657: The Post Team of the Year Era

[00:00:00] Hello Footies, welcome along to your latest dose of Football Ultimate Team Podcasting. Goodness, we are FUT IN REVIEW, powered by FootCoaching.com. We are recording this on the 31st of January 2025 and welcome to the world of tomorrow. As the Future Stars promo begins, but much like the ending to Lord of the Rings,

[00:00:26] as Team of the Year comes to a close, at what cost? At what cost? We are going to be debriefing after an intense couple of weeks, searching for those elusive blue cards and as well looking forward, as mentioned, to the future with the Future Stars promo. We've also got a few pitch notes, including some key gameplay changes that people have been crying out for for years and much, much more. I am Dan Wimbush, delighted to be hosting once again on a Friday,

[00:00:57] joined by the boss, the big boss man himself, John. John, hello. Thank you, mate. How are you doing? I am good, thank you. It's so weird to be called boss man still. I always keep saying, please don't do it. Well, there's an extra reason for me to be calling you boss man tonight, because just to confuse our listeners, we have another John on tonight's show. John, aka Talking Foot, aka JK. John, hello. Hello, hello, gentlemen. Thanks for having me on and you'll always be the boss, boss.

[00:01:26] Exactly. And to complete our quadruple threat tonight, our fatal four-way, if you will, it is the foot teddy bear, the man formerly known as the coach slayer. It is Chris Grandpapa Matt. Chris, you all right? I'm good. Good to be on the show with you, mate. Been a long time. It has. It has. I'm delighted to be with you. And don't worry, I'll be getting my digs in on Nath a little bit later on. But gentlemen, team of the year is over. And as I sort of teased in

[00:01:53] the intro, it did feel like that end scene of Lord of the Rings, where they're all sat on the edge of Mount Doom, having got rid of the ring and completed their mission, but they're absolutely at the brink. And that's how I feel as I was grinding right through to 559. I mean, pouring every single thing I had into those 82 by 20s. I ended up with three team

[00:02:17] of the years, Cole Palmer, Lauren James and Paredes and a Komen as well, if you want to count that. So I think I had a very good team of the year, perhaps not amazing, but great. But big boss man, John, how was your experience? Are you glad it's over or are you a bit sad to see it go? I'm glad it's over, honestly. I mean, for once, if you didn't pack a team

[00:02:41] of the year, this could be a sad moment of the FIFA career yet. And if you're wondering where Yngwie is, well, he is on the break because he didn't pack any team of the years. And well, it must be mentally draining. If you do so many upgrades and open so many packs and spend so many coins and still don't get anything. Personally, I got, do we call it nominees as team of the year pack? Yeah, it depends how good they are. Because otherwise I packed Mike Meinen about 8 billion

[00:03:11] times. Ah, right. Well, I packed Saliba. Let's put it out there. So it would be a winner altogether. Lucy Bronze, of course. And officially the third team of the year I actually packed was Berger. But yeah, we're not going to beat Kassilios. Little shout out though, because I also packed the Gwynn card, left back from Bayern Munich. Nominee. Pretty impressive with her.

[00:03:41] Really? Yeah. So that's been a big win. And I packed Frimpong, but because I already had Lucy Bronze, there's no place for him. Well, you can't complain about that. I'd give that one a thumbs up as well. But I'm tired, mate. I couldn't do the 80 times, two times 20 anymore this morning. I just tried a little bit and I just like, I'm not feeling well. That's also why you're hosting, but you can also hear a little bit of my voice. But this morning I was like, I could either

[00:04:10] go sleep or try some, it's all right. I'll just take a little nap. It's too much. Yeah. I was watching Nick run the foot market streams and he was doing his best to motivate the viewers being like, come on, it's just one more. Keep going. Keep going. And Mr. Talking Foot, I mean, how was your, because I know you were very much in that kind of Invey mindset. I'm sure he won't mind me describing it as that, because you had a very frustrating first half of team of the year. But just at the end, I think you got a little bit, a player

[00:04:38] to make you smile. Yes, definitely. And it was a random 83 times 20 and Virgil van Dijk came out. So I knew it was a double walkout and I got the blue with the gold. So I knew it was a proper team of the season and, sorry, team of the year. And I was thinking, oh, who am I getting? And yeah, it was Virgil. So unbelievable because my defending is shocking. So that'll help. Excellent. And I was also quite lucky I did rip some packs. So I'll be up

[00:05:05] front on us to put a lot of FIFA points on or points now. And then I pulled Eusebio from one, Gwen from the second and Cantona from the third. That is a good haul. And I think I spent a little bit, I think I spent about 20 quid, which as a former fucker, it did hurt my heart to do so. But for this to me, and I think I, you know, I say this when I host other shows, there's only two times in the year where I really

[00:05:35] think it's, it's worth having a little bit of a gamble. And that is the first week of the game and this week, because they're the only two times where getting something big is really going to put you ahead of the curve. But at the same point, I think the good thing was, is that, you know, as we mentioned, there were so many different ways to grind. We had that, of course, that Evo as well. So there were lots and two Evos, in fact, to get, you know, team of the year caliber players. So, you know, everybody, even if you walked away technically empty handed, there were ways to improve your squad, but there's the SBCs that were out as well.

[00:06:04] I mean, Chris, I always think of you at team of the year. I mean, I think of you all the time. Thank you. I especially think of you at team of the year, because I always remember you in it. I think it was the last year or the year before describing how this is a promo that you both love and hate. And where did you fall on it this year? I hate it. I hate the promo. I think it distorts the game. It makes people know, enjoy the game. My good friend, Ingeveh, for one, who's very chilled

[00:06:33] and laid back type of guy. So, good shout out to my friend there. I just think it just distorts the game. The cards shouldn't be there at this time of the game. I get to end the team of the season. You know, if you pull in Mbappe or John getting his Eusebio, that's going to destroy people like myself who are still using, we're still using Gold van Dijk up to just last week. You know, to be fair, the content was tremendous.

