[FM23.4] Saudi Pro League

[themodelcitizen]

@ajoobah I have noticed it's slightly better after 8-10 years when the player pool is mostly newgens, Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr raid the smaller teams for 2-3 transfers every year which seems sustainable.

Running a test now with the big 4 clubs' rep slightly reduced and the top Saudi players all with rep slightly increased (but not CA)

Edited June 8, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[themodelcitizen]

That does seem to have made them start signing (existing) Saudi players after a season or two. Try this. (edit: link removed, check OP) If you don't see any other issues I'll make it the main download. Maybe we can achieve the same effect without lowering the club's reps... although Al-Hilal signed Koulibaly from Chelsea in the second season so the decrease doesn't seem to have hurt them too much

Edited June 8, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[X0X0]

Im sorry to popoo on your hard work but your Youth Teams in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE are wrong.

There should be a Saudi Reserve league and at least a under-19 league in Saudi Arabia. 

In Qatar is Reserve league and a 2nd division with no reserve teams.

In UAE there should be a under-21 league besides the 1st and 2nd divisions.

Could you please fix them.

Here´s proof:

 

[themodelcitizen]

Lovely, thanks, I've been looking for something like that, I'll update all three files over the next week or so

[themodelcitizen]

@X0X0 Did only 7 teams field reserve teams? https://www.saff.com.sa/en/championship.php?id=135&type=all#fixtures The existing version of my file has all the top division teams playing in the reserve league, I'll likely keep it that way (and add the U19s) as you have to imagine every top division team is invited.

Edited May 31, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[X0X0]

Here´s a complete list of all competitions. (at goalzz.com just select competitions - country - competitions). 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by X0X0

[ajoobah]

On 18/05/2023 at 08:00, themodelcitizen said:

That does seem to have made them start signing (existing) Saudi players after a season or two. Try this. If you don't see any other issues I'll make it the main download. Maybe we can achieve the same effect without lowering the club's reps... although Al-Hilal signed Koulibaly from Chelsea in the second season so the decrease doesn't seem to have hurt them too much

Hello again,

I might give this a go again in the coming weeks. I'm getting bored of playing in Europe

Thanks for your work

[X0X0]

As you can see your files are missing a couple of cup tournaments as well. 

I see you increased the Qatar foreign limit to 6 but you were right before about it being 5 as in 3 + 1 AFC + 1 UAFA.

Keep up the great work.

Cheers!

 

[themodelcitizen]

Which tournaments am I missing? A lot listed there are inactive and in some cases (Qatar FA Cup) have been explained in the thread, but I'm happy to add anything like that. Active results from this season/news stories are all I need. Sounds good with the 5 foreigners, is there plans to move ahead with 6 next season or anything? Can't remember where I saw that

[X0X0]

Em 02/06/2023 em 17:39, themodelcitizen disse:

Which tournaments am I missing? A lot listed there are inactive and in some cases (Qatar FA Cup) have been explained in the thread, but I'm happy to add anything like that. Active results from this season/news stories are all I need. Sounds good with the 5 foreigners, is there plans to move ahead with 6 next season or anything? Can't remember where I saw that

I didn't want to sound like i was demanding anything. If so i apologize. 

I just think that , at least, the Saudi League File can become as good as base FM 2023. The Qatar and UAE files are a little more complicated due to league rules and database limitations.

Just do what you think is best. You´re going for realism, i think, and you´re doing a great job. It is definitely missing from the FM Catalog a big money league outside Europe now that China has curb down on spending. I personally miss the challenge of setting up a team around 2 or 3 Super-Players while trying to hide my weaknesses (Man! I miss my Dalian Pro/Aebin saves!).

[themodelcitizen]

4 minutes ago, X0X0 said:

I didn't want to sound like i was demanding anything. If so i apologize. 

I just think that , at least, the Saudi League File can become as good as base FM 2023. The Qatar and UAE files are a little more complicated due to league rules and database limitations.

Just do what you think is best. You´re going for realism, i think, and you´re doing a great job. It is definitely missing from the FM Catalog a big money league outside Europe now that China has curb down on spending. I personally miss the challenge of setting up a team around 2 or 3 Super-Players while trying to hide my weaknesses (Man! I miss my Dalian Pro/Aebin saves!).

Not at all, I didn't mean to sound officious like that, just trying to get to the bottom of it. I meant to say that many of those websites still list competitions that haven't been played in a few years, so I'm always trying to stay as up-to-date as possible. And agreed, base-quality is the goal, in Qatar we have (mostly) managed to replicate the UAFA thing but UAE has the weird resident rule we can't fully copy. I was playing around with the Saudi U19s and couldn't get it to show up but I think I'm just missing something obvious, it will come to me.

