How to play

Introduction

BasketVibe is a browser basketball manager. You run a club in a persistent online world: pick lineups and tactics, plan training, follow the table, and grow the squad over many seasons. Matches are simulated — you get a score, box score, and written play-by-play. You do not control players in real time.

A league season is 22 rounds, with games on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday — about eight weeks. Between matches a typical visit is a few minutes: check the result, tweak tactics or training, maybe look at the market. The world keeps moving when you are away.

New here? Read this page, then §6 Match tactics and §8 Training before your first league game. Come back to §5 Skills, §4.2, and §7 Game engine when you want the why.

How to join

From the home page, register with an email, password, public nickname, country, and club name. You get an activation email — open the link and confirm (opening a preview is not enough). Pending signups expire after 48 hours; then you submit again.

Your country places you on that region’s league ladder (Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, or Africa). You take over a bot club in that region — preferably a vacancy in the top division, otherwise a feeder league. If every club on that region’s ladder already has a human manager, pick a country in another region.

You start with 12 players and 600,000 in the bank (§4 Squad, §10 Economy). Most opponents in a new division are still computer-run (bot) clubs: they play the same fixtures with weaker generated squads.

Stay active: if you do not sign in for 45 days, season rollover closes that account. You can register again with the same email for a new club; the old one stays in the world as a bot. Details: §2.1.

Quick start — a typical week

• League games kick off Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. in your league’s time zone (§1.1). On My club → Club, Next game shows crests, form, and Preview.
• My club → Training — each player needs a primary and secondary skill (different from each other), then Save (§8 Training). Training runs Sunday at midnight on the world calendar.
• Before each match: My club → Tactics — fill Q1–Q4 (five players per quarter) and set a depth chart so backups cover injuries and foul-outs (§6.2.2). Save. On the fixture page, Tactics beside Preview is for that game only, including defensive focus on opponents (§6.6).
• Inbox → Notifications — results, injuries, scout reports, transfer bids, friendly invites.
• After the match: open the fixture from Schedule or Notifications for the box score, play-by-play, and replay (§9 Match and result).
• Between matches: My club → League (table), Roster, Finances (§10 Economy), Academy when you are ready (§4.2), Transfers when you shop or sell (§11 Transfers). Competition → Cups when an edition is running (§3 Cups).

Optional Onboarding under Office walks through the same loop with small cash rewards.

Finding your way

The side menu:

• Inbox — News, Messages (chat with other managers and Basketvibe Team, always at the bottom of your thread list), Notifications.
• Office — Onboarding (when you have an open journey), Manager (public profile and career totals), Calendar (matches, transfer deadlines, and the weekly rhythm in your device's time zone), Club profile (name, arena, kit, nickname, jersey number), Club page (your public vitrine), Watchlist.
• My club — Club (hub and next game), League, Schedule, Roster, Training, Tactics, History, Personnel, Finances, Academy, Transfers.
• Competition — Cups, Regions (the league ladder), Friendly finder, Search.
• Game — Roadmap, Feedback, this Manual, Discord, Hall of Fame.

In the top bar you can switch interface language (Polish, English, German, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese) and appearance (light or dark). Choices are saved to your account. Log out returns you to the home page.

Manager shows your nickname, league, and career record (wins, trophies, and seasons — counted from when you took over, not the previous bot). A green Online badge appears when a manager was active in the last five minutes (on their profile and on the desktop league table). Managers from the beta who still run a human club may show Founding Manager (§13 Hall of Fame).

Search (under Competition) looks up managers, clubs, and players worldwide — not only your region. Type at least two characters; a match can appear anywhere in the name. Bot clubs and managers never appear. An empty field shows recent searches on this device. Arrow keys move through results; Enter opens the highlighted row.

Notifications list newest first, in pages of 20. Finished match alerts show League or Friendly next to the score. A red NEW badge on News clears when you open that section.

Onboarding

Eligible managers see Onboarding at the top of Office (badge X / 23 = completed tasks). A compact strip at the top of the main column points to the next task or an unclaimed reward; Skip dismisses the strip and menu link without claiming any unclaimed level rewards (after a confirmation prompt). Onboarding has four levels and 23 tasks total — only your current level is expanded by default. Level 1 covers club identity and basics (logo, kit, settings, notifications, display preferences, first lineup, depth chart). Level 2 covers development (training, academy investment, signing a junior, friendlies). Level 3 covers advanced tactics, your first league match, roadmap voting, and messaging. Level 4 is transfer-focused (bookmark, bid, buy, list, sell). Completed levels (reward claimed) stay collapsed with a green reward badge; tap the level title to review its tasks. Future levels stay collapsed until you claim the previous level’s cash reward. Claim rewards when you want the money credited to Finances. Level rewards are 10,000, 15,000, 25,000, and 50,000 (frozen at enrollment). After you claim the Level 4 reward, a short Well done! celebration appears once; the strip and menu link disappear (your progress stays saved). Onboarding reward lines in Finances are separate from the promotion bonus.

If something goes wrong

• If a save fails while you are working in the game, you usually see a short notice near the top explaining what happened.
• If a screen cannot load, you see a message in the main panel with a Try again control; the header and side menu stay visible so you can move elsewhere.
• If something still looks broken after you retry, open Game → Feedback. Choose Bug, Idea, Game balance, or Violation, write a short title and description, and optionally paste a link (match, player, club page, or any URL) and attach a screenshot. You get a ticket number and can follow status under My reports on the same page (New, Confirmed, Planned, Roadmap, Duplicate with Same as #N: title, Shipped, or Rejected). You can also use the #bugs channel on Discord (link in the side menu under Game). Game → Roadmap is a separate page for voting on planned work.

Common terms

1. Season rhythm

• Training is processed on Sunday at midnight on the shared world calendar (§1.3). Every player has a default training plan; you can change it any time before it runs.
• Knockout cups run in some weeks alongside the league when an edition is open — §3 Cups.

1.1. League matches

• Match days: Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday — league games kick off at 8:00 p.m. in the league's time zone (§1.3) and are simulated shortly after. Every fixture in the round is played at the same time.

Between games you set match tactics and lineups under My club → Tactics (the active setup carries to the next games until you change it). Before a scheduled league fixture you can open Tactics next to Preview on that match to pick which named preset applies and set defensive focus on each opponent — see §6.6. That match plan locks 15 minutes before kickoff (19:45 in the league time zone); Tactics stays on the card with a padlock for review. On your schedule and next game card, Tactics shows ✓ when you have saved a plan for that fixture and ✗ when you have not (same green/red style as form W/L), until lock. You also browse the standings, schedule, and results.

1.2. Friendly matches

Friendly matches sit outside the league table. Under Schedule, open the Friendlies tab to see the last ten played friendlies plus every scheduled one at 08:00 kickoff (§1.3; with a short note above the table). Sent invites still awaiting a reply are listed at the bottom of that tab when you have any — you can cancel one to challenge that club again. For a booked friendly that has not kicked off yet, open Preview or Match tactics and tap Cancel (top right) — either club can remove it from both schedules until 48 hours before kickoff (08:00 in the host club’s league time zone). Inside that window the button stays visible but shows a message that cancellation is no longer available.

For scheduled friendlies you use the same Tactics screen as in league play — open it next to Preview on the fixture to pick a preset and set defensive focus (§6.6). That plan locks 15 minutes before kickoff (07:45 in the host club’s league time zone). The ✓ / ✗ indicator on your schedule works the same way until lock.

From another club’s page you can invite them to a friendly — choose HOME (you host) or AWAY (you travel). When a match is booked, the date is the first free day from tomorrow onward (never today), chosen automatically when they accept, when they use auto-accept, or right away for bot clubs (no human manager to review the invite).

On your own club page, Club settings lets you turn Allow friendly game invites off so others cannot challenge you (they see This team cannot be challenged instead of the invite button) and optionally auto-accept incoming invites.

You can have at most ten scheduled friendlies ahead at once; that limit applies when a friendly is booked (accept, auto-accept, or a bot). Pending invites do not count — a club that reviews invites manually may still receive them when already at ten scheduled games, but cannot accept another until a slot opens. If the opponent auto-accepts (or is a bot), the invite is rejected when either club is already at ten scheduled friendlies.

Pending invites appear at the top of Notifications, where you can accept or decline; if you decline, the inviting club gets a notification. Inbox timestamps use dd.mm.yyyy, HH:mm. Friendly invite alerts show the inviting club’s flag.

Friendlies use the same match rules as league games but do not change league standings or your league record; on your manager profile they appear as Friendlies played and a separate friendly record. Use them to practice against clubs anywhere in the world, try lineups and match tactics, and chase a friendly W–L without risking your league place.

Under Competition in the side menu, Friendly finder shows up to sixteen human clubs that have auto-accept turned on and a club logo (gallery or custom upload), in a random order that changes each time you open the page. Each row shows the next free friendly date for you and that club (the earliest day when neither side already has a friendly) beside Invite to friendly with HOME and AWAY buttons, or (no slots available) when no such day exists within a year. Tap HOME or AWAY to send — the match books immediately when they auto-accept.

After a friendly finishes:

• Experience still rises with minutes played (and the usual bonuses for young players and the player of the game), but only about one tenth as much as the same run-out in a league match.
• Fatigue rises too — again about one tenth of a league game for the same minutes and defensive aggression.
• No injuries occur in friendlies.
• Both clubs earn the same ticket income (much smaller than a league home game — §10.1.1). Popularity does not change after a friendly.

1.3. Regional clocks

The whole world shares one game calendar, but some events fire in your league's time zone (the region from §2.1 — you do not pick it manually). Other events use the same moment for every region on Sunday at midnight on that shared calendar.

Europe uses Central European time. Americas use US Eastern time. Asia-Pacific uses Japan time. Africa uses West Africa time — the same regional idea you see on league kickoff times.

In the game interface, clock times for your next match, fixture previews, and transfer deadlines are shown in your device's local time zone so you know when events happen for you. Office → Calendar gathers those matches, your live transfer deadlines (listings, bids, and watchlisted players on the market), and the weekly rhythm (academy, training, finances, nightly fatigue) on one week view. The table above still describes when the simulation runs in each region.

2. League and season

• The league has 12 teams. In each round your team plays one game. A season lasts 22 rounds — about eight weeks of real time (Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday). Most clubs you meet are still computer-run (bots) until humans take them over; they play the same fixtures with weaker generated squads. Human-managed clubs show a manager name; bots show (bot) on the ladder.
• Standings: two points for a win, one for a played loss, none for a walkover loss. There are no ties in a game.
• If teams are equal on points, point differential decides (points scored in the season minus points allowed).
• You can follow the table as the season progresses. After the season ends you get a summary and a full archive (tables and results for every round).
• Under League in the side menu, the standings and league schedule screens follow whatever league you're viewing now — for example after browsing another club or opening a ladder link — rather than snapping back to your own league automatically. Those two pages include a season control: you can open a past season to see that year's table, schedule, and leaders. The rest of the panel (your club dashboard, players, matches, finances, and so on) always reflects the current season until you come back to those two League screens. Schedule in the side menu shows your club's league fixtures, friendlies, and — when you are entered in any active cup — a Cups tab with one schedule block per edition (last ten played cup matches plus every scheduled one, with a link to the ladder — §3 Cups). Each row on those three tabs shows the match day plus the kick-off time in your browser's time zone (converted from the league or cup regional clock). The full league-wide schedule lives under League › Standings › Schedule.
• Under normal operation the world starts the next season in every league at once once every still-scheduled league fixture has been played. If the simulated calendar ever moves past the league programme's final date while a few fixtures never ran, those leftovers are removed from the schedule (they leave no result); rollover still continues from the matches that did finish so the world cannot stall indefinitely.
• On Club, Next game when yours is unset: if the season calendar already pins rollover timing, you see one short note that the season is over and two dates — when schedules become available again (the Sunday tied to rollover) and when the next season’s first match day opens (the following Monday). If those anchors are not ready yet but other leagues worldwide still have open fixtures, the panel instead mentions how many scheduled games remain globally until things settle. When a match is scheduled, the card shows both clubs' crests, table place, home or away record for that venue, last-five form (W/L pills), match day and 20:00 kick-off, a View preview link to the fixture page, and an estimated chance bar coloured in each club's kit primary (§2.2 — not TS).

2.1. League ladder, promotion and relegation

The game world is split into regions (for example Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Africa). Each region has its own league ladder: a fixed layout of linked divisions. In the standard layout there are three levels — one league at the top (tier 1), four in the middle (tier 2), and sixteen at the bottom (tier 3). Each league has 12 teams.

