Football Manager Stole My Life Read online

  Miles: When I took over the UK research, half the people had email and the other half were being done by mail or phone.

  Ov: That feels old.

  Paul: There was a Norwich guy who kept sending us back pieces of paper with like, 18, 19, 20 everywhere.

  Miles: We also had an Everton fan called Andrea who did the Cambridge research because she lived down there. Her stuff was absolutely spot-on.

  Paul: Oh yeah.

  Miles: Our Crewe researcher from that point is still with us, as well, the guy who first said Murphy and Lennon were going to be future stars, when they were in the reserves.

  There seems to a buzzword for this: crowdsourcing. As if it‘s something that has been invented in the last couple of years. It hasn‘t. We didn‘t invent it. Anyone who collects stats works in that way. The internet just made it a lot easier. Crowdsourcing. We‘ve been crowdsourcing for 20 years.

  Paul: I remember going through all the fanzines, looking for ones that we could send to.

  Ov: The response was brilliant. ‘Someone wants me to fill in all these details about the team I know everything about‘. These are guys who would go to the reserve matches and everything else.

  Paul: What‘s that bookshop, the football one on Charing Cross Road? I went down there and I bought a whole bunch of stuff on Italy, Serie A all the way down to C. It had all the squads, the rosters, the history, all the finishing positions.

  Ov: What‘s that bookshop called?

  Miles: Soccer Scene.

  Ov: Soccer Scene.

  Paul: Possibly.

  Ov: No, Soccer Scene sells shirts and stuff.

  Paul: We bought these manuscripts – some enthusiast had just printed these out and sold them. You know, homemade folder thing. We bought these things and just typed them in. Where else are you going to get that information, before the internet?

  Today, FM‘s 1000-strong army of researchers assess every player at every club on the game‘s database. During that time, they can see superstars in the making before any of the giants of European football are on the case.

  NEYMAR

  MR NICE GUY

  Paulo Freitas

  Head researcher, Brazil

  I first watched Diego and Robinho in Copa Sao Paulo 2002. That’s the country’s main youth tournament, so it’s always worth paying attention to. I’d heard of them both before as I’m a fan of youth football. I always check line-ups, results, match reports, goalscorers and, whenever possible, watch games too. The two of them were so impressive – Diego because of his class and Robinho because of his technical skills, though Santos were quickly eliminated in the group stage.

  Later on that year, both of them were promoted to Santos’ senior team, becoming their key players in the 2002 national title and attracting a lot of media attention along the way.

  By then we’d already long since pinpointed their promise in Championship Manager.

  A year earlier, Kaka was involved in the same competition, but he was a benchwarmer behind a player called Harison, so the press here barely paid any attention to him. Kaka finally made his impact at senior level a few months later, when he scored against Botafogo in the Rio-Sao Paulo tournament and from then on his career developed quickly.

  Neymar was one that really stuck out, again in the Copa Sao Paulo. I first saw him in the 2008 edition. He was only 15, but he outshone much older players.

  At the other end of the scale, Lulinha was one who didn’t progress as we’d expected. He impressed me a lot at youth level, which is why he had such high potential ability in the game. He is probably the best Brazilian player I’ve ever seen in the Under-17 South American Championship, almost single-handedly leading Brazil to the title in 2007. Lulinha looked the complete prospect. He had great technique, with real pace and was a prolific goalscorer. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t adapt to senior football. The pressure was too much for him to handle as Corinthians were struggling and he was the boy expected to save them. He couldn’t do it and they eventually turned against them.

  There’s such a fine line predicting whether a young player will make the grade or not – even for a computer game!

  Paulo Freitas is Sports Interactive’s head researcher in Brazil. By day he works as a lawyer, while he also contributes to Sky Sports and his own blog http://ojogobonito.wordpress.com. You’ll find him on Twitter @Cynegeticus.

  CERCI’S A JOLLY

  GOOD FELLOW

  Alberto Scotta

  Head researcher, Italy

  I’m very proud of the work we’ve done over the years with the Italian research. I say ‘we’ because, over the last 15 years, I’ve built up a fantastic group of assistant researchers that gave me a lot of accurate, detailed information about players – particularly the younger ones.

  It’s great to think that we’ve created players in the game who went on to do very well in real life, like Antonio Cassano (Bari), Giampaolo Pazzini and Riccardo Montolivo (both Atalanta) and Alessio Cerci (Roma).

  Cerci, especially, was superb in Football Manager 2005 – he could play in every attacking position – and finally he became a great player for Fiorentina, and was close to signing for Manchester City at the beginning of last season.

  I remember having many discussions with the other researchers over Zlatan Ibrahimovich.

  When he came to my database he was only a decent player, while I was sure he was already a star – so I fought a lot with the other head researchers. His Current Ability rating was only at 130, while the likes of Alessandro Del Piero and David Trezeguet were at around 170. With those stats, he’d never play for Juventus, whereas in reality he was a first-pick for Fabio Capello. I remember someone saying, “His rating can be just above Yksel Osmanovski,” but I fought to get him up to between 165–168 and, in the end, I’m pleased I was right about him.

