678:Tuesday Club vs FC25

[00:00:01] Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the podcasting pool, a shark returns. Yes, the Tuesday Club is back. It's not even on a Tuesday, it's on a Wednesday. But I am delighted to be back hosting FUT IN REVIEW on a special one-off show. My name is Dan Wimbishaw, as known as Wimb. I am going to be joined by my main man, Shaq Attack. The reason we've resurfaced from the dead is because I have a week off.

[00:00:29] It is my birthday as we record this. So what better way to sit and enjoy my birthday than to sit and chew the fat with Shaq Attack. Shaq, how are you, my friend? It has been far, far, far too long. It's chills, chills down my spine listening to you start the podcast again. It feels like the good old days. Welcome back. Look how excited I am. This has been the highlight of TOTS for me.

[00:00:55] Oh, here we go. Yeah. Hey, Kia, happy birthday, firstly. But yeah, this is great. Thank you. They've released a flashback podcast host, SBC. Yes. And you're the only person that's completed it. So here I am. We've got, this is of course, FUT IN REVIEW powered by footcoaching.com. Sorry, I'm a bit rusty on the whole admin side of things, but John has let me back on the airwaves.

[00:01:18] I would love to say this will be a permanent return, but I think I kind of explained the circumstances when we wound down the Tuesday club with me, Nathan Shaq in January. I basically been on a secondment that means I can't really record during the daytime anymore. And of course, with Shaq being in Australia, that didn't really work because, you know, if I log on, what time is it when it's about six, seven o'clock in UK for you? Uh, three, three AM.

[00:01:44] Yeah. It's not quite going to work for Shaq. So, um, and vice versa. I hopped on at like five in the morning. Um, I don't think that particularly worked too well for either of us either. So we are back temporarily. Um, my long-term future as a, as a FUT IN REVIEW host is up for grabs. I'm not going to do a Trent Alexander-Arnold and, uh, announce that I'm officially leaving FUT IN REVIEW. I don't think I'll ever leave until John kicks me out, but, um, unfortunately I can't break. This is not going to be a, it's not going to be a permanent return, at least for the time being.

[00:02:12] But let's make the best use of the time we have Shaq. Now we're not really going to go as Tuesday club tradition. We're not really going to go over content in too great a detail. What I wanted to do was pop back on the show and just have a, uh, you know, a chat, almost a state of the state of the game address between the two of us and sort of recap. Because when I stopped hosting the, you know, the Tuesday club and yes, I popped on with John, um, for a few shows as well.

[00:02:40] It was right around what I think Shaq was the, probably the high point of this, of FC 25 so far. It was team, team of the year was around the corner. And most importantly, we had the big gameplay patch that was almost universally well received. People calling it, you know, the best thing. I remember lots of streamers were like saying, this is the, you know, your, your Nepenthes is your Nick, Nick run the foot markets. We're like, this is great. It's made me want to hop back on and play on the game. Then we had team of the year and you had the repeatable 82 times 20 grind.

[00:03:09] And it seemed that EA were finally firing on all cylinders. You had good gameplay, um, or at least better gameplay. You had a, you know, a menu side of things. It was great. You had accessible team of the year cards for the first time in two or three years. Everything seems to be going well. And then at least to me, the last few months have just been a really steady decline. Um, and I'd hoped that team of the season was going to pick that back up again.

[00:03:37] Um, and even with a, with a late April gameplay patch, things just don't seem in a very great state to me. I will kind of go through some of the reasons why, um, and some of the positives as well, because I think before we get into anything more, I should say that I'm still playing regularly. I wanted to be playing this morning. Um, but for a scheduled maintenance of, uh, about nine hours, which is great when you, you know, take the day off to play, uh, play games. Yeah. Um, but Shaq, where are you with this game at the moment?

[00:04:06] How have you been feeling the past couple of months since, um, since you stopped popping on with Nate? Where are you kind of sitting with it overall? Yeah, I think I'm quite with you. I think team of the year was really like, it feels like an eternity ago. Team of the year was pretty good. I think we all had a good time. We, the patch was good. All that was good. And then since team of the year, things have just been up in the air where I think we all were destined to wait for Tots, that Tots being, it's got to be the best thing that's happened since team of the year. We have to wait till then. All these filler promos kept coming and going.

[00:04:35] If you asked me to name every single promo that happened between team of the year and now I could probably name three. The rest of them are just completely, I don't even remember the names, forget the cards. And then we get to team of the season and you're all hyped because team of the season generally is about a six, seven weeks of hype. I know we say that goes too long. Yes, all that happens, but it's a fun little time where you get some upgrades to your teams and it's kind of fun. League on came and it was good for a couple of days.

[00:05:01] And then it just became, it just became this, this, this mishmash of nothingness and Premier League Tots has really taken the cake. It's just gone backwards in the sense of, I think we'll discuss the whole details about it all, but I think from a, from a content point of view, it's really taken a backseat and that's the part that really bothers me. And it feels like the game feels drab at this point in time. We're playing for the sake of playing. I mean, I do enjoy playing here and there, but what am I playing for? I don't even know. Yeah, I think that's where we're at.

[00:05:29] And look, I think it's really important to preface any of this discussion by saying that both, you know, me and you have been in this, you know, I've been playing regularly now since FIFA 20. So what, this is my fifth or sixth game cycle. I think you've been on even longer than that, haven't you? Young, because I've been playing since a foot founder. Yeah, foot founder. So, yeah. So our perspective is going to be quite different to someone that has maybe only picked up the game from, I don't know, FIFA 23, FC 24, maybe that to them, it's quite new.

[00:05:56] But I think that the big word for me that seems to be going around a lot of the, you know, the discourse around this game at the moment is staleness. And it all feels very copy and paste that there's not the effort being put into innovate. And that is bleeding into lots of different areas of the game. And that is making it, you know, like you say, you're thinking, well, why am I logging on?

[00:06:24] Let's run, you know, the main thing about that at the moment is both you and I are menu grinders. We absolutely love grinding the menus. We used to do a trading show as well. Yes. So we're no, we're no strangers to the market. Used to be, to me, the menus have always been my main bit of the game. Like playing football games is great, but I've always been a spreadsheet manager.

[00:06:48] I've always been a football manager player, civilization, all these games where I'm thinking what's going on in the background rather than the actual action. You know, I've never been, I've loved playing the likes of Goldeneye and stuff in the past and a bit of Halo, but I've never been that great with my reflexes and stuff like that. So I've always been, how can I outthink my opponent? Yeah. And that's what the menu has done for me. You know, it's like, how can I make those extra coins? How can I best utilize the players in my club to get me the better players?

[00:07:17] Because to me, my advantage has always been, I can't pull off ridiculous skill moves, but I can't do Le Croquetas and Elasticos. But what I can do is grind my ass off on the menus and unlock those top tier SBCs. And okay, I can't do the Elasticos, but I can unlock Rudhullet who will at least help me and maybe, you know, give me that very slight little edge. Now the menu grind at the moment, and I know already, I'm so excited to be back.

[00:07:47] I'm jumping around loads of different subjects, but on the one hand, this is the best menu grind we have ever had in Team of the Season. On the other hand, this is the most pointless menu grind we've ever had in Team of the Season. And I'm going to have to go back to my favorite analogy, for those of you who haven't listened for a while, the all you can eat buffet analogy. Because for years, EA have been very tight in what they are prepared to give you in terms

[00:08:15] of your ability to grind the menus during Team of the Season. The only thing, you know, going back to like FIFA 2021 is you had the League SBCs and you had what the premium and standard upgrades, didn't you? And you might have had a player pick with that. Now it's 83-10s, 84-7s, Tots upgrade trade-ins, multiple player picks.

