Welcome to a new thing! It’s called The Back Post, it’ll happen every week (as long as I’m not on holiday, or in the pub, or something), and it’ll serve as a place to splurge a load of updates and links to recap a week in the life of FIFA 10.

As always, it’s been a busy old week for FIFA 10 and Football World. Apparently another game was released this week that might have distracted people from playing FIFA 10 online so much. I wouldn’t know about that sort of thing, but casting a glance over at FIFA Earth doesn’t seem to suggest a slowdown.

FIFA 10 Games Played Online So Far Update Of The Week:
88,418,379

The Weekly FIFA 10 Podcast

This week’s podcast includes the regular discussion of the Live Season update and news from UK community manager Phil Wride on the first FIFA 10 tournament at the i38 event in Newbury this weekend. We also have an England-related thing you might not know in the Fact of the Week, plus a big shout in which Stevie declares diving to be an admirable art form.

You can subscribe to the FIFA 10 podcast feed via RSS (iGoogle and other readers) here.

Or, indeed, get it in iTunes every week. This link will take you right to it.

Or just play it right here, on this clever player thing.

FIFA 10 Goal of the Week

Congratulations to izany whose goal has been voted Top of the Shots by Football World’s users in this week’s Goal of the Week competition. Izany therefore wins the prize - a FIFA 10 football shirt! Not that we can send it to him because he’s not responded to our messages. Maybe he doesn’t want it. Or maybe he just doesn’t like us. Who knows.

Suggestions for what we can do with the shirt if he doesn’t reply more than welcome in the comments thread below.

Round 6 of the Goal of the Week competition is now open for entries. If you’re not familiar, you can enter any FIFA 10 goal video you’ve uploaded from the game to Football World. It’s totally free of course, the only proviso being that you’ve uploaded the video in the week between today and next Friday. Users of the site will then spend another week casting their votes on all those submitted, with the highest rated video winning its owner some sort of stupendous prize

Watch all the Top 20 goal videos from Round 6 here.

Score a goal that Football World users deem worthy of the Top 20 and you’ll also bag yourself a coveted place in our new Goal of the Week videos. Well, I say coveted. We’ve only just launched them. But bet your bum they’ll be coveted soon!

Goal of the Week - Round 2 Top 5

Goal of the Week - Round 2 Best of the Rest

Goal of the Week - Round 3 Top 5

Goal of the Week - Round 3 Best of the Rest

Live Season Team of the Week

Anyone who’s snagged the My Live Season premium service in FIFA 10 can expect a delivery of a ton of real-world football data every Thursday morning, UK time. When I say ton, what I mean is up to 15,000 points of information concerning player form, injuries, cards, results etc. Out of all that information comes our Team of the Week, which is as follows:

Goalkeeper: Iker Casillas - Real Madrid - 95
Hard to get much higher than a 94, but it’s up one point for Casillas after the Madrid derby last weekend. A superman save in the 92nd minute saved Real’s blushes as Atletico rallied from 3-0 down to produce a hair-raising climax.

Defender: Bacary Sagna - Arsenal - 90
It’s because he still hasn’t changed his hair do [http://arsenalfcblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/bacary-sagna-3.jpg]. Brave man. No? Ok, more likely it’s his role in Arsenal’s demolition of Premiership new boys Wolves. Sagna made the third - and best - of Arsenal’s goals that day. (Or he could have been rewarded for the costume - see below)

Defender: John Terry - Chelsea - 94
I don’t even really need to type this, do I? In brief: Chelsea, of which John Terry is the captain, beat Manchester United. And John Terry scored the only goal of the game. That sort of thing always gets you in the Live Season Team of the Weak.

Defender: Naldo - Werder Bremen - 90
High-flying Werder Bremen ground out a draw with Dortmund last weekend, with Naldo performing well at the back for the home side helping to protect a 19-game lossless streak.

Defender: Felipe - Deportivo - 88
Felipe has acquitted himself very nicely indeed at the back for Deportivo, despite originally playing midfield. He netted in their last La Liga game against Getafe.

