With Bolivia sitting ninth in the 10-team South American World Cup qualifying table, and having lost all three of their Copa America Centenario matches, newly appointed manager Angel Guillermo Hoyos is determined to get the most out of La Verde by going back to square one — the square where he determines who in Bolivia actually plays soccer.
EA Sports have released the official gameplay trailer for FIFA 17 with the latest installment of the wildly popular soccer simulation due to hit shelves on September 27th in North America and September 29th around the rest of the world.
So, what does the official gameplay trailer for FIFA 17 reveal?
They’ve got the managers nailed down.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino looks set to continue the work of his predecessor, Sepp Blatter, and disgraced UEFA president Michel Platini in expanding the World Cup to 40 teams.
The 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will each feature the current format of 32 teams, which came into use for the 1998 edition of the tournament, but Infantino believes the 2026 World Cup will feature 40 national sides.
After announcing that Lionel Messi would no longer grace the cover of EA Sports’ FIFA franchise, a global vote was conducted to determine the FIFA 17 cover and the new face of the game.
3.1 million votes were cast to decide between Manchester United’s Anthony Martial, Real Madrid’s James Rodriguez, Chelsea’s Eden Hazard and Borussia Dortmund’s Marco Reus.
Every year, the latest edition of the FIFA franchise promises spectacular changes, but, apart from minor adjustments here and there, the football simulator remains largely unchanged. FIFA 17 is looking to shatter that precedent by rolling out an abundance of changes this year — none bigger than the highly publicized switch to the Frostbite game engine.
Last weekend, the discovery of a serious match-fixing scandal has made Portuguese football a hot topic in crime pages in newspapers around the world.
Unfortunately this is not an isolated case, over the years, match-fixing scandals have dramatically grown.
Soccer is facing more suspicion than it ever has before, and that suspicion is driven by the possibility of a multibillion-dollar web of match-fixing that is corrupting the game.
Argentina will play in the Copa America Centenario despite earlier claims that a government investigation could cause the AFA to pull out of the competition. In a press conference on Tuesday following an emergency meeting of the AFA executive board, president Luis Segura said there was no possibility of Argentina being forced to miss the tournament.
Interim FIFA general secretary Markus Kattner has been fired for receiving lots and lots of money in secret bonuses.
For the previous 13 years, Kattner had served as FIFA's finance director, so he was in a perfect position to give himself a little extra million or several under the table.
FIFA's announcement was, um, succinct:
The implementation of Video Assistant Referees has divided a good portion of the football-watching public.
There are many who think that video technology is a necessity given the high-stakes nature of the game these days and that simply leaving potential game-changing calls to the referee and his assistants allows for too many mistakes and controversial decisions.
Gianni Infantino, we knew this would happen. We just didn't know it would be this soon. Infantino reportedly is trying to roll back some of the major reforms FIFA enacted when Infantino entered office back in February. This has reportedly caused Domenico Scala, formerly FIFA's audit and compliance chief, to resign in protest.