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Di Vaio picked for MLS All-Star game in FIFA 13 contest

Marco Di Vaio

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

By DAN KARELL

Major League Soccer announced on Thursday that Montreal Impact forward Marco Di Vaio has been named the winner of the “In the Game” challenge, earning him a place in the 2013 MLS All-Star Game in Kansas City.

Between July 3-10, fans participating playing FIFA Soccer 13 could “vote in” one forward out of 27 potential candidates by scoring as many goals as they could in the challenge, every goal counting as one vote. Using Di Vaio in the game, fans scored 73,838 goals, putting him 4,041 votes ahead of Robbie Keane of the Los Angeles Galaxy, who finished second with 69,797.

“I am very proud and honored to be the first ever player selected to the MLS All-Star team by the millions of FIFA Soccer 13 players around the world,” Di Vaio said in a prepared statement.” I would like to thank all those fans around the world who played FIFA 13. I am proud to represent the Montreal Impact as an MLS All-Star.”

According to MLS, this is the first time that a video game has been used to select a player to an All-Star game roster in professional sports. Overall, fans scored more than 488,000 goals in the challenge.

Di Vaio now has the opportunity to represent MLS on July 31 at Sporting Park against many of his former teammates and adversaries at AS Roma, the arch rival of the 36-year-old Italian’s first club, Lazio. Di Vaio spent 13 seasons in Serie A with six different clubs.

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Comments

  1. As long as a quality player comes out on top, like Di Vaio did, I am okay with this approach. Just think they may want to shrink down the number from 27 candidates to a shortlist of truly deserving players; I doubt 27 deserve to be considered for the All-Star team.

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  2. Luckily we have FIFA 13 to get the league’s leading scorer in as an all-star……

    On a different note, without looking it up, I assume Keane and DiVaio, maybe one or two more are rated about 20 points better than everybody else? Seems like a hurdle for the guys without big int’l names

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