League Rules

Welcome to the Pennant Chase Soccer Association (PCSA)

League Office:
Co-commishes: gc14 and htennis
Associates: TBD

Table of Contents:
1. League Overview
2. League Setup and Schedule
3. Rosters and Players
4. Transfer Season, Draft, Trades
5. Club Owner Goals and Expectations
6. Miscellaneous Rules

1. League Overview

1.1 What is this league?
Pennant Chase Soccer Association (PCSA) is a league that is dedicated to emulating the soccer experience within the Pennant Chase framework. It was founded in May 2020 by two bff users, who witnessed the collective whooping that COVID-19 brought down on sports and suddenly had lots of free time. This league offers promotion/relegation battles, shock transfer moves, fights for league cup and world cup glory, and much more.

We welcome those with an interest in soccer and/or dynamic leagues that see much turnover, season after season.

1.2 So I've joined. What can I do?
New owners can change their team name to any available "Top 5" league team in the current calendar year on a first come, first served basis. The "Top 5" leagues are the English Premier League (England), La Liga (Spain), Bundesliga (Germany), Serie A (Italy), and Ligue 1 (France). We may issue exemptions for teams not affiliated with the leagues above on a case-by-case basis.

1.3 For those of us who joined before the inaugural season, how will the rosters be set up?
Each team will be able to draft their rosters in a random snake draft. Number of rounds will be determined later.

1.4 Can I get a tl;dr of what to expect in the league?
You should really read this through once but if you insist:

-soccer inspired league with 2019-2020 szn soccer players
-2 leagues, one of which is the "big daddi" league (top-flight league) and the other is the "smol boi" league (2nd division)
-no progressions or contracts, once you obtain a boi, you have the boi until he is "recycled" back into the free agency pool (5 year cycle)
-typical szn consists of regular szn pt 1-winter transfer szn-regular szn pt 2-fa cup/postseason-player recycle-draft-summer transfer szn
-we have the biggest granddaddi of em all, the Club World Cup, every 4 seasons, right after the fa cup
-each offseason, you get some money to spend as transfer fees to bring the bois you want into your team permanently
-you can also make "swap deals"/trades, but only very smol amount
-there will be drama, suspensions, stories, among other things to add realism
-your goals as the big vibin owner of your club should be to win as much as possible by getting as many thicc players as you can, and to make thanos look like a wussi cat by winning CWCs
-as your entry test, you must type ???/???/??? ??? ??? into the chat box when you join; failing to do so will result in a bööt


2. League Participating Bodies and Schedule

2.1 Participating Bodies
This league consists of 2 "leagues/divisions" which have 10 teams each. There is the ?Pennant Chase Super League (PCSL)", which is the "top flight" league, and the ?Pennant Chase League 2 (PCL2)?, which is the second division. There are benefits to being in the PCSL, rather than the PCL2, which will be outlined later. Therefore, each owner should make avoiding relegation into the PCL2 or achieving promotion into the PCSL one of their priorities, depending on your team's current affiliation. The current team list in each league is as follows:

PCSL
-Team 1A
-Team 2A
-Team 3A
-Team 4A
-Team 5A
-Team 6A
-Team 7A
-Team 8A
-Team 9A
-Team 10A

PCL2
-Arsenal Gunners: htennis
-Tottenham Hotspur: goldencane14
-Team 3B
-Team 4B
-Team 5B
-Team 6B
-Team 7B
-Team 8B
-Team 9B
-Team 10B

2.2 League Schedule Outline
-Regular Season [Games 1-40] (user sim every 6-7 hours)
-Winter Transfer Season+Regular Season [Games 40-54] (maybe stop sims to simulate the "winter break" and then have the transfer seasons be done)
-Regular Season [Games 55-90]
-FA Cup
-Club World Cup (If it has been 4 years since the last one)
-Players ?recycled? into the Transfer Market
-"Recycle Draft"
-Summer Transfer Market (2 weeks)
-Spring Training (may get rid of this once we get stat levels right)

2.3 Key Competitions
2.3.1) Regular Season: The regular season sees each team playing every other team in their division 10 times, 5 games at home and 5 games away, for a total of 90 games. A team from PCSL may not play a team from PCL2, as they are in separate leagues.

At the end of the regular season, the team with the best record in each league will be crowned the regular season winners for that league. A star will be awarded to the winner of PCL2 while a trophy will be awarded to the winner of PCSL. Regular season records will be archived for future use.

