There are many links to the formation page in goalunited. At first of course it can be selected via the menu bar at the bottom of the screen. Next one can get there by clicking on the day and time info of the match announcement at the top of the screen. And pushing the playfield button next to one of the scheduled matches in Overall Fixtures also leads here.

If you want to manage the formation for a specific match other than the next one you will have to choose it over the fixtures table. The other two ways always lead to the formation management of the next match on the timetable. In the first line the opponents and the time will be shown — it might be good to have a look on this, too.

All relevant data on the players are displayed in the compact view on the left hand side with further information of one selected player below it. Double clicking will open the details panel as usual.

Players in the starting eleven are highlighted green substitutes are marked grey.

Via Drag and Drop the players can be moved from the list onto the playfield or the bench. If a player shall be removed from the starting eleven he must be dragged back to the list.

Generally, a player can be put on each possible position. Nevertheless his strength won't be the same on all of these positions… It depends on his specific skills and his positon experience.

Players with nearly similar skill values and position experience on one specific position shall be distinguished via their current freshness, form and stamina. Further criteria are the players height, special talents, the stronger foot or the character.

Injured players cannot be nominated but tarnished players can. But they cannot play at their full strength and in case of an injury this one might be quite severe.

The third yellow card in the latest league match makes a player miss one match as well as a yellow-red card or a red card will.

Changes need to be saved by clicking the check mark in the lower right corner!

The entire playfield is subdivided into 9 quadrants (or sectors as quadrants always have to be four) which are numbered the same way as the numpad on the keyboard. When a player is dragged over the playfield the quadrant division will show up. For beginners it will be enough to take the highest two skill values into decision (see skill relevance) in which sector a player should be placed. He also should play on the main position. Later on you will take care of further skills and the exact position within one sector.

The goal keeper's sector number 0 (short: Q0) is a special case and consists of only one position, which is neither counted as a Mainposition nor as a Subposition.

The skill relevance describes the meaning of specific skill values of the players for the main position of each sector. See the following list for a rough enumeration of the relevance (in descending order):

• Q0: Keeping, Defence, Technique, Tackling, Passing
• Q1 / Q3: Defence, Tackling, Passing, Wingplay, Technique, Playmaking, Scoring
• Q2: Defence, Tackling, Passing, Technique, Playmaking, Scoring, Wingplay
• Q4 / Q6: Wingplay, Passing, Technique, Playmaking, Tackling, Scoring, Defence
• Q5: Playmaking, Tackling, Technique, (Passing, Scoring, Defence), Wingplay
• Q7 / Q9: Wingplay, Passing, Technique, Scoring, (Tackling, Playmaking), Defence
• Q8: Scoring, Technique, Passing, Tackling, Wingplay, Playmaking, Defence

Remember that the order does only roughly say anything about the importance of the skills for the sectors. Sometimes the difference in importance between two skills is very high and sometimes very low. Skills in brackets are of the same importance.

Mainskills in connection with a sector normally means the two most important skills a player should have when playing in this quadrant (e.g. Scoring and Technique for central striker). Those skills with a little less relevance for a position are called Subskills (or B skills). For the central striker those are Passing, Tackling and even more other skills.

The Main positions in the quadrants Q2 (central defence), Q5 (central midfield) and Q8 (central offence) are exactly in the center of the quadrant. (see picture).

The Main positions in the quadrants Q1 / Q3 (left/right defence), Q4 / Q6 (midfield wings) and Q7 / Q9 (offensive wings) are located in the outer and (vertical) middle position (see picture).

When a player is not set onto a main position he is standing on a so called Subposition.

By standing on a subposition a player can be put nearer to the adjacent quadrants and individually influence the skill relevances of this player. If you place your central striker (Q8) in a more defensive position his Playmaking and Tackling skills will become more relevant (the most important skills for Q5), Scoring and Technique will have less relevance in exchange. If he is placed more to the left or the right side the Wingplay skill will have more influence etc…

For the defensive quadrants Q1-Q3 and the offensive ones Q7-Q9 you will have the opportunity to place your players in an extra offensive or defensive position by placing him directly at your opponents or your own base line.

