Let’s face it, playing FIFA is a fantastic way of spending your down time, but emotions can run high. One moment you’re on the front foot, leading 1-0 up in the 70th minute, before the opponent creeps up on the counter attack and all your playing calm and cool is lost. Twenty virtual FIFA minutes later and you’re staring at the screen wondering how you ended up losing the match 3-1, conceding two stoppage time goals.
That’s the thought that led us to launch FIFA Team Talks to celebrate the launch of EA Sports’ FIFA 21 at Argos, whereby we could give FIFA players a much-needed helping hand with their teams to keep them on winning form, using a professional who has been there and seen it all.
That man was legendary football manager Ian Holloway aka “Ollie”, who was on hand to chat tactics, transfers and team improvement in Career Mode with virtual one-to-ones for aspiring players on FIFA 21.
We created a short clip of the footballing hero at his home, offering some words of wisdom for budding FIFA students, which we sent out alongside photography of the suited manager-at-work. The story came with a bunch of nifty stats on the cultural impact of the game, how it’s become a way for people to talk about things that matter in a safe space and of course, a list of the top ten FIFA forfeits of all time.
Cue some standout pieces with the likes of Daily Star, SportBible, The i, Daily Express, Yahoo as well as key social hits such as The Sun Football, and we were well on our way to coaching the nation into winning ways on the much-loved football game.
