FC 24 Career Mode offers a welcome break from Ultimate Team for anyone experiencing TOTS overkill. While FUT is now packed with OP cards, this old-school EA Sports FC 24 favourite is based on real-life abilities – making for a genuine challenge whether you support Roma or Rotherham. New additions such as tactical visions are explained below, alongside key intel on negotiating, wonderkids, hidden gems and more. Embrace your inner Pep with GR's FC 24 Career Mode guide.
Best teams to manage in FC 24 Career Mode
Can’t decide who you should manage in the FC 24 Career Mode? With hundreds of clubs – and multiple fully licensed women’s leagues – you’ll soon find that choice paralysis is a very real thing.
If you’re in need of inspiration, we’ve got five promising careers for you to embark on. From one of the ultimate underdogs to assembling a squad of all-stars in Saudi Arabia, there’s plenty on offer here for those who want a challenge or are looking to quickly fill out their trophy cabinets. Just want the team with the best players? Then scan our FC 24 ratings guide instead.
Premier League underdogs: Luton Town
Plenty of column inches have already been filled up on whether Luton Town would face the ignominy of breaking Derby County’s record-low 11-point total in the Premier League. With you at the helm, they might steer clear of safety and become part of the top-tier furniture. It won’t be easy, though. This is by far one of the hardest Career Mode challenges from the get-go: you’ve got a weak squad and the lowest budget in the league. Thankfully, the board aren’t expecting miracles; you can bounce back again if you face the drop.
A journey abroad: Al Ittihad
The Saudi league has been busy hoovering up some of European football’s premiere talents this off-season. Eager to see what all the fuss is about? Take over the reins at Al Ittihad for an easy way into football’s newest playground. You’ve got plenty of talent, including Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kante, but the board are adamant that they want to develop youth players too. Can you balance champagne football while also integrating some hungry new talent?
Nurturing talent and winning trophies: RB Leipzig
Leipzig’s meteoric rise through the German leagues may leave a sour taste in the mouths of many, but the Bundesliga side’s current crop of players sure makes for an entertaining Career Mode journey.
In Xavi Simons and Benjamin Sesko, you have two of the best wonderkids at your disposal from the outset – and the task of delivering the first Bundesliga trophy to a club technically formed in 2009. In your way? Just the small matter of Bayern Munich and a certain Harry Kane. If you can navigate past the Bavarian giants – a £75m transfer kitty will certainly help – you might even complete the threepeat and win the German Cup three times in a row.
The nostalgia play: Parma
Those of a certain vintage will recall the sights and sounds of Channel 4’s Football Italia with some fondness. Even those who didn’t witness James Richardson’s café-side rundown of the sports papers will still have a twinkle in their eye when it comes to Italian football. In this challenge, you can aim to take Parma – once a team on the cusp of greatness in the 1990s – back to the promised land. An £11m transfer budget in Serie B will certainly help matters.
Welcome to Hollywood: Wrexham
By now, you’ll know all about the story of Wrexham. Snapped up by glitzy big-name actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, the small Welsh club has been transformed. It even found its way back into the Football League thanks to some last-day heroics. This does feel like a story half-complete and, like all good scripts, it needs a killer ending. Can you be the one to get promotion – and beyond? Welcome to Wrexham. We hope you enjoy your stay.
Tactical Visions in FC 24’s Career Mode explained
After choosing your team, the first thing you’ll be asked to do is decide on your Tactical Vision. Essentially a blueprint for how you want to play your football, FC 24 has introduced seven different templates, with each one offering subtle tweaks to your tactics from the outset. To help you pick, visit our FC 24 formations guide.
Standard is a balanced approach – an all-rounder with no glaring strengths or weaknesses.
Wing Play, obviously, focuses on your wingers; Tiki Taka is all about possession-based short passing; Gegenpressing revolves around high press and direct attacking; Park the Bus opts for a more defensive-minded approach; Counter Attack sees your team sitting back and ready to pounce on the attack with lightning-fast precision, and Kick and Rush is more route-one, leaning on a team’s physical strengths.
