Virgil van Dijk vs Nemanja Vidic became one of the biggest footballing debates of 2020.

There was always going to be fireworks when Manchester United and Liverpool fans were called upon to defend their respective club hero - and the back and forth on Twitter was truly something.

Everything from compilations, threads and data analyses were used to try and separate the Premier League colossuses, but it did nothing to cool the two north-western fanbases.

Two Premier League greats

However, as followers of the Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo debate will know all too well, there are never enough ways you can compare two players in the beautiful game.

And one of the most interesting methods you can use comes through the medium of EA Sports' FIFA game series, which added Vidic to Ultimate Team as an ICON for their latest release.

United and Liverpool fans were quick to notice that the 'prime' iteration of Vidic had been given the same overall rating (90) as Van Dijk, which proved to be a controversial move in the first place.

FIFA 21: Vidic vs Van Dijk

But FIFA ratings aren't just about the top-line figure because they are formulated by 29 in-game attributes that focus on key ability areas across physical, skill and mental categories.

So, to try and get to the bottom of the Vidic vs Van Dijk debate in the FIFA world, we found out who won each individual category using the data at futhead.com. Check out the results down below:

In Game: Physical

Acceleration: Nemanja Vidic (75)

Agility: Nemanja Vidic (66)

Balance: Nemanja Vidic (74)

Jumping: Nemanja Vidic (92)

Reactions: Nemanja Vidic (90)

Sprint speed: Nemanja Vidic and Virgil van Dijk (79)

Stamina: Nemanja Vidic (82)

Strength: Nemanja Vidic (93)

In Game: Skill

Ball control: Virgil van Dijk (77)

Crossing: Virgil van Dijk (53)

Curve: Virgil van Dijk (60)

Dribbling: Virgil van Dijk (70)

Finishing: Virgil van Dijk (52)

Free kick: Virgil van Dijk (70)

Heading: Nemanja Vidic (93) 

Long passing: Virgil van Dijk (86)

Long shots: Virgil van Dijk (64)

Defensive awareness: Nemanja Vidic (96)

Penalties: Nemanja Vidic (69)

Short passing: Virgil van Dijk (79)

Shot power: Virgil van Dijk (81)

Sliding tackle: Nemanja Vidic (88)

Standing tackle: Virgil van Dijk (93)

Volleys: Virgil van Dijk (45)

In Game: Mental

Aggression: Nemanja Vidic (95)

Positioning: Virgil van Dijk (47)

Interceptions: Nemanja Vidic (90)

Vision: Virgil van Dijk (65)

Composure: Nemanja Vidic (92)

Final score: Virgil van Dijk 14.5-14.5 Nemanja Vidic

Inseparable

Are you kidding me!? EA Sports you absolute teases.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that someone in their headquarters deliberately plotted out these statistics so that the Vidic vs Van Dijk debate could be settled by their prime FIFA cards.

But alas, the Liverpool and United heroes are literally inseparable as far as the world's most popular footballing video game is concerned and that will do nothing but keep the debate raging on. 

That being said, from where we're sat, we can't help feeling that it's a victory for Vidic when you would have expected Van Dijk to nip ahead of him based on some of the more attacking attributes.

For all of Van Dijk's secret talents for free-kicks and solo goals, one of the greatest defenders in history matched him all the way, but I guess that's par for the course when you're a sporting warrior.