Football Manager 2009 – New Features

By Niall

13


Over in another article we pulled together a little wishlist of all the new features/improvements that we would like to see in Football Manager 2009 (FM09). As we know Sports Interactive have started to announce new features that FM09 and so far it’s all sounds really good and a number of things we have asked for are in there!

Thought I’d pull together and little article listing the new features so the people who have been too lazy to watch the videos know what is happening.  I’ll keep this article updated so all of the new features are listed in one place.

  • Attend pre-match and post-match press conferences with local and national journalists and build up relationships with them over time, but choose your answers carefully because they could come back to haunt you in the media at a later date.
  • Pre-match and in-match feedback from your Assistant Manager on how the team is performing and your player’s motivation levels, as well as hints on how your tactics are working and how you could outwit the opposition’s tactics.
  • Transfer Rumours – View the latest news on what players are being speculated on, and who’s said to be interested in securing their services.
  • Preferred Moves – Train your players to learn ‘preferred moves’ to add to their game. For example, train central defenders to not dive into tackles, or wingers to do stepovers before crossing the ball..
  • Female Manager – For the very first time you can now play as a female manager. All of the text in the game now also has a female gender so the game represents female managers and staff in the game in the correct gender.
  • Widescreen Support – As a result of usability testing on Football Manager 2008, this year sees widescreen support for the game for the first time, as well as lots of tweaks to the user interface for easier navigation.
  • Improved Media – SI have worked hard to reflect the greater impact the media has been having in recent years on the world of football, in the in-game dealings with the press. The game now features more news stories, more detail and greater media interaction than ever before.
  • Board Confidence – Following on from its addition in Football Manager™ 2008, board confidence has been expanded and improved. In addition, the board will now also feedback to you on your squad harmony and the club’s stature in the football world.
  • Realistic Finances – SI have listened to feedback from all of their researchers to try and model every single financial area of the game correctly for each country, including transfers, staff wages, budgets, ticket prices, season tickets, competition bonuses and club sponsorships.
  • Updated Competitions – Fully updated for the new 2008/09 football season with all the latest league, club and player data, featuring over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world, drawn fresh from the famous Sports Interactive database.
  • Transfer System – Completely new and re-written transfer system code, providing an even more realistic simulation of real-life football transfers.
  • You can now watch your matches in 3D from multiple camera angles and re-watch any part of the match by fast forwarding and rewinding the action using a new match time bar that flags the key moments in the game.
  • Watch your matches in new full screen TV view and customise your match day screen with widgets to view the information you need as a football manager, be it player performance, match action zones, pitch radar, latest scores and many more.

Some Major League Soccer (MSL) specific stuff:

  • Designated player rule added to ensure that the teams with more financial backing are able to sign one player outside the designated wage fund, or two by gaining another designated player slot in a trade. You can also offer your designated player slot to other clubs.
  • Allocation funds can also be offered to other MLS clubs in a trade, with $1 of the Allocation fund being worth $5 in transfers between MLS teams.
  • Transfer budgets now only change when an allocation is awarded – these are awarded in 2 ways in FM09, if a team fails to make the play-offs, and if a MLS team sells a player (the former is $300,000 and the latter limited to $500k)

So that is what we have so far as new features in FM09, feel free to comment and keep checking back because this page will be updated as and when new features from SI are announced.
[ratings]

Related posts:

  1. Competition – Win Football Manager 2009
  2. Football Manager 2009 – Wishlist
  3. Football Manager 2009 Wonderkids
  4. Don’t Underestimate the Need for Good Backroom Staff

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