![]() ![]() Although info on teams and players all over the world can be seen, the player must choose his team from those available in 65 leagues in 39 countries across the world: Some players might not want to get their hands quite as dirty as FM21 is asking them to, but for those players there's always FMRTE or Liverpool.As a mainstay of the series from the Total Club Manager years, FIFA Manager 09 has a massive and comprehensive database of teams and players (not all of them licensed, however). It's the complexity of building a successful system, and an apparent removal of emphasis on individual player ability that should prove most enticing this year, though. They all have an opinion of you, and relationships can be fostered over time, so it's worth getting on the good side of a bloodsucker with plenty of tasty players on their books. So it proves with FM21's revamped system, which allows you to approach agents directly. Transfers are handled a little differently too-they've felt a little bit 'videogamey' for years, especially if you have Sky Sports news on during transfer deadline day and hear snippets about how these deals are done, often via vampiric agents cutting massive earnings for themselves while clubs exchanging personnel occurs as a kind of indifferent by-product. Of the other new features, a proper season review feels like a real highlight and it really gets to the heart of what FM players want-to bask in numbers and figures that have taken on profound personal meaning over time. There's more depth to communication, both internally on a one-on-one basis with players and staff and with the media, but personally I've always found this a bit of a chore and my opinion hasn't changed with the arrival of more conversational and tonal options. I don't have a system for all the talent, so I lose. Thus, I'm drubbed by James Buckley's Bus Winkers FC despite the fact they're largely mid-tier Premier League players and my squad comprises nothing but the cream of Serie A. My watertight system since its inception in 2016 had been to spend big on 11 players while everyone else watered their budget down on a full squad, but while I'm devising a tactic for my rabble of shaven-legged millionaires I hit a problem: there's no one system they all fit into. This is the era of systems, rather than players, and if you want a taste of how well that's reflected in FM21, have a go at Fantasy Draft mode. This has always been a series to reflect the changing complexion of the sport, recognising the rising importance of press conferences back in the Mourinho era and subsequently chucking them in the early FMs, or ramping up the finer details of contract negotiations after Rooney's latest Machiavellian move with United's lawyers. Using all the heatmaps and missed passes, you can build up an idea of where your formation isn't working. Or perhaps it's their role at DL-support or attack? Wingback or full-back? These have been dilemmas for FM players for many years now, of course, but now there's that bit more visual feedback to inform your decisions. Only one of them will be right for your particular system. It might be as simple as a personnel change-one of your DLs is a pacey passer, say, and the other likes to stay home and elbow wingers in the back. ![]() Just like last year you pick a suit for your avatar, sign Andres D'Allessandro on a free and, with all the imagination of a Marvel movie screenwriter, send your hometown club to the Champion's League final. But it's testament to the series that despite its addictive effects, and thus the likelihood that you've several hundred hours of the last game under your belt, the next one almost invariably feels fresh enough to justify starting all over again. It's never going to suddenly look like FIFA when you enter the stadium, and thinly disguised spreadsheets will always comprise the majority of its 'action'. I think we all know by now how much to expect from a new Football Manager. But they're now joined by sports data readouts that'd have Jonah Hill in Moneyball scratching his head and a revamped match engine which I really shouldn't be as excited about as I am. The inbox, the naked beauty of a 'Finishing: 20', the seething frustration, they're all just as they were. And in the intervening 15 years, so skillfully have Sports Interactive drip-fed progress into its magical database that the imminent new release looks at once unchanged and futuristic. ![]() Strictly speaking Football Manager 2021 is a different bloodline of course, but we all knew which road to take in 2005. ![]()
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