Paradiso – Football Manager 2022 Fantasy Database

Do you remember the FM21 Bordovia database? Today we give you the unique chance to take on a Football Manager experience like no other! Welcome to the fictional nation of Paradiso – a brand new Football Manager 2022 Fantasy Database taken place in the Caribbean.

Now, you’ll be able to get on a journey where you can build the nation of Isla Paradiso.

The Paradiso fantasy database for Football Manager 2022 is made up by hundreds of FM Community members and is one of the biggest database projects ever released! Below you can learn more about the Paradiso database, its background and a complete guide to the nation of Paradiso, and how to download the database files.

Enter the fictional world of Isla Paradiso – Download the brand new Football Manager 2022 fantasy database below.

”Welcome to the islands!”

A man with a big smile on his face reaches out his hand towards you. He introduces himself as “Lavernus Snelgrove, President of the FA”. Mr Snelgrove does not look one bit like what you had in mind, in fact he looks unlike any man you’ve met before. There’s something about his eyes that give you the feeling that he is not a man who is easily impressed, unless you’re an award winning swimsuit model, that is…

”Welcome to the newly established Paradiso Football Association” he says. Without awaiting your response, he continues.
”Our pride knows no boundaries and is only matched by our love for the game of football. This is surely the first step on a journey towards greatness and we are delighted that you want to play a part in this first chapter in our story of football!”

Close your eyes for a second and imagine that you are no longer a prisoner of everyday life. You are now on Paradiso, the islands where dreams come true! Can you hear the soothing tones of a distant steel drum? Can you feel the gentle island breeze caressing your sun-kissed face? Now, imagine the feeling of goosebumps on your skin when you hear songs to your honour, sung by a passionate stadium crowd. Imagine the burning sensation of pride that fills your soul when one of your Academy players dedicates his first cap for Paradiso to YOU! The man that made it all happen!

Now open your eyes. Are you in the mood? Are you feeling it? Not yet? Ok then, I guess it takes more than a little mental exercise to get your imagination up and running at full capacity. Let’s get the big guns out then. Go find a wheelbarrow full of sand and bring it home. Pour it out on the floor and unfold your best beach chair on top of it. Turn up the temperature between 5 and 10 degrees. Make yourself a Piña Colada, put on ” Best of Steel Drums of the Caribbean, Vol. 2” on your stereo, sit down and relax.

Do you feel like you’re on a tropical island now? Good, hold on to that feeling as I start telling you about Paradiso!

”So, what’s all this talk about Paradiso?” you might be asking yourself. If you’ve not followed the birth of the Paradiso FA on Twitch or Twitter, this question is certainly justified.

Paradiso is a fictitious nation, created as a home for a custom Football Manager 22 database. When the Paradiso project was started six months ago the aim was to create the most detailed and immersive custom FM database ever and to do it as a fun community project. Did we manage to achieve what we set out to do? Well, I guess the best way to find out is to download the database and start a save of your own! The time and effort spent on this project at least ensures that you’re in for a very enjoyable time if you choose to venture to the islands.

So, what is it that actually makes this database unique? I think it’s a combination of two things; the size of the database and the level of detail. To give you an idea of the size of the database, here are some numbers;

• 100 stadiums in 88 towns
• 104 clubs
• More than 7000 players
• More than 2500 non-players; including club owners, recruitment staff, coaching staff, journalists and agents
• Media sources on both the national and regional level
• Individual and team awards

All in all, there’s been more than 740k database changes made to create the Paradiso database.

The details don’t stop at the FM side of things though. No, the beauty of this database is that each club was created by members of the community; complete with logos, kits and lovely background stories. This has turned Paradiso into a vibrant nation, with a level of realism that will easily make you forget that it’s all made up!

That’s just a little teaser to raise your interest. Just scratching on the surface won’t do this island nation any justice though. We need to dig a little deeper.

The island nation of Paradiso

In short, Paradiso is a Caribbean island nation situated between Bermuda and the Azores. Situated in such a remote location that even Christopher Columbus managed to miss the islands on his journeys of exploration.

My vision of Paradiso

When I started creating the story of Paradiso, I envisioned the nation as a sort of mix between Jamaica and Cuba. Spanish and English influences intermixed. A melting pot of different forgotten and oppressed groups. A nation with many opposites but just as many possibilities. Poor but carefree, proud but corrupt. An island nation where the economy is weak but the spirit is strong.

The nation consists of the “main island” calledTurtle Island – the largest one and also home to the capital city Brendantown -, the medium sized Isla Sinoro, Joya del Mar, Swordfish Island and Isla Vue/Club Island and the smaller islands of Isla Libertad and Encabritado. There is also a small archipelago to the South of Joya del Mar, with islands of “lesser interest”.

