Hidden Eleven
How to play Hidden Eleven
A full rules walkthrough — from creating a room to the final whistle. For tactics and tips rather than rules, see the Strategy guide.
1. Create or join a room
One player creates a room and shares the room code with an opponent, or opens it to public matchmaking. The host configures the match before it starts:
- League pool — a single league, a curated bundle of several, or every supported league. This determines which real clubs and players are available to draft.
- Formation — the tactical shape both managers will draft into (see the Formations section below).
- Timers — how long each manager gets to draft, substitute, and activate abilities. Rooms can run with generous timers for a relaxed pace or tight ones for a faster match.
- Rating window — hosts can restrict the draft pool to a specific rating band, which changes the whole feel of a draft (a tight window forces closer decisions; a wide window rewards spotting undervalued stat lines).
2. The draft
Both managers take turns picking players, one at a time, from a shared pool built from the chosen leagues and rating window. Every pick is visible to both players the moment it's taken — except for hidden-deck picks (see below). The draft continues until both squads are complete for the chosen formation, including bench cover.
Positions matter: a formation defines specific slots (for example, two centre-backs and one striker), and a drafted player only fills the positions they're actually rated for. Balancing a high-rated squad against actually having cover for every slot is the core drafting tension — see the draft order section of the strategy guide for how to prioritize.
3. The hidden-deck mechanic
At set points during the draft, a manager may place a pick into their hidden deck instead of their visible squad. That player's identity and card are concealed from the opponent — they'll only see that a hidden pick exists, not who it is or where it'll slot in.
Hidden picks are revealed at a defined moment before kickoff. Used well, a hidden pick lets you draft a genuine standout without tipping your opponent off early enough to draft around it. Used carelessly, it can also mean hiding a player who turns out to be a poor tactical fit once the reveal happens — the risk is real, which is what makes it a genuine decision rather than a free bonus.
4. Squad chemistry
Every drafted card carries three tiered chemistry challenges — an easy, a medium, and a hard one — built from conditions like sharing a club with enough of your other starters, sharing a nationality, or having enough players concentrated in the same broad line of the pitch (defense, midfield, or attack). Satisfying a challenge earns that card real bonus points toward your squad's overall performance; missing it leaves that potential on the table.
Chemistry is calculated independently for each card based on the final lineup at kickoff, so late substitutions can change which challenges are satisfied — plan subs with chemistry in mind, not just raw rating upgrades.
5. Substitutions
Once the draft ends, managers adjust their lineup from their bench before kickoff and, depending on room settings, during the match itself. A substitution swaps a bench card into a pitch slot it's eligible for. Bench depth and flexibility — not just your strongest eleven — often decide close matches, especially in rooms where the subs phase carries into the live match.
6. Ability cards
Rooms can enable a draft-time ability phase: each manager secretly drafts a small set of special abilities that can be activated at key moments in the match. The six ability types:
| Ability | What it does |
|---|---|
| Captain | Doubles a starting-XI card's earned chemistry contribution. |
| Yellow Card | Applies a rating penalty to a targeted opponent player. |
| Red Card | Nullifies a targeted opponent card's chemistry contribution entirely for the match. |
| Sub | Forces a swap between one of your pitch cards and an opponent's card in the same position. |
| Coach | Grants an eligible card an additional playable position (goalkeepers can't be coached). |
| Extra Bench | Grants the manager additional bench capacity for the rest of the match. |
Because abilities are drafted and held secretly, timing and reading your opponent's likely holdings is as much a part of ability play as the effects themselves. See the ability tactics section of the strategy guide for when to use each one.
7. Formations
The host selects a formation before the draft begins, and it applies equally to both managers — every formation slot has to be filled by a player who's actually rated for that position. Formations range from defense-heavy shapes with extra centre-backs to attack-heavy shapes with multiple forwards and wide players, and the shape you're drafting into should directly influence your pick priorities (see the strategy guide's formation section).
8. The match
Once both squads are locked in, the match plays out as a live simulation, minute by minute, driven by squad ratings, chemistry, formation matchups, and any abilities activated during play. Managers can still make substitutions as the match state changes, reacting to how the simulation is unfolding.
9. Tournament mode
Beyond single 1v1 rooms, Hidden Eleven supports a knockout tournament format: a full bracket of managers drafts and plays through simulated fixtures round by round, with the same draft-and-hide mechanics carried through every match, until a single tournament winner remains. Because a single lost tie ends a manager's run, tournament strategy leans toward consistent, chemistry-solid squads over high-variance gambles — see the strategy guide's tournament section for more.
Glossary
- Draft pool — the shared set of real players both managers pick from, built from the room's chosen leagues and rating window.
- Hidden deck — the face-down slot a manager can place one draft pick into instead of their visible squad.
- Chemistry — bonus points earned when a card satisfies one or more of its three tiered challenges (club, nation, or line-based conditions).
- Formation slot — a single position in the match formation that must be filled by an eligible drafted card.
- Ability — one of six special draft-time cards (Captain, Yellow Card, Red Card, Sub, Coach, Extra Bench) that can be activated during the match.
- Bracket — the knockout structure used in tournament mode, where a lost tie eliminates a manager from the tournament.