“I was legitimately stunned” – Zealand opens up on his crazy life, the cancellation of Football Manager 2025 and more

If there’s one person who embodies Football Manager right now, it’s the YouTuber we all know and love: Zealand. Every corner of the internet has its defining figures—when you think of music reviews, most people immediately picture Anthony Fantano. In the world of Football Manager, that role belongs to Zealand.

So when Football Manager 2025 was cancelled, all eyes turned to him. How would he react? What would he say? Eventually, he dropped a 28-minute, no-holds-barred video, delivering a reaction that captured the emotions of the community and sparked a wave of discussion.

But watching those 28 minutes and 50 seconds wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more than just the immediate fallout—I wanted to go behind the scenes of that reaction, to understand Zealand’s deeper thoughts on the franchise, and to trace the journey that made him the ‘face’ of Football Manager in the first place.

To do that, we need to go back to where it all started. Who is Zealand? And how did he become the voice of an entire community?

Becoming Zealand: The Accidental Career

Like many great things in life, Zealand’s journey into Football Manager content creation certainly wasn’t planned. In fact, it was, in his own words, “an accident really. All great things are.”

“I was in college and I was playing a lot of Football Manager in lectures and whatever,” the Football Manager guru explained. “It was a pretty cool phase of life. I knew what I was going to do professionally. And so once you have that while you’re in college, you’re very at ease. And I was just playing a lot of Football Manager. And this is right when Fortnite was blowing up. That was the first time I ever heard of Twitch and people like Ninja. And I went, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ All I knew about Twitch was that you were supposed to stream games that you were good at.”

Zealand had no grand ambitions of becoming a full-time streamer or YouTuber. He just thought it would be fun, saying: “My friend was like, ‘Oh, when we play games online, we should stream them.’ So I was just streaming random games, no face cam, no audio, just streaming the gameplay because we thought it was cool. And then I went, okay, I’m going to try to stream a game that I think I’m good at. So, what game? I’m not good at shooting things, I’m not good at COD. I was good at Football Manager. And so I went to stream that.”

His early setup was as low-budget as it gets, using a phone as a webcam and a streaming app that left a scrolling advertisement on the screen. Early viewers would see the now-epic YouTuber with a giant ad revealing that he was using the free version of the app. “I didn’t even pay the $5 to get the advert off,” he said.

For two years, he streamed simply because he loved it. He was part of a small community of Football Manager streamers, just a handful of people hanging out. But then came a key moment—when he was asked to help run the FM Base YouTube channel.

“They sent a message in the group text that was like, ‘Hey, we have this YouTube channel. And we would love if somebody could take it over and start posting videos again, just guides on FM.’”

Zealand had been watching content creator Harris Heller, who always preached that you needed to grow on another platform in order to grow on Twitch.

“So I should say yes to this YouTube thing because then it gives me the opportunity to grow somewhere else. So I said yes to the YouTube thing and I started making videos. Very basic, how to play Football Manager videos, probably August 2019. I worked doing FM Base videos, and then I decided to change the channel name after about a year and a half and the rest is history.”

A Day in the Life of Zealand

Now, Zealand’s life is very different. His days are structured around content—sometimes productive, sometimes chaotic.

“Every single day I wake up, I have to do something. Especially since I started the Zealandism channel, which is this second channel, specifically designed for me to just mess around. People take it too seriously sometimes. It’s just pure experimentation. I’m just messing around with thumbnails and titles and concepts. And it’s like a giant running joke. Which is a lot of fun.”

Despite the fun, the workload is no joke. The YouTube works as part of an eight-person team featuring five full-time employees. There’s frequent calls, long email chains and, of course, legal gubbins to worry about. Content creation is a grind—but not one he feels he can complain about.

“I don’t blame people for saying that though because it is a lot of work, right,” the YouTuber said. “It’s a lot of work that I think a lot of people would like to do.”

The Fallout of FM25’s Cancellation

For some Football Manager YouTubers, the cancellation of Football Manager 2025 was not just a shock, but a worry. With their content focused heavily around the annual series, it’s cancellation can lead to huge changes in content plans, and even an decrease in viewer retention. After all, there’s now an additional year to wait until the new game.

Zealand found out about the cancellation in the worst possible circumstances—exhausted, in a shared bed with his brother after traveling for work. Who said that content creation was glamorous work…

“I lay down in the bed, I get a text from a childhood friend who gets through my ‘Do Not Disturb’ saying, ‘Yo, FM just got cancelled.’ And he’s not the type of person that would text me that as a joke. I open Twitter and I’m tagged all over the place.”

For Zealand, a content creator so embedded in the FM community, he immediately knew that whatever he said next would shape the conversation in the Football Manager community at large

“I can’t just tweet the absolute first thing that comes to my mind in that situation. Because if I end up thinking about it for five more minutes and go, ‘Ah, that’s not actually really how I feel,’ it’s already out there.”

