Review after a full season

I have wanted to play a full season before jumping into conclusions. After all, I had not played a version of FM since 2020.

Football has changed a lot since then (world cup for clubs, new UEFA competitions' format, ever-growing world cup) so I felt it was time to update.

Having played the season, I feel there is a very good game hidden somewhere in a very unpleasant and unclear display.

First things I noticed: I hate the display of information, like many users have said, and the fact that I cannot colour the attributes or the adaptability of the player to a role/position on the pitch.

Then I quickly found out how difficult is to know what's going on around you - the abundance of pop ups bring the opposite effect. Nothing is informative or relevant. While I am managing Real Madrid I don't need to know that the manager of a League 2 team in England may leave his post. Instead, I want a proper, full screen of the results of this week's Champions League fixtures, a way to check what's coming next and a very clean way to see the league table. Not only this does not happen “organically” (gosh, not a fan of this word) but we have also lost the screen flow ability. I used to spend a bit of time building that screen flow in the previous versions, but now I have no clue how the competitions have flown, and when it came to the World Cup I had to check manually what had been happening. 

The most annoying visible feature is the injuries and that sort of human chart that replicates what a doctor would use, but really I don't need that to know that Mbappe has a stabbed toe. Just send the note. 

It's also difficult to have a proper kit. Kits haven't been changed forever, and despite having almost 60 options, there is nothing like Denmark 86 (Southampton and other teams dressed by hummel used it recently), but if you add a foreground colour it goes around the number too - for example, if you take France and want to add red and white to the shirt, the number will be inside a square of that colour, and not blue - why? 

It has been well publicised how many times you have to click through screens to get anywhere, and the path to lick off is not different. It is also irrelevant - I am not seeing Balaidos when I visit Celta, Vallecas when I play Rayo away (famously missing the stands behind one of the goals, replaced by a wall). It's always the same stadium with a bit of colour. The Bernabeu is the Etihad is the Nou Camp is the Allianz Arena is St Louis II… all the pre-kick off is a pointless waste of time. And the managers' reactions after that even more: There are 3, just 3: One per result. Like you'd react the same when you win 4-1 after you were 4-0 at HT or if you win a derby game on injury time. Do it well or just don't do it.

Clicking through a lot of things does not enhance the game experience, it makes you experience the game less in favour of admin, if you know what I mean. 

The “off the pitch” side of the game is terrible too. You don't have the dynamic league tables, you don't have a level of stats you'd have in the past (chances, hits the woodwork, yellow/red cards, for example), you cannot personalise the panels and when you expand the league results, for example, it collapses again when you return to the game.

Another absurd thing I have seen during the game is when “5 Player A” is replaced by “5 Player B”. This is surely easy to resolve

I struggle with the icons that give me the status of the players in terms of energy and condition. I would rather have numbers. I get it; Arne Slot doesn't know that Szoboszlai is 92% fit. Or does he? And if he doesn't, let's not forget we are playing a game.

I have touched on the Champions League - You don't see the draw (Ok, it's complex in real life too) but I don't see the Copa del Rey either. The draws just happen. And the Champions League is particularly poor: I played 2 home games, followed by 4 away and then 2 home. Among them, I played Athletic Bilbao (you don't play a team of your country in the group stages). The draw for season 2 has given me 4 away games to start with. All 4!

I have found the transfer market a bit better. When 2 clubs made offers for one of my players, they were close but not exactly the same fee and additional clauses as it happened in other versions of the game. I like the option of contacting an agent to sell a player, but we still have the issue of the player that wants a career change (Carvajal, Ceballos in my game) that have no interest from anyone whatsoever. Here, hiring the agent helped. 

I have also found the players harder to work with, and that's a positive. It was always too easy to get the dressing room under control.

I do not know how many of these things can be sorted with skins, but I have little hope they'll be corrected by the patches. I'll keep an eye on the forums for the work of the talented wizards that live in them - it is still a good game

Hence the reason a lot of us have gone back to the perfect, heavily modded FM24

at least you have lady football, one of SI’s strange woke obsessions