Ben-DutkaWhen the cover athlete was announced for this year's FIFA 15 , nobody was really surprised to hear the name Lionel Messi.
The Argentinian star remains the star athlete for the globally-distributed game, but publisher Electronic Arts has chosen an additional cover player for North America: United States national team and Seattle Sounders member Clint Dempsey.
This means that if you live in the US, when you pick up FIFA 15 , you'll see both Dempsey and Messi on the box. There is one small difference, though: Due to a marketing deal Microsoft has with the Sounders, Dempsey appears in an Xbox-clad Sounders jersey on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 versions of the game. The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 versions will feature Dempsey in his red, white and blue jersey worn by the US national team during the World Cup.
Are you planning to grab FIFA 15 when it arrives later this year?
Related Game(s): FIFA 15
Is he seriously wearing an XBOX jersey…..
Microsoft is a sponsors for Seattle Sounders so yeah it has Xbox on the jersey.
>.< ugh, yes, I realize that. My point was more about how lame it is. I was able to fathom the fact he is actually wearing it by seeing him wear it.
And again with the Messi hype. It's not enough he didn't have a good season with Barcelona, but he also had a terrible world cup.
I don't think he had a terrible world cup. There was one game I thought he did poorly in, but for a good example aside from that game, when they played the Dutch in the semis, the Dutch played perfect defence on him. They ALWAYS had one person completely devoted to jockeying. No matter what, that person did not try to make a tackle. A second (or even third sometimes) would assist to make a tackle when space got limited.
They weren't the only team to play D on him perfectly, but that's what they did.
In earlier stages, is was amazing to watch him just instantly create space without actually going anywhere with the ball. That isn't easy to do. They guy's incredible, simple as that.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 7/21/2014 1:19:53 PM
What I meant is that I didn't see him as the motor the Argentinean team needed, at least not with how he played. I was expecting him to shine this world cup. He did score and had some good showings, but to be honest, his group was one of the easiest of them all and in all games Argentina barely passed to the next match with the minimum score difference. I was expecting him to have the tournament that James Rodriguez had (in my opinion, James deserved the golden ball).
It is true that he had a lot of people on top of him, but he has always had that knack for leaving them behind, at least he did in his early and mid years in Barcelona. Additionally, he had some world class players who could have assisted him, such as Di Maria, Aguero, Higuain, etc.
I just think he could have done a lot more.
They got to the championship game, not as the favorites by a few rankings, and lost because of a defensive breakdown (how no one covers the only man on attack, I'll never know) with 7 minutes remaining in overtime.
That's pretty damn good.
People knew how to adjust to his style after time. He's a terrific ball handler, but when the defender in charge stops trying to make a tackle and only focuses on your upper body, no footwork can beat a AAA defender.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 7/21/2014 9:22:19 PM
He didn't have a terrible world cup. He scored more than anyone else on his team and his team made it to the finals.
I don't see how that would possibly be considered a terrible world cup.
It's not really hard to score more than anyone on your team when your team averages one goal per game, especially if you are a striker.
Last edited by Masszt3r on 7/22/2014 8:15:09 AM
Sort of striker, anyways. Argentina had a weak midfield this year. To compensate, they played a 4-4- drop2. On paper, that looks more like 4 defence holding a line for offside traps, a wing midfielder on either side, a forward striker, and a triangle in the middle with the base of the triangle being the centre-midfielders. Messi played the point of that triangle.
What that means is that his role is not as a pure striker. In order to compensate for a weak midfield, their offence would have switched the ball across the back line to spread out the defence. (You keep switching the back line until you're happy with the spread.) You then distribute to a base-midfielder who then moves it to a wing midfielder. They try to distribute to Messi, who's role is to create space and have 2 options with outs being the base midfielders. One option is to continue the ball to the opposite wing midfielder from the one that originally gave it to him. In that situation, they try to get to the top of the 18 on the outside and make a cross. The other wing midfielder supports across as if they were the new base midfielder, and the other two base mids shift over to support passes back. Since they suck, if the pass comes back, they either gave it to Messi, or they took it all the way back to their defence.
