i didn't know football clubs were like that

(this game was Fifa 18: Legacy Edition)

As a former software process analyst, I usually look at video games through a structural lens. After getting frustrated with the lack of logic in modern football games, I decided to run a controlled stress-test in FC 27 Career Mode. 

My goal was simple: Create a "free-fall" scenario. I wanted to deliberately manage Chelsea into financial and sporting ruin, get sacked as quickly as possible, and then take over a struggling lower-tier club to rebuild my career on a lower difficulty. I set Board Strictness to the absolute maximum. 

What followed was a masterclass in broken core logic, dead code triggers, and catastrophic cross-reference bugs. Here is the report of my experiment: 

Phase 1: Financial Sabotage (Expected result: Sacked within 48 hours)
I immediately dismantled the club from within. I fired all scouts. I sold key players for half their market value. I bought low-rated players for absurd, inflated transfer fees. To deliver the final blow, I renewed a reserve player's contract and gave him a wage of 1 million euros per week.
The system's response? Absolutely nothing. A month into the season, the board sent me a message: "We have noticed you are performing at a very high level, and your job security is safe." The financial evaluation triggers are completely dead. 

Phase 2: Sporting Sabotage (Expected result: Demolished in simulations)
Since financial ruin was ignored, I ruined the squad depth. I benched every single star player. I created a lineup with an average rating of 45, full of exhausted youth players, and used a tiny outfielder as my goalkeeper.
I simulated the first match through the calendar. We lost 3-1 to Fulham. In reality, a rating-45 team with an outfield player in goal loses 15-0. The simulation engine clearly uses a lazy "rubber-banding" algorithm that completely ignores the actual database stats of the active lineup just to smooth out the scores. 

Phase 3: The Cross-Reference Breakdown
After another simulation, I received a message from one of my top stars. This player was not in the lineup, not on the bench, and was literally sitting in the stands with a bag of chips. His message: "I tried my best in the last match, and I'm sorry I couldn't make the difference." The game clearly triggers a generic post-defeat script but randomly pulls an entity from the total squad database instead of cross-referencing the players who actually played. 

Phase 4: The Ultimate Insult
I reloaded to September 1st and tried the direct "Jump to Result" simulation to force the local match engine to calculate the ratings. My exhausted, 45-rated squad with a striker in goal went to the Emirates Stadium and beat Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal 2-4. At this point, the scripting (Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment) is so aggressively broken that database attributes mean absolutely nothing. It is a pure random number generator wrapped in a UI. 

Conclusion:
To get out of Chelsea, I literally had to play the matches myself, act like a madman, collect a barrage of red cards, and deliberately concede goals. Only then did the transfer hub finally open up some job vacancies. I have now escaped to SV Elversberg in the Bundesliga (who are hardcoded to be dead last in the game, despite being 8th in the real-world Bundesliga right now). 

If I had encountered a software process this fundamentally broken during my career, I would have walked out of the room laughing. EA is selling a completely terminal product where the most basic conditional loops and triggers do not function. 

Time to save Elversberg and fight the broken script! 

(Yes I know I am a miserable bastard who spends too much time focusing on trivial things)

BUT why are the player names on the bottom row of the bench now hidden in the new UI? 😂

Considering the guy behind the original UI was on Twitter proudly showing off his work, despite the overwhelming negative feedback it received, I genuinely want to know what went through his or the team’s heads when they decided, “You know what this new UI also needs? Let’s make the player names on the bottom row invisible too.”

Who is making these design decisions / signing them off?!

Took me 6 seasons to win it and it was so much fun

My player Truffert suggested me to sign Soule from Roma. Since I lost two CAMs, I went ahead to sign him. Valued at £46m, rivalling Man City, Man City offered 55m. Simmed past 2 days, Roma want 90m. OKAY sure, Soule's a huge upgrade, sure i'll take him for 90m, Man City still offering 55m, gave Soule a wage bump, from his initial request of 60k to 100k. 3 days later, the club wants to renegotiate, I was expecting 90m to maybe 100m. NO THEY ASKED FOR 139m! THREE BLOODY TIMES HIS DAMN VALUE, WTF???

