Football. What a sport.
I'd say I follow it, but following requires a bit of effort. I'd say I'm a fan, but I don't go around parading my allegiances anywhere, even if it's perfectly fine to support Liverpool these days (or perhaps was, until they started playing like the Liverpool I grew up with - losing).
I've been to very few live matches mostly because of having absolutely no desire to go. You get a better view at home, in the warm, away from the racists who think their own team's players are absolute dog-shite, what are you doing, you pillock, my nan could have scored from there.
Football fans who think they could do a better job than the players on the pitch, and especially the manager on the touchline, are just the worst. I'm sorry, but you are. Luckily for you, though, Football Manager 2010 exists so that you can have a go at being the boss in the comfort of your own home.
Please. Only have a go in your own home.
Fun Times
Football Manager 2010 is a strange game for someone used to PES and FIFA. I dabbled with it when I first got it however many years ago (certainly not as far back as 2010), but did little more than that. You can't really get anywhere with dabbling in this game. It comes with a set-up wizard, for goodness sake.
Lower leagues, foreign leagues, leagues you never knew existed and will just as quickly forget exist, you can start where you like. Poor club struggling to climb the ranks? Large club flush with cash? There was only ever going to be one choice for this run. A team who really needed my help. A team with no hope of getting any silverware but who ought to at least comfortably avoid the humiliation of relegation. A team known simply as Liverpool FC, circa 2010.
The job starts immediately. A club like this doesn't hang around, and my first email informs me of the players currently out on loan. I recognise two of the names and care for neither. It also says that Milan Jovanovic is joining us next year, which I am beyond thrilled about, he said, sarcastically, remembering the impact he had on the actual Liverpool team of 2010 - 10 Premier League appearances, 0 Premier League goals, shipped off after a single season.
It's a long way to July 2010, however. It's still July 2009, and we've got a lot of work to do to get settled into our new career as Liverpool manager. I better have a look at the players.
As you've gathered, life as a manager is a bit corporate, isn't it? Emails and reports and business dealings. Don't you just want to get your Jurgen Klopp on and have some fun with the media? Well, FM10 has you covered with interviews with the press, with multiple choice answers to their questions and the ability to storm out whenever you like.
You'll get the highlights delivered to your inbox later, but an entire news tab keeps you informed of other clubs transfers and the like. There are a lot of these types of screens. Get used to them.
But the more important screens are the ones that look like a football pitch and have player names on them. Sammy thinks we should have a match against the Liverpool Reserves to see what we're dealing with, and I can't think of a better idea right now.
The level of detail in these pre-match screens is a step above what FIFA and PES offer. You can change your formation and tweak your tactics in those games, sure, but in FM10, the fine-tuning is off the charts. You can single out a player and tell them exactly what you want them to do in a match, preferably according to their position on the pitch and skills in their feet, but you're the boss, go wild.
After that, you can pep them up with a team talk, or a personal talking to, telling them how they can win, or that you expect them to win, or what the absolute fuck were you doing out there, my nan could have done better. Well, most of those options. Again, it's not just good/bad/neutral responses, but a few of each.
The long story short is that unless you don't care about the details, don't put these matches onto fast-forward, or you won't get a lot of managing done at all.
Post-match screens will break down the key players and what tactics worked and what needs to be worked on back in training, but the main takeaway I get is through my emails. 'Reds unimpressive' against their own reserves.
It's true, though I'd like to think a 2-1 result shows the strength of our reserve team. I know, having looked at the list of names I've got, that isn't the case at all. This first team is lacking, and for the next match, it's Fernando Torres who is lacking, having sustained an injury against the reserves.
We'll just need to find a replacement, mix up the formation, pick the right team talk, and see what happens in the next friendly.
Yeah, it all looks a lot closer to Sensible World of Soccer than FIFA, but that's not the selling point of FM10. You're not here for a pretty football sim, you're here to dictate which direction an entire football team will go in, but you're not alone. A backroom team will help you out, offering suggestions on who needs training, who needs to be brought in, and whether Jamie Carragher would make a good coach or not. Like I say, FM10 is all about the details.
Hopefully, we can snag him for a whole lot less than that, mostly because I'm on a budget this season.
As you can imagine, FM10 doesn't make transfers as straight forward as other football games. No, here you've got to factor in eligibility to even play in this country, how the transfer fee will be paid with regards to upfront and monthly instalments, how much the player will make each week, of course, and a whole heap of other worries that you just don't want to have to fret about in a game.
Unless you're the kind of player who really, really, wants to manage a football club, of course. If that's you, then fire up your spreadsheet full of thousands of players and get hunting for the next, I don't know, Joe Allen?
Me? I took a punt on some 17-year-old defender from Barcelona and then raided my reserves to replace the injury-prone first-teamers. I'm set for my first season in the Premier League. Shame we've got months of paperwork to go through before we get there.
Frustrations
Transfer bids rejected, groundsmen wanting to know what size of pitch will work best for me, losing to teams who have their strategy figured out, and having Torres warming the injury table instead of the bench meant my pre-season was a little swingy, shall we say?
