Flog - Don't hate the game. Hate yourself.

Over the past week I have discovered, at great cost, that a certain two things in my life cannot be mixed. I gave up smoking on Sunday (sort of). That, and I play a lot of Football Manager 2009.
Truly, it is the hardest game in the history of time. You may be great at it. I am not. My stress levels are at a point that I can only imagine are rivalled by being the real life Newcastle manager. And I don’t even mean Alan Shearer- I mean any Newcastle manager. It’s a job that should come with a health warning. (think about it... Keegan ('love it!'), Kinnear ('f***ing heart bypass') and Souness (no particular health issues but he was always on the verge of killing someone).
Football Manager games of years past were simpler- you pretty much picked a team and berated them if they didn’t play well. If they did, you took the plaudits. This version, however, brings you every single aspect of real management. Press conferences, manager ‘personalities’, and the like. It’s too real. Real life managers cannot say ‘I’m an accountant, but I manage Sunderland on the side…’
BUT WE CAN.
And that’s it- it’s not real. But it gives the illusion that it is, whilst simultaneously mocking you for getting into it. I am currently the Tottenham manager and I have been for 4 fantasy years. My fantasy players are brilliant, their stats are through the proverbial (and fantasy) roof. I just can’t get it right. I have not finished above 9th so far, no matter how many fantasy pounds I spend each year.
Any game that has an ‘addictiveness rating’ needs to be investigated immediately. You load the game, thinking you will give it a couple of hours enjoyment each night after work, live the dream and all that. But then- oh tragedy of tragedies- suddenly your wife has left you and your dog is dead; a withering carcass of rover festers in the corner next to it’s spotless food bowl.
Why do we do it? Because we all think we can do better.
We all think we can be a manager. Who doesn’t watch their team capitulate and scream at the screen, willing the players to do the simplest thing? So you give it a go. And you end up watching your team capitulate, screaming at the screen willing your players to do the simplest thing. It’s hell. I ‘stormed out’ of a fantasy press conference the other day after losing to a team two divisions lower than me in the FA Cup third round. Which is okay, you think, because it’s not real.
So whatever happens, you have that to fall back on. Nobody knows how poorly you played. Except you do. You know. You know that you played an anchorman which left your strikers isolated of service. The fans are on your back. That rainy evening against your biggest rivals came and went in a terrifying blur and suddenly your next game is for you to save your job. It's all a bit too Gullit vs Sunderland in 1999...
So why the will to win at a make believe game? Because you know that after your sacking you will have to deal with knowing in your heart that you wasted so many hours caring about something so trivial. That, and you will have to bury Rover.
All of which is okay though, because it’s not real.
Except you spent a large majority of your day at work thinking over tactics. Have you been too negative? Are the players you have at your disposal wasted in a counter attacking team? Is your striker a confidence man or does he need a kick up the arse every game? Are your training regimes good enough? Were you ever ready to take this job?
All are questions that real managers must ask themselves. Which is what FM is going for. It wants you to believe you are the best but also recognise that you, above all else, are a failure when mixing it with the big boys.
Which is okay. Because it’s not real.