[00:08:40] This Tots grind menu, this Tots crafting grind up, you still got premium and standard league SBCs as well. There is more ways than ever to sit here and grind the menus. But there are lots of factors making it pointless. Number one, the top tier Tots cards, no matter how hard you grind those menus, Shaq, they're unicorns, aren't they? Yep, completely. And I think that's where we're struggling because they feel like Team of the Years of the previous

[00:09:10] years, we're packing one of those top, top cards. It's almost impossible. I think, have you seen a top, top card on our Discord yet? I don't think so. I don't think we've seen like an Usman Dembele on our Discord, for example. I think on X, one of the other pod hosts, probably Martin, is the only one that I can see that I can think of that's packed in Usman Dembele. No one else. No, I know Talando got Barcola, but that's about it.

[00:09:36] I think we've had a couple of those like Isaac level pulls, you know, the 1 million, 2 million point cards. We haven't seen the absolute mega beasts. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. They're not really far and few. They're just really, sorry, they're not really plentiful at this point of the season. And even though we've gone through champs and we've all got our ranks, and I don't think

[00:10:04] a single one of us got anything good out of champs. And that's the thing that really, and I think you really put it really extremely well in the sense that this year, the grind, there's so many avenues to grind, but it just feels so pointless. And that's the part I can't really reconcile within myself is what am I complaining? Half the time I'm thinking, what am I complaining about? Two-year-old Shaq would be so happy with his grind, but then the current Shaq is really disgusted with himself as part of his first time grinding. So I don't know where I sit. Yeah.

[00:10:34] And look, especially during League Untots and maybe the first day or so of Premier League team this season, I was grinding hard. I was completing all my upgrades. I was doing it. I was bashing through the League SBCs constantly over and over and over again. And it just got to a point where I'm just like, I'm not getting anything from this. I'm just, I'm not getting anything from this. So why am I doing it? And it's, sorry, go on. Do you know what?

[00:11:01] I think we're getting something from this. I think we have blues that pop, that are popping off. We're getting like the EFL blues and maybe the WSL blues. But the problem with that is where the hell do you put these blues? So we have all these blues. We don't have a Hullet SBC. We don't have any SBC that's actually going to excite us because if we were getting all these blues and we had a massive mega R Ronaldinho or an R9 or an SBC that we can pump

[00:11:27] all our fodder into, we will be grinding day in, day out to try and get that SBC completed. But right now I am looking for things to throw my SBC. I've done, I've done six icon picks, six of those new icon picks. Haven't packed a single good card from there, but I've just been banging them over and over and over again. And I just told myself today, no more because I'm just, it's just a casino. It's just a slot machine. Yeah. Yeah. And much like the slot machine that just pays out completely randomly or it'll pay out the

[00:11:54] little old lady who just walks past it with a pound in her pocket and takes the jackpot when the committed gambler has just chucked 500 quid in. Adam, in our chat, of course, you can join us live if you are a member of the Discord, which is absolutely free. We post the link to the live show in there. And then please also join us on Patreon, patreon.com forward slash foot and review for extra goodies. These, our Patreon members are getting ready to go to Crete and that will be an absolutely fantastic trip.

[00:12:22] I can't wait to see all the, all the pictures and footage from that. I'm very jealous. I'm not going, but Adam talking about, you know, the lottery side of things. He said, I did get Salah from the 83 by two last night from rush. If that counts, which shows you just how random it is where these big cards come out of. We'll also talk about the actual cards because yeah, the Salah is a really good example. Like he should be amazing. He's expensive, but look at his play styles.

[00:12:50] These are the things, these are the small little things that we can go down and break down every single card. There's not a single card that is perfectly designed for being a super duper team of the season card. Everything's got something lacking. Why? Why? I'm not expecting a 99 rated card. That's not what I'm asking. When a team of the season called Palmer is cheaper than team of the year, Cole Palmer that was released four months ago, you know, there's a, there's a problem. There is a problem. Yeah.

[00:13:17] And that's what it goes back to, you know, going back to the whole grind thing is that, you know, as you've said, there are a couple of SBCs out there and maybe it's because we're on the more committed side that we've both completed Taram. Taram's out there. We've both completed Hullit. Hullit is technically still out there. And you've got Jamie Vardy, which is getting really good reviews from people in the discord. They're really happy with it. And he's a million point player. But the key, the key thing here is Shaq that I would disagree with you. I say, look, there is a place to put your blues.

[00:13:48] Where there is not a place to put anything at the moment is what you're getting most out of the grind at the moment, which is 85s, 86, 87s. Where are you supposed to be putting those at the moment? Because EA are not giving us anything like a repeatable grind that needs those squads. If you look at the Icon SBC, what is it? An 88, 89, 90? No, 88, 89, 89. Yeah. I think even the hero one is, I think, an 88, 89 squad.

[00:14:18] Yeah, it's got an 88 and 86, if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, no one's doing the heroes anyway. But what this has done is that historically, if I was going through the league SBCs, and I got an 86, it's like, great. I've pretty much paid for a run through. Yeah. You at the moment cannot sell an 86. You cannot give them away.

[00:14:39] And I cannot ever remember a point in this game where 86, 87s were so unbelievable. And even 88s to an extent were so worthless. Exactly. You know what? When I pack an 89 rated tradable card, I wince because I don't know what the hell to do with that card. Because the old trader in me can't quick sell that one, can't put it in an SBC because it's tradable. But I can't sell it.

[00:15:08] What the hell do I do? It just takes up space on my trade pile, hoping for a random rise. And it's just, it's starting to get, those things are really starting to get annoying. Where you have, you just pack a 89 rated or 90 rated hurricane. Chances are they will not sell. What the hell are you going to do with these cards? Yeah. And that limits your ability to continue the grind as well. Because historically, yeah, if you were going through the grind and you did, so even feeling like your weekend league rewards or your squad battle rewards or whatever, got a couple of 88s. It's like, great.

[00:15:36] Okay, I can sell them and I'll use that coinage to go and buy a hundred rares, you know, off the market. Say, you know, you sold five cards, made 50, 60 grand. You're like, great. I'll go off and buy a hell of a load of rares or commons to complete my upgrade grind at the moment. Where early, you know, we've both said, okay, this is the best, you know, on paper, the best grind we've ever had. It's also a finite grind because as people like Nepenthes have pointed out, there's not

[00:16:04] a place to get the volume of cards needed to just do it completely. Yes, we've got a great process at the moment of going through, you turn silver cards into your grinding packs, grinding packs into your Totscraft packs or your player picks or your premium league upgrades. But you will run out of cards. You just run out of cards because they don't replenish enough. The cycle isn't infinite like that. Now, last year, we had the exchanges.

[00:16:31] And as Neil said, the game needs in the chat as well. He says, game needs exchanges badly to ignite both the market and the grinds. And again, the exchanges meant that 87s, 88s and stuff had value, even when they weren't needed for SBCs because people were buying them to chuck them into an exchange to get the commons to continue the grind. At the moment, I said, nobody needs them. And also, people just can't grind infinitely because they're stuck.

[00:16:58] So, from EA's point of view, I guess their approach is that they don't want people infinitely grinding or they want people to go and buy provisions packs. I don't know. See, I get that when there's logic I can understand and say, well played. But in some cases, there's no logic. For example, the daily grinding upgrade, you can do 25 times, right? But the silver squads, the 14 silvers that you get back, a super silver upgrade pack, you can only do it seven times.

[00:17:29] And as of yesterday, as of yesterday, I think we got rid of the daily silver upgrades and the daily gold upgrades. You will still be short of at least about 100 odd silvers to complete the grinding upgrade. So, you have to buy 100 plus, maybe 150 silvers every single day to complete the grinding upgrade. There's no way to buy a silver pack from the store that gives you that quantity of silvers like a provision pack. So, you're stuck. These are the things that have not been fully fleshed out by EA. Either it's by design or it's by chance or accident.

