You will be able to play random people. Thank goodness.
That was one of my favorite gamecube games so I'm very excited about this. You can played Ranked games with random people, either 1 on 1 or 2 on 2, but the 2 on 2 has to be a "guest" on the same Wii you are playing on. In other words, only 2 Wiis will connect to each other on the internet. That's disappointing and no doubt will be changed like next year with a new version (ugh). 4 human players against the computer was the most fun mode in the first game.
Another problem is team games only count for one Mii per team, so if you want to keep track of your stats as a Guest you'll have to share a new Mii specifically for your team. I'd rather have one Mii and maybe seperate stats for team games if anything.
But, hey, ranked games online are cool. Online games at all on a Nintendo system is overdue.
Friend codes will allow you to play quickly with people you add to your friends list, which unfortunately is unique to every game and seperate from your Wii friends list. These games will be unranked, so every ranked game is random.
There is a "Striker of the Day" every single day and whoever has the most points that day is shown to everyone upon starting the game or something. That's kinda cool, and I can imagine people trying to play at midnight in order to become the striker of the day for at least a little bit.
They added more characters, of course, and doubled the size of the sidekicks who can now be mixed on the same team and have individual abilities (as do the captains). You can find out some specifics on the video linked above, but the only announced new captain is Bowser (previously messed up the game, heh). 4 new captains in all. Oh, the maps are crazier and have special effects and change the ball speed and stuff. Anyway, watch the video.
I'd like to revise my hate of the friend codes: 1. Need a universal name, not a code, that can be used for every game, not just individual ones, like Live and PSN already do. 2. I think #1 just about would solve all of my complaints. Having a seperate code for every game that is also seperate from your normal friends list for the Wii is not cool.
Oh, the game doesn't look much better than the gamecube version, but I hope it is even more fun. And, like I said, online gaming will be nice, finally.