It was those off-the-ball motions - shouting, pointing, posturing - were priceless for EA in making the most of the physicality and excitement of a live game. "If the stuntman is able to FUT 22 Coins slide into someone in a motion capture environment and then they pop back up, but it isn't quite as violent as real-life challenges," explains Eaves. "In this game the physicality is real. The player stands up and is angry. We absorb the intensity and incorporate it into our games."

It was only through capturing 22 people over the span of 90 mins that EA could make enough animation, 8.75 million frames, to enable its 'HyperMotion technology. Machine learning is then activated. "Previously it was the case that when a player moves towards the ball to complete the next act - an attempt to pass, shoot or dribble - we've selected the animation we have in our databases," Eaves explains. "But it doesn't know the context. All of this data trains the network, and it helps blend animations."

How can the search for realism impact a game which, at the end of the day, compresses more than 90 hours of high-end football into just ten minutes or so? "It's something positive," says FIFA YouTuber and streamer Chris Wood, aka Chesnoid Gaming. "The principle behind sport video games is to recreate what you'll see in real everyday life on a weekend. Thus, it brings the game to life even more. Instead of five minutes of a video game, it becomes closer to five-minute halves of a real football game."

The aim is that the flashes, feints and micro-movements that were captured in southern Spain will aid in understanding how some of the best players in the world do in FIFA 22. For instance, take Mo Salah: the nuances as he traps the ball, the precise touches as he sprints, skips over the back of defenders slamming him, slams down on the goal before slamming it home.

Their movements were immortalized during the night. They'll soon be seen by more than 30 million gamers all over the world. This is why it was important so significantly to both sides. "One of the goalkeepers faced an intense shot directly at him and it was thrown out of buy FIFA 22 Coins his hands," Eaves recalls. Eaves. "He was shocked - the pain was real. I couldn't help thinking that we probably didn't have his permission to add that animation to games."