Steele’s path to football is interesting, with Sportsbible recently publishing a profile on how he went from coaching Preston U14s to facing Lionel Messi on his Paris Saint-Germain debut . Now he still chooses to focus on coaching rather than his own game ambitions (he also played professionally in his youth), but his fascination with this aspect is due to the many hours he and his older brother Edward spent on Football Manager games. By the way, Edward Steele himself is also the coach of the Belgian team Charleroi.
Interestingly, their parents banned video games when they were young, but nothing stopped them from playing their favorite game at the time: EA’s Premier League Football Manager 2021.
“We played that disc until it broke,” Steele said. “We played it for hours and hours. We never bought a new version. We played that disc until it couldn’t be read any more.”
Eventually, the duo switched to playing Champions Manager, the predecessor to Football Manager developed by Sports Interactive, which they still play until the wee hours of the morning.
“The worst period came when I was about 14 or 15,” Steele said. “I would look at the clock and it was 10 p.m. and you would say, ‘Oh, I’m going to sleep at midnight.’ And then you The next thing you know is it’s four-thirty in the morning. And then you wake up and think, ‘Why the hell am I doing that?’ But yeah, there was a time when it got a little too much.”
Still, Steele eventually decided to take coaching more seriously and started learning about it. Around this time, he also realised that while he could play, he would not be the next Ronaldo.
“Football Manager gave me the motivation to build the team,” Steele said. “I want to be able to talk to the players. I want to build that relationship. I mean, I’m fine in football, but FM gives me a glimpse into what it’s really like to run a team.”
“I actually think people who play Football Manager know the sport better. You have to go into a lot of details to really win and be successful in the game, especially now that it’s getting more complex. I appreciate those Someone so passionate, so immersed in the game.”
Steele said: “It’s absolutely eye-opening how much work actually has to do to be a manager. A huge part of what happens in the game is actually what happens in real life, when you’re day in and day out When you do that, you do realize how similar it actually is.”
“It sounds silly to say that, but many aspects of it make sense. For example, when you transfer, you have an initial offer, then a counter-offer … and then you have a player who doesn’t agree with his salary. “
“And general player conversations, setting up training regimes, fitness groups and training plans; collective and individual. The more you go into the details of the game, the more you understand how it happens in real life.”
“If you play Football Manager the easy way, just set up your team and make sure your transfers get ranked, you’re not going to learn much. But the more detail you go into, the more it actually The more real it gets. I think Football Manager has helped me become a better coach.”
