SoccerProject
Encyclopedia
SoccerProject is a browser-based online
, football
management game (MMOG
) developed in Belgium and first released in 2004.
Comprising teams from 241 different nation
s and available in 24 language
s, the game is played by around 40,000 users.
The game itself is free of charge, but users may purchase a SoccerProject Football Association membership to gain access to extra features.
As with any normal management game, users gain control over their team, both economically
and tactically. Once a user registers for the game, s/he takes over a previously-vacated team (controlled by the AI
), which then gets reset (a new set of players is generated, bearing the nationality the user chose to represent, budget and stadium size are reset to the basic default) and gets to name it, alongside the stadium. As the game progresses, and in order to achieve their goals, managers must learn to choose the ideal line-ups for matches, embark on the transfer market buying and selling players, improve their stadium
and facilities, always keeping an eye on the finances and staff.
As such, the game is based on one sole league pyramid
, compressing divisions labelled by letters, from A to H, with A being the highest. With every step in the ladder, the number of leagues triples - i.e. there is one league in Division A, three in Division B, nine in Division C, and so forth. The winner of Division A is considered the 'winner' of that SoccerProject season.
Leagues in SoccerProject are contested by 16 teams. After league play is concluded, the top two teams are promoted
to the higher division and the six bottom teams are relegated to the lower division (except, of course, the ones in, respectively, Divisions A and H).
Even with this organization model, some large enough communities will hold their own 'national championships'. A significant number of users will arrange friendly matches between their teams and the results, after being tallied, will return the unofficial 'national champion'.
. Cup rounds take place on Wednesdays and Saturdays, until the final week of every season, where the last five rounds take place.
As the game was originally started by Belgian users, it is not unnatural that, at the beginning, most of the top teams have come from there. In fact, Belgian teams dominated the Division A and the SP Cup during its early years (see box on the left). However, with the surge of new managers from a wider array of nations, this has become less and less so.
League and Cup games are played at 04:00 (CET
and server time). It is not possible for users to log in while the games are being played. During the course of the day, there are four other time slots, during which teams may, if they choose so, play friendly matches or tournaments.
Alongside these competitions, the community organizes other, unofficial, tournaments. The two best-known and most sought-after are the SoccerProject Champions League (SPCL) and the SoccerProject UEFA Cup (SPUC) (despite the name, teams from nations not affiliated with UEFA
are also permitted to take part). The national coordinators of every interested nation nominate a number of teams (which varies depending on past results) to represent their nation in the competition. Teams in Divisions A, B and C take part in the SPCL; teams from other divisions take part in the SPUC. These competitions are sponsored by the Lithuanian SoccerProject community, which pays for a SPFA subscription for the winning managers.
costs and other expenses, SoccerProject allows its users to support the game financially, and become virtual members of the SoccerProject Football Association. Such will not improve the quality of the team or make it perform better, but it will make the gaming experience more enjoyable. Those features include getting rid of publicitary ads
, assigning nicknames and choosing squad numbers for players, issuing press announcements, getting a trophy cabinet, and more.
, which now boasts 11000+ users. Other nations with a considerable amount of users within the game, and with a heavy presence within the SP community, include Romania
, Slovakia
, Poland
, Lithuania
and The Netherlands. Occasionally (often once every year) users from those nations will organize national meetings and reunite.
Online game
An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
, football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
management game (MMOG
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
) developed in Belgium and first released in 2004.
Comprising teams from 241 different nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
s and available in 24 language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s, the game is played by around 40,000 users.
The game itself is free of charge, but users may purchase a SoccerProject Football Association membership to gain access to extra features.
Game overview
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
and tactically. Once a user registers for the game, s/he takes over a previously-vacated team (controlled by the AI
Ai
AI, A.I., Ai, or ai may refer to:- Computers :* Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science* Ad impression, in online advertising* .ai, the ISO Internet 2-letter country code for Anguilla...
), which then gets reset (a new set of players is generated, bearing the nationality the user chose to represent, budget and stadium size are reset to the basic default) and gets to name it, alongside the stadium. As the game progresses, and in order to achieve their goals, managers must learn to choose the ideal line-ups for matches, embark on the transfer market buying and selling players, improve their stadium
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
and facilities, always keeping an eye on the finances and staff.
