Game Review: Football Academy Manager

If you’ve read any of our FM Stories, you’ll know that probably my favourite element of playing Football Manager is developing young players to become world beaters. I’d love the ability to get deeper into youth development in FM and, in my Features and Improvements for FM24 article, I talked about how I wanted the game to improve youth production to give us greater insight into youngsters coming through the system.

So when I saw a new game pop up on Steam called Football Academy Manager, you can imagine I was pretty excited by the prospect. I reached out to the developer, Hubi, who gave us a sneak peek at the game before it’s released in Early Access mode tomorrow (29 January). I wasted no time whizzing through a few seasons, and very quickly became hooked on this cracking little game.

So what is Football Manager Academy? In Hubi’s words: “You start from scratch, building your own academy from the ground up. You begin by renting an academy and starting to scout talents. Your first goal is to gather data and find young players with potential. Once you sign them, you focus on their development.

“From there, you either wait for transfer offers to come in or proactively propose your players to fitting market demands. As you earn money and upgrade your facilities, your training becomes more effective, allowing you to develop talents even faster.”

Unsurprisingly, Hubi’s inspiration for the game was playing Football Manager. As he explains: “I’ve played FM since around 2013 and was always hooked by the ‘Youth Intake’ announcement. I always wanted deeper gameplay, specifically for that youth development phase. Since FM focuses more on overall club management, I decided to start this project as a hobby at the beginning of 2025.

“I honestly didn’t think other players would be interested, but while the demo was out, even in a very rough state, the feedback was so positive that it motivated me to take it further. The game has evolved significantly since those early versions.”

It’s probably not a surprise that people who like Football Manager have been enjoying getting a taste of Football Academy Manager. Hubi told us: “The strongest point is that there really isn’t another game that focuses exclusively on the youth academy experience. By taking the role of an academy owner, you get a unique mix of the football management and tycoon genres. It’s a specialised experience for people who love the discovery aspect.”

How Does Football Academy Manager Work?

Upon firing up Football Academy Manager, click New Game, input your name and the name of your academy, and you’re straight into it. A simple tutorial takes you into the Academy’s facilities and sets up your first rental space at $1,500 per month. The first step is to build a Development Wing, which takes 14 days to complete, then you hit the Home tab to continue. You can find all this information in the Academy tab in the sidebar.

Speaking of which, the main navigation tabs are presented in a sidebar that’ll feel natural to anyone who played FM24. And, at first look, the design is bold and bright, with a dark purple background contrasted by predominantly white, yellow and green text.

The game is navigated by hitting Space to advance to the next day or Shift to fast-forward to the next match day (or just click Next Match Day or Next Day). Hitting Esc or Stop Simulation instantly stops the simulation.

Home: The initial task is to attend various matchdays, with a maximum of two per day, to scout youngsters. In the Home tab, the Calendar and a list of upcoming matches across the three league tiers – Elite Youth International, Continental Development League and Regional Talent Division. Clicking on the leagues shows the fixtures available, and you can view the various teams and hit Attend to watch the game at a cost. RTD games cost less to attend, typically $45 to $60, and you’re recommended to stick to these games initially.

Within matches, you can select players to gain scouting information and evaluate their performance, watch the match in text highlights or hit Instant Result. You can then open the player’s profile and add them to your watchlist. You can also approach them straight away, but it’s best to add them to your watchlist to get a better idea of their potential and wage demands.

Leagues: The Leagues tab allows you to view the league tables and top performers, with top scorers, assists, average rating, player of the match and clean sheets. From the League page, you can click on each team and review each player’s season stats and, unlike FM26, your opinion on their Ability and Potential.

Scouting: The Scouting tab provides a list of players on your shortlist, which you can filter by factors in dropdown menus for name, position, nationality, team, grade, scouted %, age and value.

Player Hub: Once you’ve got players signed to the academy, you can track them in the Player Hub tab.

Academy: The Academy tab, as mentioned above, is your hub for managing the infrastructure. You can also rent new complexes at higher prices, manage your finances and secure loans, and, when you have sufficient prestige, attract sponsorships.

Market Demands: In the Market Demands tab, you’re presented with clubs’ current requirements, where you can actually make money for your Academy. For example, at first look, Catalan Talent have a medium priority request for a left winger aged 15-17 and a minimum overall ability of 66+, along with several attribute requirements. You can propose your academy players who match their requirements and filter demands to match your players’ ability and the clubs’ priorities and budgets.

