EA SPORTS FC 26 | Pitch Notes - Career Mode Deep Dive

Welcome to the EA SPORTS FC™ 26 Career Deep Dive. We’re excited to share everything that’s coming to Manager and Player Career, including Manager Live Challenges based on your feedback, Archetypes inspired by greats of the game, and the new Authentic Gameplay preset, keeping each season fresh and rewarding. 

Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• Manager Live: Redefining Manager Career
  • Manager Career with ICONs and Heroes
  • Manager Market
  • Deeper Simulation and Data-Driven Scouting
  • Authentic Gameplay: The True Football Experience
  • Unexpected Events
  • Additional Features / Quality of Life Improvements
• Player Career
  • Player Archetypes
  • New Origin Stories

Manager Live: Redefining Manager Career

One of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve seen from you is that you want more variety in your Career Mode saves. You’ve told us you want to take on different and unique challenges, and that you’re constantly on the lookout for the next great scenario to play.

In FC 26 we’re introducing the Manager Live Career experience, a dynamic Hub filled with ever-changing Challenges, offering fresh experiences that evolve on a weekly and monthly basis throughout the new season. 

We’ve been amazed by your creativity in crafting scenarios outside of the game in years past, and you’ve inspired us to bring these storylines and narratives into the game itself.

Alongside Full Career and Live Start Points*, Manager Live is home to a variety of challenges, released throughout the new season. Some Challenges align with real-world football, like frenzy of transfer windows or the UEFA Champions League knockouts. Reactive Challenges are timed to capture specific events, creating “What If?” moments like unexpected upsets or epic title battles.

Our goal is to let you live the intensity of legendary rivalries, celebrate monumental achievements, and navigate the drama of shock sackings, all while engaging with the season's biggest football storylines. You can now enjoy Career in bite-sized chunks. In a few hours of play you can win something and be rewarded. 

We’ll be using various parameters to introduce brand-new, exciting ways to play that vary throughout the season, alongside multiple objective types to consistently deliver a fresh challenge. Can you win the league with only youth players? Can you survive relegation with a -20 point deduction? Can you take a team in the bottom league to champions league glory only playing domestic players? So many opportunities to prove your managerial greatness.

You’ll be able to connect with friends to share Challenges and tackle the most popular ones directly from the Hub. You can earn exclusive kit rewards by completing Challenges to use in Manager Career, and this Challenge completion will enable you to progress through the Season Pass to earn game wide rewards, including coveted ICONs and Heroes.

Open up Manager Career and select Live to explore all the latest content and put your managerial skills to the test.

*Updates based on 2025/2026 football season

The Manager Live Hub: Your Gateway to Football Management

At the heart of Manager Live is the Hub, a centralised space where you access all Manager Career scenarios, including Full Careers, Live Starting Points, and Challenges. 

Our aim with the Hub is to create a seamless, intuitive, and personalised experience, ensuring you can dive straight into the action. Simply open Manager Live from the main menu and get stuck in!

Onboarding: Building Your Manager Profile

Just as real-world managers bring their own identity and history to every new club, you’ll bring your manager’s identity for every Challenge.

You’ll be able to step into a sharp suit, tracksuit, or build a style of your own—and you can even take the pitch as a real manager. 

In addition to your manager’s looks, you can choose:

• Your Name: Enter your manager’s name to carve out your own legacy, or select a real manager.
• Selected Teams: Choose up to five teams. Whether they're clubs you support, European Superpowers, sleeping giants, or a mix of everything—the choice is yours. This helps you receive personalized recommendations that let you rewrite history or take on the challenges faced by your chosen clubs.

Once your profile is complete, it’s saved online and is used for all subsequent saves, and you can change it from your Hub profile.

How the Hub Works

The Hub organises all Manager Career content into easy-to-navigate tabs, ensuring you can quickly find the scenarios that interest you most. Here’s how it’s structured:

Permanent Tabs

These sections are always available in the Hub:

• For You: Personalised content based on your selected teams, including:
  • Challenges featuring your selecting teams
  • Full Careers with your selected teams
  • Live Starting Points for your selected teams
• Continue: Quickly load your existing Manager Live saves, with your most recent save highlighted for easy access
• Featured: A curated selection of highlighted scenarios, such as marquee Challenges or special events
• Social: Friend-based Challenges, including:
  • Challenges shared with you by friends
  • Challenges your friends have completed, allowing you to try them yourself
• Popular: The most-played Challenges globally, giving you a chance to see what others are playing
• Favourites: A player-driven section where you can save up to 15 scenarios for quick access
• Completed: A record of the last 15 Challenges you’ve successfully completed

These tabs remain and the content within them changes throughout the season.

Dynamic Tabs

The Hub can also feature dynamic tabs based on current events, leagues, or themes. Examples include:

• Premier League: Scenarios involving Premier League teams, such as Full Careers, Live Starting Points, or Challenges
• UEFA Champions League: European club scenarios tied to the UEFA Champions League
• Seasonal Events: Themed Challenges, such as transfer window-inspired scenarios
• Specific Types: Specific types of Challenges, for example Road to Glory-style Challenges with varying difficulties

Keep checking back in to see the Dynamic Tabs rotated through the season.

Challenge Parameters: Customising the Experience

Challenge Parameters are the foundation of every scenario we create, allowing us to tailor each Challenge to reflect the real-world dynamics of football. 

These parameters define the rules, objectives, and context of the Challenge, with the goal of making every experience feel unique and engaging. Below is a detailed breakdown of the parameters, along with examples of how they can be used to mirror real-world football scenarios:

Start Date

The start date determines when the Challenge begins within the football calendar, allowing us to drop you straight into the action at pivotal moments of the season. This can either be:

• The default start date (e.g., the beginning of the season)
• Specific gameweeks (e.g., midseason or just before a crucial match)

Examples:

• Midseason Relegation Battle: Start in February with your team in the relegation zone, and fight to avoid the drop
• Title Decider: Begin in April with your team just two points behind the league leaders, with only five games left to play

As the season develops, new game weeks increase the Challenge possibilities.

