Bruce Grannec is an eSports legend, one of the few to emerge in its short history to date. The prolific Frenchman made his name in the FIFA Interactive World Cup, as the FIFA eWorld Cup was formerly known, winning the competition in 2009 and 2013 and also reaching the final in 2012.

He owed that impressive consistency to his winner’s mentality and his unrivalled ability to keep his cool, so cool in fact that he was nicknamed 'The Machine' during his gaming days. “I’d stay just as calm when I scored, as when I conceded, because I wanted to play my match and stay focused. It was also out of respect for my opponents,” he told FIFA.com.

Grannec decided to end his professional gaming career in 2015, at the age of only 28. “I’d been competing for ten years,” he explained. “When I started out, I was among the youngest, and by the end, I was one of the oldest. I said to myself that it was time to switch to something else. My motivation had dropped off a bit, and with the youngsters coming through, I just felt that there wasn’t much point, if I wasn’t at the top of my game.”

Grannec has not quite hung up his console, however. Now a full-time streamer and commentator, he still games, just for fun, and has a natural way of getting that across to his audience. His natural talent has not deserted him either. “I get a kick out seeing that I’ve still got it,” joked Grannec, who has nearly 500,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel and whose extensive expertise means he is very much in demand with the specialist gaming media.

Since he retired, no one else has achieved his feat of winning two world titles. Contemplating the prospect of someone emulating that achievement one day, he said: “There are more and more gamers now and the standard is getting higher all the time. But I think that it’s entirely possible that other players can go and do what I did in the near future.”

Offering some advice for anyone hoping to follow in his footsteps and turn professional, he added: “You have to put yourself to the test against players who are better than you, against the pros even. And more than anything else, you can’t let your head drop. It’s a sport that’s very demanding on a mental level, and when things get tough, that you have to show that you’ve got what it takes. You also have to be professional and lead a healthy lifestyle. I’ve always been pretty sporty and it’s really helped me to be at my best when competing.”