  The latest hot property we’ve created – who is becoming great – is Marco Verratti.

  At the time of writing he’s just been called up by Cesare Prandelli for his provisional 32-man squad for Euro 2012, even though he’s a Serie B player. He was already a superstar in Football Manager 2010, when no one had heard of him.

  I’ve had the chance to meet a lot of the famous players who are deeply in love with the game, like Massimo Oddo, Fabio Grosso, Ignazio Abate and Cristian Pasquato. Demetrio Albertini was another.

  The funniest thing was hearing that Giovanni Trapattoni had asked Albertini for some information on the young England players before a match, on the back of the interview I did with him.

  After 15 years of working with Sports Interactive, I feel so proud to be part of such a family.

  The SI guys, the foreign researchers and all my assistants… I’ve met a lot of people through working on this game and some of them are now my closest friends.

  I was addicted to and in love with their management games from 1992 and now, as the Italian head researcher, I’m even more obsessed with it.

  Alberto ‘Panoz’ Scotta has served Sports Interactive for the last 15 years, improving with age like a fine Italian centre-back.

  He’s an interaction designer at Deltatre and worked on the London 2012 Olympic site.

  Feel free to join his FM Facebook group at www.facebook.com/panoz.fmitalia.

  In 2004, Alberto Scotta interviewed Demetrio Albertini before Italy played England.

  AS: Tomorrow you’ll play against England. Who are their best players in your opinion?

  DA: I’ve played against Leeds in the last few weeks and they’ve a lot of great young players. I especially like Alan Smith and Olivier Dacourt.

  Apart from that, there are obviously the very famous Manchester United ones, like David Beckham and Paul Scholes.

  Yesterday the manager asked us about some young English players ahead of tomorrow’s match.

  Now I’ll install the new copy of CM you gave me and we’ll look at their stats together. I’ll impress him with such a big and accurate database!

  JUST SAY TO

 
Ze Chieira

  Head researcher, Portugal

  I’ve spent some 18 years assessing players for Championship Manager and now Football Manager. Deco was my first real ‘spot’. It was back in 1997 and he was only 20, having only just arrived in Portugal as another completely unknown Brazilian player. He was supposed to sign for Benfica, but during pre-season training they decided he was not good enough for the senior squad. Without even playing one friendly, he was loaned out to Alverca. They were a lowly Lisbon club who were deemed certainties for the drop from the Second Division, but that year they got a lot of players from Benfica through a feeder club agreement.

  I was living in Lisbon at that time and taking my CM scouting tasks quite seriously because CM 97/98 was officially including the Portuguese leagues for the first time. I decided to take a look at him one night, through the pouring rain.

  Deco, skinny and soft like so many Brazilian rookies, hardly touched the ball and I remember him being kicked all over the place. The new version came out just after that and he was rated no higher than an average unknown.

  The good weather returned and Deco started to show his top quality – which is the phrase I’d use for someone capable of playing at the highest level. He’d established himself as a starter, but the media weren’t sure about him. Deco was deemed too skinny, too selfish, too ‘smart’.

  I decided to have another look at him and I saw the best footballer who had ever played in that league. He was quality – everywhere on the pitch, with intuition, skills and pure magic.

  Yes, he was skinny and clearly not a runner, but he had everything else to play at the very top level. I updated the database and thought, ‘wow, people better get ready for the best prospect in Portugal’.

  So when Championship Manager 3 came out in March 1993, Deco was programmed to be a future star. The database had been submitted way before he’d moved from Salgueiros – the smallest club in the Premier League, where he’d settled after Benfica had decided not to keep him on – to Porto. I got huge stick from the Portuguese fans complaining to SI about my supposed bias towards Porto, but I guess history has proven me right.

  Of course, I could also brag about Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani or Ricardo Quaresma but, to be honest, those guys were impossible to miss.

  To Madeira

  Now this is a piece of CM history.

  I was managing a growing scouting network, with more than 80 people covering almost every club in the country. Back then, the way the database was managed meant that only one researcher could work on it at the same time. There were different, but strict, deadlines for every research stage and some assistant researchers had trouble delivering their stuff on time.

  I had someone offering to help with Gouveia, a club from a small town deep in the countryside, which is well known for the fine cheese rather than their football team. He claimed to know the staff very well as he’d been a player there in the previous season, before leaving to go to university.

  He got his files and returned them on the last day before the CM 01/02 deadline, when I was swamped with other entries at the same time. With little time, I had to make a choice, so I let the lower league ones pass with very minor tweaks. I obviously trusted my staff and their assessments. This is how a Championship Manager hero was born!

  The researcher, Antonio Madeira, had created a character based on his own nickname.

  Needless to say it was spotted almost as soon as the game came out, but it could only be corrected with the first data patch some weeks afterwards. The legend lives on to this day.

  Fabio Palm

  Fabio was a huge prospect, who was brought to the world’s attention when CM4 was released back in 2003. He could and should have become a superstar, if only he’d kept his focus.

