Football on Paper

Both managers draw the next minute. Then the pitch runs it.

Five a side. Thirty phases. You talk big about the manager. Here you have to be him, twice: once on the grass, once in the building.

Build the club from nothing. Find eight. Train them. Field them. Draw the plan turn by turn and watch them play. It is we-go football. Do the same pattern every phase and the other bench will mark the exact man you pass.

Players gain XP for what they do right. So does the rest of the league. There is a tree waiting when they level. Shot Stopper or Sweeper Keeper is not flavour. It is a rule on the next cross.

Between matches: money, staff, drills, tired legs, a board that wrote "finish top two" and meant it. Most important: tactics at the size of a single run.

Draw the phase

Walk, sprint, dribble, pass, shoot, cross. Both sides write. Then the pitch. Repeat until the 30th.

They watch you. Game after game. Repeat the through-ball and it dies in the same lane.

Every tackle, header, shot and save is a d20 against the players' attributes. You see the dice land.

A club small enough to feel

Not 40-man squads. Eight names you will learn. Loans, sales, a window, a weekly plan. Promotion. A cup. Division 2 clubs with ugly colours and better shape than you.

The paper ground

The match is the product. The office is how you live with the result.

I wrapped the job in the football I already shout at, and the tactics game I already lose. Then I called it a day.

Football is easy only on paper.

What you get

• 5-a-side matches, 30 phases, simultaneous orders
  
• A d20 behind every tackle, shot and save
  
• A career from preseason friendlies through a league and a cup
  
• Trait trees that change the phase, not the card art
  
• Training that costs fatigue
  
• Opponents that learn your habits
  
• Fictional clubs. No licence. The pattern still holds.