
Video Games Are Changing the Way Soccer Is Played - mhb
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/sports/soccer/the-scouting-tools-of-the-pros-a-controller-and-a-video.html?_r=1
======
ptaipale
As the GM of a amateur youth team (one of the parents has to do this role
here), I've watched the coaches trying in despair to make players unlearn
things that the boys picked up from playing the FIFA series games.

Mostly it's about tricks that are much more prominent in the video game than
they ever can be in real life, because the gameplay is not entirely realistic.
The gameplay on screen rewards visual stunts that are much less effective in
real play. The movement of ball and players doesn't actually have to be like
it is in reality, because it is a video game. It's adjusted for visual appeal.

Where this is most often seen is passing the ball up in the air; this enables
the video game to show amazing slow-motion captures of skill, but on a real
football field such gameplay is not effective; in fact it is stupid.

In video gameplay, the characters make the ball traverse in a slo-mo arch, all
the other moving objects maybe slow down, and the player receiving this pass
then picks it up with amazing skill.

In real gameplay, it is better to keep the ball on the ground and pass
quickly. A ball flying in an arch in the air travels more slowly, so the
opponent has time to come close end press the ball; a flying ball is more
difficult to control so it is slower to receive and pass on; making an
accurate pass with a ball up in the air is much more difficult than
controlling a ball rolling on the ground.

Thus, playing like FIFA just means you lose the ball to the opponents and you
lose the game.

Also, things like a bicycle kick tend to succeed in a video game, but in real
life they are exceedingly difficult to score with.

~~~
paulcole
>Thus, playing like FIFA just means you lose the ball to the opponents and you
lose the game.

You're coming from a place where winning seems to be the goal. For a kids'
team shouldn't having fun come first?

~~~
jerf
It depends on the age. My children have done some soccer at 4-5, and at that
age, yeah it's just a fancy way of running around.

But as the kids get older, if winning and losing isn't on the table _at
all_... what's the point? Why can't we use our hands? It's not like it affects
the nonexistant outcome. Why are we chasing the balls instead of just running
around on the playground? It's not like it affects the nonexistant out come.
Why are we... non-existant outcome... etc. The whole activity has no
foundation whatsoever if there's no victory state, and kids do eventually
notice.

Yeah, some people get way too excited about it. This is not the dominant
problem that I see; I see more people entirely destroying all reason to play
the game at all by trying to remove the pain of loss, at the cost of the
thrill of victory, any reason to work on improving oneself, and any reason to
even be playing at all.

~~~
esrauch
What do you think of Hackeysack? It seems to have all of the characteristics
of the "no point anymore without a winner" but people still don't use their
hands, they still socialize and have fun and have a (reasonable) thrill of
doing well and the pain of messing up.

~~~
jerf
I think that it doesn't have nationwide programs for every grade, with local
tournaments running up to international tournaments, taught in school, and
such a large part of our culture that we all know what a "soccer mom" is even
as soccer still hasn't really taken over as our dominant national sport.

Not everything has to be competitive. I mean, duh, right? But taking an
activity that was designed to be competitive and then trying to strip out the
competitive part isn't a good idea. Far better to start over again and design
something not competitive from the get-go.

------
jmorrison
I am a longtime amateur player, and a youth club coach of about 15 years,
having assistant coached a US National Youth Futsal champion team. (I also
played pickup after work with PG in Cambridge Back In The Day - I wonder if he
still plays?) I would be cautious, however, in generalizing the article's
first major point (the game as a simulation) from elite players to garden-
variety players. Elite players must, of necessity, maintain and adhere to a
perhaps game-specific strategy during the organized chaos of a match. I find,
as a coach (vs player), without the distraction of a tired body, tired mind,
and somebody trying to kick me, that it is much easier to keep this strategy
at the forefront of my mind. My skills are also not so good that they require
little conscious thought. So I think an elite player (as I am not) may, in
fact, benefit by acting as a coach in these games. The second major point is
about data influencing the real game. This is undoubtedly true. Soccer is a
very mathematical, probabilistic game at heart, and there are many readily
available resources for the technically inclined soccer enthusiast. I would
recommen

[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-numbers-game-chris-
ander...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-numbers-game-chris-
anderson/1115916958?ean=9780143124566)

to start. I also have a small number of articles I found interesting on my G+
soccer page

[https://plus.google.com/u/0/101713908985994656356](https://plus.google.com/u/0/101713908985994656356)

------
Fredi_
I'm 26 years old and have been playing soccer for 20 years. I've been playing
FIFA since FIFA since '99 was released. I don't recall anything about the game
influencing my on field play. Rather, it was the in real life playing
affecting my video game playing, in terms of possession, when to keep it, when
to go 1v1.

Now, this may not be true for everyone but I really looked at FIFA as an
entirely separate thing from my real life playing of the game.

