The air is out at FIFA 23? Then rebuild your team! For example with your favorite instead of typical top players. That may not go well, but it’s still fun – at least that’s what MeinMMO author Max Handwerk thought.
Division rivals, weekend leagues, squad battles, rewards, fast dribblers, high stats, chemistry – Ultimate Team is all about that: the best team, the smartest tactics, the most wins.
And don’t get me wrong: It’s quite fun to compete with strong players and to play for rewards, to keep improving. But sometimes it’s just out of breath. And then it’s time for experiments.
That’s why I called my best buddy in an online co-op session. We thought, let’s fuck the meta – not that we have anywhere near the best players in FUT – just put together a team of our personal favourites. Let’s see how it goes.
Spoilers: It didn’t go well. But I haven’t had as much fun with FIFA as I did that night in a long time.
No decent team in FIFA 23 plays without Ronald Araujo
This was our team: What we quickly noticed: As fans of cultivated German second division football with an extended view of the Bundesliga, your personal favorite players somehow have very little to do with the absolute top cards in Ultimate Team.
In any case, as a Hanoverian, I directly contributed the two full-backs, Derrick Köhn and Sei Muroya. And I won’t let anything come to that! soccer gods! (With rather weak silver cards in FUT, I’ll admit).
With Ron-Robert Zieler in goal, I was not only able to field a former national player, but also a real TOTW card. They were joined by two other ex-Hanoverians in the form of the newly crowned national player Niklas “Lücke” Füllkrug and Gladbach captain Lars Stindl, while my buddy nominated two Frankfurters in Doan and Lindstrøm. The latter’s TOTW card actually had really good stats.
In the storm next to “Lücke” there was an absolute legend: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the guarantor of the 41-year-old and 58-speed overhead kick-volley-step-over-goal-of-the-year, Gvardiol was set up in central defence.
Well, we made two exceptions: A 90’s De Jong made it on the team simply because it’s the best card I’ve ever drawn. And Ronald Araujo, of course – even if I’ve never seen him play. But anyone who plays FIFA 23 knows that no sensible team can play without Ronald Araujo.
In short: We put together what we believe to be a powerful team that would at least win the Champions League in real life. Perhaps. It should definitely be enough, at least for the Rivals Division in Ultimate Team.
Or not.
IBRA! run!
Let’s make it short: Apparently values, chemistry and formation are worth something, because it can’t have been due to our skills that we went down quite consistently with results like 1: 4, 1: 5 or (almost) 2: 4.
You notice in FIFA 23 that a card only has 58 speed instead of 93, or that the pass value could be a bit higher. Also, the fact that De Jong pretty much stood out on the team suggests that better cards in FIFA 23 are just…better. Few surprises at the site.
In addition, it seems that even in Division 6 you only run against top cards like Mbappé, Al-Owairan and Co. But: a strong team was not the purpose of the exercise, but a fun one. And that in turn worked out perfectly.
Because even if we hardly scored goals – heavens, we were happy about the little things. When a dribble worked, when our second-division defender Mbappé grabbed the ball, when opposing strikers were kicked nasty from behind, it was wonderful.
It hardly mattered that Ibrahimovic and Füllkrug just couldn’t get away from the opposing defenders. Then we yelled an amused “IBRA! Run!” against, made a back heel and lost the ball. What the heck.
Nevertheless, despite everything, praise goes to the FUT incarnation of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Yes, he is not fast in the game. But what a divine striker when he’s on the ball. No wonder he was responsible for most of the goals that we did score.
That’s also a point, by the way: every goal you score in the end just feels worth more. Like the winning goal in the Champions League final. Even if it was only 1:4.
Conclusion: If you are looking for strong rewards or achievements in statistics, you should probably continue to rely on strong players in FUT. Maybe the target group “favorite player” and “top player in FUT” overlap a little more if your favorite teams aren’t lounging around in the second division.
But if you just want to have a bit of fun and don’t see one or the other defeat as close, you should throw yourself into the fray with friends and set up a few “unconventional” cards. In any case, I can only recommend such an evening.
Do you also have cards that you put in your team without looking at the meta? Tell us in the comments!