If you’re sick of dealing with rage quitters, meta spammers, and lag in eFootball 2023’s online modes, career mode is the perfect low-stakes alternative to get your football fix. A lot of new players skip past this mode entirely because the initial menus and mechanics feel clunky and hard to navigate, but it’s easily the most rewarding part of the game once you know what you’re doing. This guide breaks down every step of how to play career mode on eFootball 2023, from setting up your first save to building a club that dominates domestic and European competitions for decades.
Setting Up Your First Save When You Learn How to Play Career Mode on eFootball 2023
The first choice you’ll make when starting a new save is picking between manager career and player career paths. Manager career lets you take full control of every part of the club, from transfers to tactics to board negotiations, while player career lets you follow a single pro from their youth days to retirement. Most new players start with manager career, since it gives you more freedom to experiment without being tied to a single position.
Next, you’ll pick your club, and this is where a lot of people make their first mistake. Don’t jump straight to managing Manchester City or Real Madrid if you’re playing for the first time. Starting with a lower league club with a small budget will teach you the core mechanics far better than buying a squad full of 90+ rated players right off the bat. You can always start a new save with a top club once you get the hang of things.
Before you launch your save, take 2 minutes to adjust the custom settings to fit your playstyle. Dynamic difficulty adjustment is one setting you should toggle off if you don’t want the game to get suddenly harder every time you win 3 or 4 matches in a row. You should also check the transfer window frequency settings, especially if you want to make multiple squad changes over the course of a season. If you pick the limited option, you’ll only be able to sign players during the real-world transfer windows, which adds an extra layer of realism if that’s what you’re after.
Core Career Mode Mechanics You Need to Master First
Once you’re in your save, you’ll have a dashboard with all your upcoming tasks, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the number of notifications popping up every week. You don’t need to click through every single pop-up to be successful, but there are a few core mechanics you can’t ignore if you want to keep your job and grow your club. If you’re new to how to play career mode on eFootball 2023, these small tasks will stop you from making avoidable mistakes that can cost you your job halfway through the season.
Morale is one of the most underrated mechanics in the mode, and it has a way bigger impact on match performance than most players realize. A player with 90 overall but 3/10 morale will play like a 75 overall on the pitch, so you need to fix low morale issues as soon as you spot them. Common fixes include giving players more game time, offering them contract extensions, or even publicly praising them in post-match press conferences.
Before you plan your next match week, run through these 3 quick tasks to avoid unnecessary headaches later:
- Check player morale and training feedback to fix small issues before they hurt on-pitch performance
- Review opponent scouting reports to adjust your tactics for their strongest attacking routes
- Renew contracts for players with 6 months or less left on their deals to avoid losing them for free
You should also pay close attention to player potential ratings when you’re signing new players or promoting youth academy prospects. A player with a “Showing great potential” tag will hit at least 85 overall if you train them properly, while a “Has potential to be special” tag means they can hit 90+ overall, even if their current rating is in the low 70s. These players are way cheaper to sign early on than established stars, and you can sell them for a huge profit later if you don’t want to keep them in your squad long term.
Match Day Tactics to Win More Games Without Spending Coins
You don’t need to spend real money on GP coins to build a winning squad in career mode, despite what a lot of online guides will tell you. Smart tactics will beat a squad full of expensive superstars 9 times out of 10, especially if you’re playing against AI opponents.
If you’re managing a lower league team with lower overall ratings than most of your opposition, counterattacking setups are your best friend. Set your defensive line to deep, your team mentality to defensive, and leave two fast strikers up front when you’re defending. The AI will push most of their players forward to attack, leaving huge gaps behind their defense that you can exploit with long through balls to your fast forwards. This tactic works even better if you have wingers with 80+ pace who can get to the byline and cross for strikers in the box.
You don’t have to play every single match of the season if you don’t want to. Simming matches is a quick way to get through the boring midweek league games against lower table sides, but keep in mind that simming will give you less manager XP and you won’t be able to control the outcome if your team is underperforming. It’s always better to play important matches like cup finals, promotion deciders, or games against your title rivals to make sure you get the result you want.
Substitution timings are another small change that will win you way more matches than you’d think. Don’t wait until the 85th minute to sub off tired players, by that point their stamina is so low they’ll be slow to react and more likely to pick up injuries. Swap out players with less than 50% stamina at the 60 to 70 minute mark, and you’ll have fresh legs to see out the game or chase a late winning goal.
Long-Term Progression Tips to Build a Legacy Club
Once you’ve got the hang of winning matches and finishing in the top half of the table, you can start planning for long-term success that lasts 10+ seasons in your save. The biggest mistake players make here is pouring all their budget into big name transfers instead of investing in their club’s infrastructure. Once you’ve been playing for a few seasons, you’ll realize that the best part of learning how to play career mode on eFootball 2023 is that no two saves are ever the same.
Your youth academy is the best source of cheap, high potential players in the entire game. Send your scouts to countries like Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, and Portugal, and ask them to look for players with high technical or physical attributes. You’ll find 16-18 year old players with 90+ potential for less than 1 million GP most seasons, which is a fraction of what you’d pay for an established player with the same potential.
As soon as you have extra revenue from cup wins or league prize money, upgrade your training facilities and youth academy first, before you spend money on new players. Higher level training facilities make your players grow 20-30% faster, which means your youth prospects will hit their peak ratings years earlier than they would with basic facilities. Upgrading your stadium will also boost your match day ticket revenue, giving you even more budget to spend on transfers and facility upgrades later on.
Don’t panic if you have a bad run of 3 or 4 losses in a row. The board usually gives you at least 10 games to turn things around, unless you’re stuck in the relegation zone halfway through the season. If you’re struggling, try switching up your tactics for a few matches, or giving a few youth players a chance in the first team to shake things up. You’d be surprised how often a small change like switching from a 4-3-3 to a 3-5-2 formation can turn a losing streak into a winning run.
At the end of the day, the best part of career mode is that you can play it exactly the way you want to. You can spend 20 seasons taking a non-league club to Champions League glory, or you can take over a top club and win every trophy available in your first season. Now that you know how to play career mode on eFootball 2023, you can skip the frustrating learning curve and jump straight into building the football legacy you’ve always wanted. Just don’t get too mad when your star striker misses a last minute penalty in the cup final, it happens to everyone.