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Loading is slow. After what seems several aeons - give or take an era - the delightful strains of Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever ring out. This tune is known to some as Be Kind to Your Web-footed Friends but is better known as Here We Go, Here We Go, Here We Go. The subtlety of the lyrical nuance is delightfully understated.

After choosing keyboard or joystick, a list of teams is offered, Obviously Mr. Toms - the originator - uses an obscure method of computer telepathy at this stage because the team you will want is not on the list; the omission of Ardrossan Winton Rovers is a great loss to humanity.

Sponsorship is the next offering. This allows you up to £50,000 instant cash. It will need to be spent fairly early on, as the initial squad is desperately small.

The next important business is the team position selection. The new system allows marking of the opposition and half-time substitution, at which time the team can be reshuffled if improvements are deemed necessary.

The opposition positions and skills are shown, and you can either match skill with skill, or attempt to exploit a weak spot.

Next comes the match itself. Football Manager 2 gives the player as much control over the playing of the match as the original, this being none at all.

But gone are the block graphics and slow screen update. Instead, neatly animated weeny players rush about in a frenzy. They stick closely to their positions, well enough to be identifiable to a man.

The pitch is split into three parts - defence, midfield and attack - and flicks, rather than scrolls. This allows faster action, and is much easier to program. Players pass and tackle with varying degrees of success, and move at roughly scale speed.

Only abbreviated highlights of the game are shown, each match lasting just long enough to hold the interest without boring. The results and league table are printed out at the end of the match.

The team can be given extra passing training. Players can be bought and sold, but bids are competitive, so you always have to stump up more than you think. Too many low bids, and the player is withdrawn from the market. Bargain basement Maradonas are out of the question.

Very little of the actual running of he club is given to the manager. Far more emphasis is put on playing the matches, the eventual aim being the treble of league and two cups. This will take several weeks, so a save game option is welcome.

The realism is quite astonishing; if a player is not completely fit he can be seen to be playing worse than usual.

The game is surprisingly full of features for a single-load product and the addition of various skill levels ensures that Football Manager 2 will stay off the back shelf for months.

This is going to be completely free of football cliches. Nobody is going to be over the moon, sick as a parrot, giving one hundred and ten percent or even sticking their neck out. As one who never watches Match Of The Day, these banal sayings mean nothing to me.

If you liked the original, buy this. If you like a challenge over a long period or are football crazy, buy this. It's well written, well presented, and (ahem) well wicked,

Imagine Football Manager without the bad bits. This certainly isn't it, but it is reasonably close. The graphics and sound are strictly functional, but who buys this son of game for visual appeal?

I haven't yet found any cheats possible with this game there is no opportunity to take out a huge negative loan, as in the original. But you do always get the same team line up. Lineker? In the fourth division?

Menu control can be rather finnicky, and there is no option to go back a menu after an error. Watching the matches is quite fun, a pencil and paper is required to jot down who is playing where.

Football Manager 2 is a very clever game. Note that I have toned the superlatives down to ensure that this box does not become cheap advertising copy for Addictive Games.