The Beautiful (Video) Game

Why I love football games, but not football itself.



Don't Love



Love

In the 1980’s everyone supported either Manchester United or Liverpool. In the English Westcountry, this was geographical and cultural nonsense, but I joined in and arbitrarily chose Liverpool, I think (whoever ran about the pitch with "Crown Paints" on their chests. Them). In truth though, I cared no more for football than I did my own E number-fuelled bum-gas. Still don’t, in fact.

LFC in the 1980's. Or is it Manchester United?

So, how come I annually, without fail, excitedly pre-order the latest iteration of a video game series based on said sport?

The blame, and thanks, must go to magazines. In the early noughties I was such a voracious consumer of gaming periodicals that I even started to devour the articles and reviews covering acclaimed football series Pro Evolution Soccer. Then on its third release, the saturating positive press made me curious enough to pick up a cheap copy of the first game as a taster.

Magazines. Their fault, the papery swines.

And what a taste it was...

I fell instantly in love. A tsunami of simplicity washed away all my prejudices about the game. I could appreciate the purity of soccer beyond tabloid punditry and meaningless tactical jargon. Eleven men vs eleven men. Put ball in net. Awesome.

Setting the game to easy and limiting myself to just a few choice manoeuvres, I ploughed through opposition teams with surprising regularity. My main tactic (hold the ball in midfield for a bit, lure in the opposition, do a couple of fake tricks, lob the ball forwards and cross from the box (yeah, "the box", I know!)  was a game-winning strategy for the most part. I advanced a little and started piddling about with formations and suchlike, but keeping it simple was the true master plan.

The original Pro Evo. Liquid football, or something.

I soon found myself hooked: I started and finished tournaments; created my own narratives; made numerous cup and league save files; tasted the sweet flavour of win and yes, spat the sour tang of defeat. I started to believe that I finally shared a smidgen of kinship with regular football fans.

Except, of course, I absolutely did not. There was, and still remains, one fundamental difference.

When I witness team support become appropriation, my brain short-circuits as my heart dies a little. I can’t understand the hubristic mentality of the fan whose club victory becomes a claim of personal success, when in reality their input has nothing to do with the outcome. They will endlessly boast about their team’s triumph. Conversely, should they lose, they will turn against the players, manager and chairman with an accusatory bitterness normally reserved for a rival team.

In the sterile world of one-man soccer, however, I know that any crushing defeat is the sole responsibility of me, my thumbs and I. When I play on the pixel pitch, controller in hand and eyeballs on screen, I am solely in charge; the theatre of football mine to direct. If my team lose a game, I don’t sulk about the board of directors, blame the referee and sink six pints or so to forget. I simply re-load the game and play again.

Don't cry! You can just re-load your game and...oh.

I’m a control freak - I don’t need the chaos and emotional uncertainty that supporting a club entails. Playing football games as manager, coach and player hands me sporting supremacy over the pitch that a hapless fan of the real thing couldn’t possibly possess.

So take your terraces, your turnstiles and your bloody transfer windows. I don’t need them. I’m a Dualshock-weilding dictator of soccer and the final whistle doesn’t blow until I say it does.

Now hit the showers.