[00:06:57] Packed two blues, Cavalio and Grimaldi. And I got a couple of baby blues. I got Traderbole Rudiger, who I sold. I bought Charlie Raynard, the mom of on two of defending. She's in now. And Kerchowy. So yeah, my team's changed a lot. The Zidane was tremendous. I enjoyed the Evo. I did Ismail Sar. He's in my striker, but still hate this promo. I hate the formal

[00:07:22] that people get. It's only there to say, sorry, to sell coins and it distorts the game too much. Yeah, it always does feel that little bit unjust because you almost have the, you know, the survivor's guilt sometimes when you're, you know, you're packing these cards and other people aren't. And you're right, Chris, it does kind of distort that power curve. But look, what I would say is that this was much, much better than the last two team of the years. We've had EA very clearly, and that we discussed some of the reasons for that on

[00:07:49] the Tuesday show and last Friday to do with share prices and user base and things like that. But for whatever reason it was done, they very clearly turned the pack way up. They didn't have to put out that repeatable 82 by 20 grind as well. I know we've got a question in the mailbag from Adam on that, which in fact, I'll just get to that one now. And he was basically like, do you think EA meant to put out such a powerful, repeatable grind

[00:08:14] at this stage in the season? Adam says it's given him a massive stash of players, which is a very different experience to mine because my club is completely gutted from hammering these SBCs. He says he's got like 70 to 80, 88 pluses in the club. Did you, John, as in the big boss man, do you think EA meant to make this so powerful?

[00:08:38] No, no way. I think it did help with putting people back on the grind when people were bringing down. But I think the first day, I don't say it's broken, but odds were definitely way better than the rest of the remaining days, right? Like today was pretty woeful for anyone I saw actually. I don't think there's one blue pact on the

[00:09:01] whole Discord server today on those 80 times or two. Yeah, I got one. Yeah, I got one, John. And that's basically it. While on Wednesday when it arrived the first time, I think, it was pretty nuts. There were a lot of people that had some. And like Adam said, if you just toss in enough and you get some good players back, well, like today was the first day actually

[00:09:27] my team of the week dried up. Well, yesterday and Wednesday I just could keep going, keep going, don't even think about it. So I think they must have tuned something down on today. But I think it was a little bit too much, mate. I was going to jump in. I sort of disagree for that same reason you just talked about, John. Yes, it looks like it was infinite and it was great odds, but they weren't really. I think Nick on the foot market at one stage when I had a look at his stream, you don't

[00:09:56] know what he did 580 plus, 580, 82 times 20s. And he only had three team of the seasons. And one of them did not come from the 83 times 20. So 580 cycles to get two. That's not good odds. So I think they knew what they were doing. Like you said, it's almost said that today there was very few blues so they can play those odds. I think somebody had said it from one

[00:10:22] of these enhancement apps. I think the odds were about 0.7% of a blue. So yes, you can grind and grind indefinitely, but that's not great odds, John, at 0.7%. If I look at my SBC storage, right, there's loads of 88, 89, 90 rated cards in there. And if I look at, I did basically, I did the app storm for free. I think I'm halfway to Viera and I didn't spend the coin on buying anything. I see. That's possibly the difference because

[00:10:50] my, I'm going to go to what Dan said, my club's in the mud. Yeah. I've got... I don't have an idea of the two rated player or below the left. Right. So I've got very high players left. I don't have, I think I've maybe, I've got in my FOD, in my SBC storage, there's nothing over 82. There's a couple of 82s. In my main club, I think I've got a Kevin De Bruyne and stuff like that. But I've got no team of the, team of the weeks. I had to go and buy the team of the

[00:11:16] weeks off the store pack. I did that twice. I ran out of team of the weeks and then it's like, I don't want to be making team of the week packs to buy a team of the week. And I was buying team of the weeks off the auction house. I don't think it was, yes, the grind was great. It was there and it was worth doing. And I did hundreds of the 83 times 20s, but I don't think it was, going back to Adam's question, I think they meant to put it in there. I don't think it was

[00:11:41] just. Yeah. I mean, my whole relationship with coins has greatly changed over the past couple of FC games because I used to think of coins as a way to get players, you know, to buy a big name player, but actually you get enough good players for free just through playing the game. And yet your coin balance is very rarely at a place where you can go out and buy a superstar player. You know, we're going to, we're going to come on to the future stars team, but you know, you're looking

[00:12:11] at, you know, two, 3 million plus to get any kind of decent player, which is just very hard to do. And I never really liked just chucking all my coins in one player. So actually I spent probably the best part of about 2 million coins on packs, provisions, upgrades and stuff. And part of me is like, Oh, I could have done with that 2 million, but the other part of me is like, well, that's what it's there for. It's there to have fun, chase, chase those blues. And you know,

[00:12:39] you get what you get and you don't get upset. So look, we will move on because I said it team of the year is gone. It is now future stars. And Chris, when you saw the team, this team come out for future stars, were you excited or were you thinking this is a great time for me to take a little bit of a break? A bit of both, to be honest with you. I was excited when I seen the Charlton card, Cruyff, not a big fan of. And then I seen there was, you know, some great young players as well

[00:13:08] from that point. The icons really liked them. And then went and looked at football and looked at prices and thought, OMG, what has happened this year? Crazy. Yeah. If you want to pick yourself up some of those icons, Mr. Bobby Charlton will pick, will cost you just the small sum of 5.3 million as we record this around eight o'clock on Friday.

[00:13:31] You've got Bucci Grano, who is just under 3 million. Johan Cruyff with what I am going to say is the worst dynamic image of all time. You know, there's not much you can do about early. Somebody in the Discord says it looks like a zombie. Yeah. You can't do much with early 60s photography. I realise this. You've only got a small sample size, but yeah.

