Has Football Manager influenced or just predicted the future?

Freddy Guarin, Falcao, and Freddy Adu were really good in Football Manager, but let's see how they turned up in real life.

I doubt there’s anyone who played FM 2005 and doesn’t know Freddy Guarin, with his misspelt First Name.

How’s that? He’s called Fredy, without the double d. But did you know that?

It’s interesting how you remember so many things about him – probably some awesome long-range goals – yet you weren’t aware of the real name being spelled incorrectly.

He didn’t seem good enough to get a permanent deal at Boca Juniors, but Saint-Étienne decided to sign him after having him on loan for a season. But quick enough, after a year he was bought by Porto for €1 million. And eventually, Inter signed him for €10 million after they had him on loan.

Just one year later, Porto signed another Colombian

Yes, you’ve guessed it, we’re talking about Radamel. Now let’s have a look at Falcao’s profile page in the last FM edition he was still at River Plate:

falcao-still-at-river

He only scored 13 goals in 31 league matches that season. Other than that, he was capped only once and had no more than 67 minutes of playing time for Colombia.

But he was already very popular amongst FM fans, as he was performing much better in the game than in real life.

Porto found a very good reason to pay €5 million for the striker, only to sell him for €40 million two years later.

Another FM popular Freddy was Benfica’s choice

Freddy Adu was undoubtedly one of the best buys of Football Manager 2005. The 14-year-old became the youngest American ever to sign a major league professional contract.

This was his profile page on Football Manager 2007, in his last season before signing with Benfica:

Freddy-Adu

$2 million for a potential superstar wasn’t too much for Benfica, who thought they had hit gold with this signing. He was loaned to 4 different clubs before being eventually released.

Several of Europe’s elite clubs were reportedly monitoring his progress; he even had a two-week trial with Manchester United back then.

But what’s going on now with the player who was once dubbed the next Pele?

freddy-adu-peleHe is still looking for a club… Wait, no. He just signed with some Serbian club called Jagodina.

This is an extract from ESPN:

“As soon as Freddy can speak Serbian, I’m going to thank him for everything,” says the lifelong FK Jagodina fan.

“Everything. Every sleepless night, every trophy, every SuperLiga title and every Champions League. He has already won it all with Jagodina.” Zivanovic said.

Former Partizan player, Milos Zivanovic is referring to his experiences with the famous computer game Football Manager.

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