I rejected it because HOW DO I PAY THAT?? Simmed a day later, he joins MAN CITY FOR 55 MILLION. WTF IS THIS GAME. Now Truffert is gonna blame me for "not believing in his input"

world's game my ass

EDIT: i literally do not give a shit about the truffert thing, it was just a small thing i decided to say lol, it aint even that deep. the point of this post was just to point out shitty bugs like these that fucked the experience players like myself are going for. if shit like these don't bother you, good for ya but imagine ensuring everything in your save is realistic and this kind of scenario appears, u won't feel pissed? just because you didn't experience it, don't mean that others don't lol, its a crazy how some think posts like these are people acting like these micro inconveniences are affecting our whole lives when we literally just want people to come together and point out bugs like these so that the devs could potentially point it out and fix this issue. if these things don't bother you, then just move on lol, forums like these are literally for the community to come together and point out shit like this.

Bro, even if i signed a player mid season, 2 months later he wants to leave, this is genuinely so annoying, it just ruins the career mode. Players in real life spend there life being a bench player without playing, these dudes miss 2 games and all of a sudden they dont get enough play time.

So I took a break for a few days because I knew an update was coming hoping that it’d fix a few of the glitches and players handing in transfer requests for no reason. Apparently not this was literally after the first game I played since update. Is this because it was an already existing save? or did they not after the issue at all? (He’s played 7/9 prem games 10 all comps)

Buongiorno/buonasera a tutti, mi considero un giocatore veterano della mia carriera, il mio stile di gioco ogni anno è quello di portare una squadra di Serie D inglese alla vittoria, utilizzando solo giovani che crescono nel tempo.

Abbiamo un problema, i giocatori, a causa della dinamica generale, non crescono quest'anno a meno che non siano attaccanti o difensori particolarmente forti.

Gioco a difficoltà champion, quindi in realtà niente di eclatante, ma quest'anno i difensori controllati dall'IA sono impossibili da superare con le abilità (cosa che noto anche nella modalità ProClub con i miei amici), e sono facilmente aggirabili con tiri completati da passaggi lunghi o filtranti.

L'IA dei giovani, posizionati male in attacco (anche inserendo le tattiche offensive avanzate non funziona), è davvero un grosso problema per la difesa.

Ora, questo elimina quello che pensavo fosse il bello di una carriera con i giocatori: se giochi due partite negative di fila con un certo giocatore al 25%, hai consumato parte del suo potenziale massimo; l'unico modo per recuperarlo e fargli disputare una stagione (ad esempio, portarlo da un valore di 67 e farlo giocare in Serie B inglese, dove lo prendono a denti stretti) è...

Ora, questo solleva un altro problema: sei obbligato a giocare tutte le partite, quindi non puoi saltarne nemmeno una. Ciò significa che se sei primo in classifica e giochi contro la 24esima, devi giocare per forza, perché il rischio che il computer faccia sciocchezze è dietro l'angolo.

Sono assolutamente in disaccordo con questa scelta, ovvero che il potenziale massimo dei giocatori possa essere modificato in base ai parametri menzionati sopra dopo poche partite.

Ogni anno la situazione peggiora sempre di più, già l'anno scorso avevo notato problemi critici e leggevo sempre post in questo spazio dedicato ai giocatori che si arricchiscono con il mercato dei rendimenti. L'anno scorso la crescita era "nel complesso" equilibrata, ma oggi non lo è più.

È una fregatura dover credere di dover giocare bene la partita precedente per avere qualche possibilità nella partita successiva, soprattutto se si inizia con i giovani come faccio io, che dovrebbe essere la meccanica più avanzata che il gioco offre.

Ci sono state 3 estrazioni di 8 giocatori in 9 mesi, quindi 216 giocatori, ma solo due con un potenziale massimo di 94 complessivo con una media di 1 massimo 2 stili di gioco, e questa situazione si protrae da due stagioni.

Mi scuso in anticipo per il mio inglese non perfetto.

Has anyone ever successfully negotiated a lower squad role than the player demanded initially? No matter how much I increase wages, players never agree to "important" instead of "crucial" or "rotation" instead of "important". Why even have the option? It's like they had the idea, added the option, but never added any mechanism to actually affect the outcome.

I just win a cup final and I am not motivated enough??????
Keep in mind I'm still top of the league with 15 points gap

I’m playing a career exclusively with academy players. So all of my players get plenty of game time (over 80% of the games) unless they’re injured. They also keep average match rating over 7.5. Despite this I see that players potential keeps dropping? Specifically for defenders and goalkeepers. No matter how well they’re playing and how much they’re playing their potential drops. I had an academy CB who has played practically every game with a 8+ average match rating, yet his potential dropped from 92 to 75. How do I prevent this from happening?

