FIFA 21 Ratings: It's time EA shook up player overalls


With the official release of the FIFA 21 ratings arriving today (Thursday, 10 September) at 11am ET / 4pm BST, a few questions need answering.

How do EA calculate the ratings and statistics of every player in the game and should the long standing ratings system be shaken up after so long?

How do EA calculate FIFA ratings?

Each player in FIFA Ultimate Team has an OVR rating as well as six scores for the key stats; Pace, Shooting, Passing, Dribbling, Defending, and Physical.

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These stats are combined with a player's international reputation/recognition to calculate the player's OVR.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about FIFA 21 Ultimate Team

This ensures that players who are both fast and strong but play in weaker leagues do not find their overall score skewed compared to slower, weaker but ultimately more talented players at a higher tier league.

International Reputation

The impact of international reputation on FIFA ratings is quite significant.

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If a player has a huge reputation world-wide, it can boost their OVR rating by 1-4, and hence their rarity and price in Ultimate Team increases.

However, this does not change the player's in game statistics, it only impacts the OVR rating.

READ MORE: FIFA 21 - Haaland, Felix, Hernandez ratings revealed here!

This means a player can have very similar statistics to another, but may have a lower OVR rating by up to 4!

Ødegaard and Canales

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Here we can clearly see the impact of International Reputation in EA's ratings system.

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Canales and Odegaard's individual statistics are very similar, with Odegaard beating Canales in three out of the six categories.

However, due to Canales' International Reputation, he has a higher OVR by two ratings!

READ MORE: All the highest rated wingers in FIFA 21!

This is despite the fact that their in game stats suggest they should be the same OVR rating.

Should statistics be weighted depending on position?

Statistics weighted depending on the position of a player could be revolutionary in FIFA.

Haland official FIFA 21 rating

For example, Haland's new FIFA 21 card has 87 Shooting, however his OVR is only 84.

READ MORE: How to transfer FIFA 20 points to FIFA 21 explained here!

EA should give more weight to a striker's shooting statistic than others, seeing as normally the most important attribute as a number 9 is putting the ball in the back of the net!

Even though EA uses Positional Coefficients, there should be much heavier weighting to a player's important stats which would impact their OVR.

This could see Haland's OVR be boosted to 86 or even 87!

READ MORE: Madden must leave behind 99 OVR & follow FIFA’s ratings example!

For more articles like this, take a look at our FIFA 21 page.