Perhaps it is more fans/casual players of the game that are being influenced
by FIFA more so than more serious and experienced players. In Iwobi's case it
may help them get a sense of who the player is but it's nothing compared to
the scouting reports they go over with their managers in the days leading up
to the game.

~~~
corry
Interesting comment. I've played soccer from a young age, and I can definitely
see online <\--> offline experiences influencing each other.

The biggest area has to do with the use of space; when to expect other players
to make runs, when to receive the ball and pivot and switch the sides. I of
course would have those instincts from playing for real, but having gotten to
do them in-game (with a nice top-down view) has helped me think about my play
in real life.

One thing to try if you haven't - play a Fifa player career locked to a
specific player. A lot of feels like real life - off the ball movement,
finding space, when to call for a pass, etc. Obviously not 100% true to life
but felt closer to real life than typical Fifa.

~~~
Fredi_
I tried playing that mode when it was first introduced to the series and I
didn't much care for it at the time. The manager/bird's eye view is what was
intriguing to me, transfers, seeing the game and implementing real time
tactics and decisions.

>The biggest area has to do with the use of space; when to expect other
players to make runs, when to receive the ball and pivot and switch the sides.
I of course would have those instincts from playing for real, but having
gotten to do them in-game (with a nice top-down view) has helped me think
about my play in real life.

I get how this could be, but I learned so much more from my coaches, from what
moves to learn, to when to make a run, when to make certain decisions.
Anything I might have picked up from FIFA was subconscious.

------
Corrado
Off-topic: It looks like the NY Times has gone full paywall. I can't read this
story at all. I even tried to load it using the Google Search work-around and
even that puts me into the login screen. Does everyone here have a NYT
subscription or is it just me that is getting denied?

~~~
natdempk
The same thing happened to me and opening the link in incognito mode allowed
me to read it. I think I've used my quota of free articles for the month
though.

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wgyn
At the end of the article, Football Manager (an extremely souped-up version of
FIFA's manager mode) is briefly mentioned as having influenced data analysts
and scouting. I wish they had dug into it more. The connection between video
games and scouting seems more direct than the one to on-field play (until we
get really good VR).

~~~
govg
FM actually has a very very extensive player database and a large number of
scouts who provide them with data. There are reports of popular clubs who use
the FM database (and additional statistical analysis) to find out about
players and so on. A slight tangent, there are teams like FC
Midtjylland(Danish League) and Brentford(English second tier) who make
extensive use of data (think Moneyball) to sign players, and have achieved
moderate success.

~~~
thom
Midtjylland and Brentford (i.e. Smartodds) disbanded their football analytics
department.

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flurdy
Sensible Soccer / Kick Off 2 is still a winning style. One touch passing and
kick it in front of you and run like mad and shoot as soon as you can. Works
in real life as well.

~~~
thom
Kick Off 2 also make it really easy to score chipped shots, which we really
don't see a lot of in most leagues.

~~~
flurdy
Age 9 or 10 and moving to 11 a side on full size goals, shooting high was
always a goal :) No need for even that slight kick off 2 curve. That was 30
years ago and they sensibly delay the move to those sized pitches and goals
these days.

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jimmywanger
This is the same story, where people think Steph Curry is bad for the game
cause he jacks up impossible three pointers, and kids want to copy him.

It's always the same. When you're a kid, you want to do the flashy stuff like
a guitar solo, you'll learn the basics later once you figure out how important
they are.

Nothing to see here, move along.

~~~
draw_down
Steph Curry exists in reality, though.

~~~
jimmywanger
Heh. Have you played him in NBA 2k? Guy is a human cheat code. They had a hard
time modifying the game to deal with his stats.
([http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2016/2/28/11129304/stephen-
cu...](http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2016/2/28/11129304/stephen-curry-
nba-2k-broken-warriors))

A lot of his highlights are... ridiculous. Normal humans cannot embarass NBA
level athletes like that.

Just like Fifa glorifies insane athletic moves.

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faitswulff
This reminds me of an article I read a while back about (American) football
coaches getting plays from NFL video games, essentially using all of Xbox Live
/ Play Station Network as a simulator. Unfortunate that I can't find the
article.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I seem to remember that article as well.

In particular, they quoted one actual NFL player who was running to score the
winning touchdown with seconds left to go - but the score would not be so
large that the opposing team couldn't steal the victory on the last
possession. He ran to the 1 yard line and juked laterally across the field to
run out the clock, basing the technique on similar theatrics in the Madden
game.

~~~
faitswulff
I did manage to find one: [http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-
sports/how-video-...](http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/races-sports/how-
video-games-are-helping-nfl-stars-train-20150131)

But I'm not sure if it's exactly the one I read years ago. It doesn't talk as
much about strategy as I remember, and no mention of juking, so it's probably
not yours. There's likely at least one more out there.

