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goal                                          new era software
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This is THE game of international soccer team management,
from the writers of THE SOCCER GAME, much acclaimed by
football addicts from all over the world.

So you want to manage a national football team ?  Well this is
your big chance: 128 countries to choose from, incorporating
almost the entire membership of FIFA. Your challenge is to
select your squad and team for each match, and by careful
selection of overall team tactics and individual player
tactics, for each match in the four year international season,
to take your chosen team on to win the continental
championships and ultimately the World Cup. Easier said than
done.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
features:
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- choose to be any of 128 countries, from 4 continents

- continental championship, for each continent

- World Cup competition

- friendlies, continental tours

- fixture list and results history for every country

- results summary for each competition

- squad of 20 players for each country

- select your team and B team, from a pool of the 140 best
  players in your country.

- detailed analysis of each player, includes
          - skills - 8 skill categories
          - fitness and energy
          - hardness
          - age
          - caps (experience)
          - confidence
          - position (from choice of 13)
          - height
          - left/right footed

- analysis of each national team, includes
          - style and formation
          - skills - attacking,midfield,defence, and keeping
          - average fitness,hardness,age,caps
          - morale
          - world and continental rankings

- setting of detailed tactics at both team and individual
  player level before and at any point during each match

- visual presentation of each of your matches, linked with
  text commentary - watch every move in the game, with
  variable speed control, and display options

- optional trial matches between team and B team - to try out
  tactics and players

- optional viewing of any other match you desire

- variable match speed (for the impatient and those into slow
   motion!)

- bookings,sendings off,suspensions,substitutions,injuries

- match statistics, newspaper reviews and comments

- team history and statistics - how well have you done?

- save and reload game (full registered version only)

- customisation of all player and country names, and strip
  colours (full registered version only)


──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
introduction
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GOAL takes you right into the heart of soccer team management:
selection of the squad and choice of tactical options, in
considerable detail. You watch every game your team plays, and
adjust your players' positioning and tactics from minute to
minute, in response to every threat from your opponents. You
will have to cope with injuries, suspensions, fluctuating
player fitness and confidence. Do not expect scores to be as
boringly low as they have been in recent reality: GOAL assumes
a return to more exciting soccer, with plenty of goalmouth
action in most games.

Newspapers will keep you in touch with what is happening, and
you have access to a comprehensive database of results,
fixture lists and detailed information on each team and on 
each player.

Like international soccer, GOAL works in 4 year cycles: each
cycle comprises:

year 1 - continental friendlies and championship qualifying
         matches
     2 - continental friendlies and championship finals
     3 - continental friendlies and World Cup qualifying
     4 - inter-continental friendlies (including tours) and
         World Cup finals

The shareware version limits you to one 4 year cycle, but
with the full registered version you can play on forever (if
you have nothing else to do). You may be sacked, but only if
you turn in a truly dismal performance.

We have taken the opportunity to simplify and rationalise
the international football structure somewhat, with the
following results:

We have four continents:

1 - Europe
2 - America (ie Concacaf and South America)
3 - Africa
4 - Asia (and Oceana)

Each has 32 nations eligible for its continental championship
and for World Cup qualifying matches,presented alphabetically.

European teams are on the whole better then American teams,
which in turn are better than African teams, with Asian teams
being the most lowly (simply a reflection of soccer reality,
not a political statement).

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
starting the game:                   selection of your country
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At the start of the game you must choose your country, from
the 128. Factors to consider are principally the skill rating
of the team (indicated by the description at the top right
corner of the screen), and the continent it is in:

The Asian championship is the easiest, followed (of course)
by the African, then the American, with the European
championship being the most difficult (arguably even more
difficult to win than the World Cup, although at least you
don't have to face Brazil or Argentina.... or Cameroon).

Team morale should be ignored at this stage, as it will be
reset for the team you choose (the idea being that the squad
initially have no confidence in you as a manager, until you
prove yourself). Also player caps and goal tallies are reset
to zero: this is to give you a better idea of how players are
performing for you, as performance prior to your appointment
as manager is essentially irrelevant.

Each country has it's own quirks, so essentially you have a
128 different games to choose from, offering varying degrees
of challenge, from what we consider to be too easy (eg
Germany) to virtually impossible ! What is more, not one of
these games will ever be the same twice.

