of the areas where the competition is the fiercest. So, what if Amazon, Comcast, Paramount, Disney, Turner, and DAZN decided to make American Soccer (sorry…) their battleground, injecting the game with lots of cash and pushing for the creation of a US soccer pyramid, as well as funding the sport in Canada and across CONCACAF?
About eight years ago on the SportsLogos forum a poster named Raysox put together a thread imagining what an American Pyramid could look like, and creating kits and badges for 72 teams across Canada, the US, and Puerto Rico. He also created a mod for FM14, which I played on and off for the last eight years. With his permission I recreated a version of it in FM 21, learned a lot about the editor, and decided to make version two for FM 22. The resulting expanded CONCACAF universe (which was mostly built off of a shared database) includes a ten tier US pyramid, a two tier Canadian Pyramid, an expanded CONCACAF Club tournament, and 20 of the more minor CONCACAF countries that participate in the tournaments. The following posts will contain the where appropriate database files and other supporting stuff.
Thanks in advance to Raysox for the idea and source material and to FM Slovakia, FM Base, and this site for a lot of the logos and kits.
*UPDATE March 26th* It looks like the CTD and youth intake issues were resolved in V. 22.4. The US database files have been updated and changed accordingly - so VAR and the immersive deadline day have returned (along with a few other tweaks under the surface.) Also, the update on March 29th is to fix the Puerto Rico issue mentioned below.
*UPDATE December 7th* ALL FILES ARE NOW IN THE ZIP FOLDER ON THIS POST.
*UPDATE January 11th* It looks like the CTD and youth intake issues are bugs in the game. I submitted a bug report on the SI Forum, but for now it looks like the US Databases won't work in advanced mode. So, I switched back to basic and recreated the USA Database. It's missing a few of the fun bells and whistles (like the transfer deadline and VAR) that is available in advanced mode, but should be stable over the long term now. I also created two US Files - one is a July start (so it lines up with the European football calendar) and the other is the January start that US Soccer follows right now, along with corresponding CONCACAF files. When the bug is fixed I will re-release the advanced files.
CONCACAF Champions League - 5 International Club Championships
- CONCACAF Champions League; 30 team club tournament from the top 12 nations in CONCACAF. Group stage in December and January, Knockout Tournament from February to May.
- CONCACAF Gold Cup: 30 teams from the top 16 nations. Follows same format as the Champions League.
- CONCACAF Silver Cup: 30 team from the top 20 nations. Follows same format as the Champions League.
- Central American Championship: 16 team knockout tournament in December.
- Caribbean Championship: 20 team knockout tournament in January.
Because this is built off the same database as the Canadian and US leagues, you will want to use this with them.
US Soccer Pyramid
- Season runs February - November
- 10 Levels
- 4 Professional National Levels
- one 20 team top level, and three 24 team levels below that.
- 1 Semi-professional national level
- 1 Semi-professional regional level (2 conferences)
- 4 regional amateur levels
- 4 Professional National Levels
- 17 Cup Competitions
- 1 FA CUP (the Lamar Hunt Cup) that takes place in the first half of the season and during a mid-season break.
- 1 International Cup across the top levels of Canada, the US, and Mexico in July
- 3 League Cups (Professional, Semi-Pro, and Amateur) that take place throughout the year
- 12 Regional cups that take place in a mid-season break in May and June
- 64 of Raysox 72 created teams appear in the top 4 levels. This means several USL teams were re-christened as the Raysox originals. I later added the missing USL championship teams in the Semi-pro league, so they are present but not linked to the original database information.
- Because I'm basing this on the idea that the streaming services will pay to support the league, there is a lot of money, particularly at the top of the pyramid - several teams end up with balances over $1 billion dollars when I sim out 20 years (which means, sadly, it reflects what happens in actual US sports.)
- I also found kits and badges for everything above level 7. You can find them in the attached zip file.
Canadian Soccer Pyramid
- Season runs April - October
- 2 Levels
- Two sixteen team divisions
- 5 Cups
- 1 FA Cup that runs during the season
- 4 regional pre-season cups
- The last eight of Raysox teams are in the Canadian database. I also moved the three Canadian MLS teams to the Canadian Premier League and gave them generous payments for their exit.
- The badges, kits, and competition logos are in the attached zip file.
I also put together various and sundry CONCACAF leagues. These were done in basic mode in the editor, and mostly follow the schedule and roster restrictions of the nations in question - this is mostly so you can follow what happens in the other leagues that take part in the CONCACAF tournaments. If someone wants to go into the advanced editor and make them more accurate, please feel free.
Nations included:
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Curacao
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- French Guiana
- Guatemala
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Martinique
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Puerto Rico
- Trinidad
Comments
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Chris Nielson
Condensed into above post
Chris Nielson
Condensed into above post
Chris Nielson
Condensed into above post
Chris Nielson
I have also simulated the US and Canada databases at least ten years out, and they have been stable. If you run into issues please let me know, and feel free to post any questions. Thanks all!