[00:13:54] Here's a question for you though. I have a Jaap Stom that is like a superhero drawn. Can't they like properly draw? It doesn't need to be super stylised, but you can make a good sketch of an all-play, right? Makes it even more authentic, maybe? Well, look, they've got the whole thing is they've gone for dynamic images of these players when they're young to justify them being future stars icons. So, you know, you've got a very

[00:14:19] Busby Babes-esque era, Bobby Charlton in there. So you've got the long, the very young Henrik Larson looking. Bobby Moore looks like he's about 14 in his dynamic image as well. The only person who actually looks old is poor Lev Yashin, who I could only presume has always looked old, but he hasn't got a hat. So I think that's the biggest L of it. Yeah, nobody will want to use him if he's not got a hat. Exactly.

[00:14:47] The price of his picture is 80 years old. More than 80 years. So... What year was that taking? Well, that I can't find now, but I'm looking at when he won the bottom door first time was in 71. And this is before that, right? So... Yeah. So that's... We'll excuse it. But, I mean, JK, again, looking at some of the other players, I mean, are there players that get you excited? Again, we've just come off this massive grind. Do you look at this

[00:15:16] team and go, oh, I'm desperate to grind out to try and get a shot of that Lamin Ymal or any of the other players in the team? I'm not desperate, but like everything, this game is all about improvement. Everybody wants the new shiny toy. Yeah. So there are a couple of players that would still improve my team. So, yes, I would like a Lavia... Apologies, I'm butchering that name. Even Yal Gomez from Wolves would fit my team because I play a 4-4-2 with a holding C when he gets a plus-plus there.

[00:15:45] So there are some players that will still fit in your team. But I think that's... The game is always going to be about that promotion's gone, the new promotion's here, and there will always be a player that will fit your team. But I won't be grinding it as hard. Yeah, John, I mean, we talk about, you know, again, some of the headline makers that you're just never going to see in Endrick. You won't see Reading's own Jamie Bino Gittins. You won't see, again, Lamin Ymal. If you're lucky, you might get a sniff of a player like

[00:16:14] Lani Yoro, who's around 1.3 million coins. And then it very quickly drops down, like you say, into the, you know, effectively the fodder category of players, kind of 150k and less. And, you know, we're still only two hours into the promo, so I'm sure a lot of these prices are going to drop even further. Even on the Icon front, you've got a couple of cheaper ones in Henrik Larsson, who's 200k, and Bobby Moore, just under 400k, Chabby Alonso, just under 600k.

[00:16:44] So there are obtainable players, but again, I think I'm with JK on this one. It's not quite enough to get me excited. But again, is that an opportunity to try? Maybe. Maybe we're just jaded from Team of the Year and we're not quite seeing the potential of some of these players. I just think the price is crazy. I mean, the prices are crazy, John. If you put the future stars up again for us to see that, you know, where are people getting the money for this, you know, for Redding's own Bodo Gittins, did you call him there? Sorry.

[00:17:14] Jamie Bino Gittins, yeah. Yeah, what is he? 10 million coins, I think? He's down to a humble 8.5 now. Where are people getting 8.5 million for a 91? I mean, what is it in that card? I know we don't normally talk about the expensive cards, but, you know, just looking at that one, he's 91 rated. I mean, what is it? He's got two play styles if the graphics are correct. Yeah, he's quick, but, you know, a left winger, I don't know what other positions he's got. My eyesight's not that good, John. I'm sorry. I can't quite make it out. Striker and left wing.

[00:17:43] You know, that surely cannot stay at that price. The quick step is, I mean, big boss man, I look at this, to be fair, Chris, I look at this card and go, if you're looking for a wide player, there's, you know, very few. I mean, he's got that quick step. Trickster is, you know, we were talking about, you were talking about Trickster on Tuesday, a play style that's very good. I mean, his passing is absolutely fine. It's only dragged down a little bit by the free kick

[00:18:11] accuracy, but the shooting is all high 80s, low 90s. That pace is there. The dribbling is there. Even the physicality is not too bad. It's just the aggression is a little bit low. And yeah, five-star skills, roll plus pluses for days. I mean, it's a great card, but not eight and a half. Sorry, Dan, on that, yeah, eight and a half for him, or you've got a Sancho for free at 90 and 80. Oh, this is better. This is a better card than Sancho. Yeah, exactly. But is it eight and a half million pounds, eight and a half million coins better?

[00:18:39] But this is the point, this is the point of the game we're into now, isn't it? Where again, you're now suddenly going back into, you're having to pay that big premium for that small upgrade. That gap. Yeah. It's not a big gap, but it's a big gap in price because there are very few players that a lot of people will consider to be difference makers. And that's why Endrick and Lamal are up there as well. I mean, Chief, the big boss, I mean, what do you

[00:19:05] make of this team? Is it exciting? Again, are we maybe being a bit too harsh on it? And well, just the general user base being a bit harsh on it because some of these, you know, cars do look decent. Well, I don't think that the cards in London are a problem, but we just came out of a two week grind where every single card you would have packed would be good. Maybe except Berger,

[00:19:27] but any card you get was lit and you got a lot of content to do next to it. Right? These cards are, the obtainable ones are fun, but never on the level we've seen over the last two weeks, either the SBCs. Because all the SBCs that came out, Mateus, for example, way better cards than most of these cards as well. And sure, it's nice to have Jamal in there

[00:19:53] or to buy new kittens, but I don't have 11 million laying around to buy and play. And even if I would have with the rate these cards come out now, I would never spend it on a card. If I'd spend it, I'd spend it on the theme of the year card. But I think this is a bit of the still issue. We have this every year with this off theme of the year. If you want people to enjoy it, I think these promos, you need cards that are just cheap. Just get cheap cards and that

[00:20:22] are fun cards to try and put up the pack weight so that it doesn't hurt the game if people pack them, but at least keep people committed or get people to pack these things. Because I have no intention of grinding out this week or opening packs or anything like this for this. Well, you talk about the fun factor and for the second year in a row now we have, well, it's been longer than that, but the Future Stars Academy is back. It's been under a few different

[00:20:50] guises over the years. This year, they've changed it a little bit. So the last year, if you might remember, they just gave us these packs of, I think it was attackers, midfielders and defenders. This year, they have opted to just give us a choice of, what is it? One player. Yeah, one from 15. So he gets picked one from 15 and then take them through an Evo pass. So, J.K., again, take us through, again, kind of what you can do with this academy player.

