ManageFC — Football Management Game

GUIDE

Player Guide

A complete onboarding walkthrough for ManageFC — from creating your first save and choosing a club, through tactics, transfers and finances, all the way to managing a board through a 10-year project. Read end-to-end, or jump to any section.

👋

Welcome to ManageFC

🌍 ManageFC is a free, browser-based football management simulator built for people who love the depth of a tactical sim without the burnout that comes with always-online competitive games. You take charge of a club in any of 211 simulated countries, build a squad from procedurally generated players, set tactics that genuinely change how matches unfold, manage finances, develop youth, and skip time at your own pace. Every save is your own private world — there are no live opponents pressuring you, no FOMO timers, no streaks that punish you for taking a break.

🧪 We are currently in Open Beta. The core single-player loop is fully playable and free. Paid features (the Solo unlock and Multiplayer leagues) are deliberately disabled while we stabilise the game and gather feedback. The product mantra is simple: we want a game people love, not one they cannot put down. That means no dark patterns — no streak punishment, no fabricated crises, no fake social pressure, no inflated urgency. If something in the game feels manipulative, tell us on Discord and we will fix it.

What this guide covers

How to create your first save and choose a club, including the impact of heat modifiers.

How the dashboard, time-skip and tick engine work together so days, weeks and months actually pass.

Matchday workflow: lineup, formation, mentality, tactical dials, set pieces and substitution plans.

Squad operations: rotation, training, mentoring, youth academy and player development.

Off-pitch systems: transfers, finances, sponsorships, board objectives and press conferences.

💡You can read this guide top-to-bottom for a full onboarding, or jump straight to a section using the sidebar on the left. Each section is self-contained.

🎮

Creating your first save

💾 A save in ManageFC is a complete, isolated game world. When you create one, the engine generates 211 country databases, populates each top-tier league with procedural clubs (each with its own crest, kits and stadium), seeds roughly 83,000 players with realistic attribute distributions, builds a multi-year fixture calendar, sets up cup competitions, and snapshots a starting transfer market. Generation runs as a background job and typically completes in 10 to 60 seconds depending on server load — you can leave the page and come back, the worker queue is durable.

The new-save wizard is 11 steps. The first half handles your manager identity: display name, date of birth, nationality, preferred formation and managerial philosophy. The second half lets you customise the club you create or join — name, short name, primary and secondary colours, crest style, home and away kit patterns, stadium capacity tier, and any heat modifiers you want to apply. Every choice is reversible later from /game/club-settings except the world seed itself.

Step-by-step

Open /game/saves/new from the main menu, or click "Create save" on /game/saves if you already have one.

Walk through the 5 manager identity steps — none of these affect simulation strength, they only flavour your interactions.

Pick a country and a tier. Tier 1 means you start with a top-flight club; lower tiers give a different challenge curve (see the next section).

Choose or generate a club identity: name, kits, colours and crest. Defaults are sensible if you just want to start playing.

Optionally toggle heat modifiers (financial fragility, transfer freeze, injury-prone squad, etc.) to make the save harder.

Submit. The progress bar polls the job queue every 2 seconds; when it hits 100% you are redirected to the dashboard of your new save.

💡Your first save should use default settings with no heat modifiers. Once you understand the basics, restart with a tougher seed — the difficulty is in the modifiers, not the country.

🏟️

Picking a club

🗺️ Where you choose to manage shapes the entire save. ManageFC simulates 211 countries with their own league pyramids, calendar windows (autumn-spring in Europe, calendar-year in Brazil, MLS regular season + playoffs in the US, spring-autumn in Scandinavia, Apertura/Clausura in Latin America), transfer windows and youth intake months. A top-flight European club gives you a big budget and high expectations from the board; a tier-2 club in a smaller country gives you space to build slowly and learn the engine without being sacked in your first season.

Heat modifiers are optional difficulty toggles applied at save creation. They are not RNG — they are persistent state changes on your save. Financial fragility starts your club with a tighter wage budget and an angrier board. Transfer freeze locks you out of incoming transfers for the first window. Injury-prone squad raises your baseline injury rates. Media pressure makes press conferences more consequential. Rivalry intensity inflates derby fan reactions. Youth-only forbids signing players over 21 in the opening season. Each modifier is independent and can be combined.

How to choose well

New to the genre? Start tier 1 in a mid-tier country (Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Argentina). Budget is comfortable, expectations sane.

Want a transfer-heavy challenge? Pick a top-5 league but enable Financial Fragility — you will need to sell to buy.

Want a youth-development save? Enable Youth-Only and pick a tier-2 club with a high facilities rating.

Want fast results? Top-tier club, no modifiers — but the board will sack you for missing top-3 finishes.

Want a long-term project? Tier 3 anywhere, no modifiers — you will promote, develop youth and chase a 10-season arc.

💡Heat modifiers do not change the AI difficulty of rival clubs — they only change the constraints on YOUR club. The simulation is the same; your starting hand is harder.

📊

The dashboard

🖥️ The dashboard at /game/dashboard is your home screen. The topbar shows your manager avatar, club name and badge, current sim_date (the in-game date, distinct from real-world wall-clock), MFC Coin balance, inbox bell with unread count, and a save switcher if you have multiple saves. The left sidebar is the primary navigation: Squad, Tactics, Transfers, Scouting, Youth, Staff, Finance, Stadium, Board, Press, Inbox, Settings. The main panel rotates contextual widgets: next fixture, board confidence trend, league position, recent inbox messages, upcoming injuries, and a time-skip control.

sim_date is the single source of truth for what has happened in your save. Every matchday, every training session, every transfer rumour, every wage payment runs against it. Real-world time only matters in that the server is up — you can leave for a month and come back to a sim_date that is exactly where you left it. The tick engine advances sim_date in discrete chunks when you ask it to, and runs all the periodic jobs (daily, weekly, monthly) that should have fired in between.

