Football Manager was never just a game. The way it pulls us into that almost-real world ends up producing some very strange stories, all because of the bug we share.
Here are four of them.
1. He simulated a thousand years and told what he saw
Venezuela overtaking Argentina in South American football. England as the national team with the most World Cups. Portugal, the USA and the Belgian generation as world champions. All of this by the year 3015, according to a crazy simulation.
What's more, in August 2015, a user of Reddit posted an FM 2015 save in which he simulated a thousand years of English football. It took 58 days. Sheffield United, Burnley and Southend became the Premier League’s most successful clubs, Arsenal’s stadium was renamed Wenger Arena and Leicester never won anything (ironically, they became champions that very season in real life).
There is more: a Celtic-APOEL Champions League game watched by 583,214 spectators in 2987, Real Madrid with 108 Champions League titles, the Netherlands only winning their first World Cup in 2586, and Morocco as the only African world champions.
If you want to venture into this strange future, you can download the save here.
2. Sky Sports used FM data to analyze players
Sky Sports is one of the best-known TV channels in the world, especially in England. In fact, in the 2015/16 season it decided to change its approach and started using Football Manager data to analyse the players clubs were chasing.
It makes sense: clubs like Everton had already admitted using FM to study possible signings. If the clubs use it, why not television?
3. Almost a hundred managers in the same save
In 2016, Sports Interactive launched a challenge to English fans: take AFC Wimbledon, then in the fourth tier and sponsored by SI, to the Premier League. Rules: a single save, and each participant played for about an hour.
The goal was to enter the Guinness Book as the video game save with the most participants ever. Later, more than 100 people signed up and 92 turned up.
Over more than a decade of game time, hundreds of matches were played. The closest Wimbledon came to the Premier League was a League Two play-off, lost in the final, at Wembley.
In between, chaos: one manager accepted an offer from Leeds and, right after, another signed for Burnley. With nobody looking after the club, Wimbledon were relegated. When someone finally got back in the dugout, the last 30 managers needed five seasons to return them to League Two, which happened in 2027.
If you want to know more, the full article is here (in English).
4. FM put Griezmann at Chelsea… by mistake
During Euro 2016, Antoine Griezmann was caught several times playing Football Manager between France games.
In one of those videos, he appeared to be managing Chelsea, which was enough to fuel rumors of a move to London.
It turned out to be nothing of the sort. Two days later he appeared in a video explaining that he was managing his boyhood club, Lyon.
And it didn't stop there. According to Última Divisão, he also said he had taken over Arsenal: “I was with Marseille, but didn't have much money for transfers. The same happened at Lyon. So I took Arsenal, in Wenger's place. I won the English league and the Champions League!” We have a manager.
Which of these stories seems the craziest to you?
What happened next
The thousand-year simulation was done in FM15 by Reddit user Lorf_Yimzo and was still being remembered by the press in 2017. In fact, the irony of Leicester winning nothing in the future became even bigger: in real life, they were English champions in 2015/16. What's more, Sky Sports wasn't the only case: Everton had had an official agreement with Sports Interactive since 2008 to use the database for scouting.
An AFC Wimbledon game at Kingsmeadow, in 2017 (Image: Ungry Young Man / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
While the museum save was running, the real Wimbledon won the League Two play-off at Wembley, in May 2016, and went up to League One. Then they moved to the new Plough Lane in 2020 and, in 2025, won promotion to League One again. Finally, Sports Interactive still sponsors the club, as it has done since its founding in 2002.
And Griezmann?
Antoine Griezmann was the best player at Euro 2016, but lost the final to Portugal, to Éder's goal. Later, he became a world champion in 2018 and, in 2019 and 2021, shared more saves, with Arsenal and Newcastle. In 2026 he swapped Atlético Madrid for Orlando City, in MLS, where he scored on his debut.
Antoine Griezmann playing for France at the 2018 World Cup (Image: Anton Zaitsev / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sources: Última Divisão / Kotaku / Complex / Sky Sports / MCV / PC Gamer / GameGrin / Wikipedia (AFC Wimbledon) / CaughtOffside / Sports Illustrated / WTOP (AP)
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