Man, I swear I spent half of the nineties trying to unlock everything in FIFA Road to World Cup 98. It was the absolute pinnacle of football games back then. Fast forward twenty-five years, and my nephew finds my dusty old PlayStation 1—the grey original brick—and dares me to a tournament. He thinks he’s hot stuff with his modern EA FC skills, but I knew if I wanted to crush him properly, I had to bring out the secret weapons: the hidden classic teams. Classic Brazil, Classic Argentina, and those legendary ‘Rest of the World’ squads. But unlocking them? That was a forgotten skill, buried under two decades of new consoles and patches.
I started where anyone starts: Googling. Immediately hit a wall. All the results were either for the PC version (which had much easier file edits) or old, half-remembered forum threads from 2001 that just linked to dead Geocities pages. I knew the trick had to exist for the console version. My pride was on the line here, so I committed to finding the actual, working PS1 method.
The Hunt for the Hidden Trigger
I started by trying all the rumored, in-game cheats. I loaded up the game. First, I went straight to the Player Edit screen. I remembered some games used certain player names as cheat triggers. I typed in “ALL TEAMS” in caps. Nothing. I tried “CLASSIC.” Again, nothing. I wasted a solid hour just typing different, obvious phrases into the customization fields, figuring maybe EA left a back door that didn’t require a button mash. Nope. That was a dead end.
I moved my focus to the main menu. I distinctly recalled a rumor about pressing L1, R2, Square, Circle in a specific rhythm on the ‘Select Language’ screen. I fired up the game again, practiced the rhythm, and mashed those buttons until my thumb hurt. Did the classic chime sound? Did a new option pop up? Not a chance. I realized the people posting these were either confusing it with the N64 version or just spreading pure fiction. I tossed the controller onto the sofa in frustration. This wasn’t going to be easy.
I knew I had to dig deeper than the standard cheat sites. That’s when I hit the serious, archaic forums. I went looking for people talking about memory card corruption and specific game save data manipulation. That’s where the real truth usually hides.
The Breakthrough: Game Save Manipulation
The actual secret, I finally pieced together from a super old thread on a German emulation site, wasn’t a button code at all. It was tied to how the game checks for specific accomplishments. You had to have a “perfect” save file for the game to flag the hidden teams as accessible. And achieving that perfect save usually meant winning the World Cup multiple times and saving specific player records.
But there was a shortcut. The truly committed players knew how to trick the game into thinking you had won everything. Here’s what I actually did:
- I Wiped the Slate Clean: First, I had to delete all existing FIFA 98 data off my memory card. This was crucial. If the game saw any old, incomplete saves, it messed up the activation sequence.
- The Critical Input Sequence: The key was creating a new save file right after winning a specific tournament—the World Cup mode, of course—but doing it while inputting a very specific name for the saved profile. It had to be exactly eight characters, all caps, and include a numeral. I landed on the famous (but slightly altered) name that everyone used back in the day:
EASETUP4
. - The Tedious Grind: I loaded up the World Cup mode. I didn’t care about playing a fair game. I used the easiest difficulty setting and picked Brazil. I absolutely obliterated the AI. I flew through the group stages and the knockouts. I literally spent the next three hours just spamming the “through ball” and scoring tap-ins. It was repetitive, soul-destroying work, but necessary.
- The Save Point Trigger: After beating the final game and watching the celebratory screens, the game prompts you to save your data. This is the moment. I mashed the save button, named the profile
EASETUP4
, and then immediately reset the console without going back to the main menu. This bizarre sequence was the rumored trigger.
The Payoff and the Proof
I held my breath as the PS1 whirred and the EA Sports logo flashed again. I skipped the intro and went straight to the Exhibition Match selection screen. I scrolled past the regular teams, past the regional teams, and there they were. Right at the bottom of the team list, underneath the standard club teams.
Classic 1
,
Classic 2
, and
Rest of World
!
The sense of achievement was ridiculous for a game this old. The secret was definitely tied to that exact profile name paired with a clean World Cup win, saved at that precise moment. It’s not a cheat code; it’s a ceremonial baptism for your memory card.
I immediately picked Classic England (those kits!), selected the hardest difficulty, and started messing around. The hidden teams are completely unbalanced, which is exactly why you need them against modern competition. It took half a day of tedious grinding and ancient forum diving, but I unlocked them. My nephew doesn’t stand a chance. Now I just need to remember how to do the diagonal passing exploit…
If you’re still holding onto that old heap of a console and need the edge, forget the quick button cheats. You need to earn that save file the hard way, or at least, the tricky, esoteric way.