FIFA 23 beta gameplay leak goes viral with insane Messi tackle

Lionel Messi in FIFA 23 would be more commonly associated with a delicious finesse goal or dribble past 4 players, but a viral clip has shown him committing one of the game’s crazy new tackles.

There have been quite a few changes in FIFA 23 as EA Sports prepares to shut up shop on their time with the official FIFA license and transition to the next era of football simulation games.

In FIFA 23, the game’s Ultimate Team game mode has seen significant changes made to its Chemistry mechanic and even introduced brand new ‘Moments’ to take advantage of.

As well as the meaty content, the gameplay has been refined with tons of new animations and nuances, in particular, the game’s tackling. A new physical animation has gone viral after Messi was seen carrying it out, attempting to, seemingly, end Liverpool midfielder Fabinho’s day.

FIFA 23 beta tackle goes viral

If someone told you that Messi and Fabinho came together and one of them attempted to absolutely crunch the other one, you wouldn’t even think twice about who the investigator was.

However, a viral clip has subverted our expectations and shown that not only can the little magician get stuck in, but FIFA 23 might have even more interesting animations than we originally first thought.

A short clip on Twitter from @WorldofJCC showed Fabinho running with the ball with Messi quickly closing the ground on him. In an attempt to win the ball (we think?) Messi leaped into the air and proceeded to unleash a high-intensity kung-fu tackle that absolutely annihilated the Brazilian beast.

Call us crazy, but we’re pretty sure we’ve never seen this tackle animation in the game before, and as the poster of the video alluded to, you have to wonder how many people are going to be trying to do this online.

Obviously, it’s unclear what you need to do to execute this over-the-top tackle, but one thing’s for sure, you can expect to see a lot of them, especially as people get frustrated in online matches.