

Football Manager’s realism improves with every passing edition and has become a trademark of the series’ authenticity, with the coaches able to get so deep into the tactics, they want to wring even more out of the gameplay. Not surprisingly considering their jobs, the coaches’ attention to detail means they scrutinise every little aspect of how their teams perform out on the pitch. If Mourinho went to all the coaches in the world and gave them his weekly plan for training the team, we’d all use it differently: with a different voice, approach, players, conditions. “But I believe there is no way to recreate training because in real life there are so many variables when you get out on the pitch. And, in general, how you hire your staff and handling contracts is really good at the top level.
Football manager 2020 real madrid professional#
“The statistics part is brilliant with all these zones that professional teams use during training and games. “It’s good in terms of how you speak to the players and how they react to that is good because it shows if it’s good or bad feedback,” Garbar explains. Ukrainian coach Konstantyn Garbar has worked in several different countries, including a stint with Portuguese giants Benfica, and points to the realism in some areas above others.

However, the sheer depth of data Football Manager offers managers to analyse means there’s something to learn there. There are some real-life scenarios, such as running specific training drills or managing genuine social relationships, that are hard to replicate on a computer game. While the games were a great proving ground for our coaches, how useful Football Manager can be once they’ve made those early steps is a topic that divides the group. It’s a really good way of understanding a few different systems, especially if they went really to town and looked at the different tactical systems people have set up on Steam.” “Football Manager is really good for people trying to get into coaching or trying to transition from playing to coaching. For me, that was my first real understanding of tactics.”īolton first-team data analyst Adam Cooper agrees. I used to love that and would spend hours working out where I wanted players to be in different situations. I’d leave my right forward high if the ball was on the left, so if we win it back, we can try to play it out to the right.
Football manager 2020 real madrid how to#
For me, that made me understand how to counter-attack. “When I first started playing, what I loved were the settings where you set your style and shape, then you had when the ball was here and you clicked into one of 20 zones – I want a certain player to be there or to be there depending on if we’d got possession or not,” he says. As a long-time fan of the series, he started on Championship Manager 01/02 and spent hours tweaking his team’s setup to create a well-rehearsed side that did exactly what he wanted on the pitch. That’s exactly how Chelsea coach Ben Cole got into the tactical side of things. They were football fans already and found plotting out how to win on the game gave them a greater understanding of the intricacies of the matches they were watching. The game gave me that flavour.”įor Clark it was a slow burner, but some of our other coaches saw Football Manager as a tactical awakening. “Subconsciously, I already had knowledge and an idea about team shape and what I’m looking for in a player before I even knew it. “I grew up playing Championship Manager and that probably gave me the impetus to be a coach,” explains Kilmarnock under-23s coach Craig Clark, who took part in the competition.

And if success on the game and in real life really correlates. Those thoughts were partly what inspired The Set Pieces to launch the FM20 Coaches Project as we pitched six real-life coaches against one Football Manager fan to see who’d come out on top. Yet, like an undiscovered Pep Guardiola, it might seem unlikely you’ll ever get the chance to prove what you can do in the dugout. Surely if you can take Plymouth Argyle to the brink of Champions League success, you must be pretty good, right? Your tactics are strong, you deliver a rousing half-time team talk and your recruitment is on point. We’ve had a good run on Football Manager and it’s crossed our mind, however fleetingly, that we might just make a good real-life gaffer.