Lol, very true with those fun saves, I used to always play MLS saves and put all of my faith in someone like Jermain Defoe or Sebastian Giovinco

[themodelcitizen]

Updated version with U19s posted in OP. @X0X0 @ajoobah Cheers for the feedback.

Will add an alternate version with the top Saudi players' reputations (not CA/PA) increased to try and account for the big clubs not keeping enough domestics on their roster, and will clean up the Qatar and UAE files with some updated information.

[themodelcitizen]

OK, here's a fix (backup) that should be loaded as a separate file. It adjusts the reputation of domestic players from the three Gulf leagues so that the big teams will hopefully sign and keep them more. @ajoobah first noted this issue.

The standard for players from playable countries seems to be that their reputation matches their CA, and their home reputation is even higher. For many non-playable countries, though, home player rep isn't higher, perhaps because it's not needed for domestic transfers. Now we do need that, so I've made some minor adjustments (mostly slight bumps to "home reputation") to a range of top players from Saudi, Qatar, and UAE.

[twister]

I wonder what would be the best way to emulate PIF fund's takeover of certain Saudi clubs and make them bring more prominent players through the years.

I've tried changing the club's ownership to Limited Lability Company (that's the correct way, right?) to simulate the fund takeover.

As for bringing high reputation players, i've added the objective for the  chairmen of theseclubs to "Sign high-reputation players"

After a few simulated seasons i've seen a slight increase in high quality players coming to Saudi league after this, but not to the level i wanted it to be (Benzema and Ronaldo for example.)

I wonder if maybe adding some more objectives like Become the most reputable in continent/world and maybe Spend the initial transfer budget (I'm uncertain about how this works).

[themodelcitizen]

It's difficult to perfectly simulate the "sign stars but also a bunch of local bums" strategy, they've had trouble making MLS realistically sign DPs as well (for example it's hard to program the combination of factors like lifestyle and Latin culture in Miami that allowed Messi to join while the league's "average" transfer target is much, much lower in stature). Similarly, Muslim players seem more at home joining clubs in Turkey and the Gulf but there's no value in the editor for that.

Those are good ideas so far though, what are the other ownership types again? You could also go in "sponsors" and give them all like a recurring 100m payment every year as a "government grant". Maybe go to some existing stars and give them the "career goal" of playing in the SPL. Not entirely realistic, but would simulate the special appeal ($$$) of the region

[X0X0]

Great work! 

Edited June 11, 2023 by X0X0

[WatsonFM]

Hello, your archives are very good, do you have any plans to update the clubs that were promoted in your archives? i tried for personal use but due to the change in the number of teams it gave error

and an extra question, do you have any plans to tinker with concacaf? and sad not to have an archive that corrects the competitions on this continent.

Edited June 11, 2023 by WatsonFM

[themodelcitizen]

Now that it's summer here I don't think I have the energy to fix CONCACAF, it's my home but SI really screwed us with all the issues (that we kept raising in the bugs forum and they ignored us). Promoted/relegated teams are a good idea, along with transfers like Benzema. I'll work on that next week

[themodelcitizen]

What do you guys like for the new transfers like Benzema and if these Chelsea outgoing player deals go through? i.e., should we have Benzema at Al-Ittihad as a future transfer, or there from the game start? I'll be too lazy to maintain two separate versions so will just go with what people prefer

[Arla2002]

10 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

What do you guys like for the new transfers like Benzema and if these Chelsea outgoing player deals go through? i.e., should we have Benzema at Al-Ittihad as a future transfer, or there from the game start? I'll be too lazy to maintain two separate versions so will just go with what people prefer

I would say future transfer with the correct date. More realistic tbh.

[ajoobah]

13 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

What do you guys like for the new transfers like Benzema and if these Chelsea outgoing player deals go through? i.e., should we have Benzema at Al-Ittihad as a future transfer, or there from the game start? I'll be too lazy to maintain two separate versions so will just go with what people prefer

I'm for future transfer for the likes of confirmed transfer like Benzema. In that case you might have to look at outgoing players leaving by the end of contracts. Like Ighalo just left Al-Hilal. So that Al-Hilal don't suddenly have 12 foreigners :-) Aboubakar was moved on when Ronaldo joined Al Nassr.

