Football Manager Bumped for Xmas

Ready your brains, sports fans. Sega is bringing its spreadsheettastic football management game back later this year. First screenshot.

It may look like a spreadsheet painted with a football brush, but Sega's Football Manager series has been the darling of the sub-genre since Sport Interactive broke away from its previous publisher a few years back. It's not surprising to hear that Sega and SI are back in it for another year in Football Manager 2007, but it's good nonetheless to hear about all the new stuff they have planned.

There were more images, but they all look about like this

Top of the list of new features is an enhanced way of finding burgeoning talent. You can manage various kinds of feeder clubs, giving younger players vital match experience in bigger clubs, or you can bring more advanced players to your club to help them along.

The coach-player relationship is a complicated beast, but it's one that SI is tackling with relish. You'll be able to motivate (read: shout at) your players using the media as your bullhorn and you can manipulate the press to break down your opponents' morale.

Once you've got your team on the pitch, you need to keep them going, which is where the revamped team-talk feature comes in. This lets you have that all-important motivational talk with your boys mid-game, but you'll also be able to get them riled up before the match even starts.

All told, SI is planning around a hundred new features for Football Manager 2007. The game is being planned for Xbox 360, PC and Mac this Christmas and there's a PSP version, dubbed Football Manager Handheld, in the works too. For more, check out the official Football Manager site.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games