September. A time of mixed emotions in the Football Manager community as another cycle of FM comes to a close. Sadness and yearning as the appetite for any existing or new save slowly starts to dwindle, combined with optimism and eager impatience as we await Beta-day and the newest edition of Sports Interactive’s Piece de Resistance, this year in the form of Football Manager 2023 (officially out on November 8th in case you’ve somehow missed it).
Nonetheless there is much to discuss during the limbo period between games and today we will start with a small testament to FM22 as we each discuss our Player of the Year for FM22 (also discussed recently on Episode 267 of 5 Star Potential) - have a read, let us know if you’ve also had any experiences with our favourites and make sure to Tweet us your own nominations @5StarPod.
Madd - Shola Shoretire
Madd’s Northern Boys adventure took him deep into the annals of North-East football wherein he attempted to recreate modern-day Newcastle United into a domestic only club (akin to the Athletic Bilbao model), and on his travels he was more than pelased to discover that Man Utd starlet and FM22 wonderkid Shola Shoretire was in fact born in Newcastle and thus became one of his #1 transfer targets from Day 1 of the save. Three loan seasons later, Shola was signed permanently for £34m and after being deployed on either wing as well as up top in a front two, it was in the Central Midfield (Attack) role that Shola played his best football, and was one of the key drivers of Madd’s Newcastle side regaining promotion to the Premier League having been relegated in Season 4. Rapid quick and good on the ball as well as being an excellent dribbler and creator in the team, he bagged 59 goals & 49 assists from 194 starts and was the standout player of the save.
Joe - Roony Bardghji
For Joe it was the FM22 Winter Update that brought his Player of the Year for this cycle of Football Manager. Too young to be included when the game was first released, Bardghji was added in January and it was in Joe’s Villareal save that he quickly rose to prominence following 92 goal contributions in 124 appearances for the Yellow Submarine as well as 16 goals in 43 caps for Sweden; did we mention Joe only signed him for £10m? Deployed as a left-footer on the right hand side with a Shoots On Sight player trait, this kid is the ultimate definition of an FM wonderkid and looking at his in-game attributes, it’s easy to see why he wins Joe’s vote this year.
Doop - Cammy White
A NEWGEN APPEARS. Having been renamed to Cammy White at the bequest of one of Doop’s Twitch mods (fair game), this guy quickly joined Doop’s list of all-time FM heroes (along side the likes of Victor Osimhen and Eddie Nketiah) and it’s not hard to see why. As Newgens go this is dream territory and a player any of us would like to obtain in Football Manager - not only did he win Doop his final Champions League, he bagged 97 goals in 99 starts, won 3 Ballon d’Or awards and as attributes go, it’s easy to see why Doop has dubbed him “The best player I’ve seen in Football Manager”.
Matt - Benjamin Šeško
Every year we see a hallmark wonderkid for that particular version of Football Manager, that one player who pops up in the majority of FM saves who is almost unrivalled in terms of wonderkidness. Obtainable, affordable, dependable, exceptional - Benjamin Sesko most certainly ticks our wonderkid boxes and at the time of recording had scored 20 goals in 32 games for Matt’s Athletico Madrid side with a 7.39 average rating. Ridiculous physical attributes, outstanding technicals and ideal mentality to develop him rapidly in-game, it’s little wonder that only Haaland, Mbappe and Adeyemi have scored more goals across the entire of FM22. SIGN HIM UP.
That gives you our 4 nominees for our coveted 5 Star Potential FM22 Player of the Year (Dave probably would have nominated some Portugese chief he signed for Wolves) - after much deliberation and considering his impact across so many of your saves this year, we ulimately and almost unanimously agreed that Benjamin Sesko is the man most worthy of the award and thus takes home the spoils for this year’s game cycle. Would you agree? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments below or on Twitter - who was your own FM22 Player of the Year?
Roll on FM23 🚀.
