Zico Soccer
Zico Soccer from Electronic Arts is a football management video game released for the Super Famicom that allows players to become the head coach of an international football team; it was named after the Brazilian midfielder Zico, who at the time was playing for Japanese team Kashima Antlers. The game is mostly in the Japanese language although some words are in the English language.
Zico Soccer
- Date
- 1994
- Publisher
- Electronic Arts Victor
- Genre
- simulation video game · association football video game
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Documentary summary
Zico Soccer from Electronic Arts is a football management video game released for the Super Famicom that allows players to become the head coach of an international football team; it was named after the Brazilian midfielder Zico, who at the time was playing for Japanese team Kashima Antlers. The game is mostly in the Japanese language although some words are in the English language.
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q8071476 · wikipedia · Zico Soccer
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Title — Zico Soccer • Developer — Electronic Arts • Publisher — Electronic Arts Victor • Composer — Akira Takemoto • Released — March 4, 1994 • Genre — Traditional soccer simulation • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Super Famicom
Gameplay
Gameplay
Zico Soccer has an unusual control system where the player must move a cursor across the screen, and is thus compatible with the Super Famicom Mouse. The player can manage one of 25 teams, one of which is the Kashima Antlers with its real-life roster at the time of release; the rest are national teams with fictional players, with most other FIFA member nations excluded. The game starts with a coin toss and the winner chooses to have possession of the football or to choose what side of the field to defend. Instead of directly controlling the players, the manager/player must choose who must pass the ball to which player, where to shoot the football, where to move the players on the board, and how they should shoot the football. There is an exhibition mode, training mode, and two different kinds of cup (tournament) modes. Unlike most other sports games on the Super Famicom, there is no multiplayer mode.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
- Japan
Named but not plotted · 1
Zico Soccer is associated with Japan.
Country
Reception
The game received middling reviews in Japan, with criticisms including a skill floor too high for beginners and its haphazard licensing restrictions. Because of this, Zico Soccer became better known for its poor sales than its actual content: it was popularly called a “typical throwaway title from the late Super Famicom era”, and one store reported that new copies were piled up on the wagon for as low as 10 yen. The Japanese gaming magazine GameLab (ゲームラボ) jokingly referred to Zico Soccer as "Bargain-bin Zico". Due to Zico Soccers low price, developers of unlicensed adult video games would purchase cartridges in bulk and replace the game's hardware boards with their own, since Nintendo had exclusive cartridge manufacturing rights. EJ Corporation used this method to release its series SM Chōkyōshi Hitomi; because of this, many used copies of Zico Soccer sold in Japan contain these games instead of the original. Although Zico Soccer was advertised as directly supervised by Zico, when asked about the game in 2026, Zico claimed he only helped with advertising materials and had since forgotten about its existence.
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q8071476: Zico Soccer
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Zico Soccer”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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