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Cup Football sets its sights on greater goals. European goals, to be precise. It concerns itself solely with the UEFA Cup.

You choose a European team to guide into combat with some of the world's finest squads. You are allocated a group with four other teams, and you must play a mini-league with them to decide who goes on to the quarters, and semi-finals. Each of your players has a fitness rating (which tends to drop with each game) and a skill rating. This can be improved for specific players by spending money on them. However the levels might not rise, or might even drop owing to over-training. So it's always wisest not to bother with this at all.

The game is played in speeded-up time, with a basic commentary scrolling up the screen. Goal times and scorers are printed as they occur, so if it's a close match, things get more and more tense as the final whistle approaches.

An added feature is the ability to place bets on the teams. It is really rather hit and miss, but at the beginning of the game your team is not worth betting on, so you may as well bet on the opposition. Just don't get caught doing this in real life (especially if you live in Swindon!).

Cup Football has more features than many management sims, but doesn't have a really polished feel. It works OK, but the games themselves take a little too long to play, and there is no way of speeding things up. There is also a tele-printer feature, which churns out results like the one seen on Grandstand. It, as you will know if you've ever sat watching Grandstand waiting for Noel Edmonds' Saturday Roadshow, is not very fast either. This effort apart, there are no graphics (or sound).

Win through to the next round.

Graphics 0%
N. Only the vidi-printer (and that isn't graphics, really).
N. The character set hasn't even been redesigned.

Sonics 0%
N. Nope. Not a sausage.

Grab Factor 42%
P. Playing in Europe is still a novelty!

Staying Power 39%
P. Nothing really new here though.

Overall 40%
P. Standard sim with commentary and vidi-printer.