We have been enjoying ourselves in the Football Manager 2023 beta. The charm of this game is watching the future unravel before our eyes, so often much more intriguing than what we end up with in reality.
The African Cup of Nations is a great place to look for curious developments. It is the most frequent of the three major continental international tournaments (the other two being the European Championship and Copa América, both of which occur once every four years in FM23), and is traditionally rich in champion variety.
Our 20 simulated seasons included 10 African Cup of Nations. As we had hoped, those 10 events involved plenty of variety up top, sprinkled with heartbreaks, collapses, and redemptions.
Nigeria traditionally develops as the strongest African nation in Football Manager, regardless of which version of the game we’re talking about. Football Manager 2023 is no different. The Super Eagles played in half of the African Cup of Nations finals during our simulation, managing to win three. The two they lost were to Senegal, and the other country that racked up three trophies, Tunisia.
The three mentioned nations–Nigeria, Tunisia, and Senegal–aren’t the most successful in the African Cup of Nations historically speaking. They have a combined five titles in the 65-year history of the event, three of which are attributed to Nigeria. FM23 predicts a dramatic improvement of their fortunes with eight of the next ten African crowns going to one of these countries.
Senegal could have added even more to that stat had they not lost to Ghana in the first simulated tournament. While it was off to the best possible start, Ghana wasn’t having a great time in the FM23 world. The Black Stars finished as runners-up three times and came in third on a couple of occasions. They’d wish they could have made more out of that consistency.
Coincidentally, the one tournament that was hosted by Ghana, in 2035, was a huge outlier. Cameroon won the final over Morocco, which ended up being the only final appearance for either team in the 20-year span. Each of the other champions lost at least one final, so while Cameroon only added one trophy to their cabinet, they at least avoided the dread of a final defeat. Morocco, on the other hand, only got to taste the bitter side of an African Cup of Nations final.
If this is your type of content, then you’d be happy to know we ran similar Football Manager 2023 simulations for the World Cup, the European Championship, Copa América, the Champions League, and Europa League.