[00:21:20] I've not looked into it in massive depth, but what I can gather from top line logging into the game is you pick your player and then you'll put in select for the Evo tab. There's a specific Future Stars Evo tab. And then you'll be able to then decide that you're wanting to focus on his defensive skills, his midfield skills, his attacking skills, and you'll start from that. And then that's linked to play a game. You'll get a Future Stars player on loan, and then you can play that player to get more

[00:21:51] objectives, which link to how you want to build his play styles for the player you're Evoing. Hence, it goes back to, I think, the new patch where we're going to get double Evos. So it's, you build the player how you want to do it. So I've not had a real dabble on that. But yeah, I think they'll cap it 91 rated from what I saw on the loading screen. But yeah, you will build the play styles.

[00:22:16] You'll decide which Evos you want to put them into. So it will be unique. So your left back might be different from my left back, Dan, just on the way we pick play styles and the way we want to Evo them. Yeah. And Chief, if anybody is a huge fan of Evos, you've been, you say every week how much you love doing Evos and how you find them so simple. But no, in all seriousness, to me, once again,

[00:22:42] this rams home the point I think you made on Tuesday of this just seems needlessly complicated again. Yeah. And I think it's, I like the concept of these much more than the ones he had last year. Just let me start positive, right? The picks itself, I mean, you just have to have one to commit to.

[00:23:06] I think with the strengths of Evos, you can pick a player you like or have certain commitment with and put them through the Evos. Unless you're like me, you missed a couple of steps during the year and you're stuck halfway through, but that's a different story. But in this situation, you get to choose one out of 15. But for me, none of those 15 I actually have a commitment with. So I'm already like, you know, I'll probably take the Dutch guy and I'm glad he's not from a certain club.

[00:23:34] So it doesn't harm me, but I can, I can already know. I'm not probably not going to Evo him either. And I'd rather have them. And I said, this is pretty sure. I don't know if I've taken away your win then, but I'd say I'd rather have that you can pick one player, one gold card. And that card becomes 80 rated with all the same stats for every card you select. Even if it's downgraded, they just started 80 on everything, for example.

[00:24:01] And then you can take them through the Evos. So everyone has a unique go to it. Like a reset a card to 80 and then go from there. Sort of what we see in role-playing games where you take an armor, you throw away all stats and you go again because it looks nice, for example. I think that would make this academy play a little bit more fun. For me, I like the concept. Again, I think it's hidden on the tabs and clubs and evolutions.

[00:24:28] And you might be able to do two now, but besides the point, I can't see myself doing it too much. And again, you get a 91 ready to play, which is fun. But then we just had team of the year and I'm not going to replace any of the cards you currently have in the team with any of these cards, even if they are fully upgraded. Yeah. And the other problem is, Chris, for me is that all of these players are largely unknown. No one has ever used their kind of base card.

[00:24:54] And I think it's going to be one of my bugbears with Future Stars every year is that the players, I always think if a player starts with a really low rated card, even when you jump boost in their stats, because they haven't got things like unique body types and talk about reactions and composure and things like that. They just never seem to scale up appropriately. And so, you know, I've got no idea how many of these players feel in game and to just have to pick one blind.

[00:25:24] And again, no idea what to do. Yeah. Maybe next week you have to play 15 matches in Wicked League. But it's as the boss said, as the boss said, Chris, to me, it's just a missed opportunity. Even if you put in a restriction saying the player has to be under 23 years of age and maybe that's something to do with the coding where they just can't do that. They can't code an Evo to quantify that.

[00:25:49] But yeah, this is what I unless I just happen to have a free Evo slot and I need a bit of fodder. I'm not going to be jumping into this one, Chris. No, I took the Arsenal player simply because he plays for Arsenal and he's a Cam English and, you know, in the Prem. That's the only reason I picked him. I had a good look through the cards. The cards look reasonable. But it's an ideal opportunity for, you know, there's three guys on this on this podcast who, I'd say, support lower teams.

[00:26:19] And then there's John, who's got Feyenoord, who's doing really well in the Champions League. So he's going to get some, he's going to get a road to the final card, isn't he? Myself, I may get one with Rangers, but I doubt it very much. So ideal for a St. Johnston player, a Redden player, a Rangers player to be allowed to be selected. One of the young guys, even for John, for Feyenoord, you know, who's a big club. We wonder why I'm sucking up to him when I normally call it a Farmers League. They are a big club, you know, and he will get one of these players. Why don't you just, as you say, why don't you just do that?

[00:26:47] Why don't you say, you know, a bronze or a silver and you could put them up to 91. And that's exactly what Evo's are all about. I want that. Absolutely. We all discuss this all the time. I would say this is probably a step towards that. This is better than last year. Next year will be better than this year. So on. It's just the pain of this year. Like John said, the boss, I've got no attachment to any one of those 15 players. No. I can't fault EA because, again, as I just said, you know,

[00:27:14] they've just given us the team of the year defender upgrade. They're giving this card as well. Again, it helps somebody, especially who might not have, you know, a lot of time or put any money into the game to get a competitive player. Because it looks as if these players will actually be pretty decent by the time you get to the end of it. And I'm sure there's objectives and all sorts of stuff tied into it. So I've got no problem with it in the abstract. It's like, great, more content. I'm always a fan of that.

