FIFA Shooting to Score in Every Dorm

By Blake Shaffer

I think it's safe to say that FIFA is the unofficial sport of dorm rooms across America. If you're in college, someone will be playing FIFA.
The same cannot be said for the sport of soccer itself. It is competing in an already crowded market dominated in turns by football, baseball and basketball. But if soccer isn't at the top of the heap, how did FIFA come to dominate games like NBA 2K or Madden NFL?
For starters, FIFA is an easy game to pick up and play. It doesn't require intricate knowledge of the rules or understanding of the formations, plays or positions. As long as someone can figure out how to pass and shoot, they know enough to scrape by. That's not say that it has no depth; knowledge of players, teams and tricks is what separates the good from the great, but you don't really need any of these to at the very least get close to a goal.
It's also a very forgiving game. Since soccer is low-scoring to begin with, it's pretty common for most games to end in either a draw or a two point spread. Since the possibility of tying a game is only a few goals away, it's rare to feel like you're out of the match in a game of FIFA. Even in those worst case scenarios, it is a whole lot easier to stomach a 5-0 loss in soccer than a 98-12 in basketball.
On a practical level, FIFA usually takes about the same amount of time. The clock doesn't stop every time the ball goes out of bounds or a player takes a dive (which is bound to happen).
No matter what happens, someone is going to be upset in  about 16 minutes. This frees up the next person in the rotation to hop on.
Above all nothing beats dropping a dead fish on someone after a goal or staring down the crowd as Super Mario.  Nowhere else can you rub your opponent's face in a goal in so many ways.
While soccer may not be America's pastime or favorite sport, in some ways the U.S. is catching on to what the rest of the world has known for quite some time. FIFA, on the other hand, has been, and in all probability will remain, one of the best dorm room hobbies. And as a final note to all of the Real Madrid players out there, I think it's about time you took off the training wheels, buddy.