Chapter 02 · Championship Soccer 2026
Quick games
Play a friendly, organise a tournament and share the pitch without advancing your main career.
Choose the squads and the kind of game
Open Quick game from the main menu, then choose Friendly match or Tournament. A friendly gives you a single match. A tournament follows a competition through its real rounds, fixtures and results.
Select database opens the package and league selection for Quick Game. You may build a different world from the one used by your career, including an international-only world. With a career available, Current career returns to that source. The tournament can also offer Use the current squads and Use the Quickstart squads.
Current squads include the players and teams as they stand in that career. Quickstart uses the supplied prepared squads. Changing the source can therefore change competition names, available players, ages and participating clubs.
Quick Game runs separately from your main career. Leaving the session restores the career you entered from. Tournament results, injuries and elapsed dates belong to the tournament. Save the career before starting if you want a permanent checkpoint, and save the tournament separately if you want to resume it after closing the game.
Quick Game's two player options
The Quick Game screen includes two choices, initially enabled, intended to make it easier to play as your own footballer.
| Option | Effect | What still matters |
|---|---|---|
| CPU managers always select human footballers | Computer managers prioritise eligible human footballers for nomination and the starting eleven, and do not substitute them. | Existing injuries and suspensions still prevent an appearance. A human manager chooses his own line-up. If more than eleven people are attached to one team, everyone cannot start at once. |
| Human footballers cannot be injured | Protects the human footballers from new injuries during Quick Game. | It does not heal an injury already present in the selected squads. Fouls, cards, physical challenges and the normal rules for other players remain. |
These are Quick Game choices. They do not give your footballer a guaranteed place or injury protection in the normal career. Switch them off if you want selection and injuries to follow the ordinary sporting circumstances.
Check the actual line-up before kick-off. A suspension may apply to one competition and not another. Selection priority also tries to use a suitable position, but it cannot make an unsuitable squad cover every role perfectly.
Set up a friendly
- Choose Friendly match.
- Select the home and away teams. Browse a country and division or use the top-club and national-team lists. Squad value (M) is the combined value in millions, not a promise about who will win.
- Open Lineup and controls separately for each side. Pick the eleven, bench and formation. Assign whole-team control or use a player's profile to assign an individual footballer.
- Return to the friendly screen and read the names beneath each team. They tell you which people control that side. An additional individual-player count means separately controlled footballers are also involved.
- Set whether a drawn friendly can go to extra time and a penalty shoot-out. Extra time and penalties are separate choices. The normal 2026 friendly setup does not use Golden Goal.
- Choose to play the match or calculate its result. If you play, complete any kit-selection step that is enabled and continue to kick-off.
A computer-controlled side is useful for a solo friendly. Two whole-team assignments can share a team, and individually controlled footballers can also take part where devices are available. Resolve a device conflict rather than assuming one pad will control both roles at once.
Line-up changes made for the friendly stay with its setup as you return from the team screens. The match report shows what happened when the game finishes. You can then change the opponents and try another match.
Start a tournament
- Choose Tournament and, if asked, select the source squads.
- Choose a competition from the list. Finals and qualifications are separate entries. The available competitions depend on the selected football world.
- Allow the draw and squads to be prepared. The progress display explains the current activity. Cancelling preparation returns you to the selection.
- Choose how you want to play: control and coach a team, manage and watch, control one footballer, or control and coach one footballer.
- Choose a participating team. For an individual role, choose an existing footballer or Create your own footballer.
- Set the person's identity and controls. Add more people if required, then choose Ready.
The team list contains the actual participants produced by the competition's draw. A favourite club outside that field cannot simply be selected as though it qualified. You can choose a different competition or a suitable database.
Watch the tournament lets you start without a human team or footballer after confirmation. You can take part later through the players-and-controls screen.
Find or create a footballer for the tournament
The footballer list can be narrowed by name and position. Read the position, age and value to identify the player you want, then select him. Clear the filter if a player seems to have disappeared from the list.
Creating your own footballer uses the career-style ability and potential choices. Ability matters immediately. Potential describes room for development and does not make a weak player a star on his first day.
When the computer-selection option is off, a weak newcomer may be on the bench or outside the squad. Choosing an existing starter is the most direct way to get immediate playing time. With selection priority on, the computer prefers eligible human footballers, subject to the limits explained above.
A player-manager can choose his team's line-up as well as control his own footballer. A plain player cannot replace the manager's decisions. Always check the role and device in Players and controls before the first match.
Use the tournament hub
The hub shows the competition, current round, people taking part and upcoming fixture. Use the following actions to decide how quickly the tournament moves.
| Action | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Next match | Advance to the next relevant fixture for a participant, including a team that enters in a later round. |
| Play match | Start the displayed match when it is ready. The choice may instead offer watching or joining after substitution when your footballer is not starting. |
| Calculate individual matches | Follow progress one match at a time through the result route. |
| Calculate matchday | Calculate the current batch of fixtures. |
| Simulate tournament to end | Continue calculation through the remaining tournament. Click to pause after the current matchday. |
| Redraw | Make a new draw while the tournament is still eligible for a redraw, before results have been played. |
The other hub buttons open Squad and tactics, Team information, Participating teams, Tables and results, Calendar, player statistics, player options and saving. They let you inspect the real competition between matches.
Calculating a match still produces a result and advances the tournament. It is not a preview you can undo with Back. Save first if you want to retain the earlier position.
Play together or change participants
Use the hub's Player options entry to return to the people and controls. Add, edit or remove participants there. You can also reach control assignment from the line-up or an individual player's profile.
Each person needs a role, a team or footballer and an appropriate input assignment. Several people may play for the same team or opposing sides. When more participants exist than fit in the hub summary, open the full list to inspect them all.
In a tournament containing several human-controlled teams, advancing time serves the shared matchday. Be ready for more than one participant's fixture. Before choosing a calculation action, make sure everyone agrees to take the result rather than play that match.
Finish a tournament or continue a qualification
At the end, open Tables and results to review the final round or standings, and inspect the player statistics. A completed qualification may offer Next competition when the football world's competition rules lead to a final tournament or play-off.
If more than one next stage is available, choose the relevant competition. The next field comes from the recorded qualifying results. A team that failed to qualify is marked accordingly. You can continue watching or change to a participating team.
A domestic cup does not automatically turn into an entire career after its final. Continuation follows the competitions linked by the selected database.
To leave, use Back and confirm leaving when asked. Save first to keep tournament progress. The main career held in memory is restored when you leave, but it is not stored inside the tournament file.
Save and resume a quick tournament
Choose Save game in the tournament hub. Tournament saves and autosaves use the QuickTournaments subfolder of the current save location. A clear name such as World tournament — quarter-finals is easier to recognise than a generic filename.
To resume later, choose Load game, open QuickTournaments and load the file. The competition, people, results and controls restore the tournament hub. Keep your ordinary career saved separately.
If a tournament has no available matches or teams, check the selected database and competition. International-only tournaments are supported, but the package still needs usable teams and competition definitions. See Custom football worlds for import warnings and Saving and storage for file-location help.