SamuelBlueGo3
I have issues with my club in the FM saves. I tried to click on the continues button for the next match, but I got a crash dump in four times,
Chris Nielson
Thanks for letting me know Samuel. What team were you playing with, and in what league?
SamuelBlueGo3
Baltimore Comets FC (Which is get replaced from Baltimore Christos with the black kits), it will play in Eastern Regional Amateurs Conference (Tier 8)
Chris Nielson
SamuelBlue and I have been messaging back and forth, and it looks like there is a bug of some kind at level eight that causes a Crash to desktop on January 23rd. I can't figure out why that is, but it seems like starting on January 25th at the lower levels helps out. I'll update when we figure out and fix it.
Footygamer
This is great but it's a bit confusing have all the files attached as separately to comments.
One big Zip file would probably be better, at least one zip of the Concacaf files.
Do you mind if I clean it up for you and organise it all in the first post?
Chris Nielson
That would be great. Thanks Footygamer!
KellerKeeper
Silly new player question:
I know (assume?) the .fmf files go into the editor data folder, but what about the Canada and USA folder? Thanks in advance.
Chris Nielson
Since those are the kits and logos, you will want to put them in /graphics. The game doesn’t automatically create that folder in the sportsinteractive/football manager 22/ directory, so you will need to create a folder in there, rename it to graphics, then put the Canada and USA folders in there if you want the graphics to appear in game.
KellerKeeper
Am I able to just drop the folders into /directory or do I need to split them up into a kit folder, etc.?
Chris Nielson
You should be able to take the four folders (Logos, Icons, Home Kits, Away Kits) and directly paste them into the /graphics folder. You will want to keep the Canada and the US folders separate (and the other folder structure from the zip file in place) because you need the config files for everything to load properly. I'll post a few pictures to show you what it should look like:
Chris Nielson
I made a couple of small tweaks to the US database - I realized that a couple of the midseason tournaments did not have the correct dates and updated accordingly. It's more of a quality of life thing than anything - if you have a previous version you should be fine.
Ongston Bhearto
will the winner of concacaf champions league qualify for World Club Championship? Also, do I have to download all the fmf files or can I just mix and match e.g just USA and/or Canada files?
Chris Nielson
I believe the winners do - I have multiple sims that went 20+ years into the future when I tested the database, and looking through those it seems like the team that wins the CL in the year of the World Club Championship qualifies.
As far as mixing and matching goes, you will want to use the US and Canada files together - otherwise the leagues become unplayable. Everything else should be fair game.
M0xl3y
Hello, i have a few questions i'd like to ask about this DB. first i was wondering if a version of the club championships DB could be released that could work with other american/canadian DBs. secondly i was wondering if a version of the american DB could be released with the teams having their IRL names instead of custom names. i do like the custom names but it's confusing when the Las Vegas Legends are named the Las Vegas Lights and The Las Vegas Lights have a custom name as well. thank you in advance for your response.
LydsTherinNotamon
Got into a Rust Belt final, am now unable to advance my game at all as it CTDs after the final no matter what
Chris Nielson
Thanks for letting me know Lyds. What is the date of the final?
LydsTherinNotamon
The date is June 16, 2021, the opponent is Pittsburgh Riverhounds and there's a few other wacky things, like the crowd being completely unpopulated like it's a practice match in preseason, and a few mentions in the match engine whenever a game finishes (right before crash) about how the team is “onto the next round”
Chris Nielson
Thanks for letting me know Lyds. I sent you a pm - if you can send me the files I’ll take a look and see if I can figure out what’s going on.
amali34
Playing as MPS Portland Phoenix in the Northeast Amateur Association, I get a crash 100% of the time trying to advance from January 20th, 2021.
Scott Dora
Playing as Hoboken FC 1912 and when I hit 20th Jan, the game crashes and shuts down. Has a fix been put out for the lower tiers yet as losing some of the progression in pre-season isn’t ideal, thanks
Chris Nielson
Yeah, it's not ideal to lose the preseason work. I'm working on figuring out the fix. Thanks all for the heads up
Keelanm17
Hi
Been playing the database for a week now and loving it. only issue i seem to have is i havent had a youth intake this season. was meant to come in october and it is now november with nothing coming through. been into the dev centre and still being told the same message which is that the intake is not available yet. any ideas?
Chris Nielson
Hi Keelan - I noticed something similar in my save, so I’ll dig around and see if i can figure out what is going on. Thanks for raising the issue!
Keelanm17
Sounds good. It looks like other clubs are when I look at the youth intakes via the world tab>transfers>youth intake so theyre still coming through, just not at my club.
Thanks for your help.
Chris Nielson
Hi Everyone - thanks again for your reports of crashes and the issues with the youth intake.
Thanks all for your feedback - I'm glad this is (mostly) fun for a lot of you!
lguto
Is it normal that the teams do not have any youth squads? I see all players in the same squad and I am not able to send players to reserves or U-21.