Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 review – football runner-up scores on pitch

Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC; Konami
Outgunned by FIFA's club licensing deals and star power, PES starts a new season still on the back foot. But with silky passing and shot repertoire, its matchplay has the edge

Pro Evolution Soccer (universally known as PES) has come to resemble Blackburn Rovers or Coventry: a once-great team that fell upon hard times as a result of off-field woes. Where it was once it was routinely locked in an annual battle for football-game supremacy with EA Sports' FIFA, the latter's much more expansive budget (and official Premier League licence) have made it the Manchester City of sports games, while PES has been demoted to the game of choice for non-conformists and football purists.

But there is one area in which PES 2019 clearly has the edge on FIFA: on the pitch, PES 2019 is unassailable - deliciously silky passing and animations let you play football as it is played in real-life, rather than some barely recognisable, slightly manic, end-to-end approximation of the beautiful game. Its excellent training mode takes you through every aspect of the control system, teaching you how to time through-balls to find your striker's run, delicately chip goalkeepers rushing out to close you down and leave canny defenders in your wake with an arsenal of close-control moves. Putting them all together in matches is deeply satisfying.