Football Manager 2023 is weeks from release… but Erling Haaland is already messing with the realism, says studio director Miles Jacobson
(Image credit: Matt McNulty - Manchester City/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)
Erling Haaland has long been a Football Manager wonderkid – long before Manchester City brought him to the Premier League.
As long ago as 2020, studio director Miles Jacobson told FourFourTwo that Erling Haaland was the obvious player to sign and that they'd known about him for four years prior to that version of the game. Now, Haaland is raising the bar even further.
The Scandi superhero has 15 goals already in the Premier League this season and is well on course to smash the record for a single campaign (which stands at a mere 32). Those are FM numbers, right?
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland is apparently already causing bugs on Football Manager 2023…
Football Manager 2023 is out on November 8 (Image credit: SI)
“I had to reject a screenshot that said ‘Haaland scores his 60th goal of the season,’” Jacobson told FFT recently of the Norwegian goal-getter. “We’ve done a bit of work on that… now it looks like he could do it in real life. Haaland causes bugs on his own: in real life and in the game.
“The guy is even better than I thought he was going to become. I don’t think he’s human but what a player to watch. What an inspiration to young kids to work because obviously he’s got natural talent but he works so hard.
“Such a good role model and I’m glad that so many people heard about him first in Football Manager!”
Erling Haaland during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester City (Image credit: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Football Manager 2023 is set to introduce brand new features, such as a Squad Planner for assessing which signings to make both now and in the future. Unfortunately, however, Miles tells us that your days of signing Haaland on the cheap as a wonderkid are probably over.
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“It’s going to be a lot harder to sign him this year… I think it’s more how many people are going to play as City,” he says. “Especially as they’re a licensed team within the game.”
Never mind. Plenty of other wonderkids that we expect in FM23.
Mark White is the Digital Content Editor at FourFourTwo. During his time on the brand, Mark has written three cover features on Mikel Arteta, Martin Odegaard and the Invincibles, and has written pieces on subjects ranging from Sir Bobby Robson’s time at Barcelona to the career of Robinho. An encyclopedia of football trivia and collector of shirts, he first joined the team back in 2020 as a staff writer.