Once you’ve picked your Tactical Vision, you can then hire coaches to implement your chosen philosophy. However, you only get a set amount and salary, so pick wisely.
Each coach will be rated out of five stars in a chosen category: attacking, midfield, defending, and goalkeeper. The better they are, the more they can impact your players’ attributes throughout the season – including youth teams. Just make sure you pick coaches that are aligned with your Tactical Vision, as well as placing them in the category where they can have the most effect. For example: if a coach has a two-star attacking rating but four-star in defending, keep them in your defending coach lineup.
You’ll also see an ‘Ideal Quality’ rating that you should aim to hit among your coaches. If you hit it – or succeed it – then your players will develop at a faster rate. We’ve found that hitting your target cuts player development plan boosts in half from around 35 weeks to 18 weeks. Well worth a go, if you ask us.
Don’t worry about doing this straight away, though. It’ll eat into your budget; it really is more of a long-term play for those looking to eke the most out of their squad. These coaches will also not only help individuals, but also better help implement your overall strategy on the field. It’s far from a lick of fresh paint and is absolutely a new feature you should be diving into in the pre-season.
Scouting in FC 24 Career Mode
Want to improve your team? You’ll need to dive into the scouting section of your manager hub. If you’ve played past FIFA games, you will be pleased to know scouting has been relatively untouched. Still, it’s worth going over some of the basics – as well as some new additions.
Case in point: You can now also scout players that best match your Tactical Vision, as well as by PlayStyle. It’s never been easier to find the exact right fit for your starting XI.
Global Transfer Network explained
The Global Transfer Network is your main hub for scouting players. If set up correctly, you should have a continual influx of talent to cast your eye over.
You can find the Global Transfer Network by heading to the Transfers tab, selecting the Scouts grid. Once there, you’ll see your current scouts on one tab, and an instructions menu on the other.
First, use Instructions to tell your scouts which players to identify. You can narrow down the field by finding players by positions, how they fit into your Tactical Vision, PlayStyles, time left on their contract, and their age.
Once that’s done, it’s time to send your scouts out across the world. You can hire up to six scouts and each scout has a star rating out of five for two categories: Experience and Judgment. Experience will give you a larger selection of players to choose from, while those with higher Judgment will find higher quality players. Ideally, you want someone who is at least a three-star rating in both skills.
After a few in-game weeks, you can return to each instruction grid to find the list of players that your scout has found. If they’re having trouble finding players, be sure to widen your scout instruction parameters. You may want the dream player who is great at everything, but it’s rarely that simple.
From there, you’ll be given a rough snapshot of each player. You will then need to scout them further by clicking on the player’s report. We also recommend shortlisting them in the Transfer Hub so you can keep track of the needle-in-a-haystick finds among the dozens of players that will be highlighted. After a short period, the scouts will arrive with the full report – including overall rating, market value, weekly wage, release clauses, and expected transfer fee – will be available to view.
Scouting youth players in FC 24 Career Mode
Looking for the next big thing? Head on over to Youth Staff in the Transfers hub to hire and fire youth scouts, as well as sending them on scouting missions to fill up your academy.
Your scouts can be send away in increments of three months, six months, or nine months and you can give them specific instructions, such as finding players with certain traits. Like with normal scouts, each has a Experience and Judgment rating, which will help you find more players and better players respectively.
During their time away, you will intermittently get reports back. Sift through the players to see a broad range revealing their current overall rating, their potential rating, their attributes, and their positions. From these menus, you can sign players for your academy.
How to find wonderkids in FC 24
If you’ve followed our tips above, you should have dozens – perhaps hundreds – of players to look at. How do you narrow it down? There’s actually a very simple trick, even for those who haven’t been fully scouted.
If you click a player’s profile in the scout reports menu, you will find they are either listed as ‘At Club Since [YEAR]’ (over 22 years old or 79 potential or below), ‘Showing Great Potential’ (80-85 potential), ‘Exciting Prospect (86-890 potential), or Has Potential to be Special (91+ potential).
Just want to cheat? Then buy the cheapest finds on our FC 24 best young players list instead!
