If you’ve spent hours scrolling through eFootball 2022’s menu looking for your favorite club, you’ve probably wondered how many teams are in eFootball 2022 at one point or another. Konami’s first full pivot away from the Pro Evolution Soccer branding brought a lot of changes to the franchise, including major shifts to licensed content, roster updates, and even playable club restrictions for online modes. We’ve spent dozens of hours testing every game mode, cross-referencing official Konami updates, and unlocking hidden rosters to give you the most accurate breakdown available. You won’t find outdated launch-day numbers here, just confirmed counts that apply to the final patched version of the game.
Exact Count: How Many Teams Are in eFootball 2022 Across All Modes
Let’s cut straight to the answer most people are looking for first. As of the final 2023 game update, there are 628 total playable teams in eFootball 2022. That count includes 592 club teams from leagues around the world, plus 36 men’s senior national teams. It does not include fan-made custom rosters, youth teams, or women’s sides, which were not added to the franchise until later eFootball releases.
It’s important to note that the launch version of the game only had 230 playable teams, which led to widespread backlash from fans who expected a wider roster to match previous PES titles. Konami released 6 free content updates over 12 months to add the remaining 398 teams, so you’ll need to install all available game patches to access the full roster. You don’t have to pay for any extra DLC to access every one of these teams, which is a nice change from many other modern sports titles that lock large chunks of content behind paywalls.
Keep in mind that not all of these 628 teams are visible by default when you first install the game. Roughly 120 teams are hidden behind in-game challenges or mode restrictions, so you’ll have to put in a little work to unlock the full library. We’ll cover that process in more detail later on.
Breakdown of Licensed Leagues and Teams in eFootball 2022
While eFootball 2022 doesn’t have the same massive licensing library as its EA Sports competitor, it does hold exclusive rights to several major leagues and competitions that you won’t find in other football games. Licensed teams come with official crests, kit designs, real player names, and scanned player faces for most first-team squads. Unlicensed teams have generic branding, but still have accurate player stats and team formations if you don’t mind the fake names and logos.
The most notable licensed leagues and competitions in the game include:
- Serie A TIM (Italy): All 20 top-flight clubs fully licensed, with official kits, crests, and real player faces for 90% of first-team rosters
- Ligue 1 Uber Eats (France): 18 of 20 clubs licensed, with only two smaller lower-budget teams using generic branding
- J1 League (Japan): All 18 clubs fully licensed, including exclusive access to youth team rosters not available in other football games
- Copa Libertadores & Copa Sudamericana: 47 total South American club teams, with official competition modes and tournament rules
- Top National Teams: 36 fully licensed national sides, including 2022 World Cup winners Argentina and runner-up France
You can still use unlicensed Premier League teams, but they will have generic crests, kit designs, and altered player names unless you install a fan-made patch. For example, Manchester City shows up as “Manchester Blue” and Liverpool is listed as “Merseyside Red” in the base game. Fan-made patches fix all these branding issues, but they only work on PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 versions of the game. Patches won’t work on Xbox consoles due to system restrictions on custom content.
One common frustration for North American players is the lack of licensed MLS teams. Only three MLS sides are fully licensed in eFootball 2022, with the rest using generic names and branding. You can find fan-made patches that add all 28 MLS teams with official branding if you play on PC, but there’s no official way to access these rosters on console.
How to Unlock All Hidden Teams in eFootball 2022
As we mentioned earlier, 120 of the total 628 teams are hidden by default when you first launch the game. These include classic national teams from past World Cups, legendary club sides from the 90s and 2000s, and several lower-league European teams that don’t show up in the default roster menu. Unlocking all of these teams is worth the effort if you like to play nostalgic matches or test out less common sides.
The fastest way to unlock all hidden teams is to complete the offline "Legendary Challenge" mode on medium difficulty or higher. This mode has you play through 15 matches against progressively harder AI opponents, with new teams unlocked after every three wins. You can finish the entire challenge in 10 to 15 hours, depending on your skill level, and you’ll unlock every hidden offline team once you beat the final match. The difficulty is very manageable even for casual players, as you can adjust your formation and squad between matches to counter the AI’s playstyle.
If you don’t want to spend 10 hours playing through the Legendary Challenge, you can also download a pre-unlocked roster file from the in-game community sharing menu, as long as you’re playing on PS4, PS5, or PC. That cuts the unlock time down to less than two minutes, and it’s fully allowed by Konami’s terms of service. Just make sure you download a roster file that was uploaded after 2023, so it includes all the final content updates.
I’ve noticed that a lot of new players skip these weekly missions, and end up missing out on 70% of the playable rosters without even realizing it. You don’t have to grind for hours to unlock most of the popular teams, either. Completing just the first four weekly challenge missions will give you access to 80% of the top licensed club sides for offline play.
Key Differences Between Playable Teams in Online vs Offline Modes
One thing that catches a lot of new players off guard is that teams unlocked for offline play don’t automatically carry over to online modes. Konami has separate roster rules for online play to keep matches fair and prevent players from using overpowered classic teams against new players who only have access to base rosters.
Only 420 of the total 628 teams are eligible for use in official online competitive modes. The excluded teams are mostly classic sides with inflated player stats, or lower-league teams that don’t have enough official stat data to be balanced for competitive play. You can still use all 628 teams in private online friend matches, though, so you can play with classic teams against your friends if you all agree to use balanced squads.
If you play the popular Dream Team online mode, you won’t have access to any full teams right off the bat. You’ll have to build your squad by collecting player cards, or complete season challenges to unlock full team licenses for use in Dream Team matches. Don’t waste your in-game coins on random player packs if you want to unlock full teams fast. Prioritize completing weekly season missions, which give you full team unlocks as rewards for very simple objectives like scoring 10 goals or winning 3 matches.
If you want to use your favorite unlicensed team online, you’ll have to edit the roster manually through the in-game customization menu first. You can change team names, crests, and kit designs to match the real-life club, and these changes will show up in all online matches you play. This customization is fully allowed by Konami, as long as you don’t use offensive or copyrighted content in your designs. I’ve edited all my favorite unlicensed Premier League teams this way, and it only took me about 20 minutes total to update all the rosters.
At the end of the day, how many teams are in eFootball 2022 depends almost entirely on what game modes you prefer to play, and how much time you’re willing to put into unlocking hidden content. The base 628 count gives you more than enough variety to keep your matches fresh for months, even if you don’t want to mess around with custom patches or third-party roster files. If you’re just getting started with the game, focus on completing the core offline challenges first to unlock the full roster, and you’ll have access to far more teams than most casual players ever realize exist. You don’t need to spend any extra money to get the full experience, which is still one of the biggest perks of eFootball 2022 compared to other paid football titles.