Boot Room: Club Manager

Nobody hands a newcomer a big club.

You are given one in the bottom division, drawn at random, and the way up is the game. Every match is played minute by minute and called like radio: the save at 27, the sending-off at 63, the header that wins it at 89. You watch it at the speed you choose, you pick the shape, you make the substitutions while the game is running, and you live with them.

A SEASON THAT BEHAVES LIKE FOOTBALL
Thirty-eight league matches, a knockout cup, and European nights against clubs from five other countries. Promotion, relegation, parachute money, a January window, international call-ups that take your best players away for a week, and injuries that keep them out for two months.

WHY YOU LOST, IN WORDS
Every match ends with the reason, read back out of the ninety minutes: nine shots and one on target, three of your eleven finished on empty, the goals came after the 75th. Your own changes are judged too — fifteen minutes either side of the whistle you blew, counted the same way, so you can see whether it worked.

A SQUAD, NOT A SPREADSHEET
Every player has a value, a wage, a contract and a season's worth of numbers. Some of them are somebody in particular: a poacher who scores the ones that were not chances, an engine still running at 88, a leader who quietens the dressing room, one made of glass who is always in the treatment room. Potential and character stay hidden until you send a scout. Leave someone out and he sulks. Forget a contract and he leaves for nothing in the summer.

THE GROUND AND THE PEOPLE IN IT
Your members pay in July and turn up in November, and they are the floor under a bad run. Build more seats, put a roof over the stands, relay the pitch — and read what the terraces make of you, week by week, in their own words.

THE MAN IN THE OTHER DUGOUT
Every club has a manager with a name and a passport, and they get sacked too. So do you: the board reacts every match day, with a warning first and the door after it. Your reputation follows you, and somebody smaller will always take a chance on you.

PLAY A FRIEND WITHOUT A SERVER
Your eleven travels as a line of text. Send it, paste theirs, and both phones play exactly the same match. Substitutions are written down before kick-off, as a half-time plan — one for behind, one for level, one for ahead.

TODAY'S MATCH AND THE CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK
Every day, one match: the same one for everyone, everywhere, two minutes, and your score on the world ranking. Every week, a whole season with the same club and the same fixtures for everyone, with no help of any kind. In a career, three missions a week — win away, three clean sheets, start a youngster — and milestones the board pays for once; finish all three and a trophy goes on the shelf.

YOUR RECORD, AND THE GROUND LIGHTS UP
Every match you run — career, season, daily, challenge and duels — goes on your record: wins, draws and defeats, goals, your best unbeaten run and your biggest win. The next-match card remembers the last time you met that club and the head to head. Goals and wins set off confetti and a short buzz; both can be switched off, along with the animations, in one tap.

• Free, with ads. No purchases, ever.
• Plays offline. No account.
• Six languages, commentary included.
• Every club and every player is invented.

Ads pay for it, and they are part of the club: a matchday sponsor, an advance from the board, a scout report. Each one is capped for the season, and the wage budget still comes from what your club earns — watching more ads cannot buy you a title.