In a nutshell, the options in this drop-down menu enable you to scoot around the world of Football Manager exploring the leagues, teams and competitions that are all ticking along.

Competitions
Exploring these options will give you a great idea of where the balance of power in the game lies, enabling you to see everything from World Cup qualifying groups, to the lowliest domestic competitions.

You can set your scouts to monitor all of these tournaments, leagues and territories in the hunt for potential signings too. If you select any of the tournaments on offer you'll be greeted with more or less the same options in the left-hand panel as you'll see on the league menu, however there are some additional options that may appear which require some explanation:

- Stages
For cup competitions, such as the World Cup, each Stage is represented here and can be cycled through using the Stages drop-down. Reviewing the stages is a great way of assessing the strength of your opponents, who may have faced easy opposition in their latest game, but may have brushed aside stiff opposition to qualify.

- Qualifiers
This lists the team who automatically qualify for a tournament as well as those who have won through to, for instance, the World Cup. If you are mulling over an international managerial job it's always worth seeing where the side stands in terms of qualification. If a team is already set to play in a major tournament, the chances of your personal glory and reputation being enhanced by success in each game will increase dramatically, thanks to the fact you'll be competing in higher profile matches.

- World Rankings
With points awarded for wins and tournament successes, the world rankings indicate how any national side sits in the global pecking order. Guiding your team to success against higher ranked opponents will not only raise your side in that pecking order, but it will help your own reputation.

When you assess a transfer target with international caps it pays to check out where the team stands in the rankings. It may not necessarily reflect on the quality of the player, but a manager should be wary of individuals representing lowly countries where it's far easier to play at international level.

- Co-efficients
This wall of numbers is merely an attempt by continental governing bodies to assess the quality of the sides in the tournaments they run. Each season every team in continental competition is awarded points based on their results and advancement in continental cups. The past four years' scores are totted up to a total that gives a ranking, used to decide how a team is seeded in the forthcoming year's competition.

The scores for all teams in each country are clubbed together to form a national picture which is used to allocate slots in continental competition, preventing weaker nations from having the same status as countries with many powerful domestic sides.

You can use these co-efficients to measure your side's success relative to your continental counterparts. Continental success, as denoted by these coefficients, will add to your club's reputation. It follows that a club with a stronger reputation will be able to attract better players.

- Seedings
Using the co-efficients, continental bodies seed clubs. These seedings are used to decide when a club is introduced into a competition and to avoid strong teams meeting in early rounds.

Teams
The second group of menus on the World option basically enables you to explore the Football Manager universe geographically.

- The Nations option enables you to look at global and continental groups of national and club sides, using the panel on the left of your screen to examine awards and transfers in the region on which you're focusing. The Major Clubs and national clubs are simply sub-sets of this.

Use these screens to simply learn about the sides and nations that make up the football family, or to root out corners of the football globe your prying scouts may have never examined. It may be significantly more laborious than using traditional player search techniques, but scouring these pages could lead to you unearthing the next Wayne Rooney.

Transfers
Lists all of world football's transfers.

Managers
Presents a list of all managers which can be sorted in many ways using the 'Views' drop-down and the 'Show Filters' button.

Global Finance Summary
The Global Finance Summary page allows you to take a peak at the world's most affluent clubs. If your club begins to climb up the rankings, it's likely your chairman is going to be a happy man (unless your form on the pitch is suffering thanks to your financial acumen). Clubs are ranked in a number of financial categories, all available from the 'Views' drop-down (but only for the nation you are managing in).

World Awards
The World Awards are the best of the best, honouring the top footballers from the last twelve months of football. Check this screen for the current defending Player and World Footballer of the Year and check previous years for historical 1-2-3's.