#6 Wrap up: 2025

Year in Review

The purpose of this post is to summarize the main changes and new features I was able to add to the world football simulator. And also, why not, the pending goals for next year.

1-Detailed group stage draw. Personally, I felt this was something that could have been added from the app’s inception in 2022. This way, the draw can be experienced in detail, just like in real life, by drawing balls. In the last month, more than 150,000 draws were saved, building anticipation for the 2026 World Cup.

2-Club leagues. Simulating real-world club leagues has always been a user favorite. Therefore, I set out to expand the list of countries with playable leagues during 2025. Currently, there are 52 countries with this feature, from Algeria to Vietnam. Furthermore, after a great effort, I was able to add historical leagues dating back to 2000 for the users’ favorite countries: Argentina, Brazil, England, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, among others.

3-Real results. When simulating automatic results users were able to choose between random or ranking. But being able to display real results from past tournaments was a good option to add. Currently, it is available for World Cups, Euro cups and historical club leagues. The only problem is that it takes a lot of time to manually enter the real results. For that reason, I didn’t do it for regional club competitions like the Champions League or Copa Libertadores.

4-Golden ball history. To be honest, I’ve never been interested in individual awards. But the same thing happens every year. September rolls around, and users start asking for it. The app already included the 2023 and 2024 editions, but the voting system was tedious to simulate since representatives from more than 50 countries vote. That’s why this year I decided to add the complete history up to 1956 with a simple voting system and the option for real voting, since ultimately, the vast majority just want to know which player won and simulate it quickly. Finally, I explored some ways to add a feature for creating a Ballon d’Or award, but there are some complications, such as defining where to get the list of players. For example, should it include current players or former players? If it includes current players, how many should be displayed? 50, 100, 500, 1000? Could the user modify the names?

5-Road to 2026. It is not something new from this year but I had to add many minor fixes in order to provide the correct format and calendar for each confederation, playoffs and world cup simulation. I know what you are thinking. Why can’t we create our own world cup qualification? The answer is simple. I tried too many times in these years but the format of each confederation depends on how many countries are in tournament, how many hosts and also where are those hosts from. There are several possible combinations and every time I tried to add it I just couldn’t make them all work.

6-Club regional cups history. There is a great feeling when I finish adding all the editions for a given tournament. Many old tournaments have been added like European Winners Cup, Concachampions, Mercosur, Merconorte, Supercopa Sudamericana, Interamericana and Copa Conmebol. I still have to think about adding old tournaments from Asia and Africa.

7-Iconic match. It was one of the features I enjoyed developing the most, as it’s different from all the others. And it was very well received by users. Although the 50 country matches were added in the first few months of the year, approximately 80,000 simulations are still being performed every month. I will try to add club simulations during the next year.

8-Brackets diagram. Its simple but it looks good. Doesn’t it? This screen has been showed more than 500,000 times during the last month.

9-Seasons. This is one of the most widely used methods for creating tournaments. It was originally designed to simulate multiple divisions within a single country. Due to its success, the national cup was added, and even the possibility of simulating regional cups such as the Champions League, Europa League, Conference League, and Super Cup. Unfortunately, I also have to mention the changes I couldn’t implement because they are not compatible with the original design. The most notable of these are the inclusion of playoff rounds between divisions to determine relegations and the Intercontinental Cup or Club World Cup. A challenging goal for next year would be to create a new season creation screen with many more details.

10-Club world cup 2025. Before it started, its importance was uncertain. It was unknown whether people would like it or if the clubs would take it seriously. However, its quality was demonstrated on the field, and also in the app’s statistics, which showed significant user growth between May and July.

11-The new champion. Finally, a personal note. The club I support, Platense, won the Argentine football championship for the first time in its 120-year history. I sincerely thank everyone who wrote to me at that time, as it meant a great deal to me and my family.

Next year will bring many new challenges. The first ones that come to mind are providing the best simulation for the 2026 World Cup and offering complete customization of logos and players using the new data pack functionality. I’m also still hoping to reach one million downloads on the Play Store.

I want to thank you all from the support during the year and I hope you continue enjoying the app in 2026.

Happy holidays!