Football, as the most popular sport in the world, has always had a prominent place in the world of games, with Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA being its heyday. However, in the midst of this market dispute between EA and Konami, there has always been a virtual “third way” for fans of the Breton sport: Football Manager.
If PES and FIFA put you directly in control of big stars, Football Manager focuses on team management in the pursuit of glory. In FM, your role as manager and coach of the team is even more important than in other football games, as you take control of several elements that go beyond strategy: the main decisions of the club go through you, as well as who you delegate functions.
Developed by Sports Interactive and distributed by SEGA, the franchise was born in 1992, as Championship Manager. The first game with the current name was Football Manager 2005, released in 2004.
Over the years, the FM proposal has changed little, but its structure has always evolved. It is a game in which the player assumes the role of manager/coach/president of a football club. His mantras when taking over the FM team are “strategy, planning and management”. It’s as if PES or FIFA were transformed into an RPG game without losing its essence. Instead of direct control of the players, you decide the direction of the club, on and off the pitch, through actions and statistics.
The visuals and commands in FM are based on menus, information, data and news in order to keep the commander apart from everything that happens in the club. From roster formation to in-game lineup changes are the focus.
Once you enter the FM world, you are bombarded by screens and screens of data that require your decisions and movement in favor of a competitive team. Calendar, squad, information, competitions, statistics are displayed in a burst for you to make your decisions. In the newest version, Football Manager 2019, even has Video Assistant Referees, the famous VAR, and goal line chip to align the game with what is seen on real lawns.
When the matches themselves are played, when FM approaches PES and FIFA, it doesn’t have the same weight, let alone the quality of EA and Konami simulators. However, it is not the objective of FM to go head-to-head. The game serves to illustrate the result of your actions and decisions. Of course, it’s still incredibly important, because you see the game as a coach on the sidelines, giving instructions, changing tactics and making changes so that the team improves on the field.
DATA AND MORE DATA
What really catches the attention of those who enjoy Football Manager is its player database. Teams and athletes from different parts of the globe become pieces of an immense puzzle of information that the player “enters headfirst” to assemble his team.
At each game, there are around six people responsible for entering and maintaining data. Below them, 100 researchers, responsible for leagues and countries, command a set of other 1000 assistant researchers to collect data.
The database is stocked with this data from the real game so that Football Manager programming can recreate in all their glory major world leagues in the “little world” of each FM player. Thus, there is a pulsating virtual world around the league in which the player manages his team. Another element that benefits from this in-game information is the recreation of the seasons following 2019. The player can participate in the next seasons of 2025, 2037 and so on, according to the manipulation and projections that FM makes using the database.
The work done with this data is so well simulated that there are professional technicians who use FM for testing. Just as engineers use a wind tunnel to create a formula 1 car, technicians like Pepe Guardiola (Manchester City) use FM simulation to project changes to their team with accurate in-game data.
WITH HAND IN MASS
If the player doesn’t control his team’s athletes directly, what is our role in Football Manager? As stated above, we assume the position of coach and team manager. In the first role, everything related to the cast in action is part of our assignments, such as:
Training: make the team always ready to do well on the field. It is also the time to develop your youngest players, to transform promises into the next stars. There are three sessions a day and you have the chance to work in 10 different areas, such as finishing and marking.
Tactics: The fundamentals of your strategic thinking start here, but can be changed during matches. Here, the player/coach defines his strategy, specific roles for each player, defines starters and plays, analyzes the players’ condition, among other management tools.
Finances: An important part of the club, you should keep an eye on your budget. Once the “supply dries up” is the end of the road for your club. Pay attention when investing or when formulating proposals, so that your salary sheet does not end with your time at Football Manager.
Squad Building: As the club’s administrator, your role is to create a competitive squad, as long as it stays within budget. Through the FM database, you need to search for potential players in the “sea” of possibilities that the market offers. This work is done with the configuration of “scouts”, who monitor stats and offer players that fit their parameters.
Squad Management: Once the team is ready, you need to maintain it. You have to manage contracts, renewals, and buy and sell athletes. Market opportunities arise throughout the transfer windows and the market will also be keeping an eye on pieces from your squad.
SCOUT
We list some young players that can be developed and bring financial and technical return to your club. So, you can build your cast even without a lot of money at your disposal:
CURIOSITIES
By working with real data, Football Manager ended up becoming a phenomenon among football lovers, as it excels in many elements seen in real sport. Check out some fun facts about the game:
Source of information: during the “reign” of Football Manager 2015, the English team Everton officially used the game’s database to manage statistics on its players and the market in general.
Documented: Released in October 2010 by journalist Stephen Milnes, the documentary Football Manager: More Than Just A Game was released to talk about the game’s connection with reality.
Task Force: In 2016, Sports Interactive challenged Football Manager players to move the AFC Wimbledon from the 4th to the 1st division in England. In all, 92 answered the call and tried from the same file, the so-called save. Nobody left the 4th division.
Time traveler: In 2017, Englishman Seb Keenan entered the Guinness Book for having played the same save for more than 170 consecutive seasons. Throughout his career, he coached Real Madrid and Barcelona and won the Champions League with Huddersfield Town. With his favorite team, Oxford United, he rose from the fifth division to the Premier League and won six titles in England’s top division.
Pinçado in Brazil: Roberto Firmino, striker for Brazil and Liverpool, was hired by German Hoffenheim from Figueirense in 2011 through FM. According to Lutz Pfannenstiel, scout for Hoffenheim, in an interview, the player stood out for his numbers in the game’s database.
Football Manager 2019, the newest game in the franchise, has versions for Windows, Linux and Mac. The game can be purchased at this link.
