The thing about the FIFA series back before they got the Champions League license, they would put every single team, including those who would qualify directly into the (first) group stage IRL, in a playoff just to qualify for the (first) group stage. Which made no sense but made things interesting and which resulted in some interesting groups, such as the one in your Barcelona FIFA 2001 longplay, where they were paired with Real Madrid (who lost their first group stage match to Lansdowne Road [aka Dublin]), which meant that teams from the same country were sometimes paired together, which didn't happen back then IRL, except for the 2005-06 season when Liverpool and Chelsea were paired together as a result of the former being the titleholders from the previous season despite finishing outside the Top 4, which resulted in them having to qualify for the group stage, which they did with little issue.
So true. Noticed this way too many times, which led to rather unusual and somewhat disappointing group constellations. E.g. In most of my FIFA 2000 CL playthroughs I often got paired with the second team that qualified in the same group (in group stage 2) that I was in. So I would play against LAZIO (e.g.) 4 times : 2x in group stage 2 and 2x immediately in the quarterfinals. Not much thought went into it back then.
![[PC] | FIFA 2001 | NETHERLANDS | WORLD CUP | LONGPLAY | WORLD CLASS DIFFICULTY](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Uy4fv6PLlhQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[PC] | FIFA 2001 | NETHERLANDS | WORLD CUP | LONGPLAY | WORLD CLASS DIFFICULTY](/img/tr.png)
![[PC] | FIFA 2001 | FC BARCELONA | PROFESSIONAL | LONGPLAY | ECC - CHAMPIONS LEAGUE](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YMRco2yZGAc/mqdefault.jpg)
The thing about the FIFA series back before they got the Champions League license, they would put every single team, including those who would qualify directly into the (first) group stage IRL, in a playoff just to qualify for the (first) group stage. Which made no sense but made things interesting and which resulted in some interesting groups, such as the one in your Barcelona FIFA 2001 longplay, where they were paired with Real Madrid (who lost their first group stage match to Lansdowne Road [aka Dublin]), which meant that teams from the same country were sometimes paired together, which didn't happen back then IRL, except for the 2005-06 season when Liverpool and Chelsea were paired together as a result of the former being the titleholders from the previous season despite finishing outside the Top 4, which resulted in them having to qualify for the group stage, which they did with little issue.
So true. Noticed this way too many times, which led to rather unusual and somewhat disappointing group constellations.
E.g. In most of my FIFA 2000 CL playthroughs I often got paired with the second team that qualified in the same group (in group stage 2) that I was in. So I would play against LAZIO (e.g.) 4 times : 2x in group stage 2 and 2x immediately in the quarterfinals.
Not much thought went into it back then.
This PC version is great. In Playstation the players indicators are bad.
Ps2?
@@NOBLEGAMING21 The PC version great but the ps2 version is worst.
@@ivanyiattila3547 really? Never played it myself
@@NOBLEGAMING21 I played all Fifa episodes on PC. 97-20.
At some point, console versions became superior. I remember that especially with FIFA 11.