Football Manager 2024 review – I can finally channel my inner Pep Guardiola
Football Manager 2024 will be the last Football Manager game as we know it. And although the biggest changes to the series is coming next year, this year's instalment innovates in ways that will make even the most hardcore FM players very excited.
Sports Interactive confirmed back in June that its award-winning Football Manager game series would be changing forever with the release of FM25; the game is set to introduce women's football into the singular game universe, and the match engine is moving to Unity, to give the match experience more realism from overall graphics to in-game animations.
This announcement overshadowed the FM24 launch hype and coupled with the news that FM23 and FM24 are so similar that saves carryover, I couldn't shake the feeling that this year's sports management sim title has probably had the most low-key release I can remember. That's despite studio director, Miles Jacobson, calling FM24 "the most complete version we’ve ever produced."
Now that I've had the game in my hands, I can say he's right. FM24's match engine updates are huge. Perhaps the most significant in all the years I've been playing this game, in that positional play – made popular by the tactical genius that is Pep Guardiola – is now something that can be fully replicated in FM24. And for a footballing romantic like me, this is a dream come true.
Tactical joy
I've been playing Sports Interactive's football management simulation games since the Championship Manager days, and sink one thousand-plus hours into every annual Football Manager release. I'm the type of player who'll spend over three hours in menus without hitting continue, and you'll often find me scouring obscure divisions around the world for the next wonderkid. Generally, in my experience, the match engine updates are relatively modest year-on-year, maybe introducing a new role, or subtle changes to player behaviour.
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But my time with FM24's match engine has given me the most challenging, varied and interesting experience I've ever had with a Football Manager game yet; and that's because of the tactical options that the new positional play features provide, letting you build more elaborate tactics than ever before. After many, many hours spent testing the different roles, I've had a lot of fun with the following:
- John Stones-like Libero (Su) (moves up into the DM strata in possession from CB strata)
- Rico Lewis-like Inverted Wingbacks (moves up into the DM strata in possession from LB/RB strata)
- Nathan Ake-like Inverted Fullbacks (moves into the CB strata in possession from LB/RB strata)
- Sergio Busquets-like Halfback (drops into the CB strata in possession from the DM strata)
- Andrea Pirlo-like Segundo Volante (moves from DM to AM strata in possession)
- Andres Iniesta-like Mezzala (moves up into the AM strata in possession from the CM strata)
- Yaya Toure-like Roaming Playmaker (moves up from DM to CM and AM strata in possession)
- Bruno Fernandes-like Advanced Playmaker (moves up into the AM strata from the CM strata in possession)
For decades, I've been pining for an option to control where my players position themselves – both in and out of possession – and these changes allow you to do exactly that. A 4-3-3 in defence can quite easily become a 3-3-3-1 in attack, a 3-5-2, or it could become a 2-3-2-3 in attack, depending on the player roles you choose.
But it's not all about positional play, because there have been some small changes to existing player roles that add interesting new tactical options.
There's the Winger role, which now lets you add a Cut Inside player instruction – and in a role that is dedicated to providing width, it's been really interesting to experience how these minute adjustments can impact your team's shape. If you enjoy building tactics, testing them out, and adapting your strategy towards opponents on the fly, you'll love FM24 as much as I do.
Football Manager 2024 introduces positional play into it's match engine, giving you more tactical options than ever (Sports Interactive/Sega)The extensive range of options makes FM24 incredibly interesting in terms of building tactics, but things get even more compelling when you face strong sides in matches, where they'll often deploy roles that roam and change positions. Reacting and responding to these fluid strategic switch-ups is likely to give you the kind of stress headache usually reserved for the likes of Guardiola, so in terms of a sim, FM24 is nailing it. If only I was getting the salary to match.
Another major tactical upgrade for FM24 is the new set pieces creation tab, which simplifies what has historically been a pretty complicated section of the game, without losing any of the customisability that you had before. You'll be prompted to make decisions on whether you want to defend with Zonal, Hybrid, or Man Marking on corners, how aggressively you want to counter-attack, where you want your corners to be aimed, and whether you prefer inswinging or outswinging corners; once you've chosen your preferences, the game does all of the hard work for you, letting you make further tweaks to customisations if you really want to go deeper.
FM22's integration of agents is also present and has been built on – this time through the selling of players. Now, in FM24, you can ask an agent to drum up interest in a player you want to sell; and if they can't help, you can even hire an intermediary to get rid of them! There are still some players that you can't get foist off – as much as you may want to – but it's a much more intuitive experience compared to the previous 'offer to clubs' option.
It's in the details
There's a glut of small but substantial changes that make FM24 the game it is; from the TransferRoom integration, smarter opposition recruitment, and variations to player development, to the negative transfer budget management, new income streams, updated squad planner tab, individual player targets and more. They all coalesce to bring a heightened sense of realism and immersion to the last entry in the series as we know it.
Studio director Miles Jacobson is calling FM25 "the next chapter" that will "be like nothing before", specifically referencing the studio's switch to Unity, which is set to completely overhaul pretty much the only below-par aspect of Football Manager games: the graphics engine.
Although there have been some improvements for FM24, the experience of viewing a match in any camera other than 2D Classic is a disappointing experience – particularly considering how much graphical fidelity has improved in the industry as a whole over the past decade. For many players, the change to Unity can't come soon enough.
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But I'm not one of them. I've been playing Football Manager for long enough now that I'm accustomed to the 2D Classic camera. I love the fact that the FM games are essentially huge spreadsheets and admin simulations, with the matches acting as a bit of entertaining filler in between. I can't say I'm not excited to see what's in store for FM25, but part of me worries that some of the series-defining special sauce will be lost in translation. I hope I'm wrong.
Ultimately, Jacobson is right; FM24 is the most complete version of Football Manager to date, with a comprehensive suite of features, and a truly innovative and challenging match engine. But there's no denying that the series is leagues behind competing football titles on the graphics front.
If FM24 is the last Football Manager game as we know it, it's the perfect send-off, encapsulating the best – and worst – of this incredibly special series. Anyway, I'm off to spend two hours scouring the Brazilian second division for my next wonderkid. Guardiola, eat your heart out.
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