Additionally, at the end of the regular season, the bottom 3 teams in PCSL will be automatically relegated, while the top 2 teams in PCL2 will be automatically promoted. Teams that finish from 3rd-6th in PCL2 will go through "promotion playoffs" (3v6, 4v5; winner of 3v6 vs winner of 4v5; best of 3 games for each matchup), where the winner will be promoted into PCSL. As you have probably figured out, tanking isn?t the path to success in this league.

2.3.2) FA Cup: After each regular season, there will be a postseason tourney dubbed the ?FA Cup.? This will replace the playoffs in the conventional sense. Teams will be selectively placed in each round from their regular season finish. The schedule goes as follows:

Each matchup in a round will consist of a home and an away game. The team that scores more total runs will move onto the next round. Tiebreakers will be total runs -> away game runs -> less hbp (fair play) -> coin toss. The FA Cup final will be just a single game, at a "neutral" site (meaning the park effects will be turned to neutral). Basic layout is as followed:

Prelim: ABC number of days off (all starters are properly rested before the journey starts)
1st round: PCL2 10th place vs PCL2 9th place (19 teams remain)
2nd round: 1st round winner vs PCL2 8th place (18 teams remain)
3rd round: 2nd round winner vs PCL2 5th, PCL2 7th vs PCL2 6th (16 teams remain)
Round of 16: Randomized draws from now on, no restrictions on who plays who. The team that is randomly drawn first in a matchup will play at their home first. (8 teams remain)
Quarterfinals: same as R16
Semifinals: same as R16
Final: single game at neutral site

The winner of the FA Cup will also be awarded a trophy. This format frequently gives the soccer world some real big upsets and narratives, and we anticipate having the same for this league.

2.3.3) Club World Cup: After every 4 years, we will also hold the "Club World Cup" right after the conclusion of the FA Cup for that season. It is the greatest tournament in the PCSA and the greatest honour will go to the team that is crowned the CWC Champions, as a trophy and a ring will be awarded. The format will be as followed:

Each team will be assigned a power ranking tier (tier 1 - tier 5; 4 teams per tier) based on their aggregated regular season and cup finishes in the past 4 years. Power ranking will be specifically ranked on the "PCSA Club Coefficient", which is calculated as followed:

[[[[[[Needs to be reviewed

Regular Season Points System:
PCSL Participation: 100 points
PCL2 Participation: 70 points
Each win in PCSL Schedule: 1 point
Each win in PCL2 Schedule: 0.7 point
PCSL Top 4 finish: 10 points
PCSL Title: 5 points
Promotion into PCSL: 7 points

FA Cup Points System:
Each win registered in FA Cup games: 1 points
Semifinal Participation: 5 points
FA Cup Winner: 3 points
]]]]]]]

Higher point tally means a better Club Coefficient, which will net you a great advantage in the CWC. The CWC format is as followed:

OPTION 1)
CWC 1st Round Qualifiers: Teams in power ranking tiers 4 and 5 will be randomly drawn into matchups, with each team from tier 4 matched up with each team in tier 5. Team from tier 4 will be given home field advantage in a best of 5 series. 3 wins will see the team through into the next round. Total of 4 teams will advance into the next round.

CWC 2nd Round Qualifiers: Teams in power ranking tier 3, as well as qualifying teams from the CWC 1st Round will be randomly drawn into 2 groups with 4 teams each. There may not be more than 2 teams from the same tier in each group. Each team will play 6 games with every other team in their group (3 "home", 3 "away"). Standings will be decided by their record, then their run differential, then H2H run differential, if it comes to that. Top 2 teams in each group will receive a bid to the CWC. Total of 4 teams will advance into the next round.

CWC: Teams in power ranking tier 1 and tier 2, as well as qualifying teams from the CWC 2nd Round will be randomly drawn into 2 groups with 6 teams each. There may not be more than 2 teams from the same tier in each group. Each team will play 6 games with every other team in their group (3 "home", 3 "away"). Standings will be decided by their record, then their run differential, then H2H run differential, if it comes to that. Top 4 teams in each group will receive a bid to the CWC Knockout Rounds. Total of 8 teams will advance into the next round.

CWC Knockout Rounds: The Bracket will be in this format:

Bracket side Alpha:
A1 vs B4
B2 vs A3

Bracket side Beta:
B1 vs A4
A2 vs B3

Each matchup will be a best of 9 games, all the way into the final, using the same rules as in previous rounds.

