World Club Champion Football

Infobox VG
title = World Club Champion Football


caption = Intercontinental Clubs 2006-2007 Logo
developer = Hitmaker
publisher = Sega
release =Arcade
^JPN 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008 ^EUR 2005, 2006
genre=Sports
modes=Single player, Two player
platforms=Arcade
input= 9 Buttons, Card reader
cabinet=Sit Down
arcade system= Lindbergh, NAOMI 2

World Club Champion Football (WCCF) is a Japanese collectible card game and arcade fantasy soccer game produced by Sega. The player assembles a squad by collecting and trading specially marked cards, produced by Panini. The player then selects a team and manage it, playing simulated football matches on an arcade machine taking part in friendly, league and cup competitions.

The squad managed by the player can consist of up to 16 footballer cards with the data stored on a player's smart card, commonly known as an IC. The IC can store up to 150 matches worth of data; once the maximum number of matches has been reached the player has an option to transfer their statistics to a new IC.

Footballer cards are registered by starting a game and laying the cards down on a special matted table that identifies the card allowing the game to retrieve the footballers attributes from a database.

Players can issue commands to his team during a match, change the team's formation, talk to individual team members or in pairs in a virtual manager's office and train the team up to 6 areas of skill: Offense, Defence, Passing, Possession, Speed and Power.

History

The first major version of the game was based on the top division of Italian Football, Serie A, and was released in Japan in 2002. [cite web
title = WCCF Serie A 2001-2002 announcement
publisher = Sega Japan
url = http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsega.jp%2Farcade%2Fwccf%2F&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8] The teams included were those that participated in the competition during the previous footballing year; the player data being based on performances during that 2001-2002 season. An updated version of the game was released in 2003 with gameplay fixes/adjustments also added 32 black/white and 13 foil player cards.

With the success of the game Sega went on to produce a second major version of the game, again devoted to Serie A, that was released in 2003. [cite web
title = WCCF Serie A 2002-2003 announcement
publisher = Sega Japan
url = http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsega.jp%2Farcade%2Fwccf0203%2F&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8] The teams and players included were those that participated in the 2002-2003 season. As with the 2001-2002 version the 2002-2003 version was also updated several months later to include gameplay updates and additional players consisting of 32 black/white and 43 foil player cards. The season 2002-2003 version of WCCF was the first version that was released outside of South East Asia by being made available in Italy.

After a brief hiatus Sega's next major new version of the game was released in late 2005. [cite web
title = WCCF European Clubs 2004-2005 announcement
publisher = Sega Japan
url = http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsega.jp%2Farcade%2Fwccf0405%2F&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8] This time the game was not dedicated to Serie A and instead was based on the top division of 4 countries in Europe: the English Premier League, Dutch Eredivisie, Spanish La Liga and Italian Serie A. The teams included in this European Clubs version of the game was based the 2004-2005 season. At this point Sega started distributing the game more widely outside of South East Asia.

The successful expansion of the game was followed by a sequel to the European Clubs version in late 2006. [cite web
title = WCCF European Clubs 2005-2006 announcement
publisher = Sega Japan
url = http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsega.jp%2Farcade%2Fwccf0506%2F&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8] This time the game included teams from 6 countries in Europe: England, France (Ligue 1), Germany (Bundesliga), Holland, Italy and Spain with footballer data based on performances from the 2005-2006 season.

The game has further expanded to span two continents (Europe and South America) in the Intercontinental Clubs 2006-2007 version released in 2008. [cite web
title = Spring Private Show Report
publisher = Sega Japan
url = http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsega.jp%2Flocation%2Freport%2F2007%2F0511%2Fhome.shtml&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en]

Clubs

erie A 2001-02

European Clubs 2005-2006

Intercontinental Clubs 2006-2007

Player Card

As mentioned, there are over 1000 different cards in the game.Some Players have different versions of themselves in the game. Player cards are classed in 4 different types of cards.

The first type is a White card. This type of card carries a standard player, for example Igor Tudor of Juventus. He would be considered in the game to have normal wage in the game and have the abilities of an average player in the team.

The second type of card is a Black card. This card carries a better player like Michael Owen or Ronaldo. Their wages in the game increase but their skills increase as well.

The third type of card is a Foil or known to the WCCF community as a "Shiney". These carry the superstars of the footballing world. When held up to the light, the card's background changes colour. Each grouping of cards have different coloured frames to show the different classes of player.There are plenty of versions of Foil cards reaching as far back in the game as the 2001-2002 season. These cards appear less in the game and are more rare than a black or a white card.

The fourth and most precious of cards is the Legend and All Time Legend cards. These cards are very rare and feature some of the best players ever to grace the game of football.These cards carry huge wage bills, but they also have very rare qualities in playing the game.Just like the foil cards, the Legend and All Time Legend cards are considered to be "Shiney" with a mainly gold appearance to the card. Once again, when light hits the cards at a certain angle, the colour changes slightly.

References

External links

* [http://www.segawccf.com/ Official web site (English)]
* [http://www.wccf.it/ Official web site (Italian)]
* [http://www.wccf.jp/ Official web site (Japanese)]
* [http://www.wccf.jp/wccf0506/ Official website for 2005-2006 (Japanese)]
* [http://www.wccf.jp/wccf0405/ Official website for 2004-2005 (Japanese)]
* [http://www.wccf.jp/wccf0203/ Official website for 2002-2003 (Japanese)]
* [http://www.wccf.jp/wccf0102/ Official website for 2001-2002 (Japanese)]
* [http://wccf-world.co.uk/forum/portal.asp The Unofficial UK fansite and forum: a large community of players from all over the world]
* [http://www.sgcardgames.com/ Unofficial Singapore WCCF forum section (English)]