If you’re a master of Football Manager, one MLS club might have a gig for you

One MLS team has taken a rather unusual step to bolster their scouting efforts.

Padraig Smith, sporting director of Colorado Rapids, revealed in an article published in Vice Sports that his club have been using Football Manager to aid their scouting network. “The number of leagues that are covered, the number of players that are covered, it really gives us a lot of information that can be slightly trickier to come by, and works as a nice starting point,” Smith explains. Whereas the game's database features over half a million entries, a decision to use it to help with player recruitment might well raise a few eyebrows. Smith does add that the club would never sign a player exclusively from Football Manager information, but this story shows how valuable the database can be in providing such a wealth of information. "One of the great things about the Football Manager database is the sheer breadth of the information that's in there," he says. “It provides another resource that would add to your due diligence reports.” After Sky Sports also began using its database to analyse the attributes of players, it appears we could be hearing plenty more about Football Manager.