Playing systemSeason The season lasts 16 weeks, which is 112 days. Each league has 14 teams. Every team plays 52 league matches in the regular season (4 matches against each opponent). The match days for regular season are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. After the regular season the first 8 teams qualify for the playoffs. Playoff match days are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Playoff is played in best-of-three series until final positions of all teams are determined. This means that the eliminated teams from the quarterfinals and semifinals continue in the consolation round to determine their final ranking. The playoff champion is promoted to a higher league. The runner-up will play in the promotion round. Teams ranked 9th to 14th after the regular season play in the relegation group. The teams play additional 10 matches which will determine the final ranking of these teams. Before the first matches are played, the teams get points based on their final rank in the regular season.
Teams ranked 9th to 11th at the end of relegation group will play the runners-up from the lower divisions to avoid relegation. Teams ranked 12th to 14th at the end of relegation group will be automatically relegated to the lower divisions and they will be replaced by the champions from these divisions. Each league has three leagues below it where the teams from this league are relegated. If any league does not have all three leagues in the tier below but, for instance, only one, then only the team that ranked 14th will be relegated. In such a case the team ranked 13th will play in the relegation round. At the end of the season the final ranking is determined. It is important to finish as high as possible. General sponsors and media sponsors offer more generous contracts for the upcoming season to the higher ranked teams. Warning! All playoffs are played with a knock-out system where the top seeded team always plays the lowest seeded team. This means, that if teams that are seeded one, four, six and seven advance into the second round of the playoff, the first seed will play the seventh seed and the fourth seed will play the sixth seed. The playoff tree displayed in the playoff page is dynamic and so it changes after every round depending on the results, even though it might seem, that the first seed should play the fourth seed. The relegation/promotion round is a best-of-three series. The matches are played on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the final week of the season. The home field advantage in match 3 (if needed) goes to the team from the higher league. Scoring system The following scoring system is used in the league: Win: 2 points Draw: 1 point Loss: 0 points If two or more teams are tied on points at the end of the regular season, the ranking is decided by the better goal difference (goals for minus goals against). If the teams are still tied, the other tie breaking criteria are higher number of goals scored and finally higher overall team rating. System of leagues The top tier is made up of only one division. Then there are 3 divisions on the second tier and the number of divisions multiplies by three with each tier. Therefore, there are 9 divisions on the third tier, 27 on fourth, 81 on fifth etc. The divisions are marked by a combination of Roman and Arabic numerals. For example II.3 means that it is division number three on the second tier. League regrouping At the end of each season there is a league regrouping of the two lowest league levels in the selected countries. That means that the redundant leagues will be closed and the active teams will be concentrated into the lowest possible number of leagues. This regrouping is necessary in order to keep the game interesting and avoid large numbers of teams without managers. During regrouping it may happen that some teams from the lowest league level will be promoted one level higher. |