With Christmas now a distant memory and everyone looking forward into 2010, here is a quick update on what has happened in the land of FIFA Interactive World Cup since the first UK pre-qualifying at Loftus Road and The Emirates.

On 19 December the last set of live pre-qualifiers from EA SPORTS were hosted at six shopping centres across the UK. I also have to point out, these shopping centres were some of the busiest in the UK and it was the last Saturday before Christmas - surely a recipe for disaster?

In reality things seemed to go reasonably smoothly and I was in attendance at the Meadowhall event, where we managed to “bag” the big screen TV in the Oasis Food Court for a few hours in the morning. There were some cracking games of FIFA 10 played and everyone that was in Oasis at the time seemed captivated by what was happening on the big screen (some even joined in the celebrations when goals were scored).

Michael “Bazza” Barrett, one of the “pro” players from Team-Dignitas was aiming to claim his place at the UK live final in March by winning the Meadowhall event. After a shaky start he managed to battle his way through to the semi-final where he faced off against one of the high flyers from the in-game FIWC leaderboard. This was a very close match all the way but Michael managed to clinch it in the dying moments to set up a final against Curtis “Cutzy” Mahony, an outsider who had breezed past all his opponents playing as his beloved Man Utd.

The final was an unbelievable sight to behold with Michael 3-0 down by half time. He fought back in the second half and managed to get back on track at 3-3 before Curtis stormed back and claimed a fourth. Almost immediately, Michael managed to capitalise on an error and took it to 4-4 before having a one-on-one chance to go ahead that he mistimed and his attempted chip shot landed safely in the keeper’s arms. All those watching couldn’t believe how the game was flowing from one side to the other and it wasn’t long before Curtis snatched the winning goal moments before the end of the game to finish it off 5-4.

Curtis was therefore crowned Meadowhall Champion and will be joining Jonathan, Lewis, Adam, Ashley and Sean at the UK Live event in March after they all managed to win one of the other shopping centre pre-qualifiers. The first MATES Leagues UK online pre-qualifier has also just finished and the top two players from that also head to the UK Live event.

Ten places booked at the UK Live event, 18 more to go. Is your name on one of those places? The second UK online pre-qualifier is now accepting registrations on MATES Leagues and the third qualifier will be hot on its heels. Sony’s own live qualifying activities should be announced shortly and will involve events across the country so stay tuned for those as well.

Things seem to be hotting up quite nicely in the UK and I am certainly looking forward to see how things pan out at the UK live event in March and who will be jetting off to Barcelona in May.