1 AC Milan Player Whose FIFA 16 Stats Overestimate Him
Gaming is becoming increasingly relevant to modern-day football. Not only do players and managers themselves use it as a means of winding down, they now also use it for realistic research purposes.
Swansea City striker Bafetimbi Gomis admitted as much in an interview with his club’s official website upon joining in 2014, saying (via the Guardian):
"I play a lot of Football Manager. During my time with my previous club, we travelled quite a bit for European matches. Therefore, I used my spare time on the plane to play. I’ve been playing the game ever since my development stages, but I have found it very helpful in helping me find out more about Swansea.
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In this day and age, when technology mirrors reality, it’s hard to see where FIFA 16 developers EA Sports got some of its AC Milan player ratings from. Of all the Rossoneri ratings, the most confusing regards Brazilian centre-back Alex.
Alex is rated as the best of Milan’s centre-back options on FIFA 16, even ahead of highly touted €25 million new signing and Italy under-21 international Alessio Romagnoli. With an overall score of 81, Alex also tops Cristian Zapata, Philippe Mexes and Rodrigo Ely.
Astonishingly, Alex is also scored higher than 78-rated creative midfielder Giacomo Bonaventura, who was not only one of the few bright spots of Filippo Inzaghi’s time in charge last season but has also been Milan’s most consistently good performers since the start of this campaign.
Quite how EA Sports arrived at such a rating is hard to fathom, especially seeing as Alex has yet to start a competitive fixture this season. In terms of squad status, he is well below Romagnoli and Zapata in coach Sinisa Mihajlovic’s pecking order.
Despite a succession of recent mistakes, including a sending off against Fiorentina on the opening day of the season and an own goal in Milan’s recent humiliation by Napoli, young Ely seems to have overtaken Alex too, leaving the Brazilian vying for fourth-choice centre-back status with fellow 33-year-old Mexes.
Clearly, FIFA 16’s rating of Alex is slightly off kilter, so much so it’s worth inspecting how they arrived at his overall score of 81.
In Milan’s 3-2 away victory over Udinese in September, Alex’s introduction from the bench early in the second half coincided with a fightback from the Zebrette that left Milan sweating in the dying moments of a game in which three points had seemed to be wrapped up by half-time.
Coming on for Davide Calabria, Alex lost his man soon after, allowing Udinese to pull one back and make the scoreline 3-1. He was nowhere once again for Udinese’s second goal.
On the evidence of that performance alone, he is not worth the "reaction" score of 70 EA Sports has given him.
Another dubious statistic is his 84 score for "interception" as, according to Squawka, he made fewer interceptions per game last season than each one of Mexes, Zapata and Romagnoli.
Alex is not in line with the great Milan tradition of central defenders combining poise with power. Indeed, he is not the most cultured of players, making his FIFA 16 scores of 50 for "dribbling" and 70 for "free-kick accuracy" strange.
His 62 rating for "long-pass" is also an overestimation of his capability. Though Squawka states he completed a higher percentage of his passes than Mexes, Zapata and Romagnoli last season, his average pass length was shorter than their respective totals.
These figures suggest that, while comfortable passing to a nearby team-mate, Alex is not at his best when playing long balls, something not reflected by his FIFA 16 score in this area.
Finally, per Squawka, Alex won fewer tackles than Mexes, Zapata and Romagnoli last season, making his 82 and 84 FIFA 16 ratings for "slide tackle" and "standing tackle" respectively seem too high.
While games such as FIFA 16 continue to develop ways of enhancing the realism of their gameplay, certain ratings let them down. As far as FIFA 16's Milan player ratings are concerned, Alex’s 81 score is the most overt example of this.
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