Finding your way around

Squad → /game/squad shows your full roster with sortable columns for position, age, condition, morale, value.

Tactics → /game/tactics is where formation, dials, set-piece takers and substitution plans live.

Transfers → /game/transfers shows AI listings, your bids, incoming offers and the window status.

Inbox → /game/inbox is the only place where notifications survive — anything important the engine wants to tell you ends up here.

Board → /game/board shows your 4 season objectives, confidence score and recent board events.

Settings → /game/settings lets you adjust currency display, expense period, vacation mode and password/2FA.

💡The save switcher in the topbar (if you have multiple saves) sets the X-Save-Id header on every API call. Each save is completely isolated — switching is instant and safe.

⏩

Time skip & the tick engine

⏰ Time in ManageFC only moves when you tell it to. The tick engine accepts a target date (up to 365 days into the future per tick) and runs every periodic job between sim_date and the target, in order, before returning control. This means a +30 day skip will simulate every fixture on the calendar, every training session, every injury recovery, every transfer rumour, every board confidence drift, every press conference and every wage payment for those 30 days — and then update your sim_date and refresh the dashboard.

Daily jobs include: aging (age_months ticks up, attributes drift), condition recovery (rested players regain fatigue), training application, mentoring increments, morale decay/recovery, finance pulse, injury recovery, AI tactics rebuild, news feed generation and rumour mill. Weekly jobs (Monday 06:30 UTC) include: crisis generation (intentionally rare — was daily, now ~86% less frequent), board confidence drift, staff loyalty adjustments and youth scouting reports. Monthly jobs include: youth intake (new academy players arrive once per month), sponsorship reviews and stadium pricing reviews.

Using time-skip well

Press +1 Day for a quick check — useful right after setting tactics, to see the next morning report.

Press +1 Week when nothing urgent is pending — the engine will roll through fixtures, training and a weekly crisis check.

Press +1 Month when you are between transfer windows and just want to play out a chunk of the season.

Press +1 Year sparingly — useful for fast-forwarding through a calm season, but you will miss tactical decisions.

Maximum per single tick is 365 days. If you need more, fire two ticks back-to-back; the worker handles them sequentially.

You can cancel a running tick from the topbar if you change your mind — partial progress is committed safely.

💡Big skips are heavier on the server. If a tick is taking unusually long, leave the tab open — the worker is processing, not stuck. You will get an inbox message when it completes.

⚽

Match day

🏟️ Matches in ManageFC are simulated by matchEngineV2, a deterministic engine that takes both clubs' tactics, lineups, form, morale, conditions, home advantage and a seeded random factor, then plays out 90+ minutes producing a minute-by-minute event log, final score, possession share, shots on target, cards, injuries, individual player ratings, goalscorers and assist providers. You do not watch matches in real time — you set up the team beforehand, and the result is generated when sim_date crosses the kickoff timestamp.

The pre-match preparation page at /game/match/[id]/prepare is where you commit to a lineup, formation, mentality, captain, set-piece takers, substitution plan and pre-match speech. If you do not set a lineup before kickoff, the auto-selector picks the strongest available XI in your default formation — workable but never optimal. The pre-match speech is a 4-option choice (calm/motivate/demanding/relaxed) that applies a small morale tweak based on the squad's personality mix. Captain choice affects on-pitch leadership and post-match interview tone.

Matchday checklist

Open the fixture from the dashboard or /game/calendar at least one day before kickoff.

Pick a starting XI in /game/tactics — drag-and-drop into your formation slots. Watch condition (below 70% means tired).

Set mentality on the slider: very defensive, defensive, balanced, attacking, very attacking. Each shifts dial defaults.

Confirm set-piece takers and your substitution plan (covered in their own sections).

Pick a pre-match speech — match it to the squad's mood (if morale is low, "calm" or "relaxed" beats "demanding").

Skip time to kickoff. The engine simulates, writes the result, updates league table, fires post-match handlers.

💡A balanced XI with good condition beats a stronger XI of tired players. Rotate aggressively in cup midweeks — fatigue is real and accumulates across fixtures.

🎛️

Tactical dials

📐 On top of formation and mentality, ManageFC exposes four continuous tactical dials that genuinely change match outcomes. Each is a 1-100 slider, and matchEngineV2 reads all four when computing force scores, pressing pressure, transition speed and chance-creation patterns. The defaults from your mentality choice are sensible; tuning the dials is where intermediate play happens. Synergies and counters exist — a high-press, high-tempo, narrow team is a coherent identity; a low-press, low-tempo, wide team is a different one. Mixing them randomly creates incoherence and lowers your effective rating.

The four dials: Pressing intensity (how aggressively your team closes down out of possession — high values trigger more turnovers but also more fatigue and more space behind the line); Tempo (how fast your team moves the ball when in possession — high values mean more shots but lower passing accuracy); Width (how wide your shape sits — high values spread the opposition and favour wingers, low values overload the centre and favour midfielders); Defensive line (how high your back four sits — high values compress play but risk offsides traps and through-balls).

Pairing dials with mentality

Very defensive + low press + low tempo + narrow + low line = park the bus. Hard to break down, no shots created.

Defensive + medium press + medium tempo + medium width + medium line = solid mid-block, counter-attack threat.

Balanced (all 50) = the engine's neutral baseline. A safe default while you learn.

Attacking + high press + high tempo + wide + high line = front-foot football. Lots of shots, lots of conceded chances.

