Every week (during the regular season) there are two fixed league matches, a league cup match up to the point of elimination, and matches for the International Masters. Besides that, you can also play one friendly match and one practice match.
What is a friendly match/practice match?
Friendly and Training matches are played just like competitive matches. They are a great way for your players to gain extra experience (0.25 points per 120 minutes), improve their endurance, and for you to try out different strategies. It is also a great way to play against friends or to play against teams from other countries.
Careful!
Your players will lose just as much energy as in any other match. So it is advised to set the effort level to the lowest setting. This will also keep them from getting injured easily.
You will also receive income from your stadium complex (The ticket income is always split between both teams, 50-50.) There will be fewer spectators, but it is still good additional income.
Friendly matches take place every Tuesday. (Friendly match times differ from country to country. If you play an away match against a team from another country, you will play at their time slot.)
Training matches take place every week on Sundays, no matter if you are in the league cup or not. You have to pay 150 GU STARS or use the "Practice match" coupon to challenge another team to a practice match. You don’t have to pay a fee for accepting a challenge.
Good to know!
A challenge must be accepted until midnight of the day before the challenge matchday (e.g. if the friendly match day is on Tuesday the challenge must be accepted until Monday night)! If a match is set after that, the match will be scheduled for the next week.
Challenging another team
There are a few different ways to challenge another team. If you know exactly which team you want to challenge, you can do so from the club's contact page. Just use the challenge button right when you open the contact page (friendly match only).
It is always a good idea to challenge several teams, as not every team will accept. The easiest way to do that is to go to Matches -> Friendlies. Then, on the right, either select friendly or practice match. You will then get a search menu to find other teams to challenge.
Here you can either search for a team in there or get suggestions using the suggestions button. You will then get a list of teams (with somewhat similar strengths) to challenge. You will see the team's activity level and league. To challenge a team, simply click the handshake button. You can set a filter to limit the team's location.
You can challenge as many clubs at the same time as you want (If you challenge many clubs at the same time for a practice match you only have to pay 150 Stars or one coupon of course). You can see all challenges on the left side. If no clubs accept your practice match invitation, your Stars or Coupon is refunded.
Automatic Assignment of friendly matches
Premium Account owners have the opportunity to let the system allocate an opponent for a friendly match automatically. They only need to check the Automatic Assignment box and confirm by pressing the save button. The assigned teams are from random countries.
How to accept a challenge
Challenges made by other teams also appear in your challenges inbox on the right-hand side of the screen. Just click on the challenges button to see all open challenges sent to you.
As soon as a challenge is accepted, a new fixture will appear in the All Fixtures list. You may change your formation there as usual.