it seems the author isn´t all too familiar with the fifa and pes series. Both games are mainly focused to their pay2win trading card games called Ultimate team in fifa and myclub in PES. People need to spend hundreds (in FIFA even thousands (!)) of euros to be able to compete with the better players if you want to play competitive. This on its own is in my eyes are scandal, as it animates children to invest money for card packs which is a kind of gambling (see as reference swbf 2 loot box debate a few years ago). These modes have to be regulated somehow as KONAMI and especially EA don´t have any interests in changing this. quite the opposite is the case - they have their main focus of every new version in UT and myclub. every year, you see there a lot of development in this mode, the Esport competition also takes place there (which is the case since fifa 14 i think?). Other modes like career, season, master league, be a pro / pro club have just barely changed during the past years.
for EVERY year, they make big promises (Journey, Volta, career mode, master league update, new leagues in PES). The implementation is ALWAYS horrific and nondurable as they just want to present new features to have reasons for selling a new version and to attract unsatisfied or new customers.
And last but not least. The gameplay makes both games unplayable. There is no other game on the planet which makes you so aggressive like football games.
Since FIFA and PES 12 it is really ovious they´ve implemented this cheating system called momentum to keep bad players in line with success moments.
For pro players the experience is totally unsatisfying as you don´t have the feeling that you can influence the gameplay. back in the days in 2013 people didn´t believe this kind of manipulation isn´t existing, but from version to version it becomes more obvious as the momentum takes more and more influence to the game.
The gameplay of both games is bad, there is no good development, they focusing in grabbing more money from their customers to get good players and as reward you aren´t even allowed to win sometimes. And every year they disappoint on purpose with false promises.
With this status quo, esports will always remain unpopular. Football games are really bad for their price and I boycot them since years because it is a pain in the ass and isnt any fun.
Author should try to have a better insight into the games next time before reviewing them. football games suffer under a monopoly which is really bad for the scene. Things have really to change, but I doubt something will happen anytime soon.