I'm curious if videogame playing athletes do better than their non-gamer
colleagues.

------
dasboth
It's a testament to their database that many young players who are good these
days were good on FM years ago (with some notable misses of course as well...
Freddy Adu, I'm looking at you...)

~~~
GFischer
The best games, like Football Manager, actually hire worldwide scouts !!! I
know the one responsible for Uruguay, he has to turn in reports for hundreds
of players.

He had some good hits and is actually asked by scouts. He also had some pretty
big misses ("this Luis Suarez guy, he's not THAT good")

In Spanish:

[http://www.aguantenche.com.uy/2014/08/el-trabajo-mas-
lindo-d...](http://www.aguantenche.com.uy/2014/08/el-trabajo-mas-lindo-del-
mundo/)

------
dirkberg
As co-founder of a sport startup I’ve had many conversations with my future
customers. On many occasions I observed and talked to teenage football players
about their behaviour on and off the pitch.

When it comes down to sharing their own sports data there’s undoubtedly a big
gap between the live experience on the field and the conversation about it
online. Apparently, there’s no need to highlight themselves to their friends
with their match results, to post video’s of amazing actions or make a
comparison with other players. In other words, talking about your own sport is
too boring.

So, the sport definitely is changing because of esports and games. And it's
great!

------
WalterBright
Not too surprising. Consider how flight simulators have changed flying. Any
activity that is expensive/dangerous that can be simulated means the
edit/compile/debug loop can be made much faster and cheaper, and thus more
highly developed.

~~~
aaron695
< Consider how flight simulators have changed flying.

How?

~~~
WalterBright
Training, trying out new cockpit designs, replaying accidents to see what went
wrong and how it might be prevented, etc.

------
6stringmerc
Very cool article! Makes me excited to eventually get back to work on a
screenplay concept I had involving Madden, being a Texas High School / College
/ Professional gridiron football Coach (not international football like FIFA),
and gambling. The nice part about my write-up/concept is that it can be
adjusted for generation differences so it feels modern, or purposefully pinned
to a time frame (ex: early 2000s) for a "period piece" type of thing.

As a long-time gear head I know that quite a few professional race drivers
express appreciation for some of the simulators on the market currently. If
anything for track memory assistance, because, well the 'Ring is almost 13
miles.

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gspetr
This took me on a pleasant trip down memory lane. I remember my classmates
were impressed by my moves in early 2002 when we played on a field in a remote
location of our school field. I had FIFA 2002 to thank for it.

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captain_crabs
In a strange way, I'm extremely relieved to see this. Having come from tons of
soccer before touching FIFA, I can't play the game because I get so frustrated
at the players behaving and acting against the unconscious instincts I have of
how people will actually move (even after the perspective shift of on-the-
field to top-down). I stopped complaining about this because some of my
friends love FIFA and that's just being a spoil-sport, but next time I get
stomped, I can explain why...with a source!

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whizzkid
It is not really hard for EA to make more realistic football(soccer) game. The
problem is, probably around 15% of the all FIFA gamers will enjoy the real
experience while the rest will find it so difficult to play.

Their considerable amount of revenue comes from kids who loves to shoot,
dribble, and do some skills without thinking about physical reality side of
it.

~~~
kohanz
> Their considerable amount of revenue comes from kids who loves to shoot,
> dribble, and do some skills without thinking about physical reality side of
> it.

Actually it comes from kids who love to open packs of cards.

------
smcl
I'm a huge fan of football (playing and watching) but I cannot stand any of
the games after about FIFA 2000. This isn't a nostalgia thing, I was about 14
when I realised this. In pretty much all of the games I've played the players
move so slowly and dribble the ball very clumsily - kick step-step-step,
change direction, kick step-step-step ... - it's like how 10 year old kids
play. Goalkeepers taking a goal kick (or kicking from hand) barely reach the
halfway line - when even a hungover sunday league keeper in real life can do
so. Shots on goal are a complete roll of the dice, there's no real skill to it
that I can discern (unless you can beat a couple of defenders and get a
1-on-1). I could keep listing my frustrations, but I suspect I'm alone so I'll
stop :)

I have no idea why professional footballers can stomach FIFA/PES and aren't
infuriated by it.

~~~
sehr
Pure realism isn't the goal, and additionally, it sounds like you just aren't
very good :)

~~~
smcl
I get that realism isn't the goal (nice) but it's frustrating to me that the
players felt slow like they're running through a peat bog and the keeper can't
kick the ball :)

But you're right, I haven't spent more than an hour with any of the games
since '99 (most recently FIFA '16 came with my PS4) so I'm definitely not very
skilled at all!

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rvail2
I heard something similar about football the other day. The advanced games are
helping kids learn to to read defences and how to counter.

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DrNuke
Not surprising at all... the best videogames assemble so much in-field
knowledge they are often smarter than many real offices.

