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The Vice-Joy of Football Manager
Today I re-purchase, for the third time in as many years, a device I had discarded only weeks earlier out of ludd-ish frustration with my perceived lack of productive potential: the self-built PC gaming rig. This time around I at least possessed the clear-sightedness to hang onto my graphics card and RAM, but all other components - including the SSD, the CPU, the motherboard, and the housing itself - were either dissolved, deconstructed, or defenestrated (only through the window of the dumpster, of course) in an act of feverish discontent with my personal failings.
This cycle of destruction and renewal, while somewhat costly, has its surprising upsides: the exchange of forceful self-loathing for the excitement of building a new machine, the clean restart of what was once a cluttered device, and - most notable to this post and this thread - appreciation for the role gaming plays in the tapestry of my life, only perceptible when its reprieve has been torn out of my daily regimen.
As I get older, I've learned the value of whimsically enjoying the ups and downs of my own decision-making, appreciating the oddity of the battle between my (animal) brain and my (human) mind. While I do occasionally step into other Steam offerings, my preferred dalliance from an otherwise meaningful life is Sports Interactive's masterpiece Football Manager, the greatest simulation game ever built. FM is my version of Tolkien's pipe-weed, Lewis' drink, Disney's cigarettes, Flynn's exploration of the female pudenda (thanks to @George_E_Hale for your very enjoyable posts): my own private Idaho; an alternate reality I can step into in an unhealthy manner and enjoy for that very reason. For the other Elect out there, I'm specifically reminded of Eugene Meltzner's addictive use of Whit's Imagination Station in Adventures in Odyssey. Eugene was chided by Mr. Whittaker for losing hold of reality, but I'm not sure that's such a bad thing - for either Eugene or myself.
I am a writer by trade, and so the bulk of my working hours are spent in a desperate act of escape from the nonfiction in which I am enmeshed towards the greater pursuit of grand fictions; stories that follow avenues through which I myself am often surprised, but which must retain a clarity to the perception of my fellow nonfiction-dwellers. Perhaps, in this third loop of the re-making of my alt-world, I see that my nonproductive addiction has a usefulness all its own: Football Manager itself weaves grand fictions of the sporting kind using only the names, data, and histories found in our "real world;" spinning the threads of past Champions League comebacks, Premier League relegation battles, and yet-unknown Southeast Asian urban rivalries into a controllable telling of infinite futures (or alternate pasts, given the right database).
And so, rather than shake my head at my own misguided self-discipline (which, naturally, will look like the wise choice a year from now when the cycle turns again), I'll laugh at my own foolishness, re-calibrate the hours to which I'm one with pen and paper, and joyfully tumble headfirst down the rabbit hole in the hope that the water-pipe of Manchester United's 2023-24 season is soon filling my lungs again.
Glutton for punishment, huh?
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I feel like I probably wouldn't enjoy it because I don't care for soccer, but man this post made me want to check out Football Manager.
I know basically nothing about soccer (what's an offside?) but I had a good time playing Football Manager 2024 on Game Pass. I actually subscribed to check out Lies of P (which wasn't bad) but ended up putting 50 hours into FM instead. I picked the crappiest, lowest ranked amateur Japanese team I could find and with a mix of lucky scouting discoveries and a couple of clutch third world imports, managed to drag them to the top of their bracket over a few seasons. Then we got promoted and none of my players could compete with the actual pros. Was quite tragic.
Anyway, I'd kill for something with FM-level depth but literally any other setting. There are a surprising number of management games out there but nothing compares in terms of sheer overwhelming complexity. I played a fair amount of Motorsport Manager (quite old now) and, despite also knowing nothing about F1 (though it's not licensed, so I suppose that is probably more of a plus than anything) really enjoyed the gameplay loop of poaching staff, choosing when and how to spend your very limited budget, taking big risks on race days when you have no other choice, etc.
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I miss those days, but in 2017 I vowed to never play FM again. It's just too hard to stop.
I'll always have my one CL title, in which Will Hughes scored the only goal in Stoke City's unforgettable triumph over Bayern. And what a banner day it was for Laurentiu Branescu in goal.
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I know nothing about football but that was a fun read!
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