Very attacking + max press + max tempo + max width + max line = gegenpress. Brutal against weaker teams, suicidal against better ones.

💡When you face a much stronger opponent, drop the line and the press by 20 points each. You will concede less and have a better shot at a draw than trying to match them open-vs-open.

🎯

Set pieces

🏳️ Set pieces are individually configurable. The Set Pieces tab in /game/tactics lets you nominate primary and secondary takers for corners (left and right), direct free kicks, indirect free kicks and penalties. Taker quality matters: the engine reads the assigned player's passing, shooting and technique attributes when calculating set-piece conversion. A weak corner taker will waste set-piece chances; a strong free-kick specialist will turn 25-yard fouls into real goal threats.

Beyond takers, you can pick a routine for each set-piece type. Corners offer near-post flick-on, far-post target, short corner, edge-of-box pull-back. Direct free kicks offer power, curl-and-bend, indirect dummy. Penalties offer placement, power, panenka. Each routine has modifiers that interact with your nominated taker's strengths — pairing a curl-and-bend routine with a low-technique taker is a waste, while pairing it with a high-technique taker can turn a 25% conversion into 45%.

Setting up set pieces

Open /game/tactics → Set Pieces tab.

Assign a primary corner taker for each side (left and right). Use your two best crossers.

Assign a direct FK taker — your highest free_kick_taking or shooting attribute player.

Assign a penalty taker — usually your captain or your highest composure striker.

Pick a routine for each type. Match the routine to the taker's strengths.

Re-check after every transfer window — your best taker may have been sold or signed.

💡A great penalty taker is worth 3-5 league points per season. Do not auto-assign — pick the player with the highest composure and finishing combination, not just the best striker.

🔄

Substitution plans

♟️ You cannot make in-match substitutions live (matches are simulated, not played in real time), so the substitution plan is how you delegate substitution decisions to the engine. A substitution plan is a list of conditional rules that the engine evaluates at preset checkpoints (typically 55', 65', 75' and 85'). Each rule says "if X then sub out player A for player B". X can be a condition threshold (player's condition below 60%), a scoreline (drawing or losing), a minute, a card status (yellow-carded player at risk), or a combination.

Plans are stored per save in club_tactics.substitution_plan and persist across matches. The engine respects plan order — first matching rule wins. If no rule fires, no substitution is made; you can still finish a match without using all three subs. Conversely, a plan with too many triggers can burn through your bench by 70' and leave you exposed for the closing stages. The art is sequencing — protect tired key players first, manage scoreline second, deploy fresh attackers last.

Building a good plan

Open /game/tactics → Substitutions tab.

Rule 1 (60-70'): if condition < 65%, sub out fatigued midfielder for fresh midfielder. Protects the engine room.

Rule 2 (70-80'): if losing by 1 goal, sub out defensive midfielder for attacking midfielder. Shifts shape.

Rule 3 (80-90'): if winning by 1 goal, sub out tiring striker for defensive midfielder. Locks the game.

Rule 4 (any time): if a key player is on a yellow card and pressing high, sub him out to avoid a red.

Leave at least one slot unconditional ("75' regardless") so cup matches with extra time still have cover.

💡Substitution plans are per-formation, not per-match. Build one good plan for your default formation and it will apply to every match using it — including European nights and cup fixtures.

👥

Squad management

👤 A squad of 20-30 players is what you work with. Each player has core outfield attributes (pace, dribbling, passing, shooting, defending, physical) plus role-specific attributes — goalkeepers have handling, reflexes, kicking, command of area and throwing instead of the outfield set. On top of static attributes, every player carries dynamic state: condition (0-100, drains during matches and training, recovers with rest), morale (0-100, swings with results, contract talks, role in the team, social interactions), age_months (real monthly ageing — younger players grow, older players decline), and form (last 5 ratings rolling).

Rotation is essential. Playing your best XI in every fixture will collapse their condition by week 4, triggering injuries and form drops. A good squad has 2 strong options for every position and 3-4 versatile players who can cover multiple slots. The /game/squad page lets you sort by condition to spot tired players, by morale to spot unhappy ones, and by age to plan succession. Setting a player's squad role (Key, First-team, Rotation, Reserve, Youth) tells both the AI assistant and the player himself how often he expects to play — playing a Reserve role player every week will tank morale.

Weekly squad routine

Monday: open /game/squad, sort by condition. Anyone below 75% should sit the midweek fixture.

Tuesday: check the morale column. Anyone in red should get a quick chat from /game/squad/[id] → Talk.

Wednesday: confirm the matchday lineup based on rotation. Star players play 2-3 in 4, never 4 in 4.

Thursday: skim age column. Anyone over 31 should have a backup being developed.

Friday: check the inbox for contract-expiring messages. Renew before the last 6 months or lose for free.

💡Squad role is sticky. If you demote a star player from Key to Rotation without explaining, morale will crash. Use the Talk → "Discuss role" option first.

🌱

Player development

📈 Players develop through three concurrent systems: daily training (attribute work scheduled by your coaching staff), weekly mentoring (senior players passing personality and habits to juniors), and match experience (game time accelerates development for under-23s and decelerates decline for over-30s). Every player has a hidden potential ceiling — generated at creation, never visible to you directly — that caps how far attributes can grow. Scout reports estimate potential as a star rating with a margin of error, narrowing as scouting level improves.

Training intensity is configurable per player at /game/squad/[id] → Training tab. You assign a primary focus (e.g. shooting, defending positioning, passing accuracy, physical conditioning) and an intensity (low/medium/high). High intensity grows attributes faster but spends more condition and raises injury risk. Older players cannot tolerate high intensity for long without breaking down. Daily training results are written to inbox digests once per week so you can track which players grew, regressed or got injured during the cycle.

