I am old. And on the morning that I’m supposed to review FIFA 22, I am really feeling it. I’ve got one of those head colds that gnaws the bones and dampens the brain. But I am a little trooper and so I groggily reach for the controller and launch the game. The PlayStation clunks into action. Colours happen to me, like hailstones bouncing off a windowpane. A loud voice informs me that “it’s in the game” but I do not know what “it” is and the voice is not inclined to elaborate.
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Immediately and very much against my will, I am hurled straight into some sort of glamour friendly between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain. This is an odd selection because it’s hard to imagine two clubs more offensive to the neutral. If you don’t support them, you loathe them, don’t you? Maybe it’s just me. They are modern football and I am old. With a sharp whistle, the game begins. All the little men run around. My head throbs. They keep running around. I groan and turn off the PlayStation. I crawl back to the sofa and sleep.
One week later, I return renewed. I cannot, with clear conscience, continue in my self-appointed position as Lord of the Games at The Athletic if I’m incapable of playing the world’s most popular football game. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played FIFA before. But I’ve never really understood it. There are so many controls. Eight buttons, two sticks (which also function as buttons if you push them into the controller) and an emphasis on the sort of individual showboat skills which have always left me cold. But I am not walking away from this. This is my Everest. And so I become probably the only person in the world to play through every module of the FIFA 22 training section.
It is not an auspicious start. Playing as Everton (my own Southend United are now so bad that they’ve dropped off the face of the game) I am instructed to guide Demarai Gray around a rack of what appear to be giant inflatable punchbags. Gray is nimble enough to skip around the first one but runs straight into the other with a heavy thump. The inflatable keels over, but Gray continues to power purposefully forward, somehow contriving to indecently straddle the inflatable like a bride-to-be on a Bucking Bronco on a hen night that is rapidly slipping out of control. I can’t get him off. The clock runs out. I have failed.
Slowly, I improve. I being to understand the purpose of the four main buttons. I find the “sprint” button. Reference is made to a skills stick. No further instructions are given, but it proves intuitive enough. You run with the left stick, flick the right stick up and down and you’re jinking like a young Chris Waddle. Progress stalls in the dribbling module when, for reasons that bypass understanding, Virgil van Dijk appears at Finch Farm to repeatedly block tackle me to tears, but eventually I beat him enough times to progress.
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The latter modules are a mixed bag. I find myself giggling with childish glee during the rondos, gamely flicking the ball back and forth around the panting defenders. But then I am faced with the concept of containing attacks through multiple players and even controlling two players at once and I know, there and then, that I will never be able to master this game. We are striving only for basic competence now.
A full two hours later, I complete the section. The clean runs of A and B grades have become pockmarked with C’s and D’s that allow progress without pride. I have probably only retained a third of all I have learned, but perhaps it’s enough. But where to go now?
I try to keep it simple and set up a one-off game against Aston Villa. It’s at Goodison Park, it’s a night game and it carries such heavy Monday Night Football vibes that I feel as if I want to watch Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher talking about other games for an hour before I only half-watch the match while playing Civilization 6.
And credit where it’s due; the game looks incredible. The commentary is spot-on, the licensed graphics feel perfectly placed, I even want to see Villa’s line-up unfold on the screen. And, yes, I have fun. I run with Richarlison, flicking my skills stick and dancing around the Villa defence before crossing the ball straight into the hands of the goalkeeper. I play through-ball after through-ball and nearly all of them cannon into Tyrone Mings’ knees, but one slips through and Dominic Calvert-Lewin scores.
I start to get a bit co*cky, launching crossfield balls back and forth to stretch Dean Smith’s men out of position before sluggishly attempting to take advantage. By the end of the game, I’ve racked up 20 shots on goal and secured a comfortable 2-0 lead. And then the game tells me that it thinks I should be playing at a higher level than “Amateur”. I look for the button marked, “Piss off and mind your own business, R2D2,” but it doesn’t seem to be available.
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Semi-pro is definitely harder. In fact, Amateur mode should probably be renamed “when you’re six years old and you’re playing against your dad and he doesn’t want you to throw his controller at the wall in a fit of frustration” mode. It’s not as snappy a title, but it’s less misleading. On Semi-pro mode, the computer actually tries to score. It does stepovers and makes tackles. But it doesn’t stop me from beating Newcastle 4-0 or Liverpool 3-0. And now something very strange has happened. I’ve started to punch the air when I score. The little pre-match mini-games have reminded me how to jockey for position and intercept passes. I can do a finesse finish. And a low finish too. And I’ve got through-balls in my locker!
But FIFA 22 isn’t one of the biggest games in the world because of its one-player mode. Online multiplayer is where the challenge lies. A global coliseum filled with happy gladiators and it was my turn with the trident. With just a handful of games under my belt, I piled into FIFA Ultimate Team.
In this mode, you are granted a random selection of second or third-rate players, one free superstar and then you’re released into the wild. I get Danny Ings as my superstar, a player I’ve always liked, but at this stage in my development, arguably not the player I need. But faint heart never won online gaming competitions. I hurl myself into my first fixture, a twelve-minute match against someone called, “Bl4ckAriKurdi”
I once helped out a friend whose five-a-side team needed someone to make up the numbers. I smoked at the time, rarely exercised and I’d been out for a heavy lunch. But the twelve minutes I spent dry-retching in a cage in North London that night felt like a passing frisson of delight compared to the twelve minutes I spend with Ari.
His players, all of whom were worryingly highly rated, swarm all over mine like wasps at a picnic. With judicious cowardice and snappy short passes, I manage to keep the score down to three at half-time, but that only seems to encourage him and he steps up a gear after the break. He must have thought it was his birthday and I was his present.
As goal number eight whistles past my keeper’s ears, I wonder what on earth Ari is thinking right now. I suppose that he’s mostly wondering why this “iainmacintosh” character keeps gamely trying to play out from the back even though he hasn’t yet made it to the halfway line without giving the ball away. He must be happy. Really, genuinely, utterly happy. I envy him. I dimly remember a similar feeling of joy when I invited my dad to play me at Sensible Soccer in 1992.
FIFA 22 is an incredible achievement. EA Sports hasn’t just created a fine game, it’s created a lucrative, self-contained economy of in-game purchases and a sprawling esport so popular that players are literally being transferred from one team to another for real money.
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And it is hard. When you go out there, you’re up against people who have been playing various incarnations of the same game for decades. The basic controls are easy enough, but the advanced manoeuvres, the mechanics that will elevate you above the muggles…they’re another matter. But I am impressed. FIFA 22 has my respect. And if it’s all the same for you, I’d like to go back to Football Manager now. That’s where I belong.
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Iain Macintosh was a proper football writer until 2017 when he set light to his career by co-founding Muddy Knees Media, the podcast production company behind The Totally Football Show and You're Dead To Me. When The Athletic bought MKM in 2020, he somehow convinced them to let him play video games for a living. Follow Iain on Twitter @Iain_Games