Note: I'm playing in the UAE update. Works great. Subs rules is wrong though: I'm sure they have 5 subs just like rest of the world. Its only 3 in the game. Besides that it works well. I don't know if they have VAR - in the game they have not but it makes it better :-)

In the 2 cups, ADIB Cup and President Cup away goals are used in two legged games. Is that right? Its not a problem for me though

Edited June 19, 2023 by ajoobah

[themodelcitizen]

3 minutes ago, ajoobah said:

I'm for future transfer for the likes of confirmed transfer like Benzema. In that case you might have to look at outgoing players leaving by the end of contracts. Like Ighalo just left Al-Hilal. So that Al-Hilal don't suddenly have 12 foreigners :-) Aboubakar was moved on when Ronaldo joined Al Nassr.

Note: I'm playing in the UAE update. Works great. Subs rules is wrong though: I'm sure they have 5 subs just like rest of the world. Its only 3 in the game. Besides that it works well. I don't know if they have VAR - in the game they have not but it makes it better :-)

In the 2 cups, ADIB Cup and President Cup away goals are used in two legged games. Is that right? Its not a problem for me though

Future transfers it is for now, I've added Benzema and will try to stay on top of other big names (Ruben Neves, Kante etc when they get confirmed).

I may not get into the nitty-gritty of setting guys like Ighalo to "leave club at end of contract" so you'll have to manage the squad yourself heh, thanks for the info on UAE, I'll reply more fulsomely in that thread

[themodelcitizen]

While we wait on some transfer deals to go through, here's an alternate version where the rumoured Chelsea transfers - N'Golo Kante, Ziyech, Koulibaly and Edouard Mendy - are all set to join their proposed Saudi clubs after the first season: (edit: link removed, main download is up to date)

Edited July 2, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[Jorgen]

18 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

What do you guys like for the new transfers like Benzema and if these Chelsea outgoing player deals go through? i.e., should we have Benzema at Al-Ittihad as a future transfer, or there from the game start? I'll be too lazy to maintain two separate versions so will just go with what people prefer

As I already use a very good transfer update, it would be a double for me. Couldn't that be a recipe for issues?

[themodelcitizen]

Can't imagine there would be any issues. If they've also set it as a future transfer, the only difference might be the guesstimated wage, and then the last file alphabetically (or maybe first, can't remember) would take precedence. If one of the two files set it as an existing transfer instead of future transfer, then the future transfer (to the same club) just wouldn't apply

[Jorgen]

I think they set it up as a direct transfer. It's the Susie Live Update btw. which is updated daily.

[themodelcitizen]

Shouldn't be any conflicts then. He'll just be there from game start.

@WatsonFM I realized that doing the promoted/relegated teams a year early won't work, as they're increasing the number of teams in the league next season, for now I'd rather keep it realistic anyway. Upping the number of teams one year early to give you the right team list for 2023/24 one year early would cause issues elsewhere, including with fixture pile-up. You could "swap" the bottom two for the top two from the second division but obviously you're missing the other two promoted teams this summer in that case.

I've also gone through and changed some of the domestic transfer and wage values for the three Gulf countries in the player rep file, this should help with getting domestic players signed more frequently. Let me know if you notice any differences in transfer activity like ajoobah and I were discussing above.

 

[WatsonFM]

Em 20/06/2023 em 16:03, themodelcitizen disse:

Shouldn't be any conflicts then. He'll just be there from game start.

@WatsonFM I realized that doing the promoted/relegated teams a year early won't work, as they're increasing the number of teams in the league next season, for now I'd rather keep it realistic anyway. Upping the number of teams one year early to give you the right team list for 2023/24 one year early would cause issues elsewhere, including with fixture pile-up. You could "swap" the bottom two for the top two from the second division but obviously you're missing the other two promoted teams this summer in that case.

I've also gone through and changed some of the domestic transfer and wage values for the three Gulf countries in the player rep file, this should help with getting domestic players signed more frequently. Let me know if you notice any differences in transfer activity like ajoobah and I were discussing above.

 

No problem, I imagine it is boring to have to change everything, I tried for personal use and could not, but your file is very good, one detail about qatar I noticed in my save that the league decreased the clubs from one year to another, but I think this change did not occur in real life, if you can take a look, Thanks.

[themodelcitizen]

1 hour ago, WatsonFM said:

No problem, I imagine it is boring to have to change everything, I tried for personal use and could not, but your file is very good, one detail about qatar I noticed in my save that the league decreased the clubs from one year to another, but I think this change did not occur in real life, if you can take a look, Thanks.

