The 2023/24 season has been a breakthrough one for Brighton & Hove Albion defender Jan Paul van Hecke.

The impressive 23-year-old has become a regular starter for Roberto De Zerbi and his performances were recognised with a big Current Ability upgrade in the FM24 Main Data Update.

The Dutchman is also a big fan of Football Manager. We recently caught up with Jan Paul at Brighton’s training ground to discuss his love of the game, his best save, and his FM24 star signing.

Christopher Nkunku has been a name on many Football Manager players’ lips for several years now as he’s blossomed from Wonderkid to one of the world’s most dynamic and creative attackers. 

We spoke to the France international earlier in the season about his favourite position and his best roles on the pitch. We also discussed whether he had any experience in goal after some interesting tactical choices by our players in Football Manager 2023...

Watford’s Christian Kabasele is perhaps the greatest example of a professional player who loves FM as much as the sport it simulates. 

It’s fair to say that podcaster and lifelong Football Manager fan Iain Macintosh has a mixed record of success on the game. Silverware was easier to come by in the early days of FM, when having one fitness session on the training schedule each month was considered the pinnacle of sports science.

In recent years, while the game has grown more realistic and intricate, Iain’s tactical blueprints have been chewed up and spit out by the match engine year after year regardless of how much tinkering, tweaking and loving care had gone into crafting them.

This year, Iain promises it will be different. That’s mostly because he’s hosting a brand new podcast – The Football Manager Show by The Athletic – where he’ll actually get to hear wisdom, advice and tips on how to master some of the core aspects of FM, directly from the people who make the game which will hopefully help Iain (and more importantly you, the listeners) get more out of FM21.

We sat down with Iain to discuss his love of the game and what it is that makes him come back year after year.

Our series interviewing our Head Researchers has seen us speak to people living and working in three continents and four very different countries – South Africa, Scotland, Switzerland and Argentina. This time we head to the footballing hotbed that is Portugal to speak to Carlos and Bruno, who have been contributing to our vast research team for a combined 16 years. 

Carlos: My name is Carlos Bessa and I’m from Porto. I started working on the Football Manager database for Football Manager 2010, when I was an assistant researcher. Since I was a kid I’d played hundreds of hours on the previous games, starting out in 2001 – this is a passion that has almost accompanied my whole life. I’ve played every single edition since FM10.

Bruno: I’m Bruno Luis, from Lisbon. When I was just a young kid, I used to go every other weekend to my cousin's house, where they had computers. They would spend whole days playing the older games, with just the English divisions, and I would be standing next to them, watching them play. By 1999 I had got my first computer and was finally able to start playing the game that I loved. Since then, I’ve spent uncountable hours playing most FMs, and ultimately joined the research team in 2014.
 

As anyone who watched any of the recent EFL Football Manager Cup can attest, Birmingham City goalkeeper Lee Camp is an avid fan of the game. In the latest installment of Why I Love FM, we caught up with the former Northern Ireland international to discuss his approach to transfers, best saves and whether he’s considering a move into management when he eventually retires from playing.

Have you ever wondered how we gather all the information that’s in Football Manager? We are assisted by more than 1,000 researchers across the world who help put our database together. Our researchers are fans of the series, just like us, and many of them took on their roles because they were passionate about ensuring their clubs, domestic leagues and national football setups were represented as accurately as possible.

Many of those who have worked as researchers for FM have moved into jobs in the footballing world as a result of their knowledge and commitment, so it can be a pathway to the job of your dreams.

Facundo Delgado is our Argentine head researcher, who has grown the role over the years to the point where he now oversees the efforts of a team of 60 scouts, as well as guiding an online community of roughly 13,000 fans.

The first cricketer to take part in Why I Love FM, Surrey’s Scott Borthwick, comes to the crease to tell us about his best bits from the game over the years. 

Like all of us, the England-capped all-rounder has had to change a lot of his real-life plans of late, something that has given him more time to continue his progress on Football Manager 2020. We caught up with Scott to discuss his best-ever save, go-to tactic and FM alter ego…
 

Have you ever wondered where the player attributes, club data and stadium information in Football Manager come from? We are assisted by more than 1,000 researchers across the world who help put our database together but that wasn’t always the case. The research team started out quite small in the mid-1990s but has expanded almost exponentially since then. 

Our researchers are fans of the series, just like us, and many of them took on their roles because they were passionate about their clubs, domestic leagues and national football setups and they wanted to ensure they were represented accurately in the game. 

Indeed, many of those who have worked as researchers for Football Manager have moved into jobs in the footballing world as a result of their knowledge and commitment, so it can be a pathway to the job of your dreams. 

Oliver Zesiger is our Swiss head researcher and he has been involved with FM for more than a decade. 
 

Our newest instalment of Why I Love FM is with the West Bromwich Albion and St Kitts & Nevis midfielder Romaine Sawyers. Romaine was recently in charge of the Baggies in the EFL Football Manager Cup and while he didn’t win, we still wanted to chat to him about that experience, when he first got into the game and some of his best saves…

We all see player attributes, club data and stadium information in Football Manager, but where does it come from? We are assisted by more than 1,000 researchers across the world who help put our database together but that wasn’t always the case. The research team started out quite small in the mid-1990s but it has expanded almost exponentially since then. 

Hours are spent watching players in action in order to collect data for individuals, teams, or, in some cases, entire countries. A lot of work goes into putting our industry-leading database together – it involves much more than just a few people sitting in SI towers, entering numbers into spreadsheets. Many of those who have worked as researchers for Football Manager have moved into jobs in the footballing world as a result of their knowledge and commitment, so it can be a pathway to the job of your dreams. 
 

The latest edition of Why I Love FM features a chat with Darren Bent. The ex-England international retired in 2018 to pursue a career in the media where he can often be heard on the airwaves. Recently, Darren was spilling the beans on his Football Manager 2020 save, so we wanted to hear more about his current game and his best ever signing...