[00:27:38] But, yeah, it's just that whole niggly feeling that you guys have all neatly summed up where it's just like, you know, can we not? Or even if they just released, like, I wish they just released another Evo alongside this for players to go to. But, look, hopefully we'll get those in the next coming days as well. Let's talk very quickly about SBCs as well. We'll start with the ones related to this promo.

[00:28:03] Chris, the big one, you know, a year ago he was in everybody's team when he was a Team of the Year icon. A year later, Georgie Best is back, but in young George Best form. About 1.6 million coins to complete this. 91 rated Future Stars icons. Two playstyle pluses. Technical plus and incisive pass plus. Tempting you, Mr. Best? No. No, not at all. I think he's not going to get in your... I just don't see it.

[00:28:32] He'll be as rare as Unicorn Drop-ins. I think the reason you're going to do that is if your SBC storage is absolutely rammed. That's all I'd say about that. I mean, 1.6 million. I actually thought these cards were live when I seen the ratings on them. You know, 91 rated as well. It looks a good, fun card if you're, you know, it's not particularly pacey either. You know, he's not as fast as some of the players you're going to get. And, you know, if you look at some of the objective players that are out there or, you know, we just talked about your man there that plays it in Dortmund.

[00:29:02] He's got an 89 rated card. It's 95 rated pace. You know, one of the live cards as well. So, no, I think they've missed the boat here. I think now SBCs have to be 92, 93 for sure. Yeah, John is a big boss man, John. My chief reason to not do this is because I've literally just completed Gareth Bale. And I think if you compared best to Bale, I will take the envy role here.

[00:29:29] You know, Bale has got nearly 200 more in-game stats. He's got 40 more face stats. But it's just, again, I would rather spend, I know it's an extra million coins, but I'd much rather push the Bale out, the boat out for Bale. But, again, I don't think his best card is bad by any stretch. I feel like they're pretty comparable, honestly.

[00:29:56] I think, like, sure, Bale's a little bit faster, but he's a million more expensive. Best still five-star skill moves as well. Technical and incisive is pretty cool. He's got all the right plays. And I think 1.6 million in this stage of the game feels a lot more like a reasonable SBC price. That makes sense. And it's worth, sorry. I'm not saying it's a must-do. I also think the comparison with Bale is a little bit much.

[00:30:25] 1 million is a lot, though. I think this is a well-priced SBC. It's just on par. And it won't never hurt your team if you get it. And concerning pace, I mean, throwing Hunter, I mean, he's maxed out on shooting, maxed out on pace. Dribbling is already almost there. So not really much to worry about there either, I think. Yeah. And he's a cool card. It's just a cool card is George Best. Again, five-star skills. Can't really argue with.

[00:30:54] He's got wrong with us for days. On that, Dan, as well, though, with those United people and stuff like that, Flans, there will be people that will do George Best. I'm not doing them simply because I have Jairzinho. You're not doing them because you have Bale. But there will be some people that want to do them. But again, I don't have the fodder to do them, even if I didn't have Jairzinho. Yeah. And the other big competition, of course, is that we've literally just had this juiced right winger team of the year, Evo. And I put Chloe Kelly through it.

[00:31:24] And my Chloe Kelly is better than that George Best card as well. And that only cost 500,000 coins. Or I think I actually spent, I'll hold my hands up. I took the FIFA point option. I spent the seven, eight quid or whatever it was because I didn't want to spend half a million on it. But when we're talking about giant SBCs, the big man, the cover star himself, Chris, came out today. Kylian Mbappe, Player of the Month card.

[00:31:51] Now, when this was first released, it was coming in at about 3.3 million coins. It's now, as you can see on, for those of you watching on the video show on YouTube, it's over 4 million coins. Chris, the big thing that everyone is talking about with this card is that EA changed his PlayStyle Plus. He's still only got one PlayStyle Plus and they've changed it to Trickster.

[00:32:17] Which, for those of us who are not adept at wiggling our right stick, makes this a far less appealing card. All of his other cards went up in value. I mean, can you make a case to sink 4 million coins worth of fodder into this card? No, I can't. I mean, I will plug, I think, John, you spoke about Trickster and the Art of Foot show, which is available to our Patreon members. So if you can support the show, come and join us at Discord for free.

[00:32:45] And for those who are Patreon members, you actually get the Art of Foot show, which I think the Trickster was discussed here. So I won't touch that side of that. I'll leave that up to John to talk about that. But, you know, I've just slated the best SBC. I'm certainly, you know, nowhere touching the Mbappé one. I had a quick look before we come on the show and they're looking for 90 rated squads. You know, I mean, that is incredible at this stage of the game. And I know that they can't make this card super easy and super cheap.

[00:33:12] But this just seems, again, unicorn droppings. I'd be very surprised if MD actually touches and wastes their fodder for that. When you can pick up his 92 rated card for two and a half. You know, there's plenty of those cards going about. Tell you why the boss won't do them. It's 23 squads and he doesn't have the patience. No, but 23 squads is an unbelievable amount. And does this card see you in team of the season? Because if you're going to spend that amount of coins or fodder, whatever you're going to do with that,

[00:33:42] you want this card almost just to do you to the end. With one play style, that's a shocker, isn't it, I think? Yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't necessarily agree. Oh, boys. Oh, go on then. No, about, like, I get if you have, like, coins, put the 2.5 million one, right? I don't have coins. I got plenty of fodder. This would be my way of getting the Mbappe. The only way of getting an Mbappe in my team. Then again, all the stats.

[00:34:12] He's maxed out on pace. He's great dribbling with trickster, with five-star skill moves, with amazing finishing. This is one of those cards that will last you to the end, Chris. And sure, there will be a better way, a better one out there is already a team of the year out than there will be a team of the season out, right? But those margins are, like, officially marginal because with the chemistry styles, it won't matter that much.

