On 18 May 1994, former Manchester United player Bryan Robson was presented to the press in his new role at Middlesbrough wearing a rather unusual outfit. He wore a very sensible suit jacket, shirt and tie, but then, as if he was on a business video conference and confident that the camera wouldn’t see all, combined that with shorts, football socks and, in the most baffling touch of all, no shoes. He gamely posed for the cameras and did some keepy-uppies in this get up, the visual representation of his new position. He was player. He was manager. He was player-manager.
When you start a new game in Player Manager 2 and come to put your name in, the default already in the name field is B. Robson. He wasn’t the only one in the early ‘90s to come towards the end of his career as a football player and decide to drop down the divisions and make a start in management alongside his playing swansong — Glenn Hoddle at Swindon Town demonstrated the benefits to all concerned even earlier. It was a good time for the player-manager in real life, and a good time for the player manager in video games.
In Sensible World of Soccer’s career mode, the option to pick the player-manager role referred to you both taking on management duties and playing out each of your team’s matches as the traditional football video game floating spirit of action, ready to possess any of the team’s 11 players as required. Player Manager 2 gives you the same, but with a twist. When I enter I. Mew into that name field, I become the manager I. Mew, but I also pick a position for the player I. Mew to join the squad in. That old video game standard, the lone hero doing everything, makes its way onto the football field.
Games before and since have tried having you play as a single player on the pitch but Player Manager 2 doesn’t do that. You still possess the whole team, you just have an outside incentive to pass to the one person representing you. You can insert yourself more thoroughly into a fantasy of rescuing your favourite team. Although only with a bit of luck and if your favourite is in Division 2, since the game randomly assigns you a team. That does seem more in keeping with the Robson and Hoddle model, but what if I didn’t want to play for Millwall? Why extend the fantasy and put such bounds on it at the same time?
It’s inevitable that a combination of two different game types will lean one way or the other, leaving one a little weaker, and for Player Manager 2 the playing side is the weaker one (it is also the optional one of the two). Matches do offer a selection of different views, with the distant isometric one in particular giving a lovely Lowry vibe to the players rushing about, but aimless rushing about is a rather large part of the experience. The game’s inability to get the basics of kit clashes and the resultant setting of, for example, a team in white with red stripes against a team in white with blue hoops, doesn’t help the impression of unparsable chaos.
The management side, meanwhile, offers a similar but less stuffy experience to Ultimate Soccer Manager, right down to the menus being accessed through a visual representation of the stadium, this time in cross section with all of the different offices exposed. The relative lack of micromanagement focus is welcome, but the important bit of feeling like your decisions have weight never quite gets there. Player Manager 2 superficially looks ready for both playing football and managing it, but turns out not to have any shoes on.