History

The history is the nation’s biggest burden, and just like for all the other Caribbean nations it’s a history of colonization. For hundreds of years independent tribal communities spread over the smaller islands, while the bigger ones were home to more advanced societies with towns, docks and paved roads. That all stopped when the Europeans arrived. Fueled by rumours of abundant treasures, maybe even gold, the European superpowers of the past started a race for the islands. A race that eventually turned into war. Many of the islands were first colonized by the Spanish, then the English. The different islands were forced together into a nation, simply due to their relative closeness to each other and vast distance to any other signs of life. When no gold was found, the English used it as a dump for individuals they wanted to get rid of. Criminals, misfits, dissidents, you name it. They also offered other nations the possibility to send their hardened criminals to the islands, for a fee of course! This obviously created a nation filled with opposites and conflicts, inhabited by murderers, rapists, tax evaders and swindlers. Pirate bands ruled the seas and other bandits roamed the land.

The British Empire eventually grew tired of trying to keep the islands in order, which meant that the process to gain independence went unusually smooth. The common opinion among the people of Paradiso was that it was almost as if the British wanted to leave the islands! After gaining independence from the British Empire, Paradiso quickly turned into an unruly nuisance for the US, who in good old fashion supported a military coup d’etat and installed the military leader known as El Presidente who still rules Paradiso to this day. And then just left the nation to its own fate.

What about now?

The nation nowadays is either forgotten or simply ignored by most of the world and despised by the rest. Due to the lack of financial opportunities, few people have managed to leave the islands, but even fewer outsiders arrive. A distant island nation led by a military regime isn’t exactly your dream vacation destination, is it!? But even though the nation itself might be a laughing stock at best, the story of the people is a different one. Ah, the people! They might be poor. And forgotten. A people that time has left alone. But they have the drive and the passion to succeed. They just lack a unifying force and something to be proud of. The people of Paradiso long for a sport to unify them and make them believe!

That’s why the arrival of a game called ‘football’ – very similar to the game the locals play on the beaches – has become such a talking point on the islands. The ”national sport” of cricket has never been the sport of the people. The only reason everyone played it was because it’s been the only sport allowed on the island for ages! This ”football” on the other hand seems to be the perfect development of the game they’ve all loved to play on the beaches of Paradiso. Youngsters on the islands flock to it as an escape from the burdens of everyday life. Community groups start to form clubs. Teams from different immigrant populations and coastal towns all want to be represented. The government is keen to support it, but is disorganized and blighted by a culture of corruption.

However, El Presidente spots an opportunity to use this “football” as a key ingredient in his attempt to rebrand the island nation in the eyes of the world. He is certainly not a fool, El Presidente. A welcome cash injection from CONCACAF in the form of a “development grant” and the chance to use football to make the world associate the nation with something positive again. That sort of lucky combination doesn’t come often, does it!? Maybe this could even lure attract a tourist or two to come to the islands!?

And it’s against that backdrop you arrive. A pioneer manager with a sense of adventure, ready to manage a club in the historical inaugural season of organized football on the islands!

Football in Paradiso

Arriving as the first kick off ever is about to take place, this is the closest you’ll ever get to experience “the birth of football”. That this is a nation just about to start their football journey becomes very clear when you see the state of the clubs. The stadiums are small – some of them are basically a couple of benches next to a field – and the facilities can be described as basic only by the most kind-hearted of observers. Most of the players and staff are brand new to the game as well, so you can’t expect to find any global superstars on the islands. Therefore, it probably comes as a bit of a surprise to find a complete well thought-out league structure in place before the very first season!

League structure

There are four tiers in the Paradisian league structure, where the top two tiers consist of single nation-wide divisions with the tiers below divided into regionally divisions, forming a pyramid shape.

Liga Paradiso 1 and 2 are the top two tiers and also home to the clubs with the biggest (the least small) reputation. The 3rd tier is divided into a Western and an Eastern Conference and the 4th tier is divided even further into Island Leagues. All of the 104 clubs are represented within this league structure, as well as in a separate U20 league structure.

Cup competitions

When it comes to cups, Paradiso have found inspiration from a few different places. The seasons starts with regional cups, very much in the same fashion as Brazil with their State Championships. On the islands, every club in the region gets a chance to fight for fame, bragging rights and a bit of money, regardless of which division they’re in. There are eight of them, as shown in the image below.

That’s not all though. The winners of each regional cup also qualify for a domestic “Cup Winners Cup” called Jewel of the Islands, where even more fame, bragging rights and money are at stake!

Third and finally there’s a more conventional national cup too. All of the 104 clubs of the islands qualify for the President’s Cup, an FA Cup style knockout competition.

Continental competitions

The quest for fame and fortune doesn’t stop with the domestic competitions, even though Paradisian clubs will most likely struggle to make a mark on the continental scene, at least early on.

In fact, Paradisian clubs don’t even have the possibility to qualify for CONCACAF competitions in the regular database, since the nation of Turks & Caicos that was replaced to create Paradiso, doesn’t participate in continental competitions. The CONCACAF competitions in its IRL form also heavily favour the biggest nations in a way that doesn’t work in a small island nation’s favour. Therefore we have revamped the CONCACAF competitions, modelling them after their European counterparts. The new structure is two-tiered with a Champions League and a CONCACAF League, and uses a dynamic coefficient system for qualification like in Europe. This provides a much better foundation for a “Build a nation” save and is also overall a lot more fun!

