How to play — the football draft game

1. Your first game

Start on the home page. On your own, the game walks you through four steps: Players, Competition, Game mode and Your team. On a phone you see "Step n of N"; on a computer the "Your campaign" column sums up your answers, and clicking one takes you back to it.

In the first step, choose "Solo" to play against the history of the competition, or "2 Players (local)". With two, each of you builds a team, you enter the same tournament and the matches alternate. You play on one screen, passing the device between you, and two steps are added: the hand-over to the other player and Player 2's team.

In the competition step, pick from the Clubs, National teams and Countries tabs. A competition still being filled in shows as "soon" and cannot be chosen.

Next comes the game mode:

⭐ Classic — ratings are visible and you get 3 rerolls (more, if you support the project).
🕶️ Blind — ratings hidden, only your memory helps, and 1 reroll. They are revealed once the eleven is complete.
⚔️ Competitive — an 18-player squad, fatigue, injuries and a table for each difficulty. It needs an account and cannot be played by two on the same screen.

In Competitive you also pick a difficulty, which sets the rerolls and whether the draft is blind:

Difficulty	Rerolls	Ratings during the draft
Normal	3	visible
Hard	2	hidden (blind)
Legendary	1	hidden (blind)

In the last step, Your team, you choose the formation and the playing style: 🚌 The Bus, 🛡️ Defensive, ⚖️ Balanced, ⚔️ Attacking or 🔥 All-out attack. You get a preview of the pitch and press "Start the draft 🎲".

2. The draw and the rerolls

Each round the game draws a club in a real season of that competition and you pick one of its players for a slot in your eleven. A short roulette spins first, holding only real club and season pairs.

The draw only brings squads with at least one player who fits a free slot.

If the draw does not suit you, spend a reroll. There are two kinds: "📅 Change season", which keeps the club and changes the year, and "🔁 Change club". You can only reroll before the first pick of the round.

With two players, the drawn squad is shared: one of you picks and then the other, and whoever picks first alternates every round.

In the blind draft (Blind mode, and Competitive on Hard or Legendary) you pick by name, club and season, without ratings. Everything is revealed once the eleven is complete.

3. Formations and positions

There are 13 formations to choose from, from the 4-3-3 and the 4-4-2 to the 3-2-2-3 (WM) and the old-school 2-3-5, with two false 9 variants in between.

To fill a slot, click a player from the drawn squad and then one of the flashing positions on the pitch. A player takes his main position or a secondary one, and the same real player can't be picked twice.

A pick is final, but you can still shift the player into a different open position, or trade places with someone else whenever both suit the swap. To sort the squad there are the filters "By position", "By rating" (only when ratings are visible) and "Only those who fit".

4. Cards and ratings

A card's rating belongs to the competition, not to the career: it measures what the player did in that competition, so one name can carry very different ratings from one competition to another. The criteria are in the ratings methodology. The colour shows where a card sits on the scale:

🔴 Red — the card rated 100. One per competition: its greatest of all time, with 100 shooting and 100 passing.
🔵 Blue — the icons rated 99, the greatest of all time in each position of that competition: 11 per competition, with two centre backs.
🟡 Yellow — the legends, rated 90 or more.
🟢 Green — cards rated 85 or more.
Everything else is grey.

Each legend in your eleven adds +0.5 to the team's attack and defence, up to a maximum of +2.5. A card out of its natural position performs worse.

Competitive adds more:

7 substitutes, on a bench with no positions, and 5 changes in 3 windows per match — half time does not use a window.
Fatigue across the competition and injuries of 1 to 10 matches, with more risk on the higher levels.
Cards: a 5th yellow means a 1-match ban, and a red card sends the player off. In solo play a red rules him out of the next match; in an online league a straight red can cost up to 5 matches.
A stronger opponent at every level and a table for each difficulty.

5. The simulation

Once the eleven is complete, the "Simulate campaign 🏆" button appears. Every match of your team is played live, on a 2D pitch; the other matches of the round show only the score.

Pick the speed — 🐢 Slow, ▶ Normal, ⏩ Fast or ⚡ Turbo — or press "⏭ Skip". An unwatched match stays closed, with "Watch the match" and "Show the result", and afterwards there is "Watch the replay".

In every mode you are the one who decides who takes the penalties, the direct free kicks, the crossed free kicks and the corners, and the order of the takers in a penalty shoot-out. The game pauses at half time, at 90 minutes and at the break in extra time.

Only Competitive has the "⚔️ Manage squad" panel (eleven, bench, formation and mentality), which opens before the match, at the pauses and, with ⏸, at any minute.

After each match you see the man of the match; in Competitive, also shots, corners and xG.

6. The Daily Challenge

Every day there is a new rule, the same for everybody: Classic Day, The 2020s, Vintage, Modern Era, Time Travel, Moneyball, No Legends, World XI, Blind, No Way Back, Catenaccio, Champions Road or Group of Death. The rule is shared, but the draw of clubs and seasons is yours alone: a friend may get different cards.

You get one attempt a day. The score adds 3 points per win, plus draws, goal difference and how deep you got in the competition, and 15 more for a perfect campaign. The day suggests a formation, which you can swap.

Playing does not need an account. Getting on the day's table does, and each day's podium is shown on the home page.

7. With an account and without

Without an account you can play Classic and Blind solo, two players on one screen and the Daily Challenge, and browse the tables and the catalogue. A free account unlocks Competitive, the Daily Challenge table, the duel and the online leagues.

Online leagues require an account and have a page of their own: Online leagues. To get going right now, create your account.

8. The competitions

Each competition has its own squads, seasons and ratings, chosen in the second step. Every name below leads to its page in the catalogue, where you can see what lives there.

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