Rules

The season is split into gameweeks: a batch of real matches, usually about a week. Before each gameweek’s deadline you set your team, and once the matches are played you collect points.

Pick players and earn points from their performances to move up your league’s table.

Leagues in this competition hold a live draft. Managers take turns picking real players, and a drafted player belongs to that manager alone: nobody else in the league can own them until they are dropped. The order reverses every round (a “snake”), so picking last in one round means picking first in the next.

Each pick has a 90-second clock. Miss your turn and Squadra picks for you: from your queue if you made one, otherwise the best player available. Every roster ends up with 15 players.

After the draft there is no transfer market. Un-owned players are free agents you can sign while a round is open, and recently dropped players go through waivers: put in a claim, and when the round locks the manager lowest in the standings gets first choice.

A draft league locks its membership when the draft starts: nobody new can join with a roster of their own. Once the draft is over, the only way in is to take over a roster that is open for takeover: one whose manager left the league, or one the league’s owner has opened.

15 players, 11 of them in your starting team. There is no budget: what matters is picking before your rivals do. You can pick at most 3 from any one real team.

Your starters also have to make one of these shapes, written as defenders-midfielders-forwards: 3-4-3, 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 5-4-1, 5-3-2, 5-2-3.

The 4 players who aren’t in your starting lineup sit on your bench. Bench players don’t score, but they are your cover if a starter doesn’t play.

If one of your starters doesn’t play a single minute, we bring on a bench player in their place automatically, so you don’t lose out for missing the news. You don’t have to do anything.

The order you put your bench in is the order we try them in, so put the player you most want brought on first. A goalkeeper can only be swapped for your other goalkeeper.

One catch: your lineup still has to be a legal formation afterwards. If bringing someone on would leave you with too few defenders, midfielders or forwards, we skip them and try the next player on your bench, so a bench player who played can still end up scoring nothing.

Every player in your team earns points from what they do in real matches. The values differ by position.

• Every 3 saves1 point for Goalkeeper
• Every 3 tackles1 point for Midfielder
• Every 2 chances created1 point for Midfielder
• Every 2 shots on target1 point for Forward

A second yellow card in the same match is a red, and both still count: the booking (-1) and the sending-off (-2) come to -3 in total. A straight red card costs -2 on its own.

A saved penalty pays the penalty-save points only. It isn’t also counted toward the bonus for every 3 saves.

When a team plays twice in one round, each match is scored on its own and both count toward that round.

This competition has no captain or vice-captain: every starter scores their own points, and nobody’s points are multiplied.