About six months have passed since I last touched Football Manager 26.
When the first game of the new FM era launched, it was a bug-ridden disaster that looked like the debut project of a single coder in their bedroom, rather than the latest chapter of a Triple-A studio’s 34-year dynasty. Unsurprisingly, I’ve been focussing on other games during this cycle.
But now, for the first time in ages, there’s a sign of hope for FM26. A big new update came out last week – bringing with it international management, and a bespoke [wink] World Cup game mode. So I reinstalled the demo to see if this game deserves another chance at glory… or if it should be left in the departure lounge like Phil Foden.
THE WAIT
Back in October 2025, Sports Interactive signed a multi-year partnership with FIFA – securing official licences for all FIFA competitions, including the upcoming men’s World Cup in North America. SI subsequently announced in December that international management – which had not been included on FM26 – would eventually return as part of a free update:
“Following the completion of the FIFA World Cup 2026™ Qualifiers at the end of March, an improved International Management module will follow thereafter in a free update, with the remaining official tournament assets likely coming later following the release of final tournament kits. Our normal Winter Transfer updates (Feb & Mar) will dovetail with the above updates, with exact dates to be confirmed in due course.”
Naturally, the FM community waited patiently for this shiny new international management mode to be introduced when it was ready.
Ha ha. No, they didn’t. As soon as the final World Cup qualifiers were completed on 31 March, and there was no word about this new international management mode, people started to freak out. The SI community forums were bombarded with users asking, “Where’s my World Cup update?”
Then April came and went. Still no word from SI. At this point, there was serious anger bubbling across the community, with some users even speculating that the World Cup update had been cancelled.
Personally, I saw no reason to panic. There were still a few weeks to go until the tournament kicked off, which meant SI still had time to fine-tune their new ‘module’. Besides, they’ve always been a company who won’t announce or release something until they’re absolutely ready.
Then again… isn’t that a major problem with SI? For all their promises over the years that they will become more open and transparent with the community, SI have a habit of clamming up and telling the fanbase nothing for weeks – or even months – at a time. We’re not expecting them to produce a constant stream of Paradox-style ‘dev diaries’, but it often feels like they’re more secretive than the Freemasons!
Even when SI do break the silence, it’s almost always broken by one man – Miles Jacobson, the Studio Director, who has run the show for over 20 years now. That was exactly what he did on 11 May… only that his statement served to ask more questions than they answered.
THE STATEMENT
Jacobson’s statement starts with the news that ‘International Management’ would return to FM26 as a free content on 26 May – about two-and-a-half weeks before the World Cup kicks off, which sounds reasonable enough. Then you read through the rest of the statement.
Jacobson went on to say that the initial World Cup update would include “additional branding, broadcast graphics, licensed kits* and the World Cup match ball”. There would then be another update later in June to include all the official World Cup squads and “finalise licensed assets*”.
Hold on a minute, Miles. What’s the deal with those asterisks?
Having all the World Cup branding is one thing, but SI would also need licences from all the competing FAs to have their kits and teams represented in the game. A subsequent statement revealed that only 47 of the 48 qualified teams would be manageable in the World Cup mode.
Though SI had secured the Germany national team licence (after many years of trying), they didn’t have the same luck with the Japanese Football Federation. That means you can’t manage Japan in the World Cup, and their squad will be full of greyed-out players (unless you use a workaround).
So licencing was a stumbling block, but Jacobson’s statement also set out to “manage expectations” further. He admitted that “the full revamp will not be realised at launch and will instead be developed further over time”.
Then he finally addressed the elephant in the room – FM26’s almost universally negative reception from players and reviewers alike. What followed was one of the clumsiest and least sincere ‘apologies’ I have read from any video game developer. Here are just some of the highlights:
“We wanted to build something that was ultimately platform agnostic, enabling smoother implementation for our teams across our various products. Instead, this shift was ultimately detrimental to some of your experiences.”
SOME of your experiences? Even after several months and several updates, FM26 still has only a 36% positive rating among English-language reviewers on Steam. I’d imagine more than “some” of us have had problems trying to play a PC game that was clearly designed with console in mind.
“Since launch we have worked hard to try and rectify or remedy issues as best as we can. Direct responses to your feedback include the redesigning of certain game screens, as well as the reintroduction of some features and functionality. Doing this on an active game wouldn’t have been possible without moving to Unity.”
So we should be grateful that you’re now using Unity, eh? How reassuring.
“That said, we know that what we released has failed to meet the expectations of many. This was the first instalment of a new era and our first release in two years.”
Excuses, excuses. As far as I can tell, given that so many long-standing issues are still present on FM26, this “first instalment of a new era” just feels like a continuation of the old one – only with a prettier graphics engine and an uglier user experience.
