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Alternatives to Football Manager 26
Football Manager 26 has been out for a few weeks, and… mmm, yeah. It’s still a mess, isn’t it? While many FMers are still wrestling with the new interface or complaining that their favourite franchise has been turned into a mobile game, some will be looking for something else to play. But I know what […]
My thoughts on Football Manager 26
After the longest wait, Football Manager 26 is finally here… but is it any good? That’s a question many people have already answered with an emphatic “no”. FM26 came out on 4 November to unprecedentedly negative reviews on Steam, with a 27% approval rating as I write this. Even the professional gaming critics who consistently […]
Review: Soccer Manager 2026
It’s the game everyone has been talking about in recent weeks… and, oh boy, hasn’t it been divisive? An experienced team of British developers have been working on their latest football management simulation for years – and the reception has been quite mixed. Some people think the new graphics engine is a huge step forward. […]
Women’s football – What to expect on FM26
In 2021, Sports Interactive announced that they were planning to incorporate women’s football into the Football Manager series. After four years of extensive research and development, those plans will finally become reality on Football Manager 26. Last week saw SI reveal the first major details of what we can expect from women’s football on FM26, […]
Blog Update #9
Hey-ho, folks. It’s time for my annual Fuller FM blog update – my ‘state of the union’ address, if you will. Another year of FMing has been and gone, and it’s been the weirdest one yet. With Football Manager 25 turning out to be just a few dodgy Photoshop mockups, we’ve had to carry on […]
Retro Review: Premier Manager Ninety Nine
I moved into my new home one year ago today… and what better way to celebrate my first anniversary at New Fuller FM HQ, than with another of my Retro Reviews? As a computer nerd with a particular fondness for the 90s, I enjoy revisiting old football management games and seeing if they can still […]
My FM Content Creator Pet Peeves
While we have been waiting for the next Football Manager to be announced (any time now, Sports Interactive…), I’ve been trying to think of some fresh new ideas for FM content. So… why don’t we have a little discussion about FM content? Alongside writing my own Football Manager stories, I’ve watched hundreds of YouTube videos […]
FM Logic: Managerial Movements
Football Manager is the most realistic sports simulation video game out there. We all know that. But it’s not perfect. Welcome back to another edition of this Fuller FM series… wait, can I call this a series? It’s is the third part now… so yeah. I think I can call it a series. Anyway, it’s […]
Nacka’s Yard: The Final Whistle
So here we are… it’s the FINAL chapter of “Nacka’s Yard”. For the past eight months or so, I have been managing Nacka FC – a young but ambitious part-time team from the suburbs of Stockholm – on Football Manager 2024. Starting from the 4th tier of Swedish football, I led them all the way […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 15, Part 2 (2038)
After 15 seasons of toil, tears, sweat, and ranting about goalkeepers, my Football Manager 2024 adventure in Sweden is building up to a great crescendo. Reinvigorated by some fresh blood in defence and midfield, Nacka FC are contending for the Allsvenskan title once again. Some encouraging results have left them in 3rd place as they […]
The Instant Result Button: Click Here To Win?
Welcome back to Fuller FM, where I will today be discussing something a little bit different. While we all enjoy playing Football Manager (at least those of us who aren’t on Reddit), it can be a huge time sink. You might have to play through A LOT of matches in a single season – especially […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 15, Part 1 (2038)
‘Tis the fifteenth season of my Football Manager 2024 series. It might also be the last. I was feeling pretty low at the end of the 2037 season, as Nacka FC’s title hopes fell apart and I was left wondering why such a talented team was underachieving. Was it my tactics? Had I broken Ahmed […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 14, Part 2 (2037)
Welcome back to “Nacka’s Yard”, where Nacka FC will today tick off another milestone in their rise to the top. The 2037 Allsvenskan campaign hasn’t exactly gone to plan so far, with our forwards seemingly forgetting how to score goals. Is it already too late to save our fading hopes of winning the title? We […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 14, Part 1 (2037)
My Football Manager 2024 series continues… but after 13 seasons, Nacka FC’s ascent to the top of Swedish football is almost complete. Nacka came painfully close to winning their first Allsvenskan title in the 2036 season, only missing out by a single point. But after finishing the campaign on a lengthy unbeaten run, hopes are […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 13, Part 2 (2036)
I’m glad you could join me for the latest chapter of my Football Manager 2024 adventure. After building up Nacka FC for the past 12 years, the Allsvenskan title is now firmly in our sights. We’ve enjoyed a good start to the 2036 season, setting us up nicely for a championship challenge, as well as […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 13, Part 1 (2036)
A new dawn is upon us at Nacka FC, as we head into a potentially save-defining 13th season in the Swedish leagues. The 2035 season ended with Nacka finishing 3rd in the Allsvenskan – thus securing a return to European football after a season away. Now our players (and their manager) have their sights set […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 12, Part 2 (2035)