Team Selection

This defines which team, or teams, you can manage in the Challenge. This can be:

• A specific team
• Any team from a specific league or country
• A pool of up to 20 teams (e.g., top teams from across Europe)

Examples:

• Promotion Push: Choose from a selection of Championship teams and secure promotion to the Premier League
• Underdog Story: Manage a lower-league team such as Notts County and guide them to the top flight

Create Your Club (CYC)

This toggle allows us to create Challenges that are both specific to Create Your Club, authentic clubs only, or both.

Example Usage:

• Custom Legacy: Build a brand-new club and take them from the bottom of the football pyramid to the top.

League and Country Selection

These parameters define the leagues and countries involved in the Challenge:

• Specific leagues (e.g., LaLiga, Serie A)
• Specific countries (e.g., England, Spain)
• Multiple leagues or countries

Examples:

• European Domination: Manage a team in one of Europe’s top five leagues and win the Champions League
• National Focus: Take charge of a team in a specific country and dominate the domestic competitions

Cup Competitions

This parameter determines which cup competitions are active in the Challenge, allowing for:

• All cup competitions
• Specific competitions (e.g., FA Cup, Copa del Rey, DFB-Pokal) disabled

Example Usage:

• Cup Glory: Focus solely on winning Ligue 1 while managing a mid-table team without any cup distractions

Feature Settings

These toggles allow us to enable or disable specific gameplay features, adding variety and complexity to a Challenge. We can adjust the following:

• Training Plans: Enable or disable training plans
• Scouting and Transfers: Enable or disable transfer activity
• Youth Academy: Enable or disable youth development
• Manager Market: Lock you to your starting club unless sacked
• Gameplay Toggles: Disable specific play methods (e.g. Quick Sim, Playable Highlights)

Examples:

• Youth Revolution: Focus entirely on developing young players by disabling transfers and relying on your Youth Academy
• One-Club Challenge: Lock yourself to a single club and build a dynasty over multiple seasons

Parameters

Parameters allow us to configure the experience by fine-tuning settings to deliver unique experiences, including:

• Financial Takeover: Turning takeover on and off to give you that cash injection
• Board Expectations: Setting how harsh the board’s expectations
• Transfer Negotiations: Setting how tough negotiations will be
• Transfer Embargo: Setting an amount of transfer windows that you cannot make any transfers in
• Minimum Difficulty: Setting the minimum difficulty that the Challenge can be played at
• Referee Strictness: Setting strictness of the referees and their decisions
• Points Deduction: Setting a starting points deduction in the league to ratchet up the difficulty
• No Match Restarts: Match restarts are disabled meaning you can only go once

Examples:

• Against All Odds: Go from rags to riches with an unfancied team facing a transfer embargo
• Phoenix Club: Revive a sleeping giant with strict board expectations and transfer negotiations

Team Management Limiters

In some Challenges, you’ll need to carefully manage your squad selection because:

• Players over or under a specific age are ineligible for selection
• Your squad is limited to players of a specific nationality

Blocked players appear unavailable in your Team Management screen, similar to how suspended or injured players are displayed, but with a distinct icon. If you attempt to start a match with an invalid lineup, you’ll be notified to adjust your team before proceeding.

Transfer Limiters

The transfer market is a key part of any manager’s strategy, but what if you could only sign players from specific leagues or nations? With Challenges, we can create scenarios that modify your transfer activity, such as:

• Only signing players over or under a certain age
• Only selling players over or under a certain age
• Limiting transfers to specific teams, leagues, or regions
• Restricting transfers to free agents or loans only

These rules apply to both incoming and outgoing transfers. For example, you might only be able to sell players over a certain age, or you could be blocked from offering players in exchange deals if they don’t meet the criteria. Every transfer becomes a strategic decision, adding a layer of complexity to squad building.

Tactical Limiters

Some Challenges will lock you into a specific Tactical Vision, either:

• Balanced
• High Pressing
• Possession
• Wing Play
• Counter Attack
• Park the Bus
• Kick and Rush

Once locked, these tactical presets cannot be changed during or outside of gameplay, challenging you to adapt your strategy to the defined approach.

Job Limiters

How long can you make an impact at a single club? In certain Challenges, you’ll be limited to a set number of seasons before being required to move on.

For example, you might need to achieve your objectives within two seasons before being automatically dismissed, encouraging you to make the most of your time and explore new opportunities.

Objectives

Objectives define the goals you must achieve to complete a Challenge. There are a number of Objectives that can be mixed together to create a multitude of scenarios, including :

• Must finish in a certain position or above of a league

• Must reach a number of points in a league
• Must win a number of games in a league
• Must not lose more than a number of games in a league
• Must qualify or reach a certain competition
• Must get to a set stage of a cup
• Must achieve promotion
• Must not get relegated

• Must win a set trophy

• Must have the average age of the starting lineup be a set number of years
• Must score a set amount of goals or more a game over the season
• Must score a set amount of goals or more in a set competition
• Must spend a set amount of money on transfers
• Must earn a set amount of money and above from transfers

• Must earn a set amount of profit and above from transfers
• Must beat a set opponent with a set player in the lineup
• Must sign a set player at every club managed
• Must have a set possession percentage in every won game
• Must have a set player finish the season on a set average rating and above
• Must have a set player score a set amount of goals
• Must have a set player assist a set amount of assists
• Must have a set player in your starting 11 for a set number games

Each Objective can be set to have an open-ended completion date or require you to complete it at a set date in the game. They can be used for any competition, team, or player in the game, creating a large amount of possibilities to play from.

