Sack Race: Football Manager

Sack Race is a football manager career sim. You are the manager, not a player: the board hires you, the board judges you, and the chance of the sack is on screen all season.

■ Start at a small club
Choose a background: former star, journeyman, coach or analyst. Choose a tactical identity: pressing, possession, counter, direct or balanced. Your nationality sets the league your first offers come from. 3 small clubs call, and you take one.

■ The tactics board
An 18-man squad. Pick 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 3-5-2, set the XI and a training focus. An identity that suits the squad adds 5% to team power; a clash takes 5% away. The XI is picked for you by default, so a preseason can take 30 seconds.

■ The summer window
2 moves every summer, to buy or to sell. A signing shows its odds before you commit: done, hijacked by a rival, or a fee that jumps 25%. Sell to refill the purse.

■ The board and the sack
Every club expects a finish. Fall short and board trust drains. The chance of the sack sits on the squad tab all year, with the reasons beside it. If it lands, you take the payout and clear your desk.

■ Ten months a season
One tap plays one month, or turn auto on and watch the table move. A situation can stop any month. An unbeaten month well over the board's pace makes you Manager of the Month and lifts the board's trust. Every season ends on an awards night: World Manager of the Year, the Board's Award, the Fans' Manager of the Year. Three career slots.

■ The job market
Sacked or out of contract, you wait for the phone. Offers follow your reputation. At the interview, lay out a 3-year plan or promise results now, and get hired on your terms, on theirs, or not at all. 2 summers without a club end the career. Nobody manages past 66.

■ 109 situations from the dugout
2-0 down at the break. A captain who wants the dressing room without you. A chairman who would like his nephew to train with you for a month. Every choice shows its percentages, the same numbers the game uses, and what moved them: reputation, skills, board trust, energy. Some stories run across seasons: your assistant has dinner with the chairman, and a year later the board asks him about your job.

■ Climb, win, retire
11 leagues and 115 clubs across 4 continents; in Turkiye the title goes to a top-four playoff. League titles, domestic cups, the continental cup, League Manager of the Year. At the end, the career is scored on 6 axes of legacy: trophies, overachievement, seasons, big stage, steadiness and improvement, and earns one of 50 titles. Choose up to 10 careers to keep on the shelf. Playing earns credits for preparation, the coaching school and the clubhouse; credits are never sold.

■ Straight terms
No account and no gacha. Nothing for sale changes the odds. Plays fully offline. A banner at the bottom, an ad every sixth season that the button announces first, and one when a career ends; the remove-ads purchase clears them all. The other purchases are optional: a pack that adds the journeyman and analyst backgrounds (a different career, not a stronger one) and a supporter shelf that keeps 50 careers instead of 10, with a badge. Available in 11 languages.

A soccer coach simulator about a single career: the job, the board, the sack, the next job, and what is left at the end.

Every league, club, player and manager in the game is invented and bears no relation to any real organisation or person.