Sports Interactive and SEGA present the new Football Manager: it’s back to managing your own football team!
November has now become the most awaited period of the year for all virtual football coaches because, as per tradition, this is the moment in which they can get their hands on the new edition of the number one football manager in the world . And in fact, here we are again with a new appointment with the Football Manager series and a 2023 edition characterized by indisputable merits and also some defects. After having thoroughly tested it for dozens of hours, we are therefore ready to tell you about it (in the meantime, here is our review of FIFA 23).
Team that wins… little changes
Those expecting a revolution may be disappointed. The basic system is always the same and this year too the novelties are aimed at perfecting a formula that works great, thanks to years and years of running in. A choice that for some could be excessively conservative, but which, in retrospect, has convinced us. As for the playful offer, we have the classic Career (offline and online), the ” Fantasy Draft “, the “Create a team” and Versus mode.
Clearly the highlight always remains the Career, which at first glance does not present major changes, both in terms of the interface and in terms of structure and progression. In reality, however, there are several innovations that deserve to be analyzed in depth, starting with ” Team Plan “.
This dashboard appendix provides the virtual manager with an overview of the team, summarizing in a clear and intuitive way a whole series of data that can still be traced in other submenus, but which are presented here in a more organic way, offering the player an overview optimal (which was actually missing in previous editions). This new tool allows you to analyze the squad role by role and by establish a real hierarchy for each of them .
For example, we can take all the players who can fill the right-back role and sort them from the best in that position down to the least effective. And not only. We can even add players who are signed to other clubs to the list ! Thus, if we are planning to buy a new right-back and are following one in particular, we can compare it directly to the ones we already have, to immediately understand the impact that acquisition could have on our team.
There is also the possibility of seeing a sort of projection of our squad for the following season and for the one after that, complete with estimates of the growth or decline of the players in our possession and this proves to be very useful for having an idea of how hierarchies might change over time. Also worth mentioning is the subsection called ” Experience Matrix “, which provides interesting information on the development of football players, dividing them into four groups: those on the rise, those emerging, those at the peak of their careers and those on the waning avenue.
The Team Plan is a very convenient tool in managing the squad and above all in planning the transfer market and, among the innovations introduced, it seemed to us to have the greatest impact on the quality of life of the virtual coach.
The transfer market never sleeps
The transfer market is probably the most stimulating and fun activity for a Football Manager fan, because it is the moment in which the team that will accompany the player throughout the year is forged. This phase is open only at certain times of the season but it is also true that for a self-respecting manager the transfer market never sleeps and the guys from Sports Interactive have always placed obsessive attention in reproducing the dynamics that govern it.
The innovations in this area mainly concern agents, whose role is becoming increasingly decisive, exactly as it happens in reality. In the daily life of the manager, the relationship with the players’ agents is increasingly present and increasingly conflictual. Now they want their client to play more, now they expect him to be sent on loan, now they tell us that they don’t intend to renew the contract which will expire in two years… in short, they are never good messengers and are rarely willing to mediate to find a common ground. However, this activity of theirs puts the player in a position to plan the best strategy and react in time, because when we already know well in advance that a player does not even intend to discuss renewing his expiring contract, then we have plenty of time to sell him (and good!) to another team. In past editions, players often expressed their willingness to leave on a free transfer only in the last few months of their contract and the virtual manager was forced to sell them off for ridiculously small sums in order not to lose them for free.
But if the agents row against the companies that hold the time cards of their clients, when we want to buy things change diametrically and our protégé’s agent becomes our best ally to complete the deal! We found the possibility of informally contacting a player’s agent very useful : he immediately manages to provide us with an estimate of how much the transfer could cost us both in terms of transfer fee and salary and on the latter we can already partially negotiate with the agent himself to ensure that the departure requests of his client drop slightly.
Once the actual negotiation began, however, we did not notice any particular differences compared to the previous editions. Unfortunately we have to point out that some players’ requests defy any market logic: for example, during our adventure at the helm of Milan, we found it difficult to agree with Ibrahimovic for a contract extension as the Swede, at the age of 42 , he demanded that we double his salary. The exact same situation happened to us with 34-year-old Simon Kjaer who asked for an increase of almost three times his current salary and there was no way to find a common ground.
Such requests are quite surreal , since usually, in reality, players on the boulevard of the sunset tend to accept even slight salary reductions in order to remain in a great team. Nothing to report instead with regard to transfers, which all seemed to us quite realistic from the point of view of the figures. The swirl of negotiations on the last day of the market is back again this year, divided into individual hours in which practically everything happens, including requests for information, flash agreements and the inevitable rumors on social networks that suggest last-minute transfers. Exactly as happens in reality, in these hours, if you have to buy, it’s easier to do business, because the teams have an urgency to thin out their squads and are willing to sell the redundant players on terms that they would hardly have accepted at the beginning of the transfer market, so be patient and bring out the Adriano Galliani in you.
