After UEFA Champions League 2006-200">Chris Coates explained to us what UEFA Champions Leagues 2006 - 2007's (PC, Xbox 360, PSP) Ultimate Team mode is all about, we now give the floor to the game's producer, Matt Holme. Recently, he had a chat with IGN and he spewed some juicy bits about the game and what could we expect from it.

Now, if you're wondering how many teams there are in this game, Mr. Holme mentions that there are 268 teams from 17 leagues and they made sure that every major European  league is present in the game. Of course, when you have that many teams, you gotta have lots of stadiums - and this game boasts of 49 stadiums from all over the world.

He also talked about the Treble mod - a completely new feature that takes everything you could imagine occurring in a football season and makes it into an event that plays out like a story. He explained by saying:

As the Manager of your team you'll be dealing with transfers, player injuries, player controversies, youth players, directions from the board and everything else a Manager has to deal with during a rigorous season. Your goal is to win the elusive Treble. This means taking home not only the Champions League Trophy, but the Domestic League and Cup silverware as well.

He also tackled the History Book and the Store features of the game. The History Book tracks your progress, "the teams you beat, the tournaments you win, the records you break, are all tracked inside the History Book that contains some 400 odd objectives. Each objective carries a certain point's reward which you can use to unlock items from the Store." One of the unlockable stadiums is the virtual UEFA Ultimate Stage stadium. Then, he was asked about the game's Quick Controls, and he said:

They give you the ability to be able to take advantage of attacking movements and catch your opponent off-guard by taking a quick free-kick, quick throw-in, quick goal-kick or quick corner at the press of a button. Every time play stops, if you want to speed up the action and not sit through the highlights and cut scenes, just hit L1 and you'll be thrown straight back into position and ready to play on.

Lastly, he was asked about the PSP-exclusive feature called The Quiz. He says that they wanted to take advantage of the PSP hardware so they created a feature suited for gamers on the move.

The Quiz takes advantage of our extensive database of football information, and generates some 10,000 random multiple choice questions (all mapped to the four face buttons.) These range from the simple questions to the down-right difficult. The Quiz plays out like a UEFA Champions League tournament, with questions starting off easy as you progress through the Group Stages and becoming much tougher in Knock-out Stages.

Eurogamer was recently able to catch up with UEFA Champions League 2006-200">Chris Coates, Associate Producer for the upcoming EA-developed UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 (PC, PSP, Xbox360), to talk more about the Ultimate Team mode and how the Starter Pack of cards will work in the game. The dev diary covers the said topics quite intensively, so whaddya say we get this show on the field road already?

On the Ultimate Team Mode: To start building your team, you're gonna need the Starter Pack of cards, which represent players, kits, stadiums, training cards, staff and can even be used as gameplay cards (used during a match). These cards come in the following varieties:

• Players - the backbone of your team, better players mean better results
• Staff (managers, coaches, physiotherapists etc.) - These help improve your team and apply bonuses to development cards
• Development Cards (Training, Fitness, Healing, Team Talks etc.) - All improve your team, keep them happy, heal injuries and more
• Club Info (Stadiums, Badges, Kits) - Look good, but can also boost morale.
• Gameplay Cards - Apply 4 per match and give your team a boost to attributes during a game plus other types of cards which will affect your opposition for a set amount of time.
• Unlockable Content - Boots and balls to use throughout the game.
  

Keep in mind that your Ultimate Team is limited to 24 players, so you'll have to discard the cards (discard the cards...hehe) you don't want and just trade 'em online or keep them in your Collectors Album. Much as we'd love to summarize the whole dev diary for you, we wouldn't want you to miss out on certain details that some of you might deem important. So if you wanna check out the full dev diary contents, we suggest you click on the link below for loads more info.

UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 is slated for release this March.