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How to play Football Duel

Everything you need for your first match and your hundredth: the goal, a turn step by step, how battles are decided, and every type of card.

Last updated: October 24, 2026

1. The goal of the game

Football Duel is played 1 vs 1, against a friend online, a random opponent or The Captain (the computer). Both duelists start with 8000 Fan Support, the game's life points. You lose Fan Support when your players lose a battle or when an opposing player gets through to attack you directly. When a duelist's Fan Support reaches 0, the other one wins.

There is a second way to lose: if you have to draw a card and your deck is empty, you lose the duel. With a 40-card deck this rarely happens, but long, defensive games can get there.

2. Your deck and your hand

Each duelist plays with a deck of exactly 40 cards. You can pick one of the 6 ready-made decks (Starter XI, The Captain's Armada, Munich–Paris Express, Manchester Derby, London Derby, Calcio) or build your own in the deck builder. The cards are of these kinds:

• Players: real 2025/26 footballers rated from 1★ to 10★, with an ATK (attack) and a DEF (defence) value. A forward usually has a high ATK, a goalkeeper or a centre-back a high DEF.
• Skills: one-shot moves you activate during your turn, like a Through Ball or a Bicycle Kick.
• Stadiums and Nationality cards: they stay on the field and boost your players of one club or one country.
• Referee and Coach cards: you set them face-down and they answer your opponent's moves (a Red Card, an Offside Trap, VAR Review…).
• Legends and Gold players: the strongest cards in the game, which need special cards to come on (see below).

Every opening hand is guaranteed to hold at least 2 players you can bring on straight away, so you never start a match unable to play.

3. A turn, phase by phase

A turn always goes through the same six phases: Draw → Standby → Main 1 → Match → Main 2 → End.

1. Draw: you draw one card. The duelist who kicks off skips this first draw.
2. Standby: effects that happen "at the start of your turn" take place here.
3. Main 1: your building phase. Bring on one player, activate Skills, play a Stadium or Nationality card, set Referee and Coach cards face-down, and change your players' positions.
4. Match: your players attack. Each face-up player in Attack mode can attack once. There is no Match phase on the very first turn of the duel.
5. Main 2: a second building phase, after the battles. A good moment to set defensive cards.
6. End: effects that last "until the end of the turn" stop, and it's your opponent's turn.

Each Main and Match phase lasts at most one minute, so online matches keep moving.

4. Bringing players on: substitutions

You can bring on one player per turn, in face-up Attack mode or face-down in Defense mode. How much it costs depends on the player's rating:

This is the heart of the game. You build up a pitch of cheaper squad players first, then trade them in for your stars. Your pitch holds at most 5 players and your card zone at most 5 Stadium, Nationality, Referee or Coach cards.

5. How a battle is decided

In the Match phase you pick one of your Attack-mode players and a target. The result depends on the target's position:

• ATK against ATK (the target is in Attack mode): the player with the lower ATK is sent off, and its owner loses the difference in Fan Support. If both have the same ATK, both are sent off.
• ATK against DEF (the target is in Defense mode): if your ATK is higher than its DEF, the defender is sent off but nobody loses Fan Support. If your ATK is lower, your attacker survives but you lose the difference.
• Direct attack: when your opponent has no players on the pitch, your attacker hits their Fan Support directly, for its full ATK. That's a goal.

Example: your 2900 ATK forward attacks a 2400 ATK forward. The opposing forward is sent off and your rival loses 500 Fan Support. If the same forward attacks a defender with 3100 DEF, nothing is sent off and you lose 200.

6. Skills, Stadiums and set cards

Skills

Skills are activated during your Main phases and go to the bench after use. Some boost a player (+ATK until the end of the turn), some let a player attack directly, some fetch cards from your deck. The strongest ones, the ⚡ Power cards (The 12th Man, Storm, Budget Limit, Player Reborn, FOFOZILLA, Golden Gloves, Reshuffle, Scout Discovery), are limited to one copy each and 3 per deck.

Stadiums and Nationality cards

A Stadium played face-up gives a bonus to your players of its club: Anfield boosts Liverpool players, the Bernabéu Real Madrid players, and so on. When you play one, your half of the pitch turns into that ground. Nationality cards work the same way for players of one country. You can have one face-up Stadium and one face-up Nationality card at a time.

Referee and Coach cards

These are your traps. Set them face-down during your Main phase; when your opponent summons a player, activates a Skill, changes a position or attacks, the game asks whether you want to answer with one. A Yellow Card books a player who just came on, an Offside Trap stops an attack, VAR Review cancels a Skill. Several can be chained in one answer.

7. Legends and Gold players

The 19 Legends (Thierry Henry, Zinedine Zidane, Steven Gerrard, Ronaldinho, Franz Beckenbauer, Zlatan Ibrahimović and more) are the strongest players in the game and come with their own illustrated artwork. They can't be brought on normally: you need the Skill card Legend's Call, which substitutes 2 of your players to bring a Legend on from your hand. A deck can hold at most 3 Legends. See the full list of Legends.

The two Gold players, Lionel Messi (4200 ATK) and Cristiano Ronaldo (4200 ATK), don't sit in your deck at all. They wait in your Gold Vault; their Head, Body and Feet pieces are in your deck. Collect all three, play Golden Fusion, and the Gold player comes on in a burst of light. Gold players can't be booked, weakened or sent off by your opponent's set cards.

8. Special rules worth knowing

• Last Breath: 3–4★ squad players do something when they are sent off: defenders and goalkeepers give you 500 Fan Support, midfielders and forwards fetch the next squad player from your deck.
• Player skills ✦: some players have a special ability, active the turn they come on and your opponent's next turn.
• Comeback cards 🔥: when you start a turn 1500 or more Fan Support behind, a Comeback card still in your deck is the card you draw. The same printed rule applies to everyone.
• Emergency call-up: if your pitch is empty and you hold no player you can bring on, your draw keeps going until a 1–5★ player turns up.
• Reward cards: a few cards can't be built at all, only won. See reward cards.

9. Your first match

The easiest start is the built-in guided tutorial on the Football Duel home page: a 3-minute match against The Coach that shows each step on screen. After that, play The Captain with the Starter XI deck, then try Quick match to meet a real opponent. Matches last 5 to 15 minutes.

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