Turn-based football? That'll never work!

Whilst not the first game to attempt to make a TBS game out of the sport, this is perhaps the best implementation of it. It has all the things you'd like to see - player growth and development, stats, stats & more stats and a relatively engrossing match engine. Not that you have to actually play the matches though - it's easy but also quite fun to just manage from the sidelines (as I did for 95% of my 56 hours spent on it.)

I suspect the challenge would be ramped-up at higher skill levels - you can see where the AI could be more ruthless, for example - but this made for a relaxing game to play armchair manager and, like the 'proper' football management games out there, the end point is whatever you choose it to be. For me, that was winning the Premier League 3 seasons in a row, including a double and a treble. That's a pretty good career, I reckon - doubtless you could do better!