The worse the team you choose, the longer you should be
prepared to work at building up your team, in order to
achieve success in the competitions, but the more rewarding
that final success will be (if you make it that is...).

Success or failure in the competitions (measured in terms of
every point achieved in the qualifying and final groups, as
well as major success in the final knockout stages) will
affect the growth/decline of footballing talent in your
country: ie if you do better than expected (from your
country's skill ratings), talented new players will gradually
appear in your pool, often better than any in your squad; but
if you fail to match expectations, you will be lucky to find
replacements up to the standard of players who retire. So the
route to success with a lowly team is to persevere and
consistently triumph over those teams who supposedly are
marginally better than you, thus encouraging the growth of
footballing talent in your country. In short, success breeds
success.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
playing the game
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GOAL is designed so that all the displays and features are
explained where you find them - so just roam around and you
will discover all the things you can do. You can do just
about everything with the following keys:

      enter        ie accept/proceed/select
      Esc          ie reject/backtrack/escape
      cursor keys  move selection (white on red)
                    bar left,up,down,or right
      Spacebar     next category (eg continent)

Hit F1 at any time for this help screen.


The options on the main (ie select team) menu are as follows:

Teams - lets you see information for every team. World and
  continental rankings given indicate the team's performance
  in the last World Cup / Continental championship, and are
  not directly related to the actual skill of that team.
  Skills shown are based on the current team of 11 players,
  not the entire squad, and allow for the formation chosen.
  Hit enter for details of each player in a team's squad.

Fixtures - for every team: note that from this option you can
  select which matches you wish to watch, though you will be
  asked anyway for all matches of major significance to you,
  and for all competition knockout matches.

Results - note that you can always see all results for the
  current or most recent occurrence of each of the 5
  competitions.

History - lets you assess your performance as a manager.

Squad - select your team from the B team.

B team - select your B team from the pool of available
  players.

Play - this moves the game on, generally bringing you to your
  next match.  First you are given the 'latest results'
  service, with the option to watch any major or pre-selected
  match (see 'fixtures'), then to play a trial match with your
  B team (if you are not on tour or at the finals of a
  competition), and then it's the big day and time to have
  your wits about you....

During your own matches you can alter tactics at any time,
and make substitutions from any of your squad, via the 'bench'
option. You get 2 substitutions in competition matches, 5 in
friendlies, and 9 in trial matches. Substitutions can be made
from any of your squad: you do not have to nominate your
substitutes before a match. You can rearrange your team any
way you like before the kick-off.


──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
the competitions:      continental championships and world cup
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

The four continental championships are organised as follows:

- Qualifying : 8 groups of 4 teams, teams playing each other
 over two legs : group winners qualify for the finals

- Finals group stage : 2 groups of 4 teams, playing each
 other once : winner and second placed play off in the
 semi-finals

- Knockout stage : semi-finals,third place play-off,and final


Allocation of 32 World Cup final places is:

Europe - 16
America - 8
Africa - 4
Asia - 4

World cup qualifying is as folows:

- 8 groups of 4 teams in each continent : top two from each
European group, and winners of each American group qualify.
Winners of African and Asian groups have play-offs over two
legs to decide on the 4 qualifiers from each continent.

The World Cup finals start off with (yes you've guessed it) 8
groups of 4 teams (oh if real life was only so simple....).
Each play the other teams in the group once.
Winners and second placed from each group go forward to the
last 16 knockout stage.

Matches in the knockout stages of every competition go into
extra time, and on to a penalty shoot-out if necessary, to
produce a result. Penalty shootouts are best out of five,
with sudden death thereafter. African and Asian World Cup
qualifying play-offs are decided by a coin toss, should the
aggregate scores over the two legs tie. Group winners and
second placed are decided first on points (obviously), then
on goal difference, then on goals scored, and finally again
by a coin toss (well after all there has always been a lot of
luck involved in football... at the end of the day...).

There are no exemptions from qualifying for the competitions,
so the current title holders and the host nations all have to
compete along with everybody else. However, the selection of
host country for each competition is only made after the
qualifying stages, from those teams who have been successful,
to ensure that the host takes part in the finals.

Groups are selected in such a way as to ensure that major
teams are spread among the groups: effectively teams are
seeded according to rankings.

