that's cool that the wii version is good, because they sure coasted on the ps3 and 360 versions...
My description of this game is soccer meets RTS with RPG elements. When you play Champions Road mode, your characters gain experience and as they gain experience you can give them special skills. Like, if you want your character to be extra good at set pieces, center field play or whatever. I haven't seen many of the skills because I'm very early. As you beat teams you can pick up new players through kind of a card lottery.
Champions road is sort of a career mode. You enter your team into different tournaments. Each one is harder than the last, and you complete specialized training occassionaly that will assign goals for you to achieve as you play your games. Examples at the beginning in the practice league are: complete 20 short passes, complete 3 cross passes of at least 30', complete 10 long passes, pull dribble 100'. I'm assuming later some will be set pieces and whatnot. When you complete those objectives you get bonuses for your team, like being able to pick up 2-star players rather than 1-star players at the start, or picking up 2 players after a match rather than 1.
I've only finished the first tournament, so I haven't seen how far these ideas get expanded on.
If you have Connect24 turned on, you can play against your friends Champions Road teams to see how you match up. You can also put your characters onto your wii remote and bring them to your friends place or something like that. I've unlocked Mii play in match mode, which I haven't tried. There's a whole number of online modes I haven't look at as well.
I'm really impressed with this game. Playing defence is a little weird, but I'm getting used to it. Offensive controls are fantastic. It is different than other soccer games though. It doesn't seem to focus on the man to man play, and you really have the feeling of overall team control. So it's like a strategy game or RTS. I wish you had a little more input on your shots, because it's more determined by player stats like an RPG.
Oh yeah, the graphics are pretty much ass.