Question about retirement of players

[arv9673]

Kind of an esoteric Question that may only truly be anwered by my league-mates: Can you retire a player to the coaching staff at the end of a game (say, one in which he has played)or do you have do it at the beginning? I have a full roster including one unskilled lineman with a niggler. Do I have to retire him BEFORE a match and hire a new player at the end of it? Or can I retire him and hire a new one at the same time, i.e. at the end of the game so I dont have an empty slot on the roster for one game? This is in an ongoing league. We're about to start the season in a month or so. (and man! am I jonesing to get going!)

In the interest of not keeping you guys up nights I will almost definitely retire him and buy a reroll instead of a replacement (or rather fill out my catchers to 4) but I still would like to know the "Offical" take on it.

[Duke Jan]

Retiring players is done at the same time as removing the corpses and buying new guys (Step 4 of the post match sequence). If your opponent doesn't mind you can of course always go unofficial and remove the guy at the start of the match.