As anyone who watched any of the recent EFL Football Manager Cup can attest, Birmingham City goalkeeper Lee Camp is an avid fan of the game. In the latest installment of Why I Love FM, we caught up with the former Northern Ireland international to discuss his approach to transfers, best saves and whether he’s considering a move into management when he eventually retires from playing.

Goalkeepers sometimes get a bad rap, and they seldom seem to get as much recognition within the Football Manager universe as perhaps they could and/or should. It’s arguably one of the most important positions on the pitch when you think about their individual contribution and influence on a game, but ask yourself – how much energy and attention do you give them when it comes to their recruitment, development and training? Does your work stop once you've signed the right man? How many goalkeeper wonderkids have you managed through the years?

Join me as we delve into developing a top quality keeper – analysing how to go about signing and training them to their full potential. What steps can you take to ensure your own stopper develops into Goalkeeper number one rather than Public Enemy number one?

Words of wisdom and some sage advice from @MaddFM_.

Have you ever wondered how we gather all the information that’s in Football Manager? We are assisted by more than 1,000 researchers across the world who help put our database together. Our researchers are fans of the series, just like us, and many of them took on their roles because they were passionate about ensuring their clubs, domestic leagues and national football setups were represented as accurately as possible.

Many of those who have worked as researchers for FM have moved into jobs in the footballing world as a result of their knowledge and commitment, so it can be a pathway to the job of your dreams.

Facundo Delgado is our Argentine head researcher, who has grown the role over the years to the point where he now oversees the efforts of a team of 60 scouts, as well as guiding an online community of roughly 13,000 fans.

Most of us will have had to forget about having a holiday this summer because of the unusual times we’re in, but that’s where Football Manager comes into its own. Why head to the airport when the game can transport you to more than 50 countries across six continents? The possibilities for your adventures are almost endless. We’re here with nine teams that you should take charge of to banish the holiday blues. 

Scouring the globe and hunting for future superstars is a big reason why we play Football Manager. 

When your scouts present a player with five-star potential and a 90+ recommendation, you think you’ve hit the jackpot. The bid goes in, the contract is offered, and he signs on the dotted line. Your new wonderkid Attacking Midfielder joins the other four wonderkid Attacking Midfielders you already have in your squad… 

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can build a successful squad while maintaining balance. You can look beyond the star ratings and shape your recruitment strategy, in numerous ways, that’ll be much more beneficial in both the short and long term. Here are a few ideas from FMSamo.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve picked out some of the best FM20 saves in the Bundesliga. In this series finale, we’re focusing on a side that are one of Germany’s biggest but have not lifted the title since 1958.

You’ve got the chance to not just win the Bundesliga but create a dynasty from a team that oozes potential.
The Ruhr region was traditionally the industrial powerhouse of Germany but industrial isn’t a word that can be used to describe Schalke 04, one of the region’s biggest teams. Die Königsblauen have a a squad packed with exciting young talent and look set to challenge for the top four in the coming seasons.
 

We’ve been profiling teams across the length and breadth of Germany, analysing the Bundesliga teams you should manage in Football Manager 2020. 

Die Wölfe started life as a worker’s team for Volkswagen and after spending most of the 20th century in Germany’s lower divisions, they have been Bundesliga mainstays since 1997. Many tipped the club to drop straight back down the divisions after their initial promotion, but they thrived in the top-flight, regularly qualifying for European competitions and winning the league title in the 2008/09 season. In fact, Wolfsburg were the last side other than Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund to win the Bundesliga. 

Since then, the club have regularly competed with Germany’s elite and in 2015 they enjoyed their best year of the last decade, finishing second in the league, winning the DfB Pokal and lifting the Supercup before the start of the following season. 

Being the only club from the state of Lower Saxony and challenging the elite is the sort of mission Football Manager was built for. Here’s everything you need to know before kicking off your adventure at the Volkswagen Arena. 

The Director of Football (DoF) may seem like a role which merely gets in the way, someone who takes tasks out of the manager’s hands. But, more recently we’ve seen many examples of a DoF working alongside a manager to propel the club forward; helping a manager to make key decisions and allowing them to focus more on tactics and team selection. 

While DoFs in the real world are increasingly commonplace, they are still perhaps underappreciated and underutilised in Football Manager.

In FM, if you’re not utilising a DoF you’re, potentially, not becoming the best boss you can be. Here’s how they can help and why you should seriously think about employing one. With words of advice from commentator, journalist and avid FM fan, Michael McCann. 
 

The latest in our series on Bundesliga teams to manage sees us profile a team known to many for their regular appearances in continental competitions over the last two decades, Bayer 04 Leverkusen. 

The club were founded in 1904 by workers at the Pharmaceutical company Bayer AG and they’ve tried to maintain a link to their roots to this day, with Leverkusen nicknamed ‘Die Werkself’, meaning ‘The Company’s Eleven’. Despite their long history, they’ve never lifted the German title.

Bundesliga regulars since 1980, they’ve mostly finished in the top half, aside from a couple of brushes with the drop zone, and more often than not in the top six. Domestically, their best achievements are five second-place finishes in the league and a single DfB Pokal triumph in 1993.

Leverkusen have had some great success in Europe, producing a dramatic comeback from a 3-0 first leg deficit to win the 1988 Euro Cup on penalties. They also became the first team to reach the Champions Cup final without having ever won a league title in 2002, losing 2-1. 

Köln (or Cologne) is the cultural centre of Germany’s Rhineland, hosting a wealth of museums, galleries and, like all good cities, one very interesting football club. A club with a magnificent 50,000 seater-stadium which creates one of the nation’s finest atmospheres. 

1.FC Köln were Bundesliga stalwarts until 1998 when they slipped into the second tier. Until that campaign, they’d been in the top flight since the Bundesliga’s inception and were the first team to win the title. They were crowned champions again in 1978, truly cementing themselves as one of the country’s fiercest clubs. 20 years later, they dropped down to the second tier. 

Looking back retrospectively like this makes that relegation seem so peculiar. The same can be said for their relegation in 2018 too, a year after securing a fifth-placed finish in the Bundesliga. 

The first cricketer to take part in Why I Love FM, Surrey’s Scott Borthwick, comes to the crease to tell us about his best bits from the game over the years. 

Like all of us, the England-capped all-rounder has had to change a lot of his real-life plans of late, something that has given him more time to continue his progress on Football Manager 2020. We caught up with Scott to discuss his best-ever save, go-to tactic and FM alter ego…
 

Earlier in the series we profiled Hertha Berlin and now we turn our attention to their neighbours from the east of the city, Union Berlin.

In their current guise, ‘The Iron Ones’ were formed in 1966 but, as they were based in the eastern part of Berlin, they only joined the Bundesliga league structure in 1990. Since then they’ve mostly played their football in the Bundesliga 2 and the 3.Liga and prior to 2019, their greatest success came in 2001, when they reached the DFB-Pokal final as a third-tier outfit, losing 2-0 to Schalke 04 in the final.