[00:17:58] I don't necessarily know. But this is the part that really bugs me. Like, why create something that is really hard for your end consumer? Like, it doesn't really make any sense. Yeah. I mean, Adam asked in the chat, do you lads think EA predicted the market would end up in this state? Ah, that's a good question. And I really am starting to wonder that myself because I think with regards to the market, I think it's a case of EA would be damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

[00:18:27] Because if they didn't up the back weight for the likes of their Bruno and Sarkas and things, if they were really rare and really expensive, for example, if Bruno Fernandes was maybe 800k or 900k and very hard to pack and Sarka was really hard to pack, I think people would just probably lose it by now because the chances of getting those cards would... Look, I've packed one Sarka and I had to spend 250k to pack a Bruno. So, I haven't... They're not really...

[00:18:52] I know some people, like, let's not even mention Nate Dogg on here, but he's packed Bruno 700 times. But that's a... He's a different kettle of fish. He's a completely different animal. But it would be heartbreaking if those cards were, like, really expensive. So, I think they've done the right thing in increasing the pack weight, but I don't think they expected... I don't... I don't think EA wants these cards to be 50k or 40k. I don't necessarily know if that's by design or if that's just by sheer...

[00:19:19] Again, with that, all these cards are lacking something as well. That's what we've spoken about. They are lacking something. Like, Bruno lacks something. He's amazing in game. He's really good in game, but I think he also is quite heavily packed by quite a lot of people as well. So, I don't... I don't know if that's by design, to be honest. I think... I think the game has got away from EA a little bit, and I think the market comes into this.

[00:19:43] I think there are now too many moving parts for them to keep tabs on, and there is stuff impacting other stuff that I don't think that they particularly foresaw. Because it used to be a simple case of supply and demand, both in terms of how EA were allowing people to generate coins. They used to be very limited ways to get certain packs and players held. You know, we're not a million miles away.

[00:20:10] You know, we're only a few years away from the fact that gold cards, even now, would still have had value. I remember even trying to buy a gold Joe Gomez in FIFA 20 in April. You were still paying like... Take three. Yeah, it could be, yeah. But the demand for cards now is driven by so many different factors. You've got an unbelievable amount of store packs now. So, are people putting their coins and their actual money in their pocket there?

[00:20:38] Are people putting their money into evolutions? And are people now just all focused on building evolutions, spending our money, our coins, and our actual money on evolutions? Are people hammering... Are there those people that are hammering the gameplay too much? Or not too much, but through all the different modes and earning their packs that way and getting supplied that way? And then are there people like ourselves? Are we menu grinders?

[00:21:04] So, cards and where people are getting their cards from now are coming from so many different places that I think that the way they interact with each other is just gone a bit haywire. Because if you asked, you know... If I said to you, Shaq, why is Saka 50k? Is it because he's oversupplied? Is it because people haven't got a lot of coins? Is it because everybody's got a better Evo version of a card? Or is it just because the card isn't very good?

[00:21:34] I mean, you know... Which one is it? Yeah, it's so very, very hard to pinpoint exactly which one that is. And I think EA are probably struggling with that. Yeah. And I think going back to a couple of years ago, Saka has been a 93-rated Team of the Season card even last year, the year before, if I'm not mistaken. So, the card's not bad to look at. But the alternatives, I think the sheer amount of alternatives that are available to us make

[00:22:02] these cards slightly less desirable in one sense. And then with the sheer amount of upgrades and things that we have and the store packs that we have, probably the supply is slightly higher than people anticipated, maybe EA anticipated, for example. And that's causing this huge hodgepodge of a mess that has landed with these prices on our doorstep. With regard to the prices, what's your opinion? Like, do you like these cards being this low or do you not like it?

[00:22:30] Or what's your take on these cards being this price? Again, I go back to the all-you-can-eat buffet analogy in the... I think it's one of those scenarios where, you know, you walk into this all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant and it's great. There's so many different meals to choose from. And on the one hand, you're like, great. I have access to all of these different meals. And then you go up to one and you think, oh, that's a bit bland. You take a bite of one and you're like, that's a bit bland.

[00:22:55] You know, that sweet and sour chicken isn't as nice if I'd gone as if to a dedicated Chinese restaurant. And then you walk over to the pizza bar and you go, well, the pizza shop down the road does better pizza. And that's what I think a lot of these Tots cards are because you're looking at them and you look at that Saka card or the Chris Wood card, you go, that's got a lot of great attributes. That's actually a really good usable card. But is it as good as that 94, the card that I hate the most?

[00:23:24] Is it as good as the 94 Evo Suarez flashback? Or the Dean of Tarly? No. Or is it as good as even the flashback Cristiano Ronaldo SBC that we had a few weeks ago? No. So why? Yes, you can try these things. But and it goes back to another thing where I talk about staleness. And I know you've mentioned this in our in our chats. Where do you go and use these cards in a pressure free environment to have a bit of fun? Yeah.

[00:23:52] Only real place you can go. And as I've done is that cup mode. And then you only need eight wins. Or no, is it? I think it's 12. Yeah. 12 wins. A lot of people are playing golden goal and you're done. And you're not going to go in and sit and play in a mode where because we've now all been so trained that we're only playing or a lot of us playing through. Yeah, exactly. So I just get the whole feeling about this entire game now that we've been given so much

[00:24:21] by EA, we've become so desensitized again, going back to a can eat restaurant. There is so much in front of us and there's been so much behind us now that it's very, very hard to get people excited. I remember a couple of years ago when they were first putting out those like 500,000 coin packs and streamers were going mad. People were going mad. Like people like me and you were like, am I buying this pack? It's really good. You know, I've got 2 million coins.

[00:24:50] Should I spend it now? Now, there was a pack this week in the store. Was it a 92 plus guaranteed Prem Tots pack? And I've barely seen anybody opening it online. I've barely seen any hype for it. And look, this might be one of those cases where people are just opening it and EA making tons of money from it. Fair enough. But just in terms of an entertainment point of view, that's just like, oh, another 500k pack.

[00:25:21] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think a lot of us, including myself, kept some coins aside thinking, yeah, I'll just blow it up during team of the season, opening up all these packs and just having some fun. There's literally no need to open any of these packs because what are you going to get from these packs that you can't get from an upgrade? The top tier ones are not really freely available to us any which way. So it's really...

[00:25:48] But I think from a monetary point of view, I really think EA has capitalized the evolution market. And I think the reason the price is the way they are is probably EA is turning its focus to the evolution side of things a bit more from a monetization point of view. So the cards and packs are probably something that they will always have, but I don't think that's going to be the cash cow in the future. And they're really... You can see they're not trying as hard because otherwise these prices wouldn't be the way they are, which is not a bad thing for us as an end user because at the end of the day,

[00:26:18] we are able to get these cards for really cheap, which is not a bad thing. But where does it all end? Where's the balance? I think EA have been very, very clever this year with Evolutions and how they've used them throughout the game cycle. And even now with... And we've got to talk about the premium season pass as well. EA have done a very good job at bringing the micro. Back to micro transactions. Yeah.

[00:26:47] Because I think they... People... A lot of people get into the stage where they realized that spending lots of money in the casino was not where it was, you know? Exactly. You know, we had the Bin the Points campaign. There was the big thing going around with streamers a couple of years ago. And I think people were quite... You know, fool me once, you know, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I think people have got... Especially those that have been in the cycle for a long time have been like, I need to stop spending points.

[00:27:14] Because the chance of me actually getting something that I can't get myself quite easily through gameplay, it was just going down and down. So what EA very cleverly did was switch to, oh, but we can give you a guaranteed something. Turn your gold sacker into a great sacker. And it'll only cost you six pounds to do in the equivalent of FIFA Points. But it would cost you 500,000 coins, which is not something a lot of people want to pay

[00:27:43] because coins are a lot harder to come by. And most of us in the adult realm, especially, are like, oh, six pounds? It's a pint. Sod it. I'll do that. Same with the season pass. It's like, oh, seven quid. You know, that's the season last 10 weeks. That's like a pound a week, whatever. It's fine. So they've done a very good job at getting the people that don't get lured in by the casino. People like myself, because I've paid for the season pass and I've paid for a couple of EVOs this year.

