I love football. Proper love it. I plan my weekends around kickoff. I’ve stood outside stadiums way too early just to soak in the noise for my team, Liverpool FC. I’ve eaten terrible food at Anfield because I was starving and didn’t want to leave the crowd. I’ve complained about stewards, about ticket prices, about police lines, and about queues taking forever.
I don’t live in the UK anymore, so I don’t go to match-days anymore. Or rather, I can’t – flights from Bangladesh are prohibitively expensive. But I did go to home and away matches for Liverpool for roughly a decade and change.
And not once in my life did I think about who actually makes any of that work. All I did was show up.
So when I first saw Copa City ages ago, I brushed it off. It looked shiny. Big crowds, dramatic camera shots, all that. My brain went, “Cool idea. Probably not real.” Or if it is real, it’ll be some half-finished NFT thing that disappears after launch. I definitely did not think “Finally, a game about event logistics!”
Then I load up this preview build and suddenly, I’m responsible for thousands of fans in Warsaw. At first I was still skeptical, particularly when I had to open “packs”. To me, packs equal microtransactions. FUT has ruined the beautiful game.
The developers, however, have said this will be a full price product with no microtransactions. That remains to be seen.
Anyway, you’re called a “city captain,” which sounds important but really means you’re the one making sure match-day doesn’t fall apart. Not the match itself, but everything around it. The stuff I’ve ignored for years (rightly so) because I only care about the ninety minutes.
The big clubs are in. Arsenal. Besiktas. Flamenco. Bayern Munich. I was caught off guard by the real clubs, because it makes the game feel less like a gimmick and more like something that wants to be taken seriously.
The intro talks about a missed penalty. That landed for me – I’ve lived through those. I know that hollow feeling when the ball hits the post and it’s over. So I’m thinking okay, they get football, at least. But then the game hands me a map and says, right, build the fan zones – you’re organizing a youth match in Warsaw.
Sounds harmless enough. Under 21s. “Stars of Tomorrow.”
Feels small scale. It is not small scale.
You start claiming construction spots around the city, conveniently marked with Copa City logos and turning them into fan hubs. These are the places where supporters gather before heading to the stadium.
And this is where it hit me – all those times I’ve stood in packed squares before kickoff. The chants. The smoke. The food stalls. I’ve treated that like background noise. Just part of the day. In this game, that background noise is your responsibility.
Everything revolves around three needs. Catering, fun, and safety. Feed them, give them something to do and stop things from getting ugly. As a fan I’ve moaned about all three. “Why is the line so long?” “Why is there nothing happening?” “Why are the police everywhere?” I’ve said those things without thinking about the person trying to balance all of it.
Now I am that person. Different types of fans start arriving in waves. Ultras just want food and space to chant, while families want activities. Ultras care about their section, their control, and their territory. I thought it would be simple – place a few snack stands, add some security and a couple of foosball tables. Done.
Nope.
There’s a satisfaction bar at the top of the screen that quietly judges you. If it drops to zero, the match is cancelled and that’s that. All your planning wasted because you underestimated how many people wanted food. The first time it dipped too low, I felt actual stress, which is ridiculous for a demo. And yet, there I was, scrambling to add catering modules like I was about to be fired in real life.
My mind jumped straight to real-world scenes – news clips of clashes before big matches and streets filled with police. I’ve watched those from my couch and thought “That’s chaotic.” In the game, I felt a fraction of what that must look like from the other side, that is to say, the side that is trying to stop it.
When I finally fixed things in the game and watched the right crowd move properly into their own district, it felt like relief. Not triumph, but relief, like I’d avoided something spiraling out of control.
Then the stadium opened up. You’re assigning stands to teams, deciding where ultras sit and where families go. You’re adjusting ticket prices because demand is uneven and preparing sectors so seats are not left empty.
I’ve chosen seats based on atmosphere before. I’ve paid more to sit near louder sections. I’ve complained when I ended up near Away fans. I’ve never thought about the person who decided that layout. Inside the stadium, you are still juggling things – catering inside stands, security coverage, cleaners, accessibility.
If even one stand is lacking, satisfaction drops there even if everything else is fine. It stacks up quickly.
At one point I caught myself thinking about real match days differently. The queues I’ve stood in, the way streets are blocked off, the police presence that annoyed me. None of that is random. It’s planned, and by people under pressure at that.
I’ve spent years obsessing over tactics – over whether the manager should switch formation, over which winger should start. The answer is Salah. I’ve lost sleep over title races. What I have never thought about was how many portable toilets are needed in a fan park. This game forced me to.
It is not perfect – the camera can be awkward, the interface sometimes gets in the way and the game is hella unoptimized. It is absolutely not Steam Deck friendly, and I encountered a couple of small bugs. It feels like something that’s still being tuned. Emotionally though? It caught me off guard. I understand, though, that it won’t be the same for everyone.
Still, as a lifelong match goer, it made me feel small in a weird way. I’ve only ever cared about the visible part of football – the pitch, the goals, the celebrations. There’s this whole invisible structure holding it together. Copa City drops you into that structure.
Plus, as someone who has loved football for most of my life, who has shouted at refs and cursed security lines and blamed everyone except the organizers, it felt strange to stand on the other side. I went in thinking, why would I want to manage food stalls? And I came out thinking, how does any of this even function every single weekend without falling apart?
That shift surprised me more than anything.
I still care about tactics. I still care about transfers. That part of me is not going anywhere. But now, when I think about match-day, I picture the people behind it too. And I did not expect a game to make me do that.
Copa City is being developed and published by Triple Espresso, and it will be released for PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG), PlayStation, and Xbox on May 21, 2026.
You can play the demo now on Steam.
More indie games
For more articles on other indie games, please check out the links below:
Videogames.
Gym.
Sneakers.
Manga.
My dog.
In that order.
