Football Manager 2016 is on its way, and with it comes that time of year when any excuse to stay home is a good one. The release is set for this Friday, the 13th of November — let's hope you're not superstitious — and the new version comes packed with new features, as always, but for the Portuguese community there's double the satisfaction.
Almost 20 years and many complaints later, the game's official Portuguese research team has a new lineup, including new Head Researchers. GoalPoint sat down with one of them, Bruno Luís, so you can get a taste of what to expect from this version like never before. And here at GoalPoint, we're also going to help make FM 2016 much more realistic and appealing when it comes to the Liga NOS. Don't miss it!
GoalPoint: Let's start with the game itself. Give us three new features in FM2016 that will convince us to make our usual purchase.
Bruno Luís: Three is not many given everything that's new, but I'll try to sum it up. First off, you can now customise your character's appearance in the game. From weight and height to how you want to look on the touchline. It's not hugely important to the simulation itself, but in this edition you can see managers shouting and giving instructions to players. From a calm Fernando Santos to an arm-waving Jorge Jesus.
On a more serious note, the tactical side of the game has also had a lot of changes. There are new panels both for the strategy and mentality we want for our team, and for set-piece instructions. The latter in particular is much more developed, and we can now set individual instructions for each player in every defensive or attacking situation, with the help of a tool that shows which attributes matter for each role.
Moving on to the match itself, the big new feature is the improved statistical analysis available at full-time. Through the partnership with Prozone, we now have access to a huge range of features that let us study both our own team's and our opponents' behaviour, letting us spot each formation's strengths and weaknesses.
There are also new features in the game modes. For example, you can now build a club entirely from scratch (from the name and kits to the squad) and enter a league of your choice, replacing an existing one. The Fantasy Draft mode, played online, was also very well received, letting you manage your favourite team by building a squad from zero within a limited budget. Player selection follows draft rules, where each user picks one player at a time until their squad is complete, then competes in short-format leagues against each other.
GP: A lot of people still aren't fully convinced by the 3D match engine. Are there notable improvements there?
BL: Yes, there've been quite a few improvements compared to the previous edition. It's an ongoing development process. Almost four thousand new animations were added, most of them created from scratch, delivering a much more realistic playing experience. Nothing like seeing a few images:
GP: As for licensing, can we expect any good news, like new leagues being added, or bad news, like losing the rights to one?
BL: There are no notable changes there, nor are any changes to the number of playable leagues planned any time soon.
GP: How did the invitation to lead this important role come about?
BL: I've always loved Football Manager, formerly CM, and I already had the habit of editing things myself whenever I saw something wrong. Years went by and my interest in the game kept fading due to the poor quality of the Portuguese database, so I started posting on the Sports Interactive forum the factual errors I kept finding, like missing caps, transfers and staff, etc. I put together a Word document with about 130 pages of errors [laughs]. Yes, it's true.
A Sports Interactive member asked me if I'd be interested in joining the Official Portuguese Research team, I said yes, and he put me in touch with José Guilherme Chieira — who was Portugal's only Head Researcher at the time — who accepted right away and gave me complete freedom to work on the Campeonato Nacional de Seniores. Later I worked with the PALOP countries, since I followed the Girabola and always had an interest in following those countries' local leagues.
Finally, in May, José invited me to become Head Researcher alongside Carlos Bessa. A childhood dream come true.
GP: And what was the biggest challenge you faced once you started 'getting your hands dirty'?
BL: Knowing where to start! Given the huge number of tasks I had in mind, I didn't know where to begin. But what excited me the most was actually putting together a team of people all working towards the same common goal: improving the Portuguese database and offering the greatest possible realism to the Portuguese, and even international, FM community, since everyone would benefit from our work.
A lot of friendships were made, a great atmosphere, and the interest shown by people connected to football, from sports journalists to players, managers, directors and board members wanting to take part in building the database, only fuelled us further to try to do even better.
