https://www.cybersport.ru/games/articles/konkurent-football-manager-ili-simulyator-stroiki-obzor-we-are-football

Football Manager has already “defeated” one competitor in the person of EA’s FIFA Manager, can We Are Football avoid the mistakes of its predecessor and gather its own audience? Let’s figure it out! First of all, I identified the main components of the game, which I will compare with Football Manager – this is the simulation of a career, 3D matches and the process of transfer negotiations.

Career

At the beginning of your career in Football Manager, you are asked to select countries and leagues that will be available throughout the game, as well as to set individual settings such as prohibiting transfers to the first transfer window, the ability to take control of clubs that already have managers, and more – in depending on how much you strive for realism. In We Are Football, there are fewer options at the start: the player can decide whether he wants to coach a men’s or women’s team, and then choose either a career mode with random clubs, or define a team for himself. No country settings, no league selection, no additional parameters that could maximize the realism of the game.

Football Manager has a relatively flexible system for customizing the protagonist model. In the new game from Winning Streak Games, the character is absent as such: you are asked to enter only basic data such as name, date of birth, citizenship, choose one favorite club and three additional languages. There is no separate choice of coaching license, past football experience – as well as the choice of style and distribution of performance points, and this determines a lot in career development. The developers decided to replace all this with a short interview (ten questions, no more), as a result of which you will immediately be offered contracts with three clubs. At the same time, you cannot compare all three offers and choose the most interesting one. If you want to see what kind of second team offers cooperation, you will have to refuse the first offer and forget about it forever. Doubtful realism, as for me. The main thing that disappointed me already at this stage was the lack of an opportunity to start the game for the unemployed and to search for a new team on their own. This is probably the coolest functionality in Football Manager, which makes the simulator more realistic.

However, there were some interesting tricks: unlike FM, We Are Football has negotiations with sponsors, the sale of rights to the name of the stadium, stands and billboards, improvement of the infrastructure around the stadium and on the way of fans to it, interaction with fan clubs (you can send gifts, organize a meeting with fans, send players to it). Much of this was in the simulator from EA, and therefore such finds can hardly be called completely novelties for the genre. However, in the absence of other competitors, it still sets We Are Football apart from FM. However, there is also a downside: at first I liked this “forgotten old”, but then I began to doubt how realistic it is? Typically, these tasks are not the responsibility of the football club manager.

Conversation

The negotiation system is what many love these simulators for. Transfers, negotiation of contracts, interaction with players, staff, club management. All this is available in both Football Manager and We Are Football, however, the developers of the latter also added the ability to negotiate with sponsors, which we previously identified as not a very realistic gaming moment.

In fact, the other negotiations presented in the game are also not very close to real life story. Usually the coach of the team only indicates which players he wants to see in the squad, and which he does not need. Everything else is in the powers of the sports director of the club. And in the Football Manager series there is an opportunity to customize the system of the club so that it matches the realities of our world. But in We Are Football, this is not possible. However, most players still prefer to negotiate on their own, so let’s turn to the mechanics of the game itself.

In Football Manager, we are asked to face the player and his agent, the board of directors or staff. Negotiations can last from several days to a month, and players with agents and teams will constantly put forward their conditions. In addition to all this, a football player or staff can lure another club by making a better offer. In We Are Football, the situation is different. All negotiations take place in one day: you make some initial offer, and the AI ​​tries to reduce it. To get a refusal is unrealistic – in the end, you will still agree. Because of this, a rather strange situation occurs: only one day of the transfer window has passed, and you already have a bunch of sponsors and new players – all the work on the market is done. Perhaps this aspect also cannot be called realistic in the game from Winning Streak Games.

3D match

Part of the audience of football managers simulates matches in 2D and does not feel any discomfort when looking at the movement of flat chips with a ball. However, this option for watching games does not suit me, and therefore I was looking forward to something special from a 3D match in We Are Football – and in the end I was disappointed.

The game simply has no alternative to the slightly improved 2D match mode, which for some reason the authors called 3D. You will not even be able to observe the movement of all players on the field at the same time. We’ll have to be content with only the athlete who controls the ball at the moment of the match. This is exactly the point that could give We Are Football an edge over FM, but it turned out to be the worst implemented. Instead, the developers focused on 3D models of the stadium and its surroundings while editing and improving the infrastructure. In my opinion, this is a big mistake.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to add that the lineups in We Are Football do not correspond to the real ones, and there is no need to talk about the tactics settings at all: the game has nothing but a choice of a scheme and a few style sliders. This is two more points in the minus game. The only really interesting innovation worth highlighting is the ability to coach a women’s team. With the rapidly evolving women’s football around the world, this is where EA and Sports Interactive need to look when determining the future development of their simulators. Can We Are Football be considered a competitor to the Football Manager series? In its current form – hardly: too little realism and configurations, and matches in 2D. Perhaps there will be players who will be interested in editing the infrastructure of the stadium and the area around it for hours, but this is not a football manager’s simulator, but rather a foreman at a construction site.