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.

Visit the Byline on the Football Manager website to see the nine teams that you should take charge of to banish the holiday blues.

Have you ever wondered where the player attributes, club data and stadium information in Football Manager come from? We enlist more than 1,000 researchers across the world are employed to who help put our database together but that wasn’t always the case. The research team started out quite small in the mid-1990s but has expanded almost exponentially since then.

Our researchers are fans of the series, just like us, and many of them took on their roles because they were passionate about their clubs, domestic leagues and national football setups and they wanted to ensure they were represented accurately in the game.

Indeed, many of those who have worked as researchers for Football Manager 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.

Oliver Zesiger is our Swiss head researcher and he has been involved with FM for more than a decade. Read our complete interview with him on The Byline.

Secure the summer’s best deal with Football Manager 2020 now 50% off on Steam.

FM is the perfect companion for these summer months, letting you transport yourself to any one of 51 nations from the comfort of your own home.

Buying FM20 on Steam gets you the pre-game editor and FM20 Touch for PC/Mac for free, while those of you who took advantage of our free fortnight can continue your progress by purchasing now.

Create your story today.

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. This was certainly the perception in the early years of the role’s introduction with fans confused at the exact nature of the position. 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. Read our Byline article on how they can help and why you should seriously think about employing one.

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.

Schalke fans might not have had a great deal to cheer about domestically, but the club has had enjoyed some success in Europe. They bagged the EURO Cup in 1996/97 and have made regular appearances in the knockout rounds of the both the Champions Cup and EURO Cup in recent years. Your ultimate aim should be to bring some European silverware back to the Veltins-Arena.

You’ll be up against Schalke’s fierce rivals Borussia Dortmund at the top of the table and will initially be the underdog in that particular rivalry. Der BVB have a wonderkid-laden side of their own so overhauling them will be no mean feat. Here’s everything you need to know to make that happen.

We’ve been profiling teams across the length and breadth of Germany, analysing the Bundesliga teams you should manage in Football Manager 2020. In this latest installment, we turn our attention to VfL Wolfsburg.

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 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 over another team we looked at in this series, Hertha BSC.

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.

In recent years the club have focused on marketing themselves as a clean, family-friendly club. Harnessing that community support and ending their hoodoo in the league with a squad replete with wonderkids is a Football Manager dream scenario. Read our Byline article for all you need to know before heading to North-Rhine Westphalia.

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.

But those darker times are in the rear-view. The Billygoats clinched the Bundesliga 2 title at the first time of asking, securing a return to the big time. Now’s the time to look forward once more.

Your job as manager in FM20 is to keep the team up, something that can be just as exhilarating as challenging at the top of the league, so read our Byline article for our full team report.

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.

This is a club where the fans are everything. They volunteered to help rebuild the stadium’s crumbling terraces in 2008, ensuring that they didn’t have their professional licence revoked. Others united behind the ‘Bleed for Union’ campaign, putting the money they received for giving blood towards a fund that helped the club stave off bankruptcy.

Their immense loyalty was rewarded with success in the 2018/19 season, when they made good on a 17-game unbeaten run to start the season, finishing third overall and defeating VfB Stuttgart in the play-off to secure a first-ever promotion to the top-flight.

Second clubs in cities always find a place in the heart of the romantic football fan, and with the tide of history on your side, they’re the perfect candidate for a new save. Click here to read our Byline article for everything you need to do before you get to work at the Stadion An der Alten Förtserei (bit of a mouthful, sorry).

Berlin is a bustling city renowned for its nightlife, culture and historical landmarks. It’s fair to say though that it’s less associated with is success on the pitch.

Hertha Berlin are the city’s most popular club and one of Germany’s oldest but it’s been nearly 90 years since they were last crowned German champions. The team’s had significant investment pumped in this season from businessman Lars Windhorst who wants the team to compete with the Bundesliga big boys. That allowed for a load of high-profile signings in the January transfer window.

Money, a strong squad and the chance to make history - sounds like a perfect candidate for an FM20 save. Click here to read our Byline article on everything you need to know before you pack your bags for Berlin.