There is no interaction between participants beyond taking turns drafting players and trainers from a public market. After more than a dozen games, I have found a few things which deserve to be mentioned – if only to help others play the game more easily. You now compare five areas to see who wins the matches (left wing, right wing, and the three central areas). Eleven puts you at the head of a football team, playing six weeks – each filled with board meetings and other actions, culminating in a match day.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the days when you will do actions to improve your team or facilities. Resources are replenished based on each club’s income, and then each manager draws an event card for their respective clubs that will prompt a board of directors vote. Build Stadium Infrastructure – you can build adboards (to allow for more advertising), stands (to allow more fans) or other improvements which allow for one-time stat advances.That’s because each player plays against a deck of cards aligned with the division all players agree to face when a game of Eleven begins. A full colored circle with the resource icon within it means an increase to your statistic while the resource icon alone means the actual resource (wooden disc). If you enjoy what I’m doing and want to support my efforts, please consider dropping off a tip at my Ko-Fi or supporting me on Patreon.

I had to read this rulebook four times to gather everything that needs to be done and the edge rules around the matches. In fact, as I’ll outline later, knowledge of how football matches are played may actually be a detriment! Your task is to manage and grow your own football club and outperform the other teams over the course of a season. Eleven takes a similar approach to the Football Manager games, but with the key difference that there’s no choice to let the computer do all the boring stuff for you, like hire staff, find sponsors, and upgrade the stadium.

For a start, the teams would be out of date immediately, and a board game isn’t easily patched over the internet. It’s about the economics of managing a soccer club, putting the right players on the field, board room decisions and even getting sponsors for your team. One of the resources produced on Mondays can lead to bonus actions from your Board of Directors or other cards, but usually no more than 1-2 extra actions a week. Eleven was a huge success during the crowdfunding campaign, gaining nearly 4,000 backers on Gamefound. It’s not entirely outside your reach as you draft these board members before play begins, but you’re never given direct authority.

I’ve tried the game against Division 3 and Division 3/2 opponents (easy), as well as Divisions 3/2 then 2/1 opponents (medium). Hire a player (or youngster) – hire a player or youngster from the display on the table (youngsters are just from the top of their deck). Sell a player (or youngster) – discard a card you already own, gaining 2 money plus one money per current strength level as well as money for any VP tokens placed on the card. In writing, the rulebook dedicates five of its 30 pages to tell players how to successfully score matches. During the matches, it’s a case of setting up your team and choosing a formation and tactics, which players going on the wings, up-front, in defence etc.One of my favorite things about Eleven is hiring youngsters—all the youngster cards are faceless and nameless until they are trained (the flip side of each youngster card). This is done through a traditional action selection system, where each player gets one main action, and can potentially trigger actions on cards in their tableau if they have the resources for it.

If you can survive that, though, I think Eleven does a great job of giving players a taste of what it might be like to manage the business of a top-flight soccer organization.

The solo mode includes six different scenarios that challenge players with different starting situations and goals for the season.