Now that you’ve gotten to know the islands a bit and also know what to expect when it comes to competitions, it’s time to showcase a few of the clubs that you can manage. I really wish I could show you them all, but I’ll avoid that for two reasons. First of all, I don’t want to give away everything and kill your sense of exploration as you start your first save. Secondly, this post is already becoming quite a long one…

Clubs in Paradiso

As mentioned previously, there are 104 different clubs to manage in Paradiso. Even though they’re all brand new to the football scene, you can still find relative giants, potential powerhouses and youth development focused clubs among them. The most beautiful thing about these clubs though, is the fact that they have all been created people in the FM community. There has been so much time, effort and creativity put into these clubs that just a scroll through them puts a big smile on your face. Each club comes complete with facilities, rivalries, club culture and full senior and U20 squads. I’m gonna leave most of the exploring to you, but I thought I’d give you a little sample!

Club Tropicana FC

The first club is a bit unusual, to put it mildly. Created by FMLlaMa, Club Tropicana FC is a prison club that play their home games on the recreation yard of the Tropicana Maximum Security Penitentiary. Chief Warden Gladstone Dias founded the club in hopes of generating enough income to provide an extra meal per week for the inmates and maybe, just maybe, provide himself with a little bit of pocket money. Since all players are inmates, naturally the club cannot sign any players. In addition all players in the senior squad have future transfers agreed back to their home town clubs once their contracts are up, I mean their sentences have been served.

Club Tropicana FC will have to rely on the steady stream of youth players juvenile delinquents arriving on a yearly basis from the local Tropicana Maximum Security Juvenile Detention Center. In return, Club Tropicana FC are equipped with the best training facilities in all of Paradiso, offering the perfect setting for a “Youth Academy Challenge” with a real twist.

Preston Paradise Bus Station FC

Created by JMThoughts, PPBSFC is a small club with great ambitions. Founded by transport heiress Lady Danay Grey, the club is heavily linked to, or even intertwined, with the Paradisian transportation dynasty Paradiso Bus Services, PBS.

A former player herself back in her University years in Scotland, Lady Danay Grey picked up on the earliest of signals that football was coming to the islands. She started an intra-company 5-a-side league and was of course the uniting force behind the formation of the PBS company team. After allegations of “improper involvement” and rumours of corruption, Lady Danay Grey stepped down as owner and the club changed its name to the current PPBSFC. Despite statements that no “direct official links” exist between PBS and the club, the company is still the main sponsor of the club, and rumour has it that they are pumping money into the club at a level that other clubs can only dream of.

Most likely not entirely driven by pure love of the game, Lady Danay Grey is still very much involved in the running of the club. A recent discovery of her personal notebook points towards grand – some might even call them crazy – plans to take over the Caribbean, both on the football pitch and in the transportation sector.

Mimosa San-Dávido

This year, the Cherry blossom in the nation’s third largest town San-Dávido will get a new meaning. It will not only be associated with the start of the Carnivalé, the yearly festivities. I will also mark the start of the first ever season for the town’s new pride Mimosa San-Dávido, or the Rosamarines as they are already lovingly called by the locals. The club and town, both created by The 94th Minute, come with plenty of rich background stories inspired by a Welsh-Argentine heritage. This heritage was represented in the town’s original rugby club who played in Welsh red and Argentine blue shirts back in the early 20th century. After one of the games, their muddied shirts had to be washed and left out to dry. According to the legend, the person in charge of washing the shirts had forgotten about the damp shirts that were left out to dry, and exposed the shirts to the strong and warming Paradisian sunshine for a couple of days. When the forgetful shirt washer finally remembered about the drying shirts, they found that the once vibrant red and blue colours on the shirts had faded to the now iconic cherry blossom pink and sky blue halved shirts. A colour combination that will be worn with pride by the Mimosa San-Dávido players.

That concludes the little sample of clubs from Paradiso. There are another 101 clubs to discover, including a fierce Port Morgana rivalry, a Brendantown club that is already hated by the masses even before the first game is played, a club founded on a former nuclear testing site and many more. The three club overview images above are also a great showcase of the custom graphics pack that can be downloaded to make the playing experience even more immersive. It contains over a 1000 player and non-player images as well as kits (2D and 3D), club logos, competition logos and stadium images and is guaranteed to make you feel like you are on the islands!

How to download and install the database and the graphics pack

Database files

Download the Paradiso Database

Download the Custom CONCACAF competitions

Put them in the editor data folder;

Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2022\Editor Data

Select both databases when you create a new Career game. Make sure that you don’t use any other custom database files, since they may interfere with the Paradiso files.

Custom Graphics pack

Download the Custom Graphics pack

Unzip the file and put the content in the graphics folder;

Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2022\Graphics

You may need to clear cache and refresh your skin for the custom graphics to show properly.