Draft
Complete Chemistry Guide
In GolDraft, chemistry measures how well your starting XI gets along. Each player can contribute 0 to 3 points, so the team maximum is 33. Chemistry isn't just for show: the strength your team brings into the simulator is its average rating plus a bonus that depends on chemistry. Going from 10 to 30 points is like adding four points of average rating to the whole team.
How do you earn points?
- Same club: 1 teammate = 1 point; 2 or more = 2 points.
- Same national team: 2 teammates = 1 point; 4 = 2 points; 6 or more = 3 points.
- Same league: 3 teammates = 1 point; 5 or more = 2 points.
- Captain: the captain gets one extra point.
The cap is always 3 points per player, so there's no point stacking a dozen bonuses on the same card.
Strategies that work
The club block. Three players from the same club already get 2 points each; if they also share a league with two others, they hit the max.
The national block. Pick a strong country starting with your captain and keep repeating it. With seven players from the same country, everyone reaches 3 points without depending on anyone else.
The league network. The Premier League and LaLiga have so many elite players that it's easy to gather five or six from the same league and lock in two points for each of them.
When to sacrifice chemistry? An elite player with 0 chemistry can be worth it if he raises your average by three or four points. As a rule of thumb, one point of average is worth roughly five points of team chemistry.
Tactics
Which formation to pick?
The formation defines which positions you'll have to fill and, therefore, which cards you'll be offered. In the simulator, tactics don't change the goal calculation directly, but they do influence who scores: strikers and wingers are more likely to score than a defensive midfielder.
4-3-3
The most balanced formation. Three attackers to share the goals, one holding midfielder and two central midfielders. Ideal for your first draft.
4-4-2
Two strikers and two wide midfielders. It's a classic, easy to understand, and it tends to offer good scorers because you have two ST positions.
4-2-3-1
Double pivot and an attacking midfielder behind the number nine. It's the favorite formation of many modern managers because it protects the defense without giving up creativity.
4-1-2-1-2
The famous diamond. It packs players into the middle and has two strikers; it's perfect when the winger offers are weak.
3-5-2 y 3-4-3
Three center-backs and wing-backs. The 3-5-2 dominates the midfield; the 3-4-3 is the most attacking of all, with three forwards. Remember that in these formations the full-backs play further forward.
Simulation
How the simulator works
Football is a low-scoring sport, and that makes it unpredictable. To imitate it, GolDraft uses the Poisson distribution, a statistical model widely used by sports analysts to describe events that happen rarely within a time interval, like goals in 90 minutes.
Expected goals
Two evenly matched teams expect around 1.3 goals each. When one is better, its expectation rises and the opponent's falls exponentially: with a ten-point difference, the favorite expects a bit over 2 goals and the underdog fewer than 1.
Why does the underdog sometimes win?
Because an expectation isn't a certainty. Even expecting 0.7 goals, a team scores at least one about half the time, and the favorite can end up with zero. That's why you see upsets in the cup, just like in real World Cups.
Extra time and penalties
In knockout matches, if it is a draw, 30 minutes of extra time are played with a reduced goal expectation. If it is still level, a shootout of five penalties per team is taken and, if needed, sudden death. The chance of scoring each penalty is around 76%, with a small adjustment for rating.
Basics
Football positions
- POR: Goalkeeper: the only one who can use their hands inside the box.
- LD / LI: Full-backs: defend the flanks and push up to cross.
- DFC: Center-back: strong in the air and at marking.
- MCD: Defensive midfielder: wins the ball back in front of the defense.
- MC: Central midfielder: links defense and attack; pure balance.
- MCO: Attacking midfielder: the creative player behind the strikers.
- ED / EI: Wingers: pace and dribbling down the flanks.
- DC: Striker: the team's goal scorer.
On GolDraft cards you'll see six attributes: pace (PAC), shooting (SHO), passing (PAS), dribbling (DRI), defending (DEF) and physical (PHY). Goalkeepers have their own attributes: diving, handling, kicking, reflexes, speed and positioning.
History
World Cup formats
The first World Cup was played in Uruguay in 1930 with just 13 national teams. For decades the number of participants kept growing: 16 teams was the standard until 1978, it went up to 24 in 1982 and to 32 from France 1998. That 32-team format (eight groups of four and knockouts from the round of 16) is the one our simulator uses for club cups.
The 2026 World Cup, hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, was the first with 48 national teams, which added an extra knockout round. Our national team simulator uses that format: twelve groups of four, the top two and the eight best third-placed teams advance, and the champion plays eight matches.
Fun facts
The science of penalties
Penalty shootouts were introduced at the World Cup in 1978 and have since decided some of the most memorable finals and semi-finals. Various statistical studies put the penalty conversion rate in professional football at around 75-80%, a figure we use as a reference in the simulator.
Some factors analysts often mention: pressure rises when the kick is decisive, goalkeepers dive to one side the vast majority of the time, and kicking down the middle can be a winning gamble... or a historic embarrassment.