From playing secretly to playing abroad: This Fifa gamer is relishing his ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ SEA Games shot

SINGAPORE: The opposition go one goal up and start time-wasting. As the clock ticks down, they have the upper hand and they know it.

But the other team in red are unfazed. They have seen such antics before. They hound and harry, persevere with pressing high, chasing down every loose ball.

Then they reclaim possession.

A couple of attacks go nowhere, until Portuguese legend Eusebio emerges with the ball. He slides a pass through for Son Heung-Min, and the South Korean bends a shot past the goalkeeper. 

Son celebrates, the crowd roars, but e-sports gamer Joseph Yeo barely blinks. 

It is after all just another practice match of Fifa Online 4 to the 28-year-old - one of the hundreds he will play as he prepares for the SEA Games.

Come next month, the online multi-player football game will make its Games debut in Hanoi, Vietnam, with Yeo one of four players to fly the Singapore flag in the event.

"When I was young … we always watched SEA Games. I never one day expected e-sports would be part of it," he told CNA.

The path he chose was not something his family wanted for him. 

During his secondary school days, the Wi-Fi in the Yeo household would go dark at about 10pm daily. 

The skinny teenager would wait until the coast was clear, before slipping into the living room to revive the Internet connection.

"I had to wait for my mother to go to sleep. I had no choice," he said.

"The worst thing is my computer was outside in the living room so it was very hard to hide. She put it in the living room so that whenever I played, she would know."

As the familiar glow of the monitor lit up the dim space, a familiar world and unfamiliar foes came to life. 

Fifa Online 2 beckoned.

Yeo's love affair with the game started years earlier with a gift  - the