Another interview today with the man who influences my life and yours, in our free time, in the PC days, who hasn't sat in front of a computer for entire Sundays and free time playing FM, pretending to be Mourinho, Guardiola, Klopp, Sarri, for me, above PES and even FIFA, FM has always stood out for the delightful way you play it, the way it lets you venture into a world we've always dreamed of entering, and more and more, thanks to Carlos Bessa, we have this huge privilege of entering a world that's studied and detailed in ever greater depth.
On behalf of Toques de Bola, I can only thank Carlos and the rest of the FM Portugal team for the service they provide, and tell the rest of the game's fans to keep playing, because as he says, this 'bug' keeps growing.
Tb- Where does this 'bug for football' come from?
CB- I've been a huge football fan since I was very young! I remember spending whole Saturdays watching Premier League matches and finishing the day off with one or two matches from our own league. All that pleasure, combined with the 'power' we had to 'control' the players we saw on TV in Football Manager (Championship Manager up to 2004), and also to discover new stars like the ones we saw on TV, made this 'bug' grow more and more, to the point where the 'normal' topic of conversation with friends at school became… discussions about the tactics we used; the achievements we managed (!); the new stars we found on a team in Brazil's 2nd division! Good times… (laughs)
Tb- How did you end up joining FM, and what does the job of Head Researcher involve?
CB- As someone who was (and still is!) passionate about Football Manager, across the various 'saves' I did with different teams, I kept finding errors and attributes that I felt weren't at all suited to the players in question. Since I always liked playing as realistically as possible, whenever I found errors, I'd create my own database with the corrections I thought should be made, until at one point (in 2010) I reached out to the person in charge of Portugal's database at the time (José Chieira), so I could help more actively with the database and make it more realistic for everyone who, like me, spent many long hours enjoying FM. And that's what happened, after managing to contact him, I started collaborating with him by sending him documents with the corrections I thought should be made. Since I felt not all the changes were making it into the database, in 2012 I asked to join the team 'directly', making the changes myself for the teams he assigned to me, to make sure as much information as possible was actually entered into the database.
And that's how it went until… 2015! Since José Chieira is a professional scout for F.C. Porto and his time was becoming increasingly scarce, that year he invited me and Bruno Gens Luís to take over leading Football Manager's research team in Portugal. Our task is to coordinate a whole team of Assistants/Scouts that we keep recruiting, as well as making sure all playable teams (even ones without assistants) are as complete as possible, at every level.
Tb- You end up being a scouting figure yourself, so there's a focus to the analysis, what aspects do you actually analyse, that is, do you only analyse the player as an individual, the team as a collective, or based on the dynamics of the team the player is part of and its context?
CB- Since we're analysing the player for Football Manager, and not for a team with its own dynamics set within a specific competitive context, we can't let ourselves be influenced by the collective or by the dynamics the player's team happens to be playing under at that exact moment when drawing up his rating. We always try to look at the player as an 'individual', while always bearing in mind, in the report, the competitive context he's playing in at that exact moment. An example? A striker arriving in Portugal from Singapore's top division having scored 20 goals makes no sense at all to rate as a phenomenal talent and a natural finisher, when that was to be expected given the weak defences and overall quality he was exposed to in that context.
Tb- A question I've always had: how do you spot bugs or made-up cases from scouts, like the Tó Madeira case, that the game might have in the future if your first impression of the player doesn't match up, examples being Hugo Pinheiro, Nikiforenko, Tsigalko in CM 01/02?
CB- Indeed, Tó Madeira is, and always will be, seen as a vintage figure from the Championship Manager era! However, I'm sorry to disappoint true fans of this timeless goal machine but… no other identical case will ever happen again. Over the years, Sports Interactive has developed tools within the database itself that let us find, fairly easily, players with 'tampered' attributes that may have been created by our assistants, as was the case with him.
As for players we backed who ended up 'disappointing' us and didn't develop as expected, besides the fact that everyone's view on a potential star is always subjective to how each person analyses things, we have to accept that it's perfectly understandable and something that can happen: they're all exposed to a range of circumstances and surroundings that, besides not being visible to the naked eye, not everyone has the same ability to overcome whatever obstacles or difficulties come their way: if it were really 'that easy', there'd be no shortage of stars, would there?
