Football Manager 26 – Review

Football Manager returns to our screens this autumn

After the producers initially delayed the launch of the title with the suffix 25 last season, they then announced that in order to be fully satisfied with the final game and avoid releasing an incomplete product, the next game in the series would be directly FM 26.

So, with an extra year of development time, the game promises to be the most complete yet. Let's see what's new and how Football Manager 26 looks!

To begin with…

The first thing I noticed was the FM 26 application logo on the Desktop. A stylised version of a football, it brings to mind the design of balls used in games in the 50s. I think the producers either wanted to make an arc through time, to the romantic era of football, or simply to use a graphic design option.

The title Football Manager 26 also brings a change in naming. The year is abbreviated, using only the last two digits, a visible adjustment compared to previous titles, such as Football Manager 2024. It is, in essence, an adjustment that other sports series implemented some time ago (EA Sports FC, for example), but which doesn't necessarily fall into a good or bad typology.

As in previous years, career mode offers us the option to select and manage our favourite club/team or to start a career from scratch as an out-of-contract manager. For more realism, this time I chose to start a career from scratch. In this mode, as in previous years, all you have to do is apply for open manager positions at teams in the leagues and countries selected at the start of the game from the database.

Before that, you start with the manager selection panel, your in-game profile or character. FM provides us with a whole range of graphic options to model our manager as we wish.

In addition to graphic detail aspects (hair, skin, height, outfit, clothing accessories), character selection also involves previous football experience, i.e. whether our manager was a football legend in the past or just a simple lower league player. Compared to older versions, new options in FM 26 include pundit, influencer or journalist.

This pre-managerial career experience impacts the likelihood of teams choosing you as manager. Thus, you have less chance of managing Manchester City directly in this mode if you have mediocre experience and notoriety.

Interviews for a manager position take place as in previous editions of the game, in a similar manner to real life, and induction is present both when a team decides to use our services and in each module of the interface. Here I refer to the small tutorials that guide the player when opening a new menu for the first time (transfers, tactics, etc.).

Football Manager 26 is up to date with the changes and trends of current football. Thus, we also have women's football included, with a few leagues and the option to select a female manager for the profile.

For the recent Romanian championship, we can also manage in the 3rd League. This is an encouraging step for those who support a local team that is not currently in the elite of domestic football.

In total, Football Manager 26 includes championships from 58 countries, with various men's (and sometimes women's) football leagues. The extent of the database is customisable, so on a less powerful system, the game has a chance to run smoothly without major problems. I have no complaints about the accuracy of the database. As a rule, the Football Manager scouts do an incredible job, carefully and meticulously documented.

Graphics at the level of a real match

The most vibrant part of Football Manager seems to be the matches themselves, and I will continue with this mode.

Visually, the game looks better than ever. Match graphics have been constantly improved with the latest titles. Player animations (their movements) seem increasingly realistic, from one edition to the next. Other details such as weather, stadiums or spectators are also present, with attention and realism.

Compared to older editions, we have the match viewing mode in:

• Key (only important phases),
• Extended (a slightly longer summary),
• Commentary (only match commentary with the appropriate interface, without visualising the phases)
• Full (the entire match from start to finish, all 90 minutes).

To these is added the mode:

• Dynamic (a more recent addition, which selects phases according to the importance of the match. For example, we will see more phases towards the end of the match or in important matches, cup games, etc.)

Regarding the in-match management mode, I was surprised to see that, in addition to the 5 substitutions now allowed in football, we are only allowed 3 tactical breaks, similar to timeouts in other sports. It seemed counter-intuitive to only have 3 breaks available in which to make player substitutions or tactical changes during the match.

I believe this is due to the impact that in-match changes would have on gameplay and the reactions of players on the pitch, but 3 tactical changes still seem too few, given that we have 5 possible player substitutions. I would consider this a first drawback of the game encountered so far. In other editions, we always had the possibility to make tactical changes during the game (offensive, defensive or any other aspect).

What I think is also missing, compared to other FM games, and which I considered a good thing, are the encouragements and instructions from the bench from the coach to the players. Now, these seem to have disappeared completely, and we can only interact with the players before the match, at half-time and at the end of the match.

Before each team talk or pep talk, the game or the assistant manager suggests what we could say to the players in the given context, depending on the situation (for example, meaningless matches, when we start as underdogs, crucial derbies, etc.).

Here, my advice is to go with your intuition and gut feeling as often as you can. Although the AI's suggestions are good and appropriate for each situation, your way of interacting with the players and the personality of the manager you build with each dressing room speech will make the players react as naturally as possible every time. The way you talk to them will also guide how you interact with them in the future.

Returning to the graphics, matches are displayed in two ways:

• the most important phases during the match;
• the interface for the rest of the match, when no important phase is happening.

Here we can review the tactics, other matches being played in the same round, or the live updated league table (which I admit I found a bit harder to locate in my searches, but it's there!).

Audio plays an important role

The sound is also good. I noticed the level of realism from the very first match, when at the final whistle, I thought I heard the referee's whistle from the match that was then playing on the TV in the living room.

The crowd and the fans are also heard, subtly and depending on the moment and tension of the game.

In the settings, under Preferences, I also found the Music option. I couldn't activate it, however. It's probably an undeveloped option left over from last year's unreleased edition. In other older editions, we could set a playlist from our own computer, from our audio files. However, we can always open an audio player on the computer and listen to our favourite MP3s. In this sense, FM 26 is very well optimised and we can easily switch from the game tab to other applications.

Another aspect related to the menu is that we can also load saves from FM 23 or FM 24 into FM 26. This is another plus for the game, allowing us to play previous campaigns that we worked hard on, in the new edition with improved graphics.

Back to the drawing board…

Since it's hard to be good from the very first match, much of the success in football games is due to attention to strategy, tactics, and match preparation.

Before each match, a technical meeting takes place, where the assistant coaches give us some indications that we should consider, regarding the opponents' tactics, certain more important players of theirs and how they can be countered, the status of our players' training and where they could improve their game. With a tick, we can either accept the advice for the next match, for all future matches, accept all remaining advice with a single tick, or even ignore them completely.

Micro-management also includes training sessions and signing contracts with players. We can do this personally or delegate it to the assistant coaches. Negotiations for transfers and signing new players are similar. Often, we have to be careful about the amounts we offer for transfers or when signing new players, and this, of course, within budget limits.

Interaction with players is not only during the match. For example, it is advisable when a member of our team gets injured, to offer him support or to assure him that his place in the first team will not be jeopardised when he recovers.

Another aspect to mention is the in-game menu notifications. These have recently been grouped into categories: tasks (things we need to do or respond to), news, notifications, and all together. Changes have also been constantly made to the organisation of tactics, so we can position players differently depending on the offensive or defensive phase of the game, with or without the ball.

After a year's break, Football Manager 26 returns with a bang and maintains its status as the most complex football management simulator, impressing with its huge level of detail. At the same time, the series continues to remain current and perfectly adapted to the constant changes in the world of the beautiful game.

Thanks to CD Media S.E. for the review code and the opportunity to play Football Manager 26.

The physical edition of the game can be purchased from Jocurinoi.ro and Gamesfunattic.ro

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Available on: Windows (Steam, Epic Games, Microsoft Store), macOS, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5
Played on: PC (Steam)
Release date: 4 November 2025
Developer: Sports Interactive
Publisher: SEGA