Hey there! Welcome to On the Break, a Football Manager dedicated blog.

I’m Adam, and I’ve been playing management sims for over 20 years now, starting with the very first iteration of LMA Manager on the Playstation! I owned and played every edition of LMA, from 1999 right through to 2007, meaning I was more console than PC in the Championship Manager days, although I still spent countless hours on 01/02, 03/04 and CM4. By the time Football Manager became a franchise in 2005, I was hooked on the amount of depth to the game and the inherent spreadsheet feel, and I’ve since owned and played every single release, although the years of 2012-2014 live on in spirit as they’re stuck in my lost Steam account. 😭

My favourite thing about Football Manager was, and still is, the fact that a franchise with no built in story telling can produce such wonderful narratives. We’ve all been told it’s just a bunch of dots… Well yes it is, but my god can you fall in love with those dots!

I started sharing my stories and saves with anybody who would listen years ago, starting on the old Codemasters forums with my LMA saves, although once that forum closed I stopped as I had no idea where to go for Football Manager stories. I never stopped wanting to share my stories, but had no idea there was such a large FM community, I only found out by finding Doctor Benjy’s Salford Story on YouTube. After becoming obsessed with that save and consuming as much FM content as I could fit into my day, I decided to give it a go myself with a very short-lived YouTube channel. After deciding that YouTube wasn’t for me, I went back to the written word and started this very blog! I started exclusively with save updates, but I’ve tried to broaden my horizons in the past year, with some standalone pieces on different topics and my Tactical Aspects series which I really enjoy writing.

FM21 has given me the best save I’ve had for a few years – El Violeta. Starting with Defensor Sporting in Uruguay, I worked for 8 years to overthrow the dominance of Nacional and Peñarol and finally managed to do so, winning a league title in my final season without ever spending a penny on a player transfer. I also took the Uruguay job towards the end of the save and took them to the 2030 World Cup, crashing out in the Quarter Finals. I really enjoyed my save and developed some wonderful newgens, but it didn’t quite have the gripping narrative I love the game so much for. My favourite ever FM tale involves the legend of Shane Paul, which I implore you all to check out, as it’s the type of storyline that I’d love to emulate.

As the blog has evolved, I’ve been lucky enough to secure some really talented guest authors, but more importantly great guys, who share a passion for both Football Manager and for writing, so please go and check out their work in the Guest Authors section!

I’d love to interact with as many people as possible, so feel free to leave any questions or thoughts in the comments of each post here on the site, by email at onthebreakfm@gmail.com, or over on Twitter @adam_otbfm. Also don’t forget to join the brand new On the Break Discord server by clicking the image below!