History VideoGame / FootballManager

** Promotion from the Dutch second division to the Eredivisie is rather convoluted. The top two of the second division get promoted immediately, taking the place of the Eredivisie bottom two. Then there's a playoff system for a possible third club to get promoted, however. 7 teams qualify for these playoffs: the no. 16 of last Eredivisie season, 4 period title winners (for "period titles" the second division seasons is split into 4 segments, with the best performing team of each period being awarded such a title) and the two highest ranking teams that did not win a period title. The 6 seeded second div. teams then play each other in a two-legged tie, followed by another round where the three winners are joined by the Eredivisie side. After said round a final round determines who gets to be the third promoted club (or keep their Eredivisie spot). Its gets more convoluted with the knowledge that performing well in just one quarter of the season can technically set you on a path towards promotion, meaning a club that starts the season very well, but then falls away completely can get promoted. What's more, the Dutch second division includes a number of second teams of generally big Eredivisie sides (Ajax, PSV, AZ, Utrecht at present), and these can't get promoted nor earn period titles (they will get awarded them, but their spot in the playoffs will be given to the next best team). With all of these factors in play it is entirely possible for a team that finish in the bottom half of the table to get promoted to the Eredivisie.

** Players choosing to join another club over yours, despite your transfer/contract offer being superior to the other club's. While this can be justified with clubs that have a much higher reputation than yours, players will commonly join clubs of similar reputation over yours without good reason, accepting significantly lower wages and bonuses. Especially jarring if the other club is currently in a much worse league position than yours.

''Football Manager'', formerly known in the USA and Canada as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'', is a [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] management sim where, unlike games such as the ''VideoGame/{{FIFA|Soccer}}'' and Pro Evolution Soccer'' series, you run the tactical & club management aspects rather than actually controlling the players on the pitch. It's up to the player to buy and sell players, control the finances, tactics and setup of the team as a whole.

* SturgeonsLaw: Applicable to young players. For each 10 young players the scouts find, only one of them is a great fit for the player's team, and the other 9, well...
** It could be circumvented in earlier versions of the game (back when it was still Championship Manager). You see, the "newgens", or youngsters created by the game, were just younger versions of retired players. They had the same Potential Ability, position, nationality and a couple of Mental attributes. So, when Zinedine Zidane retired, a new French Attacking Midfielder would show up, with the potential to be at least as good as him.

** EightPointEight: When the Board are only mildly happy about massive achievements like winning multiple trophies. [[invoked]]
--> ''"The board revealed they always expected the team to win the competition. The board are keen to impress on the manager that celebrations are kept to a minimum in order that the club may focus fully on future challenges."''

*** UpToEleven in Football Manager 2015. The first six months feature the Primera División the way it has been known for years, but the Primera B Nacional involves two groups of 11 teams, in where five teams of each group gets promoted. Starting in 2015, the Primera División has '''thirty''' teams playing one time against each other, bar rival (Or close) teams, which are played twice. It will be very complicated '''again''' when the 2016 january transfer window patch is released. The thirty teams will be split in two groups of 15 (Rivals or close teams are not placed in the same group), playing once against each other, plus two derbies, and only one team is relegated. Then it goes back to the 2015 format, though starting in mid-year instead of spanning a single year.

* DifficultySpike:
** Once SI took over, and all of the brilliant players that would go to Conference clubs were systematically axed, the game obviously got much harder. It still doesn't stop people from taking clubs from said Conference to the Champions League, though...
** This can naturally happen over the course of a save. In nations such as Spain, the first promotion to top-flight as a minnow can be an unpleasant experience as you have to face extremely powerful opponents with hardly any TV revenues to bolster your team.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin

* GameMod:
** There are extensive user-created additions to every game in the series, although none would be considered a true 'mod'. These additions range from updated databases, better logos and team shirts, additional leagues, expanding leagues below the currently playable leagues, and the creation of entire fictional countries such as the "Koana League".
** ''Championship Manager 01/02'' has [[http://champman0102.co.uk/ an extensive modding site]] that aims to keep the game up to date. As of mid-2020 there are ''still'' regular data mods for the game.

* AlwaysMale: True for the actual footballers, but clubs can have female staff (prominent example: Corinne Diacre, manager for French Ligue 2 team Clermont) and players can play as female managers.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Although this trope applies to all team sport games this one is probably the king of the trope, if you played football professionally or even semi-professionally anywhere in the world during the last season its more likely than not that you are in the game, considering football is the most popular sport in the world, that's a lot of people. The game also features the Managers, Board Directors and Members, Coaches, Physios, Scouts and even the guys who relay the pitch. Only somewhat subverted in that even with a cutting edge computer it may be impossible to load all the players in the database for a game and play at a reasonable speed. It's only somewhat subverted because even just loading a few leagues will still provide a lot of characters - you don't only get the first team, but the reserves and youth players at the clubs as well. Too add to that, certain free agents and the bigger players from leagues you haven't loaded may also appear in the game depending on what database size you choose. As the game progresses more and more "regens" (fake players) appear in the game world as well). The game itself recommends a maximum of 75,000 players, though depending on your computer you might be able to load twice as much without seriously impacting performance.
** In terms of players included, the only significant omissions from the game are the those playing in the J-League system (regardless of nationality) since they don't have the license to the names (held by Konami as of 2012). Japanese players signed to foreign clubs are all included, however.
** This also means that for every one wonderkid that SI/Eidos actually got right (Falcao, Aguero, Messi), [[SturgeonsLaw nine were incredibly wrong]]. Madeira didn't even exist, Tsigalko ended his career due to persistent injuries, Cardenas, Cerrajero, Millan, Samba, Kerr, etc. are all still unknowns...

