You probably know Nordeus best as the company behind the Top Eleven series of soccer / association football management games. If such intricate, full-featured games are not your cup of tea in the world of football-based games, you will probably be glad to know that Nordeus has something that’s more on the casual side of things. We’re talking about Golden Boot 2019, which is now available on the App Store and Google Play.
There’s not much team management here, even if you have the chance to build your own “dream team” — instead, it’s mostly about scoring goals and hitting specific targets as you “master the art of free kicks.” There are different game modes you can try out for yourself, as well as different types of balls that provide more than just a cosmetic change to things — depending on the ball you choose, you could end up scoring a ton of points and completely annihilating your opponents in Duel, or PvP mode!
Despite this game’s casual nature, that doesn’t mean it’s a complete walk in the park. In fact, we’ve compiled 10 Golden Boot tips, cheats and strategies that we believe will help you win far more often than you lose in those all-important Duels. So join us for this complete Golden Boot 2019 guide, as we cover a wide variety of topics, game modes, and features, and, we hope, help you add to that win column and earn more rewards even if you’re new to the game!
1. The Basics Of Golden Boot 2019
If you’re used to playing Nordeus’ more popular, better-known football title, Top Eleven, you may be surprised to find that Golden Boot 2019 is, as we said earlier, a far more casual game that doesn’t require you to pay close attention to just about every facet of your clubhouse. Although you will be collecting players and upgrading them accordingly, the players here are real-life soccer/association football stars (as opposed to the fictional ones in Top Eleven) and your “team’s” lineup won’t necessarily be an 11-man roster with a deep bench. And while each of the players have their own respective stats, the main thing here is choosing the right trajectory for your aim and the right swiping speed.
Your objective, regardless of game mode, is to successfully score a goal and, if applicable, outsmart the goalkeeper and other opposing team members that may try to block your attempt. But it also will depend on where the ball lands — simply kicking it into the net will only get you a few points, while kicking it into the highlighted area will get you about twice or thrice as many points. Kicking the ball near the posts or right underneath the crossbar could get you even more points, so it’s important that you take all these things into account, and then some. There’s also the matter of the balls you’ll be using — your standard ball won’t earn you any bonus points or provide any special effects (though you have an unlimited supply of this regular, boring old ball), but the other balls, which you will have a limited supply of, will. We’ll be discussing the different ball types in a separate tip, so do read on for more information on the alternative balls you can use.
Golden Boot 2019 has three different play modes — Play Duel, which allows you to take on a random player around the world as you move up from one tier to the next and earn more rewards once you reach a certain number of trophies, Practice, where you can earn extra coins if you reach a given point threshold, and Play With Friends, which is like Duel mode, but with you playing a PvP battle against a Facebook friend who may play the game. The basic mechanics we discussed above are generally the same across all three play modes, which, we’d say, further highlights how this is a title for those who may be looking for something easier to pick up (and potentially harder to put down) than Top Eleven.
2. Swipe Fast To Aim High, Swipe Slow To Aim Low
This is the main thing you need to remember when aiming the ball in Golden Boot 2019. As the tutorial will show you, swiping quickly toward the goal will aim the ball toward the crossbar and upward (this could be good for scoring more points, as long as you end up making the goal), while swiping slowly will result in a low-flying shot that’s usually best when you’re aiming for highlighted targets. There’s another swiping mechanism, where you can swipe left or right to make the ball zip in that direction before it enters the net. You’ll typically need this when you’re up against a goalkeeper and some defenders, but you’ll need to be super-quick in order for the ball not to hit the defenders and to make sure it’s still on a trajectory toward the net.
Basically, when you’re just starting out in the first few tiers of Duel mode, you won’t really need to swipe right or left too often. What’s important is to know when to swipe fast and when to swipe low, which will be the main determining factor in whether the ball finds the net or not.
