It is not difficult to find the most diverse praise for the Football Manager construction model. Loyalty to the database is the most recurrent. The praise of this work is the result of the arduous collaboration of several people around the planet – which few people know. And to understand all the rigor in the method, criteria for player attributes, challenges and other details, we went to talk to those who are at the heart of the thing.
“I started collaborating with the database in 2016 and it was a mixture of a sense of responsibility with an almost magical feeling of being participating in something I loved so much”, reveals Yan Cavalcanti, 33, a systems developer who works full time with analytics. football and volleyball statistics – and one of the editors of the Football Manager database in Brazil. “I’ve always had a habit of customizing the game a lot before I started playing it. So basically, my job today is what I used to do just for myself after the game came out.”
It all started there in Championship Manager 98-99, the first simulator played by Yan. “I found out that there was a more complete version of an Elifoot-style game, I went after it and fell in love. I just didn’t like it when I dismissed Romário by mistake”, he laments, with good humor.
Basically, Yan’s job, born in João Pessoa-PB, consists of completely adjusting all clubs in Paraíba, and helping with other regions of Brazil. Nationally, the team of editors has four other people, in addition to a head of editing. The purpose of this group is to keep the game as updated as possible, always.
“We try to make the base robust and faithful. But of course, failures can happen, such as a player being well evaluated in previous years and not going through updates that accompany their real development, which may not have been as good as the initial one. In terms of transfer, we always expect a player to enter the BID (Daily Newsletter, from CBF) or to be a very notorious transaction. There are many rules and standards to be followed. The relationship between us who play and the athletes in the game are very realistic Off the field influences and affects each player differently. Each player’s personality has an influence. This level of realism is not seen in other games. But we also know that this level of detail can be difficult for first-time gamers. “
When the Football Manager version is close to being closed, the team manages to adjust data from around 150 players a day. Generally, larger clubs, and some states, have their own researcher. There are volunteers who help and end up “adopting” a team, which allows for a meticulous detailing of athletes and staff. Naturally, the smaller ones represent more difficulties. “You can’t be 100% perfect, but clubs in Brazil’s top three divisions are close to that. It’s also rare for a player to be called up to the U-20 team and not be in the game.”
What can still be improved in Football Manager?
“Speaking as a fan, Women’s Football is missing. It’s the next step, and an important one. I hope that one day it will happen. I would also like to see Brazilian clubs officially in the game. They are interested in making a league to replace the Brazilian Championship.” and that can help. Another thing that I think the game doesn’t end up being perfect is that the simulation is very focused on English football, so there are situations that we can’t make 100% realistic in Brazilian football. There’s a completely different football culture. , coaches who do good work in lower divisions end up moving up to the bigger leagues more easily. Here, coaches from smaller clubs are very tied to their regions. A coach who is successful in the Northeast ends up having to go to giant clubs in the region to be able to take chances with giant clubs in other regions, and the game doesn’t perfectly simulate that, making for unbelievable manager changes.”
How to set the level (0 to 20) of each player’s indicators?
“Some issues are complicated to assess. In general, we have to compare the attributes and use as a basis the division that the clubs are in. For example, in 2021 Botafogo-PB was in Série C and Campinense was in Série D. and players were not so discrepant, but because of the standardization of divisions, I ended up leaving a considerable margin between clubs. The starting point was the following: a starting player of Botafogo would be considerably superior to that of Campinense, but we cannot leave it so different from reality, so we always have to look for a balance.
Some attributes are very specific and you don’t need so much analysis, such as impulsion, which we also have to take into account the height of the player. Others are quite subjective, see “bravery” and “important games”, and these need to be paid more attention, especially since each researcher can analyze differently.
But after watching so many games and analyzing so many players, you end up observing everything more easily: Nowadays, I can clearly see when a player lacks confidence with bad foot, when he doesn’t have as much game vision or defensive positioning his is bad, things that are part of a deeper analysis.”
