Hello, guys. Christopher here. This is not a post I wanted to write, but in light of recent events, there are some things I have to get off my chest.
I want to talk about feeling burnt out – both with playing Football Manager, and with creating content about Football Manager. But first, it’s time to answer a question I’m sure a few of you will be asking… Continue reading “Football Manager (And Content Creation) Burnout” →
I once had a Western Digital hard drive sitting on the shelf above my desk. This came from the old Fuller family computer – a 1999 Viglen, on which I would spend a lot of time playing Championship Manager during my youth. When the Viglen died in 2010, I kept the hard drive.
A few years later, I tried to recover the data from the drive myself, only to be met by a load of lovely clicking sounds (not a good sign). Defeated, I reluctantly put it back on the shelf, where it gathered dust for the best part of a decade.
Earlier this year, I finally sent the drive off to a professional data recovery service. After waiting several months for them to find the right replacement parts, I was delighted when they brought my data back to life with a complete recovery! My old CM saves live on!
Anyway, while going through my CM archive and reliving my teenage memories, I stumbled across one particular save file from Championship Manager 00/01. This was a save file where all the real-life players were replaced with fake versions of themselves – goodbye Alessandro Del Piero, hello Federico Longo.
And this took me down a rabbit hole, into Championship Manager (and Football Manager)’s fiction factory… Continue reading “Fake Players in Football Manager” →
It’s fair to say that, for some people, Football Manager 2023 has not lived up to expectations.
Despite record sales, FM23 received plenty of criticism over its lack of exciting new features, and Sports Interactive’s apparent reluctance to fix some long-standing bugs. Long-time players, including myself, have begun to wonder if the series is stagnating.
But good news is on the way! Last week, SI put out a lengthy blog post in which studio director Miles Jacobson discussed “The Future of Football Manager”. This development update gives us some exciting details about Football Manager 2024, which will be released later this year… and even gives us a taste of what we can expect in Football Manager 2025!
So, what do the next 18 months have in store for us FMers? Continue reading “Looking Ahead To Football Manager 2024 (And 2025)” →
In Football Manager 2021 – and in most previous FMs – many people complained about older players’ attributes declining too quickly. Once a player turned 32, their physical attributes would fall so fast that they’d be almost worthless by their 35th birthday.
This isn’t always the case in real-life, as better nutrition and advances in sports science are allowing elite footballers to keep playing into their late-30s and beyond. Cristiano Ronaldo is scoring Premier League hat-tricks at 37. Zlatan Ibrahimović was capped by Sweden at 40. Gianluigi Buffon was shutting out Lionel Messi in the Champions League at 42.
FM22 reflects this a lot better. Players now decline more slowly, especially those with high Natural Fitness and Professionalism. Anyone lacking in those departments will still struggle to continue past their mid-30s, but it’s now quite common for super-athletes like Romelu Lukaku and Thomas Müller to play top-flight football until they’re pushing 40.
At the other end of the scale, on FM21, young players could develop so quickly that they could easily peak at 21 or 22. This has been significantly slowed down on FM22, and so a top prospect generally won’t realise their full potential until they’re around 25 to 29. Much more realistic, right?
However, some FMers believe that these changes have gone too far the other way. There’ve been reports that too many top players stay at the top for too long – and that young talents struggle to even break into an elite club or national team, let alone become a regular starter.
Are the changes to player development working as intended, or are these concerns justified? Is it too hard for youngsters to break through on FM22? Let’s investigate… Continue reading “FM22: The Age-Old Problem” →
Let’s talk about international management in Football Manager.
Club football might be the bread and butter of our sport, but there is nothing quite like the international game. Representing your country is always a high point in a player’s career, and winning the World Cup can lift an elite player to legendary status – like Pelé, Diego Maradona, or Bernard Diomède. For a manager, becoming a World or continental champion can make them a national hero.
Why, then, does international management feel so dull in FM? Managing a national team in the game is so bare-bones and tedious that it’s difficult to stay interested in it for long – and even winning a World Cup feels much more hollow than it should.
Just before the release of FM22, Guido from Strikerless went on “a bit of a rant” about FM’s take on international football, and what he would do to improve it. As we head into another international break, I feel it’s now time to share my thoughts and ideas – using some of Guido’s suggestions, and some others from the wider FM community. Continue reading “Improving international management on Football Manager” →
Let’s talk about retro databases in Football Manager.
When we discuss which features we most want to see added to FM in the future, one of THE most popular requests is for Sports Interactive to add official historic databases.
The ability to manage a football team at any point in history – or even just during a specific time period – is something that appeals to many FMers. I’m sure some of you would like to go back to the 1970s or 1980s, or perhaps to the start of the Premier League era in 1992. Even the 2000s hold plenty of nostalgia for those of us who grew up at the turn of the millennium.
Unfortunately, despite numerous requests over the years (and indeed decades), it seems that SI won’t allow us to manage in the distant past for the foreseeable future. There are just too many legal and technical issues that stop this feature from being a viable addition.
In this post, I will try to explain why adding historic databases to FM is an awesome idea… but also an impractical one. Continue reading “Retro databases in Football Manager: Awesome, but impractical?” →
Let’s talk about newgen faces in Football Manager.
It seems like with every passing FM, there’s a fierce debate about the 3D faces that are assigned to youth intake players. Some people in the FM community hate them; others just tolerate them.
Having played this series for over 20 years, I consider myself an FM historian who loves to look back and see how the game has progressed over the years. I’ve gone through every version from Football Manager 2015 up until the newly-released Football Manager 2022, tracking the evolution of FM’s newgen faces. I’ve also provided some thoughts on how (and where) these faces could be improved for future games… Continue reading “The story of Football Manager’s newgen faces” →
As many of you may well be aware, Sports Interactive announced last week that they have begun work on introducing women’s football into Football Manager in the future.
Studio director Miles Jacobson has set out SI’s roadmap for incorporating women’s competitions into FM, explaining the sheer amount of detail that will go into making the experience as in-depth and realistic as possible.
This process will take time, and we’ve been told that women’s football WILL NOT be included on Football Manager 2022. The plan is for it to be introduced in a future FM, either on release or as free mid-season DLC – but not as a standalone game.
Women’s football is consistently one of the most requested new features FMers have asked for. The announcement of its future arrival was met with widespread praise… but also with some loud opposition.
I’ve had some time to take in this news and collect all my thoughts. So here’s what I have to say about these exciting new developments… Continue reading “Women’s football – coming soon to Football Manager” →
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