Sports Interactive and Sega released their latest entry in the Football Manager franchise last year to a warm reception. The management simulator has become one of the series’ highest-rated games on review aggregator Metacritic with a score of 85, which made it the fourth highest-rated sports game on the site in 2020.
Football Manager 21 was predominantly praised for its influx of new features. Whereas most new sporting titles are criticized for being glorified roster updates, the latest entry in the Football Manager series brought multiple new mechanics to the table while simultaneously improving some of its predecessor’s shortcomings. This list will break down the game’s key improvements for anyone who is still on the fence about whether it’s worth making the leap from a previous Football Manager game to FM 21.
10 Improvements To Finishing
One of the most infuriating aspects of Football Manager 20 was that even the game’s top players would seemingly forget how to score when finding themselves in a goal-scoring position. One-on-ones were particularly bad in FM 20, as players would constantly kick the ball straight at the keeper when through on goal.
Thankfully, Sports Interactive has fixed the issue in Football Manager 21 by decreasing the number of clear-cut opportunities players get in the game while improving their finishing ability in a more balanced and realistic way.
9 Expected Goals
Expected Goals, also known as XG, is one of the most interesting new stats in the sport today. The stat still has its skeptics, but most people have come to appreciate how it shows the balance of a match along with the shot takers’ performance. The Bundesliga’s official website provided a great breakdown of the stat a couple of years ago for those still unsure how it works.
Considering that the Football Manager series appeals to players who look at the sport from an analytical standpoint, it has been a surprise each year when the stat isn’t included. That all changed with the latest iteration, as the Expected Goal stat has finally made its way into the franchise.
8 Tapping Up
Agents are some of the most divisive figures in the sport today. Although, in theory, they stop clubs from taking advantage of players, many agents have proven to be in the line of work to simply squeeze as much money out of clubs and players as they possibly can.
One other aspect of agents that causes controversy is the notion of “tapping up.” Teams are forbidden from speaking to a contracted player or someone on the player’s behalf about a potential transfer without the permission of the player’s current club. It’s a fairly open secret that this rule is constantly broken, so Football Manager 21 now lets people contact a contracted player’s agent about a potential transfer without any repercussions.
7 A New Home
Despite its huge popularity, the Football Manager 21 series has been exclusive to PC for many years, with a stripped-back mobile version also available. Football Manager 18 offered the streamlined Touch version of the game to Nintendo Switch owners for the first time, and Football Manager 21 has now brought the edition to Xbox owners.
The Touch edition of the game is very similar to the full PC edition, though a handful of the more in-depth features are removed from the game to appeal to fans who are just interested in things like tactics, transfers, and matches.
6 Better Balancing
Along with the dodgy finishing, one of the main issues with Football Manager 20 was the balancing of matches between teams at the top and bottom of the league. Although one of the great things about Football Manager and the sport in real life is how unpredictable it can be, FM 20 took it a step too far as teams at the bottom of the league constantly bested the top teams with ease. Football Manager games have always had the realistic issue of top players lacking motivation when facing lesser opposition. Still, FM 20 seemed to take it a step too far as games against a league’s worst team would often be the toughest match in a season.
Thankfully, this has now been fixed in FM 21, so such upsets only occur at their realistic rate of infrequent but not rare.
5 Press Conferences
Along with the PS2-era match engine, one of the most disliked features of Football Manager games are the press conferences. Journalists constantly ask the same set of questions in Football Manager games, and the bland design of the conferences doesn’t help matters either. It’s possible to send the assistant manager to handle press conferences, but this decreases the manager’s Media Handling stat, potentially preventing them from being hired by new teams.
Although there hasn’t been much change to the variety of questions, there is a nice new layout. Press conferences are now presented in the realistic way of having journalists in rows of five shouting out questions, while the possible answers are displayed with a more accessible layout.
4 Recruitment Meetings
Scouting has always been one of the best features in Football Manager games, but it can often be difficult to know how to instruct scouts to find exactly the type of player you want. Moreover, it could sometimes be unclear exactly what type of players upper management wants the team to bring in.
To solve this problem, FM 21 now offers the Recruitment Meeting feature, which brings the manager and key members of staff in for a discussion about recruitment options in an upcoming transfer window so that everyone is on the same page.
3 Body Language
As any salesman or management figure will tell you that choosing the right words is only half the communication battle, as body language is a fundamental part of conveying a message. This idea has been implemented into Football Manager 21, as managers can now further express their points with body language options.
Along with friendly choices like Put Arm On Shoulder and Smile Warmly, there are also options for people who want to drive their assertive or angry points home like Pound Fist or even Throw Water Bottle.
2 User Interface
News of changes to the User Interface in Football Manager games often sparks mixed emotions among fans. On the one hand, they’re excited by what changes are implemented, but on the other hand, there’s the worry that the new UI will be unappealing to them.
Football Manager 21 made numerous changes to the User Interface, but thankfully, most of them went down very well. The key UI change was to one-on-one and group interactions along with the aforementioned press conferences and body language.
1 Moments To Remember
Ending this list is a feature that comes at the end of each season. The new Moments To Remember feature essentially does what it says on the tin, letting players look back at some of the season’s highlights such as their biggest win and goal of the season. There are also interesting details about aspects like transfers, board satisfaction, and financial information.
The new feature may not sound like much on paper, but it’s a nice way to bookend a season by showcasing the team’s key accomplishments and providing facts that will come in handy when preparing for next season.
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