Yet some people will claim that gameplay is the only important thing because the background stuff don't matter only the gameplay on the pitch. Franchise/Career modes have been on the decline since FIFA introduced Ultimate Team and everyone has followed their lead.
It's quite clear this is now the most important mode in sports games replacing the franchise modes that were the focus in the pre-PS3/X360 generations. PES has a fundamentally broken career mode (like the above examples clearly show), gameplay can be the best thing ever but a career mode is only worth it, if the background stuff holds up as well. If not, you might as well just play exhibition games...
By the way FIFA career mode is better but is also broken imo, with crazy schedules in the 2nd half of the season i.e. 4 games in a week if you have European competitions and Cup ties to play, transactions are better but still don't make sense a lot of the times (why would United buy Lloris if they have DeGea?)
I do like playing my Master League team against my mates Master League team. But find it much more fun playing against each others MyClub teams now as it feels like you've earned that team a bit more, no shortcuts (unless you pay for it!).