Under Competition in the side menu, Regions opens your region’s full league ladder by default (Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, or Africa). Tabs at the top let you switch regions; each tab shows that region’s reigning top-league champion and every division with links to table and schedule. For the first three tiers, each row also shows the league leader — the club on top of the current table, with its flag, then the manager name in parentheses, or (bot) for bot clubs — and LH (§2.2). Switch to Statistics on the same page for side-by-side top 20 lists: strongest leagues (by LH) and strongest teams (by TS, human managers only) in the selected region. Countries lists how many human managers are active in each macro-region (EU, AM, AP, AF), with the total beside the region icon and a per-country breakdown underneath (only countries with at least one human manager). Click a country to open a sortable table of its human managers and clubs — manager, team, league code, join date, TS, and country TS rank — default sorted by league tier; 20 clubs per page.

On League › Standings, LH appears in the top-right of the standings card after the season picker. The table includes a TS column (§2.2). When a club changed division at the last season rollover, a small badge beside its name shows where it came from — green ↑ EU 3.13 for a team promoted from that feeder league or red ↓ EU 1 for a team relegated from the top flight. Clubs that stayed in the same division, or the first season after a world reset, show no badge. Below the full-width table you see the best five for a chosen round — one standout per position (PG through C) from that round’s finished games, with avatar, flag, name, club, and PTS / REB / AST (on a narrow screen those stats sit on one line beside the avatar). Use the arrows to browse earlier rounds; the panel defaults to the latest completed round.

On a wide screen, League › Standings adds tabs above the table: Table, Schedule, Teams, Players, and Transfers. The Table tab on desktop also shows a Manager column beside each club; when that manager has been active within the last five minutes, a green Online badge appears beside their name; if they were active earlier today (in your browser’s time zone) but are not online, a lighter green Today badge appears instead; if they have had no activity for more than 45 days, a gray Inactive badge appears instead. On a narrow screen the same five tabs appear in the same flat layout: Table shows standings, round best-five, and last/next round cards; Schedule lists the full season the same way — one mobile card block per round, matching the last/next round widgets on Table. Teams shows the top five clubs by per-game totals in six categories — points, rebounds, and assists on the first row; steals, blocks, and turnovers on the second. Players shows the top ten individual averages in the same six categories. Your club’s row is highlighted in both leader sections. The wide-screen Teams and Players tabs instead show one scrollable full stat table for every club or every player in the league. Transfers lists the 20 most recent completed moves involving clubs in the league you are viewing (position, player, age, height, weight, from club, to club, date, fee). Club names from the league you are browsing appear in bold; outside clubs and free agents use regular weight.

The country your club belongs to decides which region it sits in. The Europe region includes a broad set of countries across the continent (including smaller states and Balkan nations such as Slovenia). When a new manager joins an existing world, the game places them in whichever division in that region still has a vacancy: it prefers a first-tier club if bot clubs remain there; if the top flight is saturated with human-managed teams, newcomers start in a lower feeder division on the same ladder. Clubs from every country in that region compete on that same regional ladder toward promotion.

If every club on that entire region's ladder is already human-managed, you cannot join with a country in that region—you would pick a country belonging to another region instead.

When clubs finish tied on points, order in the standings is settled by baskets for and against, then mutual results among the tied clubs, then total points scored and points allowed across the league, then tradition: an older-founded club ranks above a newer-founded one — and there is always a deterministic final tie-breaking step so placements never collide.

After each season:

• Promoted: four teams — the winner from each of the four child leagues that feed a higher league moves up.
• Relegated: the four teams in places 9-12 of the higher league move down — one into each of the four feeder divisions below, assigned by a random draw at season end (so no feeder always gets the same table slot).
• Promoted and relegated teams swap one-for-one so every division on the ladder stays full.
• Inactive managers: if you have not signed in for 45 days, season rollover closes your account — you are logged out everywhere and cannot log in again with that email. You may sign up again with the same address to receive a new club (a different bot slot in your country). Your old club stays in the world as a bot with a fresh generated name and roster (like other bot clubs in that country). Your manager name no longer appears in search or on public profiles; on the Regions ladder the club shows (bot) instead of a manager name. These inactive bots are demoted before regular bots when human clubs need a place higher up. If one is still in a division above its feeders after that, it is swapped down using human clubs from the direct feeder divisions below (feeder-table rank first, then TS) — that can move it more than one tier in the same rollover when every division on the ladder is human-managed.
• When a higher division still has vacancies after promotion, the best-placed clubs from feeder divisions below can fill the gap — ordered by table rank, then TS (club strength).
• After standard promotion and relegation, any bot clubs still in a full division are replaced by human clubs from the feeder divisions below — by feeder-table rank (2nd place across all feeders first, then 3rd, and so on through 12th; within each rank, higher TS first). Relegated human sides stay down while any feeder human remains available; they are only brought back to fill a bot slot when no feeder human is left.
• If an entire tier in your region has no human managers (for example only bots in the top two flights), the system promotes human clubs up from the tier below, starting with the best league finishes.

2.2. Strength rankings

Three headline numbers help you compare players, clubs, and divisions. They use only the eight trainable skills (two-point through athleticism) — not form, fatigue, potential, height, weight, or salary. Academy strength (§4.2) and total skill points (TSP) (§4.2, §8.5) are separate ideas. The figures refresh as the world calendar advances.

Player strength (PS)

• One number per player: skills are weighted for their position (a centre’s rebounding counts more than a point guard’s; guards lean on ball handling, passing, and outside shooting).
• Shown as a blue PS chip on profiles and in your Roster (Overview, Tiles, and Skills tabs). On the transfer market, every listed player shows PS in the table and filters (§11.3).
• Privacy: you always see PS on your own squad. For other clubs you see it only while that player has an open transfer listing; everyone else stays masked.
• PS can differ by one point from what you would guess from the skill columns alone — the game uses precise stored values, while the table shows rounded skills.
• Position on the card is the first label only (SF/PF counts as SF). Unknown position → flat average of all eight skills.

Each skill’s share of PS by position (percent; each column sums to 100%):

Team strength (TS)

• One number per club: the average PS of the eight strongest players on the full 12-man roster (injured players still count). TS has no separate skill weights — it only ranks players by PS and averages the top eight.
• See §2.1 (standings TS column) and §4.1 (public club page).
• Use it to judge whether your squad is built like the table leader’s, or whether a transfer target would lift your top eight.

League hardiness (LH)

• One number per league / division on the regional ladder: how strong those squads are on average, based on each club’s TS. The weakest club in the league is left out so one thin roster does not drag the whole division down.
• See §2.1 (Regions ladder and standings header).
• Higher LH means tougher opposition on average — useful when you compare divisions before promotion or when you scout another league.

Not the same as the match preview bar: on Club → Next game, the estimated chance strip uses the top eight available players (injuries can matter), recent form, and a home-court edge when you play at home (no tactics). That bar is a pre-match hint, not TS. Home-court simulation bonus — §6.1.

3. Cups

Knockout cups run alongside the league. Only human-managed clubs can enter — bots are not in the draw.

You do not sign up yourself. When an edition starts, eligible human clubs in that cup’s scope (a region, a country, or worldwide) are placed in the ladder — sometimes a chosen list instead.

3.1. Where to find cups

Open Competition → Cups. Each cup card lists editions (status, teams, dates, winner). Open an edition for the ladder and a Statistics tab with cup totals (points, rebounds, assists, and the rest summed across that edition — not per-game averages). While an edition is in progress, the card also shows live stats and a Ladder shortcut.

When your club is in the draw, Your path above the ladder shows one slot per round while you are still in — your match when it is known, or TBD when the opponent or next round is not set yet (including after a first-round bye). Once you are knocked out, the path ends at that match.

Under My club → Schedule, the Cups tab lists every active edition you are in — one schedule block per cup, with a Ladder link. Upcoming cup fixtures use the same ✓ / ✗ tactics indicator as league and friendlies, and lock 15 minutes before that edition’s kickoff.

3.2. How a cup edition works

1. An edition opens and clubs are enrolled (see above).

2. A single-elimination ladder is built. If the number of teams is not a power of two, the strongest clubs (by TS — §2.2) receive a bye into round two.

3. Matches follow the edition calendar. The weaker team hosts (home court).

4. The winner receives a cup trophy on History.

Cup games use the same tactics screen and match report as league play (preview, play-by-play, replay). Offensive focus is ignored in cups until those matches use the same engine as friendlies (§6.3). Close-game last-minute tactics currently apply in friendlies only (§9.1).

3.3. Cup match rules

Each edition shows its match rules when the draw is published. Default cups today:

• No flat match reward
• No ticket income
• No injuries
• No fatigue or experience from the match
• Home advantage on (the weaker team hosts)

If an edition turns tickets, fatigue, or injuries on, cup games follow the settings on that edition page instead.

3.4. Cup trophies

Cup wins appear on History with the cup name and edition label. They are separate from league championship trophies.

4. Squad

• You start with 12 players when you enter the world; the initial squad is built with two players at each of the five court positions (PG through C) and two more at random classic positions (the same position can be picked twice). Transfers can change how many contracts you hold. Your club must always keep at least eight available squad players (active and not on an open transfer listing); see §11.1 for listing and release rules.
• Each player has a first and last name, nationality, age, height, and weight. Height and weight appear on every profile and affect match outcomes — see §5.2 for ranges, growth, and how they feed the simulation. Active players age up when seasons turn; a player who finishes a season at 38 retires on that rollover (38 is the last playable season). Released players keep the biography age frozen at departure.
• A player profile shows attributes and season statistics. Player strength (PS) — §2.2.
• Recent games list opponents with flags like on transfers — tap or click the score to open that fixture's report.
• The career table covers every league season where they logged minutes — one row per club per season when mid-season transfers split their playing time. Columns include League (links to that league’s standings for the latest world season — not necessarily the row’s historical season), Club, games played, per-game averages for scoring and defence stats (including +/− and season PER), and shooting percentages that match the box score (FG% uses every shot from the field — twos and threes together; 3P% and FT% are separate).
• Transfer history lists completed moves: seller club, buyer club, date, and fee. The oldest row is Joined the club — the date they entered the game and the first club they belonged to, with no fee.
• Free agents on the transfer market show bio, skills, and auction context only — no recent games, career table, or transfer history. See §11.4 for how they appear on the market.
• Your own players also show each trainable skill as an exact number, weekly salary, and a training history panel listing the last ten weekly skill jumps (same before→after display as on the training screen). After you buy a player, that panel includes skill jumps from their time at previous human-managed clubs too — still hidden on the transfer market before purchase.
• Other clubs' players show skills as wide bands (0–20, 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, or 81–99) on bar charts — you see the range, not the precise rating.
• Listed transfer targets show full skills and salary while their auction is open (PS — §2.2). A small green circle with a yellow dollar beside their name marks them on squad lists (same spot as the injury icon).
• On your squad's season averages view, the shooting rows show percentage success on field goals (all attempts from the field — two-pointers and three-pointers combined), three-pointers alone, and free throws, for the whole season to date (not average makes or attempts per game).
• The roster screen has four tabs — Overview (compact list), Tiles (larger cards), Skills, and Statistics — in the same underline style as the league table page.
• On roster Overview and Tiles, players signed from your junior academy show a home icon beside their name (next to injury and transfer markers). Your starting twelve are never marked this way.
• After you sign in you can browse any team's roster and statistics in the world — not only your own league — including season history and the club's all-time best players (up to five names each for games played, points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, three-pointers made, and personal fouls; for the counting stats you see career totals and per-game averages as separate columns). You can filter those leaders to all matches, league only, or friendlies only. On another club's roster, trainable skills appear as the same five bands as on their player profiles; your own roster still shows exact skills. On History, finished seasons where the club finished first while under human management show trophies at the top (titles won by the previous bot manager are not listed): winning the top division of the region earns one regional champion trophy (no separate duplicate for the same title), and each first-place finish in a lower division earns a league-winner trophy. Under each trophy the caption reads on three lines — title type, league name, and which season — and the trophy links to that league's standings for that season. The Seasons table underneath lists every league campaign where that club played finished games: league name (tap opens the standings for that league and season), place, games played, points for and against, margin, and standing points. Records then lists the club's biggest win and biggest defeat in league, friendly, and cup — only finished games against human-managed clubs (walkovers do not count).
• When you view another club (not your own), links to league table, roster, schedule, and club history sit in one compact row aligned to the right beside the club name — they pivot you without digging through the menu. (They show only on that club dashboard; roster and history you open next are simplest to leave with ordinary back navigation.)

