From an idea to a living football world

The idea is older than the website. In March 2026 the site went online for the first time — here is what we wanted the game to be, and the one rule that survived every rewrite since.

Our first ManageFC was one shared online world where matches kicked off at fixed times, whether you were there or not. In April we learned what that really means — starting with every match in the world kicking off at midnight.

Even in a free game, the parts of an account that hold currency and items deserve a second lock. In April we made two-factor authentication a requirement for the six screens that deal with them.

By May the game had quietly collected a battle pass, a busy social feed and a stack of daily nudges. We audited them against the reason we started the project — and deleted most of them in a single day.

We once offered the game in dozens of languages, most of them automatic translations nobody had read. In May we chose one language we could stand behind — here is why, and what it cost.

In a game where you skip days at a time, the inbox is how the world talks to you. In May we rebuilt it around a single library of a thousand message templates — and a rule that every system has to speak through it.

If you are not watching the match, you still need a say in it. In mid-May we gave managers substitution plans the engine follows, named set-piece takers who actually take the kicks, varied press conferences and a winter break that feels like football.

On 14 May we stopped patching the always-online world and redesigned the game around a simple idea: your world is yours, and time only moves when you press the button. This is the biggest decision in ManageFC's history.

Three days in May, a maintenance page, a full backup, and one hard decision: the old shared world would not be carried over. How the game learned to keep every world separate — and why existing managers started again.

Days after the new private worlds went live, players pressed "advance" and nothing happened. The cause was a single calculation — and behind it, sixteen routines the new time engine had never been asked to run.

In late May the new-save wizard learned to build a world to order — your base country's pyramid plus up to 37 more leagues from anywhere. Testing a full season afterwards found three bugs that only appear when time moves in big steps.

A wage of 20,000 a week means something different to a manager in Lisbon, London or São Paulo. In May we let every manager read the game's money in one of 31 currencies — and in the time unit that makes sense to them.

After a spring of big changes, we paused new features in June and reviewed the security of the whole service. What we can share about how we did it, what it changed, and what you can do to protect your own account.

July had no headline feature. It had better record-keeping, a save wizard that finally finished what it started, a world builder that recovers on its own — and one trade-off we made for speed and later reversed.

In August some new managers signed up, founded a club and ended up in a world without one. While fixing it, we broke registration itself for about ten minutes. What happened, how we fixed it, and the check that now runs after every update.

A believable football world needs believable squads: mostly young and prime-age players, a few veterans, almost nobody past 38. In August we rebuilt how ages are generated, and how much money each club starts with.

Our seasons used to follow the calendar year, which meant leagues ran out of weeks before they ran out of fixtures. In August we redesigned the season around a rhythm football fans recognise: one league matchday a week, thirty of them, in 245 days.

Most matches play out while you are away. In August we made it possible to step into any of your own matches and manage it live, five minutes at a time — without ever giving live play an advantage over the instant result.

Some managers saw two different crests for their own club, depending on the screen. In August we made the crest you design in the badge designer the only crest the game ever draws — on every page, in every match and, later, in 3D.

Skipping a week in a ten-league world used to take around eight and a half minutes. By the end of August it took eighty-four seconds — without cutting a single corner in the simulation. Here is where the time was going.

In early September we put the match engine through thousands of simulated games and found three problems — too few goals, shots counted wrongly, and stronger teams not winning often enough. How we fixed them without touching anything else.

Months after we moved to English only, odd words were still turning up on screen. In September we reviewed every piece of text in the game, one by one, and checked our privacy promises in the same pass.

In September we read our own website the way a sceptical player would, checked every claim against the game, and found that several of them were not true. Here is what we found, what we removed, and the rule we now follow.

Every management game claims that tactics matter. In September we tested ours: thousands of simulated matches, one change at a time, against a measured noise floor. Some settings mattered a lot, some barely, and one turned out to be rock-paper-scissors.

For weeks, almost every AI club played with the same default tactics — and nobody noticed. In September we found out why, rebuilt how AI managers choose their style, and checked that the variety reaches every match.

We wanted every career to start at the very bottom of the pyramid, in division 10. Then we measured what a division 10 club earns — and found it could not pay its players in the first week. Why the climb starts in division 3, for now.

Once in a while, a matchday would hesitate: several results trying to update the same league table at the same moment, getting in each other's way. In September we found the pattern and changed the order in which matches are completed.

A crisis that costs a top-flight club pocket change can bankrupt a small one. In September we made every crisis scale with the size of your club — same weight, different numbers — and fixed a button that did not close what it said it would.

A time-skip game fits naturally into a few minutes on the bus. In September we made the phone an equal citizen: a menu that always closes, text you can read, buttons you can hit, and a check that every page passes before it goes live.

In two days in September we gave the whole game a cleaner, more data-dense look — and then decided it was the wrong game. Why we rolled the redesign back, what we kept, and the direction we took instead.

The first piece of the new visual direction was the stadium: a 3D ground that goes from a single stand and a shed to a three-tier arena across ten levels, with your own crest on the centre circle.

After the stadium, we asked a stricter question: where does 3D actually help you understand your club? Two answers shipped in September — a season you can see at a glance, and a tactics board you can move by hand.

