I’m a long-time player of the mobile version, alongside the full release, and it has come on leaps and bounds from the early days. I recently picked up the new one, and I was wondering what other people thoughts of the game and the new features they’ve put in. I had a couple of thoughts:
The (new) Good
The new pre-match review and preparation is excellent. Your scout, who previously gave you quite limited info, now provides a breakdown of your opponent’s tactical approach, including expected line-up and, crucially, a rating on each of the players you’ll encounter. Player-by-player information was a conspicuous absence from the series and is quite welcome. The best part, however, is the addition of specific pre-match training, where you can provide a temporary attribute bonus to your players that corresponds with the approach you wish to take. For example, if you’re against a big team and wish to defend deep in a low block, you can train for that, and your players will receive a boost to stats such as positioning, tackling, and teamwork. Too soon to understand how impactful this actually is in the background, but in theory this is great and has made pre-match tactical considerations much more engaging.
FMM is traditionally much easier than the full release, and part of the reason is the simple mechanics of finances. Basically, in part versions, if you transfer a player, the fee gets added (out) or subtracted (in) to your budget, which you can slide between transfer budget and wages. In past versions, it’s exceptionally easy to manufacture a scenario in which you have functionally unlimited budget. In FMM26, they’ve introduced spending limits. One method is that the board will retain a percentage of your outgoing transfer fees, so you won’t have the option to reinvest large fees in a whole roster of new players, especially impactful for small clubs with good youth facilities. Some leagues also have FFP-style percentage limits on in-vs-out spending, so even once you’ve unlocked Sugar Daddy you’re constrained.
Fixtures now have a difficulty rating from 1-5, like you would see on Fantasy Football, like odds, which seem to adjust depending on various factors like form. Quite useful in unfamiliar leagues, especially at the beginning of the season. Currently managing in the Conference South, and it is helpful to know that Slough is considered an easier fixture than Dorking, for example, and provides some guidance on early team selection and fitness management.
The (new) Bad
Swapping players is unnecessarily cumbersome. Formerly, to change your striker, for example, you would click on the striker you wanted to play, then click on the icon next to the striker in the starting line. Two clicks, done. In FMM26, though, when you do this, instead of swapping the players, it opens a separate comparison menu, giving you some general differences between the players, and you have to the confirm the swap. This is potentially useful information, but in practice this makes swapping players more of a chore than not. In my experience, 90% of the swapping you do is related to resting preferred players either before or after a key fixture, rather than deciding between two equal but distinct; therefore, I find you have already concluded on a swap prior to actioning it, and thus the new comparison menu is redundant and irrelevant to your decision.
The UI is very harsh on the eyes. Compared to FMM23, for example, where the colours are more muted and blended, and the icons are rounded and well aligned, the new UI has a glaring contrast between the dark background and the bright purple icons, which are also much bigger than in 23, blockier, and look considerably more packed in. Probably this is to counteract the effect of fat thumbs on the smaller icons of past games, but it looks ugly as sin.
The implementation of the women’s game adds less than you might expect, because of the way they’ve handled player attributes. While the finances are adjusted accordingly – top level transfer fees and wages are significantly lower than the men’s – the attributes of the women have been given parity with the men, which means that there is absolutely no distinction between managing these two groups on the pitch. If your average female player in game is on par with the men in their technical and physical ability, they’re basically just male players with a female skin on. I would’ve liked to see comparatively lower CA/PA numbers, and perhaps a corresponding cap in attribute levels, especially in the physical attributes. For example, if you take a 20-strength male player like Adama Traore, the strongest female player IRL wouldn’t be able to push him off the ball even if you fired her at him out of a cannon. There’s the potential for a very interesting dynamic here, which is being completely missed because they don’t want to represent a perceived ‘natural’ difference between the sexes. Imagine, for example, the vast difference fostering a team of physically dominant players would make in the women’s game if they actually reflected an accurate average athleticism; or, say, how much more important mental attributes and attitude would become with a more level and lower physical and technical playing field. All this potential for nuance and new approaches is completely lost.
