I’m reviewing another retro football management game today on Fuller FM… and it’s time to wrap up a ‘mini-series’ that has been three years in the making!

Back in May 2021, I reviewed a bunch of games in the FIFA Manager series that was published and developed by Electronic Arts. I continued the retrospective with another review a year later. Since then, I’ve been looking to finish it off by playing one of the final games in the series.

And now that time has come. We’re going back to the 2012/2013 season – when Robin van Persie was about to deliver one more Premier League title for a retiring Sir Alex Ferguson, and when Liverpool were in the full throes of their ‘banter years’.

So here it is. It’s the final chapter of ‘EA MAY’ – my retro review of FIFA Manager 13.

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BACKGROUND

Starting from 1997, EA Sports released an annual series of football management games that was a genuine rival to Sports Interactive’s series. Though FIFA Soccer Manager got the series off to a rocky start, it gained some momentum with FA Premier League Football Manager at the turn of the millennium – and then peaked (in my opinion, anyway) with Total Club Manager in the mid-2000s.

The series rebranded again as FIFA Manager in 2005, and continued for almost a decade after their predominantly German developers left EA’s Vancouver studios and went back home. By 2012, though, the franchise was on its last legs – with EA about to finally concede defeat to SI.

FIFA Manager 13 was not much of a commercial or critical success, and its successor – FIFA Manager 14 – was as close as one could get to a glorified season update. The series was finally cancelled in November 2013, with lead developer Gerald Köhler explaining:

“The football manager genre at this level of sophistication is highly specialised and primarily played in two countries [England and Germany], in which – on top of everything – one game has practically dominated the market in recent years.

“The niche market and general trend toward online and mobile games were also contributing factors. Moreover, FIFA Manager had reached a crossroads at which a new engine and/or corresponding online technology would be the only way to give the series a boost. When all these factors were evaluated, it led us to the decision to blow the final whistle.”

Köhler went on to form a new studio – Winning Streak Games – in 2018. They now develop We Are Football, which you could say is a spiritual successor to FIFA Manager. You can find my reviews for the original 2021 game and the 2024 sequel in the links provided.

Having reviewed four previous titles in EA’s series, I spent a couple of years looking for a legal copy of either FIFA Manager 13 or 14. Unfortunately, CD keys for outdated games that need to be activated online are ludicrously expensive – but I finally got hold of a FIFAM 13 code on Eneba for about £32. That was just before Christmas… 2022.

Full disclosure: I played quite a bit of FIFAM 13 last spring. However, I was hesitant to write a Retro Review for a game that isn’t readily available – either through buying a second-hand copy for a reasonable price, or downloading it for free on some abandonware website. I would also rather not endorse pirating a video game from a developer or publisher that is still in business – even if it is EA.

But since I’ve been promising to do this review for a while, and since I’ll be moving house very soon, I think now’s the time to tie up this loose end and get it out of the way. So, at LONG last, it’s time to look at FIFA Manager 13…

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STARTING OUT

If you’ve previously played FIFA Manager 07 (or even if you’ve only read my review), a lot of this will sound familiar. The same basic game modes are there – you can start at a random club, create a brand new club in the regional leagues, or just select any team of your choice. You’ll also have the option of choosing which division your club starts in.

Other pre-game options allow you to disable the first transfer window or turn off sackings (so you can stay in your job even if you get Manchester City relegated). You can also start off as the owner of your club, which means you won’t have to worry about impatient or meddling chairpersons. The downside is that you can’t sell or leave the club for at least five years.

In theory, you can select leagues in up to 79 playable nations… but in practice, FIFAM 13 will only recommend loading around 10 – even on powerful modern PCs like mine. It would even outright refuse to start a new game if I’d selected 25+ leagues because they would “exceed [my] computer’s memory”. My system has 32 GB of RAM, by the way.

Most screens on FIFAM 13 look fairly similar to how they were on FIFAM 07 – just with different fonts and minor facelifts. I liked the presentation of the earlier game, and the updated look gets my seal of approval too.

As with FIFAM 07, you have multiple options when it comes to viewing matches. You can quickly whizz through the action via ‘Instant Result’ or ‘Videotext Mode’, follow the action play-by-play in ‘Text Mode’, or you can watch the whole game in 3D.

I personally wouldn’t recommend ‘3D Mode’. The FIFA-esque graphics are okay, but the game had a habit of crashing on the few occasions when I tried to play a match in 3D (I’m afraid stability is a general issue with this game). Also, Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend are on commentary duties.

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WHAT I LIKED

On the flip side, I really do like ‘Text Mode’, which does a good job of building up tension when it steadily pieces together each highlight. I also enjoy the pop-ups that appear on certain key moments. There are occasional moments of comic relief, such as when the referee kicked off the match too early, or when a fan’s half-time marriage proposal ended in disaster.

