Insert Coin to Continue, Part 7: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth (1982-2019)

Why try to play as a team when you can be the manager? Football management games have been around since the start of home computing in the UK.

It might not be what the Proper Football Men want to hear, but the professional game is changing at a dizzying speed, with no chance whatsoever that it’s going to return to what they remember playing themselves. Some of this is probably bad news. More decades old traditions than have already been surrendered will undoubtedly be handed over at the altar of mammon, and the feeling of alienation that comes with something that one grew up with becoming unrecognisable will likely continue to grow.

But it’s not all bad news, and at the top of the good news headlines is that science and statistics in the game have never been used more intelligently. Many clubs now have phalanxes of analysts poring over reams of data in order to increase their team’s chances for the next match. Even managers, who not so long ago would have been best-characterised as bastions in the holdout against technology, are starting to wise up to the possibility that this new technology opens up opportunities to learn that have simply never existed before.