Without doubt the world’s most popular sport has spawned countless computer and video game titles dedicated to it but Football, or Soccer if you prefer, has never been truly playable on such a grand scale as the majority of the sport’s followers would like - until Football Manager Live came along.

Football Manager as a series is arguably the genre’s best seller since Championship Manager changed hands, and with Sports Interactive dedicating their efforts to their new flagship title year after year it was only going to be a matter of time until they had to try something different to improve the series further, such is the high standard they have set themselves time and time again with flawless Football Manager titles.

Football Manager Live is quite simply thinking outside the box - nothing like this has been attempted on this scale before, and it is an undeniable huge success! Football Manager Live obviously puts you in control of a football club as the standard titles in the series do, but this time it’s far more real as you are competing directly against other human-run clubs in a wide range of competitions.

At the start of the game you are taken through an easy setup process which allows you to choose a name for your team, select your home and away kit colours and you can even hand pick your club’s initial starting squad of players. Of course you cannot simply buy the world’s biggest stars from the beginning (but they are all there), instead you are given a wage budget which you can not exceed and different players will take a different wage from it as you begin adding them to you squad. Once you have customised your club, you are ready to play!

If you want to play casually you can jump right into the game and start sending friendly requests to other managers. This is done by an in-game wizard which will match you to other opponents with certain match settings criteria, or you can browse a list of online managers manually and send a challenge to a specific team that way. Before a match begins you will need to select your starting eleven, subs and setup your team tactics and when you’re ready, click the kick off button and you’re away!

For the more serious player you can take a little time at the start to organise your squad. Many players choose to create seporate squads for youth teams and reserve players which has it’s advantages for the long-term player. Bare in mind your players all have the chance to improve as you increase your training capabilities, and each player in the game has hidden settings of their own which decide just how much potential they truly have, adding to the game’s level of realism - you can only take a donkey so far!

You can really gain a real advantage over other  managers with skill training. This is part of the game which allows you as a manager to train in certain skills, such as transfer negotiation, fitness training, construction and so on - the list goes on and on - and each skill has various levels all of which are ‘trained’ in real time and when complete, will unlock new features within the game for you. For example you may want to find a good brazilian youngster, but if you aren’t qualified in south american scouting you might struggle to do so!

You not only have to improve on the pitch, but off it too. Your club has a cash balance for you to keep an eye on, so when you are buying or selling players, developing your stadium or entering competitions with prize money you will need to keep one eye on your finances to ensure your club stay afloat. You are allowed an overdraft which helps in the beginning, as your initial daily income usually brings you back into the black pretty swifty - and by daily we mean daily, Football Manager Live is all real time!

Everything in the game ties in nicely with everything else and it’s easy to forget you are just playing a game at times. It is very addictive and you will find yourself coming back and strange intervals to check match results, fixtures, training progress and so on. Everything you could expect to find in a football management game is here in Football Manager Live!

As a subscription based game, Football Manager Live can prove costly in the long run but the way I see it, it’s cheaper than buying a new game every few months - so if you are a football fan then it is well worth signing up as you are unlikely to want to stop playing it anytime soon anyway! It’s an incredible game, and is widely expected to be crowned ‘Game of the Year’ at the end of 2009 despite it only now being February! A ground-breaking game, there is no other way to describe it.

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