Suffering with strong cards

Who doesn’t know it? You’ve just put together a fresh, new team in Ultimate Team with which you want to shake up the Rivals division. But in the very first game you get a shock: the newly bought central defenders don’t turn out to be an insurmountable defensive bulwark.

On the contrary: The opponent tricks around a bit with his Mbappés, Ronaldos or Neymars, passes the defender and nails the ball unstoppable into the cross corner. After 30 minutes it’s 0:3 and you just want it to end somehow – because the opponent’s OP cards are simply unmanageable.

Of course, this doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens often enough. And a user in the FIFA subreddit was now apparently fed up. “bcsoccerfan” asked (via reddit): “Does anyone know how to hurt your opponent’s players? Because it would be a lot easier in Division Rivals if I could just hurt the opponent’s best players so I don’t have to worry about them.”

“It’s such a toxic way to think and play. I love it. Upvote”

This is how the post arrives:

The unusual question seems to have hit a nerve in the FIFA subreddit, because with (as of today) more than 2,300 upvotes and more than 170 comments there was an unusual amount of attention for the topic.

Many users are first amused by the question itself – because of course it would be massively unfair to simply break opposing players. However, any soccer fan whose favorite team has ever been humiliated by the clearly superior opposing players will probably at least be familiar with the thought process of risking a red card to take the opposing team’s top dribbler out of the game.

That’s why there are some comments along the lines of user “Legendary_God177″, who writes simply:”This is such a toxic way to think and play. Love it. Upvote” (via reddit).

But can you kick opponents broken?

Besides the amused comments, there are some who seriously consider the question. Such a proper, well-timed blood straddle against overpowered meta-players like Mbappé, Kimpembe and their colleagues – is it an option?

At least in Division Rivals and FUT Champions, it’s not currently viable. There is no real way to consistently hurt opponents there. Sure, you can always maltreat the opponent with straddles and every now and then a small cross appears above the player, signaling that there is an injury – but you can usually not force a substitution.

The situation is somewhat different in offline modes such as career or kick-off. There it can actually happen that players get injured and have to be replaced. In career mode, this can even lead to long absences. But in the serious PvP modes of Ultimate Team, this is currently not directly possible.

Would be nasty, wouldn’t it? At least that’s what user AssociationFun1845 thinks: “That’s why you can’t really hurt players and be forced to substitute. I love the idea, but unfortunately it wouldn’t work because the best players would be kicked to pieces with two legs within 2 minutes” (via reddit).

In fact, it’s likely that such a feature would be exploited quite quickly – and in the end, there would only be seven players or so left on the pitch, because one team would be dismantled and the other would concede red cards without end.

Is there an example?

Does the topic of “unfair play” seem somehow familiar to you when it comes to virtual soccer? Then you might think of the good old “This is Football 2002”. Because in this meanwhile 20 years old game for the PS2 there were really some nasty tricks. For example, you could try to mislead the referee with swallows and thus provoke cards for the opponent.

And yes, the blood straddle also featured in the game. A tap on the R2 button led to a jumped-in, double-footed straddle, the kind you like to see in heated county derbies when one team is down 0:13 and has finally had enough. This could actually lead to injuries to the opponents – but was just as likely to result in a sending-off. It was still funny.

Could you use a blood straddle in FIFA 22? Tell us in the comments! Otherwise you can find here some strong players with which you can provoke your opponent to straddle.