If you’ve ever spent 20 minutes scrolling through eFootball 2022 menus trying to find your favorite local club before a friendly match with friends, you’re not alone. I used to get frustrated when I couldn’t find my local lower league team to play against my mate who supports a rival side, so I spent a weekend digging through Konami’s official patch notes and community forums to get the full count. If you’ve ever wondered how many teams in eFootball 2022 are actually playable, the answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think, because it depends on what version of the game you own, what content you’ve unlocked, and whether you use fan-made edits. We’re breaking down every detail below, including official counts, hidden teams, and common mistakes that make players think they have fewer teams available than they actually do.
Official Count: How Many Teams in eFootball 2022 Are Playable At Launch?
The official base roster for eFootball 2022 at launch includes 972 playable teams, across club and national side categories. That count is lower than previous Pro Evolution Soccer titles, because Konami cut a number of smaller league licenses when they rebranded from PES to the free-to-play eFootball format in 2021. You don’t have to download any extra content to access these teams, they’re available right after you install the base game for the first time. The base game’s core team roster includes 36 fully licensed leagues, plus a number of unlicensed leagues with renamed teams, badges and kits. It’s important to note that some regional leagues are only available in specific geographic releases of the game, for example the full J.League roster is only included in the Japanese and Southeast Asian versions of the game, while the full Argentine Primera División license is only available in South American releases. If you can’t find a specific regional league, it’s not that it doesn’t exist in the game at all, it just might not be included in your local version by default. Most players in North America and Europe will see around 920 base teams when they first open the game, because the region-exclusive leagues are hidden by default unless you change your game region in the settings menu.
Breakdown of Licensed Team Categories in eFootball 2022
The 972 base teams are split between licensed and unlicensed groups, with roughly 620 fully licensed teams that have official real-world names, kits, badges and player faces, and 352 unlicensed teams that use placeholder details you can edit manually. Licensed teams are split into club teams and national teams, with separate rosters for each category. Premier League teams are almost entirely unlicensed except for Manchester United and Arsenal, which is one of the biggest complaints from UK-based players, but you can easily edit the fake team names and kits to match the real Premier League sides if you don’t mind spending 10 minutes per team making adjustments. National teams make up roughly 10% of the total licensed roster, with most top-ranked FIFA sides included, from Brazil and Argentina to France and Spain. Some of the most popular fully licensed leagues available in all global versions of the game include:
- La Liga Santander (full license for all 20 teams, including real kits, badges and official player faces for 90% of first-team squad members)
- Serie A TIM (full license for 18 of 20 teams, with only two smaller lower-table clubs using unlicensed placeholder details)
- Ligue 1 Uber Eats (full license for all 20 top flight French teams, plus official rights for the Ligue 2 second tier as well)
- UEFA Champions League licensed teams (all 32 2021/22 group stage teams have official tournament kits and badges for UCL game modes)
- CONMEBOL Libertadores (full license for all 32 competition teams, exclusive to South American and global region game releases)
How to Unlock Hidden Teams in eFootball 2022
The 972 base team count doesn’t include unlockable hidden teams, which are added to your roster once you complete specific in-game challenges or earn enough in-game currency to claim them. These teams aren’t available by default, but you don’t have to spend real money to unlock the vast majority of them. There are 42 extra unlockable teams in total, split between club legend sides, international legend sides, and special event-exclusive teams. Club legend sides are all-time XI rosters for top licensed clubs, like Manchester United’s 1999 treble winning team, Barcelona’s 2009 tiki-taka side, and Bayern Munich’s 2013 treble winning squad. These teams include retired legend players with boosted stats, like Pele, Maradona and Zinedine Zidane, most of whom have 99 overall ratings. International legend sides include classic World Cup winning teams, like Brazil 1970, France 1998, and Italy 2006, and you can unlock all of them for free by completing weekly event challenges. I unlocked the 2002 Brazil legend team last year after completing 3 online friendly match challenges, and it’s still my go-to pick for casual matches against my little brother, because the front three of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho are basically unbeatable if you know how to pass properly. Only 4 exclusive legend teams require paid eFootball coins to unlock, and they’re only available during limited time seasonal events, so you won’t miss out on much if you don’t want to spend real money on the game. Once you unlock all hidden teams, your total playable roster jumps to 1014 teams, not counting any custom teams you add manually or via fan patches.
Common Misconceptions About eFootball 2022 Team Counts
There are a lot of wrong claims floating around community forums about how many teams are actually available in the game, and most of them come from players who don’t know where to look for unlicensed or hidden content. One of the most common myths is that all teams are available in all game modes, but that’s not true at all. You can't use unlicensed custom teams or legend sides in official competitive eFootball events, so keep that in mind if you’re training for an official tournament, because you’ll be limited to the base licensed current roster for competitive play. Another common myth is that the team count is the same across all platforms, but PC players can install fan patches that add thousands more custom teams, while console players are limited to the official Konami roster plus unlockable content, unless they download shared edits from other players. Some players also think they have to pay to get access to all teams, but as we mentioned earlier, 95% of unlockable content is available for free via weekly event challenges, and you don’t have to spend a penny to get the full official roster. Many players also miss the unlicensed teams grouped under the generic “Other Leagues” folder in the team selection menu, so if you’re looking for a lower league or regional team that isn’t part of a licensed league, check that folder first, because it’s probably there with a fake name. If you’re playing a cracked or pirated version of the game, you won’t get access to official post-launch patches that add extra teams, so your total count will be lower than the official 972 base roster, and you won’t be able to access any of the unlockable event teams either.
At the end of the day, the answer to how many teams in eFootball 2022 depends on what version you’re playing and how much content you’ve unlocked. Base game players get 972 teams right out of the box, and you can bump that up to over 1000 if you unlock all hidden legend sides, or even thousands more if you use fan patches on PC. If you’re looking for a specific team, the first thing to do is check if it’s part of a licensed league, and if not, check the “Other Leagues” folder or search for shared player edits that add the real team details to your roster. It might take a little digging, but you’ll almost always be able to find the team you want to play with, even if it’s not officially included in the base game.