It’s Sports, Girl #1 – FIFA

From the dawn of time, the male ego has sought to gain the power and dominance within any environment they are put in. Men, subconsciously or not, like to be the alpha-dog, just sometimes they have strange ways of showing it.

Us girls use a day at the beautician or the local shopping centre to escape reality, but what do the boys get up to whilst we ladies are shopping up a storm?

I have one word for you: FIFA.

They say football is the ballet of the masses, but as far as I can see it’s a bunch of sweaty men running around dramatically and diving on the field, hoping to receive a penalty (and an Oscar nomination).

Fair enough boys love watching it but it’s the whole playing it online that gets me. It’s not real; coming home from a day’s shopping you have tangible items in your hands- shoes, bags, clothes- real stuff. But clearly the fella’s aren’t too concerned about what’s real and rather focus on what they want to be real.

Instead of writing a piece on why shopping is better than playing FIFA, I’ve put on my open-minded hat -and matching shoes of course- and taken to the streets to answer the question: What makes playing FIFA so great?

Let’s just say that I had an overwhelming response.

Phill Minas, a 19-year-old paralegal from Sydney, explained that “it is what makes a man a man; it is the arena where the never-ending urge to prove dominance over another takes place, where testosterone can flourish and where heroes are born”.

Clearly you have to be quite in touch with then feminine side to play this game.

Meanwhile, Marc Riccioni, university student, said he uses FIFA as an escape “you call it a blockout to the rest of the world and because I’m so awesome it makes me feel good about something.”

Even our very own, Gordon D’Mello, responded with a more holistic answer by claiming “FIFA = Life”.

I have a reoccurring image of animals in the wild like two great whites exposing their rows of teeth or two peacocks ruffling their feathers trying to prove who has the greater plumage… in a less flamboyant way of course.

Guys use FIFA to basically show off in front of their mates so they can have the reputation of being the ultimate god and gaming hero, if only they put that much effort into saving the environment!

Except what happens when the PS3 network is down? Well sheer chaos of course!

After Sony became aware of hackers infiltrating the system, the network was shut down and only in past few days has it started restarting in certain countries and locations. One thing is for sure though, this wasn’t popular news amongst the Boyles!

Guys were quick to social outlets to vent their fury. Phil Catania, 19, wrote “What am I supposed to do now?!” Whilst others claimed it to be slightly bearable, James Brennan, a twenty-two year old journalist, saying, “I’ve never gotten so much work done!”

Fingers crossed the network returns everywhere quickly so we can resume regular Saturday nights watching our boyfriends face off with their foreign opponents or being woken by our brothers threatening to throw the controller through the screen (please try and contain your excitement, guys).

But as the old saying goes “if you can’t beat them, join them”, so I’m going to break my FIFA virginity and have a crack at it. Definitely not with the hardcore guys online, maybe even playing two player by myself as a practise would be a less humiliating option. 

At the end of the day, it’s just sports, girl.