Does playing Computer Games make you better at Football?

Now let’s discount your archetypal spotty fat loser computer geek here. I am talking about normal people who play football and also play computers – latterly Pro Evo, FIFA and harking back to Super Kick Off, Sensible Soccer, European Club Soccer, Actua Soccer, and so on.

I appreciate I have offered no reasons why they might help you on a cold Sunday morning on Hackney Marshes, and the obvious thought is that sitting in your bedroom bashing a pad won’t do one jot for your fitness.

But I am talking about understanding the game – an appreciation of picking a pass, making a run, and beating a keeper. The timing on an expertly executed slide rule pass. Holding the ball up while support arrives. And so on.

Simulating this – i.e. playing a computer game – can only help, surely? Picking when to drop off the defender’s shoulder and into space, when to make the dart to the near post – and when to pick someone else out when they do – is a fine art, which practice makes perfect. And doing it on a computer game, whilst not quite the same as an afternoon at Colney Hatch, is at least practice of some sort.

Subconciously perhaps – but I genuinely think that rehearsing moves and simulating real life actions can only help when it comes down to you, rather than a pixellated Wayne Rooney, needing to find that yard in the box.

Of course, this has to be part of a balanced diet of exercise and gaming – you can’t scrimp on the physicals on the premise a few games of FIFA on Xbox Live will do just as well. But what they will do is further your understanding of how individuals and teams should act and move during a match. And that can only make you better at football.