Maximising growth

For under-21s: high-intensity training, primary focus on a single attribute (not two). Concentrated growth.

Pair them with a senior mentor (same position, high personality score). Weekly mentoring tick gives personality drift.

Give them 60-70% of available minutes — too few stalls growth, too many burns them out.

For prime-age 23-29: medium intensity, balanced focus. They are at their peak; you maintain, not grow.

For over-30s: low intensity, conditioning focus only. The goal is delaying decline, not growing attributes.

💡A scout report on a young academy player is the single best investment for development. It tells you which attribute has the most growth potential — focus training there instead of guessing.

🌟

Youth academy

🧒 Once per in-game month, your academy generates an intake of new youth players. The size and quality of the intake depends on three things: facilities_rating (the physical academy infrastructure, upgradable via /game/stadium → Facilities), youth_coaching_rating (the coaching staff you have assigned to the youth setup), and your country's youth talent pool quality (some countries naturally produce stronger youth than others). A high-rated academy in Brazil or France will outproduce a low-rated academy in San Marino by an order of magnitude.

Intake reports arrive as inbox messages on the 1st of each month with a list of new players, their positions, age (typically 15-17), preliminary star ratings and a recommendation flag. You can immediately scout them in depth for a sharper potential read. Promising youth (3-star current ability or 4-star potential) should be promoted to the senior squad shell or loaned out to lower-tier clubs for game time. Unpromising youth (below 2-star potential) can be released to save on the youth wage bill or kept as squad-padding.

Running the academy

Open /game/youth to see your current academy roster and facility ratings.

When the 1st-of-month intake message arrives, open it and inspect each new arrival.

Tag your top 3 prospects as "Develop" so they get prioritised minutes in youth fixtures.

Promote prospects with 3+ star current ability to the senior squad — they need first-team training.

Loan out 17-18 year olds with promise but no first-team shot — game time accelerates development.

Upgrade facilities when finances allow — facilities_rating compounds over years.

💡A single 4-star youth promotion that sticks is worth millions in transfer fees and decades of squad value. Invest in the academy even when finances are tight.

💰

Transfer market

🔄 The transfer market at /game/transfers has two faces: AI listings (players the simulated AI clubs are willing to sell, refreshed daily, with asking prices that reflect their attributes, age, contract length and the selling club's finances) and human listings (in multiplayer leagues, players that other human managers have transfer-listed). In single-player solo saves you only see AI listings, but the market is deep — at any moment there are several hundred listed players across all 211 countries.

Bidding is multi-step. You submit an opening bid; the selling club either accepts, rejects (often with feedback like "valuation too low" or "not for sale this window"), or counter-offers. Counter-offers can be straight cash, cash + add-ons (sell-on percentage, appearance bonuses, friendly match clauses), or cash + player swap. You can accept, reject or counter back. If both clubs agree, the player enters negotiation with you directly — wage, signing bonus, contract length, role. Either side can walk at any step. Scout reports before bidding are essential: the listed asking price reflects the AI's valuation, not necessarily fair value.

Transfer workflow

Identify a need: open /game/squad, find a position with shallow depth or weak quality.

Set scouting filters at /game/scouting matching that position, age range and attribute profile.

When scouts report a match, scout the player in depth before bidding — this sharpens current and potential ability estimates.

Submit an opening bid at 75-85% of asking price. Most AI clubs counter rather than accept.

Negotiate the deal. Add-ons (sell-on %, appearance bonuses) can bridge a cash gap.

On player agreement, negotiate wage. The board will not approve wages above your wage budget — check first.

💡Transfer windows differ per country. Europe is summer + January; Brazil is mid-year + end-year. Plan your business around YOUR country's windows, not a global calendar.

💵

Finance

🏦 Your club has a single bank balance and a weekly finance pulse. The pulse runs once per in-game week and pays out wages (player + staff), receives sponsorship instalments, charges any loan repayments and applies stadium maintenance. On top of weekly pulses, transfer fees move money in lump sums on completion, gate receipts arrive post-match (computed from ticket pricing and stadium attendance), merchandise and TV money arrive at season checkpoints. The /game/finance page shows the current balance, the running 12-week cashflow, the wage-to-income ratio and a breakdown by category.

Stadium ticket pricing is dynamic and lives at /game/stadium → Pricing. Set prices too high and attendance collapses (fans stop coming, gate revenue drops, atmosphere suffers, board notices). Set too low and you leave money on the table. The engine simulates fan willingness to pay based on form, opponent, weather and weekday — a derby on a Saturday with good weather will fill the ground at almost any price; a midweek cup tie against tier-3 opposition needs aggressive discounting. Loans are available from /game/finance → Loans with interest rates pegged to your club reputation; default risk if you cannot meet repayments triggers a board crisis.

Healthy finance routine

Weekly: open /game/finance, check the wage-to-income ratio. Above 70% is danger zone.

Monthly: review sponsorship contracts — renegotiate the ones expiring in the next 90 days.

Pre-window: confirm you have at least 8-12 weeks of wage runway before committing to a big signing.

Per-match: glance at attendance figures. A sudden drop signals pricing is too high or form is too bad.

Per-season: review stadium expansion ROI — adding capacity costs millions but compounds for years.

💡Currency display is purely cosmetic. MFC Coin is the neutral virtual currency — your numbers stay the same regardless of which display currency you pick in /game/settings.

