** National League **

Each country has its own National League where all local teams participate. Each country has 4 divisions with a set number of series each. Each division has 16 teams. Each season lasts 1 month in real time.

• Division 1 has 1 serie
• Division 2 has 2 series
• Division 3 has 4 series
• Division 4 has 8 series
  

Promotions

• The top 2 teams at the end of the season will be promoted directly. The 3rd position will play a playoff against a team from the higher division to fight for promotion.

Demotions

• Teams in 16th, 15th, 14, and 13th will be demoted 1 division down. The 11th and 12th position will play a playoff with a team from the division below to stay in the current division.

Calendar

• The national league has a total of 30 matches for each team, one home one away.
• On days 5, 10, 15 and 20, all teams will play 2 matches for the national league. This makes sure the season will be complete in just under 1 month.
• The last match is payed on the 26th and playoffs on the 27th.
  

Prizes

• Each local federation will use its budget to pay clubs for match wins and final league positions. These prizes will depend on the current division, the higher the division, the better the prizes.
  

** National Cup **

• Each country also has its own National Cup. All matches are played in neutral stadium in an elimination style competition.
• On round 1, only the teams from division 4 will participate.
• Round 2, 3rd division will also participate.
• Round 3, 2nd division will also participate.
• Round 4, the 1st division finally enters.

Calendar

• Rounds are played on days 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 16, 19, 23 and 27 (Final)
  

Prizes

• Each local federation will use its Cup Fund to pay for every time a club passes to the next stage.
  

** Champions League and Continental Cup **

• The best teams in each country will play the Champions League and Continental Cup. Each country can qualify at least 1 team for each competition and extra ones based on how well these teams have been doing in these international competitions.
• They start with a group phase and then knockout stages.
• There are 4 different world zones and each has its own competition, the amount of teams per zone may vary. The 4 zones are; Europe (32 teams), Asia & Oceania (16 teams), South America and North America (16 teams), Africa (16 teams).
• Zones with 16 teams don't have a 1/8 knockout stage.
  

Calendar

• Rounds are played on days 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 17, 21, 24 and 27 (Final)
• Zones with 16 teams will not play the 1/8 Finals stage.
  

Prizes

• Each zone has its own global fund that is used to pay for prizes, either win bonuses or passing to the next stage.
• Prizes are variable each season dependent on the accumulated global funds from the previous season.
• At the end of every season 25% of the global fund will be used to fund next season's Champions League while 5% goes to the Continental Cup.
• During both competitions funds will be paid like so:
  
  8% to the final winner
  2% to the final runner-up
  12% to semi-final winners
  20% to the quarter-final winners
  20% to the eight-final winners
  28% to teams that get promoted from group stages
  10% distributed by group match wins/ties (96 matches if 32 teams, 48 matches if 16 teams)
  

Groups stage promotion

• When groups stage is complete, the next knockout phase will be drawn like so:
  
  Group 1 winner vs. Group 2 runner-up
  Group 3 winner vs. Group 4 runner-up
  Group 5 winner vs. Group 6 runner-up
  Group 7 winner vs. Group 8 runner-up
  Group 2 winner vs. Group 1 runner-up
  Group 4 winner vs. Group 3 runner-up
  Group 6 winner vs. Group 5 runner-up
  Group 8 winner vs. Group 7 runner-up
  
  
• After the first knockout phase, the draw is random.

Coefficients and Spots

Each international club match is an opportunity for a team to gain points towards their federation international ranking. Points can be gained as follows:

• Group wins, 3 points
• Group draws, 1 point
• 1/8 stage win 4 points
• 1/4 stage win 5 points
• 1/2 stage win 6 points
• Final win 7 points
  

The coefficient is then calculated by summing the Champions League points and dividing them by the participating teams from that country. The same happens with the Continental Points. When we have the average of both competitions for each country, they are both summed together (giving the champions league points a weight of 1.5) and that will be the current season coefficient for each country. At the end of the season, the results are checked and the next season slots will be given based on that ranking.

Player Life

• There are two ways for a player to spawn, when a new team is created (new manager for example) and as a new youth.
• All players have their anniversary at the day they were born (spawned), every season. Players spawned on days 29, 30 and 31 will count as day 28, to account for February.
  
• Youth players start at the age of 15 and can be promoted to the first team when they reach 17, they cannot play for the first team before that. Youths that are not promoted to the first squad when they reach 18 years old, automatically quit football.
• In the first matches a young player participates they will struggle, their true skills are penalized by 25% until they reach 10xp and then it will go down to 10% until they reach 40xp.
  
• A player will retire between the ages of (32 and 38 for outfield players) and (32 and 40 for GK), every 32+ player will think about this when the season ends, the higher the age the higher the chances that he will want to retire. If he decides to retire, the manager will get an alert and he will end his career at the end of the next season.
  
