Guides

Seven Nil is a draft you play, and it is also a written record of the squads that draft uses. These pages explain the rules, the ratings, and the seasons. They are original notes for this game. They are not match reports copied from a newspaper, and they are not an official history of any competition.

The board currently holds 83 national tournament squads and 105 club seasons. That is 2,275 player ratings. A number always means that year. A famous name in a quiet tournament is not given a career score just because the name is famous.

Start here

• How to play. Formations, redraws, friends rooms, penalties, and the difference between a World Cup board and a club board.
• How a rating is set. The scale, gold names, chemistry, and why a manager changes link-up without rewriting a player's number.
• World Cups in the draft. What each national side in the archive is doing in that tournament, from 1958 through the recent cups.
• Club seasons from 1980. Title sides and a few famous runs from England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.

What the draft is for

You do not search a database and pick Pelé whenever you want. A turn gives you one squad. You take one player who fits an open role, then that squad leaves the table. The constraint is the game. A 4-4-2 that still needs a left-back cannot spend the turn on a second striker, however high the number next to that striker is.

You get five redraws. Another year of the same side spends one. A different side spends one. After the draft starts, the display name is locked. The manager is offered at the end, not as a free extra shirt in the XI.

Formations and styles in the game

The shape is chosen before the dice. Changing it later moves players toward roles they can actually play. It does not leave the picture frozen, and it does not park a pure striker at left-back. These are the shapes and the styles the board offers. A style changes the weighting of the match. It does not rewrite a player's number.

Formations: 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-4-1, 4-3-1-2, 4-4-1-1, 4-2-2-2, 4-2-4, 4-5-1, 3-4-3, 3-4-2-1, 3-5-2, 5-3-2, 5-4-1.

Styles: Defensive, Counter, Balanced, Press, Attacking.

Defensive spends more of the side's quality at the back. Counter asks the midfield to turn the ball over and go. Balanced leaves the bands as drafted. Press asks more of the midfield. Attacking spends more up front. A coach can suggest a style. You still get three chances to change the coach at the end, and the coach never occupies one of the eleven shirts.

The eleven is read as attack, midfield, and defence, plus how well each player fits the role you put them in. Chemistry looks at shared nation and year, and at whether neighbours can actually play together. A manager adds link-up. That lift is real in the simulation. It does not turn a weak XI into a great one by itself.

A stronger side is more likely to go through. It is not guaranteed. Friends matches between two people are played minute by minute, and a draw is settled by penalties, one kick at a time. Every other tie in a bracket is settled at once, so a 32-team cup does not take an hour. Later rounds stay closed until the live match is finished.

How these pages are written

The sentences on this site were written for Seven Nil. They describe the draft, the season scores, and the choices a roll forces. They are not match reports copied from a newspaper, not squad lists pasted from another site, and not a spun version of a public encyclopedia. A name and a year identify a real squad. The rating, the chemistry, and the simulated score are original to the game. If a year is wrong, the correction is the squad, the year, and the name, sent from the contact page.

The site does not publish adult material, pirated video, scraped articles, hate, or instructions for anything dangerous. It also does not sell bets. The legal version of that rule is on the terms.

Seven Nil is not affiliated with FIFA, UEFA, or any club or league. It does not sell bets, tips, or packs. There is no account. Drafts stay on your device unless you join a friends room, and a friends room only shares the code, the names, and the picks with the people in that room. One AdSense script is loaded. Whether an ad appears is Google's decision, not a promise that this site is approved. The details are on the privacy policy.

If a year is wrong or a shirt is missing, use the contact page. The useful note is the squad, the year, and the name.