Why we built Shadow XI

Football games make you the manager, or the player. Nobody makes you the person who finds them.

Behind every signing is a recruitment department. Scouts spend wet Tuesday nights at grounds most fans have never heard of. Analysts read the numbers and ask what they really mean. And someone has to put one name in front of the manager and the board, with a budget, a wage limit and a deadline, and then live with the result.

Most of that work is invisible. Shadow XI was built by people who work in football recruitment, to show what the job is really like, and to let anyone try it.

What we are trying to achieve

• Show the real job. Briefs, budgets, wages, a handful of scouting days, and evidence from your own eyes and from the data. Then a decision that is yours.
• Be honest about uncertainty. In real recruitment you can do everything right and still be wrong: potential is never guaranteed, and a player's data does not always travel to a new club. The game explains afterwards what you could have known and what was simply football, so a loss teaches you something.
• Teach how scouts think. Context, level, role, and the difference between a player's numbers and the player himself.
• Open the door. For anyone who has ever wondered whether they could do it: a fair first taste of the career, from part-time scout to director of football.
• Keep it fair. No adverts, no pay-to-win, settings that make it playable for more people, and five languages.

Tell us what you think

Shadow XI is new and still growing. If something feels wrong, or right, we want to hear it: footballscoutgame@gmail.com.