There's been a long standing joke about Sega's Football Manager as the 'spreadsheet game'. Frankly speaking I'd say that's an understatement, the amount of analytics and data that the game puts on the screen of your PC is pretty challenging and while most of us were still trying to understand the depth of FM 2021, Sega decided to launch it's next installment and its back to square one all over again.
One of the major new features it this new title is the Data Hub, a bottomless pit of charts, graphs, diagrams and infographics containing every information you thought irrelevant collated into a library alongside with graphs of your team's performance in comparison to the league's average performance, analysis of upcoming opponents, compiled reports of scouted players including the ones you probably forgot about and comparison charts on every subject including passing, tackling, shots, runs made and far beyond what you're thinking of right now, believe me.
When I first came across this Data Hub, I spent hours just staring at my screen trying to piece the information together, I knew this was going to useful in the right hands or should I say right minds, but at that point I was being drowned in this mechanism.
One thing I've always liked about football manager is it's ability to spread the information and break it down so it's easily digested by the newest of players. One of such features is the email of upcoming fixtures being sent with the opposing teams strengths and weaknesses allowing you to create bespoke tactics around it, whether it's a goalkeeper weakness to capitalize on or to go Sean-Dyche style and frustrate an attacking opponent
For those who've been playing this game for sometime know that simply tweaking the tactics based on perceived opponent weakness won't guarantee you the win, and the newest release isn't any different, instead you must find a way to make tactical adjustments around your team's preferred style, this way you your changes are more effective.
I came across a team that had a fantastic record against 3-5-2 formation, which so happened to be my favored formation at that time, I decided to tweak some stuffs and change it to a 3-4-3 with great emphasis on wing play. As the game began, it was so boring with no shots on target for both sides, it was a dead first half indeed. At halftime, I reverted back to my original formation hoping for an entertaining match at least and that was exactly what happened, both teams became more active, conceding both shots on target and clear cut chances. In the end I won the match narrowly with a 1-0 score line. My point is, my teams effectiveness with that formation outweighed the opposing teams effectiveness in exploiting it in the end.
It's both thrilling and satisfying to see your team play out the instructions you've given in the dressing room, seeing you midfield play searching passes to the wing to try and stretch the opposition defense or seeing your defensive line paying high to try and compress the field of play and frustrate teams that shoot from a distance is very satisfying to say the least.
The game has improved a lot in terms of graphics and is very much fun to watch as the match unfolds. The new match engine being touted by sports interactive promise much more fluid movements and animations. This doesn't mean that the players will not still move the ball robotically at time, but it does mean we get to see much more dynamic stuff happen on the pitch, like seeing the ball strike the bar and then bounce off a defender or seeing a winger skin a fullback in a one on one situation.
Now with a greater emphasis of player stamina being brought into the game, the effect of more aggressive play styles will tire the entire team far more quickly causing your team to make fewer runs and making them much more sluggish in retaking possession. This means you'll have to strike a fine balance between the intensity of your match tactics and the intensity of training to avoid fatigue and injuries that could derail the whole season.
Beyond adding more dynamism to the events on the pitch, sports interactive have also added some very new features to the dealings behind the scenes. One major addition to the game is the Deadline day, livening up the transfer market and adding that last minute feel as you work against the clock to get that deal through as days turns to hours for a brief moment.
The thing is FM is an easy game and a hard game to recommend, if you've played FM21, you're gonna have to figure out if it's worth it to buy FM22 just to get updated player databases and just a handful of new features.
Don't get me wrong, Sports interactive have made Football Manager a masterpiece, the best football simulation game in the market by far, but the thing is there's only so much you can add to a simulation game like FM. In the end it comes down to preference and passion for the game of football.
Thank you for reading my article.