How Video Games Are Changing the Way Soccer Is Played

"The reaction to them among professionals suggests they are succeeding. Chelsea striker Michy Batshuayi last month complained on Twitter to the producers of FIFA 17 that his passing statistics were not high enough, while Jacobson said that he regularly had to deal with players — or their agents — asking for their assessments to be bumped up just a little. The games, they believe, reflect the real-life sport.

As Iwobi suggests, however, they increasingly do more than that: They are not merely representations of the game, but influencers of it. Iwobi is not the only player who believes that what he does on the field has been influenced by what he has seen rendered on a screen
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Ibrahimovic said that he would “often spot solutions in the games that I then parlayed into real life” as a young player. "

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How Video Games Are Changing the Way Soccer Is Played - The New York Times