OPTION 2
CWC Qualifiers: Teams in power ranking tiers 2-5 (teams ranked 5th-20th in the Club Coefficient Scores) will be randomly drawn into 4 groups with 4 teams each. There may not be more than 2 teams from the same tier in each group. Each team will play 6 games with every other team in their group (3 "home", 3 "away"). Standings will be decided by their record, then their run differential, then H2H run differential, if it comes to that. Top 2 teams in each group will receive a bid to the CWC. Total of 8 teams will advance into the next round.

CWC 1st Round Playoffs: Teams that finished 3rd and 4th in the Club Coefficient Scores and the 8 teams from the previous round will be drawn into matchups by their Club Coefficient Scores. Teams with the higher Club Coefficient Scores will be given home field advantage in a best of 9 series. 5 wins will see the team through into the next round. 5 teams will advance to the next round.

CWC 2nd Round Playoffs: Team that finished 2nd in the Club Coefficient Scores and the 5 teams from the previous round will be drawn into matchups by their Club Coefficient Scores. Teams with the higher Club Coefficient Scores will be given home field advantage in a best of 9 series. 5 wins will see the team through into the next round. 3 teams will advance to the next round.

CWC Semi Finals: Team that finished 1st in the Club Coefficient Scores and the 3 teams from the previous round will be drawn into matchups by their Club Coefficient Scores. Teams with the higher Club Coefficient Scores will be given home field advantage in a best of 9 series. 5 wins will see the team through into the Finals. 2 teams will advance to the next round.

CWC Final: The two teams that advanced from the Semi Finals will duel it out to be the CWC Champions. Team with the higher Club Coefficient Score will be given home field advantage in a best of 11 series. 6 wins will earn the team their CWC Title.


3. Rosters and Players

3.1 Roster Size
Position Players:
Starters:
Relievers:
Total Number of Players on the "Matchday Squad"/Majors: 25

3.2 "U23s"/Minors Size
You may have at most 10 players in your U23s.

3.3 Details about the Player Makeup

AGE: Every player will be between age 21-25. After each season, all players at a certain age will be ?recycled? and be put in the transfer market. (after 1st season: age 25s, 2nd season: age 24s, 3rd season: age 23s, 4th season: age 22s, 5th season: age 21s, 6th season: age 25s, ?) Essentially, you will have the services of a player for, at max, 5 seasons. This will ensure that there is enough talent circulating through the league at any given time, and prevent super teams from holding a monopoly of good players.

PROGRESSIONS: In addition, there are no progressions. This was a decision made on the fact that neither of two commishes will likely have time to perfect youth prospects to the stat levels they wish to maintain. The twist above should alone be enough to circulate talent.

CONTRACTS: Since every player will be recycled at some point and repeatedly, there are no contracts in the league.

RL TEAMS FROM WHICH PLAYERS WERE CHOSEN (2019-2020 season):
Prem: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man C, Man U, Tottenham, Wolverhampton, Leicester City (8 teams)
La Liga: Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, Real Sociedad, Athletic Bilbao (7 teams)
Bundesliga: Bayern Munchen, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, Borussia Monchengladbach, Schalke 04, Werder Bremen (7 teams)
Serie A: Inter, Juventus, Milan, Napoli, Roma, Atalanta, Lazio (7 teams)
Ligue 1: Lyon, Marseille, Monaco, PSG, Bordeaux, Lille, Saint-Etienne (7 teams)

(Other if neeeded; currently about 900 players from those teams, to fill 20x(25+10)=700: Ajax, PSV, Porto, Benfica, Sporting, Zenit, Lokomotiv, Celtic, Rangers, Anderlecht, Basel)

The criteria applied when choosing the teams were simply based on name recognition and recent run of success.

3.4 How did you transform soccer players into baseball players?
First things first, we needed to establish the general positions of the players. The positions of the players were grabbed from FIFA20's list of players. We came up with the following:

Midfielders will be categorized as pitchers; players who are regular/semi regular starters for their respective squads will be made as starting pitchers, while rotation/bench players will be made as relief pitchers. Central Mids (e.g. Paul Pogba), Attacking Mids (Kevin De Bruyne), Defending Mids (Casemiro), and Left/Right Mids (Raphael Guerreiro, Carlos Soler) qualify in the category.

Forwards will be categorized as better hitters with lower defensive stats. Specific positions will most likely be randomized. Left Wingers (Neymar), Right Wingers (Lionel Messi), Second/Shadow Strikers (Antoine Griezmann), and Center Forwards (Harry Kane) qualify in the category.

