Aside from being insanely addictive, the Football Manager series of games arguably offer the best sports managerial sim experience around.
So good in fact, that real-life Premier League clubs are using the game’s incredibly detailed player database to help identify new signings.
Football Manager’s creator Sports Interactive will begin feeding its extensive stats – the game’s database contains 80,000 players – in to Prozone Recruiter, an online analysis platform that many of the top clubs use to scout talent.
“The Sports Interactive database is a highly accurate and valuable resource that will further enhance the recruitment services that we provide,” said Prozone’s CEO Thomas Schmider.
Sports Interactive will export all of the biographical, contractual and positional information it has complied over the course of two decades into the Prozone tool. The latter’s online resource currently provides player data and archived video footage of thousands of players from across the globe.
Borussia Dortmund striker Ciro Immobile on the Football Manager 2014 database
“For years we’ve heard stories of real-life managers and scouts using our data to help with the recruitment process,” said Sports Interactive’s Director Miles Jacobson.
“From now on, it’s official¦real managers around the world will be finding and comparing players using data and a search system that will be very familiar to players of Football Manager.”
Football Manager started life in 1992 as Championship Manager. Following the break of Sports Interactive’s partnership with Eidos Interactive, the developer lost the naming rights, re-branded the game Football Manager and found a new publisher in Sega.
The game’s next iteration; Football Manager 2015, is currently in development.
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