14 DAY TRIAL // 
England - the country known as "the birthplace of football" (soccer). In north London is the base of operations for (part of) the creators of one of the most renowned football related series - Championship Manager. As expected every year, Beautiful Games Studios presents another title as tribute to the football season that is to come. Now it's CM 2007 the one to try and get soccer fans' attention.
You think you can do better at managing a world class soccer team? Or maybe you're confident that your favorites could do a lot better in the new season. Well, get into the game and show the world what top class tactics and flair can do in this business. And don't worry about it, there's a wide choice of teams that would love to take your expert advices.
Concept I bet at least 90% of the whole population has a basic idea about football. The series' fans know this simulator has nothing to do with the actual playing of the game. It focuses on the managerial aspects of this beloved sport. In short, the player is to take over the manager position of a club or national team. From this point forward, according to the chosen team's past acknowledgements, the board will set certain expectations and grant an appropriate budget. This is your stage entry. Do your job well and a beautiful future awaits. Screw it up and you're back to square one.
Resembling a TBS, the game allows you to oversee the everyday squad's prepares for the next match. Keep track of the player's training schedules, pay attention to their morale, evaluate their performances by setting an appropriate value for their eventual transfers, decide on the tactics to apply next and keep a close eye on their stats' evolution while also looking for new players, offering/negotiating/accepting contracts, organize friendly matches, check out the sport news and also be sure to have a capable technical staff. Gosh, that was a long list of activities to be done. Yes, well, you will have to get involved a lot in everything that concerns the team.
The game is a fanatic strategist's paradise. You can practically buy an unknown player with modest stats and put him through intense training to get a new Pele out of him. I'm not sure there could be any more statistics to the players' stats. In example there are intelligence attributes rated accordingly to criteria such as anticipation, creativity, positioning and others. The most useful attributes are however the physical ones, dealing with the player's capacities when it comes to accelerating, balance, heading power, jumping, pace, passing power, shooting power, strength and preferred foot. There are also statistics based on defensive and attacking abilities as well as a special goalkeeping statistics. If neither standard view is satisfactory, you can choose a custom one displaying whatever attributes or overall accomplishments statistics you may find important.
Each player's profile contains info on his technical abilities, intelligence attributes, physical capacities and his temperament, as well as selection details and match statistics. Along with the player's status that's the info you need in the game. As an extra, an information page and a list of past clubs (history) are available.
I'd say the game's data base is pretty impressing since it offers an incredibly long list of clubs from all over the world. Yet you are allowed to manage only teams from 25 countries (again no sight of Romania) and of course choose a specific division out of the 63 available. Fortunately, you can at least employ the best known players from the unplayable countries. The other good thing is that your team can enter any of the known regional competitions (for Europe are available: European Championship and the adequate qualifying round, European Champions Cup, UEFA Cup, European Super Cup, Royal League and Intertoto Cup) or the world events such as the World Cup (with the according continental qualifying rounds), Confederations Cup, Olympic Football Tournament and Club World Championship.
The result of all actions, from team selection, training and tactics to team talks, conclude in winning (or loosing) match after match and achieving the goals set by the board or not. The team talk is a new feature of the game. It allows you to make a comment full of wisdom (choose one of three or say nothing) to get your players' morale up and enable them to play the best they can. You can also say different things to each player - in private or not. These small chats will prove extremely useful as players put a high price on their manager's comments. An inspired comment at half time may turn around the entire fate of the game. You can talk to the guys before the match, at half time and right after the game.
Just as a short addition to the management style of the game there's a financial balance of the club. Fans message you their expectations as they are the ones paying for gate receipts and season tickets and you get extra cash from TV stations, merchandising and sponsorship. With a favorable balance the board is very pleased with you and maybe increases your next season's budget.
Gameplay Once you get the job it's time to put your brains (and mouse clicking fingers) to work. First you need to select a team and decide upon the team selection for the next match. As the season hasn't started yet, you'll have to deal with some friendly encounters. That is wonderful as you'll probably need a short while to get familiar with the controls and see how the algorithms the engine uses interpret your players' attributes and apply your tactics against the opposing team. Be sure to check for yourself the team talk feature and remember what to say and what not to say.
As the first match ends you get an overview of the game and different field statistics. You can use these results to better train the team and apply a more efficient tactics next time (careful - there's no perfect choice, a strategy may be the best against one team and a total failure against another, make good use of the info on your adversaries).
This is the perfect time for you to take a better look at all the options the game has to offer. Be sure to take care of the players' training sessions and, if needed, adjust their tasks to the position they are playing. You can choose from some predefined schedules or set a specific one yourself. Your staff will let you know if it was a good idea or not. Of course for you to know what players need to do, a playing tactics is needed. Again you can choose a predefined one (quite a list) or adjust an existing one to your desires. That's about the most appropriate place for you to choose the position your players are suited for best (goalkeeper, striker, forward, midfielder and defender). Accidents do happen so be sure there are capable reserves on the lot too. Obviously there's an option to let the computer choose the players for you, but where's the fun in that?
Once everything is set with the team, take your time to look for possible replacements (or you can just extend your present players contracts). For this you are able to access a long list of names, check out the stats and field positions trey are trained for. Next you'll need to send them a contract offer and if you're close to what they desire they'll sign with you in a few days (TBS like, remember?). There's a possibility they'll try to negotiate or even tell you that the fans would never agree to such a transfer (which means you'll have to pay a lot extra over their real value). The fun is not over yet as the board grants you a salary grid according to the player's status (like key player, first team and so on). You'll manage somehow.
So by now you're ready for the next match and you've even accomplished a small part of your field investigations for future key players. It's time for a "real" match. The TV station (I guess) grants you with a customized view of the game (you can switch the camera view, but it's still 2D). You get to see the most important moments of the game (goals, cards, injuries and near misses included). The rest of the 90 minutes (relax, you can adjust the speed as before and even pause to make a few changes) present the realtime updated game statistics. With the final whistle it's time for congratulating the guys and see how your tactics was applied using the different statistics available (including the ProZone tool the offers a representation of everything there was in the game that may give you a clue of what you should add to the everyday training).
Well, that's about it as far as your job goes, lay back and enjoy the positive messages (in case you won) or get back to the scratch board and come up with a better team organization. Make use (at least try) of all the menu features, and the wide diversity of statistics and views and keep a close eye on your players - what they need, think, desire, dislike - and talk to them when available. As a bonus, the names usually refer to real football players (there are some exceptions however), offering a plus of gameplay pleasure.
Conclusion Championship Manager 2007 is a nice looking football management simulator. It brings a fade improvement in terms of visual aspect as the windows are slightly more artistic, adding a few cuts at the corners of the good old rectangular shapes, a few more options, taller players - they are no longer colorful pills on a green box, but tiny pins with virtual shadows (four of them as if matches only took place at night)? In short it offers the impression of a real football manager doing his job using a laptop - tons of info structured in easily accessible tabs, quick command buttons to get in touch with everything there is in football - teams, players, staff, competitions and the precious news and messages (game menu too, but that's just a bonus). The algorithms used to simulate the matches seem to value your every action, providing the feeling that you were in control of the game and it wasn't just a simulation or, worse, a random scheme. The database is rich and up to date (if it's still not enough for you just download some additional teams).
The bottom line is the guys at BGS did their job pretty well this year and presented us with an addictive football management game. I'm sure the fans will appreciate it and the newbies will be pleased with the variety of choices. Well, enough writing/ reading about it, go serve your team and enjoy.
