How to play

Tactalon is a football management game for a group of people who know each other. Each of you runs a club in a private league, and every match is played out by the match engine, player by player.

1. Join a league

Someone creates a league and shares its invite link. Open it, sign in with your email, and name your club: a name, a short name of up to four letters, and your colours and crest (you can change these later). When everyone is in, the organiser starts the season. Every club gets an equally strong squad, so nobody starts ahead.

2. Meet your squad

The squad screen lists your players. Stars show how good a player is now, and the faded stars show how good he could become. Condition is how fresh he is: tired players play worse and get injured more, and they recover between matches. Click a player to see his attributes, rated 1 to 20.

3. Pick a tactic

On the tactics screen, choose a formation and a role for each position, or start from one of the ready-made tactics: one is marked as suiting your squad. Instructions such as pressing, tempo and width change how the team plays, and every choice has a cost as well as a benefit. There's no best formation: each one has others it struggles against, so it pays to look at who you're playing next.

4. Choose your team

Before every match the game picks your strongest fresh eleven for the formation. You can change any position on the squad screen, or leave it to the game. Anyone injured before kick-off is replaced automatically.

5. Matchday

Matches kick off at the league's set times, and you'll get a reminder email beforehand (you can turn these off). Open the match to watch it live and make changes from the touchline: substitutions, mentality, instructions. Can't watch? Your match plan runs the team, including rules such as "if we're losing after 60 minutes, go more attacking". Every match has a full replay afterwards.

6. Training and development

Training is light, normal or heavy. Heavy training develops players faster but leaves them more tired; light training keeps them fresh. You can also give the squad a focus (attacking, defending, physical or recovery) and set a focus for individual players. Young players improve with games and training, peaking in their mid-twenties (keepers later); older players slowly decline.

7. Money and transfers

Wages go out every matchday. Home matches bring in gate money (more when you're winning), and every win and draw pays prize money. The transfer market opens before the season and again mid-season: bid for players at other clubs, offer one of your own in part exchange, or sign free agents with a sealed bid. Signings must keep your wage bill inside your budget.

Your league in Teams

The organiser can connect the league to a Microsoft Teams channel from the league page, so results, the player of each round and transfer news are posted there for everyone to see.

Fair play

One club per person, please. Everything happens in the game: there's no real money involved and nothing to buy.

Questions or problems

Use the Feedback button at the bottom right of every page; it goes straight to the Tactalon team. Or email hello@tactalon.com.