FIFA 21 and the curious case of Nick Pope's height

There are plenty of myths floating around the FIFA community. Players contend scripting is in the game - although developer EA Sports has always denied this. There are often accusations of pack weighting in favour of prominent players of the game. And then there's the curious case of Nick Pope's height.

Nick Pope is a talented goalkeeper who plays for Premier League club Burnley. According to Burnley's official website, he's 191cm tall. That's just over 6'3".

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But! In FIFA 21 (and past FIFA games in which Pope has appeared), Burnley's number one is listed as 6'7". That's a tip-toe over 200cm.

Pope's in-game height means he's quite popular in FIFA 21. In fact, some consider the overall 82-rated goalkeeper to be a better pick than the likes of Liverpool superstar shot-stopper Alisson Becker. I've seen Pope called the "best value for coins keeper in the game". Why? Because he's really tall, he's got decent stats, and when it comes to catching crosses and stopping shots in FIFA 21, his height makes a difference.

You'd think Burnley would know the real height of their number one goalkeeper, but it turns out EA may have done a better job measuring Pope up. In a September 2019 interview with The I, Pope was asked how tall he is.

"Six-foot-six-inches-ish," he replied. "The average door is six-foot-six-inches... I've banged my head on a few!"

Nick Pope, then, reckons he's 6'6", which is a tad shorter than EA Sports has him down at but not far off at all. And Nick Pope should know his own height, right?

And yet, some FIFA players remain unconvinced. EA's support website still gets questions from the odd FIFA fan who calls on the developer to change his height in the game.

In an effort to clear things up, FIFA players have used pictures in which Pope is standing next to other players to try to work out his exact height.

The reddit post below, from user Dantheman6655, looks pretty clear cut.

"There seems to be disagreement on how tall Pope actually is since he is 6'7 (200cm) in FIFA but a quick Google search shows that he is only 6'3 (191cm)," Dantheman6655 wrote on the FIFA sub.

"These are the pics I could find and he is definitely taller than Tyrone Mings, who is 6'5 (196cm) and Maguire who is 6'4 (194cm). On the other pic he seems considerably taller than DCL (6'2, 188cm) and Keane who is listed as 188cm in real life but he is 191 cm in game, but standing next to Gomez he definitely seems taller than 188cm so I guess the FIFA measurement is more accurate,"

"So this shows that FIFA got it right this time, not sure why the Burnley official site lists his height as 191cm, which is clearly wrong."

It's pretty clear to me that Nick Pope is 6'6". The upshot? With any luck, EA will leave Nick Pope's FIFA 21 height well alone, and the great-value Burnley keeper will remain the beast between the sticks he currently is.