  

Experience and Leadership

• High leadership players are important for the team if used as captains. Leadership is calculated using age, experience and the influential trait.
  
• Every official match played will give experience to a player that played at least 15 minutes. The experience gained varies depending on what type of competition. National League +2xp, Playoffs/National Cup +3xp and Champions League/Continental Cup +5xp.
  
  

Player Traits

Players may have a personal trait, some of which are bad, while others are good. These traits are assigned randomly at birth.

Possible traits and their effects:

• Error Prone (ERR): A player who is more likely to make errors and lose the ball, potentially leading to a dangerous counterattack.
• Injury Prone (INJ): A player who is more likely to get injured than others.
• Influential (INF): A player who receives a boost to their leadership rating, possibly making them an ideal team captain.
• Dirty (DIR): A player who is more likely to commit fouls.
• Set Piece Specialist (SPS): A player who receives an extra boost when taking corners, free kicks, and penalties. This also applies to goalkeepers while defending set pieces.
• Determined (DET): Determined players perform better, receiving a boost to their skills during matches.
  
  

Player Condition

Player condition (their energy) is a vital element that greatly impacts player performance. Basically, if a player for example is at 90% condition, he will play at 90% of his ability.
Here is how player lose or gain physical condition:

Losing Condition

• A player will lose condition every time he plays a match. The drop amount depends on his natural fitness and how active he was during the game.
• Friendlies have a smaller impact on condition drop.
  

Increasing Condition

• Players gain 2 energy points everyday at 0:00 server time.
• Energy drinks can be used to increase condition, the amount depends on the product quality. These have a cool down.

How you arrange your match lineup can be the key to either clinching the league title or languishing at its lowest ranks. You're equipped with players whose placement across the pitch can significantly impact the game. Each player's unique attributes and their locations on the field will influence various aspects of the game's dynamics. Adapting your approach for each opponent is vital to success.

Tactical Options

Mentality. Mentality, in combination with formations used by both teams, affects the tempo of the game and your team's formation stability. Your players can have following mentalities:
- Attacking (Increased tempo) means your players will avoid wasting time and will try to be productive on the pitch.
- Balanced (Balanced tempo) has no change to how you set your formation;
- Defending (Decreased tempo) means your players will slow down play and lose time.

Marking. Your team's defensive focus. Try to focus your formation and marking options to neutralize your opponent's most powerful areas of play.

• Zonal marking is the standard that focuses to cover all approaches equally.
• Man marking will focus on intercepting crosses.
• Dropping deep focuses on intercepting through balls.
• Closing down will focus to block long shots.

Except for zonal marking, each option shifts some defensive strength towards the selected focus - either intercepting crosses, through balls, or blocking long shots - slightly reducing effectiveness in other areas

Tackling. Impacts not only how aggressively your players engage in challenges but also influences the risk of committing fouls and possibly incurring cards.

• Soft encourages players to approach confrontations more cautiously. This reduces the chance of fouls and cards but might allow opponents more space and time with the ball, potentially making it easier for them to maintain possession and build attacks.
  
• Normal represents a balanced approach, where players engage in challenges with a standard level of intensity. This setting aims to effectively dispossess opponents without significantly increasing the risk of fouls compared to more aggressive tactics.
  
• Hard signals your players to commit more forcefully in challenges, increasing the likelihood of winning back the ball. However, this aggressive approach comes with a higher risk of committing fouls and receiving cards, which could result in disadvantages such as reduced player availability due to suspensions.
  
  

Build up. Where do you see the space for creating your own actions and where will you focus your midfielders to build possession. This option doesn't give any bonuses/penalties to your team, it is just a guideline which events to attempt the most.

• Build in the center builds your possession with central midfielders.
• No preferred option builds equally (left, right, center).
• Build on the sides builds your possession through left and right midfield players.
  
  

Approach. How do you prefer to approach opponent's goal. Try to exploit opponent's weak areas with your formation and right approach type. This option doesn't give any bonuses/penalties to your team, it is just a guideline which events to attempt the most.

• No preferred approach keeps balance among all 3 approaches.
  
• Pass into space and send balls behind opponent's defensive line for one on one chances.
• Cross into the box leads to more header situations.
  
• Shoot on sight whenever there is an opening near the edge of the box. Leads to long shots.
  
  

Formations

There are several formations to choose from, 4-4-2 being the default and most neutral formation. Any other formation may bring bonuses or penalties to a determined play. For example, a defending team using 5-3-2 will see a benefit when one of the 5 defenders is going for a tackle. However if the same team is defending using 3-4-3, the same defender will be less effective as they are missing 1 player. The same is true if the player defending is a midfielder or striker, the match engine will also check how many players there are in that position.
Same logic when attacking, a lone striker in a 4-5-1 will struggle to score, comparing to 3-4-3 but since his midfield has 5 players, he will probably be served more often.

