It's well known at this stage that Republic of Ireland international and Hull City midfielder David Meyler is a massive fan of EA SPORTS FIFA and has taken his hobby into the public domain by uploading his gameplay videos to YouTube, and streaming his sessions live on Twitch TV.
As big fans of the game ourselves, we were delighted to get the opportunity to not only play Meyler 1v1, but to ask him exactly how he ended up with over 100,000 subscribers, and more followers on Twitch, watching him play a video game.
The full interview can be heard on the latest episode of The Balls.ie Football Show:
Meyler has been a fan of FIFA since he was a kid, but as a super competitive sportsman, he didn't like how close his matches with his friends back in Cork were getting, so he wanted to raise his game.
He soon realised from playing the best gamers around that those who play the game professionally are simply on a different level, but they do have tricks and traits that can be learned to improve your game.
How I kind of got into it was, I used to play FIFA with my pals and it came to the stage where the games were tight, we'd probably play best out of five, and I beat one of my pals, Kellogs, 3-2, or he'd beat me 3-2, and I got to the the stage where I wanted to make it 5-0. I just want to be wiping the floor with him.
And now I'm at the stage where I do play so much FIFA that I do wipe the floor with my pals, and I quite enjoy it. I've been brought up where winning is everything. I used to play pool with my Dad when I was younger and he would never let me win, he would hammer me and hammer me, he took pride in winning and it kind of got installed in me.
I got more into [FIFA] and I started getting good, I say good, because FIFA is one of those games where everyone thinks they're brilliant, but I played against, if more people are aware of how FIFA is going right now, Hashtag Tass who is a professional player for Hashtag United, he won the regionals in Paris and he's going to the FIFA Interactive World Cup, and then you realise how good somebody actually is. I realised then, I'm probably just above average.
As for YouTube and streaming live, it all game from a good idea to raise money for charity.
Having wanted to get involved with breast cancer support, he raised money by streaming and having his viewers donate as they watched, and enjoyed the experience so much that he wanted to keep it up.
I was just playing it, and someone said well why don't you stream it and make videos on YouTube, and as you can see from my YouTube the quality is not the best, I get a lot of stick about the mouse-click and the 'Yes Lads!' [Meyler's intro to his videos], but nobody wants to be like someone else.
My start is the mouse-click 'Yes Lads!', and it's grown so I can't change it now. But you see some of their [big FIFA YouTubers] videos and the quality is ridiculous, but the joy for me is why I started, to raise money for charity, which I did, I raise £2,500 for breast cancer awareness as my mother had breast cancer a couple of years ago, so we had some people come into Hull and I donated a check, and it was brilliant.
That was the idea, how I got into it, and the auld FIFA has taken off so I'll just keep going with it.
Regarding the current YouTube scene, Myler singled out a few channels who have inspired him and helped him get better at the game. The FIFA YouTube scene has really exploded in recent times, with many personalities running channels that have amassed hundreds of thousands (even millions in some cases) of followers who regularly watch their content.
There's a few I do watch.
I watch Nepenthez, I watch Bateson, Castro, although he's more of a live streamer. There's a lad from America called Dirty Mike, he's another one who does a lot more tutorials or whatever.
Because, I got to a stage but I had no skill moves, and people were saying 'Oh, you need to learn the Berba-spin, or the McGeady turn, so I've tried to bring them into my game. That's how start, you start watching them and then you start practicing.
And he certainly has been practicing.
I was lucky enough to get the chance to play two games with David Meyler ahead of Ireland's World Cup qualifier with Wales, and both games were very tight affairs. I played as Wales (as we couldn't as an Ireland player to play against Ireland!) and Gareth Bale kept me in it, but it's clear he knows all the tricks and touches that they very best FIFA players know.
His best finish in the Weekend League, which is FIFA Ultimate Team's most competitive online mode where only those who have won a tournament to qualify can get matched up with each other, is 36 wins out of 40... In a single weekend.
That is seriously impressive going and it surprised me to learn that FIFA 17 was the first game in which Meyler really got into Ultimate Team. It just goes to show how much can be learned from watching YouTube and practicing.
You can watch my games with Meyler in full on our YouTube channel, and the highlights are available below, and if you haven't subscribed to the Hull City man on YouTube and Twitch you really should.
Fans of FIFA can find out more about EA SPORTS FIFA Ultimate Team at www.easports.com/uk/fifa/ultimate-team.