Examples:

• Top Four Race: Finish in the top four of the Bundesliga to secure Champions League qualification and score a high number of goals
• Star Performer: Have your star player play 30 matches and achieve an average rating of 8.0 or higher

Challenge Types

In FC 26 Career Mode, there will be lots of challenges across the year and here are a few examples of the types of challenges you will see:

Midseason Scenarios

Midseason scenarios use Live Start Points to deliver Challenges at any gameweek of the season. These scenarios are intended to deliver Challenges during especially interesting points of the campaign.

Examples:

• Derby Drama: Manage a team in a high-stakes derby match, such as El Classico, Der Klassiker, the North London Derby
• Shock of the Week: Relive a giant-killing FA Cup result and replicate the upset

Dynamic Scenarios

Dynamic scenarios adapt to real-world football events or trends, and they consist of:

• Proactive Scenarios: Released before upcoming events (e.g., title deciders, derbies) so you can pick a side and play out the future 
• Reactive Scenarios: Released after recent events (e.g., shock wins, dramatic comebacks) so you can change history

Examples:

• European Royalty: Take control of one of the teams in the upcoming UEFA Champions League Play-offs and guide them to glory
• Late Scramble: Recreate an iconic against-all-odds victory and use it as motivation for the rest of the season

Historical Achievements

Recreate iconic moments from football history through scenarios such as:

• Replicating famous seasons
• Achieving record milestones
• Reliving the career of football’s biggest icons, past and present

Examples:

• Invincibles Challenge: Go unbeaten in the league with Juventus or Bayer Leverkusen
• Treble Triumph: Win the league, domestic cup, and Champions League in a single season with PSG or Manchester City 

Time-Limited Challenges

Some Challenges are only available for a limited time, allowing us to continually release new challenges and keep the Hub evolving. Expiry time is visible from inside the Hub.

Examples:

• Seasonal Challenge: Complete a festive-themed Challenge during the Holiday season to earn exclusive holiday kits
• Event-Based Challenge: Take on a Challenge inspired by a real-world derby match before it expires

Celebrating Success and Progress

Just like a manager’s achievements are recognised in real football, Manager Live ensures your accomplishments and even your setbacks are acknowledged in a meaningful way. 

The user interface is designed with the intent of making every completed scenario feel significant, whether you’ve lifted the trophy or learned from a tough campaign.

Objective Notification

Each time you complete or fail an Objective, a task list item will notify you. You can follow this item to the Challenge Details screen to check your overall progress.

Challenge Details: Stay Informed, Stay Focused

A dedicated Challenge Details screen is always available from the Objectives section in Office, this acts as your tactical dossier and includes:

• Title and Description
• Challenge Image
• Objectives and Completion Timeframe
• Limiters and Feature Settings
• All configured Parameters
• Rewards (if available)

Keep checking back to see your progress and plan your next moves.

Completion Flow

When you finish a Challenge, completing all Objectives or falling short, the next time you enter the Central screen, you’ll be taken through a tailored completion flow:

• Challenge Completed: If you’ve achieved all core objectives, you’ll be greeted with a celebratory completion screen, and awarded if any rewards are configured. Even if some Objectives are missed, your journey is still recognised, reflecting the reality that not every season ends with silverware, but every campaign tells a story.
• Completion Summary: Afterward you are taken to the completion summary screen, where your performance is highlighted against the backdrop of the Challenge.

From here you can choose your next move.

The completion screen is your post-match conclusion, it’s a moment to reflect, plan, and share your story. You have several options:

• Quit: Return to the Manager Live Hub, ready to take on your next managerial adventure.
• Continue: Keep playing in your current game world, with two distinct paths:
  • Continue with Challenge Settings: Maintain all Challenge rules and settings, preserving the unique scenario you’ve just completed.
  • Continue without Challenge Settings: Reset to a standard full career, removing all Challenge-specific restrictions and Objectives.
• Share: Send the Challenge to a friend, encouraging them to experience the same scenario.
• Replay: Dive back into the Challenge from the beginning, with the scenario pre-selected for convenience. Note that rewards can only be earned once, and replay is disabled if the Challenge has expired.

Rewards

Challenges can offer unique rewards for successful completion. Rewards can be exclusive licensed retro kits to use in future Manager Career saves, progression in your Season Pass journey, or a combination of the two.

Certain Challenges will give you rewards directly from completing them such as a unique club retro kit from completing a Challenge with that club. More kits and rewards will become available over the season.

Completing challenges can also complete Objectives within the Season Pass, rewarding you with Season Pass points. Along the path will be many Manager Career rewards including the coveted ICONs and Heroes which can be used in Challenges and the Manager Career with ICONs and Heroes mode.

Complete Challenges in order to progress along the Season Pass ladder, and build your collection of ICONs and Legends.

A New Era for Manager Career

With the Manager Live Hub and its curated Challenges, we’re transforming Manager Career into a live, evolving experience that reflects the dynamic world of football. 

Whether you’re building a team of young stars, mastering a specific tactical identity, or navigating a strict transfer policy, Manager Live is intended to push you to think creatively and adapt to new scenarios. It’s time to prove your managerial skills and embrace the thrill of overcoming obstacles. Are you ready to take on the challenge?

Manager Original

The existing Manager Original experience remains available alongside Live, enhanced to include this year's new features. Original Full Career and Live Start Points are available to play here and are accessed from the main menu underneath Manager Live.

Manager Career with ICONs and Heroes 

Manager Career with ICONs and Heroes: Bringing Legends to Your Club

We’re excited to share new ways to experience the Manager Career in EA SPORTS FC 26, with the introduction of ICONs and Heroes. This feature gives you more control over your squad, letting you manage some of football’s most legendary players.

Whether you want to recreate classic teams or build your own dream lineup, our goal is to give more depth and flexibility for all types of players.

Unlock ICONs and Heroes by progressing through the Season Pass.

