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Your first session

Your first session is one match and a look around: you play matchdays, and between them your players train by themselves.

Right after you found your club, Meet your team plays your first match in one click. Look around first, and it waits in the League tab: "Play Matchday" opens it to watch; "Simulate Matchday" gives you the result at once.

From your second match (the first has none), Play opens the veto first, with your bans filled in, so accepting is one click.

The attackers try to plant a bomb; the defenders stop them or defuse it. Kills or the clock also decide a round. The two teams swap sides at half time. First team to 13 rounds wins the match.

The viewer controls and reading the viewer decode everything on screen while you watch.

When you feel ready, open Tactics to shape how your five play, and use Feedback in the top bar if anything breaks or confuses you.

Meet your team

Meet your team is the screen right after you found your club: your 5 starters with their roles, how a round works, and one button, "Play your first match".

The button plays your first match at once. It has no map veto: your ban order is played for you.

In the match, Speed changes how fast it plays and "Finish match now" gives you the result: the viewer controls.

"Look around first" opens HQ instead. The screen comes back the next time you open the game, until your first match is played or simulated.

A first match you left half played opens again as the match, never as this screen.

After your first match you land on the League tab.

Casual and Full

Casual and Full are two ways to play the same game: the same rules, the same engine, and every tab open in both.

In Casual: Leave something blank, like a training focus, and we set it for you and drop you a letter about it. We never touch a choice you made, and we never spend your money.

We fill for you: a training focus, the Playbook, expiring contracts, the sponsor offer, Deadline Day. Each time, a letter tells you what we did.

In Full: Nothing gets set for you. If you leave it blank, it stays blank.

You decide: the training focus, the Playbook, expiring contracts, the sponsor offer, Deadline Day. HQ's Next step shows what waits for you.

You pick the mode when you found your club; a career from before the modes existed stays in Full. The switch is on your Account page, works both ways at any time, and going to Full undoes nothing.

HQ: your club at a glance

HQ is the screen your save opens on after your first match: a Next step line and six cards, each a shortcut to the screen it reports on.

Next match names your opponent and the map, with that map behind it; until the veto decides one it says "Map at the veto" over an empty arena.

League gives your rank with the two clubs above you and the two below, each with its last five results (W won, L lost, empty square not played yet), and under them the race: points to the line and matchdays left.

News counts the headlines you have not read, shows the newest and opens Scene news; Inbox counts your unread mail and announcements.

Money shows your balance and one bar per matchday, above the line for money won and below it for money lost, with the net you are on course for under them.

Starting five lists your 5 starters with role, morale, fitness and a training light: what the training light means.

The Next step on HQ

The line above HQ's cards always names one thing to do next, with a link that opens the screen it belongs to.

It picks the most urgent thing first: a match to play, the Invitational, an open transfer window, contracts to answer, or the season ready to roll over.

Before your first match it always says "Play your first match", and the link starts the match at once.

With none of those waiting it looks at your club: a player training nothing, or no head coach when you can afford one; with nothing at all waiting, your next match.

In Casual the lines the game fills in for you never appear, because there is nothing left for you to do (Casual and Full).

It is a suggestion, never a gate: nothing on HQ is locked behind it.

The race on the HQ League card

Under the table on HQ's League card sit two numbers: your points to the promotion line, and the matchdays left to close them.

The line is the last promotion place: the top 2 go up at the end of the season.

Below the line the card shows the gap, the points you still have to make up on the club holding the last place.

Inside the places it shows your cushion, the points you hold over the first club outside them.

In tier 1 nothing promotes, so the line is first place: the gap to the leader, or your lead over second.

The numbers come from the same table as the League tab, so the two never disagree.

The training light on HQ

Every starter on HQ's Starting five card carries a training light that says whether their training is doing anything.

Green "Gains" means the player's training focus is gaining right now.

Orange "Stalled" means no focus is set, or the focus is wasted because the attribute is at its cap or the player is past the training age for it.

A stalled light costs you nothing today, but development is standing still.

Open Training focus and pick a focus the player can still gain from.

Inbox

Your mailbox (the envelope in the top bar) holds the letters written to you.

The owner's notes, sponsor briefings and reviews, club milestones and boot camp letters all arrive here.

Results and the scene's stories are not mail: they print in Scene news, which opens from HQ.

Pinned above your letters are announcements from the game's developer and What's new, the notes for each update.

The badge counts unread letters, unseen announcements and update notes you have not read.

The small ✕ hides an announcement for good and some carry an end date and go by themselves, but read and hidden marks stay in this browser only.

What is new in the game

The game grows in small updates, and each one comes with short notes: what is new, what changed, what got fixed.

You find them in your Inbox, under "What's new", above your letters and newest first.

The number beside each entry is the game version.

The same number sits in the bottom-right corner of every screen, so you can check which version you are playing.

An update you have not read counts toward the envelope badge, and opening the Inbox marks it read.

Sending feedback

The Feedback button in the top bar opens a small form on any screen, and Escape closes it again (Closing a pop-up).

Pick what kind of report it is (Bug, Idea, Other), write up to 2000 characters and send.

Your app version, the screen you were on and your browser type are attached for you, and the form lists the reports you have already sent.

Reports go straight to the developer and are read by a person: private, stored with your account, and deleted with it. The developer may answer yours by mail, and may write to you about a fault in your save.

The best report says what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead.

Open Discord, in the same form, opens the testers' server for talk that is not a report.

Closing a pop-up: Escape or a click outside

Every pop-up in the game closes the same two ways: press the Escape key, or click the dark area around it.

That includes this Guide, the "Support the game" panel, "Edit look", "Create your player", a scouting report, a player's card opened from a scoreboard or Top Players, and every box that asks you to confirm something.

Closing a confirm box that way is the same as pressing Cancel: nothing changes.

The account page and the feedback form fill the whole screen, so there is no dark area, but Escape still takes you back to the game.

While you type a new name for a player or a tactic, Escape drops the change and keeps the old name.

With the keyboard, Tab and Shift+Tab stay inside an open pop-up, and closing it takes you back to the button that opened it.