Gamers have time to write their own version of football history

Apr 25, 2014 00:15 GMT  ·  By

The real-life World Cup tournament in Brazil is at the moment 49 days away and championships all over the world are entering the final stretch as national team coaches are getting ready to announce their final rosters and get the players together and training ahead of the big matches that are set to come.

In the virtual world, gamers already have full access to 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, the EA Sports made football sim that allows players to experience the entire atmosphere of the competition and lead any country in the world to the World Cup trophy as long as they have the skill and the patience required.

The virtual experience features stadiums that are not yet entirely built, a carnival atmosphere that the real-life competition might struggle to match, given the social strife in the country, and national teams with full rosters, at a time when coaches are still pondering who to take on the plane with them.

A dedicated gamer can probably win the tournament with all the teams that have qualified between now and the first kick-off that will take place on June 12.

An obsessive one can also take another 10 or so favorites that are not going to Brazil and rewrite history with them as well.

The relationship between 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil as created by EA Sports and the real-world competition is an interesting one.

I have one friend who says that he is interested in the video game, although he does not usually play FIFA, but he will not be getting it because he believes it would make the real-world experience less interesting.

Playing with Brazil, England or Spain, experiencing the performance of the simulated players and even seeing which teams perform best in the virtual space would give him too much information and would ruin the sense of discovery.

But he does plan to play 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil after July 13 in order to try to take his favorite teams to the final, should they fail in real life.

I will also be spending less time with the most recent release from EA Sports than with the older FIFA 14 on the Xbox One, because it lacks the refined mechanics that the Ignite engine has introduced on next-gen consoles.

But I might play World Cup DLCs when and if the developers create and launch them.