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
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., La Liga, 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.