[00:28:09] I think I've probably spent about 20, 25 quid on FIFA Points this year. And last year or the year before, especially, I've been through entire cycles where I've not spent a penny. So I think they've been very, very clever in how they're doing it. But this goes back to that whole too many moving parts going on. Is that the reason why the market is in shambles? Is that the reason now why people aren't busting their asses going through upgrade cycles?

[00:28:37] Because they already have a core of players that they've been able to Evo themselves that are taking up those slots. And is that the reason why, unless you are an absolute top, top, top tier player like a Van Dijk, Salah, Izak, you're so cheap? Yeah, I think it's a combination of exactly all the things you said, but also the moving parts are last year, the moving parts of Playstyle Pluses. This year, the moving parts, along with the Playstyle Pluses, you have the roles.

[00:29:05] And I think people like me are very reticent of trying to change my team consistently because once I get used to a particular type of team because of all these tinkering of the playstyles and the roles and everything, I suddenly get a brand new player that I can't really fit into my playstyle or who doesn't have the roles that I'm looking for. I'm like, oh, this is very confusing. And I don't care if people say these things are just a thing in your mind and they don't really matter. Playstyle and role pluses are extremely useful.

[00:29:34] I've seen how cards move with having just a plus or not having a particular role and how they move with a plus. It's miles apart in my eyes. And I don't want to take that gamble of trying to try shoe on someone and just because they're a more expensive player. I couldn't care less. And that's all these moving parts are probably what is causing these prices to be the way they are.

[00:29:54] This player has 98 pace, 94 shooting, 93 passing, 96 dribbling, 65 defending, 91 physicality. He's got four star, five star, and he can play in three different positions. He's from the Premier League and he's from Brazilian. Who am I? Brazilian Premier League.

[00:30:24] Might be joining Man United soon. Ah, Cunha. Cunha. This card is 338,000 coins. Now, why on earth is this card 338,000 coins, you might ask? And if I told you he has Finesse Shot Plus, he has Power Shot Plus, and he does have First Touch Plus. Good, good, good. Good playstyle pluses. Good playstyle pluses. Good card. Yep. Good card. His roles are good.

[00:30:53] Shadow Striker Plus Plus, Inside Forward Plus Plus at left wing. False Nine at Striker, and pluses at Advance Forward and Target Forward. He's also got Chip Shot at Rapid, Low Driven, Tripster, Power Header. The reason this card is not very good, he has zero passing playstyles. Exactly.

[00:31:15] How on earth have we got to a stage in the game where a card as good as this is not good enough to be in your team in the start of May? It is bonkers. It is bonkers. And the very fact that he's got 93 in passing, and I've used this card, by the way. Same. So I can attest to the passing just isn't what you want to do. I don't play this card.

[00:31:43] I play my evolved 92 Fran Kirby, because Fran Kirby has Tiki Taka Plus and I think Incisive Pass Plus, and I play her at camp, and I cannot take her out of my team because I need the accuracy accuracy and those first time passes that Tiki Taka Plus gives to play the way I want to play.

[00:32:07] Now, this goes back to the whole, it's both the best and the worst thing, because it's great that different cards, you know, and you can develop your own personal, and EA kind of promoted it as, you know, build your own playstyle. There's been a whole idea behind playstyles. But on the downside, it's like, it's a real shame. I can't use a card as good as this because he hasn't got passing playstyles. And in FIFA's past, it was the stat that mattered.

[00:32:34] It was the fact, yes, you had traits in the background, which who knows how much they actually impacted things. We don't really know. But I guarantee this Cunha card would have been 2 million coins, 3 million coins, because stats are brilliant. His playstyle pluses are brilliant. But he just, because they've just decided not to give him some great playstyles. And this kind of leads into the next thing of, well, why is this?

[00:33:03] Because, and this is a trend I first started noticing just after Team of the Year. EA, for some reason, just started being really, really stingy with grey playstyles. They didn't want people having much more than 8 or 9 on a card. And Shaq, do you think that this has been, what, okay, I'll put it to you first. Why do you think they've been so stingy? I think there's two things here.

[00:33:31] Number one, I think they want to raise the carrot for the pass, the season pass. Because firstly, as soon as you're talking, the first thing I'm thinking, should I consider putting the Tiki Taka Plus on Cunha? Because he's actually pretty good in game, but he can't pass for anything. I tried him. Funny story. Today, I was playing the friendly cup. And I, for some reason, I haven't tried Cunha as much as I should. I put him in a scam. Shadow striker. Couldn't make a freaking pass. Couldn't give one through pass.

[00:34:00] Couldn't give one regular pass. And I thought, what the hell? Took him out. Tried two different players. Tried Bruno Fernandes. Was able to pass beautifully. Scoring was decent. But I still, I wasn't feeling the scoring capability. Put Neymar in. He's got Tiki Taka Plus. Bruno Fernandes, as we know, has the through pass plus. And the ping pass. I could do everything I wanted to do from Shadow striker. With Cunha, I couldn't. It's dumb. It's dumb. All right. Going back to the reason why they're being a bit stingy, which is starting to bug me a little bit because it's a common theme across most of these cards.

[00:34:30] The first thing I'm thinking of, Tiki Taka Plus. Cunha might be a really good candidate. But I also have other candidates that I want to use the Tiki Taka Plus. But what's going to happen next? Next, we will be able to get these sorts of things. Tiki Taka Plus. All these PlayStyle Pluses in the Evo store as such where we can start buying them, putting on the cards. We will spend money. Don't you worry about that. We will spend money. But come on. That's the thing that I'm really getting annoyed with. Should we be spending money?

[00:34:58] I mean, forget the money. I don't really care. I just want to use the cards now. I don't want to wait another month of having these cards sitting in my club, not being used. And wait for that one particular day where they throw these things out for us to buy and use. That's the part that's frustrating me. Now, the tinfoil theory, tinfoil hat theory about why this is, is there was a lot of speculation going around a few months ago that EA were going to bring out FC26 out in August, both

[00:35:27] to time it with the start of the new season. And they were petrified of GTA 6, which was due to release in September. So, and we've all noticed it. And we were talking about this way back, even if you know, it was like three playstyle pluses at team of the year. Wow. And the way they'd even given out two playstyle pluses in the months beforehand. And I was thinking, what? You know, the power curve is moving really quickly here. And people have theorized that, again, EA were basically like, okay, we're going to

[00:35:55] move the power curve up because the game has got six weeks, you know, it's six weeks going to be six weeks shorter or even eight weeks shorter than it is historically. So we don't have to drag out over the summer. Now, GTA has now been delayed. And again, the reports are now that EA are like, fine, we can, you can have an extra month or whatever to get the game ready, which I think is a good thing. Like they need all the time they can get to work on this game. So I've got no problem with that.

[00:36:22] But the EA have now backed themselves into a corner by like, because I said this earlier, we've got four playstyle plus players in at the start of May who have already got stats all in the nineties. Where do they go? Do they, you know, five playstyle pluses, six playstyle pluses? Like you are not too far away from, you know, even an SBC card they released this week for 62K, he's got 95 passing, 90 shooting, 90 dribbling, 90 defensive, 93 physicality.

[00:36:52] Like, and we've got to get through to September now on this. So is part of the reason they're now being stingy with the silver playstyle as a way to desperately pull back and give us something to still crave? Because if we have a settled team that we're like, well, it's not going to get any better than that, you know what happens? People will just drift away because there's nothing to play for.

[00:37:18] So Neil asked in the chat as well, though, he says, do you think they're making moves ever so gradually to remove the market? I was thinking about just that today and I'm starting to get more and more confirmations the way things are going that I was thinking about this today, Dan. I was really struggling to get, I really wanted to pack. Bruno Fernandes has been the one shining light in a really horrible, horrendous season for Man United.

