An enormous spectacle of a day has come to a close on the beach in Barcelona. As the sun sets over the Mediterranean and simply awesome group of drummers entertains the dispersing crowd, we can announce the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2009 champion is Frenchman Bruce Grannec. Bruce Almighty - the headlines are writing themselves...
The final four have been revealed. The quarter finals have just taken place on the main stage in front of a noisy crowd, and alas for us Brits all three of our hopefuls have lost out. Our final four are Bruce Grannec (France), Radim Kluka (Czech Republic), Ruben Zerecera (Mexico) and Francisco Cruz.
The FIFA Interactive World Cup final is now underway with gusto. The impressive stage is awash with quality as the world's best FIFA 09 players pit their skills against each other, all of them vying for the $20,000 grand prize. The pool stages have concluded now, and we've spent a fair amount of time interviewing winners and losers for the weekly podcast - so keep your ears peeled for that.
We went for a quick stroll from the hotel to the FIFA Interactive World Cup final venue on Barcelona's sumptuous beach front yesterday. Stevie, who had been to Barcelona before, successfully guided us there over the course of two hours and two train rides, all while reiterating the need for his sense of direction to be "trusted".
We arrived in Barcelona last night through distinctly bouncy turbulence and a solid English-style downpour. The weather, we were told, would be pretty rubbish on Friday, too. There went our vision of a pleasant jolly in the sun, then.
David Rutter
is the Producer for FIFA 10 on PS3 and Xbox 360. A lifelong football fan, David supports Leicester and Hitchin Town. In addition to playing FIFA, Rutter also enjoys CoD4, GRAW, and NHL.
Aaron McHardy
is responsible for gameplay design on FIFA 10. He did that on FIFA 08 and 09, too. A professional footballer prior to working at EA, Aaron displayed his skills for the motion-capture cameras on FIFA Street and FIFA Street 2.
Marcel Kuhn
is an Associate Producer on FIFA 10 and looks after the front-end design, specifically for things like Manager Mode and Live Season. Prior to EA, Marcel worked for a marketing agency in Germany for several years and, later, worked for a comic publisher.
Romily Broad
is community manager for EA SPORTS Football World. Principally, that means he gets to play FIFA a lot and claim that it's actual work. Between games he also brings us the weekly FIFA podcast and all the cool stuff you might find over at EA SPORTS Football World.
Christophe Labrune
came to EA Canada from France in 2001 and, after some time in QA and localistion, joined the FIFA crew for FIFA 2004. He was the force behind Be A Pro Seasons in FIFA 09, and is now Online Producer for FIFA 10 on PS3 and Xbox 360. Christophe is a fanatical supporter of his hometown, Metz.
Stevie Morgan
has worked in sports broadcasting for the past 12 years, despite always being picked last for football at school. He has also founded a support group for fellow fans of Southampton FC who, like him, have found things a bit much over the past few years and are suffering from post-Premiership depression.
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