The draft is fun and is the start of the game though not a part of the 90 minutes of match time. You deal four keeper cards face down and select one each. Next, you deal 4 player cards face up and taking it in turns you take one until they are gone, then you deal four more, switch the player who chooses first and continue until you have 15 outfield players each. Throw-in - Choose a player to take the throw and place them on the edge hex where the ball went out of play. Take a movement phase, then you may take a second movement phase if you want. The throw in has a range of a header, it can either be thrown to a player’s head, where a header must follow, or it can be thrown to feet or an empty hex, treat it as a standard pass with the reduced range for interceptions and follow up actions. In Season 3, 27% of Cup matches saw teams of lower divisions advancing over stronger opponents. The final featured a team from the 5th league!!

Before we begin talking about the game I want to talk about the components. Colin Webster, the designer of the game, was kind enough to send a copy of the game for us to review and with the standard copy he also sent another team. This is where anything can happen, teams are drawn without restrictions fighting their way to the final.The immediate 6 hexes are their danger zone where rolling a 6 sees them steal the ball. There may only be a 16.5% (yes I know the actual odds are 16.66667% but it’s close enough) chance of this happening but it genuinely feels like it’s 50/50. We have changed how we play a little since we first received the game. Firstly, we started playing by laying out a 4-4-2 or 4-3-2-1 or any other formation we wanted to try and instead we now keep our formations but keep a flatter line than a traditional football match because we feel we can get players where we need them faster this way.

Dices are the engine of the game, cannot hide that, but what in football could be predict with perfection? They are always related to player statistics, so could happen that a weak player in heading could win an aerial battle, but it will not happen so often, as it have to be! Following the movement phase you may now choose to take another movement phase or take a pass or shoot action. That felt like a bad way to solve the issue and that a better way should be implemented however, when a similar situation happened in reverse I do remember thinking it was a good and just system. Take your spot in Season 4 by expressing interest in the #0-s4-general channel of our Discord Server.Whilst there isn’t a great deal of weight to the player counters and balls they are very good quality with high-quality printing. This is important as you will be relying on the numbers printed on each counter to link to your drafted team. Player Cards Snapshot only - Declare your snapshot action, the defending team may move any one player 2 hexes, even if they have already moved in the phase. The managerial part is perfect, drafting your own team is fun and challenging, and when you score with a tactic you build for, is amazing! The great thing is despite his addiction and knowledge I still win about half the games we play. Admittedly he’s 10 and I am 48 but I will take any victory at this point. Although the action on the board is very fluid, the pace of play itself is slower and deliberate as players consider all their options. The game includes sand timers you can use to limit the amount of time spent on each decision, and I think it’ll take players a little while to become comfortable enough with the game and their decisions before fitting into the stated 90-minute runtime – the length of a normal football match.