Football Manager, more than just a game
Tuesday 20 June 2017 14:28, UK
To get an idea of the scope of the research that goes into Football Manager, you need look no further than the 1,300-strong on-the-ground scouting network, which is augmented by real-life contact with clubs and a detailed and continued examination of local media and club websites.
Some of the database scouts work professionally within the football world, while others are fans who regular attend games for their chosen club, and all are divided into Head Researchers who oversee groups of Assistant Researchers.
"The most recent trend has been to increase the number of Head Researchers in countries which feature more than two professional levels within FM," head of research Mark Woodger explains.
Football Manager creators Sports Interactive research approximately 2,200 clubs from 116 divisions in 51 countries, and it's not just fans who will share their thoughts about players' ratings being too high or low.
"Funnily enough, we've recently had a message left on the office voicemail system from a current Premier League player, who called to say that all of his stats were too low," Woodger says.
"In fact, that's what just about every player we ever meet tells us... which is how we know we're getting things right."
As long as it's taken as a basis, rather than a be all and end all, and there is an argument that the value of the game goes beyond scouting to inform how fans may consume transfer and gossip content - something we are sure to see plenty more of during the summer months without the distraction of a major tournament.
"I think FM and YouTube/blogging are both having an effect," Stewart suggests.
"It informs speculative pieces [and] I think it also can provide a *very* rough way of looking at how a player might fit a team, though I personally think that's far more subjective and not that useful.
"Perhaps where FM is best is in opening up football, via its database, to discovery of leagues and players who otherwise would not cross the radar of the average fan. Does that change consumption? Maybe."
There was a sense of this even during the last World Cup in Brazil, the first in which the widespread availability of live football at all hours meant it was rare for fans to encounter an altogether unknown quality. Even someone like Ecuador winger Jefferson Montero, at the time playing for Morelia in Mexico, was watched eagerly by expectant crowds familiar with his Football Manager exploits.
Montero would ultimately move to the Premier League off the back of that tournament, but has been only sporadically impressive for Swansea City, starting only a couple of games last season.
"Discovering a wonderkid is possibly the most rewarding part of the job," Woodger admits.
"All of the talk in football at the moment is about Monaco's Kylian Mbappé, but FM players will have known about him for a couple of seasons."
The disparity shown by former FM wonderkids is a reflection of senior vs youth football as much as it is a 'reality vs fiction' argument, and one man with experience of both sides, former Gambia international Cherno Samba, sees both sides.
Samba was one of the stars of the game during his teenage playing days at Millwall, before failing to quite hit the heights predicted of him, but continues to play the game as something of a sounding board for his nascent coaching career.
"Obviously this is virtual, but you have your own tactics, you change the players you don't want to play or you change your tactics, so it is similar," Samba tells me.
"But doing this does help your knowledge as well, just knowing what comes into it when you're managing."
Enough has been extrapolated from Football Manager for people to recognise that - far from being speculative and occasionally lucky - its research comes with far more detail and hard work than many might expect.
With an already-substantial scouting team growing in reach, and with patterns for judging potential always open to tweaking, it is unlikely that someone like Mbappé will be the last to be 'discovered' in the game before cracking the big time.
Clubs and fans will continue to look beyond the game when doing their own research, but it provides a genuine assessment that - when married with watching players in the flesh - can provide a real tangible benefit.