My Profile: Finally, the My Profile tab is where you focus on developing career progression. That relies on you developing as a scout, which starts by heading into the My Profile tab, at the bottom of the sidebar, and purchasing courses in Observation, Judgement, Negotiation and Planning.In the My Profile tab, you can see your academy’s Prestige, your scout attributes, your career summary and track your achievements. Prestige is increased by upgrading the academy facilities, completing transfers and discovering and signing young players.

In terms of getting started, Hubi recommends: “For beginners, I would recommend investing in the courses early on, primarily Observation and then Judgement. These are the key attributes that allow you to accurately evaluate a player’s true potential and skills.”

Starting the FMAddict Academy

I jumped into the game by launching the FMAddict Academy. I started by attending the Judgement course, which takes 14 days to complete, set about watching a few RTD games, and quickly had 20 players on my watchlist. For example, in the first game I watched, Bram De Jong played an 8.7, in the second, left back Gabrielle Gallo scored and played an 8.9, and in the third, winger Dennis Wagner scored both goals, so they’re straight on the watchlist.

Jumping ahead, the Talent Matches Today option within the Upcoming Matches section of the Home tab notifies you of games in which the players you’ve shortlisted are playing. Four of my shortlisted players were in action as Ironhill Youth hosted Silverwood Base, so I headed along to track their progress. Winger Samuel Lima had a blinder, the others less so. A week later, De Jong was man of the match as Kingshill Trail won 2-0 at Eastport Axis, then played a 10.0 as they won 4-2 at Blackwater, so he could definitely be one to keep an eye on.

It takes a little while to develop a good understanding of players but, after three games, we had 42% knowledge of De Jong and a week later, 94% knowledge of centre back Burak Korkmaz. And, on 7 September, 15-year-old Burkmaz became the proud first member of the FMAddict Academy. He comes into the club with 26.8 ability, and I set his Train Focus to pace. Korkmaz was swiftly joined by De Jong, who joins with 26.9 ability and will initially train on passing.

As you can see from the profile above, you can monitor personality, form, attributes and season stats, so there’s pretty detailed information that helps you decide whether to watch or sign a player.

Fast forward to December, the academy has 6 players all making decent progress, with López leading the way (29.6). However, we are haemorrhaging money, having lost $30k in 4 months. In January, we snapped up our most exciting player yet as 3* potential Argentinian midfielder Leonel Moreno (28.8) joined the FMA Academy. And now, Korkmaz and López had both developed beyond 30.

The Academy advanced to level 2 Prestige in March and, by the end of the season in May 2026, we had 8 players on the books. Korkmaz and López have progressed to 32.5, followed by Marchand (32.4), De Jong (31.7), Lima (31.5), Moreno (31.3), Groen (30.6) and new boy Reggie Walker (29.6). We have a mass of players on the watchlist and, slightly worryingly, just $29,620 in the bank. So we’ve lost $60k in a season. I hit the Season End button and the game simulated to 30 June, by which time we’d lost another $11k and, when I hit Next Match Day, we progressed to 1 August and had just $8k in the bank.

FMAddict Academy Heats Up

Season 2

Coming into the new season, the players had improved further, with Korkmaz leading the way on 32.9. I finally spotted a club with a Market Demand anywhere near one of our players’ abilities and proposed Korkmaz to Crotone Springs, who wanted a CB with at least 32 ability and had $70k potentially on the line. A few days later, Crotone Springs rejected the Korkmaz proposal, but then made a bid for Lima, and we made the Academy’s first sale of $51,275.

A few weeks later, we added the next potential star in Brazilian striker Rafael Cardoso (31.2). More transfer offers arrived in November, with England’s Blackridge Rovers and Spain’s Aragon Blaze coming in for Moreno (35.8), and he joined the latter for $49k. A few days later, Marchand (35.8) joined Roda for $39k. Those transfers went through on 1 January 2027 and boosted our budget to £108k, which meant we’d broken even for the first time. That was further boosted as, in February, we had our first Market Demand proposal accepted, with Yigidolar 58 accepting a $78k proposal for Groen, who’ll leave in July.