[00:34:39] So this is the best way to get yourself one of the best cards in the game. But yeah, John did get me right there. Like, there's no way I'm going to grind 23 out and definitely not win the 90 rate. But the 90 rate squads are coming in at 500,000 coins each. John, you're not going to do this. This card, I don't think, sees you through to team of the season. I'll be honest with you. I don't think it does. If you guys say that Bill will put you through there,

[00:35:08] this one will easily. No, but I think if you look at someone like a Eusebio card that's there, this is the same price as the Eusebio icon card. This one. So the Eusebio card, better links. I would say a better player in game with five-star weak foot as well. Yeah, you can say you could use your fodder. Who actually has four million coins worth of fodder in the club? I don't think so. I mean, Adam wrote in the mailbag, he's got 70, 80-odd, 88-plus cards.

[00:35:35] So there will be people that have been doing this. I also want to see you do the 90-rated. You know, you're talking about putting them. You need to be lucky. You've got, what, Haaland card, De Bruyne, Kane's 90-rated, I think. John's got a few Harry Kane, I heard. John's got a few Harry Kane. He can stick around. I just think this is – I would be surprised if many people – you're actually giving up a lot of opportunity for this one card. That's all I'd say. And I don't think this card is strong enough for team of the season.

[00:36:04] Well, Footman agrees with you, Chris, because 86% of people have downvoted this card. And as I mentioned, his other cards have kind of gone up in price, which suggests that those on the market are deciding that this is not worth doing. I think I am actually with the boss on this in terms of, look, if you get this card – I mean, I was lucky enough to pack his gold a couple of weeks ago, and it's just broken. Mbappe is just broken in this game. And, of course, this card is an upgrade on that 90-rated version.

[00:36:33] It's not a huge, massive, great big upgrade, but it's enough to make it worth doing. But, yeah, you do have to be really committed. I mean, it's plus twos across the board on his gold, except for plus three in physicality. But, I mean, maxed out pace. The shooting is just on point. His gold is still 1.1 million off team of the year. That says it all. Exactly. So, it's just – yeah, it's just the effort that you're going to be going through to do it.

[00:37:02] I'm not sure who's got that kind of patience to do it. But, look, you will be left with an absolutely elite card, and I agree with the boss. I think it will see you through to team of the season. But, again, I don't think – even I, a bigger menu grinder as I am, I don't think I've got the heart. Maybe I'd be thinking differently if I didn't have the gold card. But, man. It's risky, though, doing it a month and then maybe not making it in the end. Right, exactly. That's some of the issue of it is. Yeah, exactly. I would certainly – sorry, Dan.

[00:37:31] I would certainly say, unless there's go and look for a solution on Twitter or X as it is now. Go and find that. Someone will put the cards that you need to put in there and make sure that you can actually hit that one. Yeah, that's exactly the reason why the price has risen $800,000 over the last hour. So, people looked up the solutions and all those people, all those players in those solutions have spiked. So, I'm not sure that's the best advice.

[00:37:58] I don't think it was that one, Jordan, because that's like some of the websites will say, here's a pre-built squad. What Chris is talking about is some people will say, you'll need 2390s, you'll need 2989s, you'll need – Oh, okay. And that's what Chris is talking about. You know what you get. Get that. Look at your club. Then work out, what am I short of? How much are you going to cost me? Because as John says, you don't want to get to 28 days and actually you're struggling and you're having to throw in five FIFA points to get those cards.

[00:38:27] The boost to do that in BAPI Cup. Considering I should put pen to paper to make sure I can even calculate if this is something I should do, makes me think there's something I should actually not consider at all. Well, I mean, look, if you are holding on to any super high-rated fodder, GG's to you because I think all the 91-rated cards have just gone to the moon. I think Rodri is now up to 90,000 coins per gold card.

[00:38:53] So if you were just sitting on a KDB card like that, then yeah, well done to you because you are going to be in the money if you're doing any kind of SBCs and things like that. And that's what will be driving the price up as well is there's not a big market of 90s, 91s. And therefore, everybody got on early, would have got them, and now there'll be a unicorn drop-ins. Hence everybody's pain. Exactly.

[00:39:20] BOMATI 90k, Harlan 92, Rodri 90, even the 90s are up to 50 to 60k. So they're all up to the same. Finally down for me to sell my gold Harlan. Yeah, exactly. You finally get a shred of market value back. Right, so that covers the SBC. I will also mention that there was one other SBC release day on the much cheaper side. Kennan Yildas came out as well. So you can do that.

[00:39:49] Although, actually, is that an objective card, Yildas? I think he's on the SBC. I think he's on the SBC. I think he is on the SBC, yeah. Although he doesn't have a picture on most of the websites yet, so it's hard to show on the... Yeah, and you get a choice of... Is that a choice of position then from the SBC? Do you choose one or the other? Yeah, you get a left-wing version or a cam version. And they've both got two play-style pluses. One's got technical and rapid.

[00:40:18] And the other one has finesse shots and pinged pass for the cam. So a good little budget version. Again, if you're doing... If you've got any kind of Serie A team, it looks a very nice card to do. Five-star weak foot or five-star skill moves, depending on which one you choose. So a nice little SBC to go out and do there. But just moving on from... You know, we've talked a little bit about Evos. And, you know, JK mentioned during this, John, as in Big Boss John,

[00:40:48] EA have announced some changes. One of those was two Evo slots. But there was an even bigger change that people have been crying out for for years. Give us the good news and the slight bad news that comes with it. So, after complaining... This is our 657th official episode. And with some bonus shows, I think we're over 750 shows now. Doing this for six years plus.

[00:41:17] Since episode zero, actually, the pilot episode. And I checked this today. We said, hey, when I quit, when someone quits, I should get a win. And then it happened. If someone quits, we get a win. Hooray! Hooray! But there's something else. Ooh! So, here's a little side note. And I'm just going to read what they say, okay? This is a complex space. We want to ensure fair competitive play.

