How many of us have spent an entire night glued to a save and thought: “if there were a World Cup for this, I’d be there”? Well, it happened. Between 28 August and 1 September 2024, Liverpool hosted the first official Football Manager World Cup. And yes, Portugal was there.
Liverpool: five days of FM at the highest level
The official name is a mouthful, FIFAe World Cup 2024 featuring Football Manager, but the idea was simple: bring together the best armchair managers on the planet, sit them down at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool and see who was boss. There were 20 managers from 19 countries (England, as hosts, had two), each with an assistant by their side, competing for a total prize pool of 100,000 dollars. It was played on FM24, and it was the first time FIFA swapped “played” football for a management game at its esports.
The first day was pre-season. Then came three days of group stage, one full season per day, and everything was decided on 1 September. Along the way there was Arsène Wenger as ambassador, John Terry swapping ideas with the players and Sam Allardyce, yes, Big Sam, as guest presenter. Hard to ask for more.
How do you get to an FM World Cup?
Each federation picked its representative in its own way. Some, like Germany, Indonesia, Poland and Turkey, held online qualifiers on the FIFAe platform. Others, like France, Spain and Norway, chose internally.
In Portugal, the Portuguese Football Federation confirmed its participation and held online qualifiers. The pick was made by Francisco “Quinzas” Cruz, the national coach, who looked at what happened in the qualifiers and backed Licá. And he didn’t let him go alone: he went with him to Liverpool as his assistant.
The rules of the game
In the group stage, the 20 managers were split into four groups of five. The interesting detail is that, within each group, everyone managed the same club under the same conditions: Yokohama F. Marinos in Group A, Brighton in B, Sporting in C (yes, there was a Portuguese club at the World Cup) and Dinamo Zagreb in D. After three seasons the points were counted: league position, cups, Europe, the manager rating the game gave and some daily challenges along the way.
Only the winner of each group went through. Then things changed completely: two-legged semi-finals and final in Fantasy Draft, with each manager building a 25-man squad from scratch on the same budget.
Licá, our man in Liverpool
Daniel Almeida, Licá to everyone, was 29, is from Sesimbra and played organised football before swapping his boots for a keyboard. He has been playing FM since 2006, when he got his first computer. The draw put him in Group B: Brighton, in the Premier League, against South Africa, the Netherlands, Spain and South Korea. Not exactly an easy group.
The first season was about adapting. He finished 5th in the league, went out in the 5th round of the FA Cup and the third round of the League Cup, but reached the Europa League semi-finals. He scored 65 points, with an A rating from the game.
Then came the second season, and what a season. Licá made Brighton Premier League champions, won the League Cup and reached the Champions League semi-finals. That was 107 points, again with an A rating. Who hasn’t dreamed of a season like that in a save?
The third season fell a bit flat: 4th place, the Community Shield in the bag, an early League Cup exit and a B rating. It was worth 89 points, and in such a tight group every point counted.
| # | Manager | Country | S1 | S2 | S3 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enzo Bento | South Africa | 77 | 118 | 138 | 333 |
| 2 | Rowan van Leeuwen | Netherlands | 81 | 90 | 118 | 289 |
| 3 | José Manuel Muñoz | Spain | 67 | 108 | 113 | 288 |
| 4 | Daniel “Licá” Almeida | Portugal | 65 | 107 | 89 | 261 |
| 5 | Jay Ryung-huh | South Korea | 67 | 87 | 101 | 255 |
In the end, Portugal finished 4th in the group with 261 points. Ahead of South Korea, but a long way behind South Africa’s Enzo Bento, who put up 138 points in the final season and settled the matter. It wasn’t enough for the finals, but Licá left Liverpool with an English title on his CV and, in his own words, feeling like he was dreaming awake. Not bad at all for a World Cup debut.
For years we were told that spending nights on FM would get us nowhere. It got Licá to a World Cup.
And the world champion is… Indonesia
The last day was full of emotion. In the first semi-final, Indonesia’s Ichsan Taufiq drew 2–2 with England’s Arron Falloon and then won 3–1, 5–3 on aggregate. In the other, Germany’s Sven Goly brushed aside Enzo Bento with a 4–0 in the first leg and held on for a 1–1 in the second.
The final was one-sided. Taufiq won the first leg 3–0, with goals from Lookman, Füllkrug and Seiwald, wrapped up the second 5–2 and took the title 8–2 on aggregate. Funnily enough, he had got there after winning his group in charge of Sporting. There’s always a bit of Portugal in these stories.
Ichsan “Miracle” Taufiq, with assistant Manar “wednesday” Hidayat, is therefore the first Football Manager world champion. And the feat is even more remarkable because the game doesn’t even exist in Indonesian. Goly, who had the best group stage of anyone (425 points with Yokohama), took silver.
What we thought
For a first attempt, it went really well. Seeing our game on a proper stage, with a live broadcast, commentators and football legends in the room, is something that seemed impossible a few years ago. Having everyone in a group manage the same club was a good idea, because it rewards consistency rather than luck in a single match. The Fantasy Draft gave the finals that nervy knockout feeling.
Not everything was perfect. Three seasons in three days forces you to sim at a pace that has little to do with how most of us play. The scoring based on the manager rating and the daily challenges is also hard to follow for anyone watching. But one thing is certain: the level is within our reach. Anyone who makes Brighton champions of England knows what they are doing.
Will there be more?
All signs point to yes. FIFA and Sports Interactive presented this World Cup as the start of an esports partnership in esports, but there is still no date or format for a second edition. As soon as we know anything, we’ll tell you here.
Update (September 2026): there was no World Cup in 2025. That was the year FM25 ended up not being released. In December 2025, FIFA announced a new competition, the FIFAe Club World Cup 26 featuring Football Manager, played on FM26. This time it isn’t national teams: it’s clubs (professional, semi-professional and even amateur) that sign up and fight for a place through online qualifiers. At the time of this update, FIFA has not yet publicly announced the venue or the date of the finals. The question remains: will any Portuguese club be up to it?
Sources: Wikipedia, RTP Arena, zerozero, FourFourTwo, Esports News UK, FIFA.