[00:37:47] I really wanted an untradeable Bruno Fernandes in my club and I was willing to pay what it takes to get him in my club. And luckily I packed him from a store player pick. I spent 250K coins and out came Bruno. He was probably worth 50K at that point in time. Couldn't care less. In the future, if I get the opportunity to throw three pounds in or maybe four pounds in to get that card that I want, that's barely anything on the market. Just imagine the number of people that would do that. Yeah.

[00:38:17] And I think you just need to ask, if you asked people, and in fact, if you look at teams, look at how many cards are in someone's team that don't have that first owner mark by them. You know, we would have four or five players at this point in a season, usually where, you know, they are players we've bought and, you know, we're trading, we're buying them, put them in, taking them out. I'm lucky if I've got one. I had a bit of a try of Harlander and Isaac over the last weekend.

[00:38:47] They sold them quickly because again, they just dropped like a stone out of nowhere. And that's a problem we've talked about. And, you know, for the last couple of years, that uncertainty in the market makes people not want to go out and buy and try cards as well. So does the market, and if you look at the stuff that's in packs now, there's not a lot to go for. I mean, historically, you would need to go out and buy things like fitness cards.

[00:39:16] You'd have to go out and buy position modifiers. Yeah. All these kinds of things that, okay, well, you need a market to be able to buy them. Now it's only really chemistry styles. Even then, when was the last time you actually bought a chemistry style? Exactly. But you might still need to go buy the old Shadow or something if you've not been playing a while. But there is less need for packs now because actually what's in them is a load of cosmetic

[00:39:44] stuff, which you could quite easily just chuck in a store and make people pay for you. I don't think that many people are bothered about customizing their stuff. And again, same with the stadiums. If you said to someone, oh, you know, it's whatever, 500 coins to buy a stadium pack. I don't think they'll ever get rid of coins. I think there will still be a reward currency that they hand out. But actually, if you look at what you need to go out and spend your money on now, it's

[00:40:10] just very limited because the top, top tier cards you can never afford anyway. It doesn't matter how well you do unless you're like a rank one, rank two player. People like me and you are never going to be able to just save through traditional means to go out and buy team of the year. How am I going to raise 6 million coins unless I'm a really dedicated trader or get stupidly lucky? I'm never going to do that. So what's the point? So yeah, I just think there's less need for the market. And that does seem a deliberate strategy to me.

[00:40:41] Six million coins you mentioned. Even if you had six million coins lying in your account, would you go out and buy the player you desired? No. You did the same thing with Isaac and Haaland where you sold it straight away. You're not going to spend six million coins on a particular player just to half the time you're using him, you'd be worried about what the price would be doing as soon as you finish scoring the goal. So it's a weird predicament we're all finding ourselves into with the way the market is.

[00:41:07] So I really think the future is us being able to get our cards that we want untradeable into our clubs by the store. We've done it. And this links in very nicely to Evos because this is a point that NEP made the other day. Look how many Evos turn players into exactly the same player. Like, because of the stat limits and the stat caps. You know, you can spend out on these.

[00:41:31] The team of the year, not team of the year, the Immortals Icon was a great example of that. If you took a silver card or something like that, you would generally end up, you know, you had to pick all the play styles from scratch. Yeah, there was some maneuverability. But in terms of stat wise, they were basically the same and the same with the team of the year icon upgrade as well. And lots of these things. You just create the same player. So in effect, you may as well just have that player in the store. Do you know what I mean?

[00:42:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've just basically done buy a player, but buy stealth. It's just create your player, which I prefer though, because I would much rather have the ability to make Lewis Wing a really great midfielder. I mean, he's already a great midfielder. Rather than having to go and buy Xavi, for example, who, yes, I'm comparing Lewis Wing to Xavi. Lewis Wing scores more bangers. Don't look up a Lewis Wing goal compilation.

[00:42:31] But yeah, so I'm a fan of that. But yeah, there just seems less and less need for the market. Me and you stopped doing the trading show a couple of years ago because we were like, it's the same three methods of making coins now. They have been so good at... I was thinking the other day, actually I was thinking last night because it's Serby. Serby scored that brilliant mobiliser for Inter.

[00:42:55] And whenever I see a Serby's name, I think very fondly because a Serby used to make me thousands and thousands of coins in FIFA games when you needed chemistry. Because he was 83 rated. He played for... Was it Lazio back at the time? Correct. It was. And you used to be able to just go and buy a load of a Serby's, stick them in your club, and there would be an SBC out for like a whatever, an 86 double that would need an 83 rated squad

[00:43:26] with 24 chemistry or 28 chemistry. And people would have to go and buy centre backs from big leagues with the big five nations and top eight nations. And you would just make bank. Harry Maguire used to do the same with. Yeah. Loads of these cars. And then, of course, they basically chemistry requirements no longer exist in SBCs. So you can no longer do that. Marquee matchups give packs that are so crap that nobody is...

[00:43:55] And also they've taken away a lot of the requirements. You know, it used... You know, yeah, you might have all pick one Manchester United player in your team for marquee matchups. But you've now got the entire women's team and the entire men's team. Nobody invests for marquee matchups anymore. The league SBCs used to have teams like Paderborn, where you would need to somehow find a load of bronzes and silvers. And you used to have a ridiculous situation of paying 40k for a bronze Paderborn player.

[00:44:23] There used to be so many ways to make money on this game. And it's now gone. It's like... And fun ways as well. Not just stupid ways. They were fun ways. There were things when you pack a random bronze, you'd be like, Oh, holy moly. I've actually packed a 30k card. It's the small little things. The fun things that we would collect towards. And all that stuff's completely gone. Completely gone. They were the niche things. Because not everybody was going out there, sitting there doing bronze pack method.

[00:44:51] Not everybody was sat there predicting and buying for marquee matchups. Thursday trading was a great thing, wasn't it? When you used to have weekend league rewards and rivals rewards got dished out on the same day. You knew you could go and buy a player in the dip on Thursday morning. Your golds for Frankie de Jong. You'd buy them for 25k.

[00:45:18] And you knew that when people were building their teams for weekend league, Frankie de Jong would be back up at 40k. And he'd be the easiest money of your life. EA, for a quality of your life thing, have been like, No, it's fine. It's instant rewards now. Yeah, rivals were still Thursday. But weekend league rewards, when you finish, you get your rewards. And some would say that that's far more important to me. But they just chip, chip, chip, chip, chipped away at the kind of little niche things, little pockets of the game.

[00:45:45] And that goes back to the very first thing we talked about is the grinding. You used to be able to have so many different ways to grind the game if you wanted to and make coins. Now, Nick run the foot market has his name from running the foot market. When was the last time you saw Nick trade? Yeah. No, I really haven't seen him trade at all.

[00:46:09] Like the only one person that seems to still be trading from a couple of years ago is Nate the foot accountant. That's the only guy. Him and Flair. Him and Flair. Oh, Flair is another. Yeah. But with Nate, believe it or not, every time I see him talking about trading and the stuff that he's doing, I just think this is such a grind compared to the fun of it used to be a couple of years ago. Because the stuff he's talking about, I'm like, sure, that works. But the hit rate is about 50%.

[00:46:36] And the amount of effort needed to get that 50% of hit rate is tremendous. It's tremendous. It's just. I don't want to come off as grumpy old man here. And I'm a grumpy old birthday man. But it annoys me when EA takes stuff like that away. And some people will say, look, they're doing it for quality of life things, you know, and they're making things simpler.

[00:47:03] And I think that that is a problem that we face extensively as a podcasting community and as a creative community. Everything's just simple now, Shaq. For better or for worse, it's all simple. You go watch Matt HD Gamer who does these weekly, I've restored a game as a dead foot account. Or I've got 24 hours to build a team from scratch.

