Since I used to be a child, I’ve been obsessive about sports activities control simulation video games — to an absurd stage. Whether or not it was once General Excessive Wrestling, Out of the Park Baseball, Draft Day Sports activities: School Basketball, International of Blended Martial Arts, Eastside Hockey Supervisor, or Entrance Place of job Soccer 9, I’ve performed (or no less than attempted to play) all of them.
All that to mention: this micro-genre of very area of interest video video games is my real love. Soccer Supervisor is not any other. I’ve poured 1000’s of hours into more than a few editions of Sports activities Interactive’s iconic sequence and shaped masses of parasocial bonds with gamers who, technically talking, don’t exist. (They’re genuine to me, dammit.)
In spite of what it’s possible you’ll bring to mind a glorified spreadsheet simulator, those video games aren’t grindy — they’re meditative. They praise endurance and making plans, tough long-term imaginative and prescient, whether or not you’re clawing your approach up from the decrease leagues or assembling a squad for a run in Europe.
However Soccer Supervisor 26 calls for a unique more or less endurance, one who asks longtime fanatics like me to just accept useless alternate to get to the great things. There’s brilliance right here, buried someplace below the litter, however discovering it calls for religion bordering on masochism. In different phrases, the brand new UI/UX overhaul makes it tougher to experience what’s in a different way an exhilarating evolution in gameday presentation.
After round 20 hours, I’m left short of extra — or no less than short of to glance at one thing else. Which brings me to the query no fan needs to invite after a two-year wait: was once this in point of fact price it? Don’t we, the trustworthy, deserve one thing higher?
Soccer Supervisor 26 has a brand new engine, new glance
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
On construct on my own, Soccer Supervisor 26 is an enormous improve — it’s the primary within the sequence to run at the Solidarity engine. That shift, although, got here with main inner demanding situations, which is why the in the beginning deliberate Soccer Supervisor 25 was once scrapped in February final yr. It marked the primary true cancellation within the sequence’ historical past, one thing we hadn’t noticed since Championship Supervisor 4’s extend a long time in the past, which, fittingly, was once additionally led to through an engine alternate.
So, after two lengthy years since Soccer Supervisor 24, we’ve in the end arrived on the Solidarity-powered long term of the franchise. And it seems…nice. You’d be expecting that additional building time to ship flashy new bells and whistles — and sure, there are some, specifically within the new Fit Day presentation. However past that? The remaining feels, neatly, kinda meh.
Let’s get started with the 3-D supervisor and participant fashions, a vulnerable spot that has haunted the sequence for years, and unfortunately, that hasn’t modified. When developing my supervisor, the fashions are nonetheless tough across the edges, and the hairstyles seem to have been swiftly sculpted in Blender. I’m no longer anticipating EA FC ranges of hair physics or texture, however may we no less than get greater than 3 Black hairstyles — Fade, Dreadlocks, and Afro — all with similar, receding hairlines? The similar factor plagues the introduction of feminine managers, the place choices boil down to ten permutations of the similar middle-parted bob and possibly two herbal kinds for Black ladies — one among which seems suspiciously like a stretched-out rectangle glued to the style’s head.
Minor gripes, certain, however these items issues as a result of immersion is what makes Soccer Supervisor particular. It’s the thrashing center of the enjoy, the item that turns a spreadsheet simulator right into a dwelling soccer international.
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
Talking of immersion, I in truth respect how Soccer Supervisor 26’s remodeled supervisor introduction machine leans tougher into your personality’s lore to form their stats. In earlier editions, you’d merely make a choice your training badges, stage of gambling enjoy, and control taste center of attention — alternatives that translated into ability issues to distribute throughout attributes like Attacking, Motivating, or Other folks Control. It was once an actual, hands-on technique to outline your supervisor’s id and, extra importantly, their popularity, which influenced the whole lot from which jobs you should land to how the board replied to requests or even how gamers approached contract negotiations.
Now, that sense of keep an eye on is long gone. You’ll’t manually allocate issues anymore; attributes are locked in in accordance with the popularity presets you select. The acquainted 1–20 numerical scale has been changed through round icons that fade from pink (“unsuited”) to inexperienced (“remarkable”). Recognition is now decided via a three-step procedure: first, settling on the height of your gambling occupation, from International Celebrity to Novice; 2d, figuring out any non-playing roles throughout the soccer international, whether or not as a trainer, scout, or pundit; and 3rd, deciding how well known you might be in that house. Those selections set your baseline Training and Psychological attributes, although the latter has been pared again — “Degree of Self-discipline” is now “Authority,” whilst “Participant Wisdom” and “Teen Wisdom” had been quietly got rid of.
To additional tweak your supervisor’s strengths, then you definitely make a choice “Dispositions,” which is a pleasing contact — I really like having extra narrative context at the back of my avatar. However the trade-off is a lack of flexibility. It looks like SI has simplified an already easy machine. If immersion is what defines why I really like Soccer Supervisor, then simplification is what defines my rising frustration with Soccer Supervisor 26’s new UI.
