Introducing SquadCoach, online fantasy football goes social [Invites]

If you’re a football fan, have we got a treat for you.

We’d like to officially introduce our latest TNW Labs graduate, SquadCoach. What’s TNW Labs? It’s our recently launched ‘in-house projects’ centre. It’s where all the crazy ideas we come up with, however bizarre, find a home. Twitter Counter is one, Social Statistics another and now SquadCoach, eclectic right?

SquadCoach is an online fantasy football league sprouted from the deepest rooted mind cells of yours truly. It launches in public beta today and focuses initially exclusively on the Champions League. If you’ve played Fantasy Football in the past you should be able to grasp how the game works instantly, what makes this different? Deep social integration that’s only going to get deeper.

SquadCoach also comes with a delicious iPad and iPhone UI for when you’re on the go.

For those who haven’t tried Fantasy Football, this is how it works on SquadCoach:

The Goal: Pun intended, is to have as many points as possible by the end of the Champions League season.

How to Play:

1. Sign up and join or create a league to compete with your football friends. We’ve created one specifically for TNW Readers, join the TNW readers league here.
2. Ok now you’re all signed up, have you checked your bank account? You’re loaded! You have a cool 225 million euros to play with. Who are you going to buy? Time to pick your players.
3. Pick your players wisely, you only have 225 million and it’s depressing how un-far that will get you these days. Each player has a starting value at the beginning of the competition which can increase over the course of the competition based on the players results in the competition. You can buy and sell players after each game week and show your coaching skills.

How do you win?

By earning points! And you earn (or lose) points based on how your players perform. For example if your defend or goalie plays, you get 1 point. If a forward scored a goal, you get 3 points. If your player gets a red card, you get 5 points deducted. The full list can be found here.

Join!

Make sense? What are you waiting for? It’s free and the Champions League begins today. Join our TNW Readers league here and the winners of the TNW readers league win a dinner with The Next Web founders and two tickets to TNW Conference 2012 in Amsterdam!