There is a considerable advantage when playing at home. The
host nation for a competition enjoys this advantage in the
finals.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
selection of your squad
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

You have a B squad, which provides a reserve pool of players.
You should regularly scan through your pool of national
players on the lookout for emerging talent, and place the
best players in your B squad. Use trial matches between your
main team and B team to test out your players, and tactical
ideas. Your main squad should be updated between every match
(though this, obviously, is not allowed during the finals of
a competition or while on tour abroad), to remove injured,
suspended, or unfit players from your squad, and to try out
new uncapped players.

Player skills do not change: they should be seen as the
potential of a player, and considered in conjunction with
fitness and confidence when selecting players.

Player fitness is very important: keep a close watch on
fitness and energy: player energy will decline during a match
in direct proportion to the activity of the player. Unfit
players should be reserved for last minute substitutions, or
not played at all. Exhausted players should be substituted,
if possible. Tactics can be adjusted to minimise the movement
of a player, thus preserving his energy. Fresh players, put
on towards the end of a game can often run circles round the
opposition.

Player confidence is also a significant factor in performance:
winning or drawing matches (other than trial matches) will
boost the confidence of the players involved, and thus the
team morale, as will goal scoring. Losing, injuries, sendings
off, and the like will damage player confidence. Thus the
result of every match, including friendlies, is important:
win your friendlies and your team's morale will grow.

Pay attention to The SPORTING TIMES, particularly if they
offer advice on replacing players (though they are not always
right). Ignore your assistant, physio and coach, unless for
idle amusement!

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
player skills
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

SHOOTING: ability to put the ball in the net in the course of
play. Includes power and also accuracy, though even the best
players will often shoot wide of the mark, when under pressure.

AGILITY: ability to avoid tackles and run with the ball.
Particularly important for attackers, and forward midfielders
and wingers.

CONTROL: ability to intercept low balls and receive passes.
Important for attackers and midfielders.

PASSING: accuracy of passing. Long passes will not be
successful without kicking skill also. Of most importance to
midfielders.

HEADING: ability to intercept high balls and to accurately
pass and shoot with the head. Especially important for
attackers receiving crosses into the box, and for defenders
trying to beat them to it. Related generally to height.

KICKING: power of kick, especially from a dead ball.
Particularly important for defensive clearances, goal kicks,
free kicks and long passes.

TACKLING: ability to take the ball off a player cleanly and
legally. A tackler must match the agility of the player on
the ball with his own tackling skills. Tackling success can
be enhanced by 'going in hard' (see tactics below), but this
is related to hardness rather than tackling skill. Vital for
defenders.

KEEPING: specific goalkeeping skills. Relevant only to
goalkeepers.


──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
player positioning
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

You must consider firstly your required balance between
attack, midfield, and defence, and then within each category
position your players so that
  1 - their greatest skills are taken advantage of.
  2 - you have a balance between centre, left and right
flanks.


STRIKER: a small agile attacker, with a tendancy to roam
around looking for striking opportunities. Move around a lot,
so need to be fit.

CENTRE FORWARD: a taller attacker, able to reach high crosses
into the box, and good at heading. Generally less agile than
strikers, and will move around less.


LEFT/RIGHT WINGER: agile forward midfield player,
specialising in runs up the wings, with the aim of putting a
cross into the box (high for a centre forward, or low for a
striker), or even of scoring himself. Generally good
goal scorers, and similar in skills to strikers, though better
at passing.

FORWARD MIDFIELDER: like wingers this is a combination
midfield/attack player, though a forward midfielder is more
likely to pass forward to an attacker rather than put in a
cross from the wings.

LEFT/RIGHT MIDFIELDER: a player specialising in passing and
control of the ball, particularly useful for slowing down
play and keeping possession.

DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER: along with left/right midfielders,
this is a passing/control player, though with rather more
defensive skills than other midfielders.


LEFT/RIGHT BACK: a defender specialising in controlling the
left or right flank of the pitch, so particularly important
for countering wingers. Like all defenders, specialising in
tackling, kicking and heading skills.

CENTRE BACK: the key central defender, with similar skills to
left and right backs.

