Championship Playoff. 3 groups, 4 teams.

I have created a league that is split into 3 groups (Eastern, Central and Western). Basically, I want a championship playoff to determine the champion. But, as I have 3 groups, I can't work out how to pick the 4th team. In real life, the 4th team is the 2nd place team with the most points (the league is League1 Ontario Reserves). Does anyone have enough knowledge with advanced rules to help me out?

umm so you want an Championship Play-Off with 3 groups of 4 teams right

No, a championship playoff. The winner of each group and the 2nd placed team with the most points. 4 teams in total

like an Promotion Play-off right

To determine the overall champion. 

so why not you trying to do An Championship but have an 2 groups of 12 teams and 8 teams going to Promotion Stage with two groups while 8 teams going to Relegation Stage with two groups as well

i mean i was trying to make Portugal league system to be similar to spanish league system in FM 21 but it did not work it out

@EnigMattic1 

here is something I did with international rules to get a best of the rest qualifier/s set up [I have an extended world cup so for example in UEFA section the top 2 teams in each group qualify and the 3 best 3rd place teams]

its set up like this

extra group settings-extra fate places 3[so for you set to 1] these are your ‘extra places’

to get the top teams through its here[it is set to 2 top teams you need again to set this to 1]

The problem that I am now having is that it is not recognising the top teams. Would this be because it is not ‘technically’ a different competition? The championship playoff is simply another stage in the competition.

@kingrobbo 

Apologies, I've sorted that issue now. I do have another question you may be able to help with. How would I go about promotion from groups into a league? 

Self-plug alert: Have a look at my file which has this promotion format so that you can try and replicate it in your own file.

Pro tip: Use the FM21 editor to open it so that you can compare it “live” what you're doing on your own file on the FM22 editor 😉

Cheers mate, I will take a look. You don't know anything about byes in knockout comps do you?

The FA Trophy in my file has some byes in its structure if you want to use it as a template.

The structure of the Challenge League and the National Amateur League is of groups, because I wasn't specific earlier 😉

Cheers. Basically, I am expanding a Canadian file that I have and the U-Sports is a pretty bizarre setup. There is 4 leagues (2 of which have 2 groups) and there is a playoff in each league (with byes in 2 of them) to determine the league champions, then all 4 champions play in a knockout tournament to determine the U-Sports champion.

@mons 

I just want to check, you were referring to the IZIBET FA Trophy, weren't you? And, I am assuming that the byes are managed by the seeding? So, the lower the number, the later they enter the competition?

It's that competition, yes. Which part are you referring to with regards to seeding? Screenshots would help…

Is it this particular tab that controls which teams get the bye?

In simplified terms, the teams with seeding to give teams as 0 are the first teams, and so on and so forth, depending on the seeding method chosen.

So, if I gave a team the seeding of ‘0’, they would enter the competition at a later point? Or would they enter from the beginning?

It depends entirely how you structure the competition, and at what stage teams enter it. In another of the tabs in the menu on the left (which name I can't recall right now) is a list of how many rounds there are in this KO competition and how many teams are added at each stage.

Basically, I have 1 league split into 2 groups. I need the top 6 from each group. But the teams that finish 1st and 2nd receive a bye so third through 6th play each other with the winners progressing to play 1st and 2nd. The winners then play each other to determine the overall winner. So, 3 rounds (per group). Then the winner of each group plays each other.

I wasn't actually expecting it to sound that complicated……..

The competition I showed you is a knock out. What you're referring to is a league competition, in group format. The method to do so differs between the two competition formats

You can set up what you want as different stages with different teams qualifying depending on different criteria. Your best guess would be to find a competition set up in this way, or similar, in real-life, and see how it is implemented in FM by copying the setup displayed in the editor.

No worries, I will see what I can do.

@mons, sorry mate, but I have another question that I don't know if you could help me with. I was able to get the above issue sorted and the database verified, but after changing dates, the file won't verify because the league “doesn't finish before the season update day”. 

Now, the league is set to run between August and November (it's a small league with each team playing each other only once). The fixture dates are September 10th - October 31st and the season update day is December 31st 

Do you have any idea what I can do to rectify this issue as I can't see why it is saying that the league won't finish in time?

Don't know if you were aware of the test competitions panel, but it is an extremely powerful tool for finding errors like this, especially in a complex file. I also tend to verify as I go when building files, and make a bunch of backups. 

Another tip with it then is to go to one of the leagues you have run a test for, and at the bottom is a new tab called "test" which is full of info about how things have been set up and what the results of a season were. It can be extremely useful for checking things quickly without running in game.

Credit to @sporadicsmiles for the help with bringing this page to my attention 🙂

Show Spoiler

This page would help you pinpoint where each competition is stopping and at what stage…

This is the error I get, whether I am trying to verify or test:

Yes, I know what the error message is. Have you set the league schedule dates for the respective stage(s)?

Have you checked the test competitions panel I mentioned in my previous post? It might help you pinpoint where the issue is.

The dates are set correctly as far as I am aware:

Honestly? I am not 100% sure on how to read the test competitions panel. It just kicks up the same error:

After running the test competitions bit, go to one of the leagues you have run a test for, and at the bottom is a new tab called "test" which is full of info about how things have been set up and what the results of a season were. It can be extremely useful for checking things quickly without running in game.

You will be able to see how many games actually occurred and where the hold up might be.

Ok, my understanding of this particular page would tell me that the final was never played:

Should that be the case, and as the window is set from August - November (with fixtures from September - October), I would need to juggle the fixtures around to get the final played in October?

Possibly, that or a date was never set for the final.

It's a question of trial and error, really.