CSChampionship Sim

Manager's Guide

What's actually in this game, and how to find it. Every section below covers something you can genuinely do — nothing here is aspirational.

Starting a Save

The New Save screen picks one starting club from a single shared world of 606 clubs across 41 leagues — the full English pyramid (Premier League down to League Two, with promotion and relegation, and below it the National League: twenty-four AI-run clubs playing a full season, two promoted each summer and League Two's bottom two sent down — you cannot start a career there, and a human club in League Two's drop zone is kept up by the board) plus the top two divisions of Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Ukraine — every second division is playable, with promotion and relegation to the top flight and the country's cup drawn across both tiers. Every player is fictional, generated to roughly match that club's real-world reputation, with a few "hidden gem" wonderkids planted at lower-reputation clubs each save — nobody knows where until you scout.

European competitions run every season. The five biggest leagues — the Premier League, La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 — qualify straight into the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League on final league position; the other fourteen send their champion and runner-up through qualifying rounds, the stronger leagues entering later, as real UEFA competitions do. You manage one club; every other club in the world, in every league, runs under AI control with its own real season and its own domestic cup — England's four divisions share one FA Cup across all of them. Starting lower in the English pyramid doesn't give direct access to Europe, but working your way up to the Premier League certainly does.

Co-op lets a second real person share the save, managing a different club. See the Co-op section below.

Your Weekly Rhythm

Click Ready on your dashboard to advance the week. If your club has a fixture, it either resolves instantly (if you're not directly involved as the deciding factor) or hands you a live match to play through minute by minute — substitutions, injuries, and tactical changes included.

Commentary and match stats. The commentary is told from what the match engine actually did, so every shot, save and goal it describes is in the stats too. Switch between Key moments and Extended above the commentary; the game remembers which you prefer. The possession bar under it updates as the match goes on, and Match Stats shows possession, shots, corners, fouls, offsides, cards and saves side by side, with every player's numbers below. VAR is in use in the top flights (not Sweden's), in Europe, internationals and the FA Cup from the Round of 64 — it checks goals and penalties and can rule a goal out. Offsides and most fouls are drawn from the flow of play rather than played out, so they colour the story without ever changing a result.

In a co-op save, the week only truly advances once both managers are ready — and if both of you have a live match the same week, each of you plays your own independently; the week won't move on until both are finished.

Squad & Tactics

Formation and mentality are set together on the Tactics page — ten formations, five mentality levels from very defensive to very attacking. Changing formation rebuilds your lineup slots, so set it before assigning players, not after.

Individual player instructions — easy to miss, genuinely useful: each starting slot has its own Attacking Freedom (Stay Back / Balanced / Get Forward) and a Shoot on Sight toggle. A full-back told to Get Forward starts playing like a real wing-back; a striker with Shoot on Sight gets looked for ahead of a teammate with marginally better stats. Both require a player actually assigned to that slot.

Game management. A side three or more goals up eases off — it keeps the ball and stops committing men forward — and the bigger the lead, the more it does. Big wins still happen, but the side behind always has a little more of the game than the scoreline suggests.

Wingers and crosses. A winger who beats his man chooses whether to cross. Good delivery (Crossing, on his stronger foot) and forwards who win headers (Heading, Aerial Prowess) make him cross more and make those crosses dangerous. Not every cross goes in the air: against a defence that dominates in the air he drives it low across the box or cuts it back from the byline for a runner to finish first time, so quick forwards who time their runs (Off the Ball, Anticipation, Finishing) feed on those. If neither suits, he cuts inside or plays it back instead. Shots from out wide are harder than shots from the middle, unless he cuts in onto his stronger foot — which is why an inverted winger is a shooter and an orthodox one a crosser. Against a crossing side, tall centre-backs and a keeper who commands his area are worth more than ever.

Condition and fitness. Every player tires as a match goes on — in your live matches and in every other match in the world — and a tired player loses duels, shoots worse and makes mistakes. How fast he tires depends on his Natural Fitness and Stamina, his age, and how much he carried in from recent games; keepers tire at half the rate. Work Rate is the extra running he does: a player with good fitness (around 14 or better) can graft all day for free, but a hard worker without the engine for it empties the tank much sooner, and a lazy unfit player saves a little. Condition comes back day by day, so a congested run of fixtures without rotation catches up with you.