Midfield: Shaun Wright-Phillips - Manchester City - 89
A brilliant run on the right saw Wright-Phillips fire home a stinging - albeit deflected - shot for the first of Man City’s two comeback goals against Burnley. That was a hell of a game, wasn’t it?

Midfield: Cesc Fabregas - Arsenal - 94
Cesc Fabregas retains his spot in the Live Season Team of the Week after his performance against Wolves. He was exceptional, capping his masterclass by scoring Arsenal’s wonderful third goal.

Midfield: Andrea Pirlo - AC Milan - 92
Milan fairly well demolished a struggling Lazio last time out, with Pirlo at the core of the action. His pinpoint free kick set up the first goal, while another free-kick fizzed over the bar later on. Let’s call this a call-up for his set pieces.

Midfield: Juan Mata - Valencia - 89
Perhaps because he’s just signed a new deal for loads more cash at Valencia, after apparently being one of the poorest played players on their books. Or maybe it’s because Valencia saw off Real Zaragoza at a trot last weekend, with Mata netting the first of his team’s three goals. Yeah, that’d be it.

Forward: Luis Fabiano - Sevilla - 92
Sevilla snatched a victory from Villareal in a great match, with Fabiano netting twice - his first a particularly lovely little dink after some wonderful control in front of the goal.

Forward: Ashley Young - Aston Villa - 91
Villa hit five to make Bolton heartily regret their trip south last weekend, with an on-fire Ashley Young lashing it home after just five minutes. So here we are, lashing the good man’s name to the top of the Team of the Week mast this week.

FIFA 10 Predicts: Republic of Ireland 3 - 0 France

Kevin Doyle will rise highest to meet a cross after just five minutes to put Ireland in front at Croke Park tomorrow. Robbie Keane will latch onto a wayward pass between France keeper Steve Mandanda (who unexpectedly starts ahead of Hugo Lloris because, well, he’s in the FIFA 10 TV ad and therefore we consider him a close mate) and a defender to slot home a second 20 minutes later. In the dying seconds of the first half, Ireland centre back Richard Dunne slides in recklessly as the last man and sees red.

An even and end-to-end game will rise another notch in intensity when France finally exploit their numerical advantage and get one back on 78 minutes when Jeremy Toulalan pokes home after a goalmouth scramble. However, Keane will put the game to bed three minutes before time after exploiting another defensive howler from France.

In post-match interviews - conducted via email - freshly sacked France manager Raymond Domenech said only : “I’ll never talk to you again.”

Ireland boss Giovanni Trapattoni, however, will remain upbeat after his side’s impressive victory, saying: “Did you! Proper! 10 men! It was like an unstoppable green tide of awesomeness.”

Stuff You’ve Sent Us This Week

I’m on Twitter a lot. I’m called EARom. If you find something particularly worth seeing, please do let me know so I can include it at the foot of this blog each week. If you’re not on Twitter, feel free to do the same to our email address, which is this: backofthenet@ea.com

We’re not the only ones who’ve had a busy week. Attractive-yet-feral University of New Mexico defender Elizabeth Lambert has found herself shooting to Internet stardom for all the wrong reasons this week. You’ve almost certainly seen this already. If not, I challenge you not to wince at least once.

She wasn’t sent off, believe it or not. She’s been sent off permanently since, though.

Tim Clark - Arsenal fan and editor of the UK’s Official Playstation Mag - correctly labelled this picture on Twitter as “the best photo *ever*”:

Yes, that’s Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Andrei Arshavin and Bacary Sagna. And don’t they look happy about it.

Jonny Evans and Didier Drogba go Tekken. They had a little coming together last week, and that naturally left Drogba rolling about on the Emirates turf for a bit. We don’t see the twitching legs that often though, so he should be congratulated for at least varying the moves a little.

Blimey, that was quick.

And finally, this is by far our favourite this week. What do they say in the Internets? Lolol? Something like that. We lololled a lololot at this one. Given Liz’s energies above, it’s not been a great week for the ladies game, really.