The combination of the main and the subposition is called the final Formation position. When a player is placed in the front of Q9 the Formation position is 98 (quadrant 9, Subposition 8). If one speaks about Formation position 26 he means a defensive wing on the right position in Q2.

Each player has an overall effect of 100 per cent on the entire playfield. The main part of this effect concentrates on his quadrant. Depending on the players subposition he also affects the adjacent quadrants. In general you can say the nearer the subposition is to a nearby quadrant the higher the players effect on that quadrant. So you can make the nearby quadrants stronger on the cost of a negative effect on the main quadrant.

Special cases:

• When players are set defensively in Q1-Q3 (directly at the own base line) or offensively in Q7-Q9 (directly at the opponents base line) their influence onto their own quadrant is stronger than normally. But as they are extremly defensive / offensive they completely lose influence on the rest of the playfield so their overall effect is slightly below 100 per cent.

If a player is nominated on a position where he has an experience of less than 50 he will not be able to play at full strength. With a Position Experience of 50 or more he will use his full potential on every of his well-rehearsed positions. There are four levels of Position Experience:

• 0 = no position experience (PE) = high malus
• 1 - 24 = little PE = considerable malus
• 25 - 49 = fair amount of PE = malus
• 50 - 100 = enough PE = no malus

The gradiation offers the decision to exchange a bruised player, or a player with a low form with a somewhat position experienced player.
Users with Premium Account can distinct the last three levels by the colors red, yellow and green. Free Account User will have to rely on the shown position(s) and their own records (combined with this formula).

As a player gains Position Experience in every game it is possible to rehearse a player on one or more additional positions. In this case the sub position is completely irrelevant - the quadrant is important. Every day one point of Position Experience is lost - but one position will always have a minimum of 50 experience points

premium_features Those four visualizations will help making decisions easier when creating a formation. Next to this assistances you can see the strength of the player on the field (the strength values of the players on the field are summed up).
The assistances are available for manager playing with a Premium Account (Position ability and Position strength are for the new Premium Pro only).

By ticking this mark you can switch on a visualisation of the tactic's influence on the team strength (premium feature). For further information about the shown graphics see tactics

All influences are given as percentages. Therefore they will be multiplied and not added. The exact calculation can be found there: Quadrant Strength.

As the tactics influence check box the influence of the coach can be visualised by ticking this mark. For further information about the shown graphics see tactics and the Staff page.

The position ability of each player is visualized by an arrow that can take five different positions (and colors). Position experience is taken into account. On the positions the players is most capable to play, the arrow will be green and showing straight to the top - on his less adequate positions the arrow will be red and pointing downwards.

This indicator is a bar capable of displaying five levels. It looks like the bar that used to be in the newspaper, but it works differently. It will indicate the strength of your player compared to all (up to 25) players of your team. This display is nor absolute neither exact, but should help quickly perceiving if the strongest players are put to suitable positions on the field. To use this feature, just pay attention to the length of the bars - the less you see of the black background, the better.

These four duties can be assigned to the players of the starting eleven. If a player has been sent off or substituted before the assigned event takes place the duty will be assigned to another player randomly.

The team captain should best have leadership ability and mustn't be introvert. Additionally, a more experienced player will be a better captain than an unexperienced one. If a player has a 'leadership ability' personality and no experience at all his bonus would be as high as with experience 50 and any other personality (except 'introvert').

The team will have an overall bonus by having a captain. The bonus of the best possible captain (experience 100, personality 'leadership ability') will be as highe as the bonus of the best possible balanced coach (efficiency 100). The captain bonus cannot be visualised since (see tactics).

Should the team captain leave the game due to injury or a red card, it will of course weaken his team for the rest of the match.

When a penalty is shot the skills of the scorer and the goalkeeper will be compared. These values will have an effect on the outcome ('+' for positive influence and '-' for negative influence):

• + Scorer: Playing Strength
• + Scorer: Scoring and Technique skills equally
• + Scorer: Talent 'Penalty'
• + Scorer: Personality 'confident'
• - Goalkeeper: Keeping skill
• - Goalkeeper: Talent 'penalty saver'

All these will have an effect on the probability of scoring a goal. There will always be a completely independent probability of scoring (about 1/5) or missing (about 1/15).