3. How To Play Practice Mode
Practice mode may sound like pretty much just that — a mode where you can practice your aim without any stakes involved, without any variables that could make things difficult. On the contrary, it isn’t — there are some “stakes” in practice mode, but they aren’t too high at all, and you will need to deal with a goalkeeper and later, some defenders blocking your path toward the net. But this is still a good way to prepare for those PvP duels, and a good way to regroup if you find yourself losing more often than you’re winning — believe us, these situations could happen, and happen more often than you think.
In Practice mode, you’ll start out with three Standard balls, and your objective would be to score as many points as possible against the goalkeeper. Each time you miss a goal attempt, you lose one ball, or one “life,” as the game calls it. As your score goes up, the goalscoring situations will become more difficult — either the angles will change, defenders will be added, or both. The same applies if you lose a ball/life; things do often get more difficult after missing a goal attempt, so you’ll want to prepare for that. The good thing is that you don’t need to deal with any time limits — you can take as much time as you want to survey the situation and make sure you’re swiping toward the right direction and at the right speed in order to score the goal. Scoring 200 points will earn you 20 coins, and once you hit 500, you’ll end up with a guaranteed 50 coins, and so on.
Once you run out of balls, the game will ask you if you wish to continue by paying gems, which are the game’s premium currency. The cost to continue gets higher for each time you pay to get an extra ball (and that’s all you get — one extra ball, plus a more difficult scenario), and we should warn you that it’s not a good idea at all to pay gems to continue in Practice mode! Yes, the game will tell you that you came “so close” once your Practice game is over, but that’s the exact same message it shows, regardless if you’re 5 points shy of a milestone or 500 points shy. Sure, you could probably pay a gem every now and then for one extra ball/life, but don’t make it a habit to spend premium currency in this manner! You may want to save up your gems for the items we’ll be talking about in the very next tip.
4. Which Ball Is Which, And What’s In It For You?
All in all, Golden Boot 2019 features seven different balls which you can use in Duel mode or when playing against friends, and by now, you should be familiar with the Standard ball, which, as the game says, is just a “regular football” with no special powers or point bonuses. But what about the other six balls available in the game? What do they do, how many do you get at first, and how much will you have to pay for a refill?
The Lucky Charm fittingly features green accents and a four-leaf clover theme, and it works by reducing the number of shots you need to make in the same spot for a combo bonus from three to two. You start the game out with five Lucky Charms, and it’ll set you back 20 gems if you want to buy a refill of five. Twenty Lucky Charms costs 70 gems, while 100 will set you back by 300 gems.
The Sniper is a multi-colored ball that could benefit you by giving you an extra 100 points if your ball hits the targets near the posts and the crossbar. Likewise, you’ll get started with five Snipers, with the price of refills exactly the same as it is for the Lucky Charms.
The Gambler is a blue, white, and yellow ball that could be helpful if you’re a fairly accurate shooter in general, but harmful if you are not. That’s because you’ll earn a bonus of 120 points for each made goal, but lose 120 points if you end up missing. You start out with four Gamblers, and refills will cost you 40 gems for five balls, 140 gems for 20, and 600 gems for 100.
The Student is a purple and white ball with a rather curious name, but could reward you with a ton of extra points — 350, to be exact — if you hit the crossbar or post, plus a further bonus if you’re still able to score and the ball doesn’t just bounce loose for the miss. You get three Student balls at the start of the game, and you can pay 50 gems for five balls, 180 gems for 20 balls, and 800 gems for a hundred.
The Finisher is yellow and blue, and it works by giving you a x3 point multiplier for each goal you score during the last 15 seconds. You only start out with two Finishers, and it’ll cost you quite a lot to refill them — it’s 125 gems for five balls, 450 gems for 20, and 2,000 gems for 100.
Lastly, the Wallbreaker is white and gold, and lets you “shoot right through” the wall. As you only get one Wallbreaker to start with, we haven’t tried this yet, but we assume this means “wall of defenders,” meaning all you need to do, pretty much, is to make sure the ball is traveling toward the net and not over the crossbar or past the posts. Refilling your Wallbreakers costs 250 gems for five balls, 900 gems for 20, and a whopping 4,000 gems for a hundred.
