Hoban & Tracy make FIFA 14 cover

After weeks of voting and with the likes of Jack Wilshere and Neil Ruddock pledging their support to some of those involved, the two players chosen to join Lionel Messi on an exclusive League of Ireland FIFA 14 cover have been unveiled. Patrick Hoban of Dundalk and Shane Tracy of Limerick will appear alongside the Barcelona star on the downloadable cover after topping a poll run on extratime.ie.

The FIFA franchise, which is developed by EA SPORTS, has won 250 videogame awards since 2010 and has exclusively featured the League of Ireland for the last six years. On the eve of the release of the newest game in the series, FIFA 14, extratime.ie sat down with the two poll winners to talk about how it feels to appear alongside the world’s best player on the cover of the world’s best football game.

“It’s unbelievable and a great honour for myself and for the club to have a player feature on the cover of FIFA 14,” says Dundalk striker Patrick Hoban, “I play FIFA a lot myself, I’d play it every year. To be on the cover of FIFA 14 is a once in a lifetime opportunity, that’s how I see it.”

This year has had a touch of a fairy-tale feeling about it for Hoban with Dundalk pushing St Patrick’s Athletic right to the wire in search of a league title as well as him leading the Dundalk goal scoring charts having found the net 12 times so far. Most pundits and fans alike would not have seen this Dundalk performance coming after being on the brink of relegation and, at times, bankruptcy last season, but Hoban says that they knew of their ability before the season had even begun.

“We were a surprise package for everybody else but for us as a group and for everyone involved with us, we all believed that we could win matches and that’s what the manager has done with us this season. We’ve never gone out to try and contain a match or to try and nick a win, we’ve gone out and played teams off the park this season and nobody can take that away from us. We deserve to be where we are right now.”

The arrival of Stephen Kenny as manager has sparked a football revolution in the Louth town, most of which Hoban puts down to Kenny implementing a much more professional set up. “Everything is just like a professional setup. What he’s done is bring in very hungry players and mixed that with experience. His management is top class and his man management skills are excellent.

“You could say that he took a bit of a risk signing me as I was coming up from Mervue but he decided to take that risk and it’s paid off. I knew I was capable of playing well in the Premier Division and I’ve done quite well this season but I need to keep it going now to the end of the year, that’s the plan.”

After a disappointing loss away to title challengers St Pat’s last week Hoban is determined to help his side kick on and put six points on the board in their next two matches against Limerick and Derry City. “We’ve bounced back from losses before and that’ll be our aim in the next game. We’re just looking at Limerick at the moment but you could definitely say that the next two games are massive for us and hopefully we can come out of them with six points.”

The Lilywhites certainly don’t have any easy games going into the final five weeks of the season as they come up against both Bohemians and Bray Wanderers away from home - two teams that are fighting a relegation battle at the foot of the table. “Anybody can beat anybody in this league and that’s the reality of it,” says the former Mervue man, “look at Pat’s, they’ve drawn with Limerick and they’ve drawn with Bohs so anything can happen. We can only concentrate on ourselves but hopefully Pat’s might drop some points, that’d certainly help.”

Fellow cover star Shane Tracy was also thrilled to be selected ahead of players from every other League of Ireland Premier Division club. “I’m delighted; I obviously got a lot of votes and had a lot of people helping me out. When I heard about it I said to my girlfriend ‘the family are going to go crazy with this’ and they really did. I really appreciate everyone who voted.”

Tracy was considered a favourite by many early on to be near the top of the poll after receiving Twitter support from Arsenal stars Jack Wilshere and Emmanuel Frimpong. “I woke up the next morning and had a text from my sister [who plays for Arsenal ladies and works at the training ground] saying that she was going to do everything to get me on the cover. She said she was going to ask a couple of them but to be honest I didn’t really think they would, but it was great that they did.”

Unfortunately for Tracy an injury picked up four weeks ago has put an end to his season having been a regular in the Limerick starting line-up and netting six goals prior to it. “Watching the match the other night [a 2-0 win for Limerick over Shamrock Rovers] was the most I’ve missed it. It’s very frustrating but that’s football, there’s nothing really I can do, I just have to look to next season now. I still played 26 games and scored a few of goals. I was really enjoying being back in the Premier Division as well because this was my first proper stint in it really.

“There’s only five weeks left in this season so I’m hoping to get a good base for pre-season and then hit the ground running in January.”

Mid-table comfort will definitely be seen as a success for Limerick in their first season back in the Premier Division for 18 years but the former Galway United player says they still want to finish as high as they can. “It’d be great to finish in the top half. We’re only three points off Cork now with five games to go. The win the other night was massive because it took us completely away from the relegation places. That one win now has given us the chance to finish in the top half of the table and finish the season strongly.”

Natural progression for The Blues next season would see them pushing for a European spot, but Tracy is mindful for them not to get ahead of themselves. “We’re looking to progress because you want to get the best out of every season that you can. But it’s still our first season back in 18 years so we still need to build a squad. We’ve seen this year how injuries and suspensions can affect the squad so hopefully we can add a couple soon.”

With the season ending in five weeks’ time both players will have plenty of time to sit down in front of a television and pit their teams against the very best in the world, even if it is only virtually.