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
It’s no longer simply that the brand new UI is unhealthy to have a look at — although, for the report, I am not precisely keen on the red and blue gradient both — it is that you’ll be able to really feel the design philosophy at the back of it. This is not a UI made for longtime gamers; it is one constructed to simplify issues for freshmen. That philosophy has been in movement because the first divulge of the now-cancelled Soccer Supervisor 25, which aimed to unify the sequence throughout all platforms. Now that FM has absolutely embraced its cellular and console ambitions, the result’s an interface that appears and feels love it was once made for a pill first, PC 2d.
The entirety has that iPad app aesthetic — modular pop-up home windows, tiny textual content, outsized spacing — and on a bigger track, it is straight-up punishing at the eyes. Lots of the participant and agent interactions now are styled as textual content messages. The intent is obvious: make the sport extra obtainable. Alternatively, in doing so, Soccer Supervisor 26 has compromised the id of a sequence that after prided itself on intensity and element.
If I have been handy out thrones and roses for Soccer Supervisor 26, I’d get started through giving credit score the place it’s due: I really like that the builders took a extra trendy option to the UI design. It’s blank, graceful, and visually in keeping with different recent sims. I additionally respect the intent at the back of it — a real effort to streamline the enjoy and get gamers onto the pitch sooner.
And…that’s about it for the roses.
Soccer Supervisor gives loss of life through 1000 dropdowns
I am attempting to not sound hyperbolic after I say the brand new UI adjustments more or less break what I really like about Soccer Supervisor. For many people, calling FM a “spreadsheet simulator” isn’t an insult — it’s the purpose. The enjoyment comes from immersion: years upon years of knowledge, historical past, statistics, and tales. I need to reside in that knowledge, to get misplaced within the archives of gamers and golf equipment and spot how soccer’s change historical past unfolds. However the brand new interface makes that tougher. The sport now feels actively proof against exploration, slowed down through redundant home windows, tabs, and submenus that bury easy knowledge at the back of too many clicks.
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
Working example: in one among my saves managing Cheonan within the South Korean Okay League 2, I sought after to test the Okay League 1 desk. In FM 2024, this was once simple — simply click on the arrow subsequent to the league brand and bounce instantly as much as Okay League 1. In FM 26, that fast motion has changed into a labyrinth. I now must hover over “Competitions” → “Asia” → “South Korea” → “Males’s” and then make a choice “Okay League 1.”
It’s loss of life through 1000 dropdowns.
Issues that have been as soon as in an instant obtainable at the left-hand panel — competitions, scouting, budget — are actually buried at the back of layered menus and pop-up home windows, making me surprise what precisely was once going down within the design conferences. Even viewing the competitions your crew is eager about, as soon as a one-click affair below “Competitions,” now calls for a trek via Portal > Evaluate > Phases earlier than you’ll be able to even seek for the contest you wish to have.
Numerous what made FM’s interface environment friendly and customizable is solely long gone in Soccer Supervisor 26. Elementary purposes like reloading skins, clearing cache, or converting characteristic colours have vanished, at the side of small quality-of-life settings that permit gamers make a decision how menus behaved — like the place the again button led or what default display membership, country, or participant pages opened to. Even long-standing visible equipment just like the characteristic graph, passmaps, heatmaps, and scatter plot numbers have both been buried at the back of tiny pop-ups or got rid of totally. The similar is going for participant comparability, function characteristic highlights, personnel comparability, and several other key finance and coaching choices.
Fit Day and squad control haven’t escaped both. Crucial navigation equipment, such because the spacebar-to-messages shortcut, Fit Day calendar, and standings, in addition to the standard sideline digicam, are long gone. You’ll’t filter out or toggle replays like earlier than, tournament stats all the way through highlights are restricted, and helpful interface main points — the little “i” subsequent to participant names, the fast health hearts, or the “Absolute best XI” and “The place Are They Now?” options — have all disappeared. Even staples just like the Building Centre, mortgage and global stories, and cut-off date day had been watered down.
When a sport constructed on knowledge all of sudden hides that knowledge at the back of friction, it loses its soul. And for a sequence as detail-obsessed as Soccer Supervisor, that’s no longer only a UI factor — that’s an id disaster.
Fit Day Enjoy nonetheless sings in Soccer Supervisor 26
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
Sorry you needed to listen me whinge and moan about navigating the UI, but it surely needed to be executed. Now, let’s transfer directly to the beef and bones of the Soccer Supervisor enjoy.
If part the thrill of FM is getting buried in knowledge to construct the very best squad, then the opposite part is crafting the very best tactic. And fortunately, in Soccer Supervisor 26, that phase nonetheless sings. After lamenting the loss of granularity in supervisor introduction, it is refreshing to peer that tactical customization has as a substitute been expanded. The brand new In- and Out-of-Ownership techniques machine supplies gamers with a long way higher keep an eye on over form, construction, and tactical fluidity, at the side of extra streamlined (but deeper) participant roles.
In earlier editions, each stages of play have been baked right into a unmarried tactic. Participant roles had fastened “modifiers” reminiscent of Protect, Make stronger, or Assault, and those got here with hidden, unchangeable directions. So when you sought after a full-back who attacked aggressively however nonetheless challenged for the ball defensively, you needed to accept Complete-Again (Assault) or Wing-Again (Assault) and hope the whole lot behaved more or less the best way you envisioned.