SWEEPER: an agile defender who hangs about behind the rest of
the defence to provide a last line of defence against
attackers breaking free of their markers. The use of a
sweeper generally implies that man-to-man marking is being
practised, and the sweeper will not mark anyone himself. The
sweeper will often move into more of a defensive midfield
role when the defence is not under pressure.


GOALKEEPER: the specialist who gets the blame whenever a goal
is lost. Will generally be good at tackling (for situations
like a breakaway attack, where the keeper may leave the
penalty box) and at kicking (for goal kicks).


Playing positions can be altered for any player, and their
customary position may not be the one for which they are best
suited. Use the Ins and Del keys to reposition a player.
Repositioning of players during a game is a very useful
tactical ploy. Repositioning also allows you to get around
the loss of key players through injury/suspension/lack of
fitness.

Don't play a left footer on the right flank or vice versa, as
they do not generally cope very well with this.


──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
tactics
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Tactics can be set both at an overall 'team' level, (for
certain tactics) individually player by player, giving you an
enormous amount of flexibility, especially when taken in
conjunction with selection of players and playing positions.

Watching other matches lets you check out the type of tactics
and team line-up likely to be played by your future opponents.

Be prepared to adjust your tactics to suit those of your
opponent. What destroys one team may simply not work with
another supposedly inferior team.

Your opponents may change tactics and positioning as required
during the course of a match - you should do likewise.

Tactics are altered from the 'bench' screen before and during
a match. Use Enter or Ins keys to toggle through the options for
each tactic, or the Del key to move backwards.

POSITIONING: stay back/push forward: this tactic adjusts the
willingness of players to move forward and to pass forward,
when atacking. Push forward to go for goals, stay back to
retain possession and maintain a strong defence. This tactic
can be set for each player individually, giving you a lot of
control (in combination with selection of player positions)
over your team's coverage of the pitch.

POSSESSION: stay on the ball/one touch passing: choice
depends on the relative agility and passing skills of your
players. Passing may be more favourable if the opposition
are marking man to man. Again, this tactic can be set
individually for each player.

PASSING: short passes/long passes: successful long passing
requires passing and kicking skills and a fair amount of luck,
but can achieve rapid and devastating attacks as the ball is
passed long to an attacker. Short passing is safer. Again can
be set individually.

DEFENCE: half/full pitch: half pitch defence requires less
overall ability than full pitch defence, as the team will
drop back into their own half when under attack, and defend
from there. Full pitch defence implies holding ground and
defending immediately possestion is lost, from any position
on the pitch: if your team is up to it, full pitch defence
can achieve overall dominance of the entire pitch, but it
leaves much more space for the opposition to exploit.

SYSTEM: zonal system/man to man marking: marking options are
extensive: zonal system implies that each player will defend
his own 'zone' (based on his playing position), while the
man-to-man option assigns each player to an opposing player
(except for the sweeper). The choice of system will radically
affect the nature of the play, with man-to-man requiring more
movement (hence fitness) from the players, and generally
stifling the opposition more effectively, while the zonal
system allows your players to operate with more space and
freedom particularly when switching from defence to attack.
Man-to-man marking will override any of the other tactical
options, when there is a conflict (eg full/half pitch and
sag back/stand ground).

Assignment of men to mark will be done automatically
(assignments shown in red in the player tactics screen), and 
will be updated whenever you or your opponents make a change
to the team. These assignments can be overridden for
individual players (shown in white and green): this allows
you try any combination you like of man-to-man and zonal, and
for example assign more than one player to a key opposing
attacker. This option requires more work from you, as marking
assignments must be set by you for each game, and altered
whenever either team makes a substitution or alters player
positioning. However, it also allows you to optimise the
marking and gives you more control over your players than
(probably) any other option.

Note the following when setting marking assignments manually:
1 - players assigned manually (both your players and any
opposing players they are assigned to) will be excluded
from the automatic assignments for the rest of the team.
2 - marking assignments will be cleared (ie set to 'zonal')
for such players, at the end of the match, so you must
remember to set their new assignments at the start of the
next match.

PROTECTION: sag back to box/stand ground: sag back is the
safer defensive option, where your players will head towards
the box whenever your goal is under threat, but they will have
to rebuild any renewed attack from scratch, and will get
exhausted more quickly than those standing firm in their zonal
defensive positions.