A major addition to the FC 26 Manager Career Mode is the ability to unlock ICONs and Heroes by progressing along the Season Pass.

• Complete specific Objectives across all game modes to progress through the season for opportunities to unlock ICONs and Heroes to have available in your next fresh career or Challenge. 
• So you will be able to play with new unlocked ICONs & Heroes only after starting a new Career.
• Each season introduces a new exclusive roster of ICONs and Heroes to discover, unlock, and add to your dream squad at the start of your next journey.

Recreating Classic Teams or Building Your Fantasy Squad

• With ICONs and Heroes now available in Manager Career, you can choose to relive football history by creating your own version of classic teams.  
• The more ICONs and Heroes you unlock, the more options you’ll have to recreate a classic line up. 

Alternatively, you can also add ICONs and Heroes to your favourite team alongside today’s stars, building a fantasy squad that reflects your personal vision of football greatness.

This flexibility enables you to experiment with different tactics, formations, and player combinations, making each career unique.

Manager Market

Evolving Manager Movement

With Manager Market, managers are no longer tied to a single club. Instead, they can be poached, sacked, or they may choose to pursue new opportunities, resulting in a living, ever-changing managerial environment across Career Mode.

How Managers Move

Opposition managers can leave their clubs in several ways:

• Sacking: If a manager underperforms relative to their board objectives, their job security drops. If it falls too low, the board will sack them.
• Poached by Another Club: Managers may be approached and hired by other clubs, especially if their reputation and tactical vision align with the hiring club’s needs.
• Voluntary Departure: Managers who have been at a club for a long period may choose to leave, seeking a new challenge. The longer a manager stays at a club, the higher the chance they’ll consider looking for a new challenge.

When a club parts ways with its manager, a caretaker manager is sometimes appointed temporarily. Caretakers manage the team until a permanent replacement is found and, should their performance meet the board’s expectations, it can influence whether they are offered the job full-time. 

If the caretaker isn’t deemed fit to take on the full-time job, the club will start looking for suitable candidates. 

The following criteria is used to determine the compatibility of other managers for the job, and the club will create a shortlist of potential candidates:

• The quality of the club against the quality of the club the target is currently managing. For managers who are in the Free Agents pool, the quality of the club they formerly performed at will be used.
• Managers can switch between managing clubs from men’s and women’s football, and the potential transition will be included in the evaluation process.
• The manager’s current job security level will be a significant factor, with Safe managers unlikely to switch clubs.
• The length of the tenure a manager has at their current club will influence the compatibility rating, to make sure the job market movement doesn’t go stale and that recently appointed managers will have the opportunity to prove themselves in their new roles.
• If the manager has the same nationality as the target club, their chances of making the shortlist will be increased. 
• Clubs will assess the compatibility of a manager’s Tactical Vision with their club vision. Each club will assess Tactical Vision compatibility differently. If the club currently favors a Park the Bus Tactical Vision, they are more likely to take in managers who have other perspectives, while a club that prefers Possession Play is less likely to want to appoint a manager with a different mindset. 

After clubs make their shortlists, it’s the managers turn to decide if they will take on the opportunity. The comparison between the quality and the prestige of both clubs will be the deciding factor.

Job Application and Hiring Process

When a managerial position becomes available, you will have the opportunity to apply to the job should your performance and Tactical Vision align with the needs of the club.

If you have high compatibility with the club, you will be notified about the high likelihood of taking the job should you declare interest.

The better the compatibility you have with a club, the higher the chances your job application will be accepted.

The following factors determine your job compatibility:

• Your performance against the club’s objectives. Exceeding expectations at your current club will give a significant boost.
• The quality of the club you’re playing at compared to the club you’re targeting. It will be highly unlikely that you will get to jump from a lower division team to the best clubs in the world, however, should you manage to win a trophy with a lower rated team, opportunities at bigger clubs will begin to surface.
• The compatibility between the club’s Tactical Vision and your most used Tactical Vision. The assessment will be similar to the one done to AI controlled managers.

You can shortlist jobs to monitor their status and receive notifications when those positions become available. The Suggestions tab highlights jobs that are a good fit for your current profile, making it easier to identify realistic opportunities

If you’re sacked, your agent will present a list of clubs interested in your services, reflecting your reputation and recent achievements.

Gameplay Implications

When AI-controlled managers take on a new job, they will try to instill their Tactical Vision on the club. This will change how opposition teams will play, making encounters against these teams more diverse. 

The tactical changes will have an impact outside the pitch as well, as formation changes will have a ripple effect on the AI’s squad evaluation process, reevaluating a club’s needs as they define their transfer shortlist and which players will be deemed surplus to requirements. 

Deeper Simulation and Data-Driven Scouting

Custom League Simulation and Career Setup

A core update to Career Mode in FC 26 is the introduction of Deeper Simulation. When starting a new Manager Career, you can now select up to five additional leagues to simulate, on top of your main one. This is managed in the settings screen during career creation. 

This functionality gives you more control over the footballing world you want to experience. For example, when managing in the English Premier League, you can choose to simulate the top divisions in Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, creating a more interconnected and detailed European football environment. 

Alternatively, you can focus on regional rivalries or emerging leagues, tailoring the simulation to their interests or career narrative.

Additional Player Data and Enhanced Realism

With deeper simulation, Career Mode now brings in historical player data. At any time, players in the league your team is playing in and all selected simulated leagues, will have the previous season’s stats available.

These stats are also available during the first season, surfacing real-life data collected from the 24-25 season. The data includes:

• Top Scorers
• Assists
• Clean Sheets
• Yellow Cards
• Red Cards
• Average Ratings

This historical data is not just cosmetic, it directly impacts how you evaluate players, track development, and plan transfers. For example, you can now identify breakout performers from the previous season, monitor consistency, or spot under-the-radar talent based on real statistical trends.

