This game was one of my favorites to play as a youngster in the late 80s and early 90s. You play the role of a single footballer and you have to help work your teams (hopefully) to the top of the league and in the end maybe even get yourself into the national team!
The main difference between this and other football management games is the fact that you have to play out different moves in an attempt to score goals for your team.
These moves are known as goal cards and can be bought before each match by you for a certain amount of money. You pick your goal cards and these give you random blackboard tactics plans. Each goal card gives you a scoring chance - but only if you get in the right position at the right time. You can however only use up to a maximum of 3 goal cards per game. This is one of the most addictive parts of the game - learning all the different plays can take hours to perfect, but its all worth it when you've mastered each different play and end up banging home the goals. However be warned that the graphics are probably the worst ever
witnessed on the Spectrum!
This leads is to my other favorite part of the game - the trivia questions. This part of the game is where you can make the most money to pay for goal cards (the other way is that you will receive higher wages the better you perform). It is done in the form of a double or nothing game where you can gamble between a minimum of £1 and a maximum of £500. You can collect at any stage after getting a question right with a limit of 3 double ups - but be warned the questions can get very difficult. I remember my way round this was to have a book with all the different questions in (categorized into sections such as - footballer of the years/European cup winners/managers of clubs etc) and the answers to each which kept me in good stead.
All in all I found Footballer of the Year 2 to be a vast improvement on the original and any fans of the original should definitely give this game a go. However I believe it is limited in its enjoyment by the short time it takes to complete the game, as within a couple of hours you will be sure to have the tactics mastered and be winner of all 4 trophies - leading to the biggest triumph of all – footballer of the year!