[00:47:32] The state of the teams he builds in 24 hours. And he's not even doing anything ridiculous. It's remarkable. The challenge has gone. Yeah. And that is both the best and the worst thing, I think, for me. That's a very good point. Because I think some of the things that we used to shoehorn ourselves into doing was trying to amass as many coins as we can to have that towards the whole year.

[00:48:02] And towards around this time of the year is when we actually reap the benefits of all our hard work through the whole year. And we go ahead and get the better team, better than anyone else at this point in time. And that was the whole ethos behind how we play the game. Right now, as you said, you can do the Hulad SPC. You have the resources to do the Hulad SPC and the Turam SPC. And you probably have a really stacked squad. You'll have enough coins to buy the one marquee player. And you are set for the next couple of weeks to the silly season.

[00:48:30] But silly season literally started months ago. Months ago. We're just adding silliness to silliness. On one end, it is really simple. I completely agree with what you say. On the other end, some of the things when you combine the play styles or roles and all these. The immortal evolution icon thing that you mentioned earlier. That was fairly complicated to actually understand what the hell you had to do. All those things are fairly complicated. So I don't really understand how these two play hand in hand.

[00:48:57] But there is some method to the madness from EA's point of view. You're quite right. You can literally start a brand new account today. And by two days from now, you will have at least 10 thoughts in your squad. Yeah. And that is, again, I think for a lot of people, it's a great thing. I think for younger gamers and even for older gamers don't have as much time. I think it's great that the game is more accessible than ever. That you are not going in. I remember when I picked up FIFA 20 and first got into this world.

[00:49:26] It took me months to get a competitive team. You know, I was going into, even just to get into weekend league. It took me a long time. And then, you know, you're just getting whomped by people that had Ryan Kent's and stuff that I'd missed out on earlier in the game cycle. And I couldn't afford the hundreds of thousands of coins to buy players to compete with that. So, no, I think it's great that you can come in and just build a team and go. It's part of the fun.

[00:49:54] But, again, as an old time that's been through the system, it's just... It just sucks that we're getting stuff taken away. Just... And that stuff just doesn't feel worth it anymore. And going back to those premium league upgrades, it's like they used to be so good. But now the pack weight is so diluted because they can't afford to set... Because they've got so many... Because they've got so many way to obtain high-rated cards now.

[00:50:24] They have to set the pack weight for the very top cards low. Because people are opening so many 83-14s, 83-10s, 84-5s. That if the pack weight on a Salah was really low, then everyone would have it. And EA's big thing is they don't want everyone to have everything. I think this is... You know, we talked about this in the Discord. You don't want everybody having the super special cards. Because it doesn't make them special.

[00:50:52] But as part of that deal, when they've set those cards so high... The stuff that is packable is getting packed so much that the prices are low. And it just makes the grind feel... Like you say, if Bruno Fernandes pops out, he's worth 50k. You'd lose the spark. And that's if he's even popping out. Because you've got so many cards now in the Premier League and the WSL, which they've included in it, that your chances of getting the cards you want are just down.

[00:51:21] The pack weight is too low. There's too many gold rares in the WSL and the Premier League. So nobody's grinding this upgrade. But... And Nick put out a very passionate video this overnight being like, to the EA's content team, wake up. Because why have you not modified? Why are you just copying and pasting the same crap upgrade that you put out a team of the year and nobody wanted to do? Why are you not saying, OK, we realise that there are more gold rares in this. So you know what?

[00:51:50] Your Premier League upgrade is going to give you six rares back. Or it's a 79+. But they don't. And it's just boring. It's so boring. Spot on. Spot on. And we can continue that with rewards as well. And Nick mentioned that in his video as well. The number of people that have... When was the last time you actually enjoyed watching a rewards video and thought, oh yeah, that was fun. They're just the same old, same old rewards.

[00:52:19] I finished with eight wins. Not amazing by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't get a single Premier League team of the season. Not a single one. With eight wins. That's dumb. That's really dumb. I got ten wins and mine were garbage. I don't think I got anything that wasn't fodder for my weekend league rewards. And I got nine wins the week before. Nine, ten wins isn't anything ridiculous. I'm not always picking up rank ones every single day.

[00:52:48] But it's just demotivating. And as I said, Nick has pointed out that the massive drop-off in views. Massive, massive drop-off. I think he pointed out that FIFA 21 had something like 3 million followers on Twitch. FIFA 22, two and a half. And I think now there's something like 350,000 followers of FC25 content. And part of that is end of pandemic, change of viewing habits to YouTube, TikTok. I get all of that.

[00:53:18] Don't get me wrong. But any metric you go on shows that just generally interest in this game is dying. And we could spend a whole nother hour talking. And I think we've covered a lot of the reasons why we think it's really dying. And I just think it's that it comes down to the innovation from EA and their ability to mix things up and get people excited.

[00:53:45] And nothing summed it up more than the exchange they put out last night. Submit three Team of the Seasons to get a 90-plus Team of the Season. Shaq, do you know what is very peculiar about the fact they've given it a 90-plus rating on it? There isn't a single Team of the Season card that's under 90 rated. That's the craziness. That is just absolutely crazy. They might as well put it, buy one, get none free.

[00:54:16] It's crazy. The cheek of them to put that up as the title was, I looked at that and thought to myself, am I missing something? I looked at Footpin. There wasn't a single one. Cheek. Absolute cheek at this company. And look, it's psychological marketing. Again, it's why things are priced at 99 pence in a shop rather than a pound.

[00:54:41] Because, you know, part of your brain thinks it's closer to zero than it is to one. It's cheaper. You know, you see a car on the market for $9,999 sounds a lot better than being $10,000. Exactly. Yeah. It's just more psychological. And it's the same with, you know, the casino. You know, it's a casino. True. That's why they're trying to lure people in. We've spoken a lot about over the past hour or so, Dan, on the whole state of the game.

[00:55:09] But one of the things that I think credit where credit is due to EA, one of the things that they've done, which otherwise would have completely killed all these cards, is the fact that they've provided better chemistry on these team of the season cards, especially the off-league team of the season cards. It gives you the opportunity to go out and try these cheap cards that are really amazing stats, have something missing in there, but just worth a shot. Just throw them in the team. Credit. That's well done. Please don't change that. That's good. I'm happy with that.

[00:55:38] Yeah, I think that's very, very smart. Yeah, I've used the likes of Stansfield and stuff in a couple of the WSL players, and they've been fun. But they're not better than my top card. So again, it's like, it's great, but it's also like the horse is probably the kind of thing. It's almost like you have to try them looking at the stats, and they're good, but they're not like, oh my goodness, they're amazing. They're my starter from now on. Not really.

[00:56:07] They're good, but... Yeah. I mean, that goes back to the thing we've talked about, again, the whole special source that goes into certain cards. It's why Patrick Vieira feels better, despite having stats far worse than picking out a card from this Alan from WSL or Esteve from Burnley, because of the body type and the special animations and stuff they've got. Exactly. And that's why ultimately R9 is still the pricey is.

[00:56:35] I came up against a Gareth Bale Dream Chaser. Is it Dream Chaser's... Immortal Icon? Yeah, that's the one. The 94 rated. The best Bale in the game. Oh my word. What a card. Just the way he moved. It was just different. But if I go and compare his stats to, again, to Stansfield, I bet they're not a great deal different. And yeah. Correct. I think Stansfield's stats would be better. If I'm just off the top of my head, I think Stansfield's stats would be better because

[00:57:04] he's got really high physical and really high passing as well. Yeah. So I think to start to wrap this up, because we've been going on for an hour, I think for me, it just needs... They just need to... They need to go back to the drawing board for these team of the seasons. And look, as we said, the teams are great. It's a great diverse range of players and it's great that they're accessible. That's fine. But they need to find a way to make all aspects of this game feel rewarding.

[00:57:31] They need to make a grind that you want to do that gives you stuff that is useful either towards building to get another card that you want, either through coins or through SBC. And we just need to have a feeling of coming out of weekend league or coming out of rivals, having got your 11 wins, whatever it is, to go great. That's really going to help me. And I feel like I'm on the path to upgrading something, that I'm making progress.