So, we can assume that in KOB, 5-3-2 is a defensive formation, 3-4-3 is an attacking formation that will be weaker defending but every attack using a striker, is stronger. This logic is the same for all formations.

For every official match a team plays with a formation, it will gain a 1 star experience towards that formation knowledge, each star gained gives a 1% bonus to players skills for the next match. This experience can be accumulated up to 5 stars, giving a maximum of 5% bonus. To stack this experience the game will only look for the latest 10 official matches, older than that, they will be "forgotten". Formation experience will give bonus to every match type however can only be accumulated on official matches. Formation experience is reset at the end of each season.

Player Positioning

Players should be played on their natural positions, if a player is playing in the wrong position he will get a 20% de buff to his skills.
It is possible to train a player to play in extra sides (left, center, right) than he already does, this costs euros.

Energy Bars

If the manager wants, players can use energy bars during half time. These have to be pre-purchased from the Goods Market. If the club has them in stock and the option is selected, 1 item will be used per match and players will have an extra boost to their performance during the second half.

The engine encourages adjusting your tactics for each opponent, as countering his vital spots can make all the difference between a win and a loss.

Match events. The match is divided into a number of events. There are different events for building up play, creating a key-pass, and getting into a position to shoot for goal. For each event the skills of the attacking player is calculated and compared to the opposing player. The base skills have plenty of possible modifications that can be applied during this comparison.

Choosing events. Events follow in logical order. First, one of the build up events is tested. If successful, the engine continues to one of the key pass events, and finally to related shot creating event if successful again. In case of a corner or foul the engine will skip over some of the events earlier in the chain (i.e. a corner starts as a key pass event). Which exactly event will be chosen depends on your tactical options. Selecting to build up play through the middle will skew the usual distribution more towards the middle. On the match screen stats you can see your attempted and successful events. If you focus your efforts through the middle you will get more attempts in that area, but is possible that the opponent quite successfully blocks your midfield approaches and you end up with more successful build up events on the side in the end.

Build up events

These are the starting events. They represent a string of passes coming together to bring the ball over the half line and into the opposition's half. By default your team will equally attempt to build up play over the left side of the field, right side, and the middle. You can skew the distribution by selecting different build up tactical option. Possible build up events:

• Build up from the left
• Midfield build up
• Build up from the right
  
  

Key pass events

Successful build up will result in a key pass event, an attempt to place the ball where it can hurt. Depending on your approach tactical option your team will try certain options more often than others.

• Through ball approach. This approach covers playing direct vertical balls behind opponent's defensive line in an attempt to surprise your opponents and catch them off guard.
• Cross ball approach. This approach will try to get a ball into a good position for a cross, usually from the side of the box but not exclusively.
• Edge ball approach. This approach will try to work the ball into a good position for a shot, usually near the edge of the opposition's box.

Shot creating events

After succeeding in one of the key pass events it is up to your attackers to get into position to receive that cross, through ball, or a ball in a shooting range. Your opposition will, of course, try to prevent you from doing exactly that. In this step the type of event to test is directly related to the previous step. You need to win this step to get a chance to shoot on the goal.

• Through ball shot attempt. The team tries to react to a through ball and get into a chance to shoot on goal. If successful, this will often result in an one on one chance for your forward.
• Cross ball shot attempt. After the successful cross your team has to fight for a good header position while your opponents try to prevent that from happening.
• Edge ball shot attempt. Your team tries to exploit the opening near the edge of the box while the opponents try to block it.

Shooting on the goal

After your team succeeds in all 3 types of above mentioned events the player from the last step gets to make an attempt to score a goal. This test is performed individually between the shooter and the goalkeeper. Different skills are used depending on the type of the approach.

• Long shots. Shots from distance are common but at the same time the hardest to score.
  
• Direct free kick. Direct free kick is similar to a long shot but with defense fully prepared for it.
• Headers. Headers, quick shots and the like. They're the middle ground when it comes to shooting on the goal, moderately hard to execute.
  
• One on ones One on one chances and trick shots behind opponent's line of defense. They're the easiest to score but hard to create.
  
• Penalty shot This one is as ideal of a situation as it can be.
  

Club Popularity

Each club has its own popularity level, this determines how many fans will attend the stadium to watch a match.
Popularity changes depending on the team result and its capped depending on what division the club is in the national league:

• Division 1 => 100%
• Division 2 => 60%
• Division 3 => 40%
• Division 4 => 30%

This is how popularity changes:

• Win +1.5 points
  
• Loss -1.5 points

In the event of a draw, the popularity of the teams will be adjusted based on their current popularity levels. This system ensures that draws still have an impact on team popularity, rewarding the less popular team slightly while penalizing the more popular team to keep the competitive balance.

• If the Home Team has Higher or Equal Popularity:

  • The home team's popularity will decrease by 1 point.
  • The away team's popularity will increase by 0.5 points.