[00:41:47] When we change how players get wins, draws, or losses, exploits may occur, meaning will occur, impacting fair play. So, we must be careful about how we make these changes. With that said, we want to try to make progress here. We saw it in the upcoming server release, which isn't a patch, which is just an update directly pushed. We'll update how some of the online match outcomes are determined. So, you can now get a win when an opponent quit

[00:42:16] if the scoreline is tight. Which is good. It's great. Terrific. There are a couple of things, though, that you have to take in mind. First, this only applies, this is where it comes, when the opponent uses the quit option in the in-game pass menu. And when you have 45 more minutes passed, the quitting player concedes a penalty kick, or the quitting player has received a red card.

[00:42:43] So, if someone quits on you in the first half, it doesn't even matter. It's only a draw. Because if it's not a draw, of course, it takes a win already. But if they turn off the console, it doesn't even matter yet. Yeah, this is very much a, it's better than nothing. Obviously, you know, all someone has to do is just... We're not done yet. Oh. Oh. Go on. This can only happen five times in a day.

[00:43:15] And then it resets every time at midnight, Canadian time. I mean, to be fair, the five times thing doesn't bother me too much, because it doesn't have... I mean, you guys might have a different experience to me, but I don't have very many people quit at a draw these days. So, it just happens... Yeah, it happens once in a blue moon, if someone gets maybe a penalty and they get ragey late on.

[00:43:42] But especially now, we're in a scenario where every win matters, especially in champs. People are much more just going to hang on until the bitter end and try and win the game. So, look, as I was just saying, Chris, this to me, it's a great start. But, as the boss was saying, it's some very specific scenarios. But, look, it's better than nothing. Yeah, it's a start, isn't it? Let's be honest, it's not going to end here,

[00:44:11] because they've got to be careful. I'm not sure if you're playing rivals or champs or friendlies, how you're meant to ensure that you meet yourself, Dan or that, or John or any of the Johns on the show. How are you meant to do that? So, I'm not sure that the player who doesn't quit has managed to cheat the system, you know, how that exploits. If someone wants to go and start a game, you sit there. Generally, people who quit will watch the full menu. They'll watch the full teams. You're sitting there.

[00:44:41] You play a game for five minutes. The guy realises he's not going to win, even if it's in friendlies. It's so annoying. And then he quits. Why don't they just give you the win? I mean, I've done nothing wrong. You've done nothing wrong. If a guy quits on you, so I don't understand why. I just think this is the start. They're going to monitor it. They're going to see what happens. If it changes behavior, it's still an issue. I think they'll go a little bit further. The chief is muted. He's muted.

[00:45:10] Yes, because I have a cough. You just missed the best sentence. You missed the best sentence of all time. It's a good thing. I also had to edit this one out, the sentence. So, that's good. I think it's because of... Back in the days, just a little bit of history lessons here, right? Back in FIFA 17, where you actually could see your opponent's kids, for example, when you matched up with someone. I know a lot of players, including some of the big YouTubers, which everyone knows if you followed them back then. They had one or two accounts, or they were playing a friend.

[00:45:38] They jumped on the weekend league, and they said, like, you know what? If I'm in five seconds and you switch your kid, I know it's you. Okay. So, we matchmake at the same time because it's local. We matchmake each other, and that's okay. And immediately, I score, you quit. Or I quit right from the start, and I get the win. That's how it was. Because the 45-minute thing will make sure that cannot happen. At least, you have to put in some time. The issue is that you can still just press your PlayStation button

[00:46:05] and do a quit game, and it still won't matter. So, it's... And I'd say, yeah, but people aren't that toxic. Well, I think Rush this year has proven that that definitely is a thing. So, I actually applaud EA for being careful with this. I also think it's half measure. I don't think anyone will actually reap a benefit from that anytime soon. Yeah. I'll give an example, actually. I played a game of Rivals this week, last week.

[00:46:36] And the guy scored from the kickoff. My defender was horrendous. I went up the park and scored a couple of in-games a minute or later. He paused. He messaged me and said, no win, and quit the game. Well, that still wouldn't count as a win. It wouldn't, John. But, again, it's the whole process of when you're talking about toxic community. It absolutely is. Yeah. I think you just could go quit before 45 minutes. That's what will happen. And he didn't quit. And, again, he quit before 45 minutes.

[00:47:05] At least they don't waste your time. At least you're not getting to the 80th minute. And we've all been in those games where you'll score that 90th minute equaliser and the guy just insta-quit. And it's like, thanks. Well, if that happens now, at least you get a win. Exactly. No, I think I need to applaud you. I just think it needs to go a little bit further. But I understand why they don't want to rush into it. It needs to be fun. And then just, you know, and then all of a sudden, as you say, John, people will exploit it.

[00:47:33] But, you know, the average player doesn't. He just wants to play a game. He wants to be rewarded for his time. And a guy who quits out, you know, at 0-0 or whatever, it's just so annoying. You know, you just sit there. Especially when you sit and watch all the videos. I mean, I don't understand why people do that. You know what I see that? My only thing is, I presume the game limit, John, is to prevent those, you know, the bot accounts that sit on PC and basically force the disconnects.

[00:48:01] Because otherwise, if this was an unlimited, they could literally just sit there, get to 45 minutes every game and just kick people out. And then just farm coins and wins their heart's content. Yeah, but this is exactly why I'm a little bit negative about this. So I applaud the effort. Put it out there, right? And at least they're acknowledging it. All I've been asking for a long while is communication about these matters.

[00:48:27] So thumbs up, and I won't actually do that because we might get a smiley and my camera will hang. But thumbs up for EA for actually implementing this and being transparent about this. But the same line says really big that they always are very much for fair play and against cheating. While cheating is still rambled on PC and they still can't seem to fix that. And they're still connected to the gameplay anyway.

