Watch: What happened when South America XI and European XI played in the same league on FIFA 17

What’s the story?

Europe and South America are the two footballing powerhouse continents in the world. Such is their players’ pedigree that no country outside the two continents has ever won the World Cup. The current crop of players is highly impressive too, with the Latin contingent boasting Barcelona's MSN and the European team having the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.

DreamTeam FC found that one FIFA Youtuber, BMOnus decided to have a face-off between the best players of both continents on FIFA 17 to figure out which continent would have the ultimate bragging rights.

In case you didn't know...

BMOnus used the Manager Mode feature in FIFA 17 to modify the teams as per his wishes and made all-star European and South American teams. The European team played under the Real Madrid badge while the South American XI had to play as Brazilian club, Santos FC.

The two teams entered into a league featuring eighteen other Premier League teams to surprising results.

The heart of the matter

Real Madrid lined up with an all-star attack consisting of Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Ozil, Robert Lewandowski and Gareth Bale with Paul Pogba and Luka Modric patrolling the centre of the park. The defence consisted of David Alaba, Sergio Ramos, Jerome Boateng and Philip Lahm while Manuel Neuer tended goal.

The South American lineup had an intimidating edge to it with Barcelona’s MSN in attack, Angel Di Maria, James Rodriguez and Arturo Vidal in midfield and Marcelo, Thiago Silva, Diego Godin and Dani Alves in defence.

Halfway into the league, Santos were on top with 46 points, losing just one game while Real Madrid were on 39, having lost four games. Europe XI’s title tilt was in vain throughout and they could not reel in the South Americans. The Europeans ended up losing the league by a margin of 11 points to South America’s 93.

What next?

In what was some consolation to Real Madrid and those backing the Europeans, Cristiano Ronaldo still was the highest scorer in the league, finishing above his eternal rival Lionel Messi. However, in spite of his 20 goals, Santos still topped the table.

For the Brazilians, Luis Suarez finished as top scorer with 15 goals which put him third in the goalscoring charts.

Author’s Take

Considering no team outside South America and Europe has ever won a World Cup, this was the battle of world’s footballing elite. In the end, the maverick natural flair of the South Americans triumphed over the more measured approach of the Europeans.

While FIFA 17 is no mirror of reality, it does provide an entertaining reflection of what could have been if such teams faced off against one another.