Substitution plans

♟️ A simulated match runs without you, so the substitution plan is how you delegate substitution decisions to the engine. If you choose to play a match live instead, you make each substitution yourself between segments — but the plan still governs every match you simulate, which will be most of them. A plan is an ordered list of rules, and each rule says "out goes A, in comes B, when this happens".

The engine evaluates your rules every five minutes, starting from the minute you set on the rule, and fires at most one planned substitution per segment — plan order decides which. The triggers it understands are: minute (fire at the set time regardless of the score), losing, winning, drawing, tired (the outgoing player's condition below the threshold you chose) and injured. There is no card-based trigger, and a rule whose players are not on the pitch or bench is discarded the first time it is checked.

Teams may use up to five substitutions in a match, and the plan stops once five are made. If no rule fires, no substitution happens — you can finish a match with the same eleven you started, or with fresh legs, and both are legitimate. A plan with too many early triggers can burn through the bench by 70' and leave you exposed for the closing stages, so the art is sequencing: protect tired key players first, manage the scoreline second, deploy fresh attackers last.