Corners are much more complicated because there is a large variety of possible situations that might emerge. Therefore many different skills and attributes will be relevant of scoring a goal after a corner:

• + Corner kicker: Technique skill
• + Corner kicker: Talent 'Corner kick'
• + Team-mate: Playing Strength
• + Team-mate: Talent 'Header'
• + Team-mate: Height
• - Opponent: Playing Strength
• - Opponent: Talent 'Header'
• - Opponent: Height
• - Goalkeeper: Keeping Skill

Everytime a corner is kicked only some of these values will take any effect.

After a Free kick there can also emerge many different situations. For example there are short and long distance free kicks, from the left or the right wing, directly or indirectly etc. Generally, the following list of effects can be taken for standard:

• + Free kicker: Technique skill
• + Free kicker: Scoring skill
• + Free kicker: Talent 'Free Kick'
• + Team-mate: Playing Strength
• + Team-mate: Talent 'Header'
• - Opponent: Playing Strength
• - Opponent: Talent 'Header'
• - Goalkeeper: Keeping Skill

Based on the actual situation the different skills and attributes will take their effect on the outcome of the event.

Up to four different formations can be saved as presets to easily recall them later. So the formation has not to be made up everytime from scratch.

To save a preset the formation must be set completely. Then click on the pencil button select one the four possible presets in the dialog and enter a name for the preset. Save by clicking 'yes'.

The 'Standard' preset has the special row showing the stanard formation. The name of this preset can't be edited.

To load a preset y ou can just click on the button (if there is already a preset assigned to that button). As a premium feature the formations of the last five matches can be opened by clicking on the bottom right list button. Of course the loaded formation can be adjusted at will.

You shoud definitely save a Standard formation!! See above how to set up a formation and save it as the standard preset.

This standard formation will be chosen by the system if you had not set up an individual formation for a match. If you forget to set up a formation or if you don't have the opportunity do so (e.g. if you are on vacation) this standard formation will be taken automatically be the system. You also should check this formation regularly because of possible changes in your tactics or purchases/sales of players.

Notice: By setting up a good standard formation you avoid playing a match with a completely randomised formation if you have not — for any reason — set up an individual formation for a match.

This is one of the more complicated chapters of goalunited. It is not really trivial to explain the exact mechanisms of the game tactics. Probably many managers that have been playing goalunited (successfuly) for many seasons will not be able to explain the tactics accurately. By the time you will have a quite good feeling for choosing the right formation and tactics when playing against specific kinds of opponents. But of course the tactics do not really work with feelings so here is an overview on what tactics do and how they take effect.

Tactics, engagement, way of marking and of course the coach will take positive and negative effect on the different quadrants of the playfield. Those effects will not show how much better a single player will be playing in a specific quadrant but how the quadrant strength will be influenced. In the visualisation the effects will be shown in different colors and in percentages (0% means normal values).

The higher the quadrant strength the higher the probability of winning this quadrant against your opponent and the more your players will try to lay emphasize on playing within this quadrant. So you should choose a tactic that will fit to your formation to get the highest effects. After the match you can read in the Newspapers how good a job your players made in that match (and quadrant).

You should try to win as many quadrants as possible to enhance your chances of winning the entire match. At the same time you should try to lose as few (better none) quadrant clearly against your opponent. All quadrants have nearly the same importance on the match although the corner quadrants' effect is slightly less.

The engagement level kind of reflects the importance of the match for team and manager. Some matches are just for fun, others are hard fights. Most matches will probably be all-day-league matches. According to this the engagement controller should be used.

There are five levels to control and influence the engagement and the Sức mạnh thi đấu of the players. The higher the level the more engaged the players will act on the pitch.

The additional strength of the players by higher engagement values will cost more freshness — the players run faster and longer ways and they will get more tired and the playing will become harder and by this the probability of yellow cards and injuries will rise.

