''Football Manager 2006'', also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager 2006'' in North America, is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

management

simulation video game Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such ...

and the second instalment in the ''

Football Manager ''Football Manager'', also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008, is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

'' series developed by

Sports Interactive Sports Interactive Limited is a British video game developer based in London, best known for the ''Football Manager'' series. Founded by brothers Collyer brothers (game designers), Oliver and Paul Collyer in July 1994, the studio was acquired in ...

and published by

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

. It is available for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

platforms and was released in the United Kingdom on 21 October 2005. It was also the first game in the series to be released on an

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

console, as an

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

version was released in April 2006. It was succeeded by '' Football Manager 2007''. On the same day as the release of ''Football Manager 2006'', Sports Interactive released a patch to fix some bugs discovered during the Beta and Gold stages of development. In its first week of release, it became the second-fastest-selling PC game of all-time in the United Kingdom.

Gameplay

''Football Manager 2006'' features similar

gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game. The term applies to both video games and Tabletop game, tabletop games. Gameplay is the connection between the player and the game, the player's overcoming of challenges, and t ...

to that of ''

Football Manager 2005 ''Football Manager 2005'', known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager 2005'' in North America, is a football management simulation video game and the first instalment in the ''Football Manager'' series developed by Sports Interactive and published by S ...

''. Gameplay consists of taking charge of a professional football team (the game also includes semi-professional, amateur, and international teams) as the

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

. Players can sign football players to contracts, manage finances for the club, and give team talks to players. The ''Football Manager'' series is a simulation of real world management, with the player being judged on various factors by the club's AI owners and board. ''Football Manager 2006'' adjusts some gameplay that was found in the original football manager release. These adjustments include team-talks, simplified training and in-game help screens. As has been customary with the series a

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

demo of the game was released on 12 September 2005. This was later followed on 30 September by a

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

demo. This is a cut-down, limited time version of the full game which is sent to the game manufacturers.

Licences

''Football Manager 2006'' contains the same playable leagues as its predecessor but with two small additions. The French league now has a fourth viewable but unplayable level (the CFA division), and the structural change to the Swedish league involving the re-instatement of Division One has been implemented, with Division Two retained as a playable fourth level. Fictional team Harchester United F.C. from the

Sky One Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non- terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, ...

drama series ''

Dream Team #REDIRECT Dream Team {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

'' was included in ''Football Manager 2006'' as an

Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian holiday of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are commonly used during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The ...

. This option comes in the form of a text file, which is placed in the game's directory.

Reception

''Football Manager 2006'' received favourable reviews from critics. Both

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

and

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

aggregators rate it at 89 out of 100. In his review for ''

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

'', Kristan Reed wrote: "It's a 9/10 game before you've even got it out of the shrink-wrapping, and whether you've given it a cursory 10, 20 or more hours, it's just tough – nigh on impossible in fact – to decide its true merits on the basis of a 'review's length' of time. Whether it deserves the elusive 10 out of 10 that the game ought to be getting is a subject that few can answer from the 'first impressions' of a debut season." In ''Trusted Reviews'', Gordon Kelly wrote: "As expected, ''Football Manager 2006'' takes the series to the next level. It expands every area, pushes every boundary and never before has such an enviable career felt so real. Sports Interactive probably never dreamed it would come so far from the very first Championship Manager title all those years ago. It has picked up millions of fans since then, but it has also lost the casual gamer along the way."

Sales and accolades

''Football Manager 2006''s computer version received a "Platinum" sales award from the

Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie) is a non-profit trade association for the video game industry in the United Kingdom (UK). Ukie was founded in 1989 as the European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), then chang ...

(ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. It was also a runner-up for ''

Computer Games Magazine ''Computer Games Magazine'' was a monthly computer and console gaming print magazine, founded in October 1988 as the United Kingdom publication ''Games International''. During its history, it was known variously as ''Strategy Plus'' (October 1 ...

''s list of the top 10 computer games of 2005.

References

External links

* {{authority control

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...