11) FIFA Street (2005, PS2)Īh, the Master League: just how many hours have we spent cocooned in your comforting embrace, steadily building up a team of honest pros and turning them into world beaters? Probably several thousand – and that’s no exaggeration. The first 10 matches of Retro Goal can be played for free.

The convenience of being handheld makes it all the better, too. Retro Goal is a beautiful throwback to the SEGA days of football games and features such star names as Garrido, Hough and Frezza (not actual players, of course). If you’re not sure, you get ten games for free, whereaand even unlocking the entire game costs a pittance. You just need some patience, and to power up couple of strikers so they’ve got enough welly. We’ve seen grumbles that the game is pay-to-win, but we’ve won everything you can win in the game, without doing a Manchester City. Instead of full games, you play out highlights, using gestural controls (with the aid of Matrix-style slo-mo) to bury the ball in the back of the net. However, rather than veering towards management, much more of this game is played out on the pitch. Retro Goal is by the New Star Soccer folks, and has some similarities, in being a fusion of management and action. The goalies were still rubbish, though, natch. The result was the first truly fluid football game, where you could string together some genuinely breathtaking moves. Brimming with options, advanced players could utilise techniques such as ‘5-direction’ passing, sliding tackles and backheels, all from a joystick with only a single fire button. 13) Emlyn Hughes International Soccer (1988, C64)Ī spiritual successor to Andrew Spencer’s International Soccer, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer was the last great side-on football game of the 1980s.

Nfl game pass spectrum