FIFA Ultimate Team is many things, but realistic is not one of them. If you thought EA was going to buck that trend in its inaugural online season of EA Sports FC, you’d be dead wrong. The whole game mode is based on ensuring players feel the most FOMO about missing a souped-up Phil Jones card, so they spend more money on opening more packs. Players want a front line of Ronaldinho, Mbappe, and Cruyff because they’re the best players, not because they all played together in real life.
Those three players in particular didn’t have a single season of crossover in their professional football careers. They never played with, or even against, each other, and never will. Johan Cruyff died seven years ago, and yet players will trot him out every weekend to get on the end of long balls from Paul Pogba and hit the griddy in Weekend League. This is a game mode about playing with your idols, creating dream teams, and having fun with a Reece James striker card. Players often forget the fun of Ultimate Team – it’s often lost in the constant grind, to be fair – and using your favourite players is a part of that.
So why, all of a sudden, do FIFA players care about realism? The answer, my friend, is because it involves women. EA announced last week that EA Sports FC Ultimate Team would include female players, and the FIFA community hasn’t slept since, such a fit of uncontrollable rage it has found itself in. Where once was a community of in-fighting about sweaty formations, meta players, and DDA, there is now a united front shouting about a common enemy: those pesky women.
“It’s not realistic!” come the cries from aggrieved Ultimate Team players. “Alex Morgan would never be able to beat Virgil Van Dijk! Women are just less strong than men, that’s not sexism, it’s a fact! And the Women’s Super League is terrible by the way!!” That’s not a direct quote, but I’ve paraphrased the main points I’ve read over the past week. And I’ve got answers.
Firstly, you weren’t complaining about realism when your William Saliba tackled my Eusébio last weekend, despite the former being injured and the latter being dead. Secondly, I think my mum could beat Virgil Van Dijk this season, let alone a professional striker who is the fifth-highest scorer ever for the United States women's national soccer team. Thirdly, it is sexism, and fourthly, the WSL is great, actually.
Allow me to expand on those points a little. I’ve been to around half of Liverpool womens’ home matches this season, because even for a local it’s impossible to get tickets for the men’s matches at Anfield, so I’ve probably watched more women’s football than you recently. Despite Liverpool being eighth in the table and two places behind Everton (we’re newly promoted after serial under-investment from FSG, so it’s more respectable than the men’s team), the quality of football is higher than I expected. Missy Bo Kearns, the other scouser in our team, scored a lovely goal against Tottenham to finish a move that any Premier League side would be proud of. January signing Fuka Nagano would outclass any of our current men’s midfielders.
I have a great time at the women’s matches, largely because of the positive, family atmosphere in the stadium. It’s an atmosphere the FIFA community could learn from. Fans of either team intermingle, there’s lighthearted banter between them, and everyone comes together to complain about the refs like all good football fans should. Young kids, predominantly but not exclusively girls, queue up for autographs with their favourite players after the final whistle. It’s open and welcoming.
What’s my point here? How does this relate to Ultimate Team? Women’s football has been overlooked and underfunded on a national and international level for decades. Its popularity has exploded in recent years, especially in England after the national team’s recent successes. More young girls are getting into watching and playing football, and they want to play FIFA, too. Sure, they can control their favourite female players in friendly matches, but FIFA pushes you to play Ultimate Team – and that’s what all their friends probably play, too.
EA is adding women to EA Sports FC Ultimate Team not because it’s going woke, but because it sees a profit. If that means It’s doing so because this is its fantasy game mode, where Saeed Al-Owairan (a player known for one goal in the 1994 World Cup) and David Ginola (a player known because his name is an anagram of vagina dildo) are the greatest to take the pitch. If you want realistic online gameplay where men play against men and women play against women, Online Seasons is right there.
Ultimate Team has never been about realism and it’s not going to start with EA Sports FC, so stop gatekeeping and add Nagano to your Liverpool past and present squad. If you’ve never watched women’s football before, the World Cup kicks off in three months, so get scouting for your starter squads there and allow yourself a smile while you’re at it. You’ll have more fun when you stop taking everything as a personal attack.