There’s a FREE version of a Retro Football Manager game – and I’m addicted
I love Football Manager. And I loved Championship Manager. So imagine my joy when I discovered Retro Football Management, the game that combines the best of both – and it’s free to play!
After a one-year hiatus, the Football Manager series is returning in 2026, with the beta release on October 23 ahead of the full game’s launch on November 4.
And, as always, fans can expect a host of new features to sink their teeth into. Indeed, Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive’s studio director, explained the reason there was no release last year was that they hadn’t yet achieved ‘the big leap that we wanted’. So we can safely assume this game is going to be markedly different to FM24.
I’ll no doubt give it a go at some point and no doubt enjoy it too, but playing Football Manager is a hell of a commitment these days and sometimes I just want to smash out a season in an evening. It’s why I still sometimes play classic versions of Championship Manager from time to time.
There’s a time and a place for both experiences, but let’s face it, a large part of the thrill of management games revolves around signing the best players and winning as many games and trophies as possible. Enter Retro Football Management.
Quick and simple
Free to download and free to play, RFM26 has just launched with updated squads and improved transfer and scouting functionalities – but it really is beautifully simple.
A match takes around 10 seconds (TEN!) to play out on full speed, and I completed a full season in just over an hour. I’ve spent that much time obsessing over squad numbers on FM before!
You can play leagues from 14 countries – England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Scotland, Turkey, Portugal, Netherlands, Switzerland, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and the USA – and not just the top divisions either. If you want to take on Dumbarton in the Scottish third tier, knock yourself out.
I predictably opted to take on the team I support, Stoke, to give myself a busman’s holiday, and I was delighted to inherit a budget of £8.64million, some extremely generous player valuations – Chinonso Chibueze tops the list at £22million despite never having played a league game for us – and a pretty undaunting season objective to finish in the top half.
It is, at least in my experience so far, a fairly easy game: I finished sixth, although we can’t yet rule out the possibility that I am just very good at it.
How did I do it? Well, my signings during the season were Miguel Almiron, Marc Bartra and Javier Hernandez if that answers your question.
At 31, Almiron was the pup of the group, but my strategy very much consisted of signing high-profile players irrespective of their age.
And signing a player could not be easier. There are no protracted negotiations with the club or player, you’re simply presented with a list of prospective signings by your scout and then sign them with a single click at a pre-ordained price. Bartra was my most expensive purchase at £3.19million.
My Dad’s Army plan did come with a drawback that is probably the single biggest consideration you’ll have playing the game: fatigue.
Whereas my younger players would almost always be at or very close to 100% readiness, my merry band of 30-somethings would be wiped out by every game they played and so needed to be constantly rotated.
Maybe if I hadn’t been playing games at full speed and had taken the time to make subs, it could have been different. But the buzz of completing a game in 10 seconds is a hard one to give up, let me tell you.
Losing games doesn’t matter when you can play another one in less than a minute!
And fatigue really is the only consideration when picking a team. Apart from that, just pick your highest-rated players in a formation of your choice and you’re away.
Once in a blue moon I would change my approach to the match from neutral to defensive or offensive, but it cannot be stressed enough just how low effort RFM is.
Low effort, high fun
But low effort certainly doesn’t mean low fun. I loved it!
There are probably dozens of more involved things I could have done, too – and maybe I will in time – but this is the absolute perfect game to play without really needing to think, lying on the sofa with the TV on in the background.
It’s not trying to compete with Football Manager; it’s a completely different experience for a different mood, or for anyone who can’t be bothered with the more in-depth management games.
As well as fatigue, the other main thing you’ll need to manage during a season is your balance.
But, as with everything else, it’s wonderfully simple: wages go out, ticket sales come in (for home matches only, obviously) and your balance updates accordingly. It goes down after away games but goes up after home games.
Or at least it should do if you don’t saddle the club with a load of OAPs on expensive contracts. I paid literally zero attention to what any of them earned until one week I didn’t have enough money in the bank to fulfil a fixture.
Fortunately, it was simply solved by selling a player who wasn’t playing anyway, once again within two clicks. This is not a game that will stress you out.
The other way you can earn money is by watching adverts. You’ll need to watch one every so often between games even if you haven’t chosen to do so, but you get a £1million for doing so, which is a more than fair trade-off when you’ve got Marc f*cking Barta sat there waiting to sign for you but need a few extra quid to make up the fee.
And you can actually control the number of ads you see in the settings. If you want to build up your budget for transfers, turn them up, but if you just want to play through as quickly as you can, set them on low.
You’ll also see some completely inoffensive ads at the bottom of your screen, but it’s otherwise an ad-free experience. The whole thing is honestly a joy!
You can compete against friends on the leaderboards to add another layer of enjoyment, but I think it’s very possible that I haven’t yet unlocked what will be my favourite thing about the game: the ability to play seasons from years gone by.
Incredibly, you can go as far back as 1974-75 in most countries, with the actual players from those seasons, but you need to win points to unlock them.
For finishing sixth and some other achievements like keeping a clean sheet and having a player score a hat-trick, I amassed 640 points in my first season and unlocked a handful of other years, including 74-75, but it’s 5,000 points to unlock a season of your choice. Or a very reasonable 99p if you can’t wait.
I also got a £3million boost to my budget and an extra 3,000 added to the capacity of my stadium as an extra revenue generator if I want to carry on playing with the modern-day team, but first I’m off to manage Peter Shilton, Alan Hudson, Geoff Hurst and co. for a year back in the 70s.
It’s free, it’s brilliant, and I’m hooked!
Download RFM26 on Google Play or the App Store today.
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