Real-life football is bringing hundreds of millions of people in front of the screens on a weekly basis. As it turns out, footballers, or soccer players, if you will, also have a passion for their own sport – in its virtual form!
Many of the popular sport’s brightest stars have confirmed their passion for the football simulator over the years and who’s to blame them? It’s an entertaining way of scoring some goals without the risk of twisting your ankles.
One of the most notorious cases is French World champion and current Barcelona star Antoine Griezmann. The Frenchman is a known gamer amongst footballers, in addition to his love of the NBA, and of course FIFA is one of the main titles he occupies his free time with.
He came as far as to actually be banned by EA Sports back in 2014. Griezmann, then an Atletico de Madrid player, was allegedly caught paying for FIFA Ultimate Team coins – a no-no in the rulebook.
Apparently, the future World champ got so upset by the ban that he called the EA Sports office in France to convince them to lift the ban. And it worked, although he lost all the coins he got in trouble for in the first place.
Moving slightly North, we find another FIFA fanatic in the face of Belgian forward Michy Batshuayi. Unlike his French counterpart, the Chelsea player hasn’t flirted with the EA Sports ban list (that we know of), but that doesn’t stop him from being one of the most active ballers on Twitter when it comes to FIFA.
The Belgian admits to loving the game but, as in every healthy relationship, is not afraid to point out the flaws of his partner in crime.
Fix servers @EASPORTSFIFA please why so much lags & latency
— Michy Batshuayi (@mbatshuayi) November 11, 2019
Having revealed that his FIFA rating is a huge drive to perform in real life, perhaps Batshuayi can put some blame on these cursed servers for his subpar form this season.
Another player located in England – Christian Fuchs, has gone a step further from simply playing FIFA. The Austrian established his own esports academy last year, promptly named NoFuchsGiven, focusing on FIFA. Shocking, I know.
Where this venture will lead him and whether no Fuchs will be given in other games in the future is yet unknown, but with a brand like that the Leicester defender has set himself up for a breakthrough.
There are, of course, many more popular names from the world of football that like to sit with a joystick in hand and kick a virtual ball around. These are just small, albeit colorful examples of the natural merge between the real and the virtual. So, grab your (joy)sticks and your balls and join in on the fun!
