European football in your career

A career or an auction can be played with European football alongside the league: the Champions Cup, the Continental Cup and the Challenge Trophy. The host switches it on when creating the career. It is on by default for careers that keep going and for auctions.

Who plays in Europe

In the first season the line-ups are the real ones: every club that qualified for the 2026/27 competitions, including clubs from outside our leagues such as Bodø/Glimt, Olympiacos, Slavia Prague and Dinamo Zagreb. They come with their real squads.

From the second season the tables decide:

• Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga: 1st to 4th go to the Champions Cup, 5th and 6th to the Continental Cup, 7th to the Challenge Trophy.
• Ligue 1: 1st to 3rd Champions Cup, 4th and 5th Continental Cup, 6th Challenge Trophy.
• Liga Portugal: 1st and 2nd Champions Cup, 3rd Continental Cup, 4th and 5th Challenge Trophy.
• Eredivisie: 1st and 2nd Champions Cup, 3rd Continental Cup, 4th Challenge Trophy.
• Süper Lig, Pro League, Scottish Premiership, Austrian Bundesliga, Danish Superliga, Swiss Super League: 1st Champions Cup, 2nd Continental Cup, 3rd Challenge Trophy.
• Brasileirão: Brazilian clubs play their league but do not go to the European competitions.
• The holders: the Champions Cup and Continental Cup winners go into next season's Champions Cup, and the Challenge Trophy winners into the Continental Cup.
• The rest of Europe: the remaining places go to the clubs from outside our leagues, the strongest and those who went furthest last season first.

Every competition always has 36 clubs.

The format

Each competition starts with a league phase: one table of 36 clubs, eight matches each against eight different opponents (six in the Challenge Trophy), half of them at home.

• 1st to 8th go straight into the last 16.
• 9th to 24th play a two-legged knockout play-off for the other eight places.
• 25th to 36th are out.

The last 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals are over two legs. There are no away goals: a tie level on aggregate goes to extra time and then penalties. The final is one match.

The calendar

European nights are matchweeks of their own, between the league rounds, as in a real season. In a 38-round league the season becomes 55 matchweeks: the league phase comes after rounds 6 to 21, the play-off and the last 16 next, the quarter-finals and semi-finals in the spring, and all three finals in the very last matchweek. Shorter leagues fit the same nights into fewer weeks. The fixtures page shows every European night in its matchweek.

You ready up for a European night like any other matchweek, and playing ahead plays them too. A European night with no manager's club in it is played straight away, so nobody waits for it.

Prize money

Every club in the career earns money from Europe, and it goes straight into the transfer budget:

• a fee for taking part (the Champions Cup pays far more than the other two)
• money for every win and draw in the league phase
• a bonus for every round reached, and more for the winners

The Europe tab

The Europe tab shows each competition: your own fixtures and results with your scorers, the league-phase table, the knockout draw as it fills in, every matchday's results, the goals scored by the career's players, and past winners. The other leagues' tables are there too. Home shows your next European match and your last result.

Records and rewards

• European trophies appear in the records, season by season, with the final score.
• The managers' table counts European titles.
• Reaching the last 16 or further earns manager XP, and winning a trophy earns a lot more (most for the Champions Cup).

Tips

• A good league phase is worth it: finishing in the top eight skips the play-off and its two extra matches.
• In the knockouts, a narrow first-leg defeat away from home is still very much alive.
• If you are fighting for a European place, remember the 7th place in the big four leagues goes to the Challenge Trophy. Still worth having.

Written by Daniel Arantes, who makes Football Career Online.