Tb- How many hours a day do you put into FM?
CB- Playing Football Manager… I can honestly say very few!! (laughs) I can tell you that the week before handing in the database to SI (there are 7 deadlines a year), I leave my full-time job and end up working an extra four, five or six hours a day on it. In the periods when we have the database in hand, I work on average 30 hours a week.
Tb- How many matches do you watch live on average per week, and what's your relationship like with clubs?
CB- Live, I usually watch between 1 and 3 matches per weekend. As for video (since it's the easiest way to watch players)… I've lost count of how many matches I've watched! (laughs)
As for the relationship with clubs… it's quite limited. The vast majority don't provide information in the way we'd like and expect, so our 'lifeline' always ends up being getting information through the various other channels available (e.g. the media).
Tb- Has there ever been a real flop, someone you'd bet everything on the first time you saw them, given how much room for growth you thought they had?
CB- I don't have anyone I'd label a 'real flop', mostly because before assigning a kid a lot of potential, we try to learn 'a bit more' about him: we don't just base it on one or two matches that might have gone really well. That said, I can name one player in particular who, although his career hasn't actually gone badly, I thought would go on to fly even higher: Bernard Mensah (currently on loan at Kasimpasa from Atl. Madrid).
Tb- Nowadays the game is enjoyed by both parents and children, what's the harshest criticism you've received?
CB- Luckily there hasn't been much! (laughs). That said, however good the database gets year after year, logically we can't please everyone, and every year it's normal for some people to criticise the database. We'll never get everyone to agree, because it's football: a subject everyone has an opinion on.
Tb- You only do this work in Portugal, how do you think the 'toxic' climate of our football affects fans of the game?
CB- Although the petty 'squabbles' in Portuguese football's current reality are completely unnecessary and regrettable, I don't think that affects FM fans at all. Quite the opposite, in fact, when they play it they end up immersing themselves in a 'world apart', where the 'squabbles' happening 'out there', created by people who insist on making the front page, give way, 'in that world', to battles to sign a player wanted by 'half the world', or to take their local team up to the top flight.
Tb- Do you and Bruno currently only handle Portuguese football, or does your scope now have to be broader?
CB- As Chief Scouts, our job is to work the database of players active in PORTUGAL as well as possible. That said, when foreign signings arrive in our country, we often turn to watching footage of them from other leagues while they're not yet playing regularly for their new team, so we can get to know them beforehand and portray them properly in the database.
Tb- With the research you do, can you spot players not yet visible to the average eye who are about to explode onto the scene in a year or two?
CB- It's always a gamble to point at 'future big stars' and be certain about their 'breakthrough', since they're all at an age where anything can happen, and only those who stay fully focused and dedicated to the goal (top-level football) manage to successfully ride out all the 'waves' they'll face along the way. Leaving out better-known players like Fábio Silva or Úmaro Embaló, and not focusing on just one or two clubs, here are my picks among players in the U-17 age group:
– Tiago Matos (F.C. Porto); Tiago Ribeiro (F.C. Porto);
– Tiago Gouveia (S.L. Benfica); Gonçalo Ramos (S.L. Benfica);
– Félix Correia (Sporting C.P);
– Eduardo Ribeiro (S.C. Braga);
Tb- Do scouts from big clubs get in touch with you to exchange ideas?
CB- Speaking specifically about the big clubs, that's never happened to me, which I take as completely natural, since they're well organised, structured scouting departments. What's more common is receiving messages from agents/agencies or clubs from lower divisions looking for information/players.
Tb- What's your opinion on cases like Firmino's and Villas-Boas', who were said to have been discovered or launched, respectively, thanks to FM?
CB- I have no doubt there are other cases similar to Roberto Firmino's, they just weren't as widely publicised as his was. The media attention around these success stories only adds credibility to the database that's built so painstakingly by FM scouts around the world. And the truth is Football Manager can indeed also be used as a scouting aid tool, since the observations made for the database are made by looking at the player individually (within his competitive context), so if he has certain traits (that a hypothetical club is looking for) or future potential, that will carry over into the game's database.
Tb- What do you feel when you walk into FNAC and see your own work on display?