Defenders/GKs will be categorized as worse hitters with higher defensive stats. Specific positions will most likely be randomized. Goalkeepers (Manuel Neuer), Center Backs (Virgil van Dijk), Left Backs (Andrew Robertson), and Right Backs (Trent Alexander-Arnold) qualify in the category.


Then we actually needed to create these players. We discussed a variety of ways to do this, but the cost-effective method of importing 2019 MLB players and editing them to match the soccer players was selected in the end.

4. Transfer Season and Draft

4.1 What is the Transfer Season and how does it work?
Transfer Season refers to a period of time where teams may bid on players and/or move for players. In this league, there are two such windows: the "Summer" Transfer Window and the "Winter" Transfer Window.

-Summer Transfer Window kicks off every offseason. It replaces the typical Offseason FA bidding in regular PC baseball leagues. This is the time where you may bid on the recycled players and also make trades.
-Winter Transfer Window will be held in midseason, somewhere around Games 40-55 of the regular season. It will span about a week irl. This is the time where you may make trades. There is no bidding.

4.2 How do I go about winning players on the transfer market?
You don?t sign players to contracts a la most PC leagues. Rather, there will be a ?transfer fund? with which you may choose to use on the ?recycled? class every transfer season and win their services. This will be reflected in the contracts page. There will be some "randomness" worked into the bidding system such that it reflects the volatility of real life transfers slightly better. Once you win a player?s services, you get to keep him until his age group is recycled again (so 5 seasons). The amount of a club?s transfer fund will be different for each summer transfer window, depending on the club?s performance in the previous season.

How you go about during the summer transfer window is as followed:

1. You bid X amount of money from Y amount that you have in your transfer money on a player you want. The bid is a solid amount, like $72m on Lionel Messi, not $12m/6yr on Lionel Messi.
2. For free agents: the period during which the player will take offers is triggered with his first offer. This will be 3 days of real time, with daily updates on the list of bidders and the top bid amount on the home page (team unrevealed). If I submit my bid on Lionel Messi on 10:30am of April 1st, 2020, and that is the first bid on Lionel Messi, then every team has until 10:30am of April 4th, 2020 to try to win his services.
3. Once the player's bidding period has passed, then a random number generator (random.org) will be used to "make the move". If Lionel Messi has bids of: $100m from Barcelona, $50m from Arsenal, $25m from Tottenham Hotspur, and $1m from Real Madrid, then a random number generator will generate 1 number from a flat distribution of numbers 1-176, with Barcelona winning the player if the generated number is between 1-100, Arsenal if 101-150, Tottenham Hotspur if 151-175, and Real Madrid if 176. Barcelona still has overwhelming odds to win Lionel Messi, but there is a very slim chance of Messi making a "shock move" to Real Madrid.
4. For players on other teams: this will basically be "trading" in the common sense. A team may submit an offer to another team for a player. This offer may include transfer money and players from the team's own squad. If the two owners are in agreement, send the commissioner a message for the transaction to be posted. Offers involving transfer money may only be allowed during the summer transfer window. In each transfer window, each team will be given 2 ?trades? to exchange money and players. You may not trade picks.

Once you run out of transfer money, you may not submit more bids to free agents until you have received more money from a trade. At the end of the summer transfer window, if you happen to have transfer money leftover, you may store 10% of the leftover money in the "transfer bank" to use for next season's summer transfer window. So you are advised to spend money and improve your team as much as possible each offseason.

4.3 Where does this transfer money come from? How does this work?
Each offseason, each team will receive a certain amount of transfer money depending on the team's "revenue" from the past season. This includes:

-Broadcasting/Merchandise/Sponsorship money (aka Base Money; all teams in each league receive a certain amount of money from the this; L1 teams will receive more money than L2 teams)
-League finish bonus (each team in each league will receive money depending on where they finished in the league table)
-FA Cup finish bonus (same logic as above)
-Club World Cup finish bonus (same logic as above; only available for the CWC years)
-Promotion/relegation: promoted teams will receive a bonus for being promoted, while relegated teams will be penalized.
-Club goals: 3 goals will be assigned to each club to be completed by the end of the season, with varying amounts of money for each goal. If you complete the goal, you get the money. If you don't, you lose the money.