Revamped Standings and Team Stats

The Standings section has been redesigned to centralise and enhance competition data. It now integrates information previously found in the Team Stats section, which has been retired. 

The new Standings screen is interactive, enabling you to:

• Navigate up and down league tables to select teams and view their stats
• Switch between all simulated competitions using either cycling between them or selection from a pop-up menu
• Access fixtures and results for each competition with a dedicated button
• For knockout competitions, view stats for home and away sides

The Full Players List for any club in a simulated league now displays comprehensive stats across all competitions, with the option to filter by individual competition. This provides a holistic view of team and player performance, intended to support more nuanced decision-making.

Scouting Actions and Player Stats Improvements

Scouting and player analysis have been streamlined. When viewing a scout report for a player in a simulated league, you can directly access that player’s full stats, making it easier to compare and evaluate potential signings.

The Player Stats screen now includes a dedicated tab for Average Ratings, and it is also possible to filter stats by competition and season. This enables more granular analysis, such as comparing a player’s league and cup performances or tracking their progress over this season vs the previous one.

New Gameplay Opportunities and Strategic Depth

The ability to simulate multiple leagues and access detailed player data opens up new gameplay opportunities:

• Global Scouting: You can now follow the progress of players and teams across different leagues, identifying talent that fits their squad’s needs or tactical approach.
• Dynamic Transfer Market: With more leagues simulated, the transfer market becomes more active and unpredictable.
• Managerial Storylines: You can track managerial changes, team performance, and player development across the footballing world, creating richer narratives and long-term goals.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Integrating stats supports a more analytical approach to squad building, mirroring the methods used by real clubs.

Community Impact and Future Potential

By giving you the tools to shape your own football universe and providing access to deeper data, Career Mode now supports a wider range of play styles, from hands-on managers who scout every league to those who want to focus on a single region.

The foundation laid by this feature also opens the door for future enhancements, such as expanded data analytics, more dynamic league interactions, and additional customisation options.

Authentic Gameplay: The True Football Experience

Career Mode players have asked for a more authentic, strategic, and immersive football experience, and now it’s here. 

With the introduction of Authentic Gameplay, we’re creating a clear distinction between authentic football simulation and the more fast-paced approach of competitive online matches. This split empowers you to choose the experience that best fits your play style, and allows us to focus on delivering a more true-to-life football simulation that rewards thoughtful, tactical play.

Authentic Gameplay is the tailor-made, default setting for both Manager and Player Career Mode, and fundamentally transforms every match. 

The movement and actions of the players on the pitch will look more realistic, with more granularity behind each pass and varied ball behavior, so being on your toes pays off.

You’ll experience battles for possession, with players fighting for control in the midfield and across the pitch. Every duel matters, every turnover can change the flow of the game, and matches can feel more open. 

The overall pace is more tactical and methodical, encouraging patient build-up, smart positioning, and strategic decision-making over relying on speed or individual ability.

This new approach means that Authentic matches can feel less predictable. The emphasis is on immersion and realism, making every pass, tackle, and goal feel more earned and meaningful.

Authentic Gameplay is an experience crafted for those who enjoy strategic football and want every match to feel like a true football story, shaped by your decisions and the ever-changing flow of the game.

For a deeper look at what makes Authentic Gameplay tick, you can jump into FC 26 Gameplay’s Pitch Notes, available here.

Custom Sliders: Build Your Own Experience from Authentic Foundations

For those who want even more control, customising the sliders enables you to further personalise your experience, tweaking the balance of assistance and error across gameplay areas ranging from shooting to defensive actions.

You can now also create custom gameplay sliders using the Authentic slider values as your starting point. This enhancement gives you greater flexibility to tailor the game to your preferences, while maintaining the balance and feel of the authentic experience as your foundation.

Unexpected Events 

Unexpected Events are a new layer of dynamic narrative scenarios that can occur throughout your Career Mode experience. 

These events are designed to reflect the unpredictability of real-world football where, as a manager, things don’t always go to plan.

From sudden player injuries to surprise transfer offers, these moments will challenge your decision-making and adaptability as a manager. 

The goal is to create a more immersive and authentic managerial experience. You’ll need to think on your feet, adjust your strategies, and sometimes make tough choices that could impact your club’s short-term and long-term success. 

A System Where Your Decisions Really Matter

When an Unexpected Event is triggered, the game halts your current simulation and brings you directly into the moment with an event screen, complete with unique imagery and individualised narrative framing. These events aren’t background occurrences, they can have a major impact and sometimes even create crossroads in the narrative of your club.  

Unexpected Events are meant to grab your attention and demand decisive action, but they never interrupt matches, post-match flows, or press conferences.

Types of Unexpected Events

Emerging Scenarios: There Is Always More To Football

These events are rooted in the uncontrollable elements of football, where not everything is in the manager’s hands. 

In these scenarios, you don’t choose what happens, but you do choose how, or if, you respond, whether it’s a media rumor or a player expressing concern through the wrong channels.

How much attention you give them and what you do to deal with them can define you as a manager.

Unexpected Events are all about your influence on your club's story through your reactions, not the event itself.

Decision Points: Choices That Define You

In contrast, Decision Points place narrative control in your hands. These moments present a clear problem and require a decisive resolution. 

Your choice isn’t about whether to act, but how you choose to act, and what values you bring to that decision. 

For instance, one specific choice can result in a morale boost but weaken authority. Another might solve a short-term issue but create long-term consequences.

With Decision Points, you are driving the narrative of your career. They don’t just ask what you’ll do, they define who you’ll be. 