Anyway, those are just my several cents on the matter. Happy to hear people’s thoughts.
The (new) Good
The new pre-match review and preparation is excellent. Your scout, who previously gave you quite limited info, now provides a breakdown of your opponent’s tactical approach, including expected line-up and, crucially, a rating on each of the players you’ll encounter. Player-by-player information was a conspicuous absence from the series and is quite welcome. The best part, however, is the addition of specific pre-match training, where you can provide a temporary attribute bonus to your players that corresponds with the approach you wish to take. For example, if you’re against a big team and wish to defend deep in a low block, you can train for that, and your players will receive a boost to stats such as positioning, tackling, and teamwork. Too soon to understand how impactful this actually is in the background, but in theory this is great and has made pre-match tactical considerations much more engaging.
FMM is traditionally much easier than the full release, and part of the reason is the simple mechanics of finances. Basically, in part versions, if you transfer a player, the fee gets added (out) or subtracted (in) to your budget, which you can slide between transfer budget and wages. In past versions, it’s exceptionally easy to manufacture a scenario in which you have functionally unlimited budget. In FMM26, they’ve introduced spending limits. One method is that the board will retain a percentage of your outgoing transfer fees, so you won’t have the option to reinvest large fees in a whole roster of new players, especially impactful for small clubs with good youth facilities. Some leagues also have FFP-style percentage limits on in-vs-out spending, so even once you’ve unlocked Sugar Daddy you’re constrained.
Fixtures now have a difficulty rating from 1-5, like you would see on Fantasy Football, like odds, which seem to adjust depending on various factors like form. Quite useful in unfamiliar leagues, especially at the beginning of the season. Currently managing in the Conference South, and it is helpful to know that Slough is considered an easier fixture than Dorking, for example, and provides some guidance on early team selection and fitness management.
The (new) Bad
Swapping players is unnecessarily cumbersome. Formerly, to change your striker, for example, you would click on the striker you wanted to play, then click on the icon next to the striker in the starting line. Two clicks, done. In FMM26, though, when you do this, instead of swapping the players, it opens a separate comparison menu, giving you some general differences between the players, and you have to the confirm the swap. This is potentially useful information, but in practice this makes swapping players more of a chore than not. In my experience, 90% of the swapping you do is related to resting preferred players either before or after a key fixture, rather than deciding between two equal but distinct; therefore, I find you have already concluded on a swap prior to actioning it, and thus the new comparison menu is redundant and irrelevant to your decision.
The UI is very harsh on the eyes. Compared to FMM23, for example, where the colours are more muted and blended, and the icons are rounded and well aligned, the new UI has a glaring contrast between the dark background and the bright purple icons, which are also much bigger than in 23, blockier, and look considerably more packed in. Probably this is to counteract the effect of fat thumbs on the smaller icons of past games, but it looks ugly as sin.
The implementation of the women’s game adds less than you might expect, because of the way they’ve handled player attributes. While the finances are adjusted accordingly – top level transfer fees and wages are significantly lower than the men’s – the attributes of the women have been given parity with the men, which means that there is absolutely no distinction between managing these two groups on the pitch. If your average female player in game is on par with the men in their technical and physical ability, they’re basically just male players with a female skin on. I would’ve liked to see comparatively lower CA/PA numbers, and perhaps a corresponding cap in attribute levels, especially in the physical attributes. For example, if you take a 20-strength male player like Adama Traore, the strongest female player IRL wouldn’t be able to push him off the ball even if you fired her at him out of a cannon. There’s the potential for a very interesting dynamic here, which is being completely missed because they don’t want to represent a perceived ‘natural’ difference between the sexes. Imagine, for example, the vast difference fostering a team of physically dominant players would make in the women’s game if they actually reflected an accurate average athleticism; or, say, how much more important mental attributes and attitude would become with a more level and lower physical and technical playing field. All this potential for nuance and new approaches is completely lost.
Anyway, those are just my several cents on the matter. Happy to hear people’s thoughts.
