Friends — a quick session with your mates

Friends is the quick way to play with people you know. One manager opens a lobby and shares its six-character code; everyone joins with the club from one of their careers, and a short competition plays out live for all of them at once. A session is capped at thirty minutes: one that would run longer cannot start.

Levelled squads

Squads are levelled to the same strength — every player is brought to the same overall level while keeping the shape of the squad — and matches are played on neutral ground. A long career is no advantage here: the better plan wins.

Formats

A lobby takes up to ten clubs, and the lobby shows how long the chosen format will take before you start.

The rhythm of a round

Each match is shown in two halves of 36 seconds with an 8-second break, and between rounds there are 25 seconds to look at the table, talk in the clubhouse chat and change your plan. Before kick-off every manager sets a secret game plan: a mentality to start with, and one for when the team leads, is level or trails. During a match you also have three touchline shouts — a new mentality from the next minutes on. The match is replayed from the same seed and squads, so the minutes already seen never change.

The daily challenge

Every day the challenge picks one opponent — a club from another manager's career — and every player meets it under the same conditions, once. The daily board ranks managers by their winning margin.

Taking part

• You need a career: your Friends club comes from it.
• Friends sessions are free to play.
• When a session ends, “play again” opens a new lobby with the same group.