[00:58:00] Because the second you start to feel like either you can't make progress or there's no progress to make, that's when you don't turn on the game. Like, why am I not grinding like an absolute demon right now when there are such great cards in packs? Because I'm not going to get them. That's exactly right. And the stuff I am getting isn't useful. Exactly.

[00:58:30] And I'm starting to bring it to a close there. I realized that has been an hour of me and Shaq talking. And I think we're just, you know, getting stuff off our chest. It's cathartic. It is cathartic. And I think whenever we have discussions like this, they always come from a place of we want to be enjoying it. Like, like we were, and I, you know, preface this whole discussion by when I left this during the pod regularly, it was a great time. Those 82 20s.

[00:59:00] What a, I, my fingers were getting sore. I was so tired. But it was great. It was, it was fun. And the new gameplay patch, what a difference it made. Yeah. And everybody, you know, and they have popped up over the last few months with some great things. I think the, the cups they did, sorry, the league, the league cups they did whilst annoying. It was a great, you know, distraction.

[00:59:28] I went away on holiday with a family for a week and I had to come back and complete the, the Maldini cup and golden goal, whatever it was, 35 games. I did it in a, in an evening, but it was something different. It was fun. The rewards are really good. Brilliant. More of that. But then they, they don't. Okay. They only bring that out once every month. Why, why is that not weekly? And yeah. Nate, the accountant said like, okay, it's great.

[00:59:56] You put out a cup, but I didn't have to change my team that much for this last cup. You know, you, you, you gold common, the bench, then you can pretty much put nine, all nineties in your team. Yeah. And why not have a cup that requires you to have five tots. It's just off the current league. Yeah. Just so that it keeps it fresh. Yeah. You've got the licenses as well. You've got licenses to stuff like the champions league, Europa league and conference league.

[01:00:21] Why not put out a three tiered competition where you get an entry into the, you know, you start in the Euro, the conference league. And then if you get a certain amount of wins, you qualify for the Europa league. Like, you know, just, there are so many things they can do for this game and, and they have done in fits and spurts in the past that you just think that either through technical

[01:00:44] limitations, practical limitations, or they're petrified of killing the golden goose. Yeah. By tinkering too much and, oh, if I give them too many cards, they might stop going to the store and they might stop buying the Evos and all, what if they burn out on gameplay? This is the problem when you're building a game for a company that has shareholders to provide for. True. Completely true.

[01:01:12] Like, I don't think they incentivize enough to actually care about creating game mods that keep us engaged rather than just having the user, as long as they make us come back every single day to do those four cup wins. If it's a stock Santa cup wins that gives us 8310 at the end, they will still have the numbers and that, that works for them. And when did they put the most effort into the game shack around the time they had to put out an earnings report that talked about how the engagement was down and they put out

[01:01:42] that big gameplay update. They gave us a great menu grind. What is it? UFL had just come out. Correct. Yes. Lo and behold, UFL has born and died. Well, I think, was that the full game? It was just the beta, wasn't it? I can't remember. I can't remember. I'm getting old. Yes, you are. The one thing I will caveat this whole conversation is the fact that Premier League

[01:02:09] thoughts historically has not been the best thoughts there has been. So I'm really hoping for content to go into overdrive and for the Bundesliga thoughts because let's face it, the hype is really low. They have to do something. They can't keep it exactly the same as this week because we will all be gone. I don't think a single one of us will care about Serie A thoughts if that was the case. So I have a feeling I will have a lot better content next week. And I think Bundesliga thoughts is really good. I can't remember if it was Bundesliga thoughts or La Liga talks. That was an amazing couple of years ago.

[01:02:39] I remember this. Yeah. I think both of them. I think it was just a really weird island where we had a couple of weeks of great content. Correct. And we had a podcast and we were like, what the hell just happened there? It was so good and suddenly it's gone to nothing. And so I'm really hoping that next week and the week after, it has to be good. It has to be really good. And let's just hope that La Liga and Ultimate Team of the Season just kick it out of the park with 82-20s and leaves Team of the Season with a really good taste in our mouth because this is not it, man. This is just not it.

[01:03:09] Look, there's loads. Again, there are positives in this game. I've mentioned it. I think Evos have been the best thing to ever come into this game for me. I am rocking four Reading players at the moment in my team at Team of the Season. They are great. As I mentioned, losing Lewis Wing with four playstyle pluses. He's got pinged, ticky, precision. He's got pinged, ticky-tacka, anticipate plus and intercept plus. And he is the dream CDM, deep line playmaker. The absolute dream. Wins the ball, distributes it.

[01:03:39] Wins the ball, distributes it. Love it. What was it? Ping, ticky-tacka? Ping, ticky-tacka, anticipate and intercept plus. Ooh. And he's sitting there at CDM. I said he wins the ball and passes the ball. Wins the ball, passes the ball. And that's what I want to add. Nice. Nice. So, and yeah, it's been great to try out some of these cards. It's, you know, there is lots to go. I don't think the gameplay is horrific. I don't think it's great.

[01:04:09] But I don't, and there's still too many tackle backs and inconsistencies and stuff. So, look, I'm not going to sit here and say gold star. But it's not an unplayable mess. Like stuff like I've played when I've tried to play something like eFootball. When it's good, it's good. I have to have it. When it's good, it's enjoyable. It's fun. It's playable. It's worth playing. But it's far and few in between.

[01:04:38] It's really hard to know what side you're going to land on. Yeah, exactly. So, there's stuff to redeem this game. As I said, on paper, the menu grind they've put out is brilliant. I love that there are different options, different paths you can go down. But again, it's just not fully joined up thinking with how you get the cards in the first place to go into this grind. Yeah.

[01:05:05] Like you said, with the fact that you can't buy enough silvers quickly and it's fiddly. And anyway, lots of stuff that we've talked about. I hope we've been able to entertain you for the last hour or so. So, as mentioned at the very top of the show, and as John's talked about, the Crete, the adventure to Crete is underway this weekend, I believe. People start arriving. Or it might be early next week.

[01:05:34] I can't remember one of the two. Unfortunately, I'm not going. So, the pod output will be a little bit inconsistent over the next couple of weeks. But there'll be lots of goodies and great stories to tell from John and the guys when they return from that. Have a great time if you're going. And look, I don't know if there'll be a Crete meetup next year. But I think the feedback to the meetups we've had has been great. And it's been a real bonus for those people that have joined the Patreon.

[01:06:01] And even if you enjoy the podcast and what we do, please just put your hand in the digital tip jar. Even if you just sign up for a month or so, it means a lot to us. Patreon.com. For us to have an interview. Discord, again, is absolutely free. We realize that times are tight as well for people. So, no judgment there. Just join the Discord. Or even just leave us a review on Spotify or wherever you consume your podcasts and drop a few words down. It helps the podcast grow.

[01:06:30] Shaq, it's been fantastic to be back on with you. This has really given me the appetite to be back in the Tuesday Club. But damn the real world. I know. The real world sucks. But it's good. Hey, look. I mean, we will try and jump in as often as we can. As, yeah, whenever our time suits, we will just jump in and create a podcast. So, we're not gone forever. We will pop by. But we're always watching and always listening and always right in the Discord. So, yeah. Yeah. We'll be around. Yeah. Please come and join us there. And I've got an hour without insulting Nath.

[01:07:00] So, we should really appreciate that. I doubt he's got to this stage of the podcast. So, he's packed Sinaka, by the way, everybody. So, who hasn't he packed? Who hasn't he packed? He'll just pop up with it in our little chat. I said, oh, got a usable player. He doesn't even share the pictures. He just mentions Tanaka or Jao Neves or blah, blah, blah. That's it.