4.1. Club page

The club page is the main public entry point for a team — one screen with the essentials about that club: identity, league standing, upcoming and recent matches, and the full squad.

• Every club has a shareable link based on its name (for example, ASTA Bydgoszcz gets a readable address from those words). Anyone can open it without logging in.
• The page shows the club logo and colours, team strength (TS) (§2.2) under the friendly invite (or above the kit previews when you view your own club), league place and form, next match, last five results, the full squad with player headshots (name, position, age, nationality — no private training or salary data), and the full league table for the current season. When the club has won at least one championship, a Trophies box above recent results shows the last five titles (same style as History → Trophies); clubs with no titles omit that box. On a narrow screen that table uses the same compact columns as the league standings screen (place, club, points, form). While a league game is in its live broadcast window, that latest result shows Watch live instead of the final score (§9.5).
• For a human-managed club, Founded on is the calendar day you registered your manager account (not the fictional founding date used for bot clubs in the world).
• On the squad grid, injured players show the same red injury marker beside their name as on your club dashboard and roster lists. Signed-in managers can tap a player to open their player profile; guests see the same cards without links.
• Share copies the link to your clipboard. If you manage that club and you are signed in, a small note offers a shortcut back to your club dashboard (My club → Club). Signed-in managers viewing another human club also see Message (opens a chat with that club's manager) and Invite to HOME friendly / Invite to AWAY friendly when invites are allowed.
• From Office → Club page in the menu you open your own public page. Club names and logos throughout the game link to these pages when you tap them.
• A manager nickname on the club page links to that manager's public profile with career numbers and current club — separate from the in-game Manager screen you use while logged in.

4.2. Junior academy

• Under My club → Academy you run your youth pipeline. Your academy has a strength meter from 0 to 100%. Spending builds that meter; signing a junior from a scout report spends a large chunk of it again — see below. You can leave the slider modest in week one; the tables later in this section are for when you start investing seriously.
• When you take over a club on an existing game world, your academy starts at 80%, and your new squad arrives fully fit — no one carries over an injury from the previous bot manager.

Weekly investment

• On Academy day (Thursday 09:00 in your league's time zone — §1.3), the club is charged the amount on your weekly investment slider (up to your balance) and the strength meter moves in the same step. A new scout report is generated after that update, so investment saved before Thursday shapes the candidates in that report.
• The slider runs from 0 to 100,000 per week — the same cap in every league.
• Press Save on the Academy screen so your choice is stored before Academy day runs. The meter follows your saved commitment, not a slider you have moved but not saved.
• Two rules: (1) More spend → faster growth, but the same weekly amount does less as strength rises — a low meter climbs quickly; near 100% even heavy spend slows. (2) Near the peak, saving the full 100k cap keeps 100% steady; half cap (50k) cannot hold the top (about −5 per week at 100%) and usually stalls around 89% climbing up. Zero investment always costs −5 per week. At 99%, any positive saved investment jumps the meter to exact 100% on the next weekly tick — no slow crawl on the last step. At exact 100%, the Academy strength panel shows a green confirmation that your academy has reached its maximum level.
• First week from 0% strength (before the meter has moved):

Amounts between these steps scale smoothly. The meter is clamped at 0% and 100%. Example progressions below compare full cap (100k) with half cap (50k).

Example progression from 0%

If you save the same weekly amount every week and do not sign anyone, the meter typically reads (weekly change and total debits so far in parentheses):

Example progression from 50%

After you sign a junior from 100% strength, the meter drops to 50% (see Signing drains strength below). Keeping the same weekly spend:

100,000 reaches 100% in about 11 weeks from 0%, or 8 weeks after a signing from peak (50% → 100%). 50,000 climbs quickly at first but stalls around 89% — the hold penalty near the top cancels most of the gain at half cap. To reach 100%, save the full 100,000 weekly cap.

Why did strength drop when I invested 20k? Twenty thousand is only 20% of the weekly cap — well below half-cap (50k) maintenance. At 25% strength, one week at 20k usually moves the meter to about 21%, not up. If you saw a bigger drop (for example 25% → 17%), check whether you signed a junior that week (see below) or had a prior week at 0 investment before your saved 20k took effect.

Signing drains strength

When you hire one prospect, your academy strength immediately loses about half of its current value (rounded). The other two candidates in that report disappear.

Is it worth investing before a rookie?

• The three candidates on your current scout report were rolled when that report was generated, using your academy strength at that moment (after any investment debited the same Thursday). Money you spend after the report appears does not change those three — it shapes later reports.
• Higher strength shifts every trainable skill band upward on future reports (table below).
• A common rhythm: invest through several weeks → scout report arrives → sign one junior → strength halves → invest again for the next cycle. After signing at ~25%, about three weeks at 100k usually brings strength back toward ~70% with noticeably better scout bands. From takeover (~80%) to 100% with no signings in between usually takes only a few weeks at 100k each. Signing at 100% drops you to ~50% — expect another ~5–6 weeks at max weekly spend to climb back.

Skill envelope (junior signing bands)

When a scout report is generated, the game rolls all eight trainable skills for each of the three prospects — two-point, three-point, passing, ball handling, defense, rebounding, athleticism, and stamina. Your academy strength at that moment (after Thursday investment, before the report appears) fixes a per-skill band: every skill on every candidate in that report rolls separately and evenly between the band’s low and high. Skills are not forced to the same number — one prospect can be stronger at defense and weaker at shooting while still landing near the same total skill points (TSP).

TSP is the sum of all eight skills. The game also rolls a target total for each prospect (centred between min and max TSP), then splits it across skills inside the band — so real signings cluster near Typical TSP in the table below; Min TSP and Max TSP are the hard floor and ceiling if every skill hit the bottom or top of its band.

The scout card does not show exact skills — only a ~20-point range bar per skill (see scout report bullets below). The envelope table is the true roll math behind those bars.

Lookup uses ten decile bands on the meter — 0–10% through 90–100%. Exact 100% uses the top band; the capstone bonus only shifts potential odds (table below), not the skill envelope.

Age 17 prospects use the same academy-strength row, but +2 on both ends of the per-skill band (e.g. 16–36 → 18–38 at 0–10% strength). Add +16 to Min, Typical, and Max TSP.

Typical TSP assumes every skill at the midpoint of its band (handy for planning); an actual signing is usually close but not exact. Ball handling uses the same band as the other seven skills.

Scout potential (hidden)

Each prospect also carries a hidden potential rating from 1 to 10. It is not shown on the scout card or roster — it only affects weekly training speed after you hire (§8.2). Higher academy strength when the report is generated shifts the odds toward better potential. At exact 100% strength, scout reports use a capstone bonus roll with even better odds (the 100% bonus row below).

Send for tests (§4.2 below) reveals potential only as a bucket — Low (1–3), Decent (4–7), or High (8–10) — never the exact number.

Chance of each potential value when the report is built (percent):

\The meter shows 99% for the near-max band. 100%* on screen is exact maximum only and triggers the bonus row.

• Age shifts the skill envelope: 17-year-olds get +2 on each end of the per-skill band (note under the table above); 16-year-olds use the table as written. Age also changes height and weight on the card and how much room they have left to grow after you sign (§5.2): younger juniors start shorter with more seasons toward their hidden career height target; older teens are already closer to full size.
• Your weekly investment is saved with the Save control on the Academy screen.
• Once a week on Academy day (§1.3), a scout report arrives with three young prospects. Signing a junior does not delay the next report — the Academy screen always shows the next Thursday due date. You get an inbox notification when Academy day completes (investment, strength change, and new prospects).
• You see each skill as a range about 20 points wide (for example "Passing 30-50"); the real rating falls somewhere in that band, not necessarily in the middle. All three share your club's nationality. Height and weight on the scout card match the candidate's position and age — see §5.2 for the exact ranges and how juniors grow after signing.
• For 25,000 (one-time, per prospect), you can send for tests while a candidate is still on the report. Your balance must stay positive and cover the full fee. The scout reruns measurements: each skill keeps the same 20-point band on the bar (lighter), and a new 10-point band appears inside it (darker) with min/max numbers on the narrower band only. Tests also reveal whether hidden potential is Low, Decent, or High (see table above) — not the exact 1–10 value. The true skill rating is still random inside both bands — tests do not reveal exact skill values and are not required before you hire. Each prospect can be tested once per report.
• When you hire a junior from the report, a short reveal runs: the same prospect card appears in a dialog, then each trainable skill shows its true value on the bar one after another (about every second). When every value is visible, you confirm with OK and return to the Academy screen.
• You may sign one junior from that report; the other two disappear (signing drain table above).
• A signed junior joins your first team roster immediately — there is no separate youth squad. Your roster can temporarily hold more than twelve players from this path.
• At season rollover, still-active roster members who just finished the season at age 38 leave payroll and competition that same beat; one inbox notification mentions each farewell. Younger players celebrate a birthday (+1 age) and stay. Any roster member still on the youth track and 21 or younger after that tick receives a physique update toward their career height target (see §5.2 — not only academy signings; your starting juniors grow the same way); once a player turns 22, they stop growing and leave the youth track.

4.3. Personnel

Hire doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists, and marketing specialists from My club → Personnel. Bots start with no staff; you choose when to invest.

4.3.1. Roles and slots

At full medical staffing (2 doctors + 4 physios) you reach −50% recovery time and −50% injury risk. With two psychologists, Sunday form rolls lean slightly more toward improvement. With two marketing specialists, each home loss costs 1 pp of popularity instead of 3. Maximum weekly payroll for all personnel is 85,000 (680,000 over an eight-week season if you keep everyone all season).

4.3.2. Recovery (doctors)

When a player is hurt, they need a stretch of calendar days off. A fresh injury lasts 3–12 days before doctors are counted. Each doctor on staff speeds up daily recovery — with two doctors, a full layoff takes about half as long as with none.

The squad screen shows an expected return date based on who you employ right now. Hiring or releasing a doctor changes how fast players heal from that day forward; it does not rewrite days already served. If someone gets hurt again while still recovering, the layoffs add together.

Healing ticks forward on the next calendar day after the match — not on the match day itself.

4.3.3. Prevention (physiotherapists)

Physios reduce in-match injury risk for your club only. The reduction applies when a league fixture is simulated, using your staffing at kickoff. They do not shorten an injury that already happened.

4.3.4. Form support (psychologists)

Psychologists gently tilt each player’s weekly form roll (Sunday) toward improvement — a bit less likely to drop, a bit more likely to rise. They do not change in-match skill modifiers directly; see §5.5 for how form affects performance once the number is set.

4.3.5. Fan engagement (marketing specialists)

Marketing specialists soften how much popularity drops after a home loss in league play (including a draw). Each hire adds 1 pp of cushioning — with none on staff a home loss costs 3 pp; with two, 1 pp. They do not change popularity after a home win (+2 pp). Staffing is counted at kickoff. See §10.1.1 for how popularity drives ticket income.

4.3.6. Weekly billing

Personnel wages are charged on Sunday with other weekly costs. You pay for the highest number of each role you had on staff any time that week — hiring someone for a single midweek match still counts for that week's bill. After Sunday's charge, the peak counter resets to your current headcount. On the Personnel screen, Charged this Sunday is that peak bill and On staff now is your current roster cost.

5. Skills

Skills are numbers that describe what a player can do. They grow through training (§8 Training) and feed directly into every match — §7 Game engine explains how the engine uses them.

If you are setting your first lineup, you do not need this whole chapter yet — §6 Match tactics and §8 Training are enough for week one. Come back here when you want to know why a 78 shooter missed, or which skill to train next.

Your card is the baseline. Form, weekly fatigue, experience, height and weight, tactics, and who you are matched up against all move that number up or down for a given night — then the engine plays the match on those effective numbers. A 78 three-point shooter who is cold, tired, and inexperienced will shoot below his card that night; a fresh, in-form veteran will shoot above it.

All trainable skills — technical and physical — update once per week according to the training plan you set. Form and fatigue do not change training; they only change how effective the player is in games.

5.1. Technical skills

In games, your six technical skills are adjusted by form, weekly fatigue, experience, and heavy in-game minutes (see §5.7) before the game compares attack and defence. Stamina sits outside that in-match stack (§5.3); athleticism has no roll of its own but feeds match outcomes — see §7.1. How card, condition, and tactics combine in a fixture is §7 Game engine.

Each of the six technical skills has its own subsection below (§5.3.1 and §5.3.2 cover athleticism and stamina). Every subsection states what the number on the card means and what it does in matches.

5.1.1. Rebounding

Your Rebounding rating is how good you are at winning the ball after a miss. In matches it is the base; the game then scales it by where you stand on the court and how tall you are.

