One of the reasons for my blogging constipation recently is because last week was ‘FIFA Friday’ – an annual event on my calendar which involves the release of the best football game ever – FIFA Soccer. The latest edition, FIFA 10, was highly anticipated by me and has failed to disappoint.

Most of my time has been spent on ‘manager mode’ – the primary single player section of the game. It is very hard, although selecting the highest difficulty level (Legendary) and the lowest ranked team available (Torquay) didn’t help. I consequently moved onto Burton Albion, before having a longer spell at Nott’s County, which resulted in me being sacked for not winning the league midway through the season. All very frustrating, but I refuse to play on an easier level.

Then there is the multiplayer option. Last night I played fellow FIFA-fanatic, Doug, from work. I picked Leeds, while he represented his beloved Bristol Rovers. It was a hard-fought affair between two of the dirtiest sides in the country. Across just three matches, there was around 15 goals, 2 red cards and a lot of cussing via SMS.

This evening, I decided to play people I had never met nor heard of from all over the world, in what is now regarded as socialising in the modern, digital world. Two annoying aspects about playing ‘randoms’ (if that is the correct term) 1) They always pick a 5-star team 2) They quit if losing.

I managed to find two opponents who, while sadly still kept up the trend of annoyance ‘1’, picking Inter Milan and Real Madrid; didn’t quit, despite me beating them 7-0 and 3-1 respectively. I then when on to play Arsenal. The connection to him was coincidentally lost after I scored an early 3 minute goal. Personally, I think I was playing Sir Alex himself.

Hopefully I will blog a bit more about non-FIFA related issues over the next few days – if only to stop my blog being blocked by the webfilters at work again as a ‘gaming site’.