MATCH is one of Britain's best selling football magazines. It is full of interviews, information and opinion about Britain's top football teams and players. Largely aimed at youngsters, it also boasts the most comprehensive statistical round-up published in football. It costs £1.60 and goes on sale every Tuesday. During the Christmas Period, MATCH is not sold but to compensate for this a bumper edition is published in the week preceeding the holiday.
- - The largest section of the magazine (usually between 14 and 20 pages) which contains two cartoons - "Footy Crazy" and "The X-rated adventures of Matchman in Footy Land", both drawn by Russ Carvell . This section also contains mini features about all things football, as well as quizzes, jokes and interesting facts.
- - Match usually gives its' readers between 8 and 10 glossy posters per magazine, with the teams featured changing each week.
- - The main feature, as advertised on the front cover, varies from week to week. It often covers forthcoming major football matches but can also look at individual teams' progress, transfer news, player profiles and statistic-based material. Once a year there is a 'Match Readers' Poll', where readers can nominate their favourite players, events and products from the past season.
- - Match usually includes between two and four player interviews per week. These take a question-answer format, with the magazine often including facts about the player as well as several pictures of them in action.
- - Match has its own fantasy football game called Match Megastars. It is free to play for under-18s. Currently the best manager in each age group in a calendar month (i.e. the player with the highest score in January, February etc.) wins a copy of FIFA Street 2 while the overall winner will get the chance to play a Premiership player at the same game and get the game featured in the magazine. There is also a celebrity league featuring teams chosen by the Premiership footballers including Frank Lampard , Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher .
- - Latest football-related products are reviewed in this section. This includes various pieces of kit, ranging from boots to shinguards, video games and other accessories such as sweatbands and sock ties.
- - The letters page where readers of the magazine can post their views on all things football to the magazine's mascot, Matchman. There is also Dr. Footy advice page where readers can post their problems to the doc and he'll try and recommend a solution. This season saw the start of a feature in this section where a Premiership star asks the Doc about their problems.
- - This section focuses on the domestic leagues across Europe, with the top five latest news stories and latest results, standings and top goal scorers from Germany's Bundesliga , France's Ligue 1 , Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga . The section also has a "Team of the Week" feature where they look at a team from one of Europe's biggest league, not just restricted to those mentioned before, and also a "Player of the Week" feature, focusing on one of the biggest names playing in Europe at the moment.
- - The puzzle page, with puzzles such as wordsearches, crosswords, spot the difference and questions on a specific player. The readers can score up to 100 points, the higher the points indicating a better football knowledge.
- - The results and statistics section, which includes the latest results, match stats, league tables, top goalscorers and player ratings for every match in the Premiership , Championship , League One , League Two , Scottish Premier League , FA Cup , League Cup and the Scottish Cup . With these player ratings for Premiership matches, Match works out the average for each player and, if they have played in at least half of their teams league matches in that month, is in with a chance of being their club's "Matchman of the month". Match interviews the person with the highest rating for the past month who is billed as ''"Matchman of the Month"''.
Every year, Match produces at least one hardback book.
- - Match produces a book to come out every year, which is available before Christmas. Exclusive features include a scrapbook looking at the career of one of the Premiership's biggest stars (e.g. David Beckham , Frank Lampard , Steven Gerrard ) and a Snakes And Ladders -style game where the aim is to reach the top, this all has a football-related twist, e.g. you start at square 1, where you a relative unknown, but as you play the game you get called up by England and after some twists and turns, score the winner in the World Cup final. Another regular feature exclusive to the Annual is the ''"Matchman of the Year"'' section, where the average ratings of every player who played at least half of their team's games in the Premiership (ie at least 19 games, due to every team playing 38 games in a Premiership season) is rated, as according to the magazine's Matchfacts section. This used to be the top 50 average ratings, but currently its the top five from each team. Most of the other contents are otherwise similar to what's in the magazine, Planet Footy, a number of Matchman's Quizzes, player interviews and a massive Matchman cartoon on the inside back page.
- - These books are released before the tournament they preview starts, usually April or May. These specials focus on the big international tournaments taking place that summer. They contain many of the contents of the annual, excluding the scrapbook and Matchman of the Year. It also has a section looking at each team that made the tournament finals showing their probable squad, how they qualified, and a prediction of how far they can go. It also has a wallchart, where readers can fill in results and record fixtures as the tournament progress.
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