Within minutes I am in the deep end as the Arsenal manager before the start of the 2025-26 season, sizing up a transfer budget that does not match my ambitions for the club. I am immediately at odds with the board when I launch a rogue bid to sign Aitana Bonmat\u00ed, which is immediately rejected.<\/p>\n
I manage to recruit Alex Greenwood to shore things up in the wake of Leah Williamson\u2019s injury and my late bid for Patri Guijarro, who wants to be part of my project, falls through at the last minute with the budget once again the problem. I demand answers from the board as to why they will not release more funds when the player-in-question wants to join, pointing out that our scouting report says she\u2019s a necessary replacement for Lia W\u00e4lti.<\/p>\n
Despite the off-pitch drama that has almost certainly put me in the line of fire within days of my unveiling, we win our opening game 5-0, a Chloe Kelly hat-trick and Emily Fox wonder-goal contributing, and Greenwood makes a solid first impression on her debut. All in all, Football Manager 26 is fun, and being able to play as the women\u2019s team I grew up supporting and with the players I have in-depth knowledge of on the back of covering them week-in week-out is really cool, albeit a little bit of a busman\u2019s holiday.<\/p>\n
The introduction of women\u2019s football into the Football Manager universe has been a long time coming, initially part of the 2025 launch of the game developed by Sports Interactive, before the entire edition was cancelled and focus turned instead to the 2026 edition, which was released last month.<\/p>\n
Alongside EA Sports FC, Panini and Topps, Football Manager is playing its part in the women\u2019s game being absorbed into football\u2019s cultural space. For the companies involved this move is partly the right thing to do and partly a way to draw in new customers, as well as giving existing customers something new to engage with \u2013 on the basis they are open-minded in regards to there being ponytails on some of the players on the digital pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone who\u2019s been playing this game for so long has not really had much of an interest in women\u2019s football but just loves Football Manager, possibly even going as far back as the Championship Manager days, and wants to experience a new league or club they now have a new space to do that in,\u201d says the Sports Interactive women\u2019s football research coordinator, Chloe Woolaway. \u201cIf off the back of that they go on to watch a women\u2019s football game or learn a few of the big names in women\u2019s football that\u2019s something that is really powerful. On the flipside of that, we\u2019re introducing this world to the younger generation too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Gaming can be seen as this male-dominated industry. We wanted to break down those barriers.\u2019 Photograph: Sega<\/p>\n
The introduction of women\u2019s football into Football Manager, and into EAFC, also influences two major male dominated spaces: football and gaming. \u201cWe knew that women\u2019s football was going to become as big as it can and that there is a space for it,\u201d says Woolaway. \u201cGaming can be seen as this male-dominated industry. We wanted to break down those barriers and create a space for the women\u2019s football community within it because it is growing community and a growing game. It\u2019s really important that we create that space for people to express themselves and their love of football and gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The task of introducing women\u2019s football into Football Manager was far from an easy one, in part due to a dearth of relevant information. As Woolaway puts it, the last few years have been \u201ca bit of a madness\u201d. The game ultimately launched with more than 30,000 female players with more than 300 fields having to be filled out for each and every one. Everything is in there, including: natural foot, dominant foot, current ability, potential ability, contract details, wage details and transfer fee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at male players all it takes is a quick Google search. We quickly realised we would have to adapt the way that we research and recognised it was going to be a bit more time consuming and we would need to go to extra lengths to find information that should be readily available,\u201d says Woolaway.<\/p>\n
