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Right around the time kids gain enough coordination to reliably move a ball, they start wanting to emulate the most creative techniques the sport offers. I don't think that can be laid on FIFA.

I remember learning the Cruyff turn before I could cleanly dribble down an open field. It was fancy and an obvious display of skill, so everyone wanted to do it - even though it's a useless technique if your control and acceleration aren't perfect.

If anything can be chalked up to video games, I would expect it to be aerial passing and a reluctance to play back. The rest - fancy moves and beating defenders - has been an ego issue since long before FIFA.

I think it's pretty hard to get into a "playing to win" mindset at any age. At least it is/was for me, it's hard to let go of the joy of winning through clever or flashy moves and focus on the joy of winning a high level competition, where everyone is playing to win.

Sirlin's (fighting game player / game designer) has a good book/series of articles about this that's made the front page a few times: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

"I once played a scrub who was actually quite good. That is, he knew the rules of the game well, he knew the character matchups well, and he knew what to do in most situations. But his web of mental rules kept him from truly playing to win. He cried cheap as I beat him with “no skill moves” while he performed many difficult dragon punches. He cried cheap when I threw him five times in a row asking, “Is that all you know how to do? Throw?” I gave him the best advice he could ever hear. I told him, “Play to win, not to do ‘difficult moves.’”"

Part of the issue with this is that a lot of games get very boring when you treat them seriously and people do not originally get into them for those boring parts.

This. A friend of mine plays paintball (skirmish). He said the way to win is to hide during the whole game and slowly crawl towards your objective. But, it's way more fun to go in guns ablazing like Rambo.

Kinda random, but is there a guide for FIFA for someone who doesn't know how to actually play soccer? I very much enjoy playing with my brother, but neither of us understand 80% of the vocab, so the usual video game trick of "go look at the controls, find out what's available to you" isn't even useful. We'd both love to get better but we don't really have the time to invest in learning a whole sport and all the vocab that goes with it. I've searched youtube and google, but haven't found anything to help.

I would recommend searching the r/FIFA subreddit. There is a ton of stuff on there that is childish (it is a game played mostly by kids after all), but every so often one of the better players will post a thorough guide on how to emulate their playstyle. Be forewarned about how much FIFA players like to complain about the game.

I would suggest going to /r/bootroom on Reddit and asking for some help there. It's a subreddit catered to getting better at soccer. I'm sure they'd be glad to help with any vocabulary questions, even if you never plan on playing the game in real life.

>>There have always been kids who wanted to play sports the fancy way, with flair, long before video games.

I had a friend who was a boxing coach in the sixties and seventies and he told me about all the young lads that tried to box like Muhammad Ali, but with painful consequences.

> Before video games, kids would try to do things they saw their pro idols do on television as well.

I agree with this. Beeing from Argentina back when we played in the neighborhood there was always a kid pretending to be Maradona who wanted to solo score from mid-field or make a luxury goal :p

> the highest level players (yes, there are professional FIFA players) actually play the game much closer to what you're referring to as the optimal style of play: short ground passes, keeping possession, playing backwards to keep possession, very little trying to beat your man one-on-one, creating chances by making runs, defending by jockeying your man without gambling, and good shots from good positions

I played the NHL series of games at a high level for a while and saw a lot of what you describe there, too. Tons of people just trying to run it up the ice and hammer away at the goal, but if you played it akin to how an actual hockey game is played you'd see a lot of opportunities open up.

It's not flair though if you are doing a rabona because you saw your favourite player do it the other day.

Genuine flair is the ability to do the unexpected. At best, these games open our eyes to these possibilities. At worst, they teach style over substance, and our game is poorer as a result.

I would argue that it is flair, because it's a move you don't see on the pitch very often (and with good reason). It's almost always unnecessary and a way of saying "Hey, look at me!". Maybe you're saying it's not original? I would agree with that.

al creativity starts with learning the moves, the tropes, and getting inspired. There's a reason Brahms' 1st symphony sounds like Beethoven that it's often called Beethoven's 10th, but his 5th much less so...

Too good not to share: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5XhzifxT_s