Yeah we're just discussing that in the Qatar thread. They were set to drop to 10 teams, but in March they announced this would be "postponed" so I'll make it so 2023/24 keeps 12 teams for one extra season. Just need to make sure the scheduling, cups etc all work

[Joedw]

Great work on this mate.

Are you in the process or intending to remove foreign player limitations? Or is this something we can do in the pre-game editor?

[themodelcitizen]

Have they announced anything like that? You have to imagine it will go up from 8 players. As soon as there's something official I'll implement it for 2023/24. But someone else asked on Steam about the same thing, so I made it so the "with transfers" version has it up to 9 from next season I think.

In the meantime, if you go to the pre game editor, load this file, click "advanced rules" under "menu" on the top left, and under the drop-down for "Saudi Arabia" on the bottom left you can click "fixture rules". Under that drop-down, "Rules 0" (the first one) applies to the top league. You could go into "Squad Selection Rules" and change both "foreign players in squad" (applies to registration) and "foreign players in match squad" (applies to gameday squad) to something higher than 8. You can see there the "foreign players in playing 11" was set to 7 but is ending this summer anyway (last year = 2022, i.e. the 2022/23 season). Then go to "Rules" at the top of the screen, "Test Rules" for all divisions, then when it's finished it will be verified and you can save the database again (maybe under a different name) and proceed to play with it instead of my version

Edited June 26, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[themodelcitizen]

I've also made some slight adjustments for next season's scheduling based on what we know so far (not much), and added some of the new transfers like Koulibaly and Mendy. As above, as soon as there's official confirmation - in this case, a shot of the player holding a jersey with an air conditioner blasting loudly somewhere nearby - I've included it in the file as soon as I'm back on my laptop.

EDIT: Pan Arab Games added to the Arab U20 file, they were announced back in March. Even more youth tournaments for Saudi Arabia, who seem to have a bazillion competitions with all of my international files

Edited July 2, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[themodelcitizen]

Al-Hilal released their new kits today, you can add these (download link) to whatever kit pack you're using (back up the old ones first):

I've gone through and added some manager moves as well, all the big names like Luiz Castro, Jorge Jesus, and... Robbie Fowler!!

Edited July 2, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[themodelcitizen]

Getting good feedback on the player rep fix file, and my own testing had the big clubs usually topping up their roster with a couple of decent domestics every off-season. Looks promising. Always make sure to load all players from Saudi as well, in fact just click every checkbox there (players based in nation, etc). Same with Qatar/UAE if you're playing there, and you can consider adding West Asian and North African international players for the Qatar UAFA rule and other local targets.

Also updated the graphics pack to include Al-Tai's new logo. Lots of people asking for Al-Ahli to be bumped straight into the first division but this is realistic to 2022/23 and then the game takes over, plus the different number of teams makes it difficult. There were 4 teams promoted anyway so you should be fine!!

[verazmuhammadmasri]

I'm trying to make a similar one for the Indonesian league but how can I make the big players move here" I raised their budget and reputation but they still won't come.

[themodelcitizen]

There's a thread in the main editors hideaway where @Wolf_pd shared some ideas for making Arab clubs buy bigger names, you could try to apply it to Indonesia. Adjusting their "transfer preferences", sponsorship income, and adding a supporter objective to sign high-rep players would be a start 

 

 

[themodelcitizen]

Been updating the file with confirmed transfers, so no J-Hendo yet, and just now with the new roster rules coming into force over the next couple of seasons.

Even if SI get the Saudi Pro League into FM24, I doubt it will have this level of detail!

Edited July 19, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[Wolf_pd]

13 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

Been updating the file with confirmed transfers, so no J-Hendo yet, and just now with the new roster rules coming into force over the next couple of seasons.

Even if SI get the Saudi Pro League into FM24, I doubt it will have this level of detail!

Make sure to tell them that

[themodelcitizen]

I made some changes to the 2023/24 calendar to reflect what they've announced in real life, but not fully - stuff like international breaks and Champions League dates are already hard-baked into the game and we have to plan around them. Season start and end dates will be (mostly) true-to-life, along with the new cup format.

Cheers to realsport101.com for featuring the DB on their recent article, the upvotes on Steam definitely helped bring this to the fore!

Edited July 25, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[themodelcitizen]

Updated with some new signings, awards, cleaned up the dates, etc.

I hated simming ahead and seeing situations mid-season where one team has played, like, 19 games, and another 15. The game does catch them up, but it's annoying.

I've painstakingly sorted the calendars in all three Gulf leagues over a 4-season cycle now to hopefully avoid any clashes with domestic cups or continental games. I've done my best to schedule around the various international comps as well, but hosting/going deep in the Club World Cup may cause you to fall behind a fixture and catch up later (this is realistic).

