The former Millwall prodigy was scarcely seen at senior level but statistical quirks in the popular computer game saw him become a cult hero

Depending on whose numbers you believe, he made anything between 50 and 100 appearances in his senior career. His CV includes Millwall, Cádiz, Plymouth, FC Haka, Panetolikos, FK Tonsberg and the Gambian side Samger FC. He won youth caps for one country and four senior caps for another, scoring once. The statistics are, using the measures by which anyone can assess itinerant footballers who prowl the world for work, nothing at all remarkable.

Is being addicted to Football Manager a medical condition? | Iain Macintosh Read more

Yet statistics are exactly what Cherno Samba will be remembered by after the self-styled “Championship Manager Legend” announced his retirement from football on Monday at the age of 29. A Gambia-born forward who became one of the most vaunted properties in English football by his early teens – Michael Owen is said to have telephoned Samba personally while Samba was on a bus home from school, urging him to sign for Liverpool – his promise prompted the computer game’s creators to make sure they were ahead of the curve.

The Millwall academy player was given scores that reflected his clear ability and potential to become one of the world’s best. You booted up the 2001-02 version of the game, made a beeline for a young, cheap Samba, and sat back while he fired you to glory amid febrile scenes in your back room.

It had been naggingly obvious since Samba’s departure from Millwall in 2004, having been paraded in front of the Premier League’s top clubs while concurrently allowing his own talent to drift, that the facts would never do justice to the figures. While his career atrophied, his name reverberated around halls of residence and caused a buzz in student bars.

Cherno Samba’s impressive in-game stats enabled his virtual presence to overtake his real-life career. Photograph: Commissioned for the Guardian

Everyone has their own story of Cherno Samba, and perhaps a far more personal one than they might have had if they had actually known him: the virtual version would be unfazed at the prospect of becoming your first-choice striker at 16 and would be the guaranteed bail-out option to take you exactly where you wanted to be, regardless of your team’s level – usually finding the time to take England to 2006 and 2010 World Cup glory, too.

This has been a curious period for those who follow the Championship Manager (now Football Manager) cult. The American analogue to Samba, Freddy Adu, recently returned to his home country with Tampa Bay Rowdies after failing to make the grade at Serbian minnows Jagodina or the moderate Finnish club, KuPS.

At Jagodina, there had been the hope his exploits in the video game might attract supporters to their stadium – and local fans who met Adu were quick to thank him for his services to their all-night sessions in front of the computer. Imaginations may have been captured but Adu, struggling for fitness, made one substitute appearance in the domestic cup before being quietly released. Sometimes it does not do to get too close to your heroes.

Rob Smyth - The Joy of Six: great Championship/Football Manager players Read more

Yet it is the blurring between fantasy and reality that has given the video game its allure down the years and created its legends. Samba’s and Adu’s characteristics were ascribed according to real, visible evidence of potential – from where anything could happen. If either had enjoyed something close to their projected career trajectory, the satisfaction and amusement in taking them to heights Lionel Messi could barely envisage would be far less.

They are far from the only players to have made a name through overly generous talent attribution, although it should be pointed out that the games have a highly impressive record in anticipating future stars – just one example being a young Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who was available for peanuts from Malmo at the turn of the century. Names that inspire particular affection include Tonton Zola Moukoko, widely regarded as the poster boy for Football Manager prodigies but now plying his trade in Sweden’s lower leagues, and the Sweden midfielder Kennedy Bakircioglu, who has enjoyed a perfectly good career with clubs such as Ajax and Racing Santander but performed like a combination of Eusébio and Bobby Charlton in the virtual world.

Those scouring lower down the leagues could spend £10,000 on the Kingstonian attacking midfielder Geoff Pitcher, a journeyman suddenly rendered capable of scoring and creating from virtually any angle, while eastern Europe tended to be worth a punt too. Maksim Tsygalko, who retired at the age of 26 in 2009, would become a world beater after being plucked from Dinamo Minsk, while the Dynamo Kyiv striker Viktor Leonenko, usually a competent deputy to Andriy Shevchenko and Serhiy Rebrov, would outshine both if you could agree a fee.

The tales are many and the myths will endure – into what Samba hopes will be a fruitful coaching career. In his retirement statement, he thanked the media for their role in his life as a player. “I might not be where I am today without their exposure and writing about me,” he said. “My sincere gratitude to them as I consider them partners in football development.”

The acceleration and finishing stats for Maksim Tsyhalka – aka Maxim Tsigalko – made him a firm favourite. Photograph: Commissioned for the Guardian

It is a curious thought that, while Samba’s potential led to his heady computer game exploits, his high-profile presence on the game may to some extent have helped him maintain his career as a player. The notion of a “Championship Manager Legend” may lead us to marvel at the short leap from actuality to imagination, but it also prompts the thought that success and failure are not always what they seem, either.