A clip of what appears to be Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas reimagined as a full-blown soccer game has been making the rounds on the internet, generating buzz among fans of the 3D era classic. There's just one problem - it's not actually GTA: San Andreas, or even a Grand Theft Auto game, for that matter. This isn't San Andreas being turned into a soccer game, but rather the other way around.
The video, posted by @TheGameVerse earlier today with the caption "Modders turned GTA San Andreas into FIFA," shows what looks like a fully functional soccer match featuring CJ and other GTA characters running around a pitch with player stats, a mini-map, and on-screen controls. It looks convincing at first glance, especially if you've spent any time watching the wild things modders have done with San Andreas over the past two decades.
The Portuguese-language controls visible in the footage, including prompts like "82 para bola," immediately signal the video's origins in the Latin American modding scene, where both Grand Theft Auto and soccer occupy an almost sacred cultural overlap. What's actually on screen is Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 running GTA-themed character mods.
It's PES 2013 with CJ's face slapped onto a midfielder. Make no mistake, this mod remains impressive even with this distinction. Someone still had to model, rig, and animate GTA characters into a completely different game's framework, and the result is seamless enough to fool hundreds of thousands of viewers.
With that said, the reactions tell you everything about where everyone's head is at right now. Comment after comment jokes that this modded PES 2013 clip looks better and plays better than EA Sports FC, Electronic Art's current flagship soccer franchise. It's a recurring bit at this point - every time a modder does something creative with an older title, a portion of the internet uses it as a cudgel to beat a AAA publisher over the head.
The sentiment, exaggerated as it may be, isn't coming from nowhere. EA Sports FC 25 drew widespread criticism throughout its lifecycle for inconsistent passing mechanics and a stale Ultimate Team experience, with some players openly calling it the weakest entry in the series. When a modded game from 2012 running GTA character skins generates more organic enthusiasm than a billion-dollar franchise's latest annual release, the jokes write themselves.
What's interesting about this clip beyond the meme value is what it says about the modding communities of both titles. Both games are over a decade old, and have had several sequels. Yet, both remain actively modded, particularly in Brazil and across Latin America. PES 2013 was the first entry in the series to feature all 20 teams from Brazil's Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A, and the game retains a dedicated following of modders who continue to update rosters, faces, and stadiums to this day.
GTA: San Andreas is equally popular among modders. The game's open architecture has made it one of the most modded titles in gaming history, with everything from graphics overhauls to total conversion projects keeping it alive over twenty years after its original 2004 release. Just last year, modder Silent released his biggest SilentPatch update ever, going open source after a decade of fixing hundreds of bugs across the classic GTA trilogy.
More ambitiously, the Revolution Team announced a project to rebuild the entirety of San Andreas in GTA V's RAGE engine, complete with all missions and three cities, though that project exists under the ever-present shadow of Take-Two Interactive and its aggressive stance on mods that port content between games.
With Grand Theft Auto 6 set to release on November 19, 2026, and Rockstar's marketing campaign expected to finally kick off this summer, the GTA community is in a strange holding pattern where nostalgia and anticipation are feeding off each other. Clips like this one thrive in that environment. Whether the game's modding community will one day rival what GTA: San Andreas built over two decades remains to be seen.