We snapped up our first goalkeeper in Salvatore Gentile (32.2), who comes in as the lowest-rated player. Korkmaz continues to lead the way on 36,9, followed by López (36.1) and De Jong (35.9). Another star arrived later in January with left winger Sérgio Lopes (32.1), who becomes the first 3.5* potential talent, before Portuguese winger Hugo Lopes (33.7), who’s scored 41 goals in 28 games this season, joined the following month and Brazilian midfielder Diego Martins (33.5). And De Jong’s club Kingshill Trail got promoted to the second-tier CDL.

Season 3

At the end of season 2, the bank balance had dropped to $62k, but we were able to sign our first sponsorship deal. Grassroot Savings came on board with a $10.8k annual fee and $900 monthly payments. Korkmaz has progressed to 39.2, followed by De Jong (38.8), López (38.2) and Cardoso (36.4), and became our first 40-rated player in September. But the latter was the next to depart, joining Yigidolar 58 for $40k, before S Lopes (37.1) and López (39.4) agreed to join Belgrade Flame and Heerenveen Hope for $60k and $54k in January, which boosted the bank balance to $180k and the Prestige to 10. With that, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase our academy base for $75k, which allows us to build additional facilities. So I quickly built the first stages of a Finishing Hall, a Conditioning Hall, a Technique Lab and a Vision Hall.

A proud day for the club saw the FMAddict Academy’s first two signings get their big moves in professional football on 26 Fabruary 2028. Korkmaz (42.3) was signed by Havre Hope for $52k and De Jong (42.1) signed for Crotone Springs for $54k, and both will move on 1 July. And they were joined in leaving by centre back Sergio Martínez, who’ll join Breda Bloom for $36k.

After those deals were confirmed, our most exciting signing yet saw us snap up a Wonderkid, which is signified by a glowing yellow light around the player’s profile. Umut Ucar arrived on our new high wage of $600 a week, with 40.1 ability and 5* potential.

At the end of Season 3, which took me just under 7 hours of gameplay to reach, our Prestige had reached 11 and we had $68k in the bank. And, progressing into the start of Season 4, those transfer deals boosted the balance to a new high of $233k, of which I spent $50k on an Operations Centre. At this point, Gentile is our best player at 41.2, followed by Ucar (40.9), Lopes (40.5) and Martins (40.1), and have 6 players at the academy.

I was planning to stop there, but it was Saturday morning, and I fancied firing up FMA more than I did FM26. So I cracked on into Season 4 and swiftly sold midfielder Stijn Bos (38.2) to Breda for $42k and signed midfielders Hamza Ozdemir and Leo Gautier, striker Florian David and right back Rubén Dominguez to take the academy to 9 players. And, at the time of writing, the FMAddict Academy has advanced to 17 prestige, my scouting abilities are all up around 50/100, and Ugar is our best player yet at 46.8 ability – we just need to find a club that wants him to cash in before he gets too old.

My Thoughts on Football Academy Manager

If, like me, you love developing young players and selling them on for profit, I think you’ll really enjoy playing Football Academy Manager. It kind of reminds me of retro management games like Premier Manager and Ultimate Soccer Manager in terms of how quickly you can rattle through the game. That said, there’s plenty of detail within the game that you can dig into, from season stats and top performers to attending training sessions and going to more matches, to help you unearth the next top prospect.

A few small tweaks I’d like to see in the game include:

• The ability to change a player’s position could be really useful, especially as you can’t propose a LM to clubs searching for a LW.
• Insight into how a player who’s left your academy is getting on at his club and how his playing career progresses would be great for immersion.
• The ability to retain player knowledge for a little bit longer. For example, it would be great to know if De Jong went on to become the next Memphis Depay.
• Better, or more dynamic, negotiations with clubs – currently, you either accept a bid or they reject your negotiation with little wiggle room on negotiating deals.
• Having staff to scout matches for you, enabling you to spread the Academy’s net wider and be able to scout more players more effectively, or manage the Academy and coaching side of things for you.

With that in mind, some of those features may well be coming down the line, with Hubi already working on a staff system. In addition, he’s working on features like bounty scouting, whereby you can act as a freelance scout for other clubs to earn fees and generate more cash, and hosting showcase tournaments at your facility to boost prestige and gain scouting knowledge of players who take part.

And he adds: “I have a long list of ideas, and I really want to encourage players to share their own feedback and suggestions on our Discord or via the in-game feedback button. I read every single one. I’ll continue to evaluate community ideas to decide which of these to prioritise next!”

Excited to give Football Academy Manager a go for yourself? The game will be released in Early Access mode on Steam tomorrow (29 January).