Detailed look at the actual numbers will be presented below (need to work on this; just a rough estimate now):

SL base money: $100M
L2 base money: $70M
SL finish bonus (10th -> 1st): $0M $0M $0M $13M $14M $15M $16M $17M $18M $19M
L2 finish bonus (10th -> 1st): $4M $5M $6M $7M $8M $9M $10M $11M $12M $13M
FA Cup finish bonus (1st round -> Final): $0M $0M $1M $2M $3M $5M $5M (runners up) $7M (winners)
Club World Cup (group stage, 1st rnd, 2nd rnd, semis, Final): $0M $11M $15M $19M $19M (runners up) $25M (winners)
Promotion: +$20M
Relegation: -$20M
Club Goals (easy/medium/hard): +/-$5M, +/- $8M, +/-$11M (maybe only the teams in the first division can have deductions?)

4.5 Draft
We will also have a "Recycle Draft" in each offseason, where some random proportion of the players who are recycled will be available for the draft. The exact number per each position will be worked out later. Players who aren't picked in the draft will join the rest of the recycled players to be bid on during the Summer Transfer Window. There will be 3 rounds, where each round will be in the order of worst to best finishes in the previous season: 1. L2 10th, 2. L2 9th, ...., 10. L2 1st, 11. SL 10th, ...., 20. SL 1st.

4.6 Trading
You may trade players and transfer money, but not picks. In each transfer window, each team will be given 2 ?trades? to exchange money and players. You may not trade picks. This is to ensure that bottom dwelling L2 teams will see a basic influx of talent through their team each year. Trades must be reasonable and with good rationale. Any trade deemed suspicious will see a league office investigation.


5. Club Owner Goals and Expectations
Your goals as a club owner should include:
-Finishing as high on the table as possible each regular season
-Finishing as far as possible each FA cup
-Earning promotion to/staying up in the PCSL
-Build and maintain a competitive squad for each season
-Build your squad to be extremely competitive during Club World Cup years
-Win the Club World Cup
-Most importantly, to be engaged and have fun among the owners!

To reach these goals, we expect you to be:
-Putting forth the best lineup each and every game
-Drafting and bidding with a strategy
-Staying extremely active in transfer windows
-Praying that your transfer targets like your team (a la random dice rolls)
-Having a short term and long term plan to seize the next CWC glory

There are unique perks to the league which will make a lot of strategies possible. If I had to choose one thing to focus the most on, it would be to develop an impeccable bidding strategy, because that will likely dictate the direction of your team for seasons to come.

6. Miscellaneous Rules

6.1 Will there be rule changes?
Each offseason, every owner may submit potential tweaks to the rule to be reviewed by the league office. If the office members deem the tweaks to be reasonable, then we will gather the league vote on the tweaks. 16 votes out of 20 will see the tweak be implemented in the rules for the upcoming season and beyond.

6.2 Will there be stories?
Indeed there will be. We are thinking of designating random injuries/suspensions and coupling them with on-field/off-field incidents (the occasions for these stories will be randomly determined at the start of the offseason), as well as stories like:

-"Alan Shearer's Team of the Week": each owner submits 1 position playing and 1 pitching team of the (IRL) week candidates to the league office (with their stats during the time; e.g. OF Lionel Messi: 70 AB/30 R/30 H/5 2B/0 3B/10 HR/10 BB/12 SB/5 D +/-; SP Kevin De Bruyne: 5W 2L 50 IP/10 ER/30 H/10 BB/60 K/1 CG) to have them considered for the Team of the Week lineup.
-"Peter Crouch's Notable Transfer Moves": this will cover all the notable transfer moves in each offseason, with some storylines and fake quotations.
-"Rio Ferdinand's Season Preview": it is what you expect.
-"Rebecca Lowe's Weekly Roundup": will cover a few exciting games per IRL week and write them a bit more in depth with some storylines.

We may "hire" a very invested, creative owner who will write up these kinds of short stories regularly. It doesn't have to be long.

6.3 hell yea?
HELL YEA

League Settings

Year Range of Stats	0 - 0
Roster Size (Majors)	25
Roster Size (Minors)	10
Keepers	(40 keepers)
Change Stats Allowed
Free Agency
Drops
No-Drop List
Player Fatigue
Batter Injuries	(50 games max)
Pitcher Injuries	(50 games max)
Use Pitcher's HR Allowed Stats
Allows Max Surprise Bunts
Min Batters Pitcher Must Face	0
Slump Buster
On Fire	Classic
User Sims	(every 6 hours)