Top Tackles Award & Hall of Fame update

We’ve added a new end-of-season player award: Top Tackles.

At the end of each league season and cup competition, the player with the most tackles won receives the award — the same way we already recognise the top scorer and top assists leader. You’ll see it on a player’s Awards page, listed alongside their other honours.

Hall of Fame

On the Players → Combined tab, there’s a new Top Tackles Awards table, ranking retired players by how many times they led their competition in tackles during their career. It sits alongside the existing Top Scorer and Top Assists Awards tables.

We’ve also tidied the layout on that tab: the three individual awards (scorer, assists, tackles) are grouped together, with the team-of-the-season awards on the row below.

Player record pages

Retired players now show a Top Tackles count in their awards section, next to Top Scorer and Top Assists.

A note on existing records

The award is granted when a competition finishes from now on. Past seasons are not backfilled automatically, so retired players won’t have Top Tackles award counts unless they earned them after this update. Keep an eye on your ball-winners — there’s a new trophy to chase.

New: Goalkeeper Stats & the Golden Glove Award

We’ve given keepers some well-deserved spotlight!

• Clean Sheets on competition pages — Competition statistics now include a Clean Sheets leaderboard, so you can see who’s keeping the back door shut.
• New Golden Glove award — At the end of every league and cup, the keeper (or keepers) with the most clean sheets earns the Golden Glove, joining our Top Scorer, Top Assists, and Top Tackles awards.
• Hall of Fame — Career clean sheets and Golden Glove awards are now tracked for retired players across the Club, National Squad, and Combined tabs.
• Smarter player records — Goalkeeper record pages now show the stats that actually matter for them (clean sheets and Golden Gloves) and hide the outfield-only ones.

Time to build a title-winning defense. Good luck out there!

Upcoming change: Match Performance stars

We’re adjusting how Match Performance stars work on the pitch.

Bonus thresholds

• 3 to 8 star levels → +1
• 9 to 17 star levels → +2
• 18 star levels or more → +3
  So a single silver star (or a few bronze ones) can already give a boost, instead of needing a full 6 levels for the first point.

What gets boosted
The bonus still applies to all players on the field, but only to secondary skills (dribble, speed, control, header) — not keeping, tackle, passing, or shooting.

Hiring and Youth stars are unchanged. Manual details will be updated when this goes live.

The announced performance star changes are now live. You can also see their current lineup impact on the Formations page and in Formation Analysis. That display only counts players whose star type you already know is match performance.

For example, if you have a 3-bronze-star player you know gives a match performance bonus, and a gold-star player who also does but you haven’t revealed yet, you’ll only see +1 on the Formations screen. Once you reveal the gold player’s star type, you’ll see +2.

Important: the performance star bonus is still applied in matches even if you don’t know the star types yet.

Team colours are here

Every club in GoalFC now has its own kit colours — the real ones where we could match them.

You’ll see them on team pages as a colour strip under the crest, and in match replays the player dots use each side’s colours instead of the old blue vs red. If the teams clash, the away side switches to its second kit automatically.

Have a look at your club, watch a replay, and enjoy a pitch that looks a bit more like real football.

New formation strategy: substitute the worst performer in a zone

You can now set a time-based formation strategy that takes off the defender, midfielder, or attacker with the worst live match rating so far, and brings on a player of your choice (or Best by zone).

Useful when you want an automatic change at a given minute or score state without locking to an exact pitch slot. Configure it under Formation Strategies — Time condition, then “Substitute worst performer in a zone?”

We have expanded board evaluations to look beyond match results. Your overall performance now also reflects how well you manage the club’s finances, develop players, and handle transfers, with a full breakdown available on The Board page. Persistent problems in these areas can now hurt board confidence and, if severe enough, put your job at risk even when results on the pitch are acceptable.

Veteran players whose skills have started to decline will now be more willing to accept a lower wage when renewing — especially on longer deals. Peak-era wages should no longer stick as hard once a player is past his best years, so keeping a club legend for a farewell stretch is less of a financial trap.

Players still prefer longer contracts late in their careers; shorter renewals remain relatively more expensive.