👔

Board & objectives

📋 At the start of every season the board sets four objectives: a league finish position, a win-percentage target, a balance target (be in the black by season end) and a cup phase target (reach quarter-final or better). The /game/board page shows each objective with current progress and a confidence indicator. Board confidence drifts weekly — exceeding objectives raises it, falling short lowers it, and large swings (losing a derby 5-0, winning the cup) cause step changes. Confidence below 30% triggers warning messages; below 15% triggers a sacking risk window.

Board personality varies by club. A patient board tolerates long rebuilds; an impatient board sacks managers for missing top-3 finishes. You can read the board's tolerance profile when you accept the job; the impatient ones are flagged with a "Demanding board" badge at save creation. You can request budget renegotiations from /game/board → Request, which the board may approve or deny depending on confidence — high confidence unlocks bigger wage budgets and transfer kitties.

Managing board confidence

Read your 4 objectives on day 1. If any look unrealistic, push back at the introductory meeting.

Weekly: check the confidence gauge. A steady decline over 4-6 weeks is a sign you are drifting.

After a bad run, request a private board meeting — explain the plan, asking for patience.

After a good run (3 wins in 4, or a big cup result), ask for a wage budget bump while leverage is high.

Never let confidence drift below 30% without a recovery plan — sackings are sudden.

💡Cup runs are massive confidence boosters with relatively low cost. If your league position is mediocre, prioritise a deep cup run — a quarter-final eliminates 6 weeks of sacking risk.

🎙️

Press conferences

📰 After every league fixture and at key season checkpoints, you are offered a press conference. The journalist asks 3-5 questions about the recent match, your tactics, individual players, the board relationship or upcoming fixtures. You pick from 3-4 prepared answers per question. Answers carry consequences: fan_satisfaction shifts by ±5 to ±15 per question depending on tone match (defending your players when they had a bad game raises morale; throwing them under the bus tanks dressing-room trust), and a ripple of ±2 to ±8 lands on board_relationships.score, slowly drifting board confidence.

Questions are dynamically generated from context. After a heavy defeat the journalist asks about your future and team selection; after a derby win you get a goading question about your rival; after an injury crisis you get sympathy questions; after a transfer window you get squad-balance questions. There are no "right" answers — only answers that fit your strategy. A demanding board wants assertive, confident managers; a patient board prefers measured, humble ones. Match your answer tone to the audience you are trying to influence.

Working press conferences

Open the press conference invite from your inbox or /game/press when prompted.

Read the question carefully — the modifier in parentheses (e.g. "tone: aggressive") signals what the question is fishing for.

Pick answers that defend your players publicly even when you are angry privately. Dressing-room trust compounds.

When asked about rivals or referees, deflect. Petty answers cost fan_satisfaction without gaining anything.

When asked about the board, never throw them under the bus. Even mild criticism shifts confidence down.

💡Skipping press conferences is allowed but costs a baseline -3 fan_satisfaction per skip. Worth it once or twice when you are tilted, never as a long-term strategy.

📬

Inbox & notifications

🔔 The inbox at /game/inbox is the single home for everything the game needs to tell you: match results, injury reports, transfer offers, contract negotiations, press invitations, board messages, scout reports, fan reactions, financial alerts, youth intake summaries and crisis warnings. Messages are tagged by category and priority. Priority levels are normal, important and URGENT. URGENT messages display with a red badge, sound an audio cue (if enabled) and pin to the top of the inbox until you read or dismiss them.

To prevent notification fatigue (a deliberate anti-dark-pattern decision), the engine caps URGENT messages at 3 per day per user. Anything beyond that ceiling automatically downgrades to important. This means a chaotic day in your save still leaves you with at most 3 truly red-alert items — you will never wake up to 40 URGENT items demanding immediate attention. All messages use templates from a curated EN library so wording stays consistent and clear; the same event always produces the same shape of message.

Inbox discipline

Check the inbox first thing after every time-skip. Sort by priority, handle URGENT first.

Star or pin messages you want to revisit (long contract negotiations, ongoing scout assignments).

Archive bulk items (training reports, weekly digests) so the active list stays under 20.

Action URLs on the message body take you directly to the relevant page (squad, transfers, board, etc).

Mute categories you do not care about at /game/settings → Notifications — useful to silence stadium chatter.

💡The URGENT cap is global per save per day, not per category. If you are getting 3 URGENTs every day, something structural in your save needs fixing — not just dismissing.

🏖️

Vacation mode

☀️ Vacation mode is a deliberate, opt-in pause designed for real life. You set a "vacation until" date up to 90 days into the future from /game/settings → Vacation Mode. While vacation mode is active, several engine systems pause or soften for your account: the daily crisis generator skips your user entirely, the daily streak counter applies a shield (gap days during vacation do not count against streak decay), and certain inbox categories (rumours, fan chatter) are suppressed to avoid coming back to a noise wall.

What does NOT pause: sim_date still moves if you time-skip during vacation; AI clubs still negotiate transfers (you just get message digests on return); board confidence still drifts based on results. Vacation mode is not save-pause — it is a personal "I am not playing actively, do not generate stressors aimed at me" flag. You can cancel it at any time by clearing the date. It is fully reversible and leaves no permanent state on the save.

Using vacation mode

Open /game/settings → Vacation Mode section.

Pick a return date up to 90 days out. Confirm.

A banner appears across the dashboard reminding you vacation is active.

When you return, open the inbox — a single "While you were away" digest summarises events.

Either let vacation expire naturally on the return date, or clear it early via the same settings page.

💡Streak rewards in ManageFC use soft decay (-1 per gap day, not reset to zero), but vacation shield is still useful for trips longer than a week — your streak stays exactly where it was on the day you left.