Court slot (same skill and height — reach vs center in that lineup spot):

Even a high Rebounding rating rarely puts a PG on the same level as a big who lives at the rim.

Height (on top of slot and skill — reference 200 cm = 100%):

Every centimetre above 200 cm adds about 1.8% reach; every centimetre below takes about 1.8% away — a 30 cm gap (e.g. 180 vs 210) is roughly double the height reach, before court slot.

Slot and height stack — a short guard parked in the center slot does not rebound like a tall true center in that same spot, even with a high Rebounding rating.

In friendlies, who wins the board (offense vs defense) uses the same court-slot table as who is credited — both scaled by where the miss came from. A miss at the rim uses the full PG→C reach; a mid-range miss softens that gap; a three flattens it further so guards are closer to bigs. League and cup matches still average the five on court without slot or shot distance for the team fight; slot and height mainly decide the credited player there until those games move to the same engine.

Friendly share of the five (equal skill and height — how the glass weight splits; real ratings and height still move these):

After an offensive rebound the same player is favoured to take the immediate putback. Court slot vs the roster label on the card: §6.2.

5.1.2. Two-point shooting

You train one Two-point number on the card. In matches the game splits it into three scoring zones:

• At the rim — layups, dunks, and finishes through contact. Your two-point rating is the base; height, athleticism, and weight in range all help on top.
• Mid-range — pull-ups and floaters. Uses your two-point touch only — physique does not boost mid-range accuracy.

A strong mid-range shooter is not automatically a strong finisher at the rim, and vice versa — you train one number, but the game treats those zones separately.

Free throws — uncontested shots from the line. Mostly your two-point touch, with about one-third of the weight from three-point — no height matchup on free throws. See §7.1.

On every two-point attempt your effective rating for that zone is compared to the defender's defence (form uses the offence and defence columns from §5.5). Shooting focus, pass vs shot, and offensive focus (friendlies) steer how often each player shoots and from where — see §6 Match tactics. A height advantage over the primary defender helps the shooter most at the rim, less on floaters, and least on threes (§7.2).

5.1.3. Three-point shooting

Your Three-point rating is how likely you are to make shots from behind the arc. On each three-point attempt that rating (after form, fatigue, experience, and minutes — §5.5, §5.6, §5.7) is compared to the defender's defence.

Shooting focus (§6 Match tactics) steers how often that player tends to take threes — not this rating.

It also nudges free-throw accuracy (about one-third of the blend — §5.1.2, §7.1). Height does not make long-range shots more accurate by itself; a taller shooter only gains if he has a height edge over the defender in front of him, and that edge is smallest on threes (largest at the rim — §5.1.2).

5.1.4. Passing

Your Passing rating sets playmaking quality when a player is the last passer — how often the look is assisted and how much the pass helps the shooter. Who takes the last pass is driven by your role (pass-first vs score-first), offensive focus in friendlies, and court position (a point guard on the floor passes more than a centre in the same role). Put a good passer in a pass-first role on the right spot and teammates shoot better; a weak passer in that spot still gets the ball but hurts the look.

Passing also lowers bad-pass turnovers — losing the ball on a pass rather than on the dribble. Ball handling adds a small extra nudge to playmaking quality. Passing uses the same match-time layers as shooting (§5.5 offence column).

On putbacks after an offensive rebound there is no setup pass — passing does not change those attempts. The look is usually at the rim; the rebounder is favoured to take it (in friendlies, offensive focus also leans who goes up).

5.1.5. Ball handling

Your Ball handling rating is how well you protect the ball on the dribble. In matches it does two things:

• Fewer dribble turnovers — live-ball losses while dribbling, separate from bad-pass turnovers (§5.1.4).
• More paint attacks — when the offense looks for an inside shot, players with stronger ball handling are more likely to be the one who takes it.

Ball handling grows on the weekly training plan (§8 Training), counts toward weekly wages (§10.2), and appears on every profile and roster row. Academy scouts roll it in the same band as every other trainable skill (§4.2).

5.1.6. Defense

Your Defense rating is how well you contest shots and pressure the ball. You train one number; in matches it feeds two profiles shaped by your body and athleticism:

• Perimeter defense — outside shots and threes; lateral quickness matters.
• Interior defense — at the rim and in the post; height and strength matter.

Defense also raises steal pressure (opponents lose the ball on dribbles and passes) and block attempts at the rim. Your defensive aggression slider adds a matchup and team-wide contest bonus or penalty on top — see §6.3. Form uses the defence column on contested shots (§5.5).

5.1.7. How skills combine

Skills rarely act alone. Quick cross-links:

• Two-point — one trained number, three zones (rim / mid); physique helps rim only. Free throws blend two-thirds two-point and one-third three-point (§5.1.2).
• Three-point — deep shooting accuracy and about one-third of free-throw touch.
• Passing + ball handling — assisted looks and pass turnovers vs dribble turnovers and paint attacks.
• Defense — contests, steals, and blocks from one rating plus body type.
• Rebounding — skill, height, court slot, and athleticism stack (friendlies also use shot distance on the team fight).

5.2. Height and weight

Height and weight are fixed bio attributes — they do not train like the eight skills. They feed match physics: rebounds, paint play, and finishing through contact. Rebound reach by height in games is spelled out in §5.1.1; this section covers who gets which numbers and how youth-track players grow.

Adults — your seeded starters and bench, transfer-market players who are not on the youth track, bot-managed league rosters, and free agents — are sized as fully grown adults when they enter the world or the market. Youth-track players — academy signings (typically 16–17) and the two juniors in your starting squad when you take over a club — start in shorter teen bands and grow season by season toward a career height target until age 22. A youth player you buy from another club keeps growing for as long as they stay on the youth track.

Adult height (cm) — seeded veterans and the ceiling juniors grow toward:

Within each band, height is rolled with a moderate bell shape — values near the middle are more common than extreme short or tall outliers, but both ends of the range can still appear.

Scout signing height (cm) — the band on the scout card depends on position and age. A 17-year-old is already closer to full size than a 16-year-old.

Career height target — when a player joins the youth track (academy signing or your starting juniors), the game locks in a full-grown height somewhere inside that position's adult band. It is never below their height at that moment. It is also capped by how much they could still grow before turning 22: at most four centimetres per remaining youth season (rollovers while they are still 21 or younger). A 16-year-old has five such seasons ahead (ages 17–21 after joining), so current height plus 20 cm is the reach cap before the adult ceiling applies; a 17-year-old has four seasons (18–21), so plus 16 cm. You do not see the target number on a scout card or profile; you see it play out as they grow season by season.

Weight — derived from height and a body-build (BMI) roll per position. Guards skew leaner; centers skew heavier. Teens use the same BMI bands but may weigh less on the light end than veterans.

Youth-track players may weigh as little as 60 kg (guards) or 72 kg (centers) while still teenagers; the adult lower bounds apply once they are fully grown.

Youth growth — at each season rollover, while a youth-track player is 21 or younger and still below their career target:

• Height: a bump of +0 to +4 cm toward the target; larger steps when many centimetres must still close before age 22 (a tall target signed young can gain on the order of 15+ cm across remaining youth seasons).
• Growth spurts: at ages 16–17, about one quarter of seasons that need a multi-centimetre step may add +2 cm in one go instead of a smaller tick.
• Weight with height: about +0.9 kg per centimetre gained in that rollover.
• Late teens: at ages 19–21, about one season in ten may add +1 kg with no height change.
• Stop: at age 22 growth ends and the player leaves the youth track.

Weight in matches — every player has a healthy weight range for his height. Too heavy → slower on quickness plays (worse perimeter defense, ball security, steals). Too light → weaker in contact and box-outs (worse finishing through contact, post defense, rebounding battles). Keep him in range — the tables above show how signing weights are rolled; the same height and weight on the card feed these in-game checks.

5.3. Physical skills

Each physical skill has its own subsection below. Stamina never enters the in-match skill stack — post-game fatigue and in-match injury risk only (§5.3.2, §5.6, §9.3). Athleticism boosts many plays but rarely leads a roll by itself — §5.3.1; full outcome map §7.1.

5.3.1. Athleticism

Your Athleticism rating is speed, leaping, and explosiveness. It is not compared head-to-head on its own — it boosts rim finishes, lateral defence, ball security, steals, blocks, and rebounding when those plays resolve (§7.1).

If a player carries too much weight for his height, athleticism helps less on quickness plays — the game models that through physique (§5.2), not a separate position penalty.

5.3.2. Stamina

Your Stamina rating is endurance across the season. It does not add a direct bonus to shot-making in the same way form or weekly fatigue do.

After each match — higher stamina means less weekly fatigue banked for the same minutes and defensive aggression — formula in §5.6.

During a match — when a player is already tired on the floor, low stamina raises his in-match injury risk (§9.3). Stamina does not soften the injury penalty from playing aggressive defence.

Stamina can still be trained (§8 Training) on the same weekly plan as every other trainable skill. From age 30, your primary and secondary picks no longer add growth on any skill — Stamina included (§8.1, §8.4). From age 31, each Sunday the age decline hits all eight trainable skills equally; picking Stamina (or anything else) that week does not cancel the drop on that skill.

5.4. Experience

Experience is a career value 0–99 on the roster. It adds up to about +10% on in-match effectiveness built from your card skills — shooting, passing, defence, rebounding, and the plays athleticism feeds — at the top of that range (fixed curve, not “best this week”). It does not change the stamina number on your card. It never drops and does not reset between seasons. After each simulated match (league or friendly), it rises with minutes played, a bit faster for players aged 21 and under, and young players listed for the fixture but with zero minutes still pick up a small amount from being with the squad. The best player on the court that day gets extra progress on top of their minute-based slice. Friendlies: §1.2.

5.5. Form

Form (1–10) is a short-term mood for each player. It updates once per week (Sunday midnight on the shared world calendar — §1.3): each player usually moves up one, down one, or stays put, then the value is clamped between 1 and 10. Players in a slump (low form) are more likely to recover; players on a hot streak (high form) are more likely to cool off — so extremes are rarer than a pure coin flip. At season rollover, every player’s form resets to 6 (neutral). Psychologists on your §4.3 staff make that weekly roll lean slightly more toward improvement.

Form does not change training — only match effectiveness. It applies on top of your visible skill numbers (together with weekly fatigue, experience, and heavy in-game minutes — see §5.1, §5.5, §5.6, and §5.7). The engine multiplies the relevant skill by one plus the percentage below, then rounds to a whole number (minimum 1).

Which column applies

• Offence column — two-point and three-point shooting, passing / playmaking, and other attack checks on shots.
• Defence column — perimeter and interior defence on contested shots (slightly smaller swings than offence at the same form).
• Blend — rebounding uses the average of the offence and defence percentages for that form rating.

In-match modifiers by form rating

Percentages apply to the technical skill used in that moment (before other match layers). Defence is gentler than offence at the same rating.

How to read it: form 5–6 is a narrow band around neutral (about ±1% on offence). Form 4 or 7 already matters on a 70-rated shooter (−4% → 67 effective on offence at form 4; +4% → 73 at form 7). At form 1 or 10, the same 70 can land near 62 or 81 on offence before fatigue and experience stack on top.

Combining form in your squad: put hot shooters and creators in the lineup when they are 7+; lean on steady 5–6 role players for defence-heavy quarters; rest or bench players at 4 or below when you can, especially if weekly fatigue is already high. Check form bars on Club, Tactics, and fixture previews — they are the same numbers the simulation uses.

5.6. Fatigue

Fatigue (0–100) is between games. It rises after each match and falls every night at midnight. It does not reset when a player sits — the bar tracks how worn down he is heading into the next fixture. At season rollover, every player’s fatigue bar resets to 0 (fresh for the new season).

After each match, fatigue gain for that player is:

minutes played × 0.19 × defense aggression multiplier × (1.5 − 0.008 × Stamina)

Each midnight, everyone recovers:

0.5 + 10% of current fatigue (same for every player — Stamina does not speed up recovery)

Friendlies: §1.2 (about 10% of league fatigue for the same minutes and aggression).

High weekly fatigue makes players less effective on field goals, free throws, rebounding, and passing — and it bites offence harder than defence (the green zone on the bar still means barely any effect). In-match injury risk also rises when someone keeps playing while tired (separate from the weekly bar — see §9.3). The §5.7 heavy-minutes rule is independent of the fatigue bar. How much the bar moves your skills in a fixture is §5.6.2.