GP: Of all the things that constantly annoyed the Portuguese FM community due to a lack of realism, which ones can we be sure we won't run into anymore?
BL: You can finally sign players for the big three within the Portuguese league. In the past you had to go abroad to strengthen your squad, but thanks to our work there are now players in the Portuguese league, outside the big three, with enough quality to reach that level if properly developed. On top of that, there are now far more promising players in the B teams and youth ranks.
Just like in real life, the important thing is to actually give them a real chance despite low starting attributes, otherwise you risk the players never developing. A player like André Silva could just as easily become a national team star as end up playing for APOEL if he's not given a real shot as the years go by. But since Portugal isn't just the big three, the Segunda Liga, and especially the Campeonato de Portugal, went through a complete overhaul, and now we're finally able to find real talent in those divisions.
There's also quality staff available in Portugal now. You don't need to arrive at a club and sack everyone the way you used to.
GP: And are there any new things you've added to the database to make us feel even more 'immersed' in reality?
BL: There was a complete overhaul of players, managers and their behaviours across the playable leagues. You can expect things like Rui Vitória's trust in young players, Bruno de Carvalho's short patience with managers, or Lopetegui's fiery temperament in press conferences, for example.
GP: Without giving too much away, tell us three names we should be keeping a close eye on as the game unfolds.
BL: So as not to spoil the fun, I'll just mention a few who are already well known to anyone following football in Portugal. André Silva, Matheus Pereira and Renato Sanches, I'll leave the rest for people to use their own scouts and discover for themselves.
GP: And are there any 'rotten apples' we should get rid of as soon as possible?
BL: Obviously there are players you need to handle with 'kid gloves', or you risk turning the dressing room against you. It's always important to pay attention to each player's mental attributes (read the pros and cons in each player's report), and don't focus too much on the attributes that jump out at you, because every event in the game is the result of a whole combination of attributes, and just because a player has 19 in dribbling doesn't automatically make him a 'must buy' or 'must have'.
GP: Despite all these changes and 'appetisers', a few screenshots have surfaced showing surreal situations that already happened in the Beta. How do you explain those?
BL: Yes, some pretty unusual situations really did happen in the BETA version. I can mention Sporting B renting out the Caixa Futebol Campus to carry out renovations at their B team's stadium, Salvio and Rui Fonte getting injured in literally every match they play, or even the absurd league ticket prices. That's exactly what the BETA version is for, it's a version where you shouldn't be doing long saves, but rather finding bugs so they don't make it into the final version.
As for those specific situations, I can guarantee they're already being looked at by Football Manager's developers and will be fixed, in fact, I've already tested a more advanced BETA build where none of those issues showed up anymore, so don't worry.
GP: Sounds very promising, but surely there's still room for improvement in future versions. Want to announce any new features for the February update?
BL: For the winter transfer window update, through our partnership with GoalPoint, we'll be tweaking player attributes based on real statistics (converting percentages into 1-to-20 attributes), such as passing, tackling, heading, among others, making attributes much more realistic and fact-based, rather than purely based on scouts' opinions.
On top of that, our network of contributors keeps growing thanks to the interest from fans, players, coaching staff and club boards wanting to help and bring more realism to the lower divisions.
GP: We heard that's not the only thing you'll be doing together with GoalPoint…
BL: You heard right. Expect news in the coming days, because something completely new is on its way!
GP: Congratulations on the great work. Now we're even more eager to lose a few more hours of sleep very soon.
BL: Glad to hear it. Finally, I'd just like to thank the whole team of people who worked with me on building this database, especially Carlos Bessa, Luís Marciano, José Serrão, Hugo Lourinho and Logan Makrecky, who spent countless days and nights sitting in a chair editing data, and many hours watching matches. None of this would have been possible without their help, and without the opportunity given by SI and by José Guilherme Chieira. We know there's still a long way to go before everything's fully sorted, but consider this year zero.
Entrevista originalmente reproduzida em goalpoint.pt
