17.03.2011 - Soccer manager games are most popular games in online sport managers world. Why is that? What is so interesting on this games? And what are the differences? In this article you will find answers to this questions...
Online soccer managers allows them to do this, but first of all, potential managers must feel that the virtual team is their own. But that is not too difficult. Managers like to buy and sell players, pick young prospect and grow them up, build training facilities and stadium, search for sponsors and many other things. After a few months of developing the team from the garbage to a nice team, these managers are almost unable to stop playing the game from day to day. Why? Because they fall in love with their team, because it is a product of their own hands and intellect, because they consider their players to be their virtual kids and because after a few months they think they would never do the same thing in same game again. Another team will never be the same in your heart as the first one.
As you can see in the stats of our portal, soccer games made 30% of all games in the database. Compare that to number of motorsport games (11%) and you see another prove that soccer manager games are really the most popular.
But how to pick the best soccer game? That question is not easy to answer. There is no online manager game which would fulfill all managers preferences. For example one prefers nice website design and game graphics and someone else wants huge amount of statistical data, many tables to compare teams and players, which is not possible to combine with great design and graphics. Every sport manager game have its strong and weak sides. Potential managers must decide what is most important for them, and then they would easily pick the right game.
1. Prestige and history
If you prefer a game which is very prestigious and have a rich history, we would recommend you Hattrick. Someone might consider Hattrick to be just average game from other points of view, but it will celebrate its 14th birthday this year, is now in 45th season and the game has more than 900.000 users. If you can achieve a big success in this game like win Hattrick Masters (tournament of all national league champions and national cup champions), you will become a real legend because you have to beat all other managers, and of course if you start playing now, it will be extremely difficult to erase many seasons disadvantage to other successful teams. It is even more difficult than start new soccer team in real life, improve it and win UEFA Champions League. Let's be honest. It is not possible! You can accept smaller challenges to feel successful in Hattrick, but of course win Champions League in another (not so prestigious) soccer game might be more interesting for you.
2. Desigh and graphics
OK there might be a lot of games which looks very nice. For example Manager Zone, Trophy Manager or ManagerGames. But of course everybody likes different things, so what we consider nice you might not. Usually in this games it is not very easy to compare players, setting up lineup is pretty but not easy and there is not much statistical data and summaries. It depends on your preferences, but don't throw other games away just because of design. You can feel even better control of the game and team management in well-arranged games.
3. Match live broadcast
Well no online soccer manager has so awesome and realistic 3D match broadcast like EA Sports FIFA series or offline Football Manager. But there are still games with fine 3D visualization. Probably the best one is implemented in Sokker. It is funny and makes a good impression and excitement when watching matches. There is also text match broadcasts in other games. It is typical for Hattrick or Powerplay Manager Soccer. While Hattrick has more traditional way to show action on the field using just basic professional soccer texts, Powerplay Manager provides more advanced live broadcast with online stats and some kind of play visualization based on photographies. The advantage of text broadcast is obvious. If manager needs to go out of computer he will not loose any interesting match action, because he always can read older messages, while still excitement of live match still persists, unlike 3D broadcast you can pause.
Sokker.org broadcast
4. Statistics & comparable information
As already mentioned for some managers lot of statistical data is more important than nice design. Games like Powerplay Manager Soccer, provides accurate player attributes, history of training, many teams and players statistics, screens where you can easily compare your players. Of course many games have detailed match report which can be used to analyze teams by good managers. Additionally in PPM users are able to compare leagues in many statistical categories, players and teams inside one league, country or worldwide, there is also tool for detailed comparison of 2 teams. The design of the game might be considered as average, but very well-arranged. Not many games provides so much data, but for many managers it is not so important. In real soccer, there is nothing like accurate player attributes, statistical data is not so important, players presence on the field is much more important than that. Coaches feelings are very important and that is what some managers want to feel when setting the lineup and tactics for next match.
After all it is obvious why most online managers play soccer games. Soccer is most popular sport, and there is wide range of soccer manager games which put importance on different areas, so if manager does not like one soccer game, he can play another one.