🧪

Beta status

🔬 ManageFC is currently in Open Beta. This means the core single-player engine is stable enough for daily play but is still being polished, paid features are disabled, and we are openly iterating based on player feedback. Everything you can access today is free — there is no "premium tier" gating, no soft paywall, no required purchase. The two planned monetised features (Solo unlock at $1.99 USD for 2 years of unlimited saves, and Multiplayer leagues at €1 per save per year) are visible in the UI as "coming soon" but cannot be purchased while beta is active.

The decision to disable payments during beta is intentional. We want player retention and satisfaction metrics to stabilise before we start charging anyone. Until D1, D7 and onboarding completion KPIs hit our targets (D1 ≥25%, D7 ≥10%, onboarding ≥70%), payments stay off. When we do switch them on, existing accounts will get a grace period — early beta players will not suddenly find their saves paywalled. We will announce activation in advance via the top banner, Discord and an inbox message.

What being a beta player means

Everything works but some edges are rough — expect occasional visual quirks or balance tweaks.

Save migrations happen rarely but they do happen. We give 48h notice before any breaking schema change.

Bug reports go to Discord #bug-reports — the dev team reads every one daily.

Feature suggestions go to Discord #ideas — top-voted ones land on the public roadmap.

No payments are taken. The Stripe checkout is intentionally short-circuited with a beta notice modal.

💡The top banner on every page rotates 7 messages including the Discord invite. If you see it, you are on the live beta. Mute it after reading via the X — it remembers your dismissal for 7 days.

🚀

Going further

🏆 You have the foundation. From here, depth comes from playing and exploring. The Wiki at /wiki covers system reference (every attribute, every modifier, every interaction). The FAQ at /faq covers common questions and known issues. The Support center at /support is the path for account-specific help. The Discord server (linked in the footer and the top banner) is where the community discusses tactics, shares saves, requests features and reports bugs.

The product roadmap to v1.0 includes: multi-save management UI improvements, expanded set-piece routine library, deeper press conference scenarios, fully scoped multiplayer leagues with cross-club fixtures, an expanded youth recruitment scouting network, dynamic media reputation tracking, and a mod system for community-created tournaments. Phase 2 of the v2.9 backend (tick engine fully scoped per save) is shipped and stable; Phase 3 (paid multiplayer infrastructure) lands when single-player KPIs stabilise.

Useful destinations

/wiki — the encyclopaedia. Every attribute, system and edge case documented.

/faq — frequently asked questions, kept current with patch notes.

/support — account help, technical issues, payment queries (post-beta).

/contact — direct contact form for things that do not fit elsewhere.

Discord — join via the link in the footer. Community + dev presence + dedicated beta channels.

💡Best way to get better at ManageFC: play one save for a full season, then start a second save under tougher heat modifiers. You will see different sides of the engine each time.

GUIDE

Player Guide

👋

Welcome to ManageFC

What this guide covers

How to create your first save and choose a club, including the impact of heat modifiers.

How the dashboard, time-skip and tick engine work together so days, weeks and months actually pass.

Matchday workflow: lineup, formation, mentality, tactical dials, set pieces and substitution plans.

Squad operations: rotation, training, mentoring, youth academy and player development.

Off-pitch systems: transfers, finances, sponsorships, board objectives and press conferences.

💡You can read this guide top-to-bottom for a full onboarding, or jump straight to a section using the sidebar on the left. Each section is self-contained.

🎮

Creating your first save

Step-by-step

Open /game/saves/new from the main menu, or click "Create save" on /game/saves if you already have one.

Walk through the 5 manager identity steps — none of these affect simulation strength, they only flavour your interactions.

Pick a country and a tier. Tier 1 means you start with a top-flight club; lower tiers give a different challenge curve (see the next section).

Choose or generate a club identity: name, kits, colours and crest. Defaults are sensible if you just want to start playing.

Optionally toggle heat modifiers (financial fragility, transfer freeze, injury-prone squad, etc.) to make the save harder.

Submit. The progress bar polls the job queue every 2 seconds; when it hits 100% you are redirected to the dashboard of your new save.

💡Your first save should use default settings with no heat modifiers. Once you understand the basics, restart with a tougher seed — the difficulty is in the modifiers, not the country.

🏟️

Picking a club

How to choose well

New to the genre? Start tier 1 in a mid-tier country (Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Argentina). Budget is comfortable, expectations sane.

Want a transfer-heavy challenge? Pick a top-5 league but enable Financial Fragility — you will need to sell to buy.

Want a youth-development save? Enable Youth-Only and pick a tier-2 club with a high facilities rating.

Want fast results? Top-tier club, no modifiers — but the board will sack you for missing top-3 finishes.

Want a long-term project? Tier 3 anywhere, no modifiers — you will promote, develop youth and chase a 10-season arc.

💡Heat modifiers do not change the AI difficulty of rival clubs — they only change the constraints on YOUR club. The simulation is the same; your starting hand is harder.

📊

The dashboard

Finding your way around

Squad → /game/squad shows your full roster with sortable columns for position, age, condition, morale, value.

Tactics → /game/tactics is where formation, dials, set-piece takers and substitution plans live.

Transfers → /game/transfers shows AI listings, your bids, incoming offers and the window status.

Inbox → /game/inbox is the only place where notifications survive — anything important the engine wants to tell you ends up here.

Board → /game/board shows your 4 season objectives, confidence score and recent board events.

Settings → /game/settings lets you adjust currency display, expense period, vacation mode and password/2FA.

💡The save switcher in the topbar (if you have multiple saves) sets the X-Save-Id header on every API call. Each save is completely isolated — switching is instant and safe.

⏩

Time skip & the tick engine

Using time-skip well

Press +1 Day for a quick check — useful right after setting tactics, to see the next morning report.

