The virtual dugout

Better Living Through Pixels

Written by: Chris McMenamy
Artwork by: Eamonn Dalton
A collage of Football Manager screenshots suggesting Marcelo Bielsa's job is quite easy really

Top football clubs have a unique approach to modern player recruitment. Out of form? Sign a replacement. Injured? Replacement. Your £72m goalkeeper couldn’t catch Covid in a teenage disco? Sign. A. Replacement.

This attitude has failed to permeate Leeds United, where Marcelo Bielsa has people pleading with him to sign someone, anyone, just some new faces to get us through the winter of our injury crisis. But I’m here to tell you Bielsa is right and we needn’t worry about signings, because I’ve played a surprisingly successful season of Football Manager 2022 as Leeds United without buying any players. And if I can do it, then so can the magic man.

For this experiment, I’ve played it safe and copied the Bielsaball set up, rather than reading a few pages of Inverting the Pyramid, trying to be smart, and getting sacked mid-September. I’ve tried playing as Leeds on FM this season already, when I ‘improved’ the team with signings and fared considerably worse than I expected. This time round, rather than spending hours scouring for a cheap Norwegian backup left-back, it’s all about intense training and losing at home to Hearts in pre-season. Curse you, Phil Hay.

This whole ‘not buying players’ approach is foreign to me. Normally I’m stockpiling every wonderkid known to man like Chelsea on steroids, but here we are with my squad on the eve of the season and Graham Smyth’s Twitter is drier than small talk with Phil Neville. You can imagine the meltdown intensifying as that deadline edges closer. Up first are Man UFC (hilariously renamed after their hissy fit lawsuit against the game’s creators), and the déjà vu kicks hard… but we escape with a 2–1 loss, no injuries, no Talksport phone-in calling me naïve. That’ll do. Then comes a 2–0 loss at Brentford, before a comfortable cup win over lower league minnows Huddersfield Town. History dictates we should now draw at Burnley while Ashley Barnes subjects Stuart Dallas to an attempted double amputation, but instead we pick up two lovely wins over Villa and Southampton. Four games in, things are going swimmingly. This football management lark is easy.

All is well, no big injuries and an easy run of fixtures. But then Raphinha’s out for a month, which is (sort of) fine because I’ve a direct replacement in Dan James. Actually, the squad depth is (also sort of) fine everywhere except left-back, where Junior Firpo is king and, just trust me, Cody Drameh is his loyal, yet very inexperienced deputy. Everywhere else, I’ve got two players per position and a crop of Under-23s ready to be thrown in at the deep end. After seeing out the Raphinha-less period with ease, I’m starting to think maybe this is working a little too well and I’ve forgotten the point of it all.

Bielsa must be really good at Football Manager, because I’ve just beaten Arsenal, drawn with City, lost at Liverpool and beaten Chelsea, rolling into Christmas just outside the top four. I wish I knew what I was doing right so I could share my secret with the avid FM players out there. Normally I’ve made several tactical switches and fallen out with two senior players by this point in the game. Bielsa was right when he said he’d win every week if football was played by robots, these boys are unstoppable.

I’m starting to worry this idea has spiraled into a vanity project

The festive mood brings out the Leedsness in the team, losing to Watford at home before winning at Old Trafford and dropping a 0–0 New Year’s stinker with Brentford. I’m starting to worry this idea has spiraled from an attempt to use a video game for some fanzine entertainment into a vanity project for myself, my credibility in tatters as I end up ‘accidentally’ winning the league and having the gall to write about it.

January is a whirlwind. Rodrigo makes the World Team of the Year’s bench (he’s on fire), Leeds breach the top four, but Stuart Dallas breaks his leg near the end of an FA Cup tie. The thought of that happening in reality is haunting, and seeing it happen in a computer game is no better. I’m straight on the phone to Monsignor Moger, asking if he’ll come and bless Firpo for the battle ahead now he must play every minute between now and May. Mateusz Klich joins Dallas in the treatment room for a month, leaving me with no choice but to play a groovy midfield three of Robin Koch, Kalvin Phillips and Rodrigo.

Project Vanity enters full pisstake mode as a depleted Leeds beat Liverpool at Elland Road to stay 4th in March. A full debut for Lewis Bate and Liam Cooper at wing-back was too much for Jurgen Klopp’s tiny mind as his superstars were bamboozled and befuddled into submission. We are optimistically striding into April, the month that brings out the true Leeds like a full moon to a werewolf. Nine games stand between us and Champions League football. I’m still not sure how we got here. I almost wish I was cheating, just so I could know the answer. Three points between us and a chasing pack of Manchester City and Leicester. Further back are Southampton (even weirder, Chelsea are 10th). And they say this game is realistic.

April passes and we cling on to 4th, but Phillips does his groin in a typically unsuccessful trip to Wembley for the FA Cup semi-final and his season is done. Four games to go, it’s time for Robin Koch to step up. A midfield of Koch, Klich and Rodrigo would normally malfunction, but Football Manager appears tailor-made for Bielsaball. Naturally, we lose pathetically at Watford, scraping past Brighton before receiving a pasting from Spurs, leaving us 5th after 37 games, a solitary goal keeping Leicester just above the mighty Whites. One game to go. Everton are coming to Elland Road and Leicester are travelling to Newcastle. Martin Tyler prepares his vocal cords and Sky bulk-order sedatives to keep Jeff Stelling in check.

Our finest hour begins badly, Andros Townsend answering #AskAndros with a peachy strike after two minutes, but Rodrigo pulls us level soon after. Meslier saves a penalty right after that but the drama subsides as we meander towards a 1–1 draw and a spot in the Europa League. It’s 0–0 at St James’ Park, but there’s no sign of life from Leeds. Soon it’s stoppage time, and all of a sudden Raphinha cuts in from the right like divine intervention. 2–1, Champions League football, and I’m writing up my CV to send to a few clubs for real. Don’t ask me how I did it, just give me a job.

So, what is there to learn from this? Nothing, really. It’s a computer simulation and I’ve overachieved thanks to double figure goal tallies from Bamford, Raphinha, James, Rodrigo and Harrison. But for the sake of the article, let’s decide this is unquestionable proof that signing players is a waste of time. They just cost money and they get in the way. Also, those little dots on my screen don’t have to deal with Twitter abuse, Covid outbreaks, and all the other real-life afflictions footballers endure across a whole season. Not getting an avalanche of injuries certainly helped the virtual Whites, giving the likes of Rodrigo and Koch a run of games to show their true, virtual potential, something they’ve strived for without success this past year in the real world.

By the time you read this, I’ll quite likely have been sacked after trying to replace the old guard with a band of very talented children. But for now, I’m off to sign some bloody players with this £25m that Andrea has given me. Which is a little underwhelming, but the man now knows he can chance it with me in charge, and I like the challenge. I might now be so egotistical that I’ll just go another year with this same rag tag bunch of invalids. ⬢

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