Artificial intelligence and new animations
Once on the field, the differences with the past edition seemed minimal. In the pre-launch Sports Interactive publicized a lot of the work that has been done on the artificial intelligence of the opposing managers and on the new player animations. As regards the first aspect, an improvement is actually noticeable, with the opposing teams adapting well to the various moments of the match and tactically reacting credibly to the events. Unfortunately, the feeling remains that the game still favors formations that adopt a proactive approach based on gegenpress.
We tried to approach part of the season using a more cautious and defensive tactic, but the results were rather poor, only to win again as soon as we switched back to gegenpress. Clearly it is not something mathematical , it is not always said that this tactical approach is the best one; in part it depends on the squad available and you certainly need to be able to adapt to a single match, but we can say that adopting a proactive approach is more often than not the easiest way to achieve good results and we had already seen this tendency in past editions.
This could lead the more “lazy” player to indulge in gegenpress rather than exploring new game systems and it’s a shame, given the vastness of tactical options offered by the experience. On the animation side, however, the improvements are less incisive than we would have hoped: the best work has been done on the movements of the goalkeepers, who are now more believable, while a few steps forward can also be seen in the way in which the players move forward with the ball foot, but honestly these are minimal differences, which do not improve the overall result much.
The graphics sector continues to be the Achilles heel of the production and, for a not too attentive eye, it is almost impossible to distinguish Football Manager 2023 from the previous edition. Other contemporary management titles demonstrate that, although the graphic aspect is not prominent in productions of the genre, it can be done much better from a visual point of view and we would like to see more effort in this direction from Sports Interactive.
Instead, the gimmick of the ” Dynamic Manager Timeline is appreciable“, a sort of horizontal scrolling summary sequence that is shown at the end of the season, in which all the most important events of the year are summarized in the form of milestones, such as for example the best purchases made during the market, the best matches played by our team, any trophies and individual awards and so on.
A big Wednesday
The developer’s commitment from the licensing point of view deserves a mention: this year Jacobson and his associates wanted to go big and bought the official licenses for the Champions League, Europa League, Conference League and European Super Cup.
Having the UEFA licenses translates into a significant step forward in terms of atmosphere and identification, because it involves inserting the official graphics before, during and after the match, with the screens tinged with the thematic colors of the competition in which you take part, the team kits being decorated with the relevant cup patch and the anthem being played when teams enter the pitch and even during the draws.
We have to admit that, when we learned about the purchase of the UEFA licenses, we were rather skeptical that these could really add value in a managerial game, and instead playing we had to change our mind: it will certainly not be a central aspect of the experiencebut it helps to make it more authentic and sometimes even exciting. And if you’re good enough to win a final, you’ll notice that even the stage on which the awards are held has been faithfully reproduced.
The importance of the fans
From this year we will not only have to give an account of our work to the club, but also to the fans. This is not a novelty in an absolute sense (the fans have always been an important component), but in Football Manager 2023 it takes on a more structured and decisive role . First of all, supporters will not have the same weight in all squares: some clubs have many fans scattered around the world, who are in most cases occasional and who will not have great influence on management decisions, while there are other realities in which organized support has a much different importance, therefore the club will inevitably have to take into account the opinion of the fans.
As a coach, therefore, we will receive every month not only the management’s opinion report on our work, but also detailed information on the ideas of the fans. However, it should be emphasized that the will of the management does not always coincide with that of the fans. For example, an organization that promotes the development of young people might not welcome the renewal of the contract of the historic team captain, who is now quite advanced in years, but on the other hand, if we let him go on a free transfer, we would risk dissatisfying the supporters who see that player as a symbol. However, if until the last edition, antagonizing the fans was a relative problem, in Football Manager 2023 the consequences of a similar choice could prove to be much more serious, especially if you find yourself coaching in a square where the pressure of the fans on the management is palpable .
PC Analyzed Version: In conclusion, Football Manager 2023 is the natural evolution of last year’s edition, and brings with it some innovations aimed at making the gaming experience more comfortable and immediate. The section called Team Plan is that tool you don’t realize you need until you have it at your disposal and once you become familiar with it, it’s hard to do without it. UEFA licenses give atmosphere to cup matches and market dynamics are increasingly realistic, although still perfectible. Once again the smallest progress concerns the technical sector, which instead was – and unfortunately remains – the area with the widest margins for improvement, but overall this does not undermine an overall judgment.
