Why you should care about Football Manager 26

Watching the slow death of the cancelled Football Manager 2025 felt like watching your plucky League 2 club get comprehensively drubbed in the FA cup third round. It was inevitable, felt like it took an eternity, and was totally foreseeable if you were paying attention. 

For fans used to the rhythm of the annual release, a year without the franchise was disconcerting. In light of this year of drought, Football Manager has to show the world that it still has what it takes to be the titan of sports management sims. Fortunately, Football Manager 26 is slated to bring in a raft of changes, most of which are exciting stuff. 

✓ VideoGamer Summary

• Football Manager 26 is bringing in welcome innovations after the conspicuous lack of a Football Manager release in 2025.
• The series is moving to the Unity engine and considerably upping its graphical game.
• Football Manager 26 will add women’s football – it’s about time.
• The addition of licensing for the Premier League in Football Manager 26 will finally allow the series to capture the peak of the sport.
• Football Manager 26 will bring additional tactical options for gaffers.
  A few more peripheral features have been axed, but we doubt this will detract from Football Manager 26’s strong showing.

A sense of Unity

I’d hazard that most players of management sims don’t see graphical fidelity as a huge priority, given that most of our time is spent staring at spreadsheets and statistics. Even so, watching low-poly players jerk around an ugly, blocky stadium did little for the gaffer fantasy. Football Manager 2025’s planned move to a modern engine and a graphical overhaul was long overdue and was repeatedly cited as a factor in its development turmoil.

The trailers for Football Manager 2026 show the fruits of the year’s break. Every year, SI promises a better-looking match day experience, but this is the first time I actually believed it. Fresh motion capture animations mean players no longer move like narcoleptic robots, and for once, the stadiums look immersive with true-to-life shadows cast over the match and the pitch looking like grass rather than a flat green rectangle.

Clearly, these are huge improvements on the graphics of match day, though I was disappointed to see that the spectators still have a drab, inauthentic appearance and movement that does little for immersion. This seems like a missed opportunity for atmosphere in an area where, otherwise, SI Games has done a great deal to improve the experience.

Women’s football is here

The popularity of women’s football has skyrocketed. As far back as 2021, SI has been promising to add the women’s game. Its inclusion was a flagship feature initially promised in Football Manager 2025, as well as the priority that SI cited with every feature cut and delay announcement.

It is finally here, including unique motion capture that gives women’s football a distinctly different look. Trailers show female players moving realistically on the pitch, with the same improved graphics that have improved the game as a whole. Also announced are simulation adjustments to account for contracts being shorter and some injuries being more or less common. 

SI has emphasised that women’s football will be integrated into the Football Manager ecosystem, though details on what exactly this means outside of the above are a little light. 

In particular, I’m interested to see how club finances operate for women’s teams. In reality, men’s clubs often provide loans to affiliated women’s teams, and the level and terms of these loans are generally not publicly known. Hopefully, this will be modelled in Football Manager 26 to provide a fully integrated experience.

The Premier League is finally licensed

The lack of licensed teams in the top flight has been an irritation for years, and it’s fantastic to see that the biggest clubs in the world will now have official badges, kits, and player photos. Even if, like me, you spend most of your time managing tiny non-league clubs, it never felt good to take a look at the generic branding-free appearance of the top teams.

SI is clearly proud of making this happen, and the Premier League branding is all over the match-day experience trailer. Finally, your immersion in the football world won’t be broken as soon as you reach the mountaintop.

Prepare to relearn the tools of tactical dominance

Long gone are the days of a simple 4-4-2. Every year, Football Manager tries to keep up with tactical innovations, but one thing it has lacked is the inclusion of different tactics while in and out of possession. Football Manager 26 redresses this, allowing for separate tactics for both scenarios and transitions.

Not just for the team, either. Players can now hold a different role in and out of possession, allowing managers to have their team adapt to changing circumstances. A whopping 40 new roles have been introduced, giving managers an opportunity for managers to meaningfully experiment with the formula.

Long-term Football Manager fans will know the joy of toiling over player stats and tinkering with tactics for hours before even playing a game. Will you invent the biggest tactical evolution since the gegenpress, or create the ugliest, most shambolic football in history? 

Some features are still gone – for now

Farewell, in-game social media. You were always a terrible gimmick, and nobody will miss you. Touchline shouts are also getting the red card, having never really worked as intended.

International team management has also been given the boot, though SI has said that it will be coming as an update in advance of the 2026 World Cup, where it will hopefully be a better experience than previous attempts.

Despite these axed features, Football Manager 26 is shaping up to be a genuinely innovative next step for the series. SI looks poised to double up on substance and style alike, and we can’t wait to see the results.  

Football Manager 26 will release on November 4.

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