13 Football Manager legends who were useless in real life

Football Manager often blurs the lines between computer gaming and reality, with the game being cited in over thirty divorce cases, but also being used by professionals within football to scout talent. Not all that talent, however, is as good in real life as in the game.

Whilst the vast database of players can take credit for spotting wonderkids before the world’s biggest clubs did, there have been some shockers when it comes to predicting who will develop into the next generation of world superstars.

Some players on the game develop into Ballon d’Or winners and world-class superstars but go on to be your standard mid-table journeymen in the real world.

Whilst this doesn’t mean they had a terrible career, it is always a bit of a shame seeing your FM legend, for whom you had a special shirt printed after they won your non-league side the Champions League in 2025, turn out to be bang average when you close your laptop.

As a result, when you’re bragging about how you took Woking from the National League to the top flight in six seasons, there is often a case of ‘if you know, you know’ when mentioning some legends of the video game who were actually nothing special.

We’ve listed 13 of them, and the more hardcore FM players will nod their heads and smile to themselves as they’re reminded of their own in-game heroes from years gone by.

One of the greatest wonderkids to never actually produce wonderful moments, Carlos Fierro was a 19-year-old striker on FM2012, at Mexican club Guadalajara. It is not an understatement to say he became better than Kylian Mbappe could ever dream of within the game.

Signing him cheaply as a teenager would almost guarantee trophies, and he would develop into a predator in the box with searing pace