For over two decades, Sports Interactive have been a dominant force in themanagement sim genre. The London based developer first found success with the critically acclaimedChampionship Managerseries, before continuing their momentum with the increasingly popularFootball Managerfranchise aftertheir relationship with Eidos interactive broke down. Nowpublished by Sega, Sports Interactive’s sports simulator has gone from strength to strength, with many players jumping ship from Electronic Arts’FIFAseries due to continued disappointment over the lack of single-player improvements.
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The consistent growth of theFootball Managerseries has taken the franchise out of its niche and into themainstream of sporting titles.Despite this, the franchise has maintained its sense of community that was prominent around theChampionship Managerdays. This community has thrown out tons of hilarious memes, that will be relatable for anyone who has played the latest entry in the series.
10Benefiting From Incompetence
The frequent implementation of new mechanics in theFootball Managerseries has resulted in the game reaching a point where it can be overbearing at times, especially for new players.
Although the game will become second-nature soon enough, it’s easy to forget about certain assignments. One person who will benefit from said assignments will be the in-game scouts, who can end upsearching for wonderkidsin Greece for 20 years if managers aren’t careful.
9If It Aint Broke…
As alluded to earlier, manyfans of theFIFAseries are growing tiredof what they deem to be a lack of effort with the franchise’s latest releases. The latest iteration’sUser Score on Metacriticbest exemplifies this, as it is currently adisastrous 0.8 on PS4.
Truth be told, theFootball Managerseries rarely offers any sweeping changes either. To Sports Interactive’s credit, however, they created a winning formula that many players would be against changing, as the excellent amount of customization and ever-changing nature of the sport ensures that the game never gets repetitive.
8Behind Every Successful FM Player Is Their Assistant
As mentioned before,Football Managercan be overbearing at times. Thankfully, Sports Interactive lets players utilize their staff to great effect, with the assistant manager being able to do almost everything in the game if players decide they want to take it easy for a while.
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Team selection, transfers, training sessions, and press conferences can all be handled by the almost certainly underpaid assistant manager, but sadly they can’t help out when real-life complications show up.
7An Unorthodox Chain Of Command
In almost every team sport, a legendary aging player is treated with love and care from the fans, their teammates, and more importantly their manager. The complete opposite seems to be the case inFootballManager, however.
One of the most exciting parts ofFootball Manageris discovering and nurturing young talent, which can often lead to managers forcing their club legends out of the club in hopes that their 16-year-old signing is going to become the next Messi.
6Adding Insult To Injury
Following on from the previous point, forcing a player out of the club inFootball Managerisn’t as simple as just transfer listing them like inFIFA.Offering a legendary player to other teams out can have huge ramifications on the club, as the squad, the fans, and even the board may turn against the manager.
This can create an ugly break-up between the two parties, with both the manager and the player being happy to see the back of one another at the end of it. Despite this, the game almost always offers the “you’re welcome back any time” dialog option, which usually results in the war of words kicking off once more.
5A True Challenge
Believe it or not,Football Manager 21offers an eye-watering 117 leagues to pick a team from; it should go without saying, therefore, that the game’s difficulty can fluctuate based on which team is selected.
Although picking the top teams can be great fun, the lower-leagues are where thetrue challengeis, particularly when half the team gets injured following the manager’s demands to make a group of non-league part-time players attempt a high-intensity Gegenpress.
4When The One And Only Back-Up Plan Fails
Football Manager 21has again increased the incredible amount of tactical customization in the game, allowing managers to create almost any style that they have in mind. Despite this, the simplistic Mentality mechanic still reigns supreme as the most important selection that needs to be made.
The importance of the featurecan lead to some players over-using it, and growing frustrated when selecting Very Attacking doesn’t help their League Two side score three against Chelsea in the cup.
3The Real Reason To Buy A High-End PC
With the match engine still not receiving any sort of overhaul,Football Manager 21continues the series' tradition of having some of the lowest specs on the PC market.
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That doesn’t stop some people from buyingstate of the art high-end PC’sthough, despite their Steam Library rarely featuring anything that Sports Interactive didn’t develop. At least the load times are quick.
2At Least Their Heart Is In The Right Place
When playingFootball Manager 21for multiple in-game years, players will often see a team talk selection pop up that attempts to encourage the team to get revenge on a side that once beat them. This selection often goes down so well with the team, that most managers will select it anytime it pops up.
The team talk is so effective, in fact, that players making their debut will often be described as feeling “fired-up” from the speech, even though they only arrived for their 6-month loan the night before.
1A Unique Type Of Fun
When anti-video game activists are listing games that they feel a too violent or sexualized, it’s no surprise thatFootball Manageris never bought up; as apply for work permits, dealing with new Brexit regulations, and completing squad registrations probably won’t have people turning into Jason Voorhees anytime soon.
One thing that the game does do, however, is make the classic “are you winning?” question tough to answer, especially when someone has spent the last hour trying to find the best 14-year-old talent in South America.
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