** Anatoli Toodorov. He had godlike scoring ability, and paired with Supat Rungratsamee (a near Ace himself) they were good enough to virtually assure the title wherever you played.

** Your player character, if you are good enough. It reaches the point where you can apply for, say, the Barcelona job as the current Real Madrid manager and they will still beg for you to join them** Anatolia Todorov. He had godlike scoring ability, and paired with Supat Rungratsamee (a near Ace himself) they were good enough to virtually assure the title wherever you played.

** Your player character, if you are good enough. It reaches the point where you can apply for, say, the Barcelona job as the current Real Madrid manager and they will still beg for you to join them.

''Football Manager'', formerly known in the USA and Canada as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'', is a [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] management sim where, unlike games such as the ''VideoGame/{{FIFA|Soccer}}'' and ''VideoGame/ProEvolutionSoccer'' series, you run the tactical & club management aspects rather than actually controlling the players on the pitch. It's up to the player to buy and sell players, control the finances, tactics and setup of the team as a whole.

''Football Manager'', formerly known in the USA and Canada as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'', is a [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] management sim where, unlike games such as the ''VideoGame/{{FIFA|Soccer}}'' and ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' series, you run the tactical & club management aspects rather than actually controlling the players on the pitch. It's up to the player to buy and sell players, control the finances, tactics and setup of the team as a whole.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading:

* CompletelyMissingThePoint: There are times in which the board agrees with your request, but refuses it because of a lack of funding. Said refused requests may include spending less money...

** WinTheCrowd: Winning any official competition (such as a Cup or even the League itself) when the main objective is "stay clear of relegation". In the first management year. [[invoked]]

** ''Championship Manager 01/02'' has [[http://champman0102.co.uk/ an extensive modding site]] available that aims to keep the game up to date with the Squads, leagues and seasons of 2010/2011.

** Belgium has a system so bizarre across the entire league pyramid that you're better off just trying to win every match than bother trying to understand it.(In resume: Everyone plays each other twice, then the league cleaves into 3 groups of six -And the points obtained at that point are halved-, deciding in order; The championship[1-6];mid-table[7-12];and who gets relegated[13-18])

** This also means that for every one wonderkid that SI/Eidos actually got right (Falcao, Aguero, Messi), [[SturgeonsLaw nine were incredibly wrong]]. Madeira didn't even exist, Tsigalko ended his career due to persistent injuries, Cardenas, Cerrajero, Millan, Samba, Kerr, etcetera are all still unknowns...

** As a savegame goes on and the number of players increases (Even in non-playable leagues), the game steadily slows down. This cannot be avoided, but it takes a long while before it's noticeable.

** Quite strangely, the way the AI sums up teams based on results & reputation can result in newly promoted teams having a much easier time in their first season in the new league than in their second. In the first season almost all the other teams in the league will see them as easybeats and play too aggressively, leaving them open to being counter-attacked, but once the new team stays up for a season they are treated like other teams on that level, and the AI teams will play defensively, preferring to control the possession and be patient, which is harder to defend and counter-attack with the likely inferior players a recently promoted team will have.

** It could be circumvented in earlier versions of the game (back when it was still Championship Manager). You see, the "newgens", or youngsters created by the game, were just younger versions of retired players. They had the same Potential Ability, position, nationality and a couple of Mental atributes. So, when Zinedine Zidane retired, a new French Attacking Midfielder would show up, with potential to be at least as good as him.

** Expect more teams to use defensive tactics against you if your team has been successful recently. If you don't take this into account, you can get some surprise defeats and draws...

** Championship Manager 01/02 is still arguably the most popular installment of the game (following whichever one was recently released).

''Football Manager'', formerly known in the USA and Canada as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'', is a [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] management sim where, unlike games such as the ''VideoGame/{{FIFA|Soccer}}'' and ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' series, you control the tactical & club management aspects rather than actually controlling the players on the pitch. It's up to the player to buy and sell players, control the finances, tactics and setup of the team as a whole.

The series is the successor of the hugely successful ''Championship Manager'' series of the 90's and early 2000's before the split between [[Creator/SquareEnix Eidos]] and Sports Interactive in 2004. Sports Interactive managed to retain everything but the name and ''Football Manager'' (now distributed by Creator/{{Sega}}) displaced the ''Championship Manager'' franchise as the number one Football Management sim in the world. ''Championship Manager'' by contrast fell behind as Eidos had to start everything from scratch, and was discontinued from the 2010/11 season.

At least part of the game's success is due to the fact that almost any real life player can be loaded into the game, no matter how unaccomplished.

''Football Manager'', formerly known in the USA and Canada as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'', is a [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] management sim where, unlike games such as the ''VideoGame/{{FIFA|Soccer}}'' and ''ProEvolutionSoccer'' series, you control the tactical & club management aspects rather than actually controlling the players on the pitch. It's up to the player to buy and sell players, control the finances, tactics and setup of the team as a whole.