Subject: Suggestions

I'd like to suggest a restructuring of the football international cup system for the "Rest of the World" section.

I've been a little frustrated with the number of teams that the "Rest of the World" countries get to send for a little while. But, after several seasons of gaining on Canada for the top spot, which is the only country to send six teams, we finally caught up this season! And then I just noticed that now that there are leagues for Kazakhstan and Iran, the top "Rest of the World" country only sends four teams to international cups next season.

In comparison, Paraguay, who also just got a league this season, sends six teams to the South American international cups. Paraguay has four active teams, one dead team, and 17 no-name teams in their league I.1.

Restructuring the IC layout to send more teams from the top countries could make for much more competitive and interesting tournaments, and could likely be accomplished through a qualification structure similar to what Europe uses now.

For example, look at the current season in the CL. In Europe, with 16 groups, there were 2 teams that went 0-0-6, and no teams that went 6-0-0. So, very few teams were completely overmatched, and nobody completely dominated their group. In the Rest of the World CL, with only 8 groups, there were three 0-0-6 teams that were completely overmatched, and one 6-0-0 team that dominated the group. Qualification rounds could weed out the overmatched teams and make the groups more competitive.

This would also serve to reward the hard-working teams in bigger countries like the USA and Canada which are easily strong enough to compete in the Cups but are facing stiffer competition in league and national cup play. Any team in USA I.1, for example, would be a strong favorite to qualify for the IC's were they competing in, say the new Kazakh leagues.

Consistently sending fewer teams also limits the growth of the US leagues by giving OR and financial bonuses (through ticket sales) to fewer teams. As a result, we take longer to develop our national infrastructure than other teams might, and fewer teams have achieved the top-level facilities needed to produce players comparable to those that we'll face in NT games.

Thanks for considering!

^ Like button has been clicked.

I was thinking a little more about this, because it seems like the qualification round would create problems just because of the extreme difference in team strength in the Rest of the World countries. So, what about some sort of tiered system so that those teams from weaker countries still get the benefit of a full international cup?

It could either be based on the qualification round, where if you win the qualification matches you're in the upper tier, and if you lose you're in the lower tier, or it could be somehow based on the country rankings, where the top country gets like 6 teams in the top tier and 2 in the bottom tier, or something like that.

IN COMPLETE AGGREEANCE on this. Sure we are a smaller market for PPM compared to EUROPE but we should be on an equal playing field. ADDing more team to the IC's allows for more teams to stay engaged and stay on PPM longer.

In hockey, since there is no home ice advantage in the National Cup, why is home ice determined by who the top seed is in the pairing? It should be determined by the bigger stadium so both teams can potentially share in more profit as these games help draw large crowds. For example, I am currently the low seed in my pairing so we are playing in my opponent's arena with a capacity of 2500 even though my arena has a capacity of 4000.

but the home team still has some advantage as for example if the Arena has press center ...

My complain is the opposite direction as yours. When a weaker team beats the stronger team, that team should take over the seed of team it beats.

It is harder for "bad" teams to compete as if it beats a good team, next round it will go against a good team again.

As far as i know in real life the seeds are determined and locked when the competition starts, so if a bad team beats a good team this team will advance in that seed

In America thats true, but this game is based on the European system. Also NHL playoffs are ranked the same way

but that is for teams in the same league/division

my biggest issue is on nation league as chances a d3 reaches the final stages are slim due to the fact always have to beat better teams

in brazil soccer "Brazilian Cup" for example the brackets are set at the start. and that is an example of competition that involves teams from different leagues and levels.

since it is very harder for a lower division team.

Willmott I have never seen an official response on this topic whenever it is brought up

I have looked at the numbers and it is true that your division of international cups is now a little too small for all those countries. It wasn't so at the beginning, but there have been plenty of new countries in your division that reduced the numbers a country can qualify for each tournament. I think we could increase the number of participants from 32 to 64 in your division to make up for that. I'm not promising anything, but I will try to convince the bosses that it's the right thing to do.

Thank you for he response VLADY--- It would help with retention of the higher ranking teams in our countries. Look at hockey and how the top teams are falling off (boredom)?

Would be awesome if all of a sudden you guys decided to start hockey over from season one--

not all of a sudden, but there are indeed plans for what we call hockey II. tuttle mentioned it in the interview which was published on Christmas Eve

I only read the first paragraphs...

Any chance of a IM type chat?

That was a pretty good read. Thank you. I like the idea of 2 games a day that way you can fit more seasons into a calendar year.

I think that starting over is good for newbies. I started in season 3 for hockey and season 1 for soccer. I learned a lot in hockey to apply towards soccer and have given up on hockey. A new start would be refreshing.