Anybody who has followed Tassal 'Tass' Rushan's career will know that he is a diehard Arsenal fan and will take any chance he can to remind you of that. With how passionate he is about his club, it was no surprise to see the FaZe Clan player come through the Arsenal ePremier League qualifier and live out his dream of representing his boyhood club.
"Growing up, I had to be very good at football to ever have a chance of representing Arsenal and, unfortunately, that dream gets crushed for 99 per cent of people. I've been playing for a while but it was unique to win the Arsenal qualifier. It was a different feeling when I won that I can't really put into words," explained Tass when he spoke to Goal ahead of his impressive performance at the ePremier League, where he reached the Xbox semi-finals.
It's true that 99% of people, probably more, aren't good enough at football to represent Arsenal but Tass is in a different 1%, he is one of the best FIFA players in the world and his long career proves that. That's why Goal was so keen to hear what he thought was the strongest possible Premier League squad on FIFA 19 Ultimate Team.
At the tournament, Tass opted for a 3-5-2 formation with: Team of the Year (TOTY) David De Gea, TOTY Virgil Van Dijk, Flashback David Luiz, FUT Birthday Kyle Walker, Headliners Paul Pogba, TOTY N'Golo Kante, Headliners Marcus Rashford, FUT Birthday Heung Min-Son, FUT Birthday Leroy Sane and FUT Birthday Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang.
The 3-5-2 isn't a formation we see very often in FIFA 19's competitive scene so why do you use it?
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In-game, I'm switching between 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 but both are quite similar anyway; the CAM would drop into midfield and the wingers would drop a bit deeper. I always start on 3-5-2 though and it's been going quite well. There's been three qualifiers and I've qualified for all three events, and I got to the semi-finals of the eClub World Cup so it's been working.
Playing three at the back can be quite risky and you have quite aggressive defenders in Luiz and Walker.
David Luiz is definitely getting stuck in. But the irony is I like to be patient and read the game, so sometimes I'll be hoping Luiz will just chill and stay in position. Walker is interesting at centre-back, he had a centre-back inform in FIFA 18 which I used for a little bit which was ok. In the Arsenal qualifier, Davinson Sanchez was really good there but this is a different situation and Walker is better if they try to play the ball in behind, but he can sometimes be bullied by strikers so it's situational.
So you've got one Arsenal player in there with Aubameyang, and he, of course, scored a very important goal for you in the qualifiers.
He scored the winning goal in the semi-final which was my toughest game. Aubameyang wasn't starting either, he came off the bench at half-time of extra time. I crossed it to him and got the green header straight into the top corner. The fact it was him made it even more special.
If you could choose one other Arsenal player to be given a viable FUT card to use in this tournament, who would it be and why?
He gets a lot of stick genuinely from the public but I love Mesut Ozil. Having followed him since his last season at Werder Bremen I thought he was unbelievable. I watched him all the time at Real Madrid and I still remember that night when he joined us on deadline day. It was mad!
And on the flip side, I'm sure it's bittersweet using a Spurs player Son in your team?
It is, it really is. There are only two Spurs players that, I'm not even going to say like, I'm going to say don't mind from Tottenham. I don't mind Hugo Lloris at all and the other one isn't even Son it's Christian Eriksen - I see a little bit of Ozil in him. I wouldn't say I dislike Son but he's really good and it's annoying to see him at Spurs. He has the five-star weak-foot which there aren't many of in the Premier League who also have an unbelievable rating, so you have to use him.
We know that you're a huge Thierry Henry fan. If you could use Icons of former Premier League clubs would he be in your team?
Absolutely, he would go up-front straight away. Everyone has their favourite player but I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit of an obsessor of Thierry Henry. I could've had Patrick Vieira in there too!
There's a famous quote from Thierry Henry where he says one of the proudest achievements of his career is that when he was playing, he's never lost to Tottenham. Hypothetically, if I was to play for Arsenal long-term I'd personally love to replicate that in FIFA and I'd pride myself on that record.