There was unique challenges to contend with, too. \u201cThe database has been moulded around the men\u2019s game and we had to be solution focused to make it work for the women\u2019s,\u201d says Woolaway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere do we fill in that a player\u2019s now married and using their married name on their kit? Where do we show that a player wears a hijab when they play? What do we do with dual registrations? How do we reflect hair lengths? We also made the decision to remove player weights entirely, partly because when women are on their periods it can fluctuate so much that we felt it was not something that we should be putting in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those involved it is now about building on a beast of a dataset. \u201cThere\u2019s never going to be an end point,\u201d says Woolaway. \u201cFootball is ever changing and there\u2019s always going to be a new club, a new player, a new league, an error to fix or educated guess to tweak as the data becomes more accessible. There\u2019s always room to progress and develop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just going to create a computer game and I was the research girl helping to do that,\u201d Woolaway adds. \u201cOver time it came up in conversation more and more that we were and are creating one of the most extensive databases in the world for women\u2019s football. I don\u2019t think I quite realised that before and now that\u2019s something I\u2019m really proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talking points<\/p>\n
England low on options in defence: The Liverpool captain, Grace Fisk, was withdrawn from the England squad before their final game of the year \u2013 Tuesday night\u2019s friendly with Ghana at St Mary\u2019s. The 27-year-old was a late addition to the Lionesses party in the after Katie Reid\u2019s own withdrawal. Sarina Wiegman was already without several centre-back options, including Leah Williamson, Alex Greenwood and Reid through injury and Jess Carter who was given a rest after the end of the NWSL season.<\/p>\n
Ballon d\u2019Or winner out with broken leg: Aitana Bonmat\u00ed sustained a broken leg during a Spain training session<\/a> at their base in Madrid on Sunday. The three-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner reportedly fell awkwardly and fractured her left fibula as Spain prepared for the second leg of their Nations League final against Germany. Bonmat\u00ed played 77 minutes of Friday\u2019s first leg, which ended in a 0-0 draw<\/a>. Barcelona have said the 27-year-old will undergo surgery on Tuesday.<\/p>\n New Old Trafford in World Cup bid: The proposed new Old Trafford has been included in the list of stadiums available to host games as part of the joint United Kingdom-bid to host the 2035 Women\u2019s World Cup. Birmingham City\u2019s and Wrexham\u2019s proposed new stadiums are also on the 22-strong list, which will be whittled down to between 14 and 16 prior to the tournament, should the bid prove successful. Of the 22 venues, 16 are in England, three are in Wales, two are in Scotland and one is in Northern Ireland \u2013 Belfast\u2019s Windsor Park, which is expected to be able to meet the minimum threshold of 20,000 seats.<\/p>\n A computer-generated picture showing the new Manchester United stadium by Foster + Partner. Photograph: Foster + Partner\/APQuote of the week<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe!\u201d Lucy Bronze in response to a journalist asking the 34-year-old if she\u2019ll be part of England\u2019s squad at the 2035 World Cup.<\/p>\n Recommended viewing<\/p>\n Sarina Wiegman and Keira Walsh on the UK\u2019s joint-bid to host the 2035 Women\u2019s World Cup<\/a>, which, if successful, would make it the largest single-sport event staged in the nation.<\/p>\n Still want more?<\/p>\n Our eighth edition of the women\u2019s top 100 is under way. Meet this year\u2019s voting panel<\/a>, which includes the 2017 winner Lieke Martens, World Cup winner Sam Mewis and Arsenal\u2019s Champions League-winning head coach Ren\u00e9e Slegers. Then have a look at the players that make up Nos 100-41<\/a>.<\/p>\n Suzanne Wrack looks ahead to England\u2019s game against Ghana, saying the Lionesses could have faced tougher opponents but the friendly offers a chance to focus<\/a> on details.<\/p>\n Suzanne and Sophie Downey were on hand to watch England\u2019s 8-0 demolition of China. Here is Suzanne\u2019s match report<\/a> while Sophie sang her praises to Georgia Stanway<\/a> after the midfielder\u2019s hat-trick.<\/p>\n And the Guardian\u2019s Women\u2019s Football Weekly podcast won<\/a> the Football Supporters\u2019 Association\u2019s women\u2019s football media of the year award. A link to all episodes is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Within minutes I am in the deep end as the Arsenal manager before the start of the 2025-26…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-322875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}