Football Manager 26 Gets New Trailer Showcasing New Possession Tactics and Formations

Developer Sports Interactive has released a new trailer for its upcoming management sim Football Manager 26, this time around focusing on explaining how the different match tactics available to players, and some of the differences. The trailer, which you can check out below, clocks in at a little over 4 minutes, also describes the level of flexibility that players will have owing to tactics options for both in possession and out of possession states.

Both in possession and out of possession tactics will be available in their own distinct screens, giving players all the tools they need to fine-tune exactly what each player of their teams will be doing in any given situation. The new screens can also make use of the revamped overall UI of the title to give players an even greater look at how their tactical options can flow into each other.

“The first thing is, if we look at real football, if people want to recreate their real life managers and create their tactics, you need to have that in possession/out of possession split to correctly replicate what they’re doing,” explained match QA analyst at Sports Interactive Jack Sarahs when asked about why this was an important feature to implement.

“The second part is the more practical part where, for example, in [Football Manager 24] if you created a tactic and had a winger in a 4-3-3, and you wanted to move him to attacking midfield for an in possession reason, you couldn’t do that without affecting how he defended. Whereas now with our in possession and out of possession formations, you can make that change for the in possession reason without affecting out of possession.”

Senior lead match QA analyst CJ Ramson also spoke about how this new addition will change things for players when it comes to player roles. Samson explained that player roles are now split between in possession and out of possession. While in possession has some new roles along with some of the older roles getting reworks, out of possession has a completely new set of roles.

“One of the biggest things for me is you can have two identical formations in possession for two different teams, but the roles and how they behave out of possession will make it behave differently,” said Ramson.

Along with this, Ransom and Sarahs also showcased a new feature called the visualiser. Through this feature, players can get a better look at their formations and tactics with extra details, such as shot percentages, pass reception, and even other stats like how the team’s attacking transition works, how often in-game players might choose to waste time, and what the general tempo of the whole team will look like.

Football Manager 26 is being developed for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Android and iOS, and will be coming out on all of the platforms on November 4. For more details about the management sim, check out what the new match day experience is going to look like thanks to Sports Interactive having switched to Unity Engine.