Soccer Tournament September 2020 Rules

This page contains the rules of 4th Soccer Tournament, held mainly in August 2020. Please read them carefully.

The rules are not final and will be updated later.

Tournament structure

The tournament consists of several matches. If there are at most 6 participating teams, each two teams play exactly one match with each other.

If there are 8 teams, matches are grouped into Group stage and Knockout stage.

Group stage: Teams are divided into 2 groups (ABCD and EFGH), each two teams play exactly one match with each other. At the end all teams in a group are ranked according to the results of the matches.

Knockout stage: Top 2 teams from each group advance to knockout stage. Winning team from one group plays one match with the runner-up from another group. The winners of these two matches then play another match for first place, while the losers of these matches play a match for 3rd place.

Teams ranked 3rd and 4th in their groups play the same knockout stage between themselves but fighting for places 5-8. However, the match for 7th place is not obligatory and is held if both teams agree.

Group ranking

Teams are given points in their group: 3 points for winning a match, 1 point for match resulting in a draw, and 0 points for losing a match.

To obtain the group ranking, the following criteria are used (the next criterion is checked only if teams are equal according to all previous criteria):

• If a team has more points, it is ranked higher.
• If a team has bigger difference between the numbers of won and lost games, it is ranked higher.
• If a team has bigger difference between the numbers of scored and missed goals, it is ranked higher.
• If a team has bigger number of scored goals, it is ranked higher.
• If there are several (but not all) teams that are still equal, they are compared using the above criteria but counting only matches between those teams. This step is repeated several times until it fails to distinguish any new pair of teams.
• If two equal teams remain, the ranking between them is defined by organizers.

Match structure, arenas and colors

A group stage match always consists of 3 games, with 10 minutes time limit each:

• First game is played on Icy Soccer Field.
• Second game is played on an arena that is not Icy Soccer Field, selected by all players in-game.
• Third game is played on Icy Soccer Field.

During the first game, teams have colors specified beforehand (the first team in the game name is red, the second is blue). During the second and third games, teams have colors opposite to colors of first game.

A knockout match also consists of 3 games using the same rules as group stage match. However, as soon as the winner of the match is known, the match is terminated. In case a match finishes with a draw, another game on Icy Soccer Field is held, with limit 10 goals and same colors as during the first game. This fourth game decides the match result.

Players

Each team consists of 4 players. When creating the team, care was taken to ensure that all teams are approximately equally good. However, only 3 players from each team play in each game. The team should decide which players to use in which games. Of course, this can also depend on the availability of the player.

Substitutions

In case there is at least one team which has at most 2 members present, substitutions can be done. Players who will replace missing team members are taken first from the list of present substitutes, and then from other substitutes and other players present online.

If there is only one incomplete team with one or two players present, then two or one substitutions can be done if possible, so the team still has at most 3 players.

If both teams are incomplete and have 2 players each, then two cases are possible: * If there are at least 2 players ready to replace the missing ones, 2 players join the game and the match is played 3 vs 3 players. * Otherwise, the game is played 2 vs 2 players.

Otherwise, the match should be rescheduled, or one or both teams should receive a technical loss.

Server

Currently we are using a custom version of server, with soccer-tournament option enabled. The server typically looks like this.

List of hosting servers

There are two servers hosting tournament matches for now:

• Bretagne Tournament (not updated?)
• Frankfurt Tournament

We will update the list if other servers appear.

How to enter the server

To enter, one needs to use an official STK account and to have 3 official arenas (Icy Soccer Field, Soccer Field, Las Dunas Soccer Stadium) and one addon arena (Tournament Field). Please search the server in both public and private server lists.

Frankfurt specific information: if the server is private, anything can be entered as a password if a person is a player of any team, substitute, referee or organizer.

How to host a tournament server

Read this page.

Referee

Each match has one main referee and optionally other referees who must spectate the match. Main referee has a decisive vote among other referees if needed.

The area of referee's actions contains:

• Game start and match control: the referee should make sure the game is started only when all present players are ready to start. Referee can also assign (or not assign) substitutions in case there are less than 3 players in at least one of teams, in such a way that the number of active players in each team is the same at any moment. Referee should control the match in such a way that the rules are followed.
• Interrupting the game: in some cases listed below, a referee has to interrupt the game. In all other cases, a referee cannot interrupt the game.
  • An active player left the game and is not replaced immediately by a teammate: this means a player has technical problems.
  • An active player says publicly that he has severe lags using e.g. “STOP”.
  • An active player misbehaves severely enough.
  • Server technical problems of any kind.
  • Player(s) complaining on referees' decisions of the current match.

Referee can interrupt a game either calling everyone to go back to lobby and then resume the game/restart it from scratch, or making active players wait for some time and add this time to the end of the match (or play a shorter addition to the match). Referee can ask players to move to another server in case technical problems repeat. Referee can apply disciplinary punishments to players in case of misbehaviour (only). Referee also determines the result of an interrupted game.

In any way, referees are free to take appropriate decisions.

In-game replacements

Replacements are possible only between matches or due to major technical problems. A team should tell which of its members play before the start of each game, the remaining player (if any) spectates.

Rating

To win a match, a team should win the other team by the number of games (where the draw in any game is counted as 1-1 and a win is counted as 1-0). As stated here, the team winning the match gains 3 points into the tournament, the losing team gains 0, and in case of match draw both teams gain 1 point.

The games' count of the match (e.g. 1-2, 2-2, 3-0) is used in the Games column of the group stage and is not important during the knockout stage.

Referees' commands and players' actions

Before each game or game part referee should type /game X Y in the chat while X means the Xth game (the game with next number by default) and Y the time in minutes to be played (10 by default).

Once the start button is pressed, players will proceed to the selection screen, where they will be able to choose their karts and a valid soccer field for the game. Referees and spectators should stay in lobby (and quit from selection screen if it appears) until there is a possibility to spectate.

A referee can set a role to a person (including himself) using /role (role) (username). role can be one of R, B, J or S which corresponds to player of the first team, second team, referee and spectator respectively. Note that R doesn't mean the resulting color will be red!

Fair Play and Misbehaviour

All players and spectators should behave fairly and respectfully towards others. Misbehaviour includes things like insulting other players, the referee or the spectators, abusive spamming during the game, but also repeated public exclamations such as “Fuck”. If you want to complain about something (like a decision which was made), please say it in a gentle tone. However, if a player decides to misbehave, following actions can be taken:

Verbal warnings

The game's referee or the organizer can give a verbal warning to a player in the event of easier misbehavior. This should include the reason the player was warned and that the next misbehavior could result in worse punishment.

Yellow card

If a player is noticed several times or strongly negative, the referee (or the organizer) can show him a yellow card. The yellow card remains until the end of the tournament. A given yellow card will be checked by the tournament organizers after the match and can be withdrawn if it seems incorrect, or approved otherwise.

Exclusion from the tournament/Red card

If, even after being shown the yellow card and being warned several times verbally, a player still shows misbehavior, he may be excluded from the tournament (or banned/muted from tournament servers for the running tournament). Such an important decision is made only in extreme cases, and both referees of the match and organizers must agree to the exclusion/ban/mute.

Given cards

See List of infractions in Soccer Tournament August 2020.

If you think a player is misbehaving, please report it to the referee or organizers.