playing as a player

well, i know it's not going to happen, but i would really LOVE the possibility of starting a career as a field player. the problem with all other games that let you play as a player is that their simulation of football world sucks completely and is completely unrealistic compared to fm. it would be great if it would be possible to start with a preset potential ability (-10,-9 and so on) or to just choose a club to be one of the usual youth intake there with ability given according to the engine. plus you could distribute some of your ca points/choose a position/perhaps choose a starting preferred move. during the game the possibilities that players already have (looking for an agent, firing one, becoming unhappy, revolting the team, asking for more playing time, negotiating contracts (or setting instructions for an agent), deciding to leave on a free, end international career, and so on...) plus some control over your training (say, you could decide about distribution of 30% of ability points, setting which areas of training you want to focus on - the rest would be controlled by club's manager) and tweaking your own playing instructions during a match (perhaps for example adjusting mentality and other sliders within a certain range and turning and off certain instructions /perhaps that could lead to worsening of your relationship with the manager if you did this too often/too much/unsuccsesfuly/at all - also depending on manager's mentality) would be enough for me and i would love such a game. after finishing of your career as player you could go on to become a manager with your real ingame history and reputation as a player...

The first part of the first sentence sums it up perfectly- the game is called Football Manager, so it's not going to happen

I want this too. I would scale it back, meaning the only decision you could make would be contracts and the existing game engine chooses the rest.

I feel it would the perfect lead in to becoming a manager later as your avatar would have a history within your save (instead of choosing "international footballer" despite not being in the database).

It sounds incredibly boring. I won't be adjusting much, if anything during a match, since I have instructions. Training gets decided once a year/half year. The conversational options will also be very rarely used. In the end, it's just clicking Continue until you get bored.

In the end, it's just clicking Continue until you get bored.

well, that's basically fm, isn't it?

Far from it. You have much, much more to do as manager.

apart from transfer windows and occasional player mood management and squad swapping, once you got a working tactic - not really. even if you wouldn't adjust much during a match (and tbh i dont know why you wouldnt try to for example run forward more as a full back and cross more often if you were going behind but your manager told you to stay back and there's, say, 15 minutes left) i would find it interesting to watch my player develop, going through youth teams, earning a first team place, perhaps looking for a better team or being transferred out because i suck or being called up to the national team eventually and so on. of course, perhaps it would be better if you had more control over your player on the pitch, but that certainly isn't going to happen and i think the things i described would not be extremely difficult to implement, while giving the player control over one's avatar on the pitch would perhaps mean major changes or a rewrite of the match engine. besides, for me it would just be cool to see, that after a year of focusing on pace i get really fast and dribble past a defender in an important match, that makes my team, say, stay up in a division.

...and i think the things i described would not be extremely difficult to implement...

Maybe not difficult, but there's a lot to add to make it even half worthwhile. For that reason (same as the chairman idea that pops up often) it's not going to make good sense to add a fair amount of things to what is quite a boring mode that not a lot of people would play after the novelty of trying it once.

The entire game is also about being a football manager, so managing 1 player is something I wouldn't expect to ever see in the game.

apart from transfer windows and occasional player mood management and squad swapping, once you got a working tactic - not really. even if you wouldn't adjust much during a match (and tbh i dont know why you wouldnt try to for example run forward more as a full back and cross more often if you were going behind but your manager told you to stay back and there's, say, 15 minutes left) i would find it interesting to watch my player develop, going through youth teams, earning a first team place, perhaps looking for a better team or being transferred out because i suck or being called up to the national team eventually and so on. of course, perhaps it would be better if you had more control over your player on the pitch, but that certainly isn't going to happen and i think the things i described would not be extremely difficult to implement, while giving the player control over one's avatar on the pitch would perhaps mean major changes or a rewrite of the match engine. besides, for me it would just be cool to see, that after a year of focusing on pace i get really fast and dribble past a defender in an important match, that makes my team, say, stay up in a division.

It's not that it'd be hard, it would be the "why" part. It's the same as when people ask to be chairmen. There just isn't that much to do. You're talking about getting your interest from watching your player develop - what's to stop you just doing that in the current game? Add a player to the database at game start, then follow his career through. You don't get as much agency over him, but to be honest in the context of FM you wouldn't really get too much agency over him in your game mode either.

It's another mode that would take considerable development resources for little benefit. I don't doubt some would find it interesting, but to most it wouldn't be. Those are the cold, hard decisions that a development team has to make.

I put a player in the editor which is basically me. Start myself off at 15 and unattached with high potential.

One rule I have is that I can never sign myself.

Sometimes I have really good career, sometimes I don't. But it's kinda fun to watch myself throughout the game.

yeah, and i would also like the chairman mode and the ability to buy a club with the money you earned as a manager following a career of smb who i dont have any control over vs following a career of smb who i make the important decisions for is still smth completely different.. and by following smbs development only you dont get the possibility of "playing a match" as him. for me it would be completely different to check on a player every month to notice that, say, oh, he scored a goal in euro final compared to watching the euro final and scoring the goal as the avatar. and i dont really think that what i propose is that little agency - of course i would like to see more - but, again, the things i suggested i think would be easiest to implement... well, hopefuly one day modding possibility is added and maybe then ill make the mod myself.

