Well, unless you’re EA Sports. For years, the video game publisher has used its popular football sim FIFA to predict World Cup winners. That’s nothing new for the studio, of course — they do the same every year with Madden and the Super Bowl. But what is really interesting is that FIFA has correctly predicted the last three World Cup winners: Spain at South Africa 2010, Germany at Brazil 2014, and France at Russia 2018. Just ahead of the debut of the World Cup in Qatar, FIFA 23 has now predicted who will lift the cup in 2022. After simulating all 64 matches of the World Cup with all 32 nations participating in the tournament, FIFA 23 has a winner: apparently, Argentina and footy superstar Lionel Messi are about to have a massive end of year. (Sorry, England, FIFA says it’s not coming home.) The final ultimately came down to Argentina and Brazil, South American rivals who haven’t won the World Cup in quite some time. La Seleção won it most recently at Korea/Japan 2002, while Argentina last tasted glory at Mexico 1986. In other words, a real-world win for either of these nations would be a very big deal, especially after European nations have dominated world football for so long. EA did not reveal the final score of the match, but did confirm that France clinched third place. Not a bad result for Les Bleus. FIFA 23 also predicted the top goal scorer of the tournament. Unsurprisingly, the game says Messi will take home the Golden Boot with 8 goals in 7 matches. Memphis Depay of The Netherlands and Kylian Mbappe take second and third place with 6 goals a piece. Interestingly enough, FIFA 23 is also predicting a big World Cup for American superstar Christian Pulisic, who scored 5 goals across 5 simulated matches, tying in goals with Brazil’s Richarlison and Vinicius Jr. Meanwhile, things were more complicated when selecting the best goalkeeper of Qatar 2022, but an Argentinian ultimately took the Golden Glove home, too: “There was a four-way tie for the Golden Glove between Rui Patrício of Portugal, Alisson of Brazil, Dominik Livaković of Croatia, and Emiliano Martínez of Argentina, but it was Martínez who picked up the award by virtue of progressing the furthest in the tournament.” Finally, EA Sports also announced its prediction for the Team of the Tournament based on the stats after all 64 matches had been simulated. Unsurprisingly, it’s largely populated by players from Brazil and Argentina:
Emiliano Martínez – ARGJoão Cancelo – PORRaphaël Varane – FRAMarquinhos – BRAMarcos Acuña – ARGLeandro Paredes – ARGRodrigo de Paul – ARGVinícius Jr – BRALionel Messi – ARGKylian Mbappé – FRARicharlison – BRA
Football fans looking to jump into the World Cup action early can do so now on FIFA 23, which just dropped its big World Cup update, bringing with it officially licensed online and offline World Cup tournament modes as well as new Ultimate Team cards and much more.