“We know how excited and enthusiastic you were, and so to have come below expectations for some is extremely disappointing. You expect nothing less than excellence from Football Manager, and that’s what the brand stands for. But, despite all the updates thus far, we haven’t got to that level.”
What is “gaslighting”? The Collins English Dictionary defines “gaslighting” as… no, of course you all know what it is. Like an abusive domestic partner, Miles is using carefully-crafted language to minimise our genuine feelings and make us feel like we’re being hysterical.
“This is something I take full responsibility for.”
This is something Jacobson has said quite a lot in the last few years – particularly during or around the FM25 debacle. He says it right here… and here… and also here. After all these broken promises from SI – in terms of greater transparency, accepting pre-orders for four months for a game which would never be playable, and that Football Manager 2024 would be the “most complete version” yet – how can anyone take anything Jacobson says seriously?
Miles is a passionate Watford fan, so I’m sure he’ll appreciate his bosses at SEGA have been more patient with him than the Pozzo family are with their head coaches. Unfortunately, many of us customers have grown tired of his excuses, and his often antagonistic attitude towards anyone who is even slightly critical of the game.
Even when SI and Jacobson have taken criticism on board and brought back popular features that were initially missing from FM26, they often call them ‘legacy’ features in a very begrudging way. Here is a 54-year-old man, coming across like a 14-year-old boy who’s being badgered by his mum to clean up his bedroom.
If Jacobson genuinely took “full responsibility” for FM25’s and FM26’s failures, he would action that “succession plan” he spoke about to WorkTheSpace last year. He would set out a timetable for the handover to a younger, less out-of-touch studio director who’s more open to critique – and then gracefully retire while he has at least some of his reputation intact.
That may sound very harsh on a decent, talented man who does feel obvious pride and joy about his life’s work (and rightly so). But after over two decades as SI’s studio director – and their ‘de facto’ head of public relations – he also has the air of an unpopular dictator desperately trying to cling onto power while the populace is rising up in arms.
INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Anyway, as promised, FM26’s first World Cup update dropped on 26 May. SI actually met a deadline, for once!
Despite people’s fears that international management would be reduced to a single standalone World Cup mode, that’s not the case at all. You can now manage any national team you want (except Japan, of course) on new or existing teams – and women’s national sides have finally become manageable for the first time.
So… what’s new with international management on FM26? Well… not a lot, in all honesty.
The new match graphics are nice, I suppose. It’s cool enough to see the snazzy new broadcast graphics, and the official kits, the Adidas Trionda match ball, and even the World Cup trophy itself also look great. The pre-match cutscene is also good to watch at first – at least until you realise that it’s essentially the same for every international match, whether it’s the World Cup Final or a pointless qualifier in Albania.
The National Shortlist now serves more of a purpose – showing a player’s recent club form, as well as their expectations in terms of being selected (Harry Kane would expect to be in every England squad; Danny Welbeck probably wouldn’t). You can also select a provisional squad of up to 55 players, which you will then whittle down to 26 before the World Cup itself.
You can also set scouting focuses, which will help you find dual nationality players who might be persuaded to commit to your nation. This is especially useful if you manage a national team that doesn’t have much homegrown talent, such as Gibraltar or Northern Ireland.
Training has received at least a little more attention, even if it feels half-hearted. You can select a couple of tactical and set-piece focuses before each game, but that’s all.
You also can’t rest specific players from training… but perhaps you don’t need to, as player condition now recovers a bit quicker between international matches. Never again will you have to rotate almost your entire squad from one World Cup game to the next.
I honestly expected a bit more – certainly in terms of immersion, training and squad-building. Back in 2022, I wrote about Football Manager 2013 having plenty of international player interaction options. You could praise or criticise their international or club performances, you could warn them that they need to play more club football, and you could even tell them that they’re being phased out of the squad. These interactions were removed a few years later without explanation – and they STILL haven’t been brought back!
When SI stated back in 2024 that international management would not initially be included in the next FM, they said would eventually return “in a much more feature-rich way”. The World Cup may look better than ever on FM26, but the module itself isn’t even better than it was on FM13.
This – I’m afraid – is simply not good enough.
I’M DONE WITH FM (& FM’S DONE WITH ME)
Even after playing a few international matches with England on the FM26 demo, I still have no reason to buy the full game and give it a proper go.
While I can’t deny FM26 is in a better state than it was on launch, it’s not improved anywhere near enough in my opinion. Aside from all the heinous scroll bars and ellipses that litter the UI, the game itself is still a tedious clickfest – making you jump through hoops to find screens that were more accessible on previous FMs. It’s still obvious that the UI was (at least partly) outsourced to a third-party developer which has never worked on a sports simulation game before.