When more than one club makes a matching loan offer for a player, human-managed teams now take priority over CPU teams — the same rule already used for transfers. Among those human bids, the weakest squad still wins the loan.

Higher wage percentage and longer loan periods still decide first; the human / weakest-team rule only applies when those terms are equal.

Teams can now re-hire a player who was sold or released while the club had no manager. The usual re-hire waiting period still applies when the departure happened under a manager.

The Player Positioning tab now draws movement arrows on the pitch for your with-ball (red) and without-ball (blue) instructions. Use the toggles above the field to show both, or either one alone — a quick way to see how your shape shifts in and out of possession.

Country ranking update

Country ranking no longer uses the old five-season coefficient system. It now works like team and manager rankings: clubs earn points from international matches (including the Club World Cup), weighted by opponent class and competition importance, and each country keeps a rolling history of its last 40 results.

The official ranking — which affects youth quality, star slots, and related rewards — still updates at the start of each season. During the season you can follow live form on the Countries page via Next Season Points (sort that column to see the projected order).

Heatmaps update

The match Heatmaps tab now opens on a ball position heat map by default, so you can see where the ball spent most of its time on the pitch.

You can still pick home and away players (and adjust the time range) to add their individual heat maps as well.

Team Records

You can now check a manager’s record at their current club.

Open any team and use the new Records tab (also under Team in the menu). It shows official results since that manager joined: matches, wins, draws, losses, victory %, invincibility (unbeaten %), goals, points, clean sheets, home/away, and time in charge.

Friendlies are not included. Anyone can view another team’s page. The plan is to expand this page with additional information in the future and create a Records page for managers as well.

Club World Cup qualification

The Club World Cup no longer uses the old two-champion format, but the rules were not visible in the game. That is now on screen.

On the Club World Cup tab, until the field is set, you will see how many places each continent has: some from the top teams in its main international competition, and extra places from the team ranking. Cup finishers take their places first; ranking fills what is left.

On Champions League, Libertadores, and CONCACAF Champions League, a short note shows how many of the top teams qualify.

Page Help for International Cups has been updated to match. You can also move between seasons from the group stage, the same way as in the knockout rounds.

Country ranking update

Country ranking now uses a single-season average of your clubs’ international results (including the Club World Cup), instead of a rolling window of the last 40 matches.

Points still depend on opponent class and competition importance (Club World Cup gives the highest bonus). Matches between two clubs from the same country no longer count, so a domestic semi-final or final does not drag the country’s score down.

The official ranking (and youth quality) still updates at the start of each season from the previous season’s average. During the season, Next Season Points on the Countries page shows the live average so far — sort that column to see the projected order.

Dimension Statistics

The Statistics page (Dimension menu) has been rebuilt.

You can still compare up to five teams or managers, with filters for competitions, seasons, and a specific opponent. The old-style charts are gone; results now use a normal table and win/draw/loss bars. The match list sits on the same page (including penalty shootouts) instead of a popup.

The page no longer runs as soon as you open it. Your team is loaded as a starting point – add others, set the filters, then click Update comparison. Saved presets still run as soon as you open them.

There is a help icon on the page if you want the short version of how it works.

Country Ranking — Details & Cup Spots

Two updates:

1. Ranking details
On Country Rankings, click a country’s Next Season Points to see where that score comes from: each club’s contribution (matches, points, share) and every counted international match this season.

2. Cup places follow country ranking again
Continental cup spots are once more based on official country ranking (points from previous season), not league strength. This season’s ranking freezes at season end and sets how many Champions League / Europa League (and equivalent) places each country gets for the following season — same idea as before the strength-based system.

A strong international run now earns more places later; a deep but diluted field is harder to keep at the top of the average.

World Transfer Highlights

We’ve added a new World Transfer Highlights page under Dimension.

It shows a sample of the newest transfer-listed and free players across the whole dimension (up to 100 per list, from the last 18 turns). It’s a quick way to see what’s new worldwide – not a full market.

Country transfer and loan lists are unchanged. For the complete picture in a country, keep using Transfers/Loans as before. Scouting still covers the long tail and players who aren’t on the highlights board.

Feedback welcome – we’re trying this alongside the existing country lists.