Sports Interactive has launched the international management update for Football Manager 26 (FM26), finally filling the most glaring hole in the game’s November 2025 release with the World Cup just weeks out. The World Cup Update 26.3.1 is live across PC (Steam, Epic, and Microsoft Store), FM26 Console on Xbox and PlayStation, FM26 Touch on Apple Arcade, and FM26 Mobile on Netflix. The Nintendo Switch version of FM26 Touch will follow early next month.
International management has been a long time coming for FM26. The mode was absent at launch after Sports Interactive acknowledged that the previous iteration in Football Manager 2024 simply wasn’t engaging enough. Only 5.6% of players ever touched it.
Get BWT in your inbox!
Get BWT in your inbox!
Combine that with the cancellation of Football Manager 25 and the ground-up rebuild required by the move to the Unity engine, and pulling the mode back rather than rushing out something half-baked was the right call. Sports Interactive promised a feature-rich revamp with official FIFA licensing when the mode returned, and this update is where that starts to take shape.
So what’s new with this international update?
At the center of the update is the official FIFA World Cup 2026 license, born out of a multi-year partnership between Sports Interactive and FIFA announced in October 2025. It’s the first deal of its kind in the franchise’s two-decade history, and the license covers the World Cup, the FIFA Women’s World Cup, and the FIFA Club World Cup.
On match days, that translates to official broadcast graphics, branded cutscenes, teamsheets, the Adidas Trionda match ball, and a new trophy lift sequence. The series has never had this level of presentation at the international level before.
A new quick-start option on the main menu drops you straight into a FIFA World Cup 2026 campaign beginning May 11 in-game, with two final friendlies to finalize your squad before the tournament kicks off. A second start date in early June will arrive in a future update, putting you right at the opening match with your 26-man roster already locked in.
You can still manage a club and a national team at the same time. Choosing one of the World Cup-specific start dates just simulates your club season in the background up to that point. Existing saves from FM23 and FM24 carry over for national team careers, and if you’re already deep into an FM26 club save, the mode slots right into your current file.
The World Cup is at the center of this update, but gameplay has also changed.
The management tools themselves got a proper overhaul. A new Provisional Squad system lets you call up a wider pool of players before whittling down to your final selection, which is a much closer reflection of how actual international managers handle the pre-tournament window.
The Squad Planner ties directly into that process now, and the National Shortlist has been rebuilt to work more like its club-level counterpart. A new Player Discovery view tracks each player’s recent club form alongside their international expectations, whether they expect to be the first name on the teamsheet or aren’t expecting a call at all.
Scouting Focuses are another welcome addition. Similar to Recruitment Focuses at club level, they let your scouts search for dual nationals who could still declare for your team or young players flying under the radar outside your existing pool. On the tactical side, Match Preparation training lets you set in-possession, out-of-possession, and set-piece priorities before each game.
You can recruit Set Piece Coaches for your national team staff for the first time, and the Data Hub now provides team-level analytics for international squads. Under-the-hood adjustments to player condition also mean your squad should hold up better across congested tournament schedules, which is a quiet but welcome change for anyone who’s ever watched their star midfielder pull up lame in the quarterfinals.
But wait, you can manage Women’s National Teams too in FM26.
The update also makes FM26 the first game in the series where you can manage women’s national teams. Given that women’s soccer at the club level only just arrived with this edition, expanding it to the international stage this quickly is a strong move from Sports Interactive.
Not everything lands perfectly out of the gate. At launch, 47 of the 48 qualified FIFA World Cup 2026 nations are playable, with Sports Interactive promising updates on the remaining team’s status. Kit licensing is still ongoing, so some national teams will be wearing generic kits until approvals come through. A second international management update is scheduled ahead of the real tournament’s June 11 kickoff, which will add the remaining kits and the final 26-man squads for all participating nations.
As we noted in our review, the absence of international management was one of the few clear missing pieces in an otherwise ambitious overhaul of the series. This update is a welcome addition with the tournament right around the corner.
Football Manager 26 is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Apple Arcade, Netflix (mobile), and Nintendo Switch.
