14 DAY TRIAL // England is going to the World Cup with a solid squad, including a superstar left-back who can also ply higher up the pitch. I opt to get the team into an attacking 4-2-3-1 formation, hoping that I can always score more goals than the opposition. This gets me out of the group stage with two wins and one draw (where I was resting my best players).
We survive a big scare against the Netherlands in the round of 16, getting an equalizer in extra time before winning via penalties. The problem is that I meet Brazil next and my system crumbles. I try to get my players to foul more and think less about the offensive.
But my opponents manage to score two before the break and I make some uninspired changes. I only claw back one goal before the end and get dumped out of the World Cup. Germany gets the trophy, winning 3-2 in extra time against Mexico.
We Are Football – National Team DLC is developed by Winning Streak Games, with publishing from THQ Nordic. I played it on the PC using Steam. This is the first downloadable content pack for the game, designed to add, as the name implies, national team management.
Players can get offers to coach various countries over the course of their club career, which adds variety. But they also have the option to choose a single tournament and then pick their favorite nation to try and lead it to glory.
Given that the World Cup is the biggest footballing event of the year, the DLC arrives at the right time. The game does not feature licenses for teams of player names (although there are mods for that).
It is very easy to jump straight into a World or European championship and test your skills. Because there are no easy matches, players need to quickly create a strong setup and then evaluate opponents to adapt their approach.
Tactical choices are at the core of We Are Football. Players are defined by their position, their skills, form, and personality. Choosing a first eleven that features the best performers but balances personalities can be hard. The game offers more ways to look at the opposition before a match. Make sure to have a decent idea of their positioning and approach, to be better able to instruct your own team on how to gain an advantage.
We Are Football loves attacking football, which tends to result in high-scoring matches. A good striker and effective flank support seem to be worth more than a strong five-man defensive line in National Teams.
National Team doesn’t do much to tweak the presentation of the core game. We Are Football does a decent job of showing players the information and its matches are also decent looking, although there’s no full 3D view. The music is suitably epic for a major international competition but there’s limited variety.
Conclusion
My biggest issue is that the lack of real-world data makes it hard to connect with the action. The management side of the game is good and I love that I can quickly run through a season. We Are Football is a solid football sim that gets more variety with National Teams and can offer tens of hours of management bliss.
A review code was provided by the publisher.