5. Redeem Your Free Packs And Goal Packs
Traditionally, packs in Golden Boot 2019 contain three of these things — some coins, some gems, and/or at least one player card. Winning PvP duels will get you a Bronze pack or better, as we’ll explain a little later on, but if you pay close attention to the game while you’re still awake, or better yet, have your notifications turned on, you can redeem a Free Pack every four hours. You won’t get much coins and gems and you’ll likely end up with a common player card, but those rewards can sure add up over time. Ditto the Goal Pack, which you can redeem for every 100 goals you score in Duels — you’ll get slightly more coins and gems and your chances of getting a solid player card are better, but like Free Packs, Goal Packs are rather low in the pecking order as far as packs are concerned.
As a bonus tip, the goals you score above 100 before opening a Goal Pack will go toward your next Goal Pack, so that should make things a bit easier when it comes to opening these packs! (There is, however, a limit to the number of Goal Packs you can open per day.)
6. Make Sure To Upgrade Your Better Players
As Golden Boot 2019 is not your traditional 11 vs. 11 soccer game, there are several things to keep in mind when it comes to your Squad. Each Squad consists of seven players — a goalkeeper (GK), left corner (LC) and right corner (RC), a left winger (LW), a left midfielder (LM), a right midfielder (RM), and a right winger (RW). The latter four players will be your goal kickers in Duels, while the LC and RC mainly serve as defenders
As we said in the first tip, these are all real-life players identified solely by their last name, and each are rated from one to five stars, starting out with common, or Pro players (one star), followed by Elite (two stars), Superstar (three stars), and Legendary (four stars) — at the moment, there don’t appear to be any unlockable five-star players. Players become eligible for upgrade once you’ve accumulated the required number of points in order to level up — you can earn more upgrade points by opening packs and collecting more player cards.
As you earn more trophies and move from one arena to the next, you’ll be able to unlock more players, and as you go on, it’s important that you focus your upgrades on your better players. Upgrades, of course, will cost you coins, with rarer players costing more to upgrade, which makes it important to spend your gold prudently, common as it may be as a form of currency.
7. How To Succeed In Duel Mode
Duel mode is the heart of Golden Boot 2019, and it’s the mode you will almost surely be playing most of the time, especially if you don’t have any Facebook friends who also play the game. So how can you guarantee yourself of a better chance of winning, regardless of who you may be facing?
In Duel mode, the objective is to accumulate enough trophies to unlock each of the arenas in the game — there are 11 in total — until you reach the final one. You’ll earn a given number of trophies for winning a Duel in these arenas, and if you lose a Duel, you’ll lose two-thirds of the points you could earn in victory. (For example, in Arena 3, which is in Japan, you get nine trophies for a win and get docked six trophies for a loss.) And if you want to increase your chances of victory, the first thing you need to do is to make sure your best players are active. Not only do they have higher ratings than the more common players; they also give you a bigger bonus for successful goals.
Unlike in Practice mode, PvP Duels are timed at 45 seconds — this makes it important to be quick and accurate when playing against someone else. Depending on which arena you’ll be playing in, you will be fielding anywhere between two to six players from your Squad, and each will get a chance to kick in a variety of situations. Your choice of ball will also matter — is accuracy your strength? You may want to capitalize on that by using a Gambler. Do you excel in getting the ball to a specific spot multiple times in a row? Go with the Lucky Charm. Facing up against a much tougher opponent? Maybe it’s time to bust out the Finisher, or even the Wallbreaker. In most cases, however, the Standard ball should suit you just fine.
