Men and women can play alongside each other on the same football team – and here’s how
EA SPORTS recently announced that big changes would be coming to FIFA.
Aside from the name change to , even bigger changes are coming to each in-game mode.
Everyone is talking about Ultimate Team, the most popular mode in the series since it was originally added.
Players collect cards of different footballers, and they can put their favourites on the same team like fantasy football.
Footballers both past and present are available so you can put Pelé on the same team as Messi without any issues.
But one thing you could never do was have female players alongside their male counterparts.
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Previously, EA Sports never let the fantasy go that far, despite female players being in the series for a while.
EA Sports FC will change this, with both men and women playing side by side for the first time.
However, players’ opinions are divided. The majority are glad to have more options for their Ultimate Teams, but there are criticisms.
Many believe that the female players just won’t be as good as the males, and this will end up filling card pulls with ‘useless’ cards.
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GLHF spoke to senior producer Sam Rivera about the introduction of women to Ultimate Team, and how exactly the process will work.
He reveals: “It's really what you prioritise for your team, and what type of skills you want to have.
“What type of skills you want to take advantage of with your personal play style.
“[Adding women] is really, really good for the variety that you are going to see in Ultimate Team.
“The team is very, very excited to have men and women playing together.”
There are of course differences between men and women’s style of play, so how will they be able to fit on the same team?
Rivera explains: “There's differences between the players, and of course, there are three things that matter: attributes, height and mass.
“You can see it in the weight of the players. And then, if you put a man player and a woman player together, but they have the same attributes, mass and height, they behave exactly the same, they’re the same.
“So basically, what this means is that we're just introducing a lot more players to the already big pool of players that we had, with more characteristics, with different types of skills, and gameplay balance.”
In EA Sports FC the women players tend to be faster and lighter, while men bring more power.
While hypothetically there could be a male and female player with the exact same stats, you’re unlikely to see it often.
But that’s not what EA Sports FC is aiming for.
Rivera says: “In your Ultimate Team, I'm assuming you have maybe someone like Messi and you could also have some big defenders like Van Dijk.
“Both have different skills, and both are necessary. There's also Cannavaro, for a defender, he's not too tall, but he's still very useful in Ultimate Team because every player has benefits and advantages in terms of gameplay.
“For some it’s the strength and jumping, for some, it's maybe the agility.
“If you have good agility, then you can jockey faster, you can turn faster, you can do all these things that allow you to have an impact in the game you have.”
The aim seems to be that there will be balance through the imbalance. That people will be able to choose the best person for the role they need to fill.
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Of course, no one will be forced to put a woman on their Ultimate Team, but plenty will find themselves tempted.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of .
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