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It’s been a long time coming, though Football Manager 26 Finally here it is. With 2025 being the first year we haven’t seen a new one Football Manager Sports – Or Championship Manager Earlier – since 1992, it was clear that when Sports Interactive decided to cancel last year’s planned entry into the highly regarded football management inclusion game, it must be a bad one.
Review the review information
Platform reviewed: PC
Available: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S
Release Date: November 4, 2025
A couple of highlights
Unfortunately, this will be a running theme because Football Manager 26 Is, for all intents and purposes, still very much beta. There is improvement, and the important thing to keep in mind among all the downsides is that it’s still there Football Manager At its core
You’re still being jostled, sacrificing sleep to try and lead your beloved local club to glory… despite all the hype and excitement around, that’s all. 26 Being a complete overhaul for the series, it misses the mark significantly.
Along with the visually improved match engine, though, there’s another area where Football Manager 26 It’s actually improved: Tactics. For the first time in the history of the series, you can now use two tactics simultaneously: one when you have possession of the ball, and another when you are out of possession. Player roles available to change any position, you can use completely different formations, whole works. This adds an extra dynamic to tactics that we didn’t have before, and is one of the only real selling points for the new game.
I was also hostile to mention the inclusion of women’s football for the first time, to an even more impressive degree. There are 14 women’s leagues in 11 countries, from the world famous Women’s Super League in England.
Sports Interactive has 40 researchers dedicated solely to the women’s game, and while there’s no denying that management won’t be as popular in men’s leagues, it’s a huge step forward for representation and vital in helping the sport get as much recognition as it deserves.
Delivered a year late but still missing them
Unfortunately, even with the post-launch 26.0.4 update, Football Manager 26 Still a lame, feature-baron, poor excuse for a full-priced video game launch, especially one with 20+ years of history and consistency.
This year’s installment includes many missing features that were available in previous iterations of the game, including but not limited to: international administration, touchline shouts, squad depth tab, live cup draw, data hub, create-a-club mode, versus mode, challenge mode, transfer deadline day, end of season summaries/fanfare, advanced match stats ability day
The best bit
While it still pales in comparison to other modern soccer games, the match engine is a huge visual upgrade, and one that’s long overdue.
Not to mention heaps upon heaps of not breaking the game, but still infuriating bugs. Being able to select bench players to take penalties in shootouts, in-match commentary on text that doesn’t make sense, long text wrapping and obfuscation of other text… Again, these are just a few examples of a pretty long list.
Although Sports Interactive revealed there were touchline screams Effectively In vain, when performed correctly only provide the most minimal morale boost, I still find my muscle memory looking for them in almost every match.
That placebo effect was very real Football Manager 2024and while I understand the need to refine them before bringing them back as a feature, that’s probably what I miss the most. That and the Deadline Day transition, in particular, thanks to missing a signature because the paperwork wasn’t filed 15 minutes after the deadline, with some dedicated Deadline Day mode in which FM 24 Must have stopped. Damn fax machine.
Teaching an old dog new tricks
Finally, there are many, many UI changes. As more and more players pick up Football Manager On the console – despite the longest time, being a PC exclusive – the development meets more towards them, leading to a complete overhaul of the UI.
A Dehal, as a player for more than a decade, it was hard to get used to. Even though I know how the game works, I had to learn where everything was again, and I was beyond frustrated when I went somewhere, and it wasn’t by accident, so I had to resort to the search function.
I hesitate to call it bad UI design, though, as there’s every chance I just dislike it because it’s such a drastic change from what I’m familiar with. If you present a brand new player with both Football Manager 24 And 26 Work with them learning each side by side, then ask which one they prefer. I suspect they may have an answer 26even if we veterans are feeling it tough.
As mentioned earlier, though, this is still Football Manager. This might be one of the worst launches in the series, from both critics and fans alike, but if you love the series for all its flaws, you’ll enjoy it. Football Manager 26.
Especially the better tactics and match engine, because playing tiki-taka with Manchester United, in a way I know for a fact that we can never do in real life, when compared to the match engine we have presented in the series so far. This game is basically a beta Football Manager 27and should be treated as such.
If you play it…
If…
Accessible features
As Football Manager Always mostly spreadsheet, accessibility options come in the form of large text, colorblind mode, the option to toggle flashing commentary when a goal is scored, and simple colors for commentary text to help distinguish them from the background.
The game also supports 19 different languages, when mid-match there are many camera settings, but there are no difficulties or anything like that, because they are not needed.
As with everyone else Football Manager game, I started saving for a season with my beloved Manchester United, with the aim of being as high as possible in the league, but also not worrying about long-term finances or transfers. At the time of writing, I’ve clocked in about 17 hours of playtime according to Steam.
I’ve toyed around a lot with new tactics, spent a lot of time scouting and signing players who could make an immediate impact, and selling anything (when really Saudi Arabian clubs come in with ridiculous offers for players in your squad).
I also experienced managing in the women’s game for a while, and experienced coffee All of these bugs were played on Windows 11 PCs via Steam. Football Manager 26 Not particularly deep, as the series has famously been able to run on any hardware, but my gaming PC sports an RTX 3080 and 32GB of memory.
First reviewed November 2025
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