As befits a good football simulation, there is of course another part of the Football Manager series served this year. Developer Sports Interactive is already in its 25th year with the Football Manager and tries with each offshoot to deliver the perfect manager simulation to the loyal community. This year the main aim is to pick up long-term players and offer them the most extravagant gaming experience possible.
The key feature of Football Manager 2020 this year is called “Club Vision” and is aimed at the committed FM community who invests countless hours and days in building up their club every year. According to the developer Sports Interactive, the average playing time of the FM players is around 300 hours, which fans of the series are likely to surpass.
So that these players still have the motivation to continue playing after a long time in their club, a five-year vision has now been introduced with “Club Vision”, which gives the manager various long and short-term goals. These goals cover the most diverse areas of the association and challenge on many different levels. Thus, in Football Manager 2020 it is no longer enough to just achieve sporting success if certain specified goals are not achieved. It can also happen to you that, despite a cup win or championship, you leave your job faster than you would like.
Youth work is future work
As is easy to see, the focus of the Football Manager 2020 this year is completely on the perspective of the club and the player, which is why it is hardly surprising that the youth teams and players are also given a much higher priority. The so-called development center was introduced for these. This new feature was already well received in the preview of Football Manager 2020 from * ingame.de. However, the test showed the true potential.
The area now gives an even better overview of youth players in order to be able to fish out and promote those with special potential even better. Of course, the youth coaches also help, who now draw attention to particularly conspicuous players and recommend early enough to move them to higher teams.
Since not every player in a team can always play a part, it will of course also be part of the daily business in Football Manager 2020 to loan out young players in particular to give them a regular playing time. In order to keep an eye on your talents even when they are not in your own club, the loan manager is at your side. This keeps you up to date on how your own players are developing at the loan club and whether they are showing the desired performance.
This gives you a clear list of all player performances at all times. In addition, the loan manager also helps with the decision of which player a loan makes sense at all, if he is talented but falls short in his own club. Since you like to lose track of the large number of players and youth teams in Football Manager 2020, this support is a real blessing.
At the end of each season there is also a prognosis from the youth coaches, which shows the positions in which you could run into problems in the future, for example if no talented or not the right players with the potential to move up play in the lower teams. This enables you to act early on in order to improve your own team in a targeted manner. The forecast is one of the greatest strengths of Football Manager 2020. According to * ingame.de, the information obtained from it can also help to discover the best professionals in FIFA 20 before they become superstars.
Football is not a one-man show
Managing a football club like this is no easy feat and not even the most talented coaches can go it alone. Therefore, a team of trainers is always available to take care of all matters in the club that you don’t feel like doing. These assistants have been revised again in this year’s Football Manager and now offer even more targeted assistance – for example with team line-up or contract conclusion.In the latest offshoot of the series, it is now
even more flexible and easier to set which areas are in one’s own area of responsibility and which the team should work on. In this way, you can build your own individual managerial style and add or hand over tasks at any time. However, even with full support from the trainer staff, managerial life can be quite complicated and overwhelming, especially for beginners, as you are suddenly flooded with a multitude of information, statistics and graphics. If you want to be in control of your club, you have to have stamina in Football Manager 2020.
Despite the many good assistants, you should regularly take a look at the decisions of the individual coaches, as they do not always make the best decisions for the team and club, which is why important players or deals can get lost in between. Of course, such decisions also depend on the skill level of your own coach, which is why the Football Manager 2020 now also has a technical manager who is constantly informed about the development of the coaching team.
Highly realistic live games
Our decisions made on the tactics board are realistically implemented in the live games simulated in real time. As a rule, the players do what we asked them to do – but there are exceptions: extreme cases like Mario Balotelli, who has only a few points in teamwork and commitment, like to just do their own thing.
It is above all such details that make every single game a unique and, above all, believable experience . Every adjustment screw we turn can be reproduced 1: 1 on the lawn. And when a counterattack that has been rehearsed for months leads to a goal for the first time, it feels better than any spectacular FIFA goal.
The match engine, which is responsible for simulating and displaying the games, has also been further improved in this year’s version: Thanks to dozens of new animations, we can see even more varied moves because our players can call up a visibly greater potential for movement – from short ones Dribbling over massive header extensions to extravagant heel passes.
Criticism of Football Manager 2020
The Football Manager 2020 is primarily a pure economy and tactics simulation – that is probably clear to every player. However, there has always been the opportunity to see the fruits of one’s labor live on the square. However, the simulations by the Football Manager never looked particularly good, as the jagged movements and animations made them more reminiscent of puppet theater than a football game. That’s why developer Sports Interactive is now promising many improvements to make what is happening on the lawn look even more lively and natural .
Above all, revised player and manager models, as well as improved weather and light effects, should make the simulation appear more natural and lively . In addition, new movement animations for attack and defense should make the moves of your own team even more realistic. According to the developers, new animations recorded by motion capturing were created for field players and goalkeepers.
Unfortunately, despite the promised revisions, the simulations still look a lot like they did in FIFA 2000 and are very little fun to watch . Unnatural movements and dribbling make up the majority of the moves, which are only exceeded by the unrealistic shots . Of course, the Football Manager has never had the ambition to be a nice football simulation a la PES or FIFA 20 , but it should be a little more .
Bit buggy, but…
The biggest problem of the Football Manager 2020 is not its poor presentation, but various bugs and imbalances: One of the most noticeable errors in our test version is the inability of the AI to score goals in 1-on-1 situations. Even in cup games against lower-class opponents, the goalkeeper wins almost every duel – or the striker shoots the ball straight towards the corner flag.
Long-range shots, on the other hand , are far too strong: Even if goals from outside the penalty area are usually nice to look at, they are far too common compared to real football matches. In any case, it is surprising that Sports Interactive did not notice these bugs during internal testing.
Also annoying: The counter-pressing tactic is – as in the previous one – clearly too strong again . In our test, for example, we were able to qualify for international business with 1. FC Köln with this style of play after just one season, although realistically we should rather play against relegation with the squad – and without signing a single player!
Even with a handful of other clubs, the tactics went far too well from the start. As a result, we felt at times discouraged to try something new, since counter-pressing almost always gave the best result without much work.
…everything is great off pitch
But even if you occasionally had to shake your head during the live games: next to the court – apart from the constantly repeated interviews and press conferences – everything is almost perfect again. As usual, we can freely choose our workplace from hundreds of licensed associations .
From the first to the third league, all teams are again provided with real names, coats of arms, players and employees – only the newly fired Bayern coach Niko Kovac is called Max Freund in the game. Juventus Turin also has to have a different name due to its exclusive partnership with Konami and is called Zebre (Italian for Zebra) this year.
Football Manager newbies can view a tutorial at any time that explains the basics of each area in full and understandable – the tips provided will help smooth the steep learning curve. The very helpful AI colleagues are also available to us in the current series part, to whom we can assign all tasks that we do not want to take on ourselves.
There are almost no restrictions: If we want, we can even put the assistant coach on the bench during the games and let the sports director handle all player transfers on his own – in most cases the helpers do a good to very good job from.
Bottomline
The Football Manager 2020 will make the hearts of tactics foxes and sofa coach beat, as every year, because such a sophisticated management simulation you will not find anywhere else.
The multitude of cogs and buttons that are available to create a world-class team is always amazing. If you keep your eyes firmly on your own numbers and statistics instead of the field, there is really very little to complain about about the latest part of the FM series.
The developers look to the future and this is reflected in features such as “Club Vision” and the improvements in the youth area. As always, it’s a little harder for beginners , but it’s definitely worth the effort.
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