• If the Away Team has Higher Popularity:

  • The home team's popularity will increase by 1 point.
  • The away team's popularity will decrease by 0.5 points.
    
    

Team Morale

Team morale changes how well your players will play and also changes based on team results.

• Win +2 points
  
• Loss -2 points
• Draw 0 points

Player training is essential to develop player skills. Many factors influence the training progression, age, recent matches, player talent, training type, coaches and infrastructure.

• Training sessions can be issued once every 24h, this timing resets at 0:00 server time.
• Players have a progress towards the next skill level up (from 0% to 100%), when the progress reaches 100% the manager can select a skill to raise +1. The progress will be reset back to 0%.
• Changing training type of a player will reset the current progress back to 0%.
  
• If a player has low condition, managers can find that it is a good idea to toggle skip training (rest) and then start the training session, resting players will gain condition immediately.
• If a player has payed in the last 24h when training starts, he will get a small progress boost for that training session.

Using Coaches

Coaches will give a boost to players training based on their specialty. For this boost to work you must set the specific training type for each player. You can only use a specific training type if you have the right coach. The default training type is "General", it enables to skill up any skill but its slower than specific training.

List of skills that each training type will enable to level up.

0 general - any skill but slower
1 Goalkeeping - handling
2 Defending - off the ball, positioning, tackling, heading, set-pieces
3 Attacking - off the ball, positioning, heading, finishing, set-pieces
4 Technique - passing, technique
5 Physical - strength, speed, natural fitness

Stadium

• Stadiums are used when your team plays a home match, your club will receive the ticket revenue based on how many spectators the game had.
• Stadiums  can go up to level 16, each level adds 5.000 seat capacity. Each upgrade takes 3 days to complete.
  
• The amount of possible spectators in a match is determined by the home and away teams popularity.
• The ticket prices are fixed.

Facilities

• Training Grounds - A higher level will increase the speed at witch the player training progress rises.
• Youth Center - A bigger youth center will enable the club to have more youths per level. Level 1 -> 3 players, Level 2 -> 5, Level 3 -> 8, Level 4 -> 11, Level 5 -> 13
• Medical Center - This is where injured players can be healed using medical supplies. A bigger medical center will enable more uses per season. Level 1 -> 3 heals, Level 2 -> 5, Level 3 -> 7, Level 4 -> 10, Level 5 -> 15
  
• Legal Office - Where banned players (red cards) can be removed by using Discipline Complaints. Level 1 -> 3 complaints, Level 2 -> 5, Level 3 -> 7, Level 4 -> 10, Level 5 -> 15

Hiring and maintaining staff in your club costs money, you should consider this long term investment.

Coaches

All clubs start with 2 random 1* rating coaches, they have small wages. These can be used to boost players using specialized training but if you want more and better coaches you will need to hire. Since the club can only have one of each type, you will need to fire a coach you already have if you want a better one for that role. Costs of hiring and maintaining each coach:

• 1* costs 0.2 Euro (paid in gold) to hire, 1 local currency weekly to maintain
• 2* costs 3.0 Euro (paid in gold) to hire, 3 local currency weekly to maintain
• 3* costs 8.0 Euro (paid in gold) to hire, 8 local currency weekly to maintain
• 4* costs 14.0 Euro (paid in gold) to hire, 14 local currency weekly to maintain
• 5* costs 20.0 Euro (paid in gold) to hire, 20 local currency weekly to maintain
  

Scouts

Scouts enable you 2 main things, one is to find the talent level (amount of stars) of any player that you do not own. Scouting a player costs a small amount of gold paid to the local federation. If you want to scout a player that was born in France, you will need a scout from Europe. The other thing scouts enable is to have access to the free player market. However you will need a scout for each of the 4 zones the game is divided in order to have access to these player lists. Costs of hiring and maintaining each scout:

• 5.0 Euro (paid in gold) to hire, 1.0 local currency weekly to maintain
  

Basic Recruitment Information

Recruiting other managers to play Kickoffboss can be very rewarding, specially if you help them understand the game. Any manager can recruit others by sharing their recruitment link, if the new manager follows that link, then he will be linked to you forever or until you sell him in the recruits market.

Your referral link will look something like this: https://kickoffboss.com/footballgame/xxxxxx

Where xxxxxx is your username.

Any new managers that don't follow a specific referral link or for some technical reason the recruiter information was not valid, will end up being recruits of the current winner of the Referral Rights Auction.

Taxes

The bid advantage of having recruits is that they pay you fees for some of their actions in the game.

• When they charge their account, you get 10% (euro)
  
• When they win a league match, you get 10% of the victory bonus they received (local currency)
  
• When the season is finished, you get 10% of the league bonus they received (gold)
  
• When they win a national cup stage, you get 10% of the cup bonus they received (gold)