[01:07:28] Although, Shaq, one of us here did pack a 2 million coin eSax tradable as well. Oh, yeah. That was, yeah. Look, I'm not going to complain. My luck's been good. My luck's been good. But that's besides the point. Like, coins mean nothing to me. I might as well say it. I'm going to regret saying this, but I've packed a team of the season, Salah, that I haven't used yet. And I have no intention of using because I couldn't get less.

[01:07:56] Really, the one player that I didn't like the guy in real life. Amazing. I don't want to use him this year. Not after they won the Premier League. I'm not going to use him. But I've packed him, so I'm stuck. My best Tots pull so far has been McAllister. So that shows you how my luck has gone over Tots. It'll come. It'll come. It'll come. And I'm still really, really sherry with you that you had Marcus Durand this whole time.

[01:08:25] This whole time. Lillian Durand. Sorry, Lillian. I didn't do that, SBC. I resisted. Lillian Thuram. I'm sorry. Just Dan packed Lillian Thuram, I think, in September. And he's been rocking him right back. Not the base version, the Thunderstruck version. And he's immense. Absolutely immense. So anyway, we can talk about player reviews at another time. But yeah, there's some really good fun cards to try out. Haven't really got to player in review.

[01:08:56] Far to be in. I know. But yeah, definitely. If you're on the fence, do Tarram. I think he's excellent. Definitely do Hullet as well if you've not done it by now. 100%. Absolute monster as well. While we have you on the pod, quickly. Quick shot. Quick shot. Hullet. Are you adding another one of the season pass EVOs on Hullet? Which one? We need to know. If I did, it would be. I think there's anticipate. You can add anticipate, can't you? We can. Yes, you can. So I think I would do that.

[01:09:24] So then I would have both my CDMs in wing and Hullet having anticipated intercepts. Insane answer. Perfect. That's exactly what I was going for. A lot of people are putting finesse. And I think Adam in the chat says, Tinky's getting anticipated. There we go. I think anticipate makes a lot of sense for a player like Hullet. And Tiki Taka, you've already used up. I think the other one is Bruiser Plus. Who are you using Bruiser Plus for? Let's see. Oh, I've got that. We've spoken about this guy a few seconds ago. Well, I will probably put it on Tyler Binden.

[01:09:54] Okay. Yeah. So I'll probably do that. Why are you thinking to Ram? I'm thinking to Ram. I'm really thinking to Ram. Because that would open up the opportunity for him to play center back as well. Well, he's a good center back. He's a good center back already. But I think that Bruiser Plus would just give me that extra confidence of him playing. Yeah. I never really got on with Thunderstruck to Ram at center back. I don't think he had the role. I think he only had it like a defender plus maybe. So that might have been the reason.

[01:10:20] And I've got an Evo Rio Ferdinand that's just immense for me in that role. And I'll tell you what, you know, people probably turned off by now because we're an hour and 10 minutes into this podcast. And John has probably got his head in his hands. Cratching. He's got to try to pack for Crete and he's got to deal with us rambling on. This is a special episode. This is like the Lord of the Rings where you think it's ending. And no, we just go on. Playstyle Plus that I've really grown to appreciate.

[01:10:51] Long ball plus. Oh, I didn't see that coming. Rio has it at center back because it was just, you know, one of those Evos where they give them that playstyle plus for a big stat boost. And the ability for him to ping the ball out to fullbacks is great. So I really would like my two fullbacks now to have long ball plus because I still, I've still got that. What was it? FIFA 23 or FC 24?

[01:11:20] Where it was all about pinging it between the fullbacks. Yeah. I think it was last year. I've still got that. FC 24. So I would quite like to somehow add that to my arsenal. But yeah, if you haven't used long ball plus on somebody, I think Trent's got it. The team of season Trent. I must say Bruno's got it and it really gives me the opportunity to ping the ball to the other side of the pitch. And it just opens up that pressure. It's a really good shot there. Really good shot.

[01:11:49] Even just if you're using that kind of player in a kind of a CDM role and people are coming on to you, putting the pressure on, even short range is really, really handy. I've struggled with people in the middle of the park having long ball pull up because I could never get the passing pressure right. And it just, I start to overuse it because it's available to me. And yeah, but on the wings, it's been fun. It's been useful. But yeah, probably should try it. Yeah. So if you've got a Graven Birch, who's got it?

[01:12:18] Does Declan Rice have it as well? He might do. Yeah. Try and give that a go. So I think it's the best and the worst thing. These play style pluses, as others have said, and we talked about earlier in the show, it's great when they have them. But when a player then doesn't have what you need, trying to build that kind of play style in and, you know, you get used to a certain pattern of play and you're like, oh, I really want to upgrade. But yeah. So I can't drop Frank Kirby. Cannot drop her. Admittedly, she's mini messy and she's great.

[01:12:47] And she's ready to pass the present. I've been saying that the cams with Tiki Daka Plus is just courted. It's just unbelievably good. My biggest problem is trying to have Frank Kirby win a header when she is five foot one. It's never going to happen. Does she try? Yes. Does she win a header against Gabrielle? No. So, yeah. We will have one.

[01:13:15] Has there been a particular player that you have used in Tots so far? Or just it can be before Tots that you would say to people, give this player a try? I think there's quite a few. Stansfield is one that we brought up. He's definitely worth a try for the price. He is. Biareth is another one that you didn't get along extremely well with, but I really enjoyed the control lengthy on him. He was really fun. I think Dumont, if you like the short striker, she was incredibly fun.

[01:13:42] But again, it's horses for courses. It depends on what you're good at. I think that was a really good card to try. Arthuram, as we said, besides the point, he's definitely really good. Bruno Fernandes, absolutely amazing. Probably the best cam in the game, Bruno Fernandes. Coin for coin, the best card you can get. Who else? That's been really good. Shirky. I really enjoyed using Shirky. Five star, five star. Yeah, there's a whole heap of cards that are low-key that people are not looking at. Kunia.

[01:14:12] I mean, if you don't want to pass with your cams, yeah, Kunia is amazing. But his passing sucks. Yeah, someone used him at striker against me. And he was actually pretty good. I would recommend, not the movie, but the player, Ant-Man. Ooh. Ooh. Yes, you did. He's got Tiki Taka Plus and Whipped Pass Plus. And as a typical English football fan that loves getting the ball into the box, he's been great for that.

[01:14:41] So I think he's probably still about 25K. He does have the best pace in the world. But, yeah, if you're putting the pressure late on and you're just wanting to, you know, mix things up and whip the ball into a Haaland or a Hullet or whoever, that's what I do. If I'm chasing a game, Hullet will go to Cam and I'll bring on somebody big up front or that's got a good leap like Ronaldo. And I'll try and pump a few balls in.

[01:15:07] And when you're pumping balls in as well, what we used to call the X header, the pass header back, is a really lethal weapon as well to flick it onto the back post. But, look, I think that's done. We've done an hour and 15 minutes, Shaq. Any final thoughts? No, the one final thought quickly. Evolution's amazing, but I hate the fact that we can't really choose a skin. Once we change that card, it just goes, the lovely skin that you've loved for so long just goes away.

[01:15:37] That sucks. Absolutely sucks. Yeah, absolutely agree. Right. That does it. You know where to find us on socials. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to me waffle for an hour, and especially to Shaq, who's had to directly listen to me waffle. He hasn't had the ability to turn off the podcast at this point. Thank you to John and all the team at Foot and Review. Great to hear Talando on the show as well. Been a great addition. Great addition to the pod. Great to have him as part of the family.

[01:16:06] And, you know, the work. You know, I've had the ability to just go off for six months and not do stuff. And, you know, it makes you even more appreciate the hard work that John and Yngwie and the guys that do this week in, week out put in. So thank you to all of them. Thanks, everyone, in the Discord. Thank you all for listening. Only one thing left to do, Shaq. Drop it. We are going to... Drop it. F-U-T. F-U-T.

[01:16:36] F-U-T. F-U-T. F-U-T. F-U-T. F-U-T. F-U-T. F-U-T.