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...

Bruce injured his ankle playing football before flying to Spain, but manfully played through every round, taking victory pretty comfortably in every match he played.

He met Mexican Ruben Zerecero in the final on the main stage. Flanked on all sides by TV crews and performing before an impressively large crowd, both competitors kept level heads to play out a dramatic final game. Both playing as Manchester United, Bruce led for most of the first half after an early goal on the break. Shortly before half-time, Ruben levelled the score with an impressive header. But while the second half proved a tense, closely fought affair, two more goals from Bruce secured his victory, the $20,000 prize, a Kia Soul car and an invite to the FIFA World Player Gala in Zurich.

The only downside to the victory of the softly spoken Frenchman was that he doesn’t speak a word if English. Not to be put off, Stevie began his interview in French and successfully completed a whole half sentence before relying on the assistance of an interpreter.

It has been a grand day out indeed, and we’re already looking forward to next year. There’s a World Cup happening, too, I hear.

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.

England’s last hope, Adam Winster, was knocked out of the tournament by Mexican Ruben Zerecero, and it’s this guy we grabbed for a chat afterwards. Seething as we were at the demise of British hope, Ruben’s passion for the game quickly turned us into fans...

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.

That sounds really painful, doesn’t it. Keep them open. There, that’s better.

UK live qualifier champ Ryan Haywood has failed to qualify, and the poor chap was extremely upset about it. Reigning UK champ Chris Bullard, on the other hand, has eased through to the knockout stages, where he’ll be joined by countrymen Adam Winster and Danny Taylor, two other stalwarts of the UK FIFA scene.

New Zealander Dan Sykes has also battled his way past the pool stages, along with Aussie Matt Pommer. A shock exit occurred for Steven Coorey, the Aussie No. 1, who as you’ll hear on the podcast next week isn’t a happy bunny at all.

It’s bad news all round for the US contingent, too. US live qualifier champ Giuseppe Guastella has failed to progress, ending North America’s interest in the tournament. Shame, that.

There are a lot of stories emerging here, and a lot of names I haven’t mentioned, but the competition will now move to the knockout phase and the real drama will start to emerge as the FIFA Interactive World Cup crown moves within reach of the remaining competitors.

We’ll have the full story in due course, assuming sun stoke doesn’t set in first. It really is a hot day down here on Barcelona’s beachfront.

Between rounds of FIFA 09 competition, the FIWC main stage is being set ablaze by some truly sensational freestyle ball skills from John Farnworth - a man from Preston in the UK. We grabbed him as he made his way off stage to get a closer look at his skills, and see if Stevie could compete.

 

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".

Half-way there, he started calling himself Pathfinder.

We made the same walk this morning in silence, in about 15 minutes - and a good job too. The running order for the day's events had been brought forward an hour. The reason for that: A large collection of serious football fans are gathering and they really, really don't want to miss the Barcelona-Real Madrid match taking place later tonight.

Fair enough. First things first though, an introduction to the day's action from Stevie. Check back over the next few hours for more video as we get a chance to upload it...

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.

But as the day has gone on the sun has got its act together and it's looking better for tomorrow's main event on the beach: The Grand Final of this year's FIFA Interactive World Cup. More than half a million people took part in the qualification rounds for this event, online and off, and what we're left with now is the final 32 - the cream of the global FIFA 09 crop, ready to take each other on for a $20,000 prize haul and the title of FIFA 09 world champion.

A champion of an altogether different variety is Stevie Morgan - the voice of the FIFA 09 Top 10 videos and podcasts. He'll be leading the charge for EA SPORTS in covering the event, fronting a series of videos that we'll upload right here from the venue tomorrow.