Captain, marking, and set-piece takers are all set from the same Tactics page — man-marking a specific opponent, and designating your penalty and free-kick takers.

Your whole squad as a spreadsheet. The Squad page has a Download Excel button, and where the site can send mail, an Email me the Excel button that delivers it to the address you log in with. The workbook covers seniors, academy and players out on loan, with every attribute grouped and colour-scaled, this season's appearances, goals, assists and average rating, plus contract, wage and release clause. Hidden potential is not in it.

Any slot left empty auto-fills on match day with your best available player for that role — it's fine to leave gaps, but deliberate picks give you real control.

Transfers & Scouting

Making an offer to another club works differently depending on who you're bidding against: an AI club resolves the bid immediately; a human co-op manager's offer sits as a genuine pending decision on their own Transfers page until they respond.

Your best players get noticed. AI clubs scout the divisions below them for anyone clearly better than the team around him. If you are a smaller club with a standout player, expect bids from higher up — and if you are a big club, the next star may well be playing in the division below you right now.

Free agents, loans, and youth transfers each have their own page. On the Loans page you can recall a player you have lent out, or send a borrowed player back to his club early if you no longer need him or his wages. A player's contract has to actually be renewed before it runs out — AI clubs get an automatic renewal for their important players; human clubs don't. If you don't act during the warning period, the player simply walks for free when their deal expires, the same as it would in real football. Check contract lengths on your Squad page regularly.

Scouting narrows down a region's players through your scouts' familiarity with that area — the more familiar, the more accurate the reports. This is also the only way to find the hidden gems planted at lower-reputation clubs each save, since their true potential is never visible from stats alone.

Competitions

Domestic league and cup run automatically all season. Cup draws are unseeded — any club can draw any other.

European competitions take the five biggest leagues' best finishers straight into the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League the following season — and how many places each of those leagues gets isn't fixed. Stronger leagues earn more, the same way real UEFA coefficients work, so which clubs qualify shifts over time as leagues rise and fall. The other fourteen leagues' champions and runners-up come through qualifying: Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, Turkey, Austria and Switzerland enter at the play-off round, one tie from the main competition; Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Ukraine start in the first qualifying round. The group draw is genuinely seeded: real strength pots mean two heavyweights can't land in the same group by chance the way a fully random draw would occasionally produce.

International management is a separate career path from your domestic club, reachable once your manager reputation clears a threshold — check the international page for current eligibility. Once you're in charge of a national team, tactics work exactly the same way domestic management does: your own formation, individual player instructions, and captaincy, not just an autofilled squad.

Rival Managers

Every other club has a named manager, with his own nationality, age and four strengths — tactical knowledge, judging ability, motivation and youth development — plus the formation and style of football he prefers. Bigger clubs tend to hire better ones. You can see all of it on any club's page.

What that changes: a poor judge picks a slightly wrong eleven and buys the wrong player now and then. A poor tactician plays his preferred formation whatever the squad actually suits, and pays for it through players out of position and bad signings; a good one adapts to the players he has. A motivator's dressing room is a happier one. A youth believer hands two academy prospects a first-team place each summer — but only once he has been in post half a season — while a sceptic gives none. An average manager behaves exactly as every AI club did before this existed, so the league as a whole plays the same; the difference is between clubs, not across the division.

A manager's standing can be wrong about him. It follows the season's verdict rather than his actual ability, so a name built on a strong squad flatters an ordinary man for a while, and a genuine gem at a small club takes a season or two to be noticed. That standing is what boards hire on — and a big name gets a longer rope before the sack than an unknown does.

Boards sack, and clubs hire. A new manager gets three months' grace; after that a run of bad results or a failed season costs him his job. The club then appoints the best manager out of work who would take it, or an unknown face. A vacancy at a big club may instead be filled by poaching an overachiever from a smaller one, if his standing now carries and his board is pleased with him — and the smaller club hears it has lost him. Sackings and appointments in your own division turn up in your news.

Managers have careers, and they end. Everyone ages a year each summer. From 62 the chance of retirement rises a tenth a year, and a man out of work at 60 usually calls it a day; a club whose manager retires appoints a successor the next week. Replacements come from where they really come from — a few retiring players walk straight into the dugout under their own name, with what they knew as players setting what they are as managers; assistant managers and the odd coach step up from an AI club's backroom, and that club then replaces them; and unknowns fill the pool when it runs thin. Your own manager profile ages along with everyone else's.