5.6.1. Fatigue bar colours

5.6.2. In-match performance penalty

The penalty is set from the fatigue number on the roster at kick-off and stays fixed for the whole match — sitting him for a quarter does not lower it. It stacks with form, experience, and heavy in-game minutes (§5.5, §5.4, §5.7) the same way form does: the engine multiplies the relevant skill by one plus the percentage below, then rounds (minimum 1).

Which column applies

• Offence column — two-point and three-point shooting, passing / playmaking, and other attack checks on shots.
• Defence column — perimeter and interior defence on contested shots (smaller penalty than offence at the same fatigue).
• Blend — rebounding uses the average of the offence and defence percentages for that fatigue level.

Penalty by fatigue level

Values between the anchors below scale smoothly (linearly). The colour zones in §5.6.1 match the same breakpoints.

How to read it: at fatigue 45 (orange), offence is about −12% — a 70 two-point shooter lands near 62 effective on offence before form, experience, and heavy minutes stack on. At fatigue 60 (start of red), offence is already −20%. In orange and red, rotation is not optional if you need him sharp.

5.6.3. Recovery with rest only (no games)

How fatigue falls if a player rests every day (league rhythm is Mon / Wed / Sat — you normally get 2–3 rest days between games):

(Display rounds to whole numbers; exact recovery uses the formula above.)

5.6.4. Where the bar settles (league Mon / Wed / Sat)

If you use a player the same way every week — same minutes and his own defense aggression setting — the bar before kick-off on league days (Mon / Wed / Sat) settles in a weekly rhythm. The table uses Saturday pre-match fatigue as the reference (the usual anchor once the cycle has stabilised). Values are rounded to whole numbers. After nightly recovery the bar is always higher than these pre-match numbers on days that follow a league game.

Soft defense

Balanced defense

Aggressive defense

5.6.5. Fatigue added by one league game (before recovery)

Soft — multiplier ×0.75

Balanced — multiplier ×1.00

Aggressive — multiplier ×1.65

5.7. Heavy in-game minutes

This is not the fatigue bar on the roster — it tracks how long someone has already played in this match, using the same minute totals you see on the box score.

The penalty applies to every in-match effectiveness read — shooting, passing, rebounding, contests, blocks, and steals — not only the six technical numbers on the card. It stacks with form, weekly fatigue, and experience the same way as in §5.1 — offence and defence columns on shots, blend on rebounds, and the same layer on free throws and passing. It does not keep growing if they stay on the floor longer; once they are over the threshold they keep the −20% until the game ends. Stamina does not make this particular hit stronger or weaker.

Rotation: the counter is cumulative for the whole game — the same total you see on the box score. Sitting someone for a quarter does not reset it; if they already logged 36+ minutes and come back (for example in overtime), the −20% still applies. In a standard 48-minute game, five players who never leave the court reach about 36 minutes at the start of the fourth quarter — that is when the rule usually kicks in.

5.8. Attribute ranges

For which skill feeds which box-score line, see §7.1.

6. Match tactics

Open Tactics from My club in the side menu. You control who plays in each quarter and how each roster player behaves for the whole match.

6.1. Home court

At home, your players also get a small skill edge in the sim and a better chance to win the opening jump ball in the first quarter (this is separate from the estimated chance bar on the club dashboard, which ignores tactics).

6.2. Lineups by quarter

• You pick five players for each quarter (Q1–Q4) separately — the same player may sit one quarter and play the next, or play every quarter.
• The same player cannot appear twice in one quarter.
• Each of the five slots is a fixed court role: PG, SG, SF, PF, C. Every role appears exactly once per quarter. That court slot controls rebound reach and who is paired against whom on defense — see §5.1.1.
• A player's roster position (the label on their card) is a roster label only. The engine does not read it for match math. A player struggles in a slot when his height does not fit the court role you assign — see §6.2.1 — or when physique works against the role (short reach at center, heavy frame on the perimeter). If someone has center size, center skills, and you play him at center, he performs like a center — regardless of whether his card says PG.
• Who replaces an injured or fouled-out player depends on whether you use a Depth chart (§6.2.2); without one, the game picks the closest roster position on the PG→C ladder.
• On a wide screen, the Lineup block shows a half-court map for the selected quarter: drag players between bench and slots, or swap two slots on the court. Use the Q1–Q4 buttons to switch quarters.
• On a narrow screen, open My club → Tactics for a Tactics tab with your saved presets and a Depth chart tab. With no named presets, tap Edit default lineup to set Q1–Q4 and Directives the same way as on desktop — Save updates your live tactics directly. With presets, tap one to edit it, use + New preset when you want another, and League / Friendlies / Cups to mark which setup applies to each match type. The same read-only rules apply when the next match plan is locked or already simulated (§6.5).
• Forced substitutions during the match happen in two cases: someone hits six personal fouls and fouls out, or they hurt themselves mid-game — in both cases a benchmate enters immediately when one is available. With a Depth chart, the game follows your ordered backup lists (§6.2.2); without one, it picks the closest roster position on the PG→C ladder.
• In the Directives table, Q1–Q4 columns show the court role (PG–C) that player fills in each quarter — drag a coloured position badge from the toolbar onto a cell, or drag between cells. Changes stay in sync with the Lineup block above. ✅ / ❌ under each quarter label means that quarter’s five is complete with no injured players, or not. Double-click a badge or drag it outside the table (court, bench, presets) to clear that quarter slot for the player.

6.2.1. Height and court slot (offensive fit)

Each court slot has a normal height band (the same ranges used when the game generates adult players). 100 in the table below means full offensive effectiveness in that role — shooting, handle, and passing in live action. Lower numbers mean a height mismatch for the slot you assigned (not the label on the card). The penalty grows the further outside the band; extreme cases (for example a 220 cm player at point guard) hit a floor of 55.

Below 100, a mismatch also means fewer touches in the offence, no height advantage on shot contests, and harder shot conversion — not just lower skill numbers on paper.

Rebound reach by slot is still §5.1.1. Very tall defenders at guard slots also contest the perimeter less effectively — that is separate from this offensive table.

6.2.2. Depth chart

On desktop, the Depth chart panel sits below Tactics. On mobile, use the Depth chart tab on the same screen. It is saved for the whole club (separate Save button) and does not change when you switch named tactical presets.

What you set

• For each position (PG through C), drag up to five players into an ordered backup list — first choice at the top, then backups.
• The same player may appear on more than one position list.
• Empty slots stay visible; the pool below always lists your full roster.

When the game uses it

• Before tip-off — when someone in a quarter lineup is calendar-injured, duplicated, or missing, the game replaces them using the backup list for that court role (the PG–C slot in that quarter).
• During the match — on six personal fouls (foul out) or mid-game injury, the next available name from the backup list for the vacated court role (the PG–C slot they were filling) comes in immediately.

Who counts as unavailable

• Calendar injury before the match is simulated.
• Mid-game injury until they are cleared on the calendar.
• Fouled out — six personal fouls in that game.

How a substitute is chosen

1. Walk your ordered list for the relevant court role; skip anyone unavailable or already on court.

2. If that role's list is empty, or everyone on it is out, the game picks the healthy teammate whose roster position is closest on the PG→C ladder to the vacant court role.

3. If several roles need filling at once, slots are resolved in order C → PF → SF → SG → PG (centre first). Each player can only be on court once — no duplicates.

With a saved depth chart, the game follows your lists and these fallbacks only — it will not borrow from another position's list when yours runs out, and it will not send someone back in after a mid-game injury just because the bench is thin.

When the list runs out or the bench is thin

• If the next backup was already on heavy minutes, they still play — a short bench can mean ~40 real minutes and full fatigue for that game; the game does not cap minutes for you.
• Mid-game injury: if no substitute exists at all, that injury event is skipped so the match can finish — the player stays on court.
• Foul out: if nobody can come in, the foul-out is still recorded and your team continues short-handed (fewer than five on court).
• Before tip-off: healthy teammates still fill slots first; only when the roster is extremely thin may someone still calendar-injured suit up at about half trainable skills so the fixture can run (§6.5). If an opening lineup slot cannot be filled at all, the match cannot start until the roster situation changes.

No saved backup order (default)

• The depth chart starts empty. Until you Save an order, every substitution uses the PG→C position ladder only: the available teammate whose roster position is closest to the vacant role. Computer-managed clubs without a saved chart follow the same rule.

6.3. How each player plays

For all 12 roster players you set one bundle of instructions for the whole game (not per quarter). Above the table, Q1–Q4 moves that quarter’s five to the top (other rows stay blank below, same list length). Position chips work the same way — those focus filters combine. An injury toggle (red icon) and a fatigue dropdown (10% steps, label resets) hide injured players and anyone at or above the chosen weekly fatigue so you only see healthy options when filling quarters. Columns are sortable; switch the trailing block between Skills (with optional heat colours), Stats (season per-game PTS–BLK, +/−, PER, minutes, and personal fouls), or Bio (age, height, weight, and form / fatigue bars). Choosing a fatigue hide threshold switches the table to Bio so the bars are visible.

1. Pass vs shot balance — five steps from playmaker (pass first) to scorer (look to shoot first). This steers who tends to take shots, not a raw skill bonus.

2. Offensive focus — five steps from Low through Normal to Primary. This is a relative lean among the five on the floor: how much of the offence runs through that player (last pass, shot, and turnovers), not a possession-share cap and not a shooting-skill bonus. Default is Normal. If everyone on court is on the same step, the split looks like a match with no extra lean. Two teammates both set to scorer, one Primary and one Normal, with the other three Normal: the Primary takes about a third more attempts than the other scorer. Stacking Primary on a playmaker plus Primary on a scorer (and Low on the rest) is allowed — the opponent can Lock those two. Friendlies use this slider; league and cup games ignore it until those matches move to the same engine as friendlies (§3 Cups).

3. Shooting focus — five steps from 2pt through mixed (centre) to 3pt. This shifts the type of shots that player tends to take. In friendlies, maximum 3pt on one player is about two threes per one two; putting everyone on max 3pt still tops out around half of the team's field-goal attempts from three. League and cup games still keep each player near half threes at the maximum step until those matches move to the same engine as friendlies (§3 Cups).

4. Defensive aggression — five steps from soft (0) through balanced (2) to aggressive (4); default is balanced. Applies to the whole match for that player.

Each step is a trade-off between tougher contests, more fouls, and more tiredness after the game. Intermediate steps (1 and 3) interpolate between the anchor tiers below. In-match injury risk from aggression is in §9.3.

• Soft (0) — about −14 Defence in the direct matchup when you are the main defender on a shot; your five on court average about −4.4 Defence as a unit. Roughly 12% of opponent shot attempts draw a foul on your team. Post-match fatigue gain uses ×0.75 on the formula in §5.6.
• Balanced (2) — no aggression bonus or penalty on contests. About 16.5% of opponent shot attempts draw a foul. Post-match fatigue follows §5.6 at ×1.00.
• Aggressive (4) — about +14 Defence in the direct matchup; your five average about +4.4 Defence as a unit. Roughly 21% of opponent shot attempts draw a foul. Post-match fatigue uses ×1.65.

Fouls use the average aggression of your five players on court (not each player separately). Fatigue after the game uses each player's own aggression slider — a bench player on soft settings pays less than a starter on aggressive, even in the same match. Each foul step softer than balanced lowers the foul-on-shot rate by about 13%; each step more aggressive raises it by about 13%. About half of fouls on shots are shooting fouls (the shooter goes to the line); the rest are common fouls until the opponent reaches the team bonus (fifth team foul in the quarter — then further fouls send them to the line). More aggression means more personal fouls, earlier foul trouble, and sixth foul ejections — see §9.2.

Contest strength applies when you are the primary defender on a shot — on top of your Defence skill, form, and weekly fatigue. The team-wide Defence bump applies to every shot the opponent takes while your current five are on the floor.

Illustration (even matchups). When all five share the same aggression and both clubs are otherwise even (~70 attack and defence), opponent field-goal percentage is only a guide — about 53% on the softest team-wide setting vs about 48% on the most aggressive; that typically works out to roughly 4–5 more opponent points on soft vs balanced, and 3–4 fewer on aggressive vs balanced, at the same skill mirror. Real games vary with lineups, skills, and fatigue.

Aggression does not add a separate in-match stamina drain; it changes post-match weekly fatigue gain and how hard you contest shots.

The simulation follows these directives — it does not override your choices to funnel the ball to the hottest player. Cold form, weekly fatigue, or heavy in-game minutes still matter through the skill rules in §5 Skills.

6.4. Named tactical presets

You can keep up to five named setups (labels up to 15 characters). You choose which preset is active for league games, active for friendlies, and active for cup games — they can all be the same preset or different ones. League active is also what the club editor shows as your default mirrored lineup when you open Tactics.

