I Never Saw Him Play but We Were the Best of Friends for Years: A Case Study Exploring the Pseudosocial Relationships of Football Manager Bloggers

Football management games have long been a successful computer game genre combining the worlds of passionate and opinionated football fans and gamers obsessed with overachievements in quasi-reality environments. These types of games propel the consumer into a newfound intertextual “reality.” It is here that feelings of identification are played out and where pseudosocial relationships begin to develop. This article charts such relationships, as they are explicated online in the form of online blogs. Through analysing the content of Championship Manager/Football Manager blogs, data show how game players speak frequently of pseudosocial relationships, characterised in this case study by emotions of loyalty and friendship. Many have nostalgic tales from past achievements and bonds with individual players that bridge the many iterations of the game over the past 15 years. This study highlights experiences, as cited by bloggers, which transcends physical and virtual realities.