His response was measured but honest. His now-infamous “Football Manager is Cooked” video became a defining moment.

“I think people misinterpreted my video and the word ‘cooked.’ Some people took me saying it was cooked to mean ‘Football Manager is doomed.’ But I’m not saying that. It’s just a huge moment in the game’s history, and they’ll feel the ramifications of it for a long time.”

The Future of Football Manager

Zealand still believes in the future of Sports Interactive’s franchise, even if its current direction is uncertain. With the missing entry this year, the YouTuber wouldn’t mind if the series skipped more years to make sure the game’s release in a finished state.

“If you look at it from just the quality of the game stance, release one game every three years. Football Manager improves really significantly once every three years. Just release it once every three years. Take your time, build the right game, and then sell a ton of copies of it. But they don’t do that because releasing a game every year makes a lot more money.”

For now, his focus is on the future—both his own and Football Manager’s. He’s always been careful not to tie his entire brand to one game.

“I don’t want it to be about the game. I want it to be about me,” he said. “The point being that you come because of whatever interesting thing is happening, but you stay because hopefully, I make it worth your while to stay.”

Quickfire Questions: The Fun Stuff

Beyond the serious discussions about Football Manager, I wanted to throw some lighter questions at Zealand. At the end of the day, it is just a game. And we want to hear Zealand’s thoughts on the game beyond just the current state of the franchise. So I asked him what his dream collaboration was, his ideal Football Manager feature, and the parts of the game he’d change in an instant.

If you could collaborate with anyone on a Football Manager video, who would it be?
“I think Leo Messi is the obvious answer to that. The guy speaks more English than people realize.”

What’s one feature you’d love to add to Football Manager?
“My answer to this for years has been dribble moves. I think adding personality to high flair, high dribbling players would be something. If you sign a wonderkid from Brazil and he rainbow flicks somebody, you’re gonna fall in love with that player. People always pretend like graphics and animations don’t matter. But the real key to Football Manager is the stories, and the better the graphics and animations are, the more immersed you can get in those stories.”

“I think if you wanted to add to journeyman saves, and this would be so hard for them to do, but where you’re able to be just a coach or a head coach of the reserve team/youth team, to add that possibility when you’re in a journeyman save to work your way up or boost your reputation by coaching Real Madrid’s C team or whatever.”

What’s the most frustrating part of Football Manager?
“Look, I don’t know the right way to do scouting. I’m not going to come here with any ideas. But the best way to do scouting in Football Manager is very click and time-intensive… and I wish that it wasn’t. I’m sure it’d be very hard to fix. But it is. If you’re playing a save and you’re just like, ‘I want to get to the next match or do my tactics,’ and then all of a sudden you get this barrage of 50 dudes on your shortlist that you’re getting an updated report on, and you have to click through all 50 of them again. It’s just a super intensive process. I don’t know the solution, but it would be great if there was one.”

What’s your favorite save of all time?
“I always say BATE in Belarus. That’s my favourite, and it is because that was the first save where I started, and I was streaming for fun. And by the time I ended it, YouTube and streaming was my full-time job. So that’s just a very lovely arc to follow, and that will always have a special place in my heart.”

“But the journeyman that we played this year where I started unemployed, no coaching badges—that was a really neat save and very different from the other stuff that we’ve done, where we were just at one club the whole time. And so I really enjoyed that challenge as a Football Manager player, but also as an entertainer. It was a different type of show, basically, if you think about it as a TV show.”

Final thoughts

Talking to Zealand was an eye-opening experience—not just about Football Manager, but about life in general. He’s someone who’s not only incredibly passionate about the game but also fiercely driven to succeed. Yet, that success isn’t about ego or self-promotion. It’s about having fun, building a community, and creating a space where people can enjoy themselves without taking life too seriously. And in today’s world, we could all use more of that.

Our conversation also put to rest one of the most ridiculous narratives floating around—that content creators like Zealand are somehow in cahoots with Sports Interactive, privy to secret information the public doesn’t have. The reality? Zealand is just a massive Football Manager fan who wants the game to be the best it can be. And it’s refreshing to see that the most influential voices in the community still have the freedom to hold the developers accountable when things go wrong. Because when a franchise is struggling the way Football Manager is right now, we need voices like his to call it out and push for change.

But beyond the analysis, the criticism, and the deep dives into game mechanics, Zealand’s content serves as an important reminder—it’s just a game. “Like the height World Cup, who the hell even does that?” he laughed, referencing one of his most bizarre ideas. That’s the essence of what makes his content so engaging. It’s absurd, it’s creative, and it never loses sight of the fact that Football Manager, at its core, is meant to be fun.

Because if you’re not having fun—if you’re not using it as a silly escape from real life—then what’s the point?