CB- First of all, I have to stress that it's the work of a whole team that helps us enormously with this tough task of improving and developing Portugal's database more and more, year after year, so I believe they, just like us, feel enormous pride knowing that inside that little box is 'a piece of us': hours of work in service of two passions that unite everyone who stops in front of it: FM and football.
Tb- Do you see BrasFoot or OSM as competition? If not, what's your source of motivation to keep making it better and better, the way it's being done?
CB- Although they're games that share a 'basic' idea comparable to Football Manager's, the way both are structured, as well as their target audience, mean they don't really come across as fierce competition, especially given how much bigger FM has become compared to BrasFoot, OSM, and even Championship Manager, which never managed to establish itself in the market after the internal split that happened. That said, even though competition is limited, the ambition we have to make Portugal's database ever more realistic, expansive at every level (adding as much biographical data as possible, building coaching/medical staff, maximising squad depth) and closer to reality, is the fuel we need — and use! — to keep improving our database year after year.
Tb- As someone who works in the virtual/digital field, do you think that's where the world is increasingly heading?
CB- Without a doubt! That's exactly what the future looks like: virtual reality, technology serving all of our daily routines. We use it more and more for everyday situations in our lives, and the trend is for it to carry even more weight in our lives, which in turn increasingly needs solutions that give us simple, fast and convenient access to what we need.
Tb- Not just talking about your work, if you can step outside your profession for a moment, do you believe today's society is more consumerist and more anxious largely because of the virtual world, where, in the case of FM and other sports games, but really in a much more global sense, the thirst for winning is turning today's kids into depressed kids?
CB- I don't think we should treat ongoing technological development as the sole explanation for how younger generations are being 'shaped'. While I agree it has certain influences, given how easily people now have access to 'a bit of everything' and to social media itself (which has brought positive things… but I agree it also 'influences' certain kinds of behaviour in people of any age!), I firmly believe that a large and important part of each child's personality development actually comes from the behaviour of parents/family members (and even all of 'us' as a society) who are around them as they grow up from babies: if we all stopped for a moment to think about this, we'd realise that in our everyday lives we've all witnessed plenty of regrettable situations involving adults around children/kids. Years later, we simply reap the 'fruits' of those bad examples set during 'critical' ages.
Tb- The previous question comes from this thirst to be better virtually, but on the other hand, does today's virtual world, with games like the much-talked-about Blue Whale, make our society one built on deception?
CB- I'd put it differently: we're raising generations that are less and less able to live in society. Every day that goes by we witness scandalous situations involving those who will be… our future! Since this is a snowball effect (given they'll be 'future parents'), it does make you wonder what things will look like in a good few years' time!?
Tb- What surprises can you reveal for FM 19?
CB- Given the time of year we're at, I'll have to keep that among 'the gods' secrets' (laughs). Some ideas for what will be created for the next edition are already set, and plenty of others are still being considered.
Tb- Do you manage to find time for family, or does the game force you to miss important moments?
CB- I've heard people talk about 'social life'. What's that?! (laughs). I always make a point of being present for important moments, whenever they happen. That said, I admit that at certain times it ends up being an almost… heroic feat of scheduling! (laughs) This work has phases, with the 'peak' of database editing running from mid-May to the end of September, and for the winter update, from early December to early February. In those months it's extremely hard to balance our social life with editing the database. This hobby takes up a huge amount of our time, and combined with the fact that we do all this purely 'for the love of the badge', for our passion for Football Manager and scouting, and on top of our full-time jobs already taking up a big chunk of our week, we end up spending a lot of weekends working for the game. But as the popular saying goes: what you do out of love never tires you out, right?
Tb- What does your soul tell you?
CB- It tells me that… the way I fall in love with analysing players and discovering new talent means I should keep staying focused and fighting persistently for a 'career opportunity'. Combining two passions (scouting and Football Manager) towards one goal (the database's ongoing development) makes me happy, though I won't hide that I'd love for this hobby to become my everyday job.
Finally, thanks to the 'Toques de Bola' blog for the opportunity to talk about and cover everything about a game we love so much, and that has so many fans throughout Portugal…! And of course, to the whole Official Portuguese Research team for the hours they put in alongside us for this wonderful game that is Football Manager, our thanks to all of you!