The second option Messi had was to get a through ball to the point striker, or if he was close enough to the 18 yard box, take a strike himself.
Basically, as opposed to his professional team, Messi was required to operate very similarly to a midfielder. He did not behave as a normal striker where his only job is to get to open space with a ball and make well timed runs (which is how he normally dazzles.)
Even then, with a shitty shitty midfield, Argentina still made it to the finals, and it's all because Messi did his role very well. (And it's why those who know the game well realized he deserved his award.)
Last edited by Underdog15 on 7/22/2014 9:07:28 AM
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That's a good analysis Underdog. It is true that they had a very poor midfield. They really had to rely on the offensive power of their forwards and and an average defensive line, a line that presented gaps and weaknesses on various matches where Mascherano was forced to appear. The "lethal" forwards of the team however didn't help much either. Higuain and Palacio had their chances and DiMaria was not quite himself.
It is also true that Messi did have to play differently to compensate for a weak midfield that he usually gets with the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, etc., but he was still the main man in the attack, midfielder or not. Even if his role was more of a midfielder, there weren't many opportunities generated from his position for his performance, in this case as a more of a playmaker, to draw attention.
Nevertheless, like I said, Messi may have had four goals and some good showings, but he did so against weak teams. With all due respect, Bosnia, Iran and Nigeria never even had a chance. Nigeria made them sweat, but that's because those guys are extremely well fit and have good physical attributes. I personally didn't see any award winning performance against Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands nor (especially) Germany from Messi, or the team for that matter. In any case, if we talk about deserving the award for getting far, Schweinsteiger, Kroos and other German players could have taken it.
I'm not trying to take away credit from the team for making it to that far, but let's not forget they had one of the weakest groups and a "relatively" easy knockout stage.
Last edited by Masszt3r on 7/22/2014 10:05:20 AM
Which one was number 7? I thought that in another 4 years of experience, he'll be dynamite.
"Which one was number 7?" Pardon?
Good to know I'm not the only football/soccer fan around here 😀
Sorry, I meant what was the name of the striker playing for Argentina that is jersey number 7. Left out a few details there, I did. lol
Edit: Could have been number 9, but I thought it was 7…. Young looking guy.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 7/22/2014 1:29:02 PM
I mean, really? Messi is a beast and a baller don't get me wrong. But it would have been nice to see somebody(anybody) else on the cover. Still D1P for me.
Do they still have Fifa gaming tournaments like they do for Madden and Evo?
crap, I wanted to say "GOAL" but super long. It scrolled across to the right.
Last edited by Corvo on 7/21/2014 5:46:07 PM
Rodriguez should most definitely be on the cover after his world cup performance. Messi getting golden ball was a complete joke with his apparent lack of interest this year.
Masszt3r makes some possibly valid observations above, but saying he had an apparent lack of interest or that getting the golden ball is a joke…
You clearly have no idea what to look for in soccer. There are cases to be made for other players who performed well, but Messi definitely deserved to be in contention whether he won or not.
I think you need to watch the replays of the world cup…watch ANY free he took…you could see it in his face. Overall there was about eight minutes that Messi played well.
He was not in contention at all. we all know the standard Messi can set and he was well off par for the course throughout the competition.
^ look up and read my and Masszt3r's conversation. I don't need to explain it again. I assure you I don't need to watch replays anymore to know what I saw. My analysis above is far more detailed than "You could see it in his face" and generalizations about how we all know how Messi can play. Did you even realize he wasn't playing a position he has really played before? When it comes to soccer, I know my shit.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 7/23/2014 9:11:51 AM
I already have read all the comments and I stand by what I said. As for your 'analysis'…well that's your opinion.
Scraping through is scraping through no matter how you look at it. either way I'm done with this topic. Messis current fame is why he's on the cover. Rodriguez will have his time to shine in the future.
It isn't an opinion, dude. I told you exactly what their strategy was. They did what I said verbatim.
You're just wrong. Accept it.
You are the only one here with nothing more than an opinion. (And a weak one like that) You still haven't been able to give any real feedback or insight aside from how his face looked.
Get real, man.
Last edited by Underdog15 on 7/25/2014 3:23:11 PM