Rules - Game structure

Mystify Soccer currently has 528 teams spread throughout 10 countries.

Leagues

Each country has between 2 and 6 divisions of 16 teams.

During a season of 30 weeks each team plays each other team in it's division twice - once at home and once away.

3 points are awarded for a win and 1 point is awarded for a draw. The league tables are decided by points followed by goal difference and, finally, goals scored.

At the end of the season, teams are promoted and relegated accordingly (if there is a division to go into). The promotion and relegation positions are shown on each league table.

European competitions

Each country also has European places up for grabs:

• The top two teams in each country will go into the European cup
• Teams finishing 3rd to 10th inclusive will go into the Europa cup.

Each of the European competitions has a two-legged qualifying round. The European cup qualifying round is competed between the 8 teams who had the lowest points tally to finish in 2nd place of their respective country. The losers of this qualifying round enter the first round of the Europa cup whilst the winners progress to round one of the European cup. The Europa cup qualification round is between the teams who finished 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th in the league. Only the winners go through to round one of the Europa cup.

The first round of the European cup contains 16 teams split into 4 groups. After the teams have played their other group opponents (home and away) the top 2 from the group go into round 2, where there will be 2 groups of 4. After these group matches have been played there are 2 semi finals and a final all played on neutral grounds.

The Europa cup is a straight knockout competition with each game played over 2 legs, apart from the final which is played at a neutral venue.

In both the European cup and Europa cup competitions, any match played over 2 legs will use extra time in the second leg to decide the winner, if required. If extra time fails to produce a winner then a penalty shoot out will take place to decide the winner.

National cup cometitions

Each country also has a national cup competition for every team playing in that particular country. All these cup tournaments are knockout competitions with the semi-finals and final played at neutral venues.

National cup matches do not go to replays. If both teams are level on goals after 90 minutes then 30 minutes extra time is played. If the scores are still level then the result is decided by a penalty shoot out.

All cup matches are played in midweek.