The players need a specific minimal freshness to play at a certain engagement level. If a player's freshness isn't good enough he will mainly suffer from the negative effects of a higher engagement level (like higher risk of injuries and yellow cards, higher loss of freshness). The positive effects (boosted skills) will only be available if his freshness is high enough (see table below).

Loss of freshness is also effectef by the player's stamina. In the following table the values for the loss of freshness is shown for a player with a very good stamina (>80). If the stamina value is lower the player will lose more freshness points. Of course overtimes will also make the players lose freshness.

The loss of freshness as well as the gain of experience, stamina and position experience will be depenent on the time the player has been on the pitch. All values are calculated for a 90 minutes match. If a player doesn't play a complete match — because of a red card or an injury — or if an overtime is played the values will be calculated proportionate (also see Công thức tính toán → Kinh nghiệm vị trí / Kinh nghiệm / freshness).

It is generally recommended to control the engagement level with care!

In the first couple of weeks after founding a new club this would obviously be the best choice. No quadrant will have a bonus but also will no quadrant have a malus. Later on this choice can also be made if the trained tactics are thought to have more disadvantages than advantages.

When you play 'Pressing' you assign your offensive players to engage themselves in defensive work and to already attack your opponent in his own half. So with this tactic your midfield area will be enforced by the offensive players and you probably will have more ball possession. The negative effect is that your offensive and defensive quadrants will have less strength.
In numbers: Midfield quadrants Q4-Q6 will be 20% better — the other six quadrants are affected by a 7.5% malus.

With the counterattacks you will try to get through your midfield as fast as possible. After winning ball possession the ball is brought to the offensive as fast as lightning. The defense and the offense will be stronger but the midfield will be weaker.
In numbers: Defense quadrants Q1-Q3 and offense quadrants Q7-Q9 will be 10% better but the other three quadrants will be 15% weaker.

On Powerplay your players try to put a very high pressure on your opponent and force him to remain in his own half. Powerplay is a strongly offensive tactic and enforces the offense and midfield for the cost of weaker defense.
In numbers: The six offensive quadrants Q4-Q9 are enforced by 10% — the remaining three get a malus of 15%

Kick-and-Rush is quite primitive because nobody will think about playmaking very hard. Nevertheless it can be very effective. As soon as your team has the ball it's only 'Forward! Run!' and they will try to bring the ball into the offense. There will be no wingplay but in center of the field there will be advantages.
In number: The central quadrants Q2, Q5, Q8 will be 20% stronger — the other six quadrants 7.5% weaker

It's the opposite of Kick-and-Rush. With this tactic you try to use the complete width of the playfield and get to the offense over your wings. For cost of the remaining quadrants the wingplay will be enforced.
In numbers: The four offensive wing quadrants Q4, Q6, Q7, Q9 will be 15% stronger — the other five get a 9% malus

The defensive wall is the most defensive selectable tacitc. Every player will stay near the own base line and try to make life for the opposite offense as hard as possible. So the defense will be much stronger and the rest will be weaker.
In numbers: Defensive quadrants Q1-Q3 will get a 20% bonus — the other six quadrants will be 7.5% weaker

One of these two ways of marking your opponent's players must be selected before every match. Both will only have advantages and there is no malus.

The more defensive variant enforcing the defense quadrants Q1-Q3 by 7.5%.

This variant allows a better playmaking and enforces your midfield quadrants Q4-Q6 by 5%.

The offside trap helps to let the opponents players to be standing offside. If it is not working there probably will be highly dangerous situations for the own goal so — as every other tactic — it should only be activated when it is well trained (70% or better).

The number of defensive players, changes in the formation, sales or pruchases of players does not affect the quality of your offside trap.

Currently there only will be substitutions when a player is injured and has to leave the pitch. In this case the bench player for this position will automatically take over the injured player's position. If this specific position on the bench is free another bench player will be chosen.

Because of technical reasons it is currently impossible to substitute your players during the match at your will. Additionally this is good for those managers who don't have the opportunity or the time to be online during the matches.

It is the same with tactical changes — they are not possible until now. There are plans for the future to implement a system to manage substitutions and technical changes in advance. This could be done with a If-Then-System to make your team react after specific events.