It’s no surprise that the community is unsatisfied with Football Manager 26. There are numerous issues with the game that everyone is talking about. And, now four of the biggest names in FM content — Zealand, Lollujo, WorkTheSpace, and DoctorBenjy — also sat down to discuss in a joint video on what really went wrong with Football Manager 26.
Across the board, all four creators say FM26’s issues run deeper than the usual first-week chaos we expect from big annual sports sims. The UI? Clunky. The workflows? Weirdly backwards. Features? Missing or moved into oblivion. The vibe? Off. It’s like the devs redesigned the entire experience, but forgot to ask anyone who actually plays the game.
Zealand was especially harsh. He argued that FM26’s problems aren’t just small mistakes. They are the kind of issues that happen when the studio’s development process breaks down from beneath.
The planning is off, feedback loops collapse, and there isn’t proper communication between the different teams. This is how things get messy. In his words, the failure isn’t the bugs; it’s everything underneath them.
“Institutional Failure” And What It Means for FM’s Future
All the creators more or less agreed on the game’s problems and brought their own angles.
For instance, Lollujo pointed out that early access creators were allowed to show negative impressions of the alpha build, which meant the community didn’t get the usual early warning alarms. WorkTheSpace talks about how the redesigned layout feels like it was built for someone who’s never actually played FM before.
And Benjy, in classic Benjy form, tries to laugh through the pain but ends up sounding just as baffled as everyone else.
However, despite the criticism, they didn’t say that the franchise was dead. It was more bashing and requesting that SI fix the process. The players and creators both love this franchise. They want Football Manager 26 to thrive and Football Manager 27 to be amazing.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the community is loud, unified, and very specific about what’s wrong. And historically, SI has listened when the noise gets loud enough.
