We are still at least a couple of years out from the 2022 men’s football World Cup. The qualification process for it started nearly a year ago, though. On 6 June 2019, teams in the first round of Asia’s qualification process got started. Norjmoogiin Tsedenbal of Mongolia scored the first goal, and set his team on their way to progressing to the next stage past Brunei. Qualification is a sprawling, truly global competition with stories in every part of the world. It’s pretty simple to keep up with these days (Wikipedia generally has all the results, for a start) but in 1997 it was more obscured. One video game did a lot to change that, though…
What’s new in FIFA: Road to World Cup 98?
Let’s start with the new feature highlighted in the title, though this is effectively FIFA 98. EA decided to do something big with the rights to the following year’s World Cup. Rather than just a generic competition between international sides, FIFA 98 simulates the World Cup beginning with the entire qualifying tournament, with teams representing 174 nations across six continental confederations’ competitions. Everything from the European qualifying groups more familiar to me at the time, to the CONCACAF preliminary round clash between the Dominican Republic and Aruba. My brother and I set out to play through the entire worldwide campaign, each picking a side for each match. While we never finished it, the experience was compelling and educational.
FIFA 98 makes a big thing out of having versions of many different stadiums around the world, too, although obviously a long way short of 174, so a remarkable number of Asia qualifying matches end up being played in the same stadium in Japan, for instance.
The other menu option to raise FIFA to a new level at this point was a new player and team editor. You can change any player’s looks, selecting from an impressive array of hairstyles and facial hair, and design a team’s kit with about twenty different shirt designs. The editor in Sensible Soccer with its four shirt designs and three player looks was already a delight to us, so this was a whole new level. We could set up our own league of themed teams in which our school football teams took on Lemming Island and Theme Hospital (the latter playing in an all puke green kit). Even if the matches hadn’t played better than FIFA 97, that would still have made this a much more exciting experience.
Also you can hack down goalkeepers while they hold the ball for a guaranteed red card.
What’s gone?
Score-board animations of any kind have finally bitten the dust!
What’s stayed?
The general set-up remains pretty much the same as in FIFA 97, including all the league options outside of the international competition which is its focus. A now rather vestigial-feeling indoor mode is also still there, with matches played out on a grass pitch surrounded by walls.
Who is on the cover?
David Beckham (England, M). He wasn’t yet at peak fame, but it’s obvious where they were heading with trying to get the biggest star possible.
What’s on the soundtrack?
The swish intro video with Footix, the cockerel mascot of France ‘98, flying around various stadiums, is a big improvement on any of the previous attempts, but the largest reason is the soundtrack to it. It’s Blur’s “Song 2”, a masterful choice in offering something more coherent and less alienating than FIFA 97’s jock-metal leanings while adding a burst of energy. Playing FIFA 98 was the first time I ever heard this song from a band I went on to get into a lot, and maybe that adds to how fondly I think on its use, but the game’s intro still carries a sense of excitement. While not as integrated as Wipeout’s music, it is another demonstration of the possibilities of using pop music of the moment. The other in-house bits of soundtrack are less noticeable, which is still an improvement on FIFA 97, and you sometimes get to hear “Song 2” again on the menu.
Who is the best player in the game?
The overall rating has gone, so we can’t easily tell. I have seen people quoting answers with such a rating, though, which is odd. Maybe it was only in the PC version? Maybe they calculated it themselves? The popular answer seems to be Ronaldo, which would make sense (the Brazilian one, not Cristiano, who like me would have been twelve at the time).
Who is the worst player in the game?
Similarly we can’t answer this, which is a shame. Assuming something approaching accuracy, there are a lot of potential answers given the results of some of the minor nations in the qualifying process for 1998. The Cook Islands, for instance, went out to Tonga, who were then defeated in a two-legged play-off against the Solomon Islands by an aggregate score of 13-0; in the following round the Solomon Islands then lost to Australia by the same score in a single match.
What do the players look like?
Compared to the PC version I remember playing, the graphics are significantly less sharp and make picking each player out a bit more difficult. And they still all have the exact same build. They look less blockily stocky than in FIFA 97, though, and more importantly the range of different hairstyles and looks give an individuality that means you actually can sometimes tell at a glance which player you are passing to, even if they don’t exactly look like their real life equivalent. A direction of travel, in which EA make their licences to real events and likenesses work ever harder for them, becomes very clear at this point.
How does it play?
FIFA 98 is the first old FIFA game I have played to feel like a modern FIFA game. Many changes are still to arrive, but this is where the basics of the game settle into place. Players are less ponderous than in its predecessor, but things still generally feel considered and weighty. Passes now go where you want them to more often than not, with a sensible consideration of distance, which makes zipping the ball around much more rewarding. New levels of tactics are possible that would have been a headache to try in FIFA 97. Dribbling along the wing, passing to a teammate to draw off a defender, and then passing back to the first player in newfound space, for instance. Crossing and aerial play in general feels very underpowered, one area that’s worse than FIFA 97, but the range of shots that can result in goals in a relatively predictable and fair way opens up a lot more possibilities than are closed down. It still isn’t quite ISS 64, but it is a big move forwards.
There is a bit of an issue with all matches feeling much the same, and not much to distinguish individual teams or players. Anyone from David Beckham to players from the aforementioned Cook Islands can complete exactly the same skill tricks with a tap of a controller shoulder button. Those things would change later too. For now, the basics of a deeper and more engaging football game were in place, and a newly vast array of real, imagined, and semi-imagined competitions to take part in could make up for anything lacking beyond that.
How does it score on the sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gif greed index?
It’s corporate on many levels and it’s no revolution from FIFA 97, but it is at least a pretty huge evolution with a string of extra options and a new focus. It’s easy to see how it ended up such a success and it’s doubtful there was much begrudging of the yearly update at this point. That’s all changing soon but, for now, zero sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gifs.
If FIFA 98 was a football team at the time, who would it be?
The default friendly match in FIFA 98 is between England and Italy, who faced each other in a qualifying group with the former coming out on top. So let’s go with FIFA 98 as England, and quote from the relevant bit of “Three Lions ‘98”. FIFA was strong; it had grown.