If you've ever spent 20 minutes fumbling through confusing menus trying to set up a match with your buddy instead of actually playing, you know how frustrating eFootball 2022's unintuitive UI can be. Whether you want to face off in a 1v1 friendly, team up for co-op against random opponents, or run a small tournament with your group, figuring out how to play with friends in eFootball 2022 doesn't have to be a headache. I've spent dozens of hours testing every multiplayer mode with my own friend group, so I've broken down every step, plus workarounds for the most common glitches that pop up when you're trying to get a game going.
How to Play with Friends in eFootball 2022: Basic Private Lobby Setup
This basic setup is the fastest way to get a game going, and it works for all supported platforms. First, make sure you and all your friends have installed the latest game patch, because even a tiny update will make lobbies incompatible between players on different versions. Once everyone is up to date, head to the main menu and select the Match tab, then pick the Friend Match option from the dropdown list.
From there, you can choose to either create a new lobby or join an existing one. If you're creating the lobby, you can customize every rule to fit your group's preferences: adjust half length from 3 to 30 minutes, toggle off injuries or offside calls for casual games with new players, restrict rosters to only national teams or custom Dream Teams, and even set weather conditions to make matches more challenging. You can also turn on automatic replay saves so you can go back and mock your friend for that terrible penalty miss later.
Once your lobby is set up, you can either invite friends directly from your in-game friend list, or share the 6-digit lobby code with anyone you want to join. Private lobbies support up to 4 players total, so you can run 1v1 matches, 2v2 co-op, or even 3v1 matches if you want to give a newer player a handicap. That means you don't have to stick to standard match formats if you're just playing for fun.
Crossplay Setup for Multiplatform Friend Groups
One of the best features of eFootball 2022 is that it supports crossplay between most major platforms, so you don't have to miss out on matches just because your friend owns a different console than you. Crossplay works between PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC, but it's important to note that Switch players are limited to only playing against other Switch users, with no crossplay support for other platforms. I learned this the hard way when I tried to set up a match with my little brother on his Switch, and we spent 15 minutes confused about why we couldn't see each other's lobbies.
To turn on crossplay, head to your Account Settings from the main menu, scroll down to the Crossplay tab, and toggle the setting to "On". You'll also need to link all your platform accounts to a single Konami ID, and add friends to your Konami friend list instead of just your platform-specific friend list if you want to send them invites across platforms. Once you have your Konami ID linked and crossplay turned on, the rest of the process for setting up matches is exactly the same as when you play with friends on the same platform.
Crossplay is fairly reliable, but there are a few small rules you should follow to avoid issues:
- Do make sure all players have crossplay enabled before trying to join the same lobby, even if they're on the same platform
- Don't use platform-specific voice chat if you're playing with crossplay friends - use the in-game voice chat or a third-party app like Discord instead, because platform chat won't work for players on other systems
- Do test your connection speed before joining a crossplay lobby, as slower connections will cause lag for all players in the match
- Don't expect crossplay to work for ranked matches - it's only available for friendly lobbies and co-op matches against AI or random opponents
Crossplay lobbies do have slightly longer load times than single-platform lobbies, but that's a small tradeoff to be able to play with friends no matter what system they own. I usually only notice the load time difference if we're playing with 4 people across 3 different platforms, and it's never been bad enough to ruin a match for my group.
Co-op Game Modes You Can Play With Friends
1v1 friend matches are fun, but there are way more multiplayer modes to explore once you know how to play with friends in eFootball 2022. One of the most popular options is 2v2 co-op, where you and a friend team up against two other players, either other friends or random opponents from the online pool. You can choose to control the entire team and switch between players as needed, or turn on player lock to only control one specific position for the whole match.
Player lock is perfect for groups with mixed skill levels, because newer players don't have to stress about managing the entire team or switching between defenders at the wrong time. I usually play as a striker when we use player lock, because I get to focus all my energy on scoring goals instead of tracking back on defense, and my more skilled friend handles the midfield and defensive work.
You can also try Dream Team Co-op mode, where you and up to 2 friends can use your custom Dream Team rosters to play against AI or other player groups. In this mode, you can combine your best players to create a super team, or set rules that require everyone to use only their own roster for a more fair challenge. If you want to run a longer competition with your friend group, you can create a custom tournament lobby that supports up to 8 players, with automatic point tracking and bracket generation. I ran one of these tournaments with 7 of my friends last year, and it saved us so much time not having to log every match result manually.
If you're not in the mood to play against other people, you can also set up co-op vs AI lobbies, where you and your friends team up to play against AI opponents. You can adjust the AI difficulty from Beginner to Legend, so you can make it as casual or challenging as you want. This is a great way to introduce new players to the game without them getting crushed by experienced random players online.
Fixes for Common Friend Match Issues
eFootball 2022 has its fair share of bugs, and most of them pop up when you're trying to set up matches with friends. The most common issue people run into is that friends can't see your lobby even when you send them an invite. If that happens, first double check that everyone is on the same game patch, because even a minor update that you didn't notice will make lobbies incompatible. If everyone is on the same version, try restarting your game and your router, as 90% of connection issues are caused by temporary network glitches.
Another super common issue is crossplay invites not showing up even when you have crossplay enabled and your friends added to your Konami list. If that happens, don't waste time resending invites over and over. Just share the 6-digit lobby code directly with your friends, and have them join using the code instead of an invite. That trick works almost every time, and it's way faster than troubleshooting the invite system.
If you're getting constant lag in friend matches, try turning off crossplay if everyone is on the same platform, and close any background apps that are using bandwidth, like streaming services or active download clients. Even a small background download can cause enough lag to make matches unplayable, so it's worth pausing any downloads before you start playing. If you're trying to join a Dream Team co-op lobby and your friend's roster won't load, make sure they have their Dream Team set as their active default roster in their account settings. That's a tiny setting that a lot of people miss, and it causes all sorts of errors when trying to join co-op lobbies.
Most of these errors pop up because of small oversights, not because there's a major problem with your game or account, so you don't have to stress if it takes you an extra minute to get set up. I've run into every single one of these issues at least once with my friend group, and none of them have ever stopped us from playing for more than 10 minutes total.
At the end of the day, eFootball 2022 is way more fun when you're playing with people you know, even if the UI can be a bit clunky to navigate at first. Once you get the hang of how to play with friends in eFootball 2022, you can spend less time messing with menus and more time scoring last-minute winners, trash talking your buddies after a bad tackle, or running your own mini tournaments for bragging rights. If you run into an issue I didn't cover here, try checking the latest official patch notes, as Konami regularly releases small updates to fix common connection bugs.