FC 24 Career Mode transfers
So, you’ve scouted all those players. Now you need to get your target to put pen to paper. While the back-and-forth of Career Mode transfers is never the most exciting aspect, it’s worth nailing the fundamentals so you can not only come away with a new signing, but also save money in the process.
Buying and selling players in Career Mode
Once you’ve scouted a player, you’ll then be able to add them to your shortlist and either approach to buy, approach to loan, or delegate the tasks to your assistant.
From there, it’s a cat-and-mouse game between what the selling club wants and how much you’re prepared to pay. Scouting a player fully will allow you to get a rough asking price, as well as the lowest offer that could realistically be accepted.
Once you’ve entered negotiations, you can offer an up-front fee that comes out your transfer budget, or sweeten the deal slightly with sell-on clauses and player swaps.
If your first bid isn’t received well, the tension meter will begin to rise. Fill that up – or table an unrealistic bid – and the selling club will walk away. We recommend starting just above a player’s market value and going from there.
If accepted, you’ll have to negotiate a wage with the player’s agent, as well as their squad role and contract length. If they sign on the dotted line, you’ll get a quick recap on how he compares to your current squad as well as what the best possible deal could have been.
Selling is much the same, though the ball is in your court. Make sure you get the best up-front fee for your players and offer young players our on loan (up to two years) to help them develop.
FC 24 Career Mode general tips: Training Plans and Coaches
Training Plans is another new headline feature in FC 24’s Career Mode. Essentially a way to balance the fitness of your squad, it’s something that seems like an extra unnecessary task but, if you take the time to learn it, adds an extra layer of depth to your man-management.
You have two stats to take care of when it comes to your squad: Fitness and Sharpness. The former is all about how fit your players currently are. If they play too many games, they will have less stamina and, in turn, they won’t be able to complete 90 minutes without gasping for air. High Sharpness, on the other hand, will lead to a boost in form and skill, leading to them playing better on the pitch.
Of course, you can rotate players to help balance the two, but you can also use Training Plans to create a tailor-made regimen for your squad.
For each player, you’re given five levels of training: All Out Performance and Performance-focused are all about Sharpness, Balanced is a middle ground, Energy-focused and All-Out Energy zero in on stamina and player recovery but come at the cost of decreased Sharpness – and vice-versa.
Don’t be scared to tinker here, though we’ve found success by keeping the entire squad on a slightly more fitness-heavy setup, instead letting our coaches take on the task of improving the players. Speaking of…
While we’ve covered coaches in Tactical Visions above, there’s still a handful of tips to take in so you can get the most out of your boot room.
If you succeed in the first season, you’ll be able to increase your manager rating. That will allow you to bring on additional coaches in future seasons – exponentially increasing the impact of Tactical Vision.
Like your players, coaches don’t remain static in their ability. The more wins you get with a Tactical Vision enabled, the more XP you can put towards your backroom staff. So don’t worry about bringing in some middling coaches to begin with.
Also pay attention to a coach’s Knowledge level. This boosts a player’s overall rating when they are on the pitch and, if you can afford it, you want to be aiming for no lower than Accomplished, though shelling out for Experts will help you get short-term success even if your wage budget will soon deplete. It’s also fine to chop and change your coaching staff to get the right balance. If you are well over your Ideal Rating, consider putting those resources elsewhere. We’d also recommend focusing on Attack and Midfield as they will provide the most tangible results (i.e. goals) in the early parts of the season.
Finally, don’t forget to tinker with development plans, particularly when it comes to both aging players and those in the academy. In the Squad Hub, you’ll be able to change players’ positions and even focus on specific roles within each position. Want a player to utilize their dribbling more over their passing? Then turn him into a Wide Winger instead of a Playmaker. This should also be your first port of call for promising youth players, as you can really make the most of their strengths and mask their weaknesses.
It’s a lot to take in but it just shows the level of detail that is in FC 24’s Career Mode. You can truly mould a squad of your own making, complete with the sort of intricacy usually only reserved for Football Manager.
