Adriano on PES: Why was Inter Milan hero so good on Pro Evo?

Forget Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, there’s only one GOAT when it comes to football video games – and that’s Adriano.

For those of us of a certain age, the Brazilian striker will always occupy a special place in our hearts.

Although he was a top-class forward in real life, his ability on Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 6 was like nothing we’d ever seen before or since.

On that particular version of PES, which featured Adriano on the front cover alongside John Terry, the former Inter Milan star was virtually unstoppable.

Get the ball onto Adriano’s left foot and you’d stand a chance of scoring from pretty much anywhere on the pitch. Just whack the power to full blast and watch as virtual Adriano, whose shot power was an absurd 99, almost breaks the net.

He was basically a cheat code. Some Pro Evo players even had a ‘no Adriano’ rule because he was that good on the game.

Take a quick trip down memory lane by watching this YouTube video of some of his best goals on PES 6:

Ah, pure nostalgia.

But why was Adriano so overpowered on PES 6? 

Well, a video published by Oh My Goal may have uncovered the answer – and it’s fascinating.

The video points out that it wasn’t just Adriano who was ridiculously good on PES 6; Inter Milan as a team were overpowered in general.

Adriano’s Inter teammate Obafemi Martins was the game’s fastest player with 99 for both top speed and acceleration, Francesco Toldo was a beast in goal, Ivan Cordoba, Walter Samuel and Javier Zanetti were all impassable defenders, while forward Alvaro Recoba was the game’s most technical player (yep, even more technical than Ronaldinho!) as well as the best free-kick taker.

It turns out that Inter were the favourite club of Shingo Takatsuka, a Japanese producer who