There are several categories of Unexpected Events that you may encounter during your Career Mode playthrough:

• Player-Related Events: These are events that affect your squad, how you manage them week to week and who makes the team sheet for the next game. For example, a key player might pick up an injury during international duty, forcing you to reshuffle your starting eleven for the weekend’s crucial match.
• Club and Board Events: These are a little higher level and can have bigger impacts for the long term direction of the club. For example, sudden cash injections or the owner meddling in the team, and everything in between.
• Fans and media events: How the fans and the media see your team isn’t always under your control, but how you deal with them is. You might see fans flocking to buy tickets or even a hotel problem the night before a match that leaves players fatigued.

How Unexpected Events affect the game:

• The introduction of Unexpected Events means that no two Career Mode seasons will play out the same way. 
• You’ll need to be flexible in your approach, as your original plans may need to change based on new developments. 
• The frequency and impact of Unexpected Events can be adjusted in settings, enabling you to tailor the experience to your preferred level of challenge and unpredictability, with the ability to turn them off if you’re not up for the challenge.

Additional Features / Quality of Life Improvements

Based on your feedback, we’ve been working on updating a number of existing features, including Youth, Scouting, Tactics, Live Start Points, and more.

20+ Leagues in Live Starting Points

In keeping with our continued commitment to authenticity, we’ve also expanded the number of leagues in Live Starting Points to over 20, providing many more opportunities for you to jump in at any point in the season.

Contract Renewal Updates

Players will no longer be willing to renew their contracts at any time during their tenure at the club. They will instead reach out to you when they are open to begin talks on a new deal.

Some players will also express their unwillingness to renew their contract as they may want to pursue other opportunities. Not all of them will be willing to leave on a free transfer. Players will generally give you enough notice in advance to try and secure a deal for them that's also benefiting the club, while also giving you enough time to start scouting targets for potential replacements.

We have also tweaked AI clubs' behavior in terms of approaching players in the last six months of their contract to be more aggressive, reducing the number of situations in which valuable players are allowed to become free agents.  

We also addressed a community-reported issue where players could remain active past the age of 50 by repeatedly renewing contracts.

AI Lineup Logic Improvements

We investigated community reports regarding the AI's poor decision-making process in defining a suitable lineup against you. We identified and improved on the following issues:

Match Importance Influence 

The importance of the match has a significant influence on how the lineup is created. Less important matches are more important for weaker players in the team, as it gives them a chance to play. 

This is the logic that makes the AI put up a slightly weaker lineup in the early stages of a cup competition, or after they've clinched their league objectives, to give their stars a chance to rest. We addressed some instances where the algorithm was still favoring weaker players for critical and very important matches.

Form Influence 

A player's current form also impacts the decision to include a player to make the lineup. A simplified explanation would be that an 80-rated striker in very good form could be deemed a better player to start than an 83-rated striker who is in bad form. 

We took a better look at how form is calculated, and we identified that once a player dropped into very bad form, the criteria to make them break their bad spell were too restrictive. Thus, more players than expected ended up in poor form, which also meant they were less likely to be picked in the lineup. 

Transfer Logic Improvements

We've noticed several mentions throughout the community that the AI could start hoarding players in specific positions on some occasions, and we investigated this issue thoroughly.

We identified that the reason for this change is that, despite making transfers in an area of the pitch, some transfers may not push the needle enough to improve that area to a level that would make the AI focus its attention elsewhere for improvements. This could have happened after multiple transfers in a row.

We added new logic that will stop the AI from shortlisting improvements in an area should there be an excessive surplus to requirements. The AI will start looking to improve the area only after selling some of the players, as removing the lower-quality players from an area can also contribute to improving it overall.

This also means that should some clubs have a significant surplus in all pitch areas, they will pause any attempts to purchase new players until they manage to offload some of them.

Loan Freshly Bought Players

With this update, both you and AI clubs can now arrange loan deals for players who have just been purchased in the current transfer window. This is intended to add a new layer of flexibility and realism to squad management and player development.

As a big club, you can acquire young talent and immediately place them on the loan list, giving your prospects valuable playing time elsewhere while they continue to develop. Or if you’re managing a smaller club, you now have the opportunity to approach top teams and secure promising players on loan, even if they’ve just arrived at their new club. This opens up new pathways for building your squad and gives you access to emerging talent that might otherwise be out of reach.

This feature ensures that the transfer market remains dynamic and responsive, reflecting real-world strategies where clubs invest in youth and immediately seek the best environments for their growth. Whether you’re nurturing future stars or looking to strengthen your team with fresh talent, the ability to loan freshly bought players brings greater depth and authenticity to every Career Mode save.

Tactical Vision Increased Flexibility 

We’ve revamped Tactical Vision so you can accurately recreate the way your favorite team plays or come up with a wild new approach that’s all your own. Want to try that Wing Play False 9 tactic, or see how Possession plays with a Poacher? You can now do it.

We’ve also renamed Tiki Taka and Gegenpressing to Possession and High Pressing, respectively, to reflect the evolution from the original relatively rigid philosophies into ones more permissive, flexible and widespread.

The new requirements for Tactical Visions are just the ones that are truly crucial for the Vision, no more than that. Standard has no requirements, since it is the basic way football is learned and played across the globe. 

New tactical requirements on Build-Up Styles:

• Possession requires Close Support
• Wing Play requires Balanced or Counter
• Counter Attack requires Counter

As for Defensive Approach: 

• Park The Bus requires Deep
• Kick & Rush requires Balanced
• High Pressing requires High or Aggressive

No Tactical Vision requires both a Build-Up Style and a Defensive Approach to allow more flexibility and experimentation inside each Vision.

Player Roles are not requirements anymore either, so you can customise your tactical setup to your specific team and preference. Roles still get a boost from Head Coaches familiar with your Vision, so you can choose to stick with the tried and tested classics instead. For example, if you’re playing Possession you can have your Striker be a False 9 and get his Role Familiarity boosted by 1, up to False 9+ if your Head Coach is Silver, or up to False 9++ if your Head Coach is Gold, but you can have them be a Poacher instead with no penalty.