Following the match in ‘Text Mode’ also allows you to make tactical changes with relative ease, and to inspire or fire up your players with mid-game shouts. Just remember that making too many shouts in a short space of time will anger the referee – and possibly lead to you being ejected from the match!

There are loads of tactical options at your disposal, allowing you to make your tactics either as simple or as sophisticated as you want. Among other things, you can select how much determination your charges play with, how short or direct their passes are, and even how high or low they should cross the ball.

You can give speeches to your players before matches and at half-time. Riskier speeches can fire your team up to get a result – but if you still lose, their trust in you will suffer. This is also the first football management team I’ve ever played where you can give a player a half-time massage to boost their energy levels! Football Masseur 2013, anyone?

Outside of matches, some tasks might be daunting and time-consuming, but you can delegate pretty much anything to other staff members. For example, I allowed my assistant to take charge of training, which turned out surprisingly well. Even with his intense training regimes, my players were pretty much always physically fit and tactically sharp throughout the season.

One of FIFAM 13’s wackier features is the end-of-season quiz, based on the hit TV show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”. You’ll be asked up to 15 questions testing your knowledge of your game world – with the prizes being money and popularity. If you don’t fancy being grilled by a virtual Chris Tarrant, you can always disable this.

Perhaps you’ll be more interested in the squad planner? Even more than a decade on, this works so much better than the clunky and bug-ridden squad planners you’ll find on FM. It’s certainly easier to add future signings, youth players and returning loanees to your squad, so you can see exactly what you need for next season.

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WHAT I DIDN’T

FIFA Manager can be a time sink, and you’ll need to put in the effort to get the most out of it. For instance, you are expected to hold regular conversations with your players to keep team spirits high. I actually don’t mind this – but if you just want to focus on tactics and training, I’m afraid FIFAM 13 won’t let you off lightly for ignoring the man-management side of things.

On that note, the team dynamics and hierarchy screens were new additions to the FIFA Manager series (indeed, they wouldn’t appear on Football Manager for another five years). While it can be useful to see if your team leaders are readily accepted by their colleagues, or if certain players have clashing personalities, these screens can also be overwhelming.

Also, the inbox doesn’t half get clogged up with pointless messages. I don’t really need to know that Portsmouth now have exactly 39 more supporters than us, and I’d rather not be updated every single time a youth player completes a training objective.

I’m bordering on nit-picking now, but FIFAM 13 has a habit of forgetting which tasks you have assigned to your staff members. If you delegate merchandise to a specialist staff member but then make one small change, the game will pass all merch responsibilities on to you. (Then you’ll inevitably forget, and a few months down the line, someone will wonder why the club shop is empty!)

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WE MUST TALK ABOUT…

Youth development. This has always been my favourite part of EA’s football management series, so it’s about time I talked about it in a bit more detail.

FIFAM 07 went to the extreme, allowing you to follow your youth teams from Under-12s and upwards. FIFAM 13 only goes as far down as the Under-16s, but this makes the game run more smoothly. Your youngest players will be 14 years old, and you’ll be able to offer them professional contracts as soon as they turn 16.

Here, the star ratings give you a good idea of which youngsters are destined for big things, and which ones will only be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley. You can ask senior players to mentor your hottest prospects and help them improve their weakest areas.

And yes, you can even build youth camps overseas to help you uncover more exciting talents. Countries with deeper talent pools will be more expensive, so building a youth camp in Brazil will be costlier than building one in Moldova. If you really do want to find the next Ion Testemițanu, then go ahead!

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SUMMARY

Three years ago, I said that Total Club Manager 2005 was the best title in this particular series… but having now played FIFA Manager 13, I’m tempted to change my mind. Looking past the steep learning curve and the technical issues, I see a strong and captivating game that (in my view) ended the franchise on a somewhat positive note.

So yeah, if you haven’t tried FIFAM 13 yet, I would recommend giving it a go – even more so if it was more readily available. But please don’t spend hundreds of pounds on any questionable websites just to get one of those few remaining CD keys.

FULLER FM RATING: 3.5* – Premier League.

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Those were my thoughts on FIFA Manager 13. Feel free to share yours in the comments below, or by tweeting me @Fuller_FM.

You might be pleased to know that there is a huge unofficial 2023/2024 season patch created by the FIFA Manager community, which adds updated season data to FIFAM 13 (and 14) and also fixes various bugs and crashes. In fact, it basically overhauls the entire game to make it feel brand new.

I would love to talk about the FIFA Manager 24 mod in more detail on Fuller FM – once I’ve sorted out this house move stuff and things have settled back down. Watch this space, folks.