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
This may be a result of the switch from advanced to basic in the database. I think I had it set up where amateur teams just have the main team, semi-pros had u19s, and the professional levels had U-19 and reserves.
lguto
hmm I was using CF Montreal when I noticed this. Is there something I can do to have the reserves and U-19? Are you referring to the db size when creating the game?
Chris Nielson
Oh! I didn't make any adjustments to the Canadian database in terms of U19s and Reserves, so whatever the teams had in the vanilla game should be present in the Canadian database. Did you try asking the board for a U19 team or a reserves team? (Also, the CPL doesn't really have reserve and U19 teams, so you may have to schedule a lot of friendlies for your teams.)
lguto
Do you mind showing me where do I do that? I was not abler to find that request 😢
intelanalyst78
Northern VA Cavalry, Loudoun United seem to be jacked up with the wrong LOGOs.
intelanalyst78
NM, conflicting graphics file.
Chris Nielson
Hey Iguto - I'm sorry for the slow reply. First, a lot of the CPL teams will not have reserve teams on because that's the way the league operates right now. I looked in the editor file and Montreal does have a reserve team listed with “not used” checked. I think you should be able to go to club vision → Networking → and there should be an option to ask for a reserve team. If it isn't there I don't think it's available to Montreal.
Ins14
Hey,
Is there any chance that this will be updated to compatible with the 22.3 Winter Update ?
Thx
Chris Nielson
Hi Ins,
It may. I posted a couple of bug repots on the forum (the crash to desktop and youth intake issues) and those bugs weren't fixed in v 22.3. I'm waiting to see if I would need to do a complete rebuild to make them work, or if I can do a simpler adjustment. I'll post here when I know. Hope that helps Ins14!
Chris
Ins14
Good luck and thank you for this job
StuartNG
Looking forward to hear when you get this build issue sorted.
Good luck
Chris Nielson
Good news! It appears that the youth intake and crash to desktop bugs are fixed in the latest version of the game. I'm going to take the next couple of days to switch the US database back to advanced mode and make the appropriate changes, and repost sometime next week. If you're interested in doing a beta test for me feel free to PM and I'll send you the files when they're ready.
MIKEGTR
Noticed that while playing as Puerto Rico Islanders in the Paramount+ division, my board will not let me scout in Puerto Rico because it would be too expensive to travel. lol
Is there any way to correct this in either In-Game Editor or Pre-Game Editor?
thanks,
gianni1970
Can they be made compatible for patch 22.3 too? Because they only work with the latest update 22.4
Chris Nielson
This was a quick fix for me in the editor, so I just did it and uploaded a new file. The short version is because the Islanders' competition nation is set to the US, it didn't allow the team to scout Puerto Rico freely. I tweaked it so that there's a relationship between PR and the US, so the team should be able to scout Puerto Rico.
This is a bit more work. I'll get at it over the next couple of days and let you know when it's re-uploaded.
MIKEGTR
It's working now, Chris. Thank you so much for the quick turnaround!
Trey B
Maybe I am doing something incorrect, but is the beginning of the season supposed to be loaded with fixtures from the Amazon league and the NACL? I'm using all the “July” files (I figured i was supposed to as it wasn't very clear) If I'm doing it wrong plz tell me cause injuries are killing me cause no one gets rest lol
Chris Nielson
Hi Trey - yes, it is a pretty fixture heavy mod, especially in the early going. It was particularly bad in the older versions of this file because of the limits of a basic database, but it should be a little better in the latest version. Squad depth is key though.
JoãoCarvalho92
For When the 22.4.0 version ?
It'sRafa Gam
Hi, I just started playing a save with TFC (now in the Canadian premier league), the league seems to have a salary cap of 180k. The problem is Insigne is set to join my team in a bit and idk how I will register him
michaelfarrow
OK, I've gone through the installation guide but the USA is not selectable. I looked at the warning triangle and is shows a lot of "Could Not Find Competition <Number> on Database" errors. Any ideas?
Chris Nielson
So, this is a weird issue with the database sometimes. Try unselecting one of the other nations and see if the US is playable then. If it isn't send me a dm and we can troubleshoot from there.
Chris Nielson
In anticipation of FM 23, I rebuilt the database from scratch (I learned a lot along the way that I wanted to incorporate into a new version.) You can find it here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OmS-37BFEvuIbX6QumFwtjRFkfczfS6t?usp=sharing. The top four levels of the US database still reflect the original clubs from Raysox game, but I kept the USL clubs and used the current leagues (USL, NISA, UPSL, and NPSL) for the lower levels. I took out the midseason break in January, so all the teams play straight through from August-May now. I also created regional reserves and U19 divisions, along with cups for the respective tournaments, and added FFP rules for USL and above (because US sports have to turn a massive profit for their owners.)
For the Canadian database I added two more levels and a U21 competition for the upper two levels based, again, on geography. There are also some FFP rules in place now.
For the CONCACAF mod, the top two teams from the CONCACAF Champions League do qualify for the Club World Championship. I couldn't figure out how to make automatic qualifiers work for future years for winners of the other competitions, so I decided to ignore that. I also boosted the Mexican League's TV and positions money (to hopefully balance out the US a bit) and added a few lower leagues for the other CONCACAF nations that I don't think exist, but it added some more teams and competitions.
I'm mostly putting this out now because I am planning to roll it forward for FM 23, and want to see if there are any noticeable, game breaking bugs I'm missing. If you're at the end of FM 22 and are looking for a new(er) challenge, I would love to have you take a look at this for me. Thanks all!
michaelfarrow
I fixed the bug by deleting the issues in the editor and it all seemed to work fine.
I am with you on waiting for FM23. I want to create a mod that splits England in half (I was reading an article about the fringe “Northern Independence Party”) but what's the point in starting when the new version is so close.
Diamondium
Hey, just want to pop in and let you know this is honestly my favorite database out there! The most recent revision adding depth to the Canada side was huge in adding playability to both sides of the border there. Your work on this is very much appreciated!
I did have one question though - I'm using the images folders from the first comment and the database from your most recent comment and lots of the ids seem to be mismatched on the Canada side leading to teams having mismatched logos - I could go through and tweak those individually if needed, but I was curious if there was an updated image pack to go along with that one kicking around somewhere that I've glossed over.
Chris Nielson
Thanks for playing Diamundium! I really appreciate it. I do have an updated version of the Canadian logo and kit pack - you can find it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iRuL2bHWJo4sqZOwI-MfW_zYAYEZaQ3S/view?usp=sharing. It's for FM 23, but I think it should mostly work with 22.
xythos46
howdy, ive been really enjoying playing this, its just im noticing transfers seem to be a bit broken.. players in the usa often sign for 1 year contracts no matter what or youth deals and then get released on a free days after a costly transfer fee.. could it be conflicting with a different editor file