The FM Library

Proving that we have friends all over the world (just none around here)… we are off to Sweden to have a chat with MikaelinhoFM

Creator Name & what made you choose it:

MikaelinhoFM. I guess it was an attempt to give my Swedish a Brazilian touch. However, when we recorded a podcast a while I go I realised that no-one, including myself, knew how to pronounce it…

Talk me through your FM journey – where does it start? When was the moment that you first clicked on that little icon – and when did you realise that you couldn’t stop!

My journey starts way before FM. It even starts before the birth of CM. It started with a game called “Premier Challenge” that my uncle bought for me on a business trip t o London. I remember that it came in one of those old “double CD” cases, because it was so big that it had 2 (TWO!) floppy disks with installation files on them. It also came with an instruction booklet, like games did back then (perhaps they do now as well!?). The special thing with this booklet was that on the bottom of each page was the name of a Football League club and the year they were founded. When you started the game you were prompted to answer which year a certain club was founded to start playing. There was also a reference to a page in the booklet, where you could find the answer, for example on page 42 you could read “Arsenal FC – 1886”. The problem was that I lost this booklet pretty early on (and this was WAY before the internet) so I lost all the answers. Therefore, I remember I started using a piece of paper where I wrote down all the teams and started working my way up from the year 1875 when I knew that Blackburn Rovers was founded. After three failed attempts (you only had three shots before the game shut down) I wrote down the latest guess next to the team’s name and started the game again, getting a new team to try and guess the correct year for. Every once in a while I actually got it right and could play the game for a while. I remember that David Hirst and a young Alan Shearer playing for Blackburn were the star players. You could set your own formation, by simply placing your 11 players however you saw fit on an empty field and then watch games in 2D(!) where all you saw was a ball bouncing around the field, no players or anything like that, until it finally ended up in one of the goals. The ball changed colour every time a new team took possession of it. This means that I basically spent hours guessing English footballs team’s founding years to watch a bouncing ball on a green square. Of course I absolutely loved it and I’ve loved football manager games ever since!

Ok, you’ve been playing the game, what made you jump from “player” to “creator” and how have you found the journey?

I’ve always played the games for hours upon hours, really digging deep and I have a fairly vivid imagination. I started reading blogs a couple of years ago only and got really inspired. The blogs that really got me hooked were Steve/Lutterworth Fox/The artist formerly known as Newgen’s Hall of FMame series and Tom/Vivalavida‘s Östersund series. I started talking to them on Twitter and Tom invited me to write on his site. I’ve gotten through a few blog series now and I’ve really enjoyed it, even though I’ve experienced the occasional “writer’s block” as well. What I’ve liked most about this are two things: 1. This has made me immerse even deeper into playing and role-playing the game. It’s not that unusual for my wife to ask who I’m talking to, just for me to realise that I’m sitting in front of the computer interviewing myself in a fake British accent…2. The interaction with the rest of this community has been wonderful. There are some that I interact with on a daily basis and others that I have more occasional contact with, but I really love the interaction.

What’s your style of play? Within the library we have a couple of guys who plough through seasons letting the Assistant Manager’s do the vast majority of stuff, mainly getting into the late 2060’s trying to complete bizarre and random challenges, but we also have guys who are very much into the finite detail and will manage every aspect and would consider a save done after 5 or 6 seasons. Where do you fit within the scale? There is of course, no incorrect answer.

I find myself becoming more and more into details for every year. The seasons take longer and longer to finish and I enjoy them more and more. Ten years ago I simply found the best available tactic online, downloaded it, plowed through season after season winning everything, moving on to a new save and repeating the process. Now I rarely get through more than a handful of saves per year. I enjoy every aspect of the game; creating tactics, watching them unfold in-game (preferrably watching the games in full), scouting for players etc. But what I love the most are talent development and building a club up. That means that my saves usually end up revolving around those two things in particular.

Favourite version/save? Any particular bittersweet/comic/down right depressing memories?

I love all my kids equally. I play the game of the year with 100% loyalty until a new one is released, then I mercilessly move on. I don’t look back and I don’t compare them. Each version has strengths and weaknesses but I love them all.

Which bloggers do you always make sure that you read?

I must say that I have more of a tendency to fall in love with a good series than a certain creator, even though I have a few creators that I always come back to. The two I mentioned above of course, together with a couple of others. CookieFM, The FMNewby, Stratman Gaming, FMCatenaccio and FMHeathen to name a few!

Ok, final question.. I have 5 minutes and I have a list of blogs in front of me – In 100 words, why should I click on your blog…

If you like an in-depth approach to the game and a bit of a quirky storyline, go give my stuff a chance. If you are a sucker for excel spreadsheets, talent development and home-made player rating systems, my blog is an absolute must!

And with that Miki goes back to his business of planning the next amazing blog save – rumour has it he has Roy Keane on his mind..