The Managers page lists every manager in the five English divisions — the football he prefers, how long he has been in post and how his board feels about him — plus who is currently out of work and who retired this year. The Job Centre shows you who you would be replacing: a club with a manager already in post parts with him to appoint you.

Reputation & Finances

Winning matters financially, not just for bragging rights. A cup, a European trophy, or the league title itself all bring real prize money into the club's cash, plus a reputation bump — bigger for European silverware than a domestic cup, and bigger still for a club that wasn't expected to win it. A club that already dominates its league sees a modest bump from winning again; a genuine underdog's win transforms their stature far more.

The money is real. And at real scale since v2.31.0: a Premier League regular earns £60–100k a week and a star £300k+, a League Two player about £2k; a good top-flight player is worth £40m and the very best £150m+; Premier League television money runs £100–157m a season. Every club has a cash account. Gate receipts, television money, commercial income, prize money and transfer fees come in; player and staff wages, the academy, running costs, fees and any overdraft interest go out, settled every week. Each summer the board project the season's revenue and set the wage budget as a share of it; the transfer budget is your cash plus whatever the owner will still put in this season, less a four-week reserve. Money you do not spend stays yours, and a club that spends beyond its means goes into overdraft, where the AI sells players and a human manager is told. The Finances page under Club shows the profit and loss, the owner and the rules.

Owners and the rules. Every club has an owner — one who runs it to break even, a backer who covers the usual losses at its level, or a benefactor with deep pockets — and owners sell up now and then. Each level plays under a financial rule: the top flights and the Championship under a rolling three-season loss limit (owner funding and investment do not count), the lower leagues under a salary cap of 55–60% of turnover (the owner's funding counts as turnover, as the real protocol allows). Breaching the loss limit at the summer review costs points and a year's transfer embargo; running over the salary cap means the budget letter cuts the wage budget to the cap and, if the bill is still over it at the monthly review, a transfer embargo until it is back under (promotion out of the cap's divisions lifts it); the cap is tested from a club's first summer review, so a new world's first season takes the squad as it finds it. A club whose overdraft passes half a season's revenue after the owner's funding is spent goes into administration: points off at once, debts written off, a new owner, an embargo, and the dearest players sold.

The leagues stand where they stand. Since v2.32.0 the big five leagues sit above the smaller ones in the middle as well as at the top, each smaller league has two or three big clubs clear of a modest middle, and television money abroad is at real levels. Outside relegation a club's wage budget is never cut by more than 15% in a summer, and each summer every club's standing is pulled a quarter of the way toward its league's level at its position, so sustained success climbs while a one-off title fades.

Fees over time, clauses, the turnstiles and the bricks. A fee of £300k or more is paid half on completion and a quarter at each of the next two summers, and instalments due within a year count in the transfer budget. Selling a player of 24 or under to a bigger club keeps a 15% sell-on of his next fee. You set ticket prices from the Finances page: cheaper tickets fill the ground for about the same money and a full house lifts the team, while a sold-out ground earns more from a higher price. You can also pay to expand the stadium (open a year on) or improve the youth facilities and the scouting network; that is capital spending, outside the loss limit. Clubs that play in Europe answer to UEFA's squad-cost rule: wages and fees over 70% of income draw a fine.

Money follows the division. Every summer your club receives television and prize money for the division it will play in, plus merit money for last season's finish. Promotion raises your standing and wage budget to the new level; relegation lowers them, cuts the wage budget below the current bill, and brings three seasons of parachute payments from the Premier League. Your best players will also react to relegation — the most valuable gets a release clause, others may ask to leave — and AI clubs sell theirs before the new season. A club over its wage budget cannot sign anyone until the bill comes down.

Reputation also drifts from sustained form, trophies or not. A club that consistently finishes well above what its reputation implies will slowly climb over several seasons; a big club that keeps underperforming its own billing will slowly decline. One good or bad season barely moves it — this reflects years of form, not a single result.

Board confidence and job security respond to how your finish compares to the board's stated ambition for the season, not to results in isolation. A relegation-threatened finish for a title-chasing club hits confidence far harder than the same finish would for a club only ever expected to survive.

Co-op

Two managers can share a save, each running their own club. A few things behave differently than solo play:

Things Worth Knowing