Scoring will depend on the area of the net you’re able to hit, as well as the bonus your players get for scoring a successful goal. Sometimes it’s just best to play it safe when you’re controlling your rarer players, as trying for something too fancy and high-scoring Is seldom as accurate as taking a straightforward shot at a wide space of net. Don’t pay too much attention to the clock or to your opponent’s score — your mileage may vary, but many players tend to get thrown off if they focus too much on the score, as this could add unnecessary pressure. Also, keep in mind that hitting at least three straight goals in the same area of the net, or stringing together a combo, earns you extra points — this goes down to two straight if you’re using the Lucky Charm, as we explained earlier.
Once the 45 seconds are up, you’ll either earn more trophies and move closer toward unlocking a new arena, while also getting a Bronze pack or better, if you win. You’ll also get back your buy-in fee in coins for the Duel if you win, plus the buy-in fee paid by your opponent. If you lose the Duel, you’ll lose some trophies depending on the arena, and you will, of course, not get your buy-in fee back. Also keep in mind that you’ll get 15 seconds extra time in the event of a draw by the time the 45 seconds are up!
8. Watch Videos To Open Those Packs Faster, But Leave One Free Slot Open Whenever You Can
In Golden Boot 2019, you’ll have four slots to hold the packs you win in Duels, though you can only unlock one at a time unless you’re willing to pay gems in order to speed things up or open a pack instantly. However, the game gives you an option to watch a video in order to shave an hour off the wait time — more often than not, you can actually watch two videos in quick succession so you could open those Bronze Packs (which have a two-hour wait time to open) almost immediately! Don’t waste those gems on expediting the wait time — a 30-second video or two will normally do the trick.
In addition to holding on to your gems, which could otherwise be used to purchase ball refills, here’s one more thing to keep in mind when it comes to the opening of packs. Now you’ll usually be getting Bronze Packs in the first few arenas, but on rare occasions, you may end up with a Silver pack or better, particularly (but not always) during those games where you’re playing to hit the trophy threshold for each arena. (That would be 20 for Arena 1, 50 for Arena 2, and so on.) That’s why you should, as much as possible, play Duels when you have at least one pack slot open. Any pack you may win once all slots are full is automatically forfeited unless you’re willing to pay gems to open them immediately! And that could hurt if you get lucky and end up with something more than a Bronze Pack.
9. Win High-End Packs By Playing Free Kick Challenges
In Golden Boot 2019’s in-game store, you can pay gems in order to purchase some of the rarer packs, namely the Gold Pack (200 gems), Platinum Pack (500 gems), and Diamond Pack (2,000 gems). However, there are some special, similarly high-end packs out there, including the Crystal Pack, Emerald Pack, Amethyst Pack, and Ruby Pack. You won’t be able to purchase these packs just yet, but you can win them by playing the Free Kick Challenges. Watching a video allows you to try each of these challenges — where you are asked to recreate “iconic” goal moments — for free, though otherwise, you’ll need to pay real money. Additionally, we should set your expectations that these are NOT easy challenges! Even the Easy challenge is hard to complete compared to what you may normally encounter in the first few arenas, but the rewards are very much worth it — the Crystal Pack we opened came with two player cards (one Pro, one Elite) and five Lucky Charms, which isn’t too bad, if you come to think of it. Best of all, there’s no waiting when it comes to these packs — you can open them immediately after successfully completing the challenges!
10. Log In Every Day For Great Rewards
Last, but not the least, we should remind you to log in and load up Golden Boot 2019 at least once a day, even if you don’t actually get any gameplay in — a simple login of a few seconds should suffice. That’s because the game has some daily login rewards which you can redeem for each consecutive day you load it up — for Day 1, you’ll get 200 coins, and this goes on until Day 7, when the game rewards you with five Finisher balls. Given that that’s the second most powerful ball, you definitely will want to keep that seven-day login streak going!
That’s it for now as far as our Golden Boot 2019 tips, cheats and strategies are concerned. We hope you’ve enjoyed this guide, and if you have additional tips for the game, don’t hesitate to let us know through the comment section!