The number of Key Roles has also been expanded significantly to reflect the fact that every player on the pitch can be an integral part of the team. After all, some of football’s legendary defenders were just as creative as any midfielder or forward.

Along with the new roles in Box Crasher, Ball-Playing Keeper, and Inverted Wingback, the Wide Midfielder role has also been reworked to function more like a wingback.

Combined, all of these changes address some of the community’s concerns with the FC IQ system, bring the game closer to modern football’s constantly evolving nature, and opening a whole field of tactical possibilities and combinations for you to explore.

Manager Spotlight: New Cinematics and Animations

In FC26 Career Mode, we’re introducing dynamic new intro cinematics and touchline animations that highlight the actions and movements of the manager avatar. These enhancements bring a fresh perspective to gameplay, emphasizing the strategic and emotional presence of your manager around the pitch. Experience the thrill as your manager directs the team, reacts to key moments, and becomes a central figure in your football journey.

Sharpness, Energy, and Training Plans for National Teams

We’ve introduced Sharpness, Energy, and Training Plans to National Teams, bringing a new level of depth and strategy to international management. 

Now, when players join up for national duty, you’ll need to actively manage their Training Plans to strike the right balance between Sharpness and Energy.

Sharpness directly impacts the Tactical Vision attribute boost your players receive. With National Team coaches recognised as experts in their fields, achieving high Sharpness can unlock significant attribute bonuses, making careful management more important than ever.

This update ensures that international fixtures are not just about squad selection, but also about preparing your team to perform at their peak. Plan your training carefully to maximise your squad’s potential and gain a crucial edge in the pursuit of international glory.

More Customisation & Retro Kits

We’ve also added more options for customisation that you can earn from completing Live Challenges, including some highly anticipated retro kits, so you can make your club look just the way you want it. In Create Your Club you can also pick from one of the four charming new mascots to embody your club’s personality.

Customisable shortcuts

To navigate all these new features and improvements, we’ve made a new Switcher Menu that lets you quickly zip to exactly where you need to go. We know how much time is spent just going between the different Hubs and screens. We know how cumbersome that can be, and that there are community mods created to deal with exactly this issue, so we’ve altered the Switcher Menu to alleviate those issues.

It comes preloaded with the most common menus, and you can pin your most-used menu items and make the Switcher work for your specific taste.

Improved Navigation: Smoother Exploration and Fewer Accidental Exits

We realised there was some community friction around accidental exits, so we made 2 changes:

• Pressing the Back button on any Level 1 tab now takes you to Central, instead of opening the Exit pop-up.
• Pressing the Back button while on the Exit Game pop-up now closes the pop-up

Player Potential in Scout Reports 

Your scouts will now also consider player potential in the senior and youth talent scout reports, allowing you to assess your targets over a longer time frame.

Board Objectives Cleanup & Manager Sacking Logic Tweaks

We see that some of our Secondary Board Objectives have caused some frustration in recent years, so we decided to clean them up and keep focus on the Primary ones. We also revamped the Board Objectives screen accordingly. 

Through Unexpected Events and Manager Live Restrictions, even the most hardcore players should be able to tailor an experience with just the right amount of challenge. 

In the same way, we’ve refined the scenarios that previously led to immediate sacking. Actions such as signing players on excessively high wages, setting release clauses too low, or squad-wide morale issues will now result in a formal warning from the board rather than instant termination. This change is based on your feedback and aims to create a more balanced and less frustrating managerial experience.

Accurate Second Position Recognition: Improved Out-of-Position Alerts

We’ve addressed an issue where players were not correctly recognised for their secondary positions. Now, the out-of-position alert will no longer appear when a player is assigned to any of their preferred positions, ensuring more accurate squad management and a smoother experience.

New Squad Hub Option: Dismiss Contract Renewal Tasks

To reduce frustration with persistent Renew Contract tasks, we’ve added a new option in the Squad Hub: Dismiss Contract Renewal. Now, you can remove contract renewal tasks for players you don’t intend to keep, helping you maintain a cleaner and more manageable task list in Career Mode.

Save File Timestamps: Stay Informed at a Glance

We’ve added career progression timestamps directly to your save file tiles. Now, you can easily see the in-game date you’ve reached in your Career Mode before loading a save. This simple addition helps you keep track of your progress and quickly identify your most recent or advanced career saves, making it easier to manage multiple playthroughs.

Injury Integration in Gameplay

We’ve expanded the range of injuries that can occur during matches by integrating a broader selection inspired by real-life football. Now, a wider array of injury types can be triggered in gameplay, adding more authenticity and unpredictability to every match. This enhancement deepens the challenge of squad management and brings your Career Mode experience even closer to the real-world game.

Youth Tournaments Substitutions

We know from your feedback that developing youth players and bringing them through to the first team is one of Manager Career's most satisfying features. To enhance that, we’ve added the ability to make substitutions during Youth Tournaments so you can adjust if a game isn’t going the way you want it. 

Player development is the whole purpose of youth academies, and two crucial factors that determine the speed of a player’s development are match experience and form. Subbing players during Youth Tournaments can provide that match experience, and how well they play can provide the form they need to accelerate their development, making substitutions are a powerful tool for your youth team. 

Improved Youth Tournament Stadiums

There are also two new Youth stadiums—a basic stadium and a top stadium—which provide a closer connection between your club's stature and your facilities. Big clubs can afford to invest more in their youth facilities, a fact now reflected visually in FC 26.

Any club with a worth of more than $500 million and 4.5 or 5 stars counts as a big club and will play their youth matches in the upgraded facilities.

Moreover, even the smallest club can grow to be the biggest in the world, so any club that meets the club worth and rating requirements, at the beginning of a season, can become a big club and use the Top Stadium. Now when you embark on your wonderkids-only, rags-to-riches save, you’ll see your progress reflected during gameplay, too.