I liked having power but didn't like having an utter lack of knowledge about how best to go about using that power. When was the best time to try and nab a player? What was the best offer to make? At one point, a potential target of ours leaked, and suddenly a whole bunch of other teams had their eye on him because I supposedly had my eye on him first. I didn't even know who he was.
After assigning player numbers and ignoring an email about loan repayments, the start of the season was finally drawing near, at least an hour and a half into my time with FM10, maybe even longer. This is what I came here for. Some Premier League action.
First was the pre-match press conference. Liverpool vs Arsenal, should be a good match, are you excited, yada yada. It was going well until I got pestered by someone asking whether I had a plan to combat Arshavin. He wouldn't take no for an answer, ended up asking me three times in a row. Mate, respect my desire to not tell you my tactics before a game, yeah?
We lose, Gerrard gets injured trying to sprint, but West Ham are keen to sign Martin Kelly, a defender I brought up from the reserves because most of my backline is injured and Glen Johnson is having a nightmare run of performances on the right. In short, no, West Ham, you aren't going to buy someone I actually need more than Steven bloody Gerrard right now.
A good showing against Portsmouth sees Torres heading to the injury table once more, and West Ham upping their offer for Kelly, now over a million pounds. No means no, damnit.
A few games into the season and we get the draw for the not Champions League, another license FM10 doesn't have. I think PES might have it this time. Anyway, Inter Milan, Athletico Madrid and RB Salzburg are going to have to face the Kop on a European night of football. Good luck with that. Let's show them how we can utterly dominate the field even without our frontman against Hull City.
Peak Liverpool performance there, lads. Really showing what kind of team you are. I must need to switch my tactics more often, or train my team, or listen to my backroom staff, or sign someone older than 17.
On the one hand, I like how authentic FM10 is with regards to Liverpool's consistently inconsistent style of play. On the other, I'd have hoped to have done all of this much more seamlessly and swiftly. There's hand-holding, but only if you find it buried in the spreadsheets, or answer the right email, and even then, you can't really throw out orders to have the AI do whatever you don't like - at least, I've not found a way to do so.
Everyone wants my stamp of approval on anything they do. No, have some belief in yourselves, do what I find dull and tedious. Let me just enjoy the highlights and have my name attached to other people's success...
Oh, no, that doesn't sound right at all. No, come on, let's get our head back in the game. Torres is back, look.
Ugh, I can't be dealing with this. How you turned this around to win the Premier League is beyond me. Well done and all, but blimey, you don't half make it harder for yourselves.
Final Word
I played Football Manager 2010 for two and a half hours there, and Steam has me having played it for another 6 hours before that (the dabbling I mentioned. Must have been quite the dabble, but I don't remember any of it). I honestly could have played for another two and a half right there and then, just to see what happened, simply because it's fun to see what happens.
A game where you control everything should have some degree of certainty about it. You ought to have an idea of what will work and what won't, and you can stay on top of things and control the situation. But football isn't like that. Football is football. At the end of the 90 minutes that matter the most, anything could have happened. Best laid plans will have no impact, impact subs will come on too late, and Torres will limp off with an injury once again.
The randomness has some level of appeal to me. I'd have preferred to do much better, especially against Hull and Fulham, but that's life, that's football, and boy oh boy is that what it means to be a Liverpool supporter.
But Football Manager 2010 isn't for the casual football fan. I mean, you're able to play it, sure, once you get past the idea that there will be more spreadsheets and emails than there will be on-pitch action, but you won't be able to command a dominant team until you understand each and every panel of your workspace, of which there are many, and they are all stupidly detailed.
Part of me really wants to play a full season of FM10, just to see how I fare, but I know that to do that I would want to do it properly, and doing it properly means understanding how every aspect works, and that's a daunting task.
There is also a mighty temptation to dive into the world of mods, to give teams their proper kits and badges, players their faces, to spruce up the advertising boards around the pitch, to update the transfers beyond what the developers were able to do before launch, and then to just make life easier and prettier to look at.
Fans of the game have done all of this, and do so for each and every Football Manager title. It takes a dedicated person to do all those labours of love but, like Pro Evolution Soccer before, I have had a history of labouring over badges and kits in the pursuit of authenticity. We like our games to look and feel authentic, and Football Manager is the closest anyone will ever come to running an entire club, yet not having the power to put the ball into the net ourselves.
It's enticing, and I wouldn't call myself a football fan - though an interest in football will help a great deal if you do want to get stuck into FM10...
I think if I were to play it some more, I'd have to spruce it up with badges and photos and quality of life mods before pouring over lists of must-have players and then just seeing what happens for a season. Is FM10 still supported, or easy to mod? I hope so. The football fan is mighty dedicated, after all.
If you can stomach the business side of the sport, Football Manager 2010 is well worth a look at. Just pick a team that isn't Liverpool.
Fun Times
A PlayStation Portable and iOS port of Football Manager is available for those of you who are so dedicated to a career in football management that you simply have to play it on the move. Perhaps at an actual football match, shoulder to shoulder with the folks shouting profanities, or 'banter'.
Football Manager 2010, developed by Sports Interactive, first released in 2009.
Version played: PC, 2009.