So Im a few seasons in, managing Man City.

For a new upcoming season I sold Haaland, traded my Diomande + money to get Mbappe from Real M, and was forced to set Release Clause at 500.000.000, and paying him a whopping 950.000 weekly (as that was his previous wage and he would not go below that).

After 2 days Liverpool contacted him, paying the release clause, and Mbappe messages me saying he is open to new negotiations if I wanna keep him.

Turns out I cant because we literally signed him 2 days ago, so he went to Liverpool (lowering his wage to 520.000).

No matter tho, I just purchased him back for 250.000.000, and he agreed to wage of 550.000 as it was higher than current Liverpool wage.

So in 2 days my squad has not changed but I have made 250.000.000 and lowered the weekly wages by 400.000.

Hello guys

I would like to know your opinion of which FIFA game provided the best and most realistic gameplay of career mode? I'm talking about features, negotiations, realism, graphics, gameplay and the all set.

I've been trying to start career in eafc 26 for like ten times in the last months but I cannot go further than December/January of the first season, I don't know why.i tried top teams, medium ones, road to glories, scenarios everything but it seems that I have no joy in it anymore although I keep craving on playing fifa and keep starting new careers.

Have you ever felt this way and how did you manage to solve it? I miss enjoying a long term career in this game

Unsure what it is with the settings I have chosen but it’s two games against “good teams” where they have fouled uncontrollably to the point the game is forfeited.

I wonder whether it’s due to the “dynamic” AI behaviour I’ve selected. Has anyone experienced similar issues using this setting?

NB: in the game against Chelsea I ended up just passing around the back hoping I didn’t get fouled for another forfeit.

Hi, I just noticed a bug halfway through my season, when three of my players left the club for free even though their contracts had been extended... Every time I try to sign a new contract with someone on the team, it ends up the same way. They accept the terms, finalize the offer... but the contract length stays the same. They get a new salary, but the length—for example—doesn’t change from 6 months, even though the player signed a new 3-year contract. Does anyone have a solution? This is ruining my career...

I've decided to start my career mode after the new update and most of the bugs being resolved...i need career ideas and new teams to manage

I started at River Plate and did 2 seasons there I won back to back Copa Libertadores 1 league title 1 domestic cup and 2 Recopa Sudamericana's and just secured my first move to Europe which is with FC Porto

Anyone else having this issue with the creator customer manager live? I’ve reset my ps, checked my routers settings, deleted my profile, deleted squad data, turn fc on in offline mode and turned it back on to try to get it to work, nothing, even made a new career mode to the same result.

For context this is my squad’s fitness level right before a match despite rotating heavily.

Switching to always full is straight up unrealistic but this fitness level isnt realistic either right before a match after rotating the whole XI.

I’ve been playing CM since FIFA 12, way before they introduced the training schedule system and the stamina system was nowhere near this bad.

This years career mode sucks and I read everyone saying it but I didn’t believe it.

Rn what’s pissing me off is the teams on top of the ladder and the captain is hitting me up every second day that the club is going nowhere.

Everyone I enquire about magically has interest from others

Had no injuries for most of the season, then genuinely 6 of my starting 11 get injured in 1 week

Players playing most games and then requesting to leave for gametime

All this amongst others, I’ve had my rant… what a stupid game

Hello, I purchased FC25 on the cheap, thank god, and it's a hot mess when it comes to player career mode (and probably more broadly).

What I'm left fuming a out are the following

1) My team, despite being on the up and up (picked Plymouth Argyle) and having made it into the premium league and getting steadily higher finishes and winning the odd cup, continue to buy awful players. I mean Wolves have Dembele but I'm stuck with Mr Random up front with a rating of 70????

2) I consider moving to a new club, but you want me to score 16 out of the box goals and also win 31 sliding tackles? My guy is a winger?

3) I have a banger of a game, score 1, 2 assists, 10 rating, the manager says he is not happy with my performance of late??

Seriously, this game feels like it was made by a bunch of interns at times. I think I won't be buying a new version of FC for a loooooong time. Fingers crossed a different software house drops a better game to force a bit of competition in the industry.