Football tactics at the kitchen table

By creator of Counter Attack Colin Webster.

Back in 2014, I wondered if it would be possible to make a board game that mirrored what tactics happen on the football pitch. It struck me that there was not really a game out there that successfully replicated the world’s most popular sport. Sure, there is Subbuteo  a great game in its own right  but it’s more tactile than tactical. And there are Monopoly-esque football board games (think Emlyn Hughes Team Tactix) where you move around, buying players and winning FA Cups at the turn of a card. But I didn’t want to make games like those. I wanted to make a game that two players could ponder over; a Football Manager but with a sociable side.

So I got to work on it. I knew from the outset I wanted it to be more strategy than arcade so I spent hours working on the rules, thinking through the myriad of the potential game outcomes. How would tackles work? When would players actually move around the pitch and where can they shoot from? The more I thought about it, the more complicated it seemed. Football is such a free-form sport, meaning it’s pretty difficult to capture on a board. But I was keen, so I carried on designing the game and the rule book started to swell.

Then, after two months of developing the rules, I made a disastrous move: I play-tested it with a friend. It was a sobering experience to play the thing for the first time because I discovered that what I’d created, was, quite frankly, shit.  I’d way overdone the thinking element and completely disregarded what makes a game a game – enjoyment! It was too complicated and it lacked excitement. More importantly, I lost the match.

If you’re familiar