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Interview to MustermanFM

Today we have MustermanFM, who is known to Football Manager audiences for designing Skins over the years and for delving into the Moneyball theme applied to football on FM. Before we delve into Football Manager, Skins and Moneyball would you tell us a little bit about yourself?

First, thank you very much for the interview (and the kits, too)!!
I’m Geoff, I’m 39, based in England and I’m a Football Manager-aholic. Whilst my love for football itself has ebbed and waned over the years (often directly related to how my team was performing), Championship Manager and Football Manager has always remained a constant. Perhaps, because of how my team was performing. After all, in a virtual world, I can set them on the right path.

What is your earliest memory of Football Manager?

As someone who predates Football Manager, my earliest memories would actually be Championship Manager Italia. I didn’t own the game myself, but would go round a friend’s house after school every afternoon to play it. We didn’t know what we were doing. We often oversaw some of Internazionale’s worst ever performances in their history. But we were addicted.
That said, CM03/04 is the one I am most fond of. That was around the time I turned 18 and had free time in the evenings (specifically, no homework). Subsequently, it might have stunted any social life I could’ve had!

We mentioned the skin talk. As we know your skin is very unique, it has hidden values and very compelling graphics. How did the idea of creating such a unique skin come about?

It started the same way as I think it does for many, by wanting to make minor changes specifically to my preference. If I remember correctly, I was using a custom skin for FM21 and they had changed fitness and match sharpness back to percentages. As someone who preferred the vagueness of the hearts, I wanted to just change that one aspect back.
From there, it kind of got out of hand!
I’ve played Championship Manager and Football Manager for a very long time, and the idea of making the game more challenging/diverse excited me. Sebastian_starttrbts & Tyburn’s graphical attribute skins were a massive inspiration. They sat neatly between the normal experience and the fully attributeless approach - making it harder to distinguish between players without making it impossible.
A big desire of mine was to use the graphical attribute approach to then encourage more of a focus on performance. It was around the same time the Data Hub was introduced, and FM was expanding more in that area. But the ultimate goal was always Pizza Charts. I love how they provide a high-level overview of a player profile.
There was a problem, though. Skinning isn’t coding. It uses markup language (like html) - which allows you to call and arrange functions that already exist in the game. Pizza Charts don’t exist in the game, and the Data Hub charts were not possible to manipulate. Eventually, it took TCS bringing back attribute bars for one of his updates. That opened up possibilities we hadn’t considered. Working with _Ben_ (Statman skin) we realised we could manipulate other functions to do things that were completely unintended.
In this case, the match rating label. This is a function that changes the colour of the text and the background depending on what match rating a player was given. Discovering that we could assign graphics to this, and define ranges, allowed us to explore ways of visualising data in an entirely new way. 100 hours, 444 unique graphics and 72,000 lines of xml later, and the pizza charts were born.
I was also becoming more conscious of how easily overwhelmed I would get by the interface. A lot of information crammed on to the screen, very little that I actually used. That overload, for me, made things harder to digest. I would click on a player’s profile to look for some information, get overwhelmed, forget what I was looking for and click off.
This led me to question why I was putting information on the screen. What purpose did it serve? Is this the right place for that information? What should this screen be?
I tried to be as solution agnostic as possible. Rather than considering what I know is shown on a screen, or what others have done, I wanted to look at it from the perspective of “what information would I expect on a player overview?” (or home page, or competition screen, etc…). One of the biggest realisations that came out of this process was that having a tidbit of information on an overview page often discouraged me from using the dedicated subscreens that often provided greater context. As a result, the conclusion was often that “overview” pages should be for high level information; providing the headlines.
Those two factors (graphical attributes & decluttering) drove a lot of design decisions. I spoke with UI/UX professionals to understand modern trends, such as the use of white space, how rounded corners create a gentler user experience, and how vertical scrolling can be used to create a flow of information. I then put together a set of design rules for when to use tabs, buttons, popups, etc… to try and get some consistency throughout.
I say “try” because ultimately, I am still a complete amateur. An amateur who gets carried away with buttons. Because buttons are fun (it should be noted that the lack of social life might have impacted my idea of what is “fun”).

What advice would you give to a Football Manager neophyte using your skin for the first time?

Relax. Take it slowly. If you’re unfamiliar with taking a data-led approach, then the best way to do so is to break it down into small pieces.
What do I want from a player? If they are a midfielder, for example, what is their role. Are they meant to be winning the ball back and playing safe passes? Or maybe you want them surging forwards and scoring goals. Perhaps, you’re looking for someone creative. Focus on identifying what you want them to do, and then look for the data that corresponds to it.

Concluding the Skin talk, on your YouTube channel and other social, you also talk about Moneyball and described how to apply it to Football Manager. What led you to apply it to the game? What is the biggest difficulty in playing with Moneyball? Any advice you would give to someone who is new to the FM world?

