Tracksuit manager was one of the highlights of my youth. I remember receiving a Commodore 64 console for Christmas one year and the only game my parents bought to go with it was this one. I never bothered buying another. For some reason, the game managed to capture the excitement and the feeling that what was happening was a result of your endeavors.
Whilst the variety of options, as I remember, were extremely limited, it seemed massive at the time. I conquered the world as manager of England, deploying relative unknowns like the legendary Lee Chapman for world cup duty, and winning.
Tracksuit manager was one of the highlights of my youth. I remember receiving a Commodore 64 console for Christmas one year and the only game my parents bought to go with it was this one. I never bothered buying another. For some reason, the game managed to capture the excitement and the feeling that what was happening was a result of your endeavors.
Whilst the variety of options, as I remember, were extremely limited, it seemed massive at the time. I conquered the world as manager of England, deploying relative unknowns like the legendary Lee Chapman for world cup duty, and winning. Oh, the joy of dropping the much hated (by those that went against the crowd at school and didn't want to be Liverpool fans) John Barnes!
I guess
Tracksuit Manager can be considered as a fore-runner for the management simulation style that very soon became dominated by Championship Manager (and then Football Manager) - initially based on the same text commentary style employed in Tracksuit Manager. The style for presenting match events in such simulations has evolved somewhat since then, with Football Manager showing 2D action and FIFA now incorporating the management side extensive enough to consider that game to have a 3D playable engine.
However both of these systems have flaws - Football Manager often disappoints when you set up certain tactics and can then see that these are clearly not implemented on the pitch. Sports Interactive can always argue this is due to the whole raft of other factors (player capability, coaching, form, opposition tactics, general happiness of players) but at the end of the day this is only a random 'AI' variable that essentially determines your fate. Basically, if the AI is going to beat you on a given day and has been set to be so, then it will. This is not entirely removed from the initial concept of the management simulation that is demonstrated so well by Tracksuit Manager.
At the end of the day the fun from these games comes from the excitement that maybe, you just might win your next game. You watch with excitement as your team creates a chance, you curse at the news that the referee has sent off your captain, and you rejoice as you find that you have scored the winning goal in the last minute of the World Cup final. It doesn't really matter how you are given this information in you, because your imagination as a football fan makes that all up anyway!
