Football Manager

1982 video games ZX Spectrum gamesCommodore 64 games

soccer manager games

Original game that gave the inspiration and its name to modern times Football Manager series.

Published on Spectrum in 1982 original Football Manager was game that inspired the whole genre. Of course it was not the first computer game to simulate football matches, PBM games (Play-By-Mail) used computers before to calculate the results, but it was one of the first to be available on personal computers, where you could play in your own home.

Just one look at the screenshots should remind you elements that you know from later published football management games, like transfer offers pop up after the match, match highlights in simple animations showing only the goal chance, formation sums being used to show which team has advantage. It is not accident that they look familiar - creators of Championship Manager and later FM series were inspired by this game, even to the point that they bought the name so they could call their own game Football Manager.

In today standards Football Manager does not look impressive - text interface, few simple animations to present highlights, typical scenario to fight your way up from Division 4, but when you take under consideration the hardware limitations and the fact that you also get the editor to change player or team names, you get basic economy and loans system then this 1982 game was a really well devised game.

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Football Manager screenshots

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Games like Football Manager

The Manager

1991
German soccer manager game that was later adapted for English users. While far from being perfect The Manager offered original and interesting way of presenting the match events.

Football Boss

1991
Published in 1991 on Commodore Amiga Football Boss had more in common with the 8-bit computer games than what was being published in that times.

League Challenge

1991
In early 1990s there was a huge demand in Great Britain for soccer management games, which lead to a wave of half-baked products that could barely be called games. League Challenge was one of them.

British Manager

1996
Simple and a bit old-fashioned football manager gamer - published in 1996, but with the level of simulation comparable with games from 1986.

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