Old football (soccer) manager games

[Gaznak]

I'm very fond of old football management games:

- Football Manager serie from 2005 to circa 2013-2014 (i.e. from the dawn of 2D visual match representation by 'circle men' to the dawn of 3D match engine in 2010 up to the moment when the serie turned into absolute nonsense from somewhere around 2015)
- Championship Manager from 2006 to 2010 (the 'peg-men' era and then 3D engine in the final game of the serie)
- Total Club Manager 2003-2005
- FIFA Manager from 2006 to 2009 (they didn't shine even from the start, yes, but later they turned into completely unplayable mess)
- LMA Manager 2007
- F.A. Premiere League Manager 1999-2002

You may say Codex is not the best place to discuss football management sims but I always liked to look at them as RPGs of sort where you have a large party of characters with stats, skills and stuff that you develop through tactical battles.

Is there any weirdos like me here?

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Yes I started out with 1-0 ...I think
https://www.mobygames.com/game/558/one-nil-soccer-manager/

I then went onto CM96. Stayed up until midnight playing it. Even once to 6AM and I didn't even realize I had to catch a bus to college at 7.30.
Still pitch dark outside and a 5 mile drive to a bus stop in a small town which was a bus ride to a bus stop in a bigger town which was the bus to take me to the bigger yet tiny town that had the college in it. All by 9.15, which meant after the walk up the icy hill to the college by 9.45 I was late for class every day and got disciplinary.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I could never get into Football Manager, despite trying them out several times. FIFA Manager on the other hand, I did have some fun with. They were clearly the arcade games of the scene, but they had great production values and kickass music.

 

[Gaznak]

kickass music

Yeah, it was one of the serie's strong points indeed. But the match engine was dangerously near to horrible, alas.

 

[:Flash:]

I could never get into Football Manager, despite trying them out several times. FIFA Manager on the other hand, I did have some fun with. They were clearly the arcade games of the scene, but they had great production values and kickass music.

Back in the 90s the football manager games were completely divided between the English and the German ones.
England was dominated by the Championship manager series (I don't know if they even had a rival).
In Germany, we had three competing series: Hattrick!, Bundesliga Manager and Anstoss (On the Ball). The latter two were the important series, and Anstoss was often considered the better game, but Bundesliga Manager had the official Bundesliga license.

Nobody in Germany played Championship Manager, and similarly, nobody in the UK played the German games.
In the 90s, EA had already tried to enter the market with FIFA Soccer Manager, but couldn't succeed in overcoming the local dominators.
But in the early 2000s, EA decided it was time to finally dominate in every sports game category, and for some reason they decided to enter via the German market instead of the British one.
So they waved the magic money wand, and poached the entire Anstoss team away from Ascaron and additionally bought the Bundesliga license, releasing the first game simply as Fussball Manager" in Germany. Anstoss was left without a team, Bundesliga Manager was left without a license (at first they bought the rights to the Austrian Bundesliga in order to be able to keep their name), and EA drove them out of business soon. From there on they dominated, but until the end of the series, it was all lead by Gerald Köhler, the same guy who had programmed what would later become the first version of Anstoss in the early 90s while he was still at school.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I only ever got into two football management games.

Football Manager 2 on the Amstrad CPC (1988) - Clanky interface aside, this was a good'un. You could edit a lot of details about your team, but once I found out that only one of the 'official' teams had black jerseys, I made my team adopt them and forced the other team to change theirs.

The Manager for MS-DOS (1992) - this is an English-release variant of Bundesliga Manager, mentioned above. Played it with my mates. Fun times.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

I only ever got into two football management games.

Football Manager 2 on the Amstrad CPC (1988) - Clanky interface aside, this was a good'un. You could edit a lot of details about your team, but once I found out that only one of the 'official' teams had black jerseys, I made my team adopt them and forced the other team to change theirs.

The Manager for MS-DOS (1992) - this is an English-release variant of Bundesliga Manager, mentioned above. Played it with my mates. Fun times.

The Manager, I played that too. There was also Ultimate Soccer Manager, remember bankrupting the club with the stadium upgrades. You could do bribes too so I guess it was quite realistic. That was a good one.

That really looks how I remember football stadiums being back then. It really captures everything even the wet tarmac and pie smell.
Its got that essence of 80s football vibe thats totally missing from the CM series, which is more a money manager/stats manager simulation.

 

[Matador]

Spanish PC Fútbol series, not so complex as other manager series but well designed and fun (there are even older games in the series):

PC Fútbol 4 (1995)

PC Fútbol 5: (1996)

PC Fútbol 6 (1997)

PC Fútbol 7 (1998)

 

[Endemic]

I played the 90s versions of Championship Manager:

 

[Jarpie]

The Manager released for Amiga and PC was released in 1991, can't remember if it was any good. Sensible World of Soccer series had rudimentary "career" mode, in which you could play as a team in many different domestic leagues, you could buy and sell players, but it didn't have training or anything.

 

[kyosuke]

As a school kid back then, the only Football Management games were mostly Premier League Manager, Player Manager (not the Amiga one), USM and the early FIFA Manager.
Later on when I was slightly older, managed to get hold of a copy of CM, and only played that till it died before being forced to play FM.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

FIFA Manager

fifa manager was the absolute BEST. it might not have had the most faithful simulation on the pitch but it was the whole world of football. merchandise, sponsors, ticket prices, youth schools, the stadium and all the buildings around, promises and requests to the players which actually meant something, top young players who didn't just magically became stars but needed structures and a competitive environment to grow...
fucking retarded ea cocksuckers had a diamond mine under their asses, all they had to do was provide the most updated game engine, for 0 costs because it was their fucking own, instead they let fifa manager rot for a decade, and people sadly but rightfully forgot about it.

 

[Achilles]

Oh definitely, I have played a ton of them over the years, starting way back in the 80s on an Amstrad CPC. I put thousands of hours in Ultimate Soccer Manager, FIFA Manager, Premier Manager, Championship Manager and finally Football Manager.

 

[kyosuke]

By the way is Football Manager still worth playing now or is there any alternatives? Stop playing for over half a decade.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

no alternatives.

 

[kyosuke]

no alternatives.

Shit. Thought a competitor could've sprung up and give FM a run for it's money.
Guess I am too optimistic.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

sega poured just too much money in licenses to leave anything for anyone else. they invested so much money in fm they even paid the most prominent cracker groups for like a decade to have them leave their game untouched.