Play Fifa 96 Online

FIFA 96 on SNES was one of those games that made you feel like you were actually controlling a match, even if the graphics were chunky by today’s standards. You pick a national team—England, Brazil, whoever—and suddenly you’re sliding tackles, sending crosses into the box, and hearing this weirdly enthusiastic commentator yell "GOAL!" in a way that somehow never got old.

The controls were simple enough that you could pull off a decent through pass or a sliding tackle without memorizing button combos, but there was still some depth if you wanted to play around with formations. I remember spending way too much time tweaking my lineup before matches, convinced that moving one midfielder slightly to the left would magically fix my terrible defense.

Tournament mode was brutal—lose once, and you’re out. No save scumming unless you hit reset fast enough. The commentary, while repetitive, had this charm to it, like the announcer was genuinely surprised every time you scored. It’s janky now, but back then, this was as close to real soccer as a 16-bit console could get.