Luke Littler vowed to spend "a fair bit" of his World Darts Championship winnings on FC24 points – and it appears he's done exactly that.
The 17-year-old, who pocketed a life-changing £200,000 last month after reaching the Ally Pally final, was back in action on Friday as he came up against Dirk van Duijvenbode at the Dutch Masters.
But before stepping up to the oche, he was spotted managing his Ultimate Team on the EA FC 24 Web App.
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In the past, Littler has confessed to practicing for half an hour a day because it "gets boring" playing by himself.
And around an hour before his opening match at the TOTO Dutch Darts Masters in Den Bosch, he was snapped scrolling through his FUT squad during the much-anticipated Team of the Year drop.
Michael Smith, who was also in action on Friday against Gian van Veen, took the picture and posted it to his Instagram account. "Trying play darts and this little [s**t emoji] playing fifa," he wrote.
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Littler's cool, calm and collected behaviour ahead of such a big event is to be admired, in a way. Fans on social media were certainly loving it.
One said: "I know where the World Championship money went," while another commented: "Money well spent 16-year-old me would’ve said."
A third wrote: "FIFA > DARTS? Luke Littler knows his priorities," and a fourth added: "Proper preparations."
People also noticed how many EA FC points were active in his account. Some debated 4,000 while others said 40,000 – but all we know he has spent a sizeable chunk on the below team.
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Littler posted a screenshot of his side on the popular Ultimate Team game mode ahead of Friday's game against Van Duijvenbode, featuring an expensive front three of Thierry Henry, Mohamed Salah and Gianfranco Zola.
Bruno Fernandes, the Manchester United midfielder he bumped into at the Carrington training ground this week, also makes an appearance alongside Michael Essien, Kai Havertz and Petr Cech.
Check out his team in full below:
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Ahead of this week's Dutch Masters tournament, world number four Nathan Aspinall offered some advice to Littler as he gets ready to take part in the Premier League.
“I think he can handle the darts,” Aspinall told Planet Sport. “I think it’s the other stuff that may have an effect on him. At the end of the day, he’s just a kid playing darts, he doesn’t care about the money, he just loves playing darts.
“I think playing darts every single day won’t affect him. I think the travelling and the media could have a bit of an impact on him. But I’m confident."
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Aspinall added: "He’s got the same manager as me. We’ve got a fantastic management team around us. As long as he doesn’t get ahead of himself and think he’s the ‘big man’ which I don’t think he will because he’s not that type of guy. I think he’ll be fine.”
Topics: Luke Littler, Darts, EA FC 24
Jack Kenmare