Whack out your not-at-all-weird-to-own spreadsheet of teenagers with incredible left feet, a Football Manager thing has happened. Namely, Football Manager 2026 has been announced by developers Sports Interactive, with a quick trailer. There’s no release date as of yet.
If you recall, Football Manager 2025 ended up being delayed and then cancelled, the studio admitting at the time that “the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be.” Refunds were issued to folks who’d pre-ordered the touchline-prowling sim, and the devs shifted their focus on to Football Manager 2026.
Cue today’s announcement and trailer, the latter of which is about a minute of in-engine footage showing people doing foot-to-ball things as a Premier League match gears up for kick off. Amusingly, after multiple shots of Football Manager logos nicely stitched into seats, the various slabs of Premier League set dressing have the logo of EA Sports FC on them. I assume this is just for licensing reasons, but it’s still a bit of a funny visual.
Anyway, Sports Interactive say this snippet “gives just a taster of what to expect following the move to the Unity engine”, adding that “FM26 promises to take players on a journey to define their footballing destiny with our most immersive and visually rich Football Manager experience yet. The potential for storytelling is redefined by taking players closer to the heart of the beautiful game.”
That certainly sounds a lot like the sort of massive overhaul the studio had planned to deliver with Football Manager 25, so here’s hoping the extra time has given them plenty of breathing room to get all the crossbars and whistles working as they should.
For now, all we can do is stay tuned for more updates Sports Interactive promise are coming down the line. Let’s face it, probably via a spreadsheet about a defensive midfielder from the Danish second division.
