Pick a kid
Three scouting cards. No one is complete. There are no ratings to sort by — read the gold bars for ability now, the grey for the room left, and the background for the story.
How to play
From first kicks to full time
Start with a kid who has more enthusiasm than polish. Decide where they play, what they practise and when to take a chance. By sixteen the questions get sharper: sign for the big name, or go somewhere you will actually play? A whole career takes about fifteen minutes.
8 → 36one career
different Saturdays
different Saturdays
The core loop
First you find your feet. Then a club.
The early years are about finding a place to play. The professional years are about keeping your place when somebody else wants it.
Choose the Saturday
There is no transfer market at eight. Choose where football happens this week: the cage, the school pitch, a community club or an academy. Three trials along the way can reroute everything.
Sign or gamble
The polite youth language stops. A first contract might promise minutes, money, better coaching or a fight you are not ready to win.
Keep your place
Draft a season route, pick your training, then play the two possessions that can turn the match. A Ladder Boss adds a third decision at 90+2'.
Retire well
Somewhere in your thirties the legs go. The career gets a grade, a share card and a permanent place in your local Legacy archive.
The roguelike part
Traits are permanent. Routes close doors.
This is what stops two careers feeling the same. You are not levelling one player up — you are building a specific one.
Trait drafts
Every few seasons you choose one of three permanent traits. They are tagged — Finisher, Creator, Engine, Steel, Spotlight and more — and match two tags to unlock a synergy that changes match odds, energy, scoring, creation, injury risk or recovery.
Season routes
Each season opens with three routes and you take one: challenge the Ladder Boss, gamble on a glory match, or pass a manager-trust test. The others close for the year, so a season has a shape you chose.
The Ladder Boss
Drawn from the live table — the club one rung above you, second place when you are defending first, or a relegation rival if you are in the bottom two. Its result writes real points back into the table, and beating it drafts a permanent relic.
Opponent traits and intel
Every side shows a tactical trait you can counter; elite fixtures stack several. Beat an elite opponent and you keep one defeated trait as permanent intel that blunts it for the rest of your career.
Scars
A serious injury opens a three-way recovery draft. The comeback leaves a permanent scar trait — sometimes the one that finally completes a build. Failure is content, not a dead end.
Rivals who adapt
Your career rival is not just a bigger number each year. Beat them head to head and they come back with a new counter-trait, and they will be standing between you and the biggest individual award of all.
Read the player
What the numbers are for
An 82 in shooting does not guarantee a start. A player with 58 confidence may still ask for the ball in the right moment.
Football attributes
These are the things a coach notices on the pitch: Pace, Shooting, Technique, Passing, Strength, Composure, Fitness and Mentality.
Mind and body
You can have 70 shooting and still sit on the bench. Health, Confidence, Coach trust and Reputation decide what happens around the ball.
Current vs potential
Gold is what the player can do today. Grey is the scout's estimate of the room left. Scouting cards deliberately show no numbers — a precise rating for an eight-year-old would be a lie.
Money and contracts
At eight, money means boots, travel and a small cage-tournament prize. As a pro, the contract shows gross weekly pay and appearance bonuses; the season ledger removes tax, agent and career costs before cash reaches your balance.
If it is your first run
Five things worth knowing
None of these are secrets. They are just the things players work out on run two.
- Playing every week beats the bigger badge. Minutes drive growth. A starting place at a smaller club usually builds a better player than a bench at a giant.
- Pick a lane early. Two traits sharing a tag is worth more than four unrelated ones. Decide roughly what kind of player you want by your third draft.
- Read the opponent trait before you choose a moment. It is shown for a reason, and the counter is usually one of the options in front of you.
- Energy is a resource, not a warning. Arriving at the Ladder Boss tired changes the odds more than most single decisions do.
- A bad season is not a lost run. Injuries, loans and lost places produce traits, stories and comeback routes that a clean career never sees.
Worth remembering
Play the awkward season too
The missed trial, the loan move, the year spent behind a better striker — those seasons give the career its shape. A clean run is not always the memorable one.