Of course, a lot of features from previous games (e.g. cup draws, Deadline Day) are still missing. Developers and forum mods will insist they haven’t been ‘removed’; they just haven’t been recreated in Unity yet. I’m sure there’s an equally reasonable explanation why The Sims 4 on release was far less feature-complete than The Sims 3. At least SI won’t consider selling cup draws as DLC… for now.
Dare I even mention the match engine? Players still pay little attention to what’s around them and regularly ignore even the most basic passes. Full-backs still have no idea how to deal with wingers unless you specifically take their marking, pressing and tackling instructions to the max.
The ‘much-improved’ graphics engine also leave plenty to be desired. In terms of FM26’s player faces, everyone looks like a waxwork of Cole Palmer – only in six different skin tones, and not many more different hairstyles. Some colours are hideously washed out as well. When my England team played in Albania, I saw more people wearing pink than I would at a typical Barbie convention.
Even after over six months’ worth of patches (albeit with decreasing regularity and impact), FM26 will still go down as perhaps THE worst version in the franchise’s history. It’s no wonder many players have flocked back to FM24 or even later versions – if indeed they’re still playing FM at all.
Since my last FM26 post, I’ve returned to FM24 for a new Fairer World Cup project, which is now almost complete. I did briefly consider resurrecting my Nacka FC series – before remembering all the reasons why I stopped actively playing FM24 in the first place. I really don’t need to go through that frustration all over again.
Instead, I’ve gone back to Championship Manager 00/01, where I’m now six seasons into an enjoyable career with Millwall. Having started out in the old Division 2, we’re now an established Premier League team pushing for Champions League qualification. We’ve even reached a couple of FA Cup Finals – beating Liverpool in 2004, before narrowly losing to Arsenal the following year.
Championship Manager still has its quirks and annoyances, sure. It’s nowhere near as in-depth as FM, it’s much harder to shift players you don’t need anymore, and ‘super keepers’ are even more common than on the newer games.
Yet I’m not missing FM at all. I don’t miss seeing world-class players regularly making brain-dead decisions that would embarrass a Sunday League manager. I don’t miss the borked dynamics that can destroy your entire save if you upset just one backup player. Most of all, I don’t miss the stress that comes with playing a game as intense and all-encompassing as Football Manager.
For the first time since 2016, I have a Championship or Football Manager save that I’m playing purely for my own enjoyment – not for a blog series, not for a forum story, not even for semi-regular social media updates. And I couldn’t be any happier.
TIME TO REBUILD
So what would it take to get me back on side for Football Manager 27?
I don’t expect SI to abandon the ’tiles’ approach to their UI after just one poorly-received game. The concept itself isn’t bad, but the execution certainly is. To use just one example, if I open up a message in my Portal, the entire message should be visible straight away, instead of being hidden away behind another click. Not everything in the game has to be a tile or a pop-up!
I also expect FM27 to feel a lot more like a new game – not just a continuation of FM24 on a different engine. That’s the impression I get with FM26, given just how many long-running bugs and annoyances have survived the transition to Unity.
It seems that parts of FM26 are held together with ancient spaghetti code that dates back to Football Manager 2005, if not even further back. Take, for example, my discovery that match sounds are linked to the text commentary – not the match highlights. If you’re wondering why crowd reactions are inconsistent, or why referees blow their whistles multiple times after every foul, there’s your answer.
Another thing I really hate about modern FM is that – in almost every situation where an important decision has to be made – reputation trumps everything:
- Players will turn down regular Championship football to sit on the bench in League One because of reputation.
- A 40-goal-a-season striker will be overlooked for their national team because of reputation.
- Teams will favour 38-year-old players way past their prime and leave promising youngsters to rot in the Under-23s because of reputation.
- Managers will leave an overperforming Premier League team to manage a club that’s just been relegated because of reputation.
SI need to sever the cords that have held their game back for so long… and not just in the software itself.
“For heaven’s sake, Morgan! DO SOMETHING!”
Look… I’m not going to pussyfoot it anymore. The company needs a major, radical change of direction – and perhaps also a change of leadership.
The same people who ran the company in 2006 are still running it in 2026. That familiarity has bred contempt, detachment from the userbase… and, indeed, complacency.
FM26 hasn’t failed because of the transition to Unity, but because of how it’s been handled. It’s been botched by leaders – at SI, and to some extent at SEGA as well – who have grossly underestimated the time and expertise such a move would need. In addition, their attempts to appeal to a younger, mobile-friendly audience have come across like Steve Buscemi on “30 Rock”, and they’ve alienated a lot of their older, more loyal players as a consequence.
I would never advocate for people to lose their careers over a silly little video game, and I condemn anyone who wishes to harass them out of a job. But after years of excuses and failures, I believe that certain people at SI need to stop talking responsibility – and actually start taking responsibility.
The past two years or so have done major damage to the Sports Interactive brand. For many people, myself included, Football Manager 27 might be their very last chance to save what’s left.
Fuller FM 