Actually By Stevie Morgan

A new gaming dawn will shortly be upon us and the ad campaign for FIFA 10 is underway in Barcelona. The only thing is: that's all I can tell you. I have been sworn to secrecy and the one thing you can say about Stevie Morgan is that he's not a grass. Ask anyone around my manor and they'll put you right. So I'm not saying any more than that, guv'nor - other than that the names involved in the shoot are serious heavy duty and we'll reveal all when the time is right.
 
Sorry to be a tease but them's the rules and I ain't no rat.

What has been interesting is spending time in Romily's company and the banal level of conversation that we occupy ourselves with during our quiet moments. This has ranged from - What's the most overrated food? What country would you never live in? And what's the most pointless fruit.

Please save me from this madness!!

By the way - my answers were sushi, France and pomegranate.

Oh, and if you're wondering who the hell I am - or what a Romily is - check out the weekly EA SPORTS FIFA podcast in iTunes right here.

Adios for now...

As part of the ongoing FIFA 10 community event at EA's magnificent Vancouver studio, the assembled community members got the chance to put the development team themselves to the sword on a real football pitch.

It was an energetic break in the bright sunshine from all the hands-on FIFA 10 time everyone had been enjoying on Xbox 360 and PS3.

Our international attendees are certainly hardcore footy fans, and fancied their chances against a load of atrophied games developers. Or at least, that was the plan.

Turns out there's nothing atrophied about any of these guys. The FIFA team features staff from 18 different countries, and all of them are skilled footballers. Hell, one of them was once a runner up in the Red Bull international football freestyle championship (although he's an animator on FIFA 10 these days).

Jason and Rob Thompson - hosts of the daily EA SPORTS Live radio show broadcast from Florida - dropped down to the pitchside to take in the scene, and managed to hoik FIFA 10 producer David Rutter off the pitch for a chat mid-game. Check it out below.

The Floridita Bar in London's hip Soho provided the venue last night for the UK final of the FIFA Interactive World Cup. Some 32 finalists had secured a place at the event through competition online and at live qualifiers around the country, and they gathered under the gaze of media and celebrity to fight it out for a place at the Grand Final in Barcelona in May.

Speaking as someone who tries really hard to be good at FIFA every day without ever really managing it, the skill on display was slightly frightening. When FIFA 09 is put in the hands of people who really know what they're doing it becomes less of a videogame and more of a premium spectator sport. And so it was for the final match.

BBC Radio 1 DJs Comedy Dave and Chappers had compared a brilliantly entertaining evening up to this point. Rounds of competition were punctuated with stunning staged displays of martial arts, football skills and incredible beat boxing, all of which tuned the crowd's mood perfectly for the final showdown. Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal), Jack Collison (West Ham), Jaimie O'Hara (Spurs) and Armand Traore (Portsmouth) pitching up didn't dampen the sense of occasion either.

Sixteen-year-olds Ryan Haywood and Graham Ellix had proved the cream of the crop and faced off on the main stage playing as Manchester United and France respectively. And what a final it was. The big crowd responded loudly to every twist and turn as a close game saw the score 1-1 at half time. But Graham stunned the assembled crowd at the restart by launching a hopeful punt at Ryan's goal from the kick-off, which snuck in under the bar.

Ryan told us later that he thought his number was up at that point, but in the event he levelled the score almost immediately and went on to win 4-2.

Ryan Haywood, then, will represent the UK at the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2009 Grand Final in Barcelona in May, where he'll be competing for a $20,000 first prize. As for Graham, he acquitted himself admirably. Were it not for two hairline off-side decisions in the second half we could have seen a very different outcome. It's not the last we've seen of this young talent on the FIFA scene, that's for sure.

Stevie Morgan and I were on the ground poking microphones under people's noses and taking notes all evening. So keep an eye on EA SPORTS Football World for a full report and some proper photos (as opposed to these ones I grabbed on the phone I was using to Tweet the occasion) very soon. And our next podcast will feature interviews with Ryan and Graham, so make sure you get a load of that in iTunes, too.