Custom PC vs Fabio Capello

Posted at: Wednesday 6th February 2008 by Phil Hartup

Phil Hartup loads up Football Manager 2008 to see if he can get a good result against the Swiss, and give Fabio Capello something to live up to

Computers can simulate many things but for the last ten years their most popular role in the world of simulation has been to explore the complex and unforgiving world of football management. Football Manager 2008 is the latest iteration of the most successful line of such simulators. While the basic league play, buying and selling players, slating the managers of relegation strugglers in the gutter press and ordering hatchet jobs on Michael Owen is all great fun, the real test of a simulator is to see if you can use it to accurately predict real world events, and then, play them yourself and see if you can do it better.

So with this in mind, and having made many a boast to this effect, it was agreed that I should attempt to create a carbon copy of tonight’s international friendly in Football Manager 2008, and that I should, using only the players available to current England manager Fabio Capello, beat the Swiss and if possible, get a better result than him. At the time of writing this the game remains as yet unplayed, so I won’t know what I need to beat to win the challenge.

The Set Up

Actually getting the game to recreate the match is not the easiest thing in the world. Short of playing the role of the Swiss manager, Jakob Kuhn, for the match and thus throwing that team all out of goose I will have to play against the Swiss team his AI equivalent picks, not the precise squad that features in tonight’s game. There is also the fact that I, as manager of England, am somewhat of an oddity, and viewed by the players as a loose cannon, perhaps due to my background in the Sunday league. The fans are anxious, the players are anxious. Can the unknown manager get the job done?

The Team

The biggest difference between the England team of FM2008 and their real life counterparts is that in the game at least England are extremely good. Hard to believe really but left to their own devices in the game they tend to qualify comfortably for Euro 2008 and generally make the semi-finals.

The big player to be dropped from my selection is John Terry of Chelsea. Not a fan. I replaced him with Jonathon Woodgate, a man who, while fragile, is all round a more cultured player. Of course upon being selected Woodgate caught the lurgi and was out of action. Ashley Cole followed suit. This was actually not such a problem as I don’t care much for him either.

The Tactics

England? At home? To the Swiss? Rude not to attack really - and attack hard. Three at the back. Five across the middle. Two up front. The choice of Crouch might seem odd, as might the choice of Beckham, but together the two of them complete a simple formula: good crosses directed to a giant robot clown. My defence looks shaky, but they’re skilled, and the midfield should be aggressive enough to overwhelm the Swiss. I expect goals from midfield, goals from Crouch and Rooney, and maybe one from Richards from a corner. That’s a lot of goals though. More likely it’ll be a lot more timid than that. That said I’ve made sure to tell the team I expect a win and I will be getting the hairdryer out if I’m behind come the break.