Sega’s Football Manager has solidified itself as the top management sim of the world’s most-watched sport. Other games have come and gone. Like Championship Manager, LMA Manager, and EA’s odd Fifa Manager series that for some reason gave players a virtual girlfriend; Football Manager has successfully outlasted its competition with FM 21 set to be the series 17th installment.
The game turned heads and peaked ears immediately with the announcement of an Xbox release. The Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S will be receiving a version of the game based on FM touch. Football Manager Touch is a streamlined version of the game that comes as a free alternative to each entry. Unfortunately, PlayStation users will still be unable to play the game. However, the yearly mobile version is returning for those without a capable PC.
On the 12th of October, fans were finally treated to a feature trailer. It was just one minute long but crammed in a multitude of exciting information.
10 There Is No Gameplay Engine Update
Before delving into the new features, it is worth pointing something that isn’t coming to the new game. Fans have been hoping for a revamped match engine for years, but it seems they’ll be kept waiting for at least another year.
It hasn’t been officially stated that the match engine won’t be overhauled. But considering how desired an updated engine is, it would have certainly featured in the trailer if it was. Furthermore, the few seconds of match engine footage that we did see looked disappointingly similar to the previous games.
So it seems players will have another year of conceding late goals because their keeper got bored and decided to take a stroll up the pitch.
9 Press-Conferences Have Been Revamped
There is one request that is seemingly being fulfilled though, an update to press-conferences. Players for many years have had to answer the same collection of questions in the same redundant way. Alternatively, they’ve had to deal with their Media Handling attribute be at rock-bottom as they gave up and just started sending their assistant instead.
The clip of the new press-conferences lasted only a couple of seconds, but it showed that the conferences will be laid out more like real-life. With a text-based audience of journalists in front of the player, sporadically asking questions.
8 Tapping Up Players
An elephant in the room of the real-life transfers revolves around ‘tapping up’. Tapping up is against UEFA and FIFA’s laws, yet it is common knowledge that it consistently occurs. The governing body’s laws state that two clubs must agree on a fee for a player before the buying club can speak directly to the player or their agent. Yet reliable journalists are often reporting that clubs have agreed on personal terms with a player, long before a fee is agreed between the clubs.
Football Manager 21 looks set to annoy FIFA by undermining this frequently exploited law. As managers are now able to select an option titled ‘Ask Agent About Availablity’. The trailer didn’t show what the option does, but it’s possible that managers can have detailed conversations with agents and players before making an official bid.
7 Recruitment Meetings
An update to scouting meetings is another realistic feature that players have requested. Modern teams, especially the top ones, have huge scouting and recruitment departments. Making FM 20’s limited recruitment meetings a bit lackluster.
FM 21 looks set to give managers plenty of new options and reports. The trailer shows that during staff meetings, the recruitment department will give a list of positions that they feel need improvement. They will accompany this with a detailed explanation behind their reasoning and possibly a list of targets.
6 Body Language
Ever been desperate to hug your virtual players after a big win? Probably not, but you can now anyway. During private meetings with your players, you can now accompany your dialog with body language. In the trailer, Watford’s Tom Cleverly comes in for a meeting. Before speaking, the manager uses the new body language feature to better convey their emotions. The in-game text describes the chosen body language as “You opened your arms widely towards the player, which appears to improve their body language.”
Why the manager widely opening his or her arms towards the player improves their body language remains a mystery. It is unknown whether you can throw anything at your players for missing a last-minute chance. Fingers crossed.
5 Expected Goals
Along with a new match engine, expected goals, better known as XGs, have been requested by fans for years.
Fans were split on XG when it began to emerge. Some dismissed it, trusting their ability to naturally analyze a match, while also believing the stat was a way of appealing to fans of the stat-heavy NFL and NBA. However, the metric has proved its worth and is now believed by many to be a reliable way of judging a player’s shooting ability.
The trailer confirmed that XG, along with more detailed heat maps, will be in the game. For those unsure what the up and coming statistic is, Opta Sports provides a quick summary.
4 A New UI
A new user-interface may sound like the boring feature imaginable for non-FM players, but for fans of the series, it’s a feature that will both excite and worry.
Football Manager‘s UI has been very similar for the last few entries. Fans haven’t minded this though, content with Sports Interactive’s ideology of not fixing what isn’t broken. The new trailer seems to suggest that the key left-hand menu column will remain the same. But the analysis and tactical screens will be getting a complete overhaul.
3 New Sponsorships
Manchester United managed to wind up fans all over the world when they sued Sega Publishing and Sports Interactive for the use of their name. It’s yet to be seen if this will have any effect on the game. But the Manchester club may be given a fake name, similar to how Juventus are Piemonte Calcio in Fifa 21 and Zebre in FM 20. United’s lawsuit has worried fans, who dread to think that all teams will be given fake names like in the Pro Evolution Soccer series.
This is yet to be confirmed. But what we do know is that 2016’s shock Premier League champions Leicester City will be sponsored. The trailer kicks off with a list of the east midland’s club’s players, and for a split second their official logo appears in the top left corner. Watford F.C., VfL Wolfsburg, and a handful of other clubs also appear in the trailer with their official name and logo.
2 Tactics Overhaul
Undoubtedly the key to any football manager game is getting the tactics right. If the developers failed to create well-balanced tactics, it would make the game unplayable. One of the many keys to Football Manager’s success has been its ability to consistently create well-balanced and deep tactical options in their games.
Sports Interactive looks set to make the risky, but exciting move of adding new tactical mechanics. The tactics section of the trailer is very short, simply showing a pre-match instruction for a player to drop deeper. However, its inclusion in the trailer implies that there will be many new tactical options available to players on November 24th when the game is released.
1 Moments To Remember
The precious final few seconds of the one-minute trailer belong to a new feature titled Moments To Remember. No explicit detail is given to what exactly this feature is, though it seems to be some form of highlight reel.
Three categories are shown, biggest win, highest scoring match, and goal of the season. The feature will likely be a more in-depth way for players to relive the highlights of their season in a more cinematic way than before.
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