Soccer '97

Soccer '97 is a one or two player football game based on the English league as it more or less was in the 1997-1998 season.

There are four modes of play* Exhibition mode where the player picks both teams and plays as one of them.

• League mode where a player selects a team and plays through an entire season with the game simulating all other results. The teams in this mode are restricted to the English Premier league for the 1997-1998 season (*see note below)
• Arcade mode is a knock-out tournament
• Tournament mode starts with four groups each with four teams in each which can be manually or randomly populated. Here the teams within each group play each other and the group winners play for the trophy.

There is a limited team management function within the game. Prior to the match the player can decide on their preferred formation, and can assign roles such as man marking to their defenders and so on. The game is licensed by the Professional Footballer's Association and so can use footballer's names, however all team emblems and strips are fictitious.

The teams available in the Exhibition Match mode are Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Chelsea, Coventry City, Crystal Palace, Derby County, Everton, Huddersfield Town, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Middlesbrough, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Queens Park Rangers, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton, Stoke city, Sunderland, Tottenham Hotspur, Tranmere Rovers, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Wimbledon and Wolves.

*However the teams in the League are not quite those that played in the 1997-1998 season. The league is largely correct but Bolton Wanderers and Crystal Palace are missing and have been replaced with Middlesborough and Sunderland.