  I was scouting for Sporting Lisbon during the previous season, so I got to know this kid very well. He’d been brought in from a small club near Lisbon and made a stunning impact at the academy with his unbelievable talent and flair. I don’t think I’d ever seen another player with his natural skills in more than 18 years of scouting worldwide.

  I still remember seeing him trashing Benfica on his own in a decisive derby match for the national under-15 championship. He scored three goals, with his last one coming after he’d dribbled around seven or eight opponents before literally walking the ball into the net.

  He blew all of his chances with his off-field behaviour. At the time of writing, he’s still only 24 and still looking for a way out of trouble.

  Assistant Researchers

  Since 1994, I must have had more than 1000 people helping me put together the various versions of Championship and Football Manager. Naturally there are a few stories along the way, with some of them putting their addiction before anything else.

  A decade ago I had a very good assistant researcher who covered the lower leagues, at a time when there was very little public information available. The thing was, he made time by relaxing on his university studies – until he met a new girlfriend.

  One day he came to me and said ‘I have to choose between Championship Manager and married life’. What a loss to me. I hope he’s still married.

  Covering Portugal, Ze Chieira is Sports Interactive’s longest serving Researcher – having started off back in 1994 before SI was even officially founded. Since 2001 he’s worked as a scout for Sporting Lisbon, Vitoria Setubal, Academica de Coimbra and Panathinaikos. For the last two seasons he’s been the senior scout at FC Porto. In real life.

  IN GOOD

  KOMPANY

  Kristof Terreur

  Head researcher, Belgium

  I started working as an assistant researcher for Belgium in the late 1990s, after I’d discovered Championship Manager on a school trip to London. At that time, the head researcher was from the French part of Belgium, so I looked after all the teams from the Flemish area. I’d also manage the attributes of the youth internationals, so I’d identify young talents.

  Back in early 2000, we started to establish talented 15-year-olds for the database. Although we hadn’t seen these players live, we had a useful guide thanks to Belgium’s main sports magazine Sport/Voetbal Magazine. They had weekly column dedicated to five promising youngsters and I came across information about the then-unknown Vincent Kompany.

  The head researcher, Fabrice Leclercq, keyed in his basic details, but I remember we edited some attributes thanks to the content of the article.

  It read: “Vincent Kompany is a right-footed defender. He is strong on one-on-ones, has good heading and an awesome tackle. His youth manager, Eddy Van Dale, adds that he also reads the game pretty well. He still has to work on his technique and his shooting.”

  At that time we didn’t know what would follow for him.

  Kompany made his first appearance for Anderlecht in 2003, almost at the same time as I started working as a journalist for Het Laatste Nieuws. I wasn’t covering Anderlecht for the newspaper – I did KRC Genk and Lierse – but I immediately saw that article had been right, as did all the top European scouts.

  I had my first contact with him in 2004 when he won the Golden Boot, which is the trophy awarded to Belgium’s best player. He started like a comet at Anderlecht, but his career slowed down a little bit after a bad shoulder injury.

  Kompany moved to Hamburg, where he wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped due to injuries and personal problems.

  When he moved to Manchester City in 2008, I covered one of his first games, against Chelsea. English clubs aren’t so keen on newspaper journalists, but the City press officer gave me permission to talk to him for five minutes. The day after, he was on the same flight back to Belgium and we had a long talk, after I found him reading the financial pages of the newspaper. He’s a smart guy!

  From time to time I used to travel to Manchester or London to see him playing, but interviews weren’t that easy to obtain anymore (aside from one with his sponsor, Nike) as he got famous and received too many requests. But we had a routine. After a Saturday ga
me we’d fly back together to Brussels. He’d greet me warmly and we’d make small talk.

  I must admit, I got goosebumps when I saw him lift that English Premier League trophy.

  I’m so proud of the guy I discovered in a small football magazine article – and he still looks the same!

  I have a really close relationship with Belgium’s next rising star, Thibaut Courtois. I’ve known him personally since he moved from the Genk youth squad to the first team at 15.

  I still remember his debut as a 16-year-old, when all the other goalkeepers were injured. The day before the game, the club wouldn’t let me speak to him so I called his Dad. He told me that his son was jumping about on the trampoline in his garden – that’s how relaxed he was!

  Thibaut played terrifically against Gent, making some fine saves, and the night after that game I made sure to up his stats in the database!

  I also recall him falling ill after that game. He puked and all the stress came out. Last year he became the regular first-choice, which was the beginning of a fairytale. He impressed from the first game to the last, making only a few small mistakes along the way. Since then I’ve interviewed him several times and what sticks out is that he doesn’t feel pressure.

  We kept in contact, also because I knew Tottenham and Chelsea were on the verge of signing him. I was on the front row of a transfer soap opera, before he finally moved to Chelsea, who loaned him to Atletico Madrid.

  I flew over to Spain to watch him against Valencia. We talked afterwards, as we have done almost every week since – via Facebook, text messages and so on.

  When I was promoted to chief reporter, he was one of the first to send me his congratulations – as I did when he won the Europa League.