Game structure
| Historical Division A and SP Cup Winners | ||
| Season | Division A Winner | Sp Cup Winner |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Belgium Ketoak |
Belgium sparta kolmont |
| 2 | Belgium Heidebloem |
Belgium La Gantoise |
| 3 | Belgium Racing Brugge |
Belgium RacingFC |
| 4 | Belgium ReesingGenk |
Belgium fc Italia |
| 5 | Belgium fb2004 |
Belgium maluyaca |
| 6 | Belgium fb2004 |
 Netherlands FC CRISIS |
| 7 | Belgium maluyaca |
Belgium maluyaca |
| 8 | Belgium fb2004 |
 United Kingdom Beringen United |
| 9 | Belgium The Naked Chef |
Belgium Mado |
| 10 | Belgium Teefjes Vrolijke 11 |
Belgium FC Bruggenhof |
| 11 | Belgium Mado |
team#SoaD |
| 12 | Belgium Teefjes Vrolijke 11 |
Belgium Westel |
| 13 | FC Bruggenhof |
Westel |
| 14 | Nop's Heroes |
 SLB Carcavelos |
| 15 | kfc de pomp |
Verbroedering Robbeke |
| 16 | AS Vlalex |
Nespereira |
| 17 |  Maccbi Natanya |
Maccbi Natanya |
| 18 | Maccbi Natanya |
Verbroedering Robbeke |
| 19 | The Skunks |
Nop's Heroes |
| 20 | The Skunks |
Nop's Heroes |
| 21 | The Skunks |
S.A.T |
| 22 |  Frrfrrr |
AS Bosman |
| 23 | Frrfrrr |
S.A.T |
| 24 |  FC Inter Milano |
 cartus |
| 25 | S.A.T |
FC Inter Milano |
| 26 | S.A.T |
.The Simpsons. |
| 27 | S.A.T |
De Zoeloe's |
| 28 | Juvenardus FC |
Bunicii |
| 29 | Bunicii |
 Lion Team |
| 30 | De Zoeloe's |
FC Widlaks |
| 31 | FC Widlaks |
TJ Spartak Medzilaborce |
| 32 | FC Widlaks |
u utd |
| 33 | FC Widlaks |
Sokol Čejč |
| 34 | FC Widlaks |
fc bruges |
| 35 | FC Widlaks |
Fresh |
| 36 | FC Strakapůd |
FC Inter Milano |
| 37 | FC JEREMY |
FC Inter Milano |
| 38 | FC JEREMY |
FC Inter Milano |
| 39 | fc mac |
FC Inter Milano |
Divisional organization
Unlike other games of its genre, in SoccerProject teams are not assigned to leagues only with teams from their own nation. Rather, to accommodate nations with a small number of managers, and to avoid having the problem of having to refuse managers from one determinate nation due to lack of space, the leagues in SoccerProject are global. That is, teams from all nations compete directly with one another.As such, the game is based on one sole league pyramid
League system
A league system is a hierarchy of leagues in a sport, usually with a system of promotion and relegation between consecutive levels of the hierarchy. They are often called pyramids due to their tendency to split into an increasing number of regional divisions the further down the pyramid one descends...
, compressing divisions labelled by letters, from A to H, with A being the highest. With every step in the ladder, the number of leagues triples - i.e. there is one league in Division A, three in Division B, nine in Division C, and so forth. The winner of Division A is considered the 'winner' of that SoccerProject season.
Leagues in SoccerProject are contested by 16 teams. After league play is concluded, the top two teams are promoted
Promotion and relegation
In many sports leagues around the world, promotion and relegation is a process that takes place at the end of each season. Through it, teams are transferred between divisions based on their performance that season...
to the higher division and the six bottom teams are relegated to the lower division (except, of course, the ones in, respectively, Divisions A and H).
Even with this organization model, some large enough communities will hold their own 'national championships'. A significant number of users will arrange friendly matches between their teams and the results, after being tallied, will return the unofficial 'national champion'.
The season
SoccerProject presents itself as a heavy-paced game, when compared to others. A full season (or, within the game, a year) lasts only nine weeks. All leagues within the game consist of sixteen teams, all playing each other twice during the course of the season, rendering a total of 30 league games per season for every team. League games are played on every weekday, except Wednesdays, which means a league season is finished after eight weeks. Additionally, a SoccerProject Cup is played. In it, all human-controlled teams take part, and works as a single-elimination tournamentSingle-elimination tournament
A single-elimination tournament, also called a knockout, cup or sudden death tournament, is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match or bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event...
. Cup rounds take place on Wednesdays and Saturdays, until the final week of every season, where the last five rounds take place.
As the game was originally started by Belgian users, it is not unnatural that, at the beginning, most of the top teams have come from there. In fact, Belgian teams dominated the Division A and the SP Cup during its early years (see box on the left). However, with the surge of new managers from a wider array of nations, this has become less and less so.
League and Cup games are played at 04:00 (CET
Central European Time
Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...
and server time). It is not possible for users to log in while the games are being played. During the course of the day, there are four other time slots, during which teams may, if they choose so, play friendly matches or tournaments.
Alongside these competitions, the community organizes other, unofficial, tournaments. The two best-known and most sought-after are the SoccerProject Champions League (SPCL) and the SoccerProject UEFA Cup (SPUC) (despite the name, teams from nations not affiliated with UEFA
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
are also permitted to take part). The national coordinators of every interested nation nominate a number of teams (which varies depending on past results) to represent their nation in the competition. Teams in Divisions A, B and C take part in the SPCL; teams from other divisions take part in the SPUC. These competitions are sponsored by the Lithuanian SoccerProject community, which pays for a SPFA subscription for the winning managers.
Roles within the game
It is possible to encounter several roles within the game, on various levels. Users in these positions are, like other users, in control of their own team.- Sheriffs – these deal with cheating accusations, and will decide on which punishments to give to users who violate the game rules.
- Beta Testers – these assist the programmers, providing feedback on possible new features before they are implemented in the proper game
- Translators – vowing to attract people from a greater amount of nations, users may voluntary as translators, translating the game into their own language. Currently it is available in 24 different languages, with almost as many others in phase of translating.
- Moderators – who are in control of their national forums, and make sure all communications within them adhere to the forum rules.
- National Coordinators – are in charge of selecting which teams from their nations enter the SoccerProject Champions League and the SoccerProject UEFA Cup
SoccerProject Football Association
In order to counter serverServer (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
costs and other expenses, SoccerProject allows its users to support the game financially, and become virtual members of the SoccerProject Football Association. Such will not improve the quality of the team or make it perform better, but it will make the gaming experience more enjoyable. Those features include getting rid of publicitary ads
Online advertising
Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web to deliver marketing messages to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, blogs, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, interstitial...
, assigning nicknames and choosing squad numbers for players, issuing press announcements, getting a trophy cabinet, and more.
The community
Being first released in Belgium, the game's initial user base came from there. For a long time, this had been the largest nation in terms of registered managers, until being surpassed by the Czech RepublicCzech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, which now boasts 11000+ users. Other nations with a considerable amount of users within the game, and with a heavy presence within the SP community, include Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
and The Netherlands. Occasionally (often once every year) users from those nations will organize national meetings and reunite.