How does the National Teams / World Cup feature work? (1)

National Teams lets you take on a second job alongside your club: managing one of the 32 playable nations through World Cup qualifying and, if you get there, the World Cup itself. Here's the full rundown. Becoming a manager: every 2 seasons, an application window opens for all 32 national team jobs at once. Any VIP manager can apply for any nation, regardless of their own nationality, but only one national team job at a time alongside your club. VIP status is only checked at the moment you apply, so losing VIP later doesn't cost you a job you already won. After a short applications window, a short voting window opens: any manager who owns at least one player of that nationality on their club roster gets one vote (not weighted by how many you own) among that nation's applicants. Ties are broken by random draw. Win, and you're in for a 2-season term with no incumbency advantage, you'll need to reapply like everyone else when your term ends. If nobody applies for a nation, it's simply run by the same bot AI that manages unclaimed clubs until the next election. Squad selection: as national team manager you pick a 25-man squad from the ENTIRE live pool of players holding that nationality, regardless of which club currently owns them. It's a selection list, not a transfer, the players stay exactly where they are. The squad must be exactly 3 goalkeepers, 8 defenders, 8 midfielders and 6 forwards. You'll assign each player to one of their own natural positions, and you can freely add or drop players at any time during your term. Your national team also gets its own independent Tactics page, same style as your club's, completely separate from your club's own tactics. Qualifying: the 32 nations are seeded into 8 groups of 4 by average squad strength, then play a double round-robin (6 matches each) spread across the 2 seasons of the election cycle. The top 2 in each group, 16 nations in total, advance to the World Cup. The World Cup: those 16 qualifiers are drawn into 4 groups of 4 for a single round-robin group stage, then the top 2 from each group go into a straight knockout bracket: quarter-finals, semi-finals, and a final. Knockout matches that are still level after 90 minutes go to extra time and then penalties if needed, just like a real World Cup. International breaks: both qualifying and the World Cup are played during dedicated breaks where your league and cup matches pause. Qualifying uses two shorter windows (one per season); the World Cup is a single longer pause covering the whole tournament, group stage through the final, which is also why the offseason between seasons sometimes runs a bit longer than usual, it's making room for the tournament to finish. Everything else, finance, transfers, scouting, injury recovery, keeps running as normal during a break, only league and cup match simulation itself pauses. A couple of things worth knowing: there's no extra fitness or injury cost from playing internationally, so releasing a player for their country never puts your club squad at extra risk. Selected players do earn experience for playing (half of what a normal club match awards), and you'll get an inbox notification whenever one of your own players gets called up to or dropped from a national squad, as well as heads-up notices before each international break begins.