• On desktop, use Tactic presets to create presets, rename them, pick which one you are editing, activate for league, activate for friendlies, or activate for cups, and delete extras (you always keep at least one once presets exist). Press Save after lineup or directive changes; nothing is saved until you confirm (or confirm a preset delete). If the preset you delete is active for league games, friendlies, or cups, the confirmation dialog tells you which remaining preset will take over. Deleting a preset that a scheduled league, friendly, or cup match still had selected switches that match to your club’s active preset for that match type.
• If you have never used named presets, the screen can create your first preset from your current plan; until then, saving updates your live tactics directly.
• On mobile, tap a preset to edit it, use + New preset when you already have presets, or Use named tactical presets… to turn your current plan into the first named preset. Until you use named presets, Edit default lineup on the hub is enough — saving updates your live tactics directly.

6.5. Saving and when editing closes

Press Save on the tactics screen (or on a named preset) to store lineups and player directives. Nothing is kept until you confirm.

When the editor closes. Once your club's next league match is simulated, the plan you last saved is used for that game and the tactics screen turns read-only — you cannot change lineups or directives for a fixture that is in progress or already finished. After the result is in, editing opens again for later games only; what you change then does not rewrite the match that just ended.

• You can edit and Save freely while that next league fixture is still scheduled and more than 15 minutes before kickoff. From 15 minutes before tip-off the match plan is locked: Tactics stays on the schedule and next-game card (gray, with a padlock) and still opens for review, but you cannot save. Club-wide My club → Tactics stays editable for later games — it does not rewrite the locked kickoff plan.
• You cannot keep incomplete tactics: each quarter must list five distinct roster players; every roster player needs the four directive controls. Injured players may still appear on saved quarter grids — the screen warns you; swap them yourself if you want the stored plan to match who can actually play.
• Calendar injuries are resolved only when the match is simulated (§9 Match and result): healthy substitutes fill slots by position fit, then by overall skill if needed; if the roster is too thin, an injured nominee may still play at halved trainable skills. The game does not rewrite your saved quarter grids after the fact.
• When a sold or released player leaves a hole in your saved quarter grid, the game fills that court slot from your bench using the same depth-chart and position-fit rules as on match day. Your directives and the rest of the saved lineup stay in place.
• If no saved tactics exist when a match starts, the system builds a default lineup from your roster with neutral directives (bot clubs use their own generated templates).

6.6. Tactics for a specific opponent

From a scheduled fixture page, open Tactics beside Preview (only when your club plays in that game). You can change and Save that plan until 15 minutes before kickoff (league 19:45, friendlies 07:45, cups 15 minutes before that edition’s kickoff — §1.3). After lock, the same Tactics control stays visible with a padlock and opens read-only.

1. Optionally pick a named preset for this game only (leave unselected to use your club’s active setup for that match type at Save — league games use league active, friendlies use friendly active, cup games use cup active; none of these changes which presets are active club-wide).

2. Edit your Q1–Q4 lineups for this fixture — five starters per quarter in PG–C order (desktop: drag in the directives table; mobile: tap slots per quarter). Changing preset resets lineup and directives to that template until you Save.

3. Adjust your players’ directives for this fixture only — pass vs shot, offensive focus, shooting focus, and defensive aggression per roster player (saved with the match plan, not back to the club preset).

4. Review the opponent’s season leaders and full roster with skill bands and per-game averages. Injured players show the same red marker on the right of their name in both roster tables (hover for the expected return date).

5. Set defensive focus on each opponent player, then press Save.

Depth chart stays club-wide only (My club → Tactics); match Save copies your club depth chart into the fixture snapshot but you cannot edit it on this screen.

Defensive focus is a per-fixture, per-opponent marking plan — one setting for each player on their roster. It is not a team-wide defensive slider like defensive aggression (§6.3). You choose how hard to key on each opponent. Heavier focus cuts that player’s attempts and, when they still shoot, tightens their contest (lower FG%). Lighter focus opens looks and can shift shot volume their way.

How much the scoreboard moves depends on whether you keyed the player the offence actually runs through (pass vs shot, and in friendlies offensive focus):

• Hit — Lock or Intense on their volume scorer (or Primary option). They shoot less and make less. The defence should win clearly.
• Even — you key one player on a balanced five. They take fewer shots; teammates pick those up with only a small extra tax. The score barely moves.
• Miss — Lock on a pass-first guard the offence is not running through. Teammates get easier looks, and that boost can outweigh the key — the opponent may score more.

Intense and Lock are the same idea; Lock is stronger. They should never push the game in opposite directions.

6.6.1. Focus levels

If you never save match tactics for a fixture, every opponent is marked equally (no focus redistribution). Saving a plan with every player on Normal also plays evenly. Put Lock or Intense on their main scorer and Light or Give up on low-usage players to steal possessions from their stars.

6.6.2. How the numbers work

Each focus level has a weight in your marking plan — how strongly you key on that opponent relative to the rest of their roster. Every opponent on the roster gets one row; the game averages those weights across all rows.

On a contested shot, the game compares the shooter’s attack skill to the primary defender’s defence skill (form, fatigue, and the rest from §5.1) — the usual court matchup. Defensive aggression (§6.3) and defensive focus (when saved) add a direct field-goal penalty or bonus on top of that skill matchup.

When you have saved match tactics:

• The weight gap always steals some shot volume from the keyed player and gives it to teammates.
• Contest (FG%) and turnovers scale with how much of the offence actually runs through them. A Lock on their leading scorer drops their FG% and can pile on turnovers. Give up on that same volume option eases contests and can cut turnovers, so the offence keeps more shots. A Lock on a passer barely dents their rare shots, while teammates you are not keying get easier looks. Give up on a balanced five (no clear volume option) does not open extra possessions.
• In friendlies, Lock a Primary option even if they are not max scorer — that is who the offence is running through.

Worked example. Opponent has five players in your saved plan: Lock on their star (2.00), everyone else Normal (1.00 each). Average weight = 1.20. The star is harder to shoot over; the others are a little more open. If that star is actually their volume option, the tougher looks dominate. If they barely shoot, the open teammates dominate.

6.6.3. Typical impact on shooting

When skills are otherwise even and one opponent does most of the scoring, shifting only that player’s defensive focus one step at a time usually changes field-goal percentage in this order — easiest to hardest: Give up → Light → Normal → Intense → Lock. Real fixtures vary with lineups, fatigue, and who actually shoots.

Treat these as typical shifts when you keyed the right player, not guarantees for one night: a hot shooter on Lock can still make shots; a cold one on Give up can still miss. Keying a low-usage player will not move team FG% like this table.

6.6.4. Tips

• Lock the volume scorer, not the setup guard — check their pass vs shot and offensive focus on match tactics / review if you scout who the offence runs through.
• Pair Lock / Intense on one or two stars with Light / Give up on deep bench or low-minute players so the average weight stays sensible.
• Save at least 15 minutes before kickoff — unsaved fixtures play with no focus redistribution (everyone equal).

You can prepare tactics for any upcoming scheduled game in your calendar, not only the next kickoff. Once the match starts or finishes, the screen is read-only.

7. Game engine

BasketVibe matches are simulated — you prepare the inputs; the engine resolves possessions, fouls, rebounds, and injuries from those numbers. §5 Skills covers what is on the card and how form, fatigue, and experience shape it between games. §6 Match tactics covers who plays, how they behave, and how you key opponents. This chapter is the bridge: which skills feed which plays, and how card + condition + tactics become a result on the night. Skim the role table if you are new; the rest can wait until you have watched a few games.

7.1. What each play uses

Every box-score line comes from skills on the card, plus height, weight, and court slot (PG–C) on rim plays and boards — see §5.1.1 and §5.2. Directions only — no hidden formulas.

No one skill runs the whole game. Technical skills (Two-point, Three-point, Defense, and so on) lead almost every roll. Athleticism often adds on top — finishes, lateral defence, steals, blocks, boards, ball security — but it rarely leads a roll by itself. A max-athletic player with weak shooting still misses; a sniper with low athleticism still shoots. Stamina never changes a single possession — only fatigue after games and injury risk (§5.3.2).

Build by role (primary → secondary → lower priority)

Think in jobs on the roster, not one stat per box-score line. Each column lists several skills — the engine blends them for that style of player.

Primary = train these first; they drive most of that role’s box score. Secondary = real boost when you have budget. Lower priority = fine to leave average if the player is not asked to do that job — not “dead”, just not the point of the build.

Your pass vs shot, offensive focus, and shooting focus directives (§6 Match tactics) steer how often each role actually shoots, passes, or attacks inside — two “playmakers” with the same skills play differently if one is set to scorer, and two scorers split attempts differently if one is Primary. Offensive focus applies in friendlies; league and cup ignore it (§3 Cups).

When only one skill leads the roll

For each outcome, only the skills named in the table feed that roll; anything not named is ignored. Stamina never enters in-match rolls (§5.3.2). Form, weekly fatigue, experience, and heavy minutes still layer on top (§7.2).

Pass quality on field goals: before each live field-goal attempt the engine picks a last passer (weighted by role, offensive focus in friendlies, and court position, not by passing skill). That player's passing then sets how often the shot is assisted and how much it helps the shooter — strongly on assisted looks, lightly even on isolations. Putbacks after offensive rebounds skip this step. A good setup that goes in earns the passer an assist (§5.1.4).

Example: on free throws, two-point carries about two-thirds of the blend and three-point about one-third — a pure outside shooter who is weak at the line still benefits from training three-point.

On rim twos, rebounds, blocks, and interior defence, height and weight in range often matter as much as a second skill — a centre with high Defense but short reach still loses boards to a taller Rebounding big.

Build by court slot (primary → secondary)

Build by role above is the style you train (shooter, playmaker, slasher…). Build by court slot is where you line them up in the quarter grid (PG–C — not the roster label on the card). The same player in a different slot sees different plays; pass vs shot, offensive focus, and shooting focus (§6 Match tactics) still shift whether they play more like a scorer or a passer.

Athleticism on attack never makes mid-range or three-point shots more accurate — it helps finishes at the rim and keeping the ball on dribbles and passes (§5.3.1).

These are training priorities and typical slot workload, not separate per-slot engine bonuses — on each play, only the skills in the In the match table above count.

Passing matters on every roster — guards create more assists and pass-security volume; bigs still matter when they pass out of the post. Ball handling is not “PG only”: it decides dribble turnovers and who drives inside for any slot, but guards see those plays most often.

7.2. What moves your number tonight

Before each contest the engine reads your card, then layers form, weekly fatigue, experience, and heavy in-game minutes (§5.4–§5.7), then your tactics (§6 Match tactics). Full tables for form and fatigue live in §5 Skills; this is the one-screen summary.

Tactics sit on top — lineups, court slots, pass vs shot, offensive focus, shooting focus, defensive aggression (§6.3), and per-opponent defensive focus (§6.6). Offensive focus currently applies in friendlies. At home, a small edge and a better opening jump ball (§6.1).

7.3. From possession to box score

Each possession ends in a shot attempt, a turnover, or a foul sequence (including free throws). Outcomes compare effective attack and defence — built from the layers above — including matchup height on contested shots.

After a miss from the field or the last free throw of a trip, the ball may go to the offense or the defense. An offensive rebound lets the attack continue with a quick putback — usually at the rim, no setup pass — and the rebounder is first in line to take it; a defensive rebound ends the possession. Who gets credit — rebound skill, court slot, and height — is §5.1.1. In friendlies, where the miss came from (rim, mid-range, three, or last free throw) also feeds that glass fight, not only the name on the box score.

After the final whistle you see the score, box score, play-by-play, and match replay. Match structure, fouls, injuries, and how much variance to expect are §9 Match and result.

8. Training

• Training runs once per week — Sunday at midnight on the world calendar (§1.3). A full league season has about eight such ticks between the first and last match rounds.
• Each week you pick two different skills from the eight trainables to develop for each player: a primary and a secondary (they must differ). Use Save on the training screen to store your choices before the tick runs.
• Every player has a default training pair until you change it.
• While a player is injured (before their expected return date on the calendar), they do not receive that week's skill gain. You can still update their training preferences for when they are back.
• The training screen has three tabs: Training (weekly primary/secondary picks), Progress (gain and decline counts per skill and week), and Recent changes (before→after values for the last ten weekly runs).
• After training runs, Recent changes shows how each affected skill moved for players still on your squad — up to the last ten weekly runs are kept. The roster shows whole levels (1–99), but the game stores fractions underneath — that is why a secondary skill can show no change one week and +1 the next.
• Progress shows green +N badges for display-level gains and red -N badges for declines per skill and week (current squad only). The bottom Total row and last column sum each column or row.