We’re now well into the 12th season of my Football Manager 2024 adventure with Nacka FC in Sweden. Last time out, our incredible run in the Conference League finally came to an end. (Bloody Craiova.) We have soared up the UEFA coefficients to become the most-improved team in Europe… but if we want to get […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 12, Part 1 (2035)
I’ve been blogging about Football Manager for seven years now, and I’ve never gone this far into a save, but here goes… [deep breath] …welcome to Season 12 of “Nacka’s Yard”! Yes, I’ve been at Nacka FC for over a decade ago, but I’m still going strong… only with a few more grey hairs. Although […]
FM Logic: Media & Press Interactions
Football Manager is the most realistic sports simulation video game out there. We all know that. But it’s not perfect. A couple of months ago, I discussed some of the flawed logic that FM uses when it comes to transferring and developing players. For example, I talked about proven lower-league goal machines being ignored by […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 11, Part 2 (2034)
Welcome back to “Nacka’s Yard” – the Football Manager 2024 blog series that refuses to die. If you’re one of the five people who’s still reading after all this time, thank you very much for sticking around. In case you haven’t read the last chapter yet, Nacka FC have just celebrated their first major trophy […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 11, Part 1 (2034)
This save was only supposed to last for 10 years at most. I really thought by now that I would be getting stuck into Football Manager 25, and leading Arsenal to back-to-back Women’s Champions Leagues. But here we are… still on FM24, and still at Nacka FC. The 2033 season was not a happy one […]
Retro Review: Simsoc 6
It’s time for another retro review of a football management game from years gone by. This one’s a bit obscure… but if you know it, you KNOW it. The late 1990s was a golden age for independent shareware or freeware games – titles often made by nerdy (and usually amateur) programmers in their homes rather […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 10, Part 2 (2033)
We’re back once again at Nacka FC on Football Manager 2024… and if you’ve been following since the beginning, this is a particularly exciting chapter. After an inconsistent start to the 2033 Allsvenskan season, Nacka are now preparing for their first ever matches in the Conference League. Can we survive the qualifiers and get through […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 10, Part 1 (2033)
About this time last year, I would have been quite happy if I had never played Football Manager 2024 again. Six months later, and whoops… I’m about to celebrate a decade at Nacka FC! In case you missed it, Nacka enjoyed a fantastic climax to their first ever season in Sweden’s top division. A top-four […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 9, Part 2 (2032)
Welcome back to “Nacka’s Yard”, where Nacka FC are getting stuck into their first season as an Allsvenskan club… and it’s been going surprisingly well. We left things off with Nacka sitting fairly comfortably in mid-table, but how long will it last? Will reality bite us hard and send us crashing back down into the […]
Review: FIFA Manager 2025
It’s March 2025, and after months of eager anticipation, FM25 has finally been released to the public! Well… kind of. Of course, Football Manager 25 is dead and buried, leaving a huge gap in the market for this season. Could that gap be filled by one of Sports Interactive’s old rivals? Although EA Sports’ FIFA […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 9, Part 1 (2032)
Welcome back to what’s guaranteed to be another exciting* chapter of my Football Manager 2024 series. This is my ninth season at Nacka FC, and it’s by far our biggest to date! In case you missed it, the 2031 season was an unforgettable one at the Fisksätra, as a talented crop of attackers fired Nacka […]
FM Logic: Transfers & Development
Football Manager is the most realistic sports simulation video game out there. We all know that. But it’s not perfect. In recent versions of FM, and especially on Football Manager 2024, there have been some wonky game mechanics that often lead to unrealistic player development and transfers. Whether it’s talented players being stuck in the […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 8 (2031)
Welcome back to “Nacka’s Yard”, where it’s now Season 8 – The Ocho. Or perhaps we should say “Åttan”, seeing as we’re in Sweden. I’m afraid that Season 7 was not a lucky one for us. We forgot how to score, our goalkeeper forgot what his gloves were for, and we also said farewell to […]
Retro Review: Lords of Football
We might have to wait until next season for a new Football Manager, but that doesn’t mean there’s a shortage of football games on the Steam storefront. A few weeks ago, I looked at a bare-bones Championship Manager clone that didn’t stray too far from the standard formula. The game I’ll be reviewing today is… […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 7 (2030)
FM25 might be cancelled, but my Football Manager 2024 save is still going strong. I’m just about to enter my 7th season at Nacka FC, making this the longest time I have spent with a single club in any of my Fuller FM blog careers. After an encouraging end to the 2029 season, hopes are […]
FM25: The Game That Never Was
2025… bloody hell. What a rough year this has been already, and we’re not even halfway through February yet! We’ve had devastating wildfires in California, unprecedented storms in the United Kingdom, ongoing war in Ukraine, Donald Trump starting his second reign of terror, and – worst of all – a young black man daring to […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 6 (2029)
The year is 2029. Nacka FC have just survived the first major crisis of the Fuller era. After hurtling down the Superettan table in 2028, I now have to rebuild my squad, and assemble a defence that can… you know… defend. Will it be third time lucky for Nacka in the Superettan? Will this be […]
