A 21 year-old student from Sweden is now the manager of Baku FC's 'A' team' thanks to his experience with Football Manager. The role is essentially the reserve team manager of the Azerbaijan-based club. Vugar Huseynzade has only managed sides from his computer chair, but beat off the likes of Jean-Pierre Papin for the role. Huseynzade told Scandinavian newspaper Aftonbladet, “I've always wanted to work in football and have played Football Manager since 2002.”
Football Manager skills alone didn’t propel him to this position. A chance encounter with the vice-president of FC Baku helped him to get a job at the club as an assistant last February and he had a work experience placement with a sports agency in the USA. However, it looks as though the game was the main driving force behind his promotion when Kamran Ismayilov left by mutual consent after more than two years.
Gamers have tried to get jobs in football in the past thanks to their experience with games. One ambitious applicant applied for a managerial position at Middlesbrough in 2006 after his success with Football Manager 2005 in which he managed several clubs and was able to take Nuneaton Borough from Conference North to the Championship in eight seasons according to his application. Hundreds of other hopefuls previously applied for the Dumbarton job thanks to their FIFA 12 reputations.
For some reason we can’t get the image of Jay from The Inbetweeners bragging about how he was banned from playing Football Manager by the F.A. after his success. We wouldn’t advise quitting the day job in pursuit of your virtual management career in the hopes that it will lead to bigger and better things, but you never know how chance encounters and game skills can bolster your C.V.And who knows, if Chelsea keep firing managers at this rate it may have to look for those with little more than armchair experience.