Press +1 Week when nothing urgent is pending — the engine will roll through fixtures, training and a weekly crisis check.

Press +1 Month when you are between transfer windows and just want to play out a chunk of the season.

Press +1 Year sparingly — useful for fast-forwarding through a calm season, but you will miss tactical decisions.

Maximum per single tick is 365 days. If you need more, fire two ticks back-to-back; the worker handles them sequentially.

You can cancel a running tick from the topbar if you change your mind — partial progress is committed safely.

💡Big skips are heavier on the server. If a tick is taking unusually long, leave the tab open — the worker is processing, not stuck. You will get an inbox message when it completes.

⚽

Match day

Matchday checklist

Open the fixture from the dashboard or /game/calendar at least one day before kickoff.

Pick a starting XI in /game/tactics — drag-and-drop into your formation slots. Watch condition (below 70% means tired).

Set mentality on the slider: very defensive, defensive, balanced, attacking, very attacking. Each shifts dial defaults.

Confirm set-piece takers and your substitution plan (covered in their own sections).

Pick a pre-match speech — match it to the squad's mood (if morale is low, "calm" or "relaxed" beats "demanding").

Skip time to kickoff. The engine simulates, writes the result, updates league table, fires post-match handlers.

💡A balanced XI with good condition beats a stronger XI of tired players. Rotate aggressively in cup midweeks — fatigue is real and accumulates across fixtures.

🎛️

Tactical dials

Pairing dials with mentality

Very defensive + low press + low tempo + narrow + low line = park the bus. Hard to break down, no shots created.

Defensive + medium press + medium tempo + medium width + medium line = solid mid-block, counter-attack threat.

Balanced (all 50) = the engine's neutral baseline. A safe default while you learn.

Attacking + high press + high tempo + wide + high line = front-foot football. Lots of shots, lots of conceded chances.

Very attacking + max press + max tempo + max width + max line = gegenpress. Brutal against weaker teams, suicidal against better ones.

💡When you face a much stronger opponent, drop the line and the press by 20 points each. You will concede less and have a better shot at a draw than trying to match them open-vs-open.

🎯

Set pieces

Setting up set pieces

Open /game/tactics → Set Pieces tab.

Assign a primary corner taker for each side (left and right). Use your two best crossers.

Assign a direct FK taker — your highest free_kick_taking or shooting attribute player.

Assign a penalty taker — usually your captain or your highest composure striker.

Pick a routine for each type. Match the routine to the taker's strengths.

Re-check after every transfer window — your best taker may have been sold or signed.

💡A great penalty taker is worth 3-5 league points per season. Do not auto-assign — pick the player with the highest composure and finishing combination, not just the best striker.

🔄

Substitution plans

Building a good plan

Open /game/tactics → Substitutions tab.

Rule 1 (60-70'): if condition < 65%, sub out fatigued midfielder for fresh midfielder. Protects the engine room.

Rule 2 (70-80'): if losing by 1 goal, sub out defensive midfielder for attacking midfielder. Shifts shape.

Rule 3 (80-90'): if winning by 1 goal, sub out tiring striker for defensive midfielder. Locks the game.

Rule 4 (any time): if a key player is on a yellow card and pressing high, sub him out to avoid a red.

Leave at least one slot unconditional ("75' regardless") so cup matches with extra time still have cover.

💡Substitution plans are per-formation, not per-match. Build one good plan for your default formation and it will apply to every match using it — including European nights and cup fixtures.

👥

Squad management

Weekly squad routine

Monday: open /game/squad, sort by condition. Anyone below 75% should sit the midweek fixture.

Tuesday: check the morale column. Anyone in red should get a quick chat from /game/squad/[id] → Talk.

Wednesday: confirm the matchday lineup based on rotation. Star players play 2-3 in 4, never 4 in 4.

Thursday: skim age column. Anyone over 31 should have a backup being developed.

Friday: check the inbox for contract-expiring messages. Renew before the last 6 months or lose for free.

💡Squad role is sticky. If you demote a star player from Key to Rotation without explaining, morale will crash. Use the Talk → "Discuss role" option first.

🌱

Player development

Maximising growth

For under-21s: high-intensity training, primary focus on a single attribute (not two). Concentrated growth.

Pair them with a senior mentor (same position, high personality score). Weekly mentoring tick gives personality drift.

Give them 60-70% of available minutes — too few stalls growth, too many burns them out.

For prime-age 23-29: medium intensity, balanced focus. They are at their peak; you maintain, not grow.

For over-30s: low intensity, conditioning focus only. The goal is delaying decline, not growing attributes.

💡A scout report on a young academy player is the single best investment for development. It tells you which attribute has the most growth potential — focus training there instead of guessing.

🌟

Youth academy

Running the academy

Open /game/youth to see your current academy roster and facility ratings.

When the 1st-of-month intake message arrives, open it and inspect each new arrival.

Tag your top 3 prospects as "Develop" so they get prioritised minutes in youth fixtures.

Promote prospects with 3+ star current ability to the senior squad — they need first-team training.

Loan out 17-18 year olds with promise but no first-team shot — game time accelerates development.

Upgrade facilities when finances allow — facilities_rating compounds over years.

💡A single 4-star youth promotion that sticks is worth millions in transfer fees and decades of squad value. Invest in the academy even when finances are tight.

💰

Transfer market

Transfer workflow

Identify a need: open /game/squad, find a position with shallow depth or weak quality.

Set scouting filters at /game/scouting matching that position, age range and attribute profile.

When scouts report a match, scout the player in depth before bidding — this sharpens current and potential ability estimates.

Submit an opening bid at 75-85% of asking price. Most AI clubs counter rather than accept.

