Not long ago, the American soccer landscape was a barren wasteland devoid of talent. Americans either played for boring MLS teams or obscure European clubs, always moving laterally and rarely improving.

Kids these days have Christian Pulisic at Chelsea and Sergiño Dest at Barcelona. We had a promising central defender at Birmingham City that now works at a financial company. Man, they have it easy.

I’ve been playing FIFA video games regularly for over 25 years. I’m not sure I’ll ever play again.

This year, for the first time, I focused my FIFA playing on the FIFA Ultimate Team mode. I’ve always loved CCGs and after a few years of dabbling in FUT I finally jumped in and became hooked. 

Diogo Jota had an incredible start to life at Liverpool. After his move from Wolves, the Portuguese forward had a run of six goals in four matches before suffering an injury. Jota hasn’t played since Dec. 9, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped scoring — he’s just doing it on a different platform.

Jota staked his claim as one of the best FIFA players in the world after going 30-0 in the Weekend League on PlayStation to earn a No. 1 rating this week. 

As an American soccer website, we at The18 feel obligated to cover every little thing about our beloved Americans abroad. Exactly one year and a day ago, we wrote about Gio Reyna’s first Borussia Dortmund goal, an absolute worldie against Werder Bremen. We covered him before the goal and we continue to cover him today.

One element the FIFA videos games have the edge on compared to any other video game series is their soundtracks. Over the past two decades the soccer video game series has been paired to the tunes of endless bangers. The sheer volume of hits means there are also a plethora of underrated FIFA songs dying to be played.

Over the decades since the first edition was released, EA Sports has crafted the FIFA series into the most realistic soccer video game available. The accuracy with which players are recreated in game highlights the age-old EA Sports motto: “If it’s in the game; it’s in the game.” 

Liverpool’s midfield was ragged. We’d been high pressing all game and as the second half wore on, it became harder and harder to convince the Reds to jockey an attacker, let alone make a 10-yard sprint. And I do mean physically harder. Soon, PSG’s fresh subs were streaming past their markers and a two-goal lead evaporated in a 2-2 draw. I learned firsthand how PlayStation 5’s new DualSense controller is changing the game in FIFA 21.

EA Sports had been relatively quiet on what exactly it had planned for its next-gen console versions of FIFA 21 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. On Tuesday, the video game giant pulled back the curtain on what to expect, and some of the FIFA 21 PS5 features look amazing.