OFFSIDE: defensive safety/offside trap: playing offside trap
will encourage your defenders to move forward in the hope of
catching the opposing attackers offside, but if it doesn't
work you had better have a very good goalkeeper!

TACKLING: avoid heavy tackles/go in hard: players will
generally tackle cleanly unless you tell them through this
option (which can be set individually) to do otherwise.
'Going in hard' improves the chances of winning a tackle, but
do not advise weak or passive players to 'go in hard' for
tackles as they are likely to get injured. Hard players on
the other hand are likely to injure the opposition and/or
get sent off.

You can also choose a captain, and nominate penalty, free kick
goal kick and corner takers. If your current nomination is
not in the squad (ie shown in red, rather than green), then a
suitable taker will be assigned anyway, but you should use 
these options to ensure that for example penalties are taken
by a good shooter, corners by a good passer, and goal kicks by
a good kicker. Note that free kicks within shooting range of 
the goals will be taken by the nominated penalty taker, rather
than the free kick taker (whose main skills should normally be
kicking/passing).

When setting individual player tactics (other than marking 
assignments - see above), there are always three options: the 
two options for that tactic (as per team tactics: shown in 
green) and the third option of using the default team tactic 
(shown in red).

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
the match
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

GOAL centres around the visual presentation of the match. You
can alter the speed at which things happen (use left and right
cursor keys),and the way the players are displayed (up and down
cursor keys):

H/A: indicating home and away team, intended mainly for
  monochrome displays where the strip colours are not apparent.

arrows indicating direction of play, again intended for
  monochrome displays.

A - W: player position (see player information displays to
  learn the meaning of each letter). Allows you to keep a
  track of individual players, especially when used in
  conjunction with the commentary.

0 - 9: player number, 10 in all (the goalkeeper is always
  shown as a face). Allows you to determine precisely which player
  is which.

The ball is shown larger when it is high above the ground.

Hit Esc or Enter and you are into the 'bench' screen: from this
you can make substitutions and alter tactics, at any point in
the game (though you may have to wait for a suitable break in
play to put on a substitute).

Hit the spacebar and you get the match commentary (up to the
last 500 comments), enabling you to analyse exactly how a goal
came about, etc. , and how well individual players are doing.

The scoreboard shows the home team (if there is one) first,
though this will not necessarily apply for host teams during
the finals of competitions.

Injury time will be allowed at the end of the match, if
appropriate.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
sound and subterfuge
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Sound effects are not our strongest point, perhaps, but the PC
speaker is hardly inspiring! (well that's our excuse...)

Qué Sera is just there to drive you round the bend, and
encourage you into getting on with the game. We are quite
proud of the whistle, however.

Anyway you can turn the noise off, and you can load the game
in 'quiet' mode (if you have the full registered version) by
the command:
               goal quiet    (or)     goal q

Should you want to escape from 'goal' for a minute, for
whatever reason, hitting F8 will load a DOS shell (assuming
you have enough memory).

So no one need find out what you are up to....

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
compatibility and displays
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Goal should work on any truly IBM compatible PC, including
those with monochrome or Hercules display adaptors.

If you have problems with the display, try pressing F5: this
is particularly useful with CGA compatible monochrome displays
(eg laptop LCD displays).

Also, as already mentioned, display options are available
during the match so that you can identify teams other than by
strip colour.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
customisation
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Hit F2 whenever player information is shown, and you can alter
that player's name. Note that this new name remains only for
the duration of the game. Permanent alterations require the
use of the ALTER utility (provided only with the registered
version of GOAL).

Hit F2 on the main screen, and you can alter your own name!

ALTER is very simple to use if you are familiar with GOAL, and
lets you customise all team and player names, and team strips,
permanantly.

Just type in ALTER from DOS, and make any changes you want,
then hit F10 to exit, and you will be asked if you want to
save the changes to the 'GOAL.D' file. Note that any
previously saved game will be unaffected.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
more entertainment
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

For information on other NEW ERA SOFTWARE games, contact

  NEW ERA SOFTWARE
  PO BOX 19
  LIVINGSTON
  EH27 8EH
  SCOTLAND

  031-333-4958

or

  WIZARD GAMES OF SCOTLAND
  PO BOX 498
  WILMINGTON
  MA 01887-0498
  U.S.A.

  1-508-658-2209


──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
goal                                          new era software
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────