How a Video Game You've Never Played Changed the Biggest Sport on Earth

EPISODE 87: Football Manager.

Modern sports video games pride themselves on their simulation of reality.

But the most popular ones that Americans know and love — Madden, FIFA, NBA 2K, MLB: The Show — cannot compete with an intensely specific and uniquely important game that I, at least, knew nothing about:

Football Manager.

Football Manager, it turns out, got so good at simulating the sport of soccer that it converted a worldwide army of real-life players, coaches, and executives into genuine obsessives. And it changed the multi-billion dollar soccer industry itself.

Today, we send PTFO’s London correspondent, Kieran Morris, on a global quest to explain this revolution. While also fact-checking the legend of Football Manager’s 30-year-old poster boy: real-life football manager Will Still. Who went from obsessive nerd to one of the most sought-after head coaches in all of Europe.

Unfortunately, Kieran jeopardizes his own sanity in the process.

DKN/YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Bureaucratically,

Pablo