The Byline

Since its introduction to the Football Manager series in FM18, the Mezzala role has been hugely popular. Drenched in historic tradition, the role offers dynamism and creativity in the middle of the pitch and gives managers tremendous tactical flexibility. 

However, while a Mezzala can carry out several different responsibilities within a midfield, it’s not often thought of as a team’s main creative force. In this blog, Rock’s End FM uses Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne to change that perception and show how you can build your attacking threats around the Mezzala. 

Not every football manager is able to start a job with a clean slate. Indeed, in many instances they take over at a club in less-than-ideal circumstances. 

An excellent reflection of the real-life variety of situations that managers have to work with can be found in Football Manager 2023 Touch’s Challenge mode. All six Challenges parachute you into a ready-made scenario that’ll put your managerial skills to the test and perhaps give you some inspiration for your next long-term career.

Whether you’re playing on iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV, let’s dive into the options waiting for you to explore on Apple Arcade. 

There are few sweeter feelings for a Football Manager player than winning promotion. However, whether you’ve coasted to the title with a promotion favourite or upset the odds to triumph in the playoffs, acclimatising to the division above will be tough. 

Preparing for life after a promotion is never easy and can be quite daunting. How will your current squad fare at the next level? Will your 20-goal striker find the same space and time when playing against better central defenders, protected by better defensive midfielders? Can you afford to keep playing such a high defensive line against far stronger opposition attacks?

You’ll naturally want to upgrade your squad but you’ll invariably find yourself with a smaller wage and transfer budget than most of your new divisional rivals. 

To look at how you can find value in the transfer market and much more besides, here are six top tips from ThrowingCopperFM to help you master promotion in FM23.

As this season’s dramatic semi-finals have proved, the English Football League (EFL) Play-Offs provide unrivalled drama. From the elation of sealing promotion to the promised land to the gutwrenching disappointment of losing out on penalties, they put fans through every emotion possible.

To see who might be celebrating at Wembley this weekend, we’ve used Football Manager 2023 to simulate the finals across all three divisions. 

As football managers have become more comfortable sharing and discussing complex tactical concepts and terminology with the press and the public, the debate surrounding the sport grows ever richer. However, that also means sometimes the wider football conversation can become harder to follow as the concepts involved become more and more specialised. 

One such concept is ‘rest defence’, a term borrowed from German and Dutch football that is at times misunderstood. In this Byline post, Rock’s End FM explains exactly what Rest Defence is and how can we use it to improve our careers in Football Manager 2023.

Whether you’re a seasoned Football Manager player, or you’ve only just started your FM23 journey, there are always new things you can learn to improve your experience.  With the game featuring lots of changes every year, we’ve gone through our archive and found some of the best tips to get you one step closer to clinching silverware.

Youth Development is a massive part of everyone's Football Manager save. Developing our youngsters into world beaters brings an almost unparalleled sense of satisfaction, and FM23 gives us more control over the youth development process than ever before. Starting from well before Youth Intake Day, and running through years and years of a Newgen's time with the club, developing youngsters is an engaging and rewarding process.

K19x has come to The Byline to look at the very start of that journey: maximising your Youth Intakes to give you the best chance of unearthing those Wonderkids. 

As a sport, football is constantly evolving. From tactical shapes and playing styles to player roles, managers are always innovating in pursuit of making their teams more likely to win matches. 

Rock’s End FM recently came to The Byline to explain how you, like many of the world’s leading coaches, can master an effective press in FM23. 

Here, we’re going to look at the flipside of that and help you to identify some excellent press-resistant midfielders to give your latest career a boost.

Ever get halfway through a season, things are going well and then you’ve got certain players moaning at you for not playing enough, or teammates complaining to each other about treating a player unfairly? You’re not alone.

The Dynamics tab in Football Manager 2023 is an essential tool to helping you maintain a happy and successful squad. Will Goddard takes a deep dive into all of its key features and what it can tell you about your players and their social groups.  

Since the 1970s, pressing has become increasingly important in football. As more teams focus on regaining the ball quickly and efficiently, pressing with commitment and intelligence is key to success in the modern game. 

Pressing is vital to most Football Manager 2023 tactics. Here, Rock’s End FM provides a detailed guide to help you master the press. 

In modern football, it’s very hard to find elite central defenders at an affordable price. Their steep increase in value makes sense when you look at the duties they have to perform and the requisite attributes to fulfil those duties. It is a role that necessitates not only extraordinary cerebral and physical abilities but also the ability to lead and organise a defensive line.

On the pitch, a team's central defender is its foundation. They provide defensive stability and offer the launchpad for attacks from behind. There are five role options available in Football Manager 2023 for players operating in central defence – Central Defender, Ball-Playing Defender, No-Nonsense Centre-Back, Libero and, the most recent addition, the Wide Centre-Back. Here, Guido Merry breaks down the five roles and explains how to identify good talents for each one in FM23. 

This article could, in all honesty, have just consisted of an image of Lionel Messi. However, that wouldn’t be all that helpful for encouraging all of you to use one of my favourite roles in Football Manager, the False Nine, more often.

In this blog, Ihor Crusadertsar outlines the key characteristics of an ideal False Nine before highlighting some FM23 formations geared towards maximising the False Nine's unique skillset.