Have you found these 7 Easter Eggs in Football Manager?

Did you know SI have hidden a bunch of easter eggs throughout Football Manager that you may, or may not, encounter as you play? In this article we break down what each surprise is and how you can find it in your game. Let us know in the comments which ones you’ve found or if there are any we’ve missed.

Thanks to SiMaggio for the original video and allowing us to turn it into an article here on the blog. If you make FM Videos and want them turned into written blogs please send me a PM.

1. April Fools Day

If you played FM on April 1st you may have noticed one of two special news items. The first has been in for a while, at least since FM08, and tells you that “In a display of incredible generosity, your board have decided to award you a sum in the region of £500m to spend on players and a new stadium”. Unfortunately if you click to confirm your acceptance of this huge sum of money you’ll see the message “Sadly this proved  to be an April Fool's joke from Sports Interactive”.

Alternatively you might see the message that one of your players has “Suffered a fractured lower leg after falling out of a loft” and be out for around 9 months. Don’t get too disheartened this is also just an April Fools joke, if you click “Send to Freak Injury Specialist” (the name should be a giveaway) you’ll be told “Thankfully this proved to be an April Fool’s joke from Sports Interactive” and your player will not be injured.

If you like meta jokes, you may enjoy knowing our good friend @Daveincid pulled a reverse prank on SI submitting a report that there was a way to trick the April Fools event into giving you £500m. First he reported it on the official forums and then as an official bug report. But this turned out to be just another April Fools joke at the expense of the developers who were trying to track down the bug.

How to get the April Fools Day Easter Egg in Football Manager

The news item only appears when the date in real life and in game are both April 1st. If you’ve missed the April 1st just gone and don’t want to wait another year you can trick the game by changing the date on your computer. Make sure to close FM first, then change the date and then open FM again to be sure it definitely works.

2. Ted Lasso Locker Room

When you’re on the start screen in FM you may notice a big piece of paper emblazoned with “Believe” stuck on the wall. This is a tribute to the TV Show Ted Lasso that follows an American football coach trying to manage a Premier League side in England. A similar banner is stuck up in the dressing room in the TV show.

How to get Ted Lasso’s Believe Easter Egg in Football Manager

If you want to get the Ted Lasso Believe Easter Egg to appear on your FM start screen all you have to do is manage a team with an average sized dressing room. The background when managing large teams like Man City or tiny teams like Havant and Waterloo don’t show it. You’ll need clubs in the middle range like Portsmouth.

Bonus: Play as Ted Lasso and manage AFC Richmond in FM

As an added bonus you can actually play as AFC Richmond in FM23 with the Ted Lasso mod. Download it right here on our forums or check out this video to see what it’s like to play with.

3. Face in the game

Did you know the developers of FM actually appear in the game as Newgens? But don’t worry it doesn’t affect the realism, they’re not in any way special. SI have publicly stated that “they do not have a better chance of being high CA/PA than any other newgen“. When FM creates new players it generates realistic names for the player based on the names of real life players but in some cases instead of randomly generating a name, it will use the name of one of the developers instead so that they get to appear in the game they’ve built, nothing more to it than that.

You can find all the a list of all these people by searching “faceinthegame” all one word in the search bar. In this example there’s a whopping 543 who’ve made it in.

How to get yourself in Football Manager as a Newgen

It’s really easy to add yourself as newgen in FM just follow this simple guide and it will work exactly the same way. Plus you can customise your newgen to look like you or appear at a certain club or just be the best player in the world.

If you don’t like doing that, you could just apply for a job at Sports Interactive instead.

4. Social and News Feed Meme’s

When you’re in press conferences you may notice lots of memes coming through as possible answers or comments from fans and reporters.

For example in real life its become a meme that Frank Lampard always responds to questions in the format “Serious point, light-hearted point [chuckle] but, no, serious point”. You’ll notice you too can respond with “I’m surprised he’s not often on the scoresheet! No but seriously, it’s nice to see him get a goal”.

In another reference you can refer to a performance as an “omnishambles” a term coined by Malcolm Turner in the TV Show “Thick of It”.

If you’re an Alan Partridge fan you’ll be sure to recognise this press conference answer; “They say proof is in the pudding and the pudding in this case is a football”.

Or perhaps you call your opposition manager a “specialist in failure” just as Mourinho did to Arsene Wenger in 2014.

That’s not very nice though, so why not focus on yourself rather than the opposition with the Brian Clough quote “I wouldn’t say i’m the best manager in the business. But i’m in the top one”.

5. A player coming out as gay

Did you know in Football Manager one of your players could come out as gay? This will only happen to newgens, not real life players for legal reasons. When it does happen you’ll get a boost in shirt sales in support of the player, which is pretty cool.

How to get a gay player in Football Manager

Unfortunately there is no way to get a player in FM to come out as gay, it just randomly happens.

6. Son in the game

The biggest and hardest easter egg to uncover is to get a son in the game. That’s right, as you’re managing you’ll sometimes get your very own son come through in your clubs Youth Intake.

It might not be immediately obvious when you do have a son, you’ll just notice that you have the same surname. From there you need to go to their profile and check their “Favoured Personnel” and see if you’re listed as their father or mother.

How to get a son in Football Manager

Unfortunately there’s no way to force it to happen and the chances of it happening are incredibly tiny with each youth intake.

The only option is to keep playing as many seasons as you can and hope it happens in one of them. Alternatively you could save the day before youth intake day and keep quitting and starting again each time you don’t get a son. But we’ve heard it can take 100s of attempts over hours and hours this way, so you’ll have to be very dedicated.

7. Happy Birthday

Finally did you know that the game will wish you Happy Birthday? Depending on what date you set as your birthday when first starting FM, you'll see a Happy Birthday message from Sports Interactive in the social feed on the actual date of your birthday. 

And that's it. Let us know in the comments if you've spotted any other hidden easter eggs in Football Manager!