Sunday Manager

Overview

I came to Sunday Manager as a newcomer to football management games. We were a group of three players at my weekly game night — we play a mix of heavy and light games — and everyone was new to this one. The session was taught by someone in the group, and after a short explanation we dove in. The core idea is straightforward: over several rounds you buy and sell players, pick upgrades, deal with injuries, and try to complete a variety of scoring objectives. Those objectives drive your decisions and determine the winner at the end. Mechanically the game leans on auction-style choices and drafting elements, with rules like I Cut, You Choose and progressive turn order that affect how opportunities circulate. Complexity felt medium-light; the rules were mostly clear, and the icon-heavy cards take a little time to parse but the iconography itself is accessible once you get the hang of it.
For a first play we spent about 5–10 minutes on setup (shuffling decks, handing out objective cards), and the whole session ran around 90 minutes in practice with three players. The game hits a comfortable middle ground: it’s puzzly and analytical without being overwhelming. If you enjoy set-collection puzzles, light strategic choices and auctions that create indirect conflict, this will likely sit nicely in your collection. If you prefer heavyweight euros or deeply thematic simulations of football management, this will feel lighter and might not be your cup of tea.

Setup and Components

The game is self-published and well-made. Component quality felt good: cards and tokens did the job, with no component issues to report. The artwork is good-functional — clear, thematically fitting, and designed to communicate a lot of information. That approach suits the design because the game is information-dense.
Setup is quick: in our first game it took a little longer than usual (maybe 5–10 minutes) because everyone was learning, but once the decks were shuffled and objectives dealt the table was ready. The main friction point is the card design: each card carries a lot of icons and small bits of data. The iconography itself is very clear and accessible, but the sheer number of symbols on a single card can feel overwhelming at first. After a round or two the layout becomes intuitive, but expect a slow start while players keep checking the cards and their objectives. Overall the production supports gameplay well enough for a self-published title.

Gameplay and Theme

Gameplay centers on buying players and managing your board to meet end-game objectives. A typical round in a three-player game reveals two player cards for auction. The turn order is progressive: the first player can bid or choose other actions, and if another player overbids them the previous player immediately must pick a different action. That dynamic leads to a compact, back-and-forth auction feel where choices ripple across the table (more so with more players). We spent most of our time in those bidding skirmishes; the game is a lot about timing and about spotting the player card that meshes with your objectives.
Interaction is mostly indirect. You can snoop on the open cards and outbid opponents, but there’s little direct confrontation beyond contesting those market opportunities and maybe an injury or two. Thematically, the game reads as a management experience but it’s fairly abstract. It could plausibly be reskinned to another sport or even a company-management theme because the core is set collection and objective fulfillment rather than narrative immersion. Memorable moments came from the “aha” feeling when your board finally aligned with multiple objectives and from incremental improvement: after a few rounds I started feeling the puzzle click.
One recurring frustration was pacing of card access. With only two cards revealed per round in a three-player game, hunting for a specific player felt like waiting for a rare draw. There’s no built-in fast-cycle mechanism, so if the card you need doesn’t appear, you often have little agency to speed things up. That constraint makes bidding tense but can also feel a bit arbitrary when you’re stuck.

Final Thoughts

After one play I rated Sunday Manager a solid 6/10. It’s a competent, enjoyable light management game with a clean auction/drafting engine and a satisfying puzzle-like progression. The positives are clear: short setup, compact rounds, and an approachable learning curve that rewards repeated plays. I enjoyed the feeling of getting better within the same session and appreciated the minimal downtime and balanced luck/skill mix.
However, it’s not without limits. The game’s identity leans toward abstract set-collection more than deep football simulation, so players looking for strong thematic immersion or heavy strategic depth might be disappointed. The slow card cycling in smaller player counts and the busy cards that overwhelm some players are concrete issues that hold it back from being a table staple. I would play it again to improve my score and try different objective combinations, but I don’t expect it to dominate my game night rotation. In short, Sunday Manager is a neat, compact option for groups who like auctions and puzzle-driven play; it’s worth trying if that describes you, but it’s not a must-buy for everyone.

Pros

• Clean, compact auction/drafting engine that keeps downtime low
• Quick setup and approachable rules that reward repeat plays
• Good balance of luck and skill that supports light strategic play

Cons

• Only two cards revealed in a three-player game can make finding needed cards feel slow
• Cards are icon-dense and can overwhelm new players at first
• Abstract theme — feels like set-collection that could be reskinned, not a deep football simulation