Now, that is modified. You’ll assign twin roles — one for when your crew is in ownership, and some other for when they are no longer. That suggests your Complete-Again (Assault) on offense can turn out to be a Urgent Complete-Again out of ownership. It is a significant shift that makes your techniques really feel alive, adapting dynamically to the sport’s glide.
As any individual who is no longer precisely a tactical savant, I really like the program. I am a easy guy who runs a 4-3-3 and calls it an afternoon — however now, when protecting, I will be able to drop my 3 central midfielders into defensive midfield roles so as to add additional quilt, particularly since my full-backs like to bomb ahead. It feels intuitive, versatile, and in truth rewarding.
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
New to Fit Day is the Speedy End result button, an established function of customized pores and skin mods that have been incessantly buggy or volatile. In previous video games, you couldn’t if truth be told simulate suits except you took a “holiday,” or even then, the ones wins have been credited on your assistant trainer. For my part, I’ve all the time been an Speedy End result person — with out it, gambling via a unmarried season may simply take 20–25 hours. With it, that drops to round 8–10 hours, and relying on how deep the dependancy runs, I will be able to crank out two complete seasons in per week.
That stated, I could be rethinking my stance now that the brand new Solidarity engine makes the in-game motion in truth delightful to look at. “Lovely” could be overstating it, however FM 26 seems considerably higher.
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
Lighting fixtures is stepped forward, digicam angles are extra dynamic, and participant animations had been overhauled. Granted, the ones animations can nonetheless be janky — it’s painfully transparent that those are 3-D fashions with restricted physics every time there’s bodily touch. Avid gamers clipping via each and every different all the way through tackles or dribbles stays a jarring sight.
Nonetheless, I don’t have many main proceedings in relation to if truth be told sitting via a tournament. In comparison to older editions, FM 26 is definitely the best-looking access but — for each the boys’s and ladies’s aspects of the sport. Even higher is all the way through moments the place the sport is simming the motion, there is a 2D tournament engine that displays the glide of the sport, making it more uncomplicated to peer what is going on between highlights.
Ladies’s Leagues are right here in Soccer Supervisor 26
Credit score: Screenshot: Probability Townsend / Sports activities Interactive
One main factor I haven’t discussed but is the inclusion of Ladies’s Soccer within the sport for the primary time. It is been teased since 2021, with SI acknowledging it might take years to combine the ladies’s sport correctly — and now, it is in the end right here. I relatively love it. As with every new league, the problem lies in studying how this aspect of the soccer international operates in comparison to what you know. The database of gamers is totally new to me, however I respect how FM handles it: the stats machine treats males’s and ladies’s attributes on equivalent footing. A “20” in any ability method the similar factor, without reference to gender — it isn’t scaled down or adjusted to make ladies seem inferior.
Each males’s and ladies’s leagues load into the sport in combination and cannot be separated. So when you get started a save in international locations like England or France, you can mechanically have each their home leagues working concurrently. That stated, there are variations between the 2 reports. SI obviously attempted to replicate the real-world dynamics of girls’s soccer — decrease switch charges, smaller budgets, extra participant motion, and shorter contracts. Even harm traits are represented realistically, with ladies being extra at risk of long-term ACL accidents in comparison to males.
Past that, although, a lot stays the similar. The acquainted problems persist: damaged participant interactions (“What do you imply this participant needs a brand new contract with 4 years left on his deal?”) and repetitive press meetings that begin to really feel like déjà vu after your 10th tournament week. I’ve over 1,000 hours in FM 24, and it is the identical conversations. Please, lord, make it prevent.
Is Soccer Supervisor 26 price it?
Sure — however with an asterisk the dimensions of a Fit Day techniques board. The root this is undeniably robust. The transfer to Solidarity has given FM its largest technical jump in years; the in-match presentation is in truth stepped forward, and the inclusion of girls’s soccer in the end delivers on a promise SI made way back. Techniques really feel smarter and extra versatile, and there’s a degree of polish below the hood that implies genuine ambition for the place the sequence is headed.
Alternatively, for each and every step ahead, FM 26 takes a step sideways — in large part because of a irritating new UI that prioritizes simplicity over intensity. The brand new UI is graceful, similar to an empty rental, but it surely strips away the intuitive complexity that made FM one of these pleasure to get misplaced in. Longtime gamers will really feel that friction in an instant; the sense of immersion that after pulled you into its spreadsheets and stat strains now feels diluted, hidden at the back of additional clicks and menus that simply don’t wish to exist.
And but, regardless of my proceedings, I do know I’ll stay gambling. As a result of that’s the item about Soccer Supervisor: it will get its hooks in you. You’ll gripe in regards to the interface all day, however the second you to find that one wonderkid or pull off a last-minute equalizer in a cup ultimate, the magic returns.
So sure, Soccer Supervisor 26 is worthwhile — no longer as a result of it is best, however as a result of even at its maximum irritating, it nonetheless captures the sweetness, chaos, and heartbreak of soccer higher than the rest available in the market.
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