8.1. Training baseline

Each Sunday the engine adds to the stored skill value (not the rounded number you see):

• Primary: +1.0
• Secondary: +0.5 (exactly half the primary base)

Those bases are then multiplied by potential, by how high that skill already is, and by an age curve that rewards development in a player's teens and early twenties.

Age and weekly training: younger players gain faster from the same picks — weekly speed peaks around age 18, stays strong through the early twenties, and eases off as a player approaches 30. At age 30 the weekly add from your primary and secondary picks is zero. Juniors can still pick up match experience faster through age 21 (§5.4).

With typical potential (hidden rating 5), a skill still showing below 80, and age 25, the primary stored add is about +0.7 per week before display rounding; at age 18 the same setup is about +1.15 per week. On screen that usually means +1 on the primary most weeks; the secondary often alternates +0 and +1 because +0.5 per week needs two ticks to move the displayed level. No skill can rise above 99.

8.2. Potential (hidden)

Potential is rolled when the player enters the world. Academy signings use the hidden 1–10 roll from the scout report (§4.2); odds depend on academy strength at report time. It never changes and only scales each week's +1.0 / +0.5 step — it is not a ceiling.

Each integer rating from 1 to 10 has its own multiplier on that step. At the full age tier (about 16–18 on the calendar — the fastest window on the age curve), the stored weekly add on a skill still below 80 looks like this:

You never see the exact rating on the roster.

Rough gains per full season (~eight Sunday ticks), both trained skills still show below 80, and the player misses no weeks to injury. Counts are display points on the skill you picked — your primary and secondary add up separately.

Age 16 (full age tier — fastest weekly training):

Age 25 (same picks — age curve already slowing gains):

Compare the two tables — for example Typical (5) drops from about ~13 combined display at 16 to about ~7 at 25 with the same training plan. A player already 29 gains less than the 25 column. Flooring and skipped injury weeks can shift a skill by ±1 from either table. Skills already at 80+ grow more slowly (§8.3); from age 30 weekly picks no longer add growth, and from age 31 every skill drifts down each Sunday (§8.4).

8.3. Already-strong skills

High-skill slowdown is separate from the age curve (§8.1). It uses the stored skill value before that Sunday's tick (primary and secondary judged separately). From display 70 upward, training eases off on a smooth curve — no flat tiers and no sudden cliff when the number on screen ticks up.

The curve is tuned so overall progress from 70 toward 99 stays on par with the previous pace — training slows a little earlier in the seventies, then runs faster through the eighties to make up the difference. The nineties keep the same pace into the cap.

Example at full age tier, Typical (5): at display 75, primary gain is about +1.01 per week (vs +1.15 at 69); at 80, about +0.86; at 90, about +0.58; near 95, about +0.24. At age 25 the same curve applies on top of the lower age factor (§8.2).

8.4. After age 30

• At age 30, your primary and secondary picks no longer add weekly growth — the age curve has reached zero.
• From age 31, each Sunday every trainable skill loses a little before your chosen gains would apply — the drop is small at first and grows through the mid-thirties. Recent changes lists those declines. Training any skill that week does not offset the age decline on that same skill (or on the other seven).

Rough losses per full season (~eight Sunday ticks), every trainable skill hit equally, starting from a typical mid-roster level (display ~50), and the player misses no weeks to injury. Counts are display points lost — flooring can shift a skill by ±1 from the table. Potential does not change age decline.

Compare the rows — for example at 31 the drop is barely one display point per skill over a full season; by 35 it is about four per skill and ~32 across the whole attribute set; at 38 about five per skill and ~40 combined. A star already in the 70s loses a similar number of display points in absolute terms, but it feels sharper because each point is harder to replace.

8.5. Total skill points (TSP) — worked examples

Total skill points (TSP) is the sum of all eight trainable skills. Signing bands and Typical TSP are in §4.2 (skill envelope table). This section shows what a few aspirational signings can look like once they are on your roster after years of training.

The rows below pair academy strength at report time with a matching hidden potential — 60% / 6, 70% / 7, 80% / 8, and so on. They are illustrations, not a guarantee that a report offers exactly that combo. Higher rows need more weeks of academy investment before the report is rolled and better luck on potential (see the scout odds table in §4.2). Signing also halves academy strength, so climbing back for the next cycle costs money again.

Typical TSP is the envelope midpoint from §4.2 — every skill at the centre of its band. Career high TSP (age 31) is total TSP at the start of age 31, the last season before age decline (§8.4). Every row assumes you sign a 16-year-old junior at the start of a season on that midpoint roll (all eight skills equal), then train optimally every week through age 30: focus on one attribute until it reaches display 80, then shift focus to the next weakest skill and repeat. Real signings spread skills unevenly; missed injury weeks or different weekly picks land lower.

Probability is how often that academy / potential pairing tends to show up in play — rough guidance, not a roll table.

100% (capstone) uses the same skill envelope as 90–100% in §4.2 — the capstone bonus only improves potential odds, not the signing bands. Career high needs ideal weekly picks every season; a typical spread at signing or a few missed weeks lands noticeably lower. Above skill 70, the high-skill curve (§8.3) slows gains; from 31, age decline (§8.4) drains TSP instead.

9. Match and result

9.1. Structure and minutes

• A match has four quarters. The clock is not played second-by-second — each quarter is a fixed block of alternating possessions for both teams (tuned so a full game feels like a 48-minute NBA-style contest). If the score is tied after regulation there is overtime with extra possessions until one side leads — every game ends with one winner.
• If a club cannot put five eligible players on the court — fewer than five on the active roster, too many injuries or foul-outs, or nobody left for a slot — the other club is awarded a walkover 20–0. That is a win: two standing points in league play (the forfeiting club gets none), or a win on your friendly record. Nobody plays minutes, so there is no fatigue, experience, or play-by-play for that game.
• Player minutes on the box score come from that possession model. A player who stays on past 36 minutes in the same game takes a flat −20% on all match effectiveness reads for the rest of that match (§5.7), on top of weekly fatigue from §5 Skills. The minute total is cumulative — resting a quarter does not reset it.
• In friendlies, a close fourth quarter or overtime (within six points) plays out the last half-minute as a real close: the trailing side fouls to stop the clock, hunts a three when they need one, and the play-by-play marks a buzzer look when that shot can still tie or win. League and cup matches do not use this finish yet.

9.2. Fouls

• Up to six personal fouls — the sixth fouls you out. When a team exceeds the team foul limit in a quarter, the opponent shoots free throws on further fouls. In an extreme edge case — only five players left and each already has five fouls — the engine stops handing out further personal fouls so the game can finish.

9.3. Injuries

• If someone goes down mid-game they leave immediately and sit out until the expected return date on the world calendar. After the game you get a separate inbox line per hurt player (medical report) with a link to their profile and that date; the usual win/loss line for the fixture stays its own row. While still hurt they do not count as available in your normal quarter planning; the club roster shows their flag, name, and a stop marker with a tooltip for that expected return date. When a league fixture is simulated, teammates who cleared that date substitute in ahead of whoever is still recovering; if there are simply not enough healthy bodies for the saved slots, someone may still suit up at clearly reduced effectiveness (trainable skills counted at about half for that game) so the fixture can proceed — that situation is deliberately rare and means the roster calendar is unusually thin. If even that cannot fill the court, the match is a walkover (§9.1).
• Layoff length: a new injury keeps a player out for 3–12 calendar days before doctors are counted. The date you see is a projection at your current doctor staffing (§4.3); hire or release doctors to change future recovery speed, not days already served. Getting hurt again while still recovering adds to the layoff.
• In-match injury risk — what makes a player more likely to get hurt during a league game (friendlies do not injure anyone — §1 Season rhythm):
• Minutes on court in that match — risk rises as in-game tiredness builds.
• Weekly fatigue before tip-off — a separate layer on top of tiredness during the game (§5.6).
• Stamina — lower stamina raises baseline risk.
• Defensive aggression per player (§6.3) — soft is safer, aggressive is riskier; settings between the anchor tiers below interpolate.
• Physiotherapists on your medical staff — each hire lowers in-match risk for your club at kickoff (up to −50% at four hires — §4.3).

Defensive aggression anchor tiers:

Aggressive defence uses ×2.00 vs balanced; the same cost applies whether the player is fresh or tired — Stamina does not soften the aggression injury penalty.

Injury risk by minutes and defence (reference player: Stamina 70, 0% weekly fatigue before the game, no physios; chance of getting hurt in that match):

Aggressive is always higher than balanced at the same minutes; soft is lower. At 36 minutes, aggressive carries roughly 2× the in-match injury risk of balanced; at 48 minutes, about 1.8×.

9.4. Before the match

Before an upcoming league game is played, you can open its page to see both clubs' saved lineups (sort columns; switch between bio, skills with heat-mapped values and experience, or form with position plus form and fatigue bars like on your club page). On the skills tab, your club shows exact ratings when you are in the fixture; the opponent shows the same five skill bands as on profiles (listed transfer targets stay fully visible). Injured players show the same red marker on the right of their name in the roster tables (hover for the expected return date). You also see recent results in the same season, and each side's top points, assists, and rebound averages for that season (only players who have already played at least one game in the season appear). Assist and rebound leader averages are shown as whole numbers.

9.5. Watch live

From kickoff, the fixture is a live broadcast for about 48 minutes (four 12-minute quarters — one second on the clock is one second of play). Watch live appears instead of the final score on your club next-game card, League games and Friendly games on My club, in schedules, on the manager calendar, and in Recent results on the club page. Join at any time during that window: if you open it twelve minutes after tip-off, you see the game around the 12th minute, not from the start. There is no pause, rewind, or playback speed while it is live.

The league table does not update during that broadcast — the result lands after the live window. After the window, schedules switch to Report and Watch (replay with pause and speed).

9.6. After the match

After a match you see:

• the score and team summary,
• player box scores: points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers, fouls, +/− (how your team’s score moved while that player was on court), PER (efficiency rating for that game — league-average nights sit near 15), shooting splits, minutes — anyone who did not play shows DNP in the minutes column with blank stat cells; without repeating roster injury badges on player names here either,
• play-by-play — one line per event with player names, in a few different phrasings for the same kind of play (a given match always shows the same lines if you refresh). Play-by-play text is English even when the rest of the interface is in another language. Q1–Q4 (and overtime when the game went there) jump to that quarter in the feed; each quarter opens with both starting fives by position (point guard through centre) — on a wide screen each name also shows height and weight; after a missed field goal or the last free throw of a trip you see a rebound or the ball going out of bounds; a score or miss right after an offensive rebound is phrased as a putback / second chance,
• a player of the game — the standout performer from the box score, highlighted at the top of the result.

A walkover 20–0 (§9.1) has a final score and a short note on the report — no box score, player of the game, or play-by-play.

9.7. Match replay

On finished games, 📺 next to the report opens match replay: the score and clock advance action by action, with a shot chart and a fixed-height lead chart directly under it on desktop (no team names on the chart — colours only). Side panels show five on court with photos; team totals and bench lists in tabs below. Play-by-play runs under the centre column. Mobile shows the play-by-play feed. Very old games without structured play-by-play still open replay but show only the final score and box score. During the live window, the same screen follows the wall clock instead of replay controls (§9.5).

Matches to watch (optional): in Club profile → Club settings, turn on Show interim screen reminding about watching finished matches before entering the game to get the Matches to watch screen after login when your latest league game, friendly, or cup match has not been acknowledged yet (at most one of each). Each card offers Watch the game and Reveal the result; after you reveal, Match report replaces Reveal the result while Watch the game stays. Until every pending match is revealed, the club dashboard, League / Schedule, Squad, History, Club page, and Notifications redirect back to catch-up — then the side menu opens normally. Training, Tactics, Finances, Academy, and Transfers stay open throughout. Default is off — you go straight to the club hub.

9.8. Luck and what this manual covers

Real basketball has luck — and so does BasketVibe. Skills and tactics shift the odds; they do not script a single result. One strange game is usually variance; over many games the patterns in §5 Skills and §7 Game engine hold.

This manual describes rules and directions, not exact hidden coefficients. You can make strong decisions knowing that a taller center wins more rebounds or that aggressive defense trades fouls for tougher contests — without needing the raw math. Figuring out the best builds and tactics is part of the challenge.

10. Economy

Your club has a budget. When you take charge of the club, you receive a starting lump sum of 600,000 — the same flat amount every human manager gets. Money flows in and out during play; the balance does not reset when a new season starts. The goal is to stay solvent while slowly building a stronger roster.

