Help

Gameplay

To join In The Net you need to be registered at itnsoccer.com. You then need to login and click on the Sign Up Page to access the application form. Make sure you enter your username, a valid e-mail address and a password of your choice. This, along with consents, is used to verify that you are a legitimate applicant and to allow you to use our website. If you are accepted you will receive e-mail confirmation with a Registration Code, usually within 24 hours.

Please note:

It is strictly forbidden to have more than one team or to log into another manager's account without permission. Anyone found trying to use or get another account will be punished and possibly banned from the game.
Please note also that applying from the same internet connection as another existing user or current applicant will result in the rejection of the application. Even worse is to register using a connection and once accepted switch to another connection used by an already existing manager or previously banned user: in this case the account will be immediately closed without prior notice.

You will now be an official manager in the In The Net world. Your first job is to find a job, which you can do by accessing the Managerless Teams part of the Teams & Managerspage. You can only apply for one team at a time, and you will be able to takeover it straight away (but managers with less than 8,000 manager points won't be able to apply to Premier and Level A teams). For International National Teams instead you will need to wait until the next matchday is played to find out if you were successful. Note: International Teams are not allocated first-come first-serve, it is based mainly on manager points accumulated during a career.

You must head straight for club management, the International sides are only available to experienced managers (with at least 5,000 manager points). Club sides play most matchdays while Internationals only play 10 matchdays during the whole season. You have full control over a first team and reserve side. With club teams you can set training for all your players, handle contract renewals and make any transfers that you wish, among other challenges.

So, you've just been appointed as manager of your first team. First off you will want to familiarise yourself with the team's position in competitions. Check when the next match is on the Fixture List page and look at the League Tables. Then take a look at your Squad. As a new manager, the SOA (Sum Of Attributes) is a good initial indicator of how good a player is. Use this to help sort your best players into the first team and the rest into the reserves. Remember though that SOA is not used by the game engine, so the actual attributes are the relevant ones, once you've learned which attribute is useful for every position. Check the wages of the players (by selecting general from the second drop down menu in the View Squad page), if some are very excessive you should consider selling them, or re-negotiating their contract. Some may also be getting close to the end of their contract. Go to the player page and use the drop-down menu to Renew a player's contract or do this via the Instant Transfers page.

Now, and before every match, you will probably want to make Team Selections and check on Tactics from the Match preview page. You should also keep an eye on how players are doing in Training, making changes if players are not progressing well. There are many other options available of course (not least of all transfers) but just keeping up with these main items will do for starters. To help you, you are assigned a Tutor when you subscribe to the game. You will know your tutor in one of the messages you receive at signup. Make sure you contact your Tutor.
It is highly recommended that you visit the Forum to keep up with the latest developments and get helpful information from other managers. The forum will be online when the site is down while playing matches, and you will find many managers waiting to know their results there!

Many of your private pages, e.g. Team Selection, Fixture List etc, have a drop-down menu at the top to switch between your First Team and Reserves. Do not neglect your second string. Fines will be incurred for not keeping enough players in the reserve squad and it provides a valuable opportunity to give young players experience and to improve their skills, and to try out different formations and tactics.

Matchdays

Matchdays are when events occur, including matches. There are 3 matchdays every week and 69 matchdays per season (i.e. 23 weeks). The main matchday each week is on a Sunday evening (deadline 9.30pm UK Time), which is when all the weekly events occur like some transfers, expenses paid (e.g. wages), contract length reductions etc. The other matchdays are Wednesday and Friday evening (both deadline 9.30pm UK Time). Note: Matchday times are subject to change!
After each matchday you may receive various reports from your staff, which you can see in the Messages page. Training occurs every matchday, as do manager appointments/sackings.

Competitions

The club league is structured in a pyramid system. The best division is the Premier. This is fed by 2 divisions A1 and A2 (level A) which are each fed by 2 lower divisions (level B). The league tables pages for each division provide information on promotion, relegation and playoffs. In matches 3 points are awarded for a win or 1 for a draw as in real life. Every team plays every other in the division twice, once home and once away. The league table is ordered by points, goal-difference and then goals scored.

The top 2 teams in the division are automatically promoted, the bottom 4 relegated (where promotion/relegation are possible). In addition to this, 3rd and 4th place and 11th and 12th place will compete in play-off matches at the end of the season to determine which league they will enter the following season. Further information on how this works can be found here

International teams: The competitions are World Cup Qualifiers and World Cup. World Cup Qualifiers will be played at set matchdays (usually on Sundays). The 48 teams will be divided into 8 groups with 2 teams per group qualifying for the World Cup. After qualifiers ended the World Cup will take place as a single-leg knock-out competition with the following rounds: Last 16, quarters, semifinals, and finals. Both for senior and U21 teams.

The ITN Cup is one massive cup competition for every club team in the game. The whole way through it is a single-leg knock-out competition which means if a match ends in a draw it goes to extra time and, if necessary, penalties (no replays).