Perversely, my interest in Moneyball comes from my interest in American Football. Which seems like a dumb thing to say because Moneyball was actually about baseball. My American Football team - the Cleveland Browns - hired one of the key proponents of the Moneyball approach used famously by the Oakland Athletics baseball team, and that caused me to learn a little bit more about it.
The idea of finding players who are often overlooked goes hand-in-hand with how I like to play Football Manager. Everyone knows that Kylian Mbappe is good. And managing him in Football Manager is fun. But the stories I remember are about the obscure Mongolian left-back I signed for €10,000 who propelled the club to glory. Moneyball is just a way of trying to find those players.
The biggest difficulty would be that there isn’t a single statistic that indicates success. Where the Oakland Athletics focussed on On-Base-Percentage (how often a batter would get to the next base), football is a lot more fluid, and players are expected to do multiple different things. Depending on your team, your tactic, the player’s position, etc… the metrics you are looking for are going to be different each time.
For those starting out, the answer above would be the starting point. Break it down into small pieces. Look at players you know, think about what they do, and see what their metrics are. This can be a great starting point. Obviously, if you look at Mbappe as your starting point, you’ll need to adjust your expectations down when searching for the next hero of the Latvian league.

FM25 is supposed to come out in March (if all goes well). What do you expect from this chapter that will open a new era?

I’m an easy man to please. I only expect the core: to manage the club I want with real players, to be able to buy/sell players, to make tactics that translate onto the pitch, and to manage games. Those are things that SI have a track record of doing very well, and are ultimately why I enjoy the game. Everything else is a bonus.
Obviously, I hope that the data side of things will be expanded and allow us to drill even further. I hope that the game will create a world for stories to emerge and challenges to overcome. I hope the UI won’t overwhelm me!
My biggest hope, however, is that this new chapter provides a platform to build upon. I want the data to be deeper. I want those stories to be richer. And I want those challenges to feel intense. All whilst still being fun.

Do you have future plans as far as Football Manager is concerned?

I try not to look too far ahead. Perhaps it is a result of skinning, and doing Moneyball-related content, but planning for the unknown can be wasteful. For example, I could plan a Moneyball dashboard for FM25, but if metrics change or new ones are introduced, the ones I’ve chosen to base it on might not be the best options. If I go in with a preconceived idea, I might miss something more useful. Similarly, if I plan specific content and that proves to be impossible, I have set myself up for unnecessary disappointment.
So, for the time being, the focus is on refining what I currently do. I have recently started streaming, and that is most definitely a huge learning process. My utmost respect for those who have mastered the art, because multi-tasking is no mean feat! For YouTube, I am constantly trying to find new ways to tell stories and provide interesting ways of exploring data-led recruitment. That should keep me occupied until FM25 comes out, and I can see how that might change things.

You recently landed on the Twitch platform. What brought you to Twitch? Can you tell us a little bit about your content and what your viewers should expect?

What brought me to Twitch? Masochism, perhaps! Joking aside, it seemed like a natural extension of what I was doing on YouTube. YouTube is great for stories and guides and experiments, but it is very much at arms length. Twitch allows me to connect more with the community, as well as challenge myself in an unfamiliar environment.
Currently, I’m streaming on Monday and Thursdays at 8pm CEST with a create-a-club in Serie A called AC Moneyball. All players were selected based on performance-data from my YouTube series. It’s relaxed and conversational; with the occasional smattering of the unhinged. Which is probably the best way to describe all my content. Sensible, until it’s not.
I am probably going to go a little bit against my previous answer here. I started streaming this month (October) in preparation for FM25. I wanted to test it out, and see whether it was something I’d look to continue when the new game is released. I absolutely love it!!!
But that does mean the AC Moneyball series was only ever intended to be a short series. So, when the inevitable sack comes (we are very bad), I’ll be looking at something a little more long-term for FM24. What that is, ultimately, will come down to a vote with my audience.

Besides Football Manager, do you have any other passions?

As mentioned earlier, I am a massive NFL fan. Fortunately, my Cleveland Browns have a history of not being very good, so they are rarely a “Prime Time” game - which means I don’t have to stay up until 5am to watch them. Unfortunately, I’m an idiot, and I still stay up until that time to watch teams I don’t support!
My other passion is music. I’ve been playing bass guitar since I was 14. Like most bassists: because I failed at playing “proper” guitar. I have since got to grips with the 6-stringed variant, but bass is definitely my instrument. Maybe it’s the rumble of those low growling strings. Maybe it’s because I get to hide in the background where no-one actually pays attention to what you’re doing.

In conclusione, per quale squadra tifi? Idolo calcistico?

I’m an Aston Villa fan. And I can blame that on another childhood friend. My family were never particularly interested in football. My best friend’s family, however, were. Originally from Birmingham, they were Villa fans, and so that was the team I knew the most about.
It’s difficult to narrow down to a single idol. Diego Ribas da Cunha is a player I‘ve always admired. Specifically his time at Werder Bremen. Innovative, graceful, always one step ahead of the opposition. Such a joy to watch.
But, if pressed for an absolute favourite, it would be Aston Villa’s Ian Taylor. A local lad, who took a circuitous route to get to the club. A proper English box-to-box midfielder. Full of graft and running. Scored so many important goals for us, and had a forehead as large as Gibraltar.

Interview conducted by @SELLECK87.
Thanks to MustemanFM for the interview granted. It is possible to ask more questions to the interviewee in this topic