{"id":29144,"date":"2026-05-05T05:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/fifa-pro-evolution-soccer-football-manager-ranking-most-iconic-video-game-footballers\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T05:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:57:14","slug":"fifa-pro-evolution-soccer-football-manager-ranking-most-iconic-video-game-footballers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/fifa-pro-evolution-soccer-football-manager-ranking-most-iconic-video-game-footballers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa, Pro Evolution Soccer, Football Manager: Ranking most iconic video game footballers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">3. Tonton Zolo Moukoko (Championship Manager 01-02)<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We went to a small village in Malaysia,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/51904874\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">Tonton Zola Moukoko told me.<\/a> &#8220;I gave my passport to the officer. He was shocked. &#8216;Are you really Tonton Zola Moukoko?&#8217; he asked. &#8216;You can&#8217;t be the one that was playing at Derby!'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Moukoko&#8217;s legend travelled far and wide, carried on fans&#8217; forums and whispered between Championship Manager anoraks. And there was truth in its roots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Derby beat AC Milan and Bologna to sign the 15-year-old from Djurgardens in Sweden, where he moved from Democratic Republic of Congo to live with his brother after losing both parents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was a fledgling star in County&#8217;s academy, whose attributes on the game would see him grow into a skilful number 10 in the mould of Lionel Messi, often ending up at Europe&#8217;s biggest clubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At real-life youth or reserve games, fans would ask for his signature. But Moukoko never made a senior appearance at Derby. The death of his older brother saw him return to Sweden, and he spent his career in the lower Scandinavian leagues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Things happened around me which changed me a lot, changed my football career,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t really enjoy football any more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I found it very difficult to sleep for a long time after my brother died. Football was not the right thing for me after that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Moukoko is happy, though, that his legend endures among those who signed him on the game: &#8220;Still now, I have people calling from Australia, France, all over the place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/c78k1lv7d5no?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3. Tonton Zolo Moukoko (Championship Manager 01-02) &#8220;We went to a small village in Malaysia,&#8221; Tonton Zola Moukoko told me. &#8220;I gave my passport to the officer. He was shocked. &#8216;Are you really Tonton Zola Moukoko?&#8217; he asked. &#8216;You can&#8217;t be the one that was playing at Derby!&#8217;&#8221; Moukoko&#8217;s legend travelled far and wide, carried [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29146,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29144\/revisions\/29146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}