Each level of the club league from Level B up has its own Level Cup. This begins with group stages where the participants are split into groups of 4 who play each other home and away (6 games) with the top 2 in the group progressing to a knock-out competition (with same rules as ITN Cup).

All teams have an opportunity to play friendlies at some points during the season, for example, when a team has been knocked out of a cup. Friendlies can be arranged from the Friendliespage which shows the dates you have available. You will only be able to arrange friendlies against teams who are also available on the same matchday.

On the forum you can find well run and enjoyable friendly competitions run by users. To partecipate post in the relevant topic of the competition.

Player Attributes

The attribute system is designed to provide the greatest amount of realism without being too difficult to master. Each player is rated in 10 visible attributes:
Keeping - Goalkeeping skills such as shot-stopping and handling
Tackling - Ability to dispossess an opponent without fouling
Passing - Passing skill such as accuracy and range of passes
Shooting - Competence at striking for goal including shot technique, power and accuracy
Ball Control - Skill at receiving passes and keeping control of the ball when dribbling
Athleticism - General athletic ability including pace, strength and balance
Heading - Overall heading skill like technique and timing
Intelligence - Football brain, creative ability and anticipating events
Mentality - Professionalism and ability to handle pressure
Set Plays - General ability at offensive dead-ball situations

Each of these is rated from 0-15 or None to Legendary+ ability. These are points at which your coaches can judge a player to have "significantly" reached, but you should note that there is a time where a player is in-between levels. So, for example, two players may both be rated Good at Keeping, but one may be close to Average, the other close to Excellent, and the variance can in fact make a big difference.

Players can be trained in most of the attributes to try and improve their ability in that area. Intelligence and Mentality are two that cannot be trained. These attributes are things that can only be learnt over time. There are also some hidden attributes plus two equally important properties of players: Footedness and Height. Footedness really determines which side of the pitch a player should play on. Predominantly right-footed players will find it easier to receive passes, dribble and play the ball on the right side. Height can have a variety of effects. For example, it can improve a players' ability to win a header, however it can also make controlling the ball in tight situations more difficult.

A players' ratings in attributes has a direct effect on their recommended position. Just to clarify, the position given is not the only position(s) a player can be used, it is a derived set of positions which are suggested as appropriate for the current values of a players' attributes. Furthermore, changes in a player's attributes will effect the recommended position. You should decide for yourself what positions your players are best suited to. Young players in particular are difficult to pin to a certain position ("-" means no recommendation for position), but they can be trained up. Keeping, Tackling, Passing and Shooting are probably the four most position-oriented attributes and give a good idea as to whether a player should be a Goalkeeper, Defender, Midfielder or Striker respectively.
Please note that players with similar level on attributes in more than one of them might trigger an awkward position or multiple positions. I.E. if a player is good at Keeping, Tackling and Heading he might be pinned to a CD position due to tackling, but he will probably be a goalkeeper as his Keeping is good. As soon as he's trained up one level in Keeping his tag will change from CD to GK.

To help you sort your players to pick for matchdays (on Team Selection page) you have two ways:
Order by Automatic Position, where players are sorted considering automatic position tags.
Order by Custom Position, where players are sorted considering the positions you want them to play
You can set your own set of tags to sort your players on the Custom Position page.
Please note that setting a Custom Position will not change players abilities or train them in a new position. To achieve that you need to train your players in the relevant attribute or in the set position you want them to play, you can set this for every player in your squad on the Training page.

Sum of Attributes (SOA) is a figure requested for by managers and is (as the name suggests) the sum of the values for the ten attributes of a player. SOA is a useful guide but remember that it is not a figure that is used in the match simulation, the actual attribute ratings are what is important, so SOA can be misleading. For example, two strikers may have the same SOA but one may be Good at Heading the other Good at Keeping, as the striker doesn't need to do any goalkeeping the good headerer is much better.

There are also some hidden attributes which will affect a player's performance and behaviour.

Player Traits: these are special features that affect a player's performance and behaviour. Every new youth player might have some traits, that will improve or decrease his ability to perform a certain attribute. Players can have up to 3 traits, and they will keep them for the whole life, though they increase their effects year after year, peaking at around 26-27, and starting to decrease slowly as years go by.
There are 3 main types of traits:

Basic traits: These traits have positive and negative variations but the visible tags differentiate them from each other. Every positive has a corresponding negative. A positive specialisation is obviously a good thing, a negative specialisation is obviously a bad thing. Here's the full list of Basic traits:

Strategies/Tactics

The Formation and Tactics you employ for matches plays a vital part in your management role, in fact it's probably the most important part of your job. You need to try and select the best settings, not just for your own team, but to counteract your opponent.