I think this idea has legs.

Many people who play the game often like to manager holiday for x number of years, sometimes to get into a position where there are only newgens. I wouldn't particularly like to have to keep clicking continue through every day of my character's playing career, but perhaps a fast forward option to "start save when player retires" and as the game is whizzing through the seasons you get little notes that update you with career milestones ie debuts, transfers, cup finals, national team call up & tournament selection etc.

When retirement occurs, which could be at any time, you then enter the game world and start from there. It would be a refreshing way to start having already made an imprint in some randomised fashion instead of suddenly entering the game world with "84 caps, 22 goals". The randomness could mean our playing career ends as a youth team winning captain or a teddy sheringham type retiring at 40-odd.

It would also be good to see little references to your playing career when you do become a manager "pikeal, who scored the winning goal in the 2022 world cup final, has been appointed manager of barcelona".

I put a player in the editor which is basically me. Start myself off at 15 and unattached with high potential.

One rule I have is that I can never sign myself.

Sometimes I have really good career, sometimes I don't. But it's kinda fun to watch myself throughout the game.

Pretty much what I do, like you said sometimes you can have a storming career. Other times your career is nothing short of shambolic

I know that it will never happen, but I was wondering if there might be a possibility of "Burger Van at the Football Match Manager"? I'd really like to manage all the challenges of burger inventory, the various weather conditions, and drunk match fans wanting free food.

Why not just edit an existing player and control his playing future via the editor if needed? Simple.

I know that it will never happen, but I was wondering if there might be a possibility of "Burger Van at the Football Match Manager"? I'd really like to manage all the challenges of burger inventory, the various weather conditions, and drunk match fans wanting free food.

Burgers? You Americans...it's Pie and Bovril you're wanting.

I know that it will never happen, but I was wondering if there might be a possibility of "Burger Van at the Football Match Manager"? I'd really like to manage all the challenges of burger inventory, the various weather conditions, and drunk match fans wanting free food.

To be fair, this has more relevent to the mechanics of how Football Manager works than adding the ability to be a player does.

To be fair, this has more relevent to the mechanics of how Football Manager works than adding the ability to be a player does.

I know Madden football used to allow you to set ticket and concession prices, not sure if it still does, I don't have a console (which coincidentally is what pushed to to try playing FM).

I like the idea of the player choosing his own training. "Sorry gaffer, can't be bothered with training today, going to have a lie in instead".

Could we also buy sports cars and get away with just a fine for doing 140mph in a 30 zone? Attend film premieres? Open our own restaurants? Do some match fixing?

This could be the best game ever.

I disagree with SI On this one - Many years ago there was some games called Footballer of the year where you would get decisions during the course of a game and your choice would depend if a situation turned out good or bad. Based on this you could earn yourself transfers and international call ups.

There have been features in previous years added which have not been good and seems to be placed in the game to add value to a new FM version apart from the obvious usual Player database update and ME updates.

Might be worth not to dismiss it too quickly - Maybe another option of playing for future versions. Cant be any worse than the Design your Manager bit ...

While 'design your manager' might not be refined and a complete working feature yet.. it is relevant, at least, to the game.

While op's idea isn't relevant in any way..

FM is striving to be the most accurate simulation about football management, and therefore, everything else falls by the wayside.

There are football management games of the past where you could places illegal bets on the matches, should that make a comeback too?

There are football management games of the past where you could places illegal bets on the matches, should that make a comeback too?

With the odds that are offered on FM16 at times, making legal bets on the matches could be quite profitable

No no no no no! Might I point you in the direction of FIFA 2016, where you win things by just bashing the buttons better than your opponent?

There are football management games of the past where you could places illegal bets on the matches, should that make a comeback too?

Absolutely yes they should! "Manager Stel Petrovskyi sacked from Arsenal post for illegally betting on his team to lose the first leg of the Champion's League semi final against a vastly superior FC Bayern side. Rumour has it he bet 3 months wages".

Who wouldn't wanna get behind that!

This is what I have wanted. The game engine similar to New Star Soccer.

I think something like this could make a great companion app for a phone.

You could create yourself similarly to the create a manager feature, and choose your personality and favourites etc. Then there could be an option in the full game to "allow SelfGen Newgens," meaning that every so often a youth player would come into your intake (or an AI intake) that had the details of a real person who had created them.

The person would get an alert on their phone that they had been generated in someone's game, and they could track their career progress through the app.

I would find that fun. Of course in a more advanced version there could be the option of changing happiness statuses, e.g. Would prefer to play in the Premiership, and having that appear in the persons game of FM. If the app showed the game as 'Live,' meaning that the person was playing it right then, you could perhaps even start a chat with the manager under the right conditions (wanting more matches, wanting a transfer etc.)