"On Football Manager..."

[Red Dragon]

Pardon my ignorance, but why do people quote a game - a game - as some kind of authority for judging the worth of a player?

Don't those who do make this kind of quote... "On Football Manager he's great..." feel a bit, well, idiotic, in the cold light of day, by making it look like they put any credence into what a game says? I mean, according to my favourite games, I could blow up the Death Star, or win the American Civil War for the Confederacy, but that doesn't make me Luke Skywalker or Robert E Lee. So why do people quote a football game when we are supposed to be talking about real life?

[sheriff1993]

I am one of these people,

For me it just gives me a rough idea what a player is like if someone mentions them here.

If Football Manager was real then Rushden are set to have a good couple of seasons :P

[Oundle Diamond #2]

I see your point, I'm sure if you ask Dave Albon, a lot of research and effort goes into making all the attributes of players featured on the game vaguely accurate to those in real life.

For example Pace, the accuracy of it is fantastic. I remember being excited about seeing Peter Winn play for Gateshead as he was 1 of 3 players in the Conference who had at least 16/20 pace, and he was a lightening winger!

It's not 100% accurate no, but 99/100 it gives you a rough idea, and knowing how most football fans are as clueless as they are, it's often possibly better than a human opinion ;)

[mattreddan]

Football manager isn't real life?

OH EM GEE. :o

[wewantourdarbyback]

I see your point, I'm sure if you ask Dave Albon, a lot of research and effort goes into making all the attributes of players featured on the game vaguely accurate to those in real life.

Initially, they are then given a number for potential if young, the game can decide if they live up to that max number. Never a good indicator.

[BartonRaz]

I'm dismayed at the amount of ridiculous posts on this board recently alltogether, let alone the football manager ones.

[davealbon]

In fairness, I think most of the "He's brilliant on Football Manager..." posts are made with tongue in cheek.

FM can be useful for identifying players' strengths and weaknesses as all of the data is provided by the supporters who watch them play week in week out. It can be a little misleading however, as each researcher marks their players slightly differently - some will be quite harsh on their team, others more lenient (for example, the York researcher always made Brodie crap even though he scored 20+ goals a season, just because he didn't like him). The obvious attributes, such as pace, strength, jumping etc should be fairly accurate.

Judging how good a player is overall can be very misleading however. I often have people say to me that one player is far too good, whereas someone else will say they are nowhere near as good as they should be. This is especially apparent in younger players, as their future level of ability is determined by numerous factors, one of which is completely random.