EA put Liverpool star Diogo Jota's 'gamer' celebration in FIFA 23
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This one's a bit Inception: EA has put Liverpool star Diogo Jota's real life 'gamer' celebration in FIFA 23 - a celebration that sees Jota mimicking himself playing FIFA.
Background: one of my favourite video game stories of 2021 was the time when Jota had to quit a FIFA 22 tournament early to play a real-life match that afternoon - and performed a gamer celebration after scoring after just 97 seconds.
Jota celebrated by sitting down and pretending to play FIFA. (Jota continued his impressive form in front of goal by adding a second goal later in the first half. Liverpool went on to win 4-0.)
Wonderfully, Jota's scheduled next opponent in the FIFA 22 tournament, then 18-year-old French player Yanis "Lyamooo" Aguili, took to Twitter to reveal the chat between the two players that took place just before the Liverpool star took off.
Jota and Aguili were set to compete in an online qualification match for the FIFA 22 Global Series.
Jota's appearance in the tournament was no publicity stunt. As Eurogamer has reported, the Portuguese isn't just a world class footballer, he's a world class FIFA player.
In February last year, Jota was ranked number one in the world on the FIFA Ultimate Team Champions leaderboard after going 30-0 yet again during the weekend league (winning 30 matches without loss in FUT's most hardcore competitive mode is the kind of record the pro FIFA players shoot for).
"Since my dad gave me my first PlayStation as a kid, it's been like another passion of mine. I always played football on it," Jota told The Athletic in December 2020.
Now, EA has revealed it's added Jota's gamer celebration to FIFA 23, which you can see in the video above at the 6:30 mark.
Well played, EA. I imagine this one's going to be popular online!
FIFA 23 comes out 30th September on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, PC, Google Stadia and Nintendo Switch. Check out our FIFA 23 gameplay preview for more.