Launched in October 2020, FIFA 21 is the latest version of football simulation video game produced by EA Sports. Ultimate Team is probably the most popular mode of the game. Worldwide competitions are organized gathering pros players to compete for real money. Ultimate team is where you can craft your own Ultimate team by combining present-time players and/or historic legends (icons) and compete with it against other opponents within this game mode. There are several ways to obtain player cards and upgrade your team such as packs, objectives, and rewards. There are already many controversies around packs and the gambling aspects of it, which is not the intent of this post. Instead, I would like to talk about something probably not so many are aware of or just ignore it.
How many times did you concede or score in the first minutes of the match? how many times did you concede a goal in the very last minutes of the match? How many times you are winning 3–1, and the opponent manages to score 2 quick goals in the last 10 minutes and win it in 90+ additional time late goal? Or maybe you are on the winning side and consider it luck or outperforming your opponent?…I’m talking about rigged goals.
I have recorded 1001 goals scored in 158 matches by tracking the time of the match when the goal was scored, the matches are played in either Division Rivals or Weekend League (FUT Champions). All matches are played fully, matches with disconnects or opponent forfeiting are not considered.
The figure above shows how it’s more probable for you to score in the last 2 minutes of the first or second half, compared to any other time of the match. Moreover, if we check now for the percentages of matches where a goal is scored at a given time of the match, shows that nearly 25% of the 158 matches have at least 1 goal in the last 2 minutes of the first or second half.
My question now is, why do they [EA] do that? What’s the point of rigging the late goals? I totally understand it happens in real life football too, but it doesn’t give you the green light to make the defenders underperform in the last minutes and overpower the attackers, it’s just unfair.
Which brings me to my last question, and I leave it for you to answer it: Can FIFA be a competitive e-Sport?
