It almost feels like a pre-game show for the 2010 World Cup — once again, here’s a soccer-themed Facebook application. This time it comes from Fantasy Moguls, and in conjunction with CBS Sports.com, they have recently created their newest title, Galacticos South Africa.

The game itself is your typical team management sort of app. In fact, it’s very similar to Moguls’ existing soccer title, Galacticos Football, but with a new theme. With the older app earning north of 375,000 monthly active users and the current one now nearing 140,000, this looks like a case of the developer, and CBS, not fixing what isn’t broken.

Both games take a simpler, more text-based-role-playing approach, versus more complex soccer management titles like EA’s FIFA Superstars; both take a lot of the detailed management aspects that many Facebook sports managers have and compresses them into two numbers: Player rating and formation.

Galacticos South Africa is easy enough to get started. Players jump in and are immediately prompted to represent a World Cup team (which can be reset at any time). There isn’t much in the way of customization, beyond changing your name, but it’s all well and good, and considering the app is virtually all text-based, there isn’t much to alter anyway.

Once the team has been assembled, players can jump right into their first match against other players. Everything is fully automated and takes only a few seconds to complete until the victor is declared. It’s nothing terribly extravagant, and once the game is finished, users earn a small amount of income for buying new players and a virtual currency dubbed “GIFA points” (we’ll let you figure out that play on words).

As users play more matches, they will eventually begin to earn the opportunity to transfer out players in order to buy better ones. This is determined by their “player rating,” and this is further augmented by the formation you choose. For example, as the game explains it, if you choose a 3-4-4 (three forwards, four midfielders, and four defensemen) and your average forward player rating is 25 then your offensive rating will be 75.

Though it is not entirely clear, it appears that if your offensive rating is higher then your opponent’s defensive rating, then you are more likely to score a goal. Matches can also be affected by a home-field advantage, having your friends support you as fans, and other factors. Unfortunately, this is all pretty much invisible, so it’s hard to say just how much or how often the affect occurs.

As far as other social elements go, beyond playing ranked matches with other global users, it is possible to play training matches against your friends (and they don’t even have to play). Like in Galacticos Football, matches you play against random people are limited to 16 a day. However, playing up to eight training matches will recharge your limit one point per game. Moreover, if you do get your friends to play, you can also challenge them to a limited number (also eight) matches a day as well. Beyond these methods, the only other way to get more games is to use the GIFA virtual currency to buy more (as a side note, you can also use it to improve your players).

There is one very cool way to earn GIFA, beyond normal matches, that feels at least slightly different from Fantasy Moguls’ original Galacticos, and that is defeating “World Teams.” Truthfully, it is nothing more than an achievements section, but the various groupings of World Cup teams can be “defeated” by winning matches against users that represent those teams X amount of times. It isn’t much, but it does add a small sense of progression beyond mere number crunching of player ratings.

Frankly, the biggest complaint to be had for Galacticos South Africa is that it feels almost exactly the same as the older Galacticos Football. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, Zynga did well by remaking the same RPG a dozen times with new artwork. Moreover, the fact that the app is called “South Africa,” is a clear indication that Fantasy Moguls and CBS Sports are deliberately trying to boost some numbers off of the World Cup itself. Despite what anyone thinks about the game play, it’s a still a smart move, and considering the number of monthly active users both Galacticos titles have, it’s one that is obviously working.