[00:48:50] So I think that is by far the biggest issue which they can't seem to solve, although they have an untaid cheat measures going in and being the best ever. But they can't really comment about that because that will definitely influence their PC. So I'm afraid. And that's my biggest bugbear here. If they fix that first, or at least do something about that, be transparent about that, and then go from this and explain why they changed it. Because that's the whole reason, like you said.

[00:49:16] But if PC wasn't fully open for most people to do something, you could have probably not done this at all. Yeah. Well, look, we'll see how it progresses. And as far as we're concerned, I mean, this show has been progressing for nearly 50 minutes now as I sit here. Gentlemen, is there anything else? I mean, I should say as well, we're not going to do Community Team of the Week. Because, hold on, let me do the sting. Community Team of the Week.

[00:49:46] It's better than I just wanted to press the button. No way. Get it in person. Well done. I get £10 every time I say it. At least that was in my contract, right, John? Yeah. So no Community Team of the Week. We'll wait for Invis to get back, and then people can show off their blue and now purple-y colour with this Foot Future Stars promo. Their team's there, so we'll save that. Of course, Tuesday Club will return. But, I mean, gents, any final thoughts from you, Chris? I'll start with yourself. Well, I just want to say there's a new season started.

[00:50:15] I think season five off the top of my head. It is indeed. And I'm looking at level 35, which has got Schlubbergele of Liverpool and Dani Omo of Barcelona. They two, I think, were top of the groups, weren't they, at the Champions League? These are road to the final cards. Liverpool and Barcelona, we'll be there. Faced, Brest, who play PSG, or Monaco, who play Benfica. Very weird system. Well done, UEFA, for making it even more complicated this year, the Champions League.

[00:50:44] I don't think Liverpool and Barcelona combine a team to play those four teams, so I think they probably would win anyway. But Liverpool, you know, as a team, look like they're on fire. So these cards would be, I know, the boss, John, it's level 35. I'm not sure how your season progresses if you do a lot of grinding towards it. But I think there's two very interesting cards there. It lasts for six weeks of the season. And the first games of the Champions League are 11th and 12th, so a couple of weeks away.

[00:51:12] And then the other, I think the last 16 one is slightly later on. So a couple of interesting cards there. So if you're thinking about grinding towards those cards, get those season points in. Absolutely. Chief, anything from yourself? I want to say a special shout out to everyone watching us on Spotify, actually. So last year we got the message from Spotify that we were top 5% video podcast on the platform,

[00:51:40] which concerning how large Spotify actually is these days. I'm still very proud and happy with that. But the numbers of people actually watching the show on Spotify, which you can do just in the app, has been steadily increasing. So, yeah, that just makes me really happy. Also, thank you for the comments people put in the Spotify app, which are kind of fun, actually. And I always say that my hair looks good for some reason. So I appreciate that.

[00:52:07] I can say there's probably a correlation by the fact that I haven't been doing shows lately, and the viewers have gone up. So I will take that incredibly personally. No, that's Nathan's fault. Well, I was about to say, I mean, last week on the show, I launched our campaign for those people very angry and frustrated with one Nathan Downs. It worked tremendously. You got him banned. Yeah, he got his justice. I spoke to my contacts at EA and got him market banned.

[00:52:35] And didn't stop him packing about eight billion team of the years. So as he's so eloquently said on Tuesday. It must be so fun for him in Div 6 with that team. He's already back up to Div 2. The absolute fiend has already got his rivals wins in. He's a machine, that man. But I'm very much enjoying the Tuesday Club shows. I will hopefully be reunited with them soon. But JK, anything from you to finish?

[00:53:04] No, like I said, this was almost at the start of the thing. It's a chance to reset, take a step back. There's still plenty to do. But the grind is not the same grind. We're not sitting on menus grinding 82-20s. Just enjoy. Yeah, I'm looking forward to actually playing some games again. Because I barely played a game after the weekend league on a very self-indulgent level. I got my first 11 wins last weekend league, which for me was a big achievement.

[00:53:34] Yeah, well done, Mitt. But as I said, I'm now going to have to replace my striker. Sam Smith has left Reading to go to Wrexham. He's gone to play for Deadpool. And now he is dead to me. He will be going into an SBC at the earliest opportunity. Thank you for your service, Sam. He's gone to the Kylian Mbappe SBC then. 500 games, 500 goals. But my loyalty ends when you switch clubs. So he's out.

[00:54:04] You'll be replaced by Kylian Mbappe. Which is a... He's saying him for Reading. I was going to say he's a Reading fan. He's someone. No, Kelvin Ayabete, man, will be coming in. I just need to Evo him up to similar standards. But no, it is a great chance to reset. I'm very glad that the grind is over because that little voice on my shoulder being, just do one more 8220. Just do one more 8220 has gone. I can now chill out, actually play and enjoy the game.

[00:54:33] Again, as Chris mentioned over the show, please consider joining the Discord. It's absolutely free. There's loads of conversations going on from trading to tactics to player reviews. Again, the Community Team of the Week, which will return. Of course, if you want to go that extra step further, join the Patreon, patreon.com forward slash foot in review. Get access to the excellent Art of Foot show, which I have been saving for the weekend. I'm looking forward to sitting down with a cup of tea. And while I usually listen to it when I'm playing my weekend league games,

[00:55:01] as John and Art usually keep me nice and sane and give me great tips to help improve my game. So I'm looking forward to that. And of course, we've got great things coming up in 2025, including the Crete meetup. So lots to look forward to. But for the meantime, we will say goodbye until the Tuesday Club returns. I believe Nathan Shaq will be recording as per usual. So gents, just one thing left for us to say. I'm going to start with JK. Drop it. Chris. Drop it.

[00:55:32] Chief. Drop it. We're going to drop it. Drop it. F. U. T. F. U. T. F. T. U. T. U. U. T. U. U.