The Finances page lists recent movements with readable labels: completed transfers name the player (with a link to their profile), ticket income from home games names the visiting team (with a link to that club), and Onboarding level rewards appear as their own line (not mixed with promotion bonuses). You can filter the ledger by type — matches, salaries, academy, or transfers — on both desktop and mobile.

Above the transaction list, a season summaries table rolls up income and spending by season: sponsor (including the weekly title payout, any homegrown bonus, and promotion bonuses), league tickets, friendlies, transfer sales, salaries, personnel (doctors, physios, psychologists, marketing specialists), academy investment, and transfer purchases, with a season balance row total. Each finished season gets its own line; the current season shows in progress and updates as money moves. On mobile you switch between Seasons and Transactions views; season cards expand to show income and expense breakdowns. Your starting takeover budget is not counted in these season totals. The summary at the top shows your balance and weekly fixed costs (salaries, academy investment, and personnel) as full amounts with dot thousands separators (e.g. 1.543.234), plus popularity; season and transaction tables use compact k / M shorthand. Buying and selling players is covered in §11 Transfers; completed deals appear here as transfer lines.

10.1. Income

10.1.1. Fans and tickets

For each home game a crowd shows up — better recent form brings more people. Each home win in league play adds 2 percentage points to popularity; each home loss (including a draw) subtracts 3 — reduced by 1 pp per marketing specialist on staff at kickoff (down to 1 pp with two). Away games and friendlies do not change popularity. During the season popularity stays between 40% and 100%. At the start of each new season it resets to 70%. The more you win at home over a season, the bigger your crowds become.

Every league uses the same arena (8,000 seats) and ticket price (50). Attendance is seats × popularity, rounded. At the 70% season-start reset that is about 5,600 fans and 280,000 in ticket income for a league home game. Friendlies use a much smaller crowd (about 6% of that league home draw, based on the more popular side); both clubs receive the same ticket income, and popularity does not change.

10.1.2. Title sponsor

Your club receives a weekly sponsor payout of 100,000 — the same amount in every league tier. It is credited every Sunday on the world calendar (§1.3), together with the weekly salary settlement.

10.1.3. Homegrown sponsor bonus

Local sponsors pay extra when your academy graduates get league minutes. Only juniors you signed from the scout report count — the home icon on your roster (§4 Squad). Your starting twelve never qualify, even if they are youth players.

• Rate: 200 per league minute played by qualifying homegrown players in the settlement week.
• Cap: 40,000 per weekly payout (across all homegrown minutes combined).
• When: every Sunday, in the same payroll moment as the title sponsor and wages.
• Ledger: a separate line from the flat sponsor payout — for example, homegrown players sponsor payout. 60 minutes played. If nobody played league minutes that week, no line is posted.
• Season summary: the bonus rolls into the Sponsor income column.
• Friendlies do not count — only league fixtures.

Example: three league games with 20 minutes each from homegrown players → 60 minutes → 12,000 that week. A regular rotation of about 20 minutes per league match over a full 22-round season can add roughly 88,000 in sponsor income from homegrown minutes alone — a meaningful slice next to player wages.

10.1.4. Promotion bonuses

If you are promoted to a higher league at the end of a season, you get a one-time cash bonus of 200,000. There is no financial penalty for relegation.

10.2. Spending

Player wages

Each player earns a weekly wage from the average of the eight visible trainable skills — three-point, two-point, passing, ball handling, defense, rebounding, athleticism, and stamina — not form, fatigue, or potential. Wages are processed automatically every week, and the club is charged for whoever is on the roster that week — new signings and sales change the next withdrawal.

At season end wages are recalculated for the new season — a player who improved earns more.

Typical weekly wage when all eight skills sit near that average (your roster shows the exact number):

A starter around 60–70 therefore costs on the order of 30,000–40,000 a week; a full twelve at that level is a large slice of the 100,000 weekly sponsor.

10.3. Transfer lock

If your club balance hits zero, you cannot place buy bids until the balance is positive again. Wages still run; the lock applies only to new transfer spending.

You also cannot place or raise a bid if your combined maximum on every open transfer auction would exceed your current balance — each listing where you are the leading bidder reserves up to your declared maximum until that auction closes (being outbid releases that reservation).

11. Transfers

Open Transfers in the side menu to shop worldwide, track your sales and bids, and follow deadlines. Club-to-club deals and free agents share the same auction rules; money movement shows up under Finances (§10 Economy).

11.1. Selling players

You can list a player for sale from their profile when they belong to your club. Set an optional minimum price and confirm — the auction runs for approximately two days. You cannot cancel a live listing; it runs until it settles or expires with no bids. While bids are accepted, you can watch the countdown on the Transfers page. When another club bids on your listing, you receive an in-app notification for the first offer and again whenever the live price moves up during the standard phase. If the auction ends with no bids, the player stays in your squad and you receive an in-app notification. After a successful sale the player moves to the winning club; your club balance is credited with the sale proceeds (95% of the clearing price — a 5% transfer levy is deducted; the buyer pays the full clearing price). The credited amount appears on Finances as the transfer sale line.

If you bought the player from another club or signed them from the free-agent pool, they must spend at least one week (seven virtual calendar days) at your club before you can list them again — trying sooner shows a message with the purchase date. This rule does not apply to players who have never completed a transfer (your starting squad, academy signings, and anyone else with no transfer history).

Your club must always keep at least eight available squad players — active members who are not on an open transfer auction. Listing someone for sale or releasing someone who is not listed requires more than eight available players (nine before the action). Players already on the transfer market still count toward your active squad until the auction settles, but they do not count as available — so you can list extras beyond the eight core slots, up to the point where only eight remain available. When you already have only eight available, you cannot list or release anyone else except a player who is already listed (release cancels their auction and ends their time at the club).

You can release a player from the same profile (below the transfer listing control) when squad rules allow. That ends their time as an active squad member at your club: they leave payroll and your roster lists, but their page stays open so you can still see career and transfer history. Names on your club's honour rolls from games they already played are unchanged. Release is not the same as a free agent listing (§11.4) — released players simply leave your squad; the game does not auto-list them for other clubs.

11.2. Watchlist

Watchlist (under Office, last item in that section) is your bookmark hub for other clubs and players you want to follow.

• Clubs — flag and name, manager (when human-managed), and the score plus opponent from their latest finished league match this season.
• Players — position, name, current club, age / height / weight, and their latest league box score line (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks) against the opponent.

Add or remove bookmarks from several places: the star on league standings (clubs) and on the transfer market table (players); Add to watchlist on another club’s public club page (next to Share); Add to watchlist on a player profile you do not manage. You cannot bookmark your own club or your own players. Removing a bookmark from Watchlist or from any of those entry points stays in sync everywhere.

On Transfers, the Watch list block (bookmarked players with open listings only) still appears above the worldwide table when relevant — see §11.3.

11.3. Buying players

The worldwide table lists every player currently on the market — club sales and free agents together. It opens sorted by time left (soonest deadline first); you can re-sort by any column. Twenty listings appear at once; use the pager when there are more. Open a listed player’s profile to inspect them, then go back — the table returns with the same filters, sort, and page. Tap the star before a player’s position to bookmark them — the same star removes the bookmark. Bookmarks stay on your account even after a listing closes; if that player is listed again later, the star stays filled. Watch list on this page appears above the worldwide table only when at least one bookmarked player is currently on the market (same columns, no filters, no pager; sort on your device). Every open listing shows PS (§2.2) — desktop column, filter, and mobile skill chips.

At the top of the transfer list tab, Available for new bids shows how much you can still commit on new auctions (your balance minus what is already reserved on auctions where you are the leading bidder). When you have open bids, Committed to open bids appears beside it — the same figures as on Finances when you are shopping.

On a wider layout the same page also shows your open bids (player, your maximum, deadlines, prices). Use the Club history tab for your club's completed sales and purchases (with income, spending, and balance summary). Below that summary, top sales and top signings sit side by side — each shows up to three of your club's most expensive completed moves (player photo, counterparty, fee). Global history lists the latest completed transfers worldwide — position, player, from and to clubs, bio, date, and fee — twenty per page, newest first (no column sorting). On a narrow layout, your listed players, your open bids, the watch list, and the worldwide market use compact player rows (no cramped tables): name, live price, bid status where it applies, and a short countdown. Your listed players show no bids or how many bids have been placed. The watch list and worldwide market also show bio, seller, coloured skill chips (including experience) in three rows, and a star before the name to bookmark or unbookmark.

Each worldwide row shows the player's country, height, weight, league experience, the eight trainable skills, the time remaining, the starting price, and the current price (shown as - until at least one bid exists on the wide table). Selling club is shown on the wide table (and in the compact list’s meta line) — for free agents it reads Free agent instead of a club name (§11.4).

Once the countdown ends, that auction drops out of the world table and your bids / listings sections until settlement finishes — the outcome appears in Club history and Global history shortly after.

Bidding uses proxy bids in the standard phase — you set a private maximum and the game bids on your behalf. The public price only has to keep a minimum step ahead of the next club (the higher the live price, the bigger the step: 250 up to 10,000, then 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, and 5% above one million). Your combined maximum across every open auction cannot exceed your club balance (§10.3). If you are leading an auction, you can change your maximum from your open bids list (raise it or lower it, but not below the current live price). On a listed player’s profile, bid history shows one row per club (current offer and last activity) — not every time someone raised their private maximum.

Countdown and sniping. Trust the countdown on each listing. A bid in the last three minutes of the standard phase pushes the deadline out by three minutes (repeatable), so last-second snipes do not freeze everyone else out. If the auction is still open 15 minutes after its original end time (including those extensions), a five-minute blind finale starts: the public price freezes and each club may submit one sealed final offer. The highest effective maximum wins; the clearing price is that winner’s max, or just enough to beat the second-highest max — whichever is lower.

11.4. Free agents

Free agents are players the game puts on the market — not sold by another club. They are a separate pipeline from listing your own player (§11.1) or releasing someone from your roster.

• Each game day the world adds three new free agents to the worldwide table (seller column shows Free agent, not a club crest or name).
• Their auction opens at 10,000 and lasts roughly two days, with the same proxy and blind finale as club listings (§11.3).
• They are usually 24–33 years old with mid-range trainable skills and a league experience figure on the listing — but they have never played for a club in this world, so there is no real match record yet.
• On a player profile while listed: same market context as §11.3 (§2.2 for PS); no recent games, career table, or transfer history.
• If no club bids before the deadline, the listing closes and that player leaves the market without joining any squad.
• When you win, only your club pays the clearing price — no other manager receives a transfer sale payout from a free-agent signing.

12. News

Under Inbox → News in the menu you can read announcements from the game team — balance changes, new features, and highlights from the world.

Under Game → Feedback you can file a bug, share an idea, flag a game balance concern, or report a violation in-game. Each submission gets a public ticket number. Optional screenshot (PNG or JPEG). Your list shows the current status (New, Confirmed, Planned, Roadmap, Duplicate, Shipped, or Rejected); when staff reply, a short line appears under the ticket title (prefixed with ↳). When marked Duplicate, the line shows Same as #N: title of the original ticket.

• Posts appear newest first, with optional image and Markdown formatting. Dates show as a long calendar form (e.g. 9 August 2026 on desktop; on mobile the year may be omitted).
• Each post can show category badges (ENGINE, CHANGE, FIX, FEATURE) when the team tags lines in the announcement that way. The same badges appear in the list and inside the post body.
• @manager names in the text link to public manager profiles when that manager was added in the post editor. A thanks footer lists those credited managers under the article.
• Unread posts show a red NEW badge next to the title until you have opened the News section.
• If a post mentions you (as a manager) or your club, that entry is highlighted for you. Mentioned managers and clubs appear as links to their public profiles.
• Under each announcement, Comments opens a thread where managers can read and post replies (newest first). The button shows how many comments the post has.
• Some posts include an optional poll (badge POLL). Single choice only; voting stays open for 3 days after the post is published. Until you vote, you see the options but not the breakdown; after you vote (or once the poll closes), you see percentages. You need a registered account to vote; comments work the same as on other posts.

13. Hall of Fame

Under Game → Hall of Fame you can see two lists:

• Game contributors — every manager credited in a News post (bug reports, ideas, or balance calls that shipped), with how many times they were mentioned.
• Founding managers — managers who joined during the beta period and still run an active human club, listed in join order with their country flag. Each name links to their public profile. If a manager leaves and the club becomes a bot, they drop off this list and lose the badge.