A guide is only useful if it is precise. In late September we went through the player guide and the wiki chapter by chapter, replacing vague advice with the actual numbers the game uses — and removing every sentence the game did not support.

In late September the dashboard gained a 3D dressing room with kits painted in your colours. Then we built a walkable club building around it — and two days later knocked it down, because the idea itself was wrong.

September ended with a new homepage, a fresh look at what a first-time visitor needs to know, and this blog. Where the story stands today — and what we are working on next.

What happens between kick-off and the final whistle in ManageFC: how the engine turns your squad, tactics, condition and morale into a minute-by-minute match — and how player ratings are worked out afterwards.

A club's income in ManageFC comes from four places, and they scale very differently as you climb the pyramid. A practical tour of TV money, prize money, gate receipts and sponsorship — with the real numbers.

Most modern games are designed to make you afraid of missing out. ManageFC is designed the other way round. The specific choices we made — and the one place where we have not fully lived up to it yet.

ManageFC is free, and during the open beta nothing can be bought. When payments arrive, everything for sale will be cosmetic. The rules we have set ourselves for the in-game currency, loot boxes and collectibles — and what will never be for sale.

You have founded your club, picked your world and arrived in division 3 with a squad of 23. Here is a practical plan for the first 245 days — what to check on day one, how to keep the board happy, and the mistakes that sink new managers.

Why we started writing, how the development diary is organised, and what you can expect to read here every week — from match-engine deep dives to the decisions we got wrong.

The button you press most in ManageFC moves your whole world forward. Here is exactly what it does, day by day and week by week — and why it always stops on the day of your next match.

The tactics screen offers five formations, and none of them is simply the best. Each one is measured against the opponent's shape and is worth up to four percent of a team's strength. Here is how the matchups work and how to use them.

Defensive line, pressing, tempo and width each run from 1 to 10. They only matter in specific matchups, and together they can move your team's strength by up to 20 percent — or cost you up to 15. Exactly when each one pays.

Every club, player and stadium in ManageFC is generated from scratch, in a world built for your save alone. Why we chose procedural worlds over real teams and players — and what it gives you that a licence never could.

We settle training once a week, in one batch — and the minutes your players actually play move their growth more than the session you pick. A plan for the week.

We've been quiet between the big changes. From now on, the blog is where we explain the game properly — tutorials, notes from the build and honest answers.

New careers now begin at the very foot of the pyramid, in division 10, on a dirt pitch for about a hundred people. Here is what that start looks like and why we chose it.

A captain on the pitch is worth 1.5% to the whole side, and a badly chosen penalty taker leaves goals on the table. The small appointments that quietly pay.

For a few days ManageFC was closed while we rebuilt how a career works: the calendar, the money of every club, the way a season ends and the way the game talks to you. Here is what changed, side by side with what was there before.

The inbox has been rebuilt as the mailbox of a club director: every event at the club, by category, from the person who would tell you — and a way to give your staff real jobs.

In ManageFC 3.0 you choose what you aim for each season, you can hand the team to your head coach, every season ends with a review — and a club that lives in debt for a year goes bankrupt.

Rules only start firing around the 46th minute, one per five-minute segment, five per match. How to order a plan so the right change happens at the right moment.

TV, gate, sponsors, prizes, wages, staff and buildings now all follow one scale: what a typical squad costs in your division. A guide to the numbers, from division 10 to division 1.

Most of your matches are played while you are away, so the match report is where you learn what happened and why. What each part of it tells you, and how to turn it into better decisions for the next fixture.

The stadium now climbs in twenty levels across five eras, from iron goals on bare earth to the all-time record crowd. What each step costs, how long it takes and what it pays back.

At the reference level the bank lends 100,000 to 50M in one go, and the rate jumps from 12% to 18% one cent above ten million. How to borrow without burying the club.

Objectives you choose, one confidence score that moves on results, and a transfer budget that swings from −20% to +20%. What the board is actually watching.

The training centre, academy, medical centre, scouting network and analysis centre now start from nothing and climb ten levels. What each one does for your club, and an order that works for a small one.

A good signing can make a season and a bad one can sink the next three. How the transfer market really works in ManageFC, how much a signing truly costs, and a simple budget plan for your first window.

Why divisions 9 and 10 now pay no wages at all, why expenses only start at division 8, and how real football pyramids shaped the numbers.

Every player now carries two physical numbers. One answers "can he go again on Saturday?"; the other answers "what shape is he in for the season?". Here is what changed, and why one number was never enough.

Sponsorship used to be a line in a contract. Now the marks are drawn: on the chest and back of your shirts, on the club mascot, and on the ribbon around the pitch in the 3D stadium.

The bottom of the pyramid was supposed to be the easy part. It was not: the teams around you played like champions, and the free agents who would sign for you never appeared. We fixed both, and played the climb ourselves.

A cookie card covering the sign-in button, a match that stayed live after the tab was closed, and a match screen that did not fit a phone. None of them was a feature. All three could stop you playing.

Optimistic lifts the dressing room, realistic builds the club — and the same line after a defeat reads as noise. The three tones, and when each one pays.

Injuries are rolled once per match per player, and the biggest lever is you — who plays tired, and who runs to ninety minutes every single week.