Not many creators can say that they blog, stream and make video content about Football Manager - @MikaelinhoFM can, and following save stints at Man Utd, Santos and most recently at Hansa Rostock in Germany, we asked him to tell us his Player of the Year from Football Manager 2020.
I’m not one to fall in love easily. Especially not when it comes to Football Manager. Most of my saves revolve around the building of a club in general and their youth setup in particular. I can fall in love with the project, sure, but it’s very rare for me to get attached to individual players. They are more or less considered means to an end for me. They are the tools needed to help me achieve success for the club.
But what if the entire save is focused in individuals and their development? Would that change anything? Before starting the Santástico save with Santos FC, my answer would have been ”no”. A save solely focused on trying to create the next generational Brazilian superstar. The next Neymar or even Pelé. That wouldn’t change a thing. The individual players would simply be means to reach that aim. I stayed true to this for the first few seasons of the series as well. Kaio Jorge scored a lot of goals for me, but it didn’t wake any particular feelings for him. Marcos Leonardo improved massively on the training pitch, but that only made me eager to move him on to Europe. Renyer secured a record breaking move to Real Madrid and that made me happy. Happy, but not ecstatic. Simply another player leaving the conveyor belt. I was starting to reconcile with the notion of me playing the game, not without feelings, I still get pissed off when my winger hits the side netting for the 11th time in a row or when PSG steal my wonderkid, but without the ability to feel love for individual players. And then it hit me. Like a steam train on the loose. They say that you need to experience love to know what it actually is. Now I know.
I’m going to tell you about my first proper love on Football Manager. I’m gonna tell you about Willian. Willian 2.0.
Let’s start with the 2027 youth intake.
The youth intake preview looked quite promising:
An excellent group coming through!? Well, thank you! With an attacking mid, a winger and at least one striker coming through as the best prospects in what appeared to be a good intake I felt confident as we reached mid-September.
At first glance (this is actually the second glance, I’ll explain that soon) this seemed like a good intake with the top four players of the right positions. One five star potential player and two more with 3.5-4 star potential. Not bad. I was a bit surprised to see the name Luan Jefferson at the top of the list though, and before you ask why, I’ll explain!
I’ve been trying a bit of streaming for a while and I was over the moon when I got Willian through the 2027 youth intake live on stream as the best youth intake player ever! I went to bed with a big grin on my face and spent the night dreaming of Brazilians (stop that, you know what I mean!) but when I went to start the game up the next day the latest save file wasn’t there. I’m not sure what actually happened, if the file went corrupt during the saving process or something else, but the save file (and Willian) was nowhere to be found. I had no other option but to load the backup file which sent me to a point roughly one month before the above mentioned intake had happened and my disappointment was endless. I was about to kill this save and throw my desktop out the window, when several community members told me that I’d get the same intake again since they don’t actually generate on intake day on FM20. Apparently they generate at the time of the intake preview, which got my hopes up that I was going to be reunited with Willian when the intake day arrived again. That’s why I was a bit surprised when I saw the name Luan Jefferson as the “best” prospect. The name “Willian” was there in the list as well, but considering how good he was in the original intake and the assertions that we were getting “the same” intake again, why wasn’t he top of the list? Perhaps Luan Jefferson was even better? Let’s find out!
When I clicked his name I was actually a bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, Luan Jefferson was a decent player, but he was nowhere near the levels of Willian from the previous intake. When I clicked the name of 4 star potential new Willian my disappointment turned into pure joy though.
There he was! Not exactly the same, but still an absolutely amazing player! I think that this Willian 2.0 was actually slightly better than the previous one. With a Model Citizen personality this might actually be the player that gets closest to the Ginga Rating and career of Neymar! I had not had these levels of expectations for any player in the previous eight seasons of this save. This might actually be the guy!
He became an instant success for the club, scoring goals for fun and improving in training. At age 18 he had already scored more than 60 goals for Santos and made four appearances for the Brazilian national team. This player was really unique!
At the age of 21, the boy had turned into a young man and by now he had scored 170 goals in the process. In this stage of a player’s career I usually move him on to Europe, but this wasn’t the case for Willian. It wasn’t down to the fact that the interest had been lacking. No, I accepted a £108M bid from Juventus for him, but he simply didn’t want to leave. He became upset and made me promise not to sell him and who was I to say no to that face!? My aim was instead to make him a Santos legend. My plan was to play the Santástico save all the way to the launch of FM21, but I fell out of love. Not with Willian, but with the Santos project. After 13 seasons I had won everything humanly possible with Santos FC. Over and over again. Things had grown stale and I felt like I was playing the same season over and over again. I made the decision to end the save and do something else. Therefore, this is where my journey with Santos ended, which meant that I only got a few years together with Willian 2.0. That was probably the only thing I regretted with ending the Santástico series, not getting to experience his prime as a player. When I was approached to write about my favourite FM20 player I had an idea though. I decided to load up my Santos save file and simulate the game for 5 years, just to see what happened to Willian.
When I ended the series in 2032/33 Willian was already the best player at the club and well on his way to become a living legend. In my simulation he spent a few more seasons with Santos and didn’t make anyone disappointed. After scoring almost 300 goals for the club, he finally left for Europe and Inter Milan. His average ratings have continued to be great for his new club even though he hasn’t managed to replicate his Brazilian goal tally. Quite the career though, and he still has a few good years left in him!
During his time with Santos he won the Brazilian league eight times and the Copa Libertadores six times, which can be compared to Pelé’s two Copa Lib titles and five league titles with the same club. Pelé on the other hand scored over 600 goals for the club, with Willian ”only” scoring a little less than 300. Willian hasn’t reached Pelé’s levels of importance for the Brazilian national team either. With 19 goals in 60 caps he’s nowhere near Pelé’s record of 77 goals in 92 games.
As I stated above, Willian 2.0 still has a few good years left in him though. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’ll remain on the top international level for at least another five years. He sure has the technical and mental skills, and with a Natural Fitness of 17 his physical attributes won’t see such a rapid decline, allowing him to shine well into his 30s.
Hell, this actually makes me keen on loading up the Santos save file again. Maybe I can apply for the Inter job, so that me and the love of my life can grow old together!?
Thanks for reading,
If you want to see more of MikaelinhoFM’s awesome FM content as well as occasionally seeing a Swedish guy donning a mullet wig, you can find him on Twitch, on YouTube and on his own blog where he is currently instigating the Swedish Mafia at German side Hansa Rostock.
Interested in sharing your own FM Player of the Year? Drop us a message or reach out to MaddFM for more info.