Firstly you need to decide what Formation and Attacking Strategy will work well together, and this will determine the strength of your overall attacking play. Your strategy will also be a key influence in what your players do in the match, for example, if you select Long Ball then your players will look to play long balls as much as possible. The different strategies are now discussed in brief:

Centre Attack - play is focussed towards the middle with central players having more of the ball, so it helps to have more players in central areas of attack. Filling the same area with defensive players can quash a centre attack.
Counter Attack - only effective against very attacking sides. May mean only having a small % of possession and chances but the likelyhood of scoring given a chance is very high as your opponent is caught out. Not being too offensive can make counter attacks against you unlikely.
Long Ball - can cause an inadequate defence all sorts of problems and you need to have both attackers that can control the long balls and defensive players who can deliver them. May mean more misplaced passes but those that are successful can be crucial. Picking a suitable defence and cutting off the supply are key requirements to defend against this tactic.
Passing - just holding onto the ball can be a good way to weaken your opponent, both physically and in the number of opportunities, and should result in a high possession %. But your play will also be fairly easy to defend against so good chances may not be that frequent.
Side Attack - play is focussed towards the wing with such players having more of the ball and putting in crosses, so it helps to have more wide players in attack. Filling the same area with defensive players can limit side attacks.

You can see that your choice of Defensive Strategy is very important for counteracting your opponent's setup. Your choice of General Play also plays a key role in how strong you are in both attack and defence. Looking at your opponent's recent matches and trying to make an educated guess at what formation/strategies they use is important to get consistent results and (hopefully) win trophies.

Which formation and strategies you choose is where your management skill comes in. You may want to have a setup which suits your players' abilities/preferred positions. There may be certain tactics that you want to stick to against all opponents, or perhaps you'll choose to play differently against different teams.

Manager Points

Every match a manager plays they are awarded a certain number of Manager Points. This is, if you like, equivalent to a manager's reputation. The number of points awarded depend on a number of factors including match level, round, result and goals scored/conceeded. Manager Points are not necessarily important but they can be used to compare managers' achievements in the game and do make a big difference when applying for jobs. Also, only managers with over 5,000 career points can manage and International side and/or be able to apply to manage an International team part-time (Note: This is the only way you can have more than one team in the game).

Suspensions

In matches players may receive yellow and/or red cards. In either case they have shown indiscipline and as punishment players are given suspensions. For a straight red card players are banned for 3 matches. A yellow then red in the same match will incur a two-match suspension and for every five yellow cards collected in first team or reserve/under-21 games a player will get a two-game ban. Players are banned from first team matches, and any friendlies the team plays in between will not count towards reducing a suspension and the player will not be able to feature in these games. Note: Yellow cards in friendlies don't get added to a player's tally for the season, but sending offs still result in the same penalties as above.

Absence

If a manager does not login for more than 20 days without notification they will no longer be manager of a team and the position will be made available for re-management. Please note also that if you're sacked you will not be able to get another team until 18 Matchdays have passed.

Please use the Manager - Settings to set your Absence Start and End date if you will not be able to login and submit team selections for a short period of time, but still wish to remain manager of a team. During your absence the same team as you selected before you left will play, unless there are injuries or suspensions when the computer will choose replacements.

Please note that when Absence Form feature expires, and your absence was longer than 20 days you will obviously need to login before the new matchday is played. Example: if you submit your Absence Form from January 1st to February 1st you will keep your team during the whole period. If the following update is on February 3rd you will need to login again before that date, otherwise the system will sack you anyway. If you're not sure of being able to login immediately after coming home from a holiday, add a few more days to be sure! If a manager find him/herself sacked because he/her didn't login after Absence Form expired will not be reinstalled in his/her previous team, and will have to submit a new application to the same team (if available) or to a new one.

Your players' contracts will continue decreasing during your absence so make sure you've renewed any that have only a few weeks remaining before you go.

Finances

Club managers must look after their finances, detailed information is provided on the Club Finances page. Trying to maintain a weekly profit (before transfers) is the main aim, but particularly in a week where you've had a home league match. Income is received from the following:
- Attendance Money - gained from playing matches (split 75%/25% in league games, 50%/50% in cup or friendlies). You set the ticket price for first team matches on the Stadium page. Tickets for reserve games are a quarter of this price
- Transfers Out
- Prize Money (see help section below on prize money for more details)
- Advertising/Merchandise/TV Income (amount dependent on club level, i.e. Premier, A, B...)
- Decreasing stadium capacity

Expenses:
- Ground Maintenance/Staff Expenditure (amount dependent on stadium size)
- Player Wages (if a player is on loan the team he is on loan with pays 100% of the player's wages)
- Transfers In
- Fines (any club that fails to select a squad of at least 11 eligible players for a first team or reserve match will receive a GBP 150,000 fine)
- Increasing stadium capacity
- Youth Academy

Prize Money

Prize money is earned by clubs depending on their final first team club positions, the winnings are as follows: