The Backroom Staff - SI Head of Research - Argentina: Facundo Ignacio Delgado

SI Head of Research - Argentina: Facundo Ignacio Delgado

The work behind Football Manager - the ultimate football game

For decades, Football Manager (FM) has captivated millions, earning its place as one of the most beloved (and influential) sports video games of all time. What truly sets it apart, however, is the deep collaboration between its developers and the global community of fans who bring the game to life.

Memed as the ‘spreadsheet game’ for its unparalleled depth, FM has become more than just a simulation. Thousands of fans contribute everything from custom logos and expanded leagues to the very research that underpins its legendary database. Behind the scenes, volunteers worldwide help maintain the game’s authenticity, ensuring every player, staff member, and team reflects real-life performance.

Facundo Ignacio Delgado has spent the last 15 years leading Football Manager’s research efforts in Argentina - one of football’s most iconic nations. As Sports Interactive’s (SI) lead researcher in the country, Facundo oversees a team of over 40 volunteers scouting and assessing players and staff.

In this interview, Facundo shares how he and his team keep FM at the cutting edge of realism, the challenges of tracking emerging talent, and why this work is so rewarding for football fans everywhere.

The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

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[ How did you get involved in Football Manager? ]

I played football as a kid, but I was never a talented player - I was a goalkeeper, so I guess that says it all! I knew early on that I wouldn’t have a playing career in football but I always wanted to be a coach or somehow work in the football industry somehow.

I was really invested in football management games - at the time it was PC Fùtbol, I don’t know if it rings any bells outside South America but it was the first football game we played in Argentina. It was the opening into Championship Manager and Football Manager, which I discovered later. Playing these games, I loved the management aspects of the football industry, the scouting and everything related to running a club.

I became a very addicted player and was active in Spanish speaking forums about Football Manager. Sometimes we’d get insights into the Argentina research that was being done at the time and I guess I was just kind of in a visible position. I was offered a research role for Argentina over 10 years ago and have been involved ever since.

[ How does Football Manager’s popularity in Argentina compare to Europe? ]

I think it's growing, and we like to think we are part of that. When we started, we were managing the full research through forums. Over time we realized that there were other players out there that we weren’t reaching so we started a Twitter account and started growing a community. Over time, more and more people found out about Football Manager and it’s gaining popularity. Now, we have almost 50,000 followers, mostly from Argentina - we organize events and games with them too. I think during the pandemic, a lot of people found out about Football Manager and we also did interviews on TV, radio and podcasts to shine a light on it. So even though it’s not as popular as in the UK or Europe, it’s definitely growing.

[ What is your current role at Sports Interactive? ]

I'm what it's called a ‘Head of Research’ (HR). I'm responsible for all the data that is collected for Argentina in the game. It’s a role that is different depending on the country - there are countries where the Head of Research is the only one and does all the work. In Argentina, we have 45 people involved. So I’m in touch with and leading this team of 45. We have a few assistant coordinators and then assistant researchers (ARs) who are the actual scouts who go to the matches and watch matches on TV and report the data.

The structure that we have in Argentina is kind of unique because not many countries have that level of assistance which allows us to cover a lot of games and a lot of divisions. We have monthly calls to review data, we have debates and discussions - we’re a sort of ‘organization’ without being an organization - everyone does this in their free time on a volunteer basis.

They are absolutely ‘freaks’ of the game and data! We’re lucky to have people who love the research process and want to be absolutely sure that the players - even from very obscure teams - are well represented with accurate data.

[ Are the ARs responsible for one specific team or a league or a region - how is this divided? ]

It depends - in the first division we try to have one person dedicated to each team. But, as you might know, Argentina’s league structure is becoming massive - we’re looking at 30 teams next season in the first division and 40 in the second division which is a huge mess.

So, in practice, whenever possible, especially for the big teams we have one person dedicated. Otherwise, we have people who cover multiple teams or even an entire region. We have one guy from Mar del Plata - a city outside Buenos Aires - he’s single handedly taking all the teams from that region. He’s actually gotten very popular lately and worked with one of the teams on a project.

A lot of the researchers build relationships with the teams they cover. They build a network and in some cases they have moved into paid jobs as a scout - these are success stories for us.

[ Are you still watching matches and making reports in your role? ]

My role has changed since the beginning. Now I'm delegating responsibilities and overseeing the whole process. I still get involved in the discussions, especially for the higher profile players that will have an impact in the game. I also communicate a lot with the other HRs from other countries. The Argentinian leagues send a lot of players abroad and receive a lot of players and the process of how players are evaluated can be different in different countries. I work as a sort of ‘middleman’ in these interactions.

[ How can you and your team assess players across leagues and calibrate the appropriate level for each player? ]

It's definitely very difficult! There are a lot of subjective opinions because you can think Player A is better than Player B - and maybe he is - but if Player A is playing in a lower, or less demanding league, that will trigger a lot of discussions.

We try to be as objective as possible by relying as much on data as we can. Of course, we still watch the player in matches and use tools like Wyscout to get a more accurate view. We don’t usually talk about players by their current ability (CA - basically their ‘overall ability score’) but rather in terms of their individual attributes. We can look at, for example, the average finishing attribute in the Spanish or German league and we can compare an ‘average’ player’s statistics and try to extrapolate this to Latin American leagues.

Again, that’s our approach and it’s not the same everywhere - so there are moments we have heated arguments with the other HRs! We don’t always agree but we try to find a middle point, it’s an ongoing effort.

[ Do you have to get ‘approval’ from the central teams at SI or are you completely in control of player ratings? ]

We have a lot of free room to use our judgment. There are also a lot of data accuracy checklists - for example, we can be asked to review the data again for players with outlier attributes. But ultimately we kind of have the last word and you can always make a case for our evaluation. It’s a very friendly working environment from that perspective.

[ The standard version of the game only has the top two divisions in Argentina as ‘playable’ - but you’re scouting below this level too? ]

Argentina has always has the first and second division in the official version. That being said, anyone who knows anyone playing Football Manager knows that many people like to manage teams in very, very low leagues and try to take them to glory. It’s kind of the ‘heart’ of Football Manager, which means that a lot of the players in our community, from all around Argentina, want to manage their local clubs. So we have some sort of responsibility to make sure they can engage with the game in the way they want.

We have the resources, 40+ people around the country. Even though it’s not asked of us in the official game, we have the capacity to cover the third and fourth divisions as well, so we do that.

—^interviewer’s note: the official version of Football Manager 2024 has 126 leagues across 54 countries but players in the community are known to create downloadable versions with more countries and leagues

[ Besides the individual attributes, how do you find all the additional information about each player? (e.g. second nationalities, preferred staff, favorite clubs, personality, etc) ]

I think one of the things that goes unnoticed for most people outside the FM ecosystem is that we have a huge network. If you take into account all the scouts for all other countries, there are more than 15,000 people involved. Some of those already work within a club, or know someone working in a club - so we have a huge amount of information.

As the game becomes more familiar to people outside the gaming industry, we have been approached by some federations in South America to search for players with a second nationality of their federation.

The way we do this research is essentially just networking. Knowing the right people, people with access to this information. In some cases, it’s a more ‘brute force’ strategy - we look at a player’s social media profiles and find out about them. Sometimes we just reach out too. I remember Rodrigo De Paul - now at Atlético Madrid - we reached out to him before he even made his professional debut at Racing, so we already knew his favorite team back then!

I think the most difficult part is the financial portion because you never have the information for all the clubs and it can unbalance the game for everyone. We collect all the information we can for the clubs and the wages that we know and then we’ve created a statistical approach to reconvert that information into something that can be used for all clubs in Argentina. So it’s a mixed approach.

[ Do you ever get the wrong information? ]

Yes, we’ve had cases where we get approached on Twitter - usually by non-playing staff who reach out to correct something, like ‘I was never at that club’, and we go and correct it.

We’ve also had the opposite - people who aren’t in the game but are working at a club and want to be ‘created’. Then we ask them not only their job and job history but also their preferences and put that information into the game.

[ How common is it for clubs interested in using Football Manager e.g. for scouting? ]

In Argentina, there are a few clubs aware of FM and the power of its database that have reached out to see if they can get information. We get a lot of requests for free information, which we’ve started to deny. Occasionally, we’ve gone to clubs and offered consulting services.

Because data and data analysis is becoming more and more common, a lot of people in football are looking into this but most of them don’t have the background to do this analysis effectively. We’ve talked to teams about how we can help them, not with the game itself but our process of collecting and analyzing data can be a valuable resource for teams.

The people involved with Football Manager’s analysis can be the ‘go-to’ people but there’s still a judgemental barrier because they don’t have a football background. I think this barrier is breaking, as it becomes more common. The use of data in football is already well established in Europe and North America, in Latin America, there are some good examples but it still needs a little more of a push.

[ Have you also taken inspiration from how football clubs’ scouting processes to build your process? ]

Oh, it's a very difficult situation. There are a couple of cases we saw recently, a big club in the first division - we spoke with the head of their scouting department because we wanted to see if we could offer some of our services. Turns out, he was the 5th tier in the club’s chain of decisions - the head of scouting was 5th when it came to transfers!

You can just look around the teams in Argentina, especially in the first division and see how players are brought in with no research whatsoever, players that don’t fit the system. Recently, Boca Juniors bought Brian Aguirre - a winger - and their coach (at the time) Diego Martínez was using a tactic without wingers! This situation is common at many teams - also in other countries but in Argentina particularly.

There’s still a lot of influence from agents and people not from the scouting world who want to sign big names based on reputation and connections.

[ The new version of Football Manager usually comes out in the fall and there are usually a few updates to the database later - how is the balance from your side between preparing for ‘next year’ vs current updates? ]

What I tell everyone that comes on board the Argentina research process is that scouting is a never ending process. We have the tools to update on the spot. Even though we do have internal deadlines, anyone can update the information at any point in time, so we have some flexibility.

So we are updating all the time and with e.g. the January transfer update, usually it’s a nightmare for us because that works for Europe but the calendar is different in Latin America. Thankfully, the community has a lot of patches and updates that can correct anything we miss.

[ Do you still play Football Manager yourself? (do you always sign the players you have perfect knowledge of? :) ) ]

I have ups and downs, but right now I am playing Football Manager more than I should - I’m playing a lot right now!

I try not to (use the players he knows). I’m kind of a nerd for playing in obscure leagues, in Asia or the Caribbean so my knowledge doesn’t work in those areas! I like finding out about new teams and players. I like to get a shirt from the clubs I manage and have it in my collection too.

[ I saw you’re doing a sports business degree, do you have plans for a more full time role in football? ]

I started studying economics but when I found this degree was available, I switched over to sports business. I don't know if I will dedicate 100% to a career in football. It depends a lot, especially in Argentina, on the network you have. In my ideal scenario, I’d like to move to Europe and work in the scouting department or the management process for a club in the Premier League or Championship. But again, I’m, I wouldn’t say comfortable but I’ve been working 10 years at Accenture and I’m nearing 40 years old, so it’s kind of a philosophical decision if I should switch from stability to chasing a dream. For now, I’m just studying because I really like it and we’ll see in the future.

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