Argentinian League with Authentic Format

We’ve introduced the Argentinian league to Career Mode, featuring its distinct competition structure with both Apertura and Clausura tournaments. Experience the excitement and challenges of managing in Argentina, as you navigate through both halves of the season just like in real life, with all the authenticity and unique dynamics of the league’s official format.

UEFA Women’s Champions League Updated Format

We’ve updated the UEFA Women’s Champions League to match the exciting new format of the competition, complete with the 18 team League Phase, new tiebreaker rules, and knockouts. It will also be playable in the Tournaments mode, and you’ll be able to customise the teams in each pot.

Onboarding Revamp

We noticed that the early days of each new Career can become quite swamped with tasks and emails that we felt were not all critical to your setup as a manager at your club. So we decided to make some changes there and create an entry flow that enables you to focus on things gradually, at your own pace.

Finally, we’ve also revamped the Tutorials. Given all the additions this year (and throughout the years), we know how important it is to help all players, both new and old, be exposed to all the small details and gears that make our systems tick. 

These Tutorials have a new structure and format, guiding you through every new feature or mechanic, and through all the ones you may have missed. Using the UI from the game, they highlight exactly where all the information you need to succeed is as you develop your Career. They’re still accessible from the same menu as before whenever you need a refresher.

Team-Colored emojis in Social Media Posts

We’ve introduced support for recolorable circles in Social Media post texts, allowing these elements to automatically reflect team colors. Now, posts from Social Media Creators feature vibrant team-specific accents, inspired by real-life football media.

Manager Date of Birth in Avatar Creation

You can now set a Date of Birth for your manager during Avatar Creation

Inbox Notification: Staff Market Coach Refresh Updates

To keep you informed about new opportunities, you’ll now receive an inbox email every now and then when coaches available on the staff market have been refreshed. Since coaches are often a set-and-forget feature, this notification helps you remember that the staff market updates every two weeks.

PLAYER CAREER

Player Archetypes

FC 26 introduces exciting changes to Player Career, giving you greater control over your football journey and making progression more meaningful than ever. 

Archetypes deliver a new progression system in FC 26. You’ll be able to unlock, progress, and develop 13 distinct player Archetypes, each inspired by an ICON of world football, and each built to give you options that fit your style of play.

Central to the revamped experience is the new Archetypes system, which offers a more personalised and strategic approach to player development, enabling you to shape your identity on the pitch and enjoy your Player Career, building with your own path, progressing with your own style.

Archetypes’ Specialisations

Each of the Archetypes have Specialisations that allow narrowing down the area of expertise and influence further your avatar progression. Archetypes and Specialisations come with Gameplay Perks that help you make a difference on the pitch.

• Perks are going to change how your avatar behaves on the pitch
• Specialisations are unique to each Archetype, multiplying possible paths that you can embrace in your journey through Player Career

New Progression System through Archetypes

Each Archetype comes with its own strengths, weaknesses, and unique abilities, providing a foundation for specialising in your style of play. All of them are made with real-world football legends in mind.

For instance, you could opt for a pace-and-dribbling Archetype tailored for wingers who thrive on beating defenders, or a more physical Archetype suited for midfield enforcers and defenders focused on strength and positioning.

When starting your Player Career, your chosen Archetype will establish the groundwork for your attributes and growth trajectory. As your career unfolds, you’ll have opportunities to refine your Archetype, unlocking new abilities and making decisions that reflect your performance and play style. 

This dynamic system is intended to make every Player Career feel unique and to encourage players to experiment with different Archetypes, adding depth and personalisation to the overall experience.

Training Drill Redesign

Training drills play an integral role in the Archetypes system, allowing you to hone skills that align with your chosen play style. Based on your Archetype, your manager will suggest specific drills that complement your strengths, but you’re free to choose exercises that better suit your preferences. 

Performing well in these drills boosts your XP during matches, amplifying the experience gained from match events on the pitch and speeding up your development. The drills you select directly influence which match actions earn you the most XP, creating a strategic link between training and in-game performance.

New Origin Stories

With Origin Stories, we aimed to add new perspectives to Player Career and help players engage with new narrative elements. In FC 25, we delivered three paths, each with its own advantages and challenges. In FC 26, we’re bringing new improvements and stories to the table.

FC 26 brings in two new Origin Stories. Step into the shoes of a young player who has just been promoted from the academy, or put on the gloves of a goalkeeper to dominate the penalty area for your team. With the gameplay improvements and the addition of specific Goalkeeper Archetypes, we took the opportunity to highlight this specific scenario and bring it to life with its own specific narrative. 

With the addition of the new stories, we also polished and reviewed the ones prepared for FC 25 and decided to keep two of the most well-received ones, giving players a total of four stories and perspectives to play through in FC 26

All of the Origin Stories prepared for FC 26 have been linked with Archetypes to provide a coherent experience intended to support the narrative, alongside specific Social Media stories and Activities to enhance the experience and make each playthrough a different story.

We’ve also retained the option for you to create your own story base for your Career. You can use the Custom Story to set up your starting conditions, such as your Level, Personality Type and Age. You can also pick whatever Archetype will fit the narrative you have planned for your game.

And if you wish to start from the perspective of a young player that you can develop from the start, with no frills, bells or whistles, you can always select the Clean Slate option and build a player from the ground up.

Whichever option you choose, remember that it will define your save and cannot be changed on the fly, so if you want to experiment with a new story, you’ll have to go create a new save.

Thanks for taking the time to read these Pitch Notes. Your passion for EA SPORTS FC is unmatched and we can’t wait to see the new stories you’ll write in FC 26 Career Mode. 

If you have any feedback, be sure to share in our official EA SPORTS FC Feedback Hub: ea.com/fcfeedback. 

-The EA SPORTS FC Career Mode Team

Pre-order EA SPORTS FC™ 26 now for PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2.

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