Thousands of footy fans have been putting their AFL knowledge to the test on Facebook, through the fantasy game BigFooty Coach.

The game allows users to pick and choose players and coaches from both the present and the past, meaning you can build a dream team of football legends to take on all challengers.

Since the game’s launch earlier this year, the BigFooty Coach community has been rapidly expanding, with six-thousand users from all across Australia and the world already signed up and playing.

There is likely to be more than 10,000 users by next month, all vying to show whose team is best.

Unlike the AFL’s Dream Team or HeraldSun’s SuperCoach game BigFooty Coach isn’t reliant on live scores so, once signed-up, users can play all year round – footy season or not.

While the key to success is picking the best combination of players, there is the option to buy extra goodies for your team like position bonuses, sports gloves, new training balls, energy drinks, and much more. These virtual goods can give your team the boost it needs to advance through the levels.

The developers behind the game, c8apps, realise that many players don’t want their Facebook name linked with their BigFooty identity, and have designed BigFooty Coach on a totally separate platform to BigFooty. This, the developers say, ensures footy fans don’t feel the need to curtail their sledging on the forums.

BigFooty Coach is the debut offering for AFL from c8apps at a time when Facebook games are exploding in popularity.

The online platform has rapidly grown to be one of the most popular outlets for online gaming for AFL, spurred by the overseas success of mega hits such as Madden NFL Superstars, which has notched up more than 500,000 monthly active users.

To get started, go to http://apps.facebook.com/bigfootycoach/