Football Manager 2011 blogger found?

I like first days. You have to be polite and attentive. You have to pretend you care about what you’re doing, as though this new rung on the employment ladder is the most important moment in your life. You smile, mumble and listen, looking like a foetus in a suit. But that isn’t who you are and that certainly isn’t who I am. It’s hard to make a good first impression so I won’t try to.

Football Manager and I are Sid and Nancy, I can’t stop injecting her poisonous goodness into me; regardless of how much I beat her back. I adore the game, truly adore it. At a time where I have all but given up playing computer games, I’m still clocking up over 1,200 hours worth of time playing Football Manager 2010, in a career that has spanned three decades and taken in over nine different countries, with definite fluctuations in fortune. The joy to be found in having an effect on a team, be that positive or negative, is the major factor that keeps me addicted. If it was purely about the success, then I would be found sat in the special chair managing Barcelona to quintuples every year.

No, my managerial ethos is firmly within the realms of reaping what you sow. I start unemployed with the lowest possible reputation and pray some inebriated fool thinks I’m pretty enough to manage his club. My addiction to this method of play is so sincere I haven’t even managed my own club, Leeds (yes you can leave now if you want), since Football Manager 2007, at least not in the full game, I’m assuming the six month trial in the demo doesn’t count…

Which kind of brings us nicely onto the next iteration of the series, the imaginatively titled Football Manage 2011. When the demo is released I’ll be covering the new features we’ve been promised in more detail, but as it stands the supposed marquee features this year are a new training system (two thumbs up), dynamic league reputation (two thumbs up), social networking features (one thumb up) and agents involved in contract negotiations (thumb up the arse). Not quite as revolutionary the introduction of 2D was, but then compare that to the introduction of the ability to be a female manager and, well, it seems like the wheel was just introduced to the mass market.

Of them all, dynamic league reputation has the promise to offer those of us who toil in the less renowned backwaters of the globe an inkling of hope for our, often fruitless, efforts. The idea is that, as in real life can be witnessed with a league such as Russia’s, better performances from one or two teams on the continental stage can visibly improve the attractiveness and value of the league they play in. Talk amongst the communities is of seeing the likes of Portugal and Turkey rubbing shoulders with the likes of Spain and England, but for the more hardcore (read socially retarded), we have have designs on seeing Iceland, Ireland, Israel and other small countries that don’t begin with the letter ‘I’ up there with the best of them. Although the likelihood of seeing Lionel Messi carving up the Eircom league is pretty slim, given that realistic estimates are that it will take around thirty seasons to take a small country to the top. But having an improvement that allows for an evolving world to exist outside of your direct influence is hugely promising and may add that final piece of immersion that can so often be lacking in the robotic world of multiple choice press conference answering.

I’ll leave you now with the latest piece of FM news, the, erm, trailer that was released today. It’s a bit shit, if I’m honest. The semi-inspiring versions in FM10 and FM09, whilst being pretty average, can’t compare to the level of tackiness produced by the following effort:

Don’t worry, I’ll re-convince you to buy the game in forthcoming updates.

Category: FM2011