EA Sports has made Steven Gerrard and Andrea Pirlo the highest rated Major League Soccer players in the newest installment of their ‘FIFA’ video game series.
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Both midfielders were given an overall rating of 84, which is three higher than last year’s top MLS player. In ‘FIFA 15’, Clint Dempsey was made the best player in MLS given a rating of 81. He remains an 81 this year, but slips all the way to 5th in terms of players in MLS.
Pirlo may have been given extra credit by EA Sports because of his admiration of video games. He made his love of Playstation clear in his autobiography “I think therefore I play”.
“After the wheel, the best invention is the PlayStation,” he said.
“Me against Nesta was a clasico of our time at Milanello,” Pirlo recalled. “We’d get in early, have breakfast at 9 then close ourselves off in our room to challenge each other, train, have lunch and then it was back in our room again until 4 in the afternoon. Our battles were pure adrenaline. I chose Barcelona, Sandrino did too. Barca against Barca. The first player I’d take was Samuel Eto’o, the fastest out of everyone, though I often lost. I’d become furious, I’d throw the joystick, demand a rematch and lose again, but I couldn’t use the excuse that the coach of his team was better than mine: Pep Guardiola for him and Pep Guardiola for me. At least on the bench we started equal.”
Pirlo is not the only Italian international in the top three, with Sebastian Giovinco also being rated 81 but ranked ahead of Dempsey on the official EA Sports website.
It is interesting to note that just three players in the top 10 were plying their trade in MLS prior to the 2015 season. Just the aforementioned Dempsey, Robbie Keane, and Michael Bradley, are in the top 10 and were playing in the league last season. A telling sign that the league is continuously growing and raising it’s international profile.
Here is the complete list of the top 20 rated players from MLS in FIFA 16:
Steven Gerrard 84
Andrea Pirlo 84
Stebastian Giovinco 81
Kaka 81
Clint Dempsey 81
Didier Drogba 81
Robbie Keane 80
David Villa 80
Andoni Iraola 80
Michael Bradley 80
Frank Lampard 79
Obafemi Martins 79
Giovani Dos Santos 79
Federico Higuain 78
Diego Valeri 78
Jermaine Jones 77
Ignacio Piatti 77
Osvaldo Alonso 77
Pedro Morales 77
Nick Rimando 76
Just a couple of weeks ago, both EA Sports and Major League Soccer provided fans the opportunity to vote for a special custom MLS cover for the game. The results have not yet been release, but you can read more about MLS and ‘FIFA 16’ on the league’s official site.
‘FIFA 16’ which will be released for PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, on September 22nd.