Retro Review: Sven-Göran Eriksson’s World Manager
It’s time for another of my Fuller FM retro reviews… and today’s review is particularly poignant. Sven-Göran Eriksson passed away in August last year at the age of 76, after an illustrious managerial career with the likes of Benfica, Sampdoria, Lazio and (ahem) Leicester City. He was also the first – and, to date, best […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 5 (2028)
Welcome back to “Nacka’s Yard”, where my lower-league adventure in Sweden has so far been going very well… perhaps too well. If you missed our Superettan debut last season, Nacka FC didn’t just stay up – we came quite close to what would have been a third consecutive promotion! Nacka’s incredible rise on FM24 has […]
Review: Global Soccer 2018
2025 is now in full swing, and we potentially have TWO Football Manager games to look forward to this year! But while we are waiting for FM25, I’ve been looking at some other football management simulators from years gone by. In today’s review, I’ll be looking at an independently-made Championship Manager clone that was released […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 4 (2027)
It’s a new year… and another new league for Nacka FC. After 2025 brought a historic Division 2 title to the Fisksätra, Nacka’s extraordinary rise continued in 2026 as they finished 3rd in the Ettan Norra – and then won a dramatic promotion play-off against Öster! For the second season in a row, we were […]
Turning professional on Football Manager
Football Manager isn’t just about the elite teams. Many FMers like to take a part-time team in a lesser-known league and gradually build them up into a dominant force at domestic and continental level. A lot of us also like to take a provincial club from the lower leagues and take them up to the […]
Nacka’s Yard
“Nacka’s Yard” is my final Football Manager 2024 story, published exclusively on Fuller FM. After Football Manager 25 was delayed for several months, I decided to return to FM24 with a new save. I took… More
Nacka’s Yard: Season 3 (2026)
It’s time to pay another visit to Nacka’s Yard, as our rise up the Swedish footballing pyramid continues. We were crowned champions of Division 2 Södra Svealand last season, but now we face some much stiffer tests in the Ettan Norra. Surely we can’t get ourselves promoted again… right? This will be quite a long […]
FM24: The ‘Regen Bug’
Let’s talk about a potential newgen bug I’ve found on Football Manager 2024. In most cases, any players that FM generates – also known as ‘newgens’ – are entirely separate from and unrelated to any other player in the database. When Cristiano Ronaldo retires, he isn’t instantly replaced with another skilful Portuguese forward who has […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 2 (2025)
Welcome back to Fuller FM, and to my Football Manager 2024 series with Nacka FC in the Swedish fourth tier. In case you missed it, my first season was a success… well, kind of. We did win the trophy for the most Expected Goals and Expected Points in Division 2 Södra Svealand… but, er, we […]
Nacka’s Yard: Season 1 (2024)
Great news! It’s Football Manager 25 release day!!! Wait… what? Seeing as we’re stuck with Football Manager 2024 until March, I’m going to fill the void with a new save. I have taken over Nacka FC, who play in the fourth tier of Swedish football after a rapid ascent through the leagues. I also hope […]
Football Manager 25: The Waiting Game
Real Madrid are the European champions, spurred on by an enigmatic English midfielder. Arsenal actually have a decent team as well. Kylie Minogue is one of the world’s biggest popstars. Labour are in Government, and the Tories are in chaos. People are very worried about war in the Middle East. And Sports Interactive have delayed […]
Blog Update #8
Another season at Fuller FM is coming to an end and… well, it’s been a weird one, hasn’t it? In my annual blog update, I will deliver my final thoughts on Football Manager 2024. I’ll also look back on everything I’ve posted here in the past year – including a frustrating career at Millwall and […]
Football Manager 25: International Blues
Let’s talk about Football Manager 25. Again. Last week, Sports Interactive’s studio director Miles Jacobson released another Development Update for the next Football Manager game. He also patted everyone on the back after the recent FM World Cup in Liverpool, but who honestly cares about that now? Anyway, this update is a big one, and […]
Fuller FM Cup 2024: Part 3
This is it – the final chapter of the 2024 Fuller FM Cup, where my finest Football Manager teams have been battling it out for supremacy. Last time out, we played through the Group Stage – reducing our original line-up of eight teams to just four. The remaining quartet will now contest the Semi Finals, […]
Fuller FM Cup 2024: Part 2
Welcome to the second part of the 2024 Fuller FM Cup, in which I pit together the best teams from all Fuller FM Cup 2024: Part 1my previous Football Manager saves. Last time out, we met the eight teams who will contest the Group Stage. By the end of today’s chapter, we will be left […]
Fuller FM Cup 2024: Part 1
An exciting new era at Fuller FM will begin soon… but first, it’s time to bring this one to a close. I’ve decided to boot up Football Manager 2024 one last time for a special mini-tournament. I’ve selected the eight best teams I’ve coached on Football Manager since I launched Fuller FM back in 2018, […]
Football Manager 25: What We Know So Far
Hello again. I’m glad you’ve come. You’ve obviously heard there’s a new Football Manager game on the way. As a new club football season draws closer, the excitement about the next installment of FM is ramping up. Last week, Sports Interactive’s studio director Miles Jacobson wrote a lengthy Development Update in which he gave us […]