Also fixed a glitch from one of the recent edits where the 2028/29 season in Qatar wasn't finishing properly if multiple teams went deep in Asia and the cups. New season there means new roster rules and new prize money -  nothing like the Saudi investment, obviously, but from simming ahead the Qatari and Emirati clubs have no problems making 10M+ pound signings of their own in the future

[themodelcitizen]

And here's Al-Ittihad's new kits, you can pop them in your existing kits folder like the Al-Hilal ones above:

DOWNLOAD

Spoiler

I was able to get permission from the creator at the link above to re-size them and post them here.

Tempted to work on a version of the DB where it's 18 teams straight away with all the new signings and roster rules, anyone have any thoughts? I guess you can just get one of the transfer update files on this forum if you want all the new signings in 2022

[themodelcitizen]

Here's Al-Hilal transfer history for the first 6 years with their finances/objectives bumped up, and the Gulf Player Reputation Fix file:

Spoiler

Not sure what happened in 2024, I guess they had to clear out what the AI considered a bloated squad. But it's great to see them spending so much money in the rest of the windows. Lol at Lukaku joining on a free in 2026.

They could use one or two more signings of a Saudi player aged 25+ every couple of years, or less of a clear-out, so I'll bump up that Supporter Objective.  Al-Ittihad transfer activity for the first few years after 2023:

Spoiler

Saudi Pro League and ACL history:

Spoiler

[Liffa]

On 12/08/2023 at 23:50, themodelcitizen said:

Here's Al-Hilal transfer history for the first 6 years with their finances/objectives bumped up, and the Gulf Player Reputation Fix file:

  Reveal hidden contents

Not sure what happened in 2024, I guess they had to clear out what the AI considered a bloated squad. But it's great to see them spending so much money in the rest of the windows. Lol at Lukaku joining on a free in 2026.

They could use one or two more signings of a Saudi player aged 25+ every couple of years, or less of a clear-out, so I'll bump up that Supporter Objective.  Al-Ittihad transfer activity for the first few years after 2023:

  Reveal hidden contents

Saudi Pro League and ACL history:

  Reveal hidden contents

Love your work mate! One thing crossed my mind about transfer activity being slower the first year(s).

Noticed that many Saudi clubs are way over their wage budgets, like £500K per week. Might that cause the slow transfer activity until it adjusts?

Edited August 30, 2023 by Liffa

[themodelcitizen]

Good point, I just scrapped the "remaining wage budget" entry from the rich teams and will run a test now to see if it helps. Teams like Real Madrid have that blank so it can't be that important, the game will figure out a new number by itself (hopefully increased due to all the money we have coming in now)

Still updating this and the other Gulf files until the window closes, then I'll get my own long-term save going. Let me know if anyone spots anything else that could use improvement.

Oh yeah, to get Iniesta moving to UAE use this file

Edited August 30, 2023 by themodelcitizen

[Vakama2619]

Just noticed that theres only a January transfer window for me in the Saudi Second tier, idk if it happens in the first tier or not

Edited September 4, 2023 by Vakama2619

[themodelcitizen]

What year is that? Someone pointed out some weird multi-player glitch with the transfer windows so I fixed that, I think the newest version should have them all working

[Vakama2619]

2 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

What year is that? Someone pointed out some weird multi-player glitch with the transfer windows so I fixed that, I think the newest version should have them all working

2023

[themodelcitizen]

So if you go to "Rules" for "next season" in the first season, the 2023 summer window doesn't show up in the list of windows (not sure why) but when you're closer to the date it's definitely there and working:

Spoiler

[themodelcitizen]

Now that the transfer window has SLAMMED shut, this has been updated with the latest deadline day deals. Not sure what was going on with that (visual?) glitch some people noted after a recent update, it's working now:

Spoiler

Don't expect any more big changes unless anyone else notices something off. Also try my international files, nice expansion to the Arab world here.

[ajoobah]

Hi themodelcitizen,

I have not played this Saudi league for a while - was waiting until the transfer window was closed. I've noticed a small error:

If you look at Al-Fateh and Al-Adalah under 'planned infrastructure changes' it reads "due to complete...... change works on 1/1/1900"

One more thing. Wouldn't have been smarter that all transfers went through on 1/7-2023? So that for instance the clubs didn't buy anymore players in between the first and the last transfers (some in late august and september)? It would also be beneficial for the selling clubs in terms of lower wage budget from 1/7 and not in late august/september?

Edited September 12, 2023 by ajoobah