Negotiate the deal. Add-ons (sell-on %, appearance bonuses) can bridge a cash gap.

On player agreement, negotiate wage. The board will not approve wages above your wage budget — check first.

💡Transfer windows differ per country. Europe is summer + January; Brazil is mid-year + end-year. Plan your business around YOUR country's windows, not a global calendar.

💵

Finance

Healthy finance routine

Weekly: open /game/finance, check the wage-to-income ratio. Above 70% is danger zone.

Monthly: review sponsorship contracts — renegotiate the ones expiring in the next 90 days.

Pre-window: confirm you have at least 8-12 weeks of wage runway before committing to a big signing.

Per-match: glance at attendance figures. A sudden drop signals pricing is too high or form is too bad.

Per-season: review stadium expansion ROI — adding capacity costs millions but compounds for years.

💡Currency display is purely cosmetic. MFC Coin is the neutral virtual currency — your numbers stay the same regardless of which display currency you pick in /game/settings.

👔

Board & objectives

Managing board confidence

Read your 4 objectives on day 1. If any look unrealistic, push back at the introductory meeting.

Weekly: check the confidence gauge. A steady decline over 4-6 weeks is a sign you are drifting.

After a bad run, request a private board meeting — explain the plan, asking for patience.

After a good run (3 wins in 4, or a big cup result), ask for a wage budget bump while leverage is high.

Never let confidence drift below 30% without a recovery plan — sackings are sudden.

💡Cup runs are massive confidence boosters with relatively low cost. If your league position is mediocre, prioritise a deep cup run — a quarter-final eliminates 6 weeks of sacking risk.

🎙️

Press conferences

Working press conferences

Open the press conference invite from your inbox or /game/press when prompted.

Read the question carefully — the modifier in parentheses (e.g. "tone: aggressive") signals what the question is fishing for.

Pick answers that defend your players publicly even when you are angry privately. Dressing-room trust compounds.

When asked about rivals or referees, deflect. Petty answers cost fan_satisfaction without gaining anything.

When asked about the board, never throw them under the bus. Even mild criticism shifts confidence down.

💡Skipping press conferences is allowed but costs a baseline -3 fan_satisfaction per skip. Worth it once or twice when you are tilted, never as a long-term strategy.

📬

Inbox & notifications

Inbox discipline

Check the inbox first thing after every time-skip. Sort by priority, handle URGENT first.

Star or pin messages you want to revisit (long contract negotiations, ongoing scout assignments).

Archive bulk items (training reports, weekly digests) so the active list stays under 20.

Action URLs on the message body take you directly to the relevant page (squad, transfers, board, etc).

Mute categories you do not care about at /game/settings → Notifications — useful to silence stadium chatter.

💡The URGENT cap is global per save per day, not per category. If you are getting 3 URGENTs every day, something structural in your save needs fixing — not just dismissing.

🏖️

Vacation mode

Using vacation mode

Open /game/settings → Vacation Mode section.

Pick a return date up to 90 days out. Confirm.

A banner appears across the dashboard reminding you vacation is active.

When you return, open the inbox — a single "While you were away" digest summarises events.

Either let vacation expire naturally on the return date, or clear it early via the same settings page.

🧪

Beta status

What being a beta player means

Everything works but some edges are rough — expect occasional visual quirks or balance tweaks.

Save migrations happen rarely but they do happen. We give 48h notice before any breaking schema change.

Bug reports go to Discord #bug-reports — the dev team reads every one daily.

Feature suggestions go to Discord #ideas — top-voted ones land on the public roadmap.

No payments are taken. The Stripe checkout is intentionally short-circuited with a beta notice modal.

💡The top banner on every page rotates 7 messages including the Discord invite. If you see it, you are on the live beta. Mute it after reading via the X — it remembers your dismissal for 7 days.

🚀

Going further

Useful destinations

/wiki — the encyclopaedia. Every attribute, system and edge case documented.

/faq — frequently asked questions, kept current with patch notes.

/support — account help, technical issues, payment queries (post-beta).

/contact — direct contact form for things that do not fit elsewhere.

Discord — join via the link in the footer. Community + dev presence + dedicated beta channels.

💡Best way to get better at ManageFC: play one save for a full season, then start a second save under tougher heat modifiers. You will see different sides of the engine each time.

ManageFC Guide

Player Guide

Welcome to ManageFC

What this guide covers

Creating your first save

Step-by-step

Picking a club

How to choose well

The dashboard

Finding your way around

Time skip & the tick engine

Using time-skip well

Match day

Matchday checklist

Tactical dials

Pairing dials with mentality

Set pieces

Setting up set pieces

Substitution plans

Building a good plan

Squad management

Weekly squad routine

Player development

Maximising growth

Youth academy

Running the academy

Transfer market

Transfer workflow

Finance

Healthy finance routine

Board & objectives

Managing board confidence

Press conferences

Working press conferences

Inbox & notifications

Inbox discipline

Vacation mode

Using vacation mode

Beta status

What being a beta player means

Going further

Useful destinations

ManageFC Guide

Player Guide

Welcome to ManageFC

What this guide covers

Creating your first save

Step-by-step

Picking a club

How to choose well

The dashboard

Finding your way around

Time skip & the tick engine

Using time-skip well

Match day

Matchday checklist

Tactical dials

Pairing dials with mentality

Set pieces

Setting up set pieces

Substitution plans

Building a good plan

Squad management

Weekly squad routine

Player development

Maximising growth

Youth academy

Running the academy

Transfer market

Transfer workflow

Finance

Healthy finance routine

Board & objectives

Managing board confidence

Press conferences

Working press conferences

Inbox & notifications

Inbox discipline

Vacation mode

Using vacation mode