OPINION
Football manager is a game for geeks. Effectively a spreadsheet of the world’s footballers, it enables you to take charge of a team and wheel, deal and strategise your way to the top. Or the bottom.
Its realism has led to tie-ins with Sky Sports, who have featured the game on their transfer window coverage, and legions of fans swear by it.
It’s got heritage too. The first iteration of the game developed by Paul Collyer and Oliver Collyer was released in 1992. Since then it’s become the number one footy manager game in the world.
However, Leeds fans might like to look away now.
Sky Sports got the Football Manager guys to simulate the rest of the Championship, and they’ve got Norwich and Sheffield United winning automatic promotion on 88 and 87 points, with Leeds one point back in third.
Leeds end the season six points ahead of West Brom but the Baggies go on to win promotion via the play-offs, beating Leeds 2-1 in the final at Wembley.
Thankfully, for Leeds fans anyway, as good a game as it might be, Football Manager is just a game.
If its points tallies are right, Leeds would only need to win five of their eight games to go up – and that’s more than possible for Marcelo Bielsa’s men. We actually think they’ll need to do rather better than that, though, starting with a win against Millwall on Saturday.
However, with eight games to go for each of the top three, we think there will be plenty of twists and turns before the final day. And Leeds fans will be desperately hoping that this is one prediction Football Manager has got hopelessly wrong.