Hello, my name is Adam Shaikh and I’m a designer here at EA Canada in Vancouver. I joined back in December after moving from the UK. I helped out with some of the balancing and tweaking at the end of FUT, and I’m as hooked on playing as a lot of you guys are.
Similar to most of you, I’ve already created my first version of an ultimate team featuring the very best players the game has to offer. However, I decided to take an alternate look at creating an ultimate team – one based upon building a team that is as good as possible but with self-imposed restrictions to give myself a fresh challenge.
In a twist to most people’s usual objective, my goal was to make a low star team that was super effective. To that end I set about creating a team with 100 Chemistry and players that were quick. This would allow me to take on harder AI teams to get better coin rewards from matches, and also spring a few surprises on online opponents expecting an easy win. Although a lot of people have worked out the importance of Chemistry for themselves, it’s not uncommon to come across a team full of star players with no Chemistry.
I knew I wanted to play 4-4-2 as there are lots and lots of bronze players that play 4-4-2 – something that would give me a good range of players to choose from.
Since the Manager was so important, the first task was to find a 4-4-2 Manager. At this stage in the process I wasn’t sure about what nationality I’d be using, so I didn’t worry about that. In the end I managed to pick up Levein – a 4-4-2 manager from Scotland.
The main thing that I wanted from my team was Pace and lots of it, so my choice of nationality came down to how many ‘pacey’ players there were.
England is a great choice for a bronze team, because there are so many players. However, I didn’t want to go with an all English team. So I started thinking about countries that might offer strike pairings which were quick. And if one of those players was tall as well, then that was even better.
After a number of abortive attempts at searches, I settled on a Nigerian strikeforce. Not only are there several bronze Nigerian players with 75+ pace, there’s also one that’s 6’6” which is a real plus. So from Nigeria I picked up Ade Akinbye (6’3, 71 Pace, 64 OVR), Shuwunmi (6’6”, 77 Pace, 63 OVR), Odejayi (82 Pace, 6’2” 58 OVR) and Dosunmi (84 Pace, 70 OVR). After some experimentation I settled on a partnership of Dosunmi and Shuwunmi. Odejayi feels more responsive so I might use him as my big man instead, but I’m happy with my options.
Going for a 4-4-2 formation also ruled out any wingers, which was a pity as there are a lot of quick wingers. I was tempted to pick up a couple, but because of my chemistry ambitions I decided to leave it.
In my midfield I desperately wanted to include a RM I found with 86-rated Pace, whose name escapes me right now, but I couldn’t find any other players of the same nationality.
In midfield I went French. First call was Diaby, simply because I think he’s VERY effective in Ultimate Team given his overall rating (75 Pace, 6’3”, 78 OVR). He gets me a lot of goals from corners, and has a powerful shot on him. With the boosts from Chemistry he should really hit the target and cause the opposition some problems. I partnered him in CM with Abdou (75 Pace, 61 OVR) and on the left and right I have a couple of low OVR speed merchants – Gomis at LM (79 Pace, 68 OVR) and at RM Grougi (79 Pace 59 OVR).
For my defence I started by finding a couple of good CB’s. In the end I went with an all-English back line. At LB Taylor (74 Pace, 64 OVR), at RB Lomax (72 Pace 58 OVR) and my CB partnership was Sankofu (76 Pace 61 OVR) and Charles (70 Pace 61 OVR). The GK wasn’t so important so I just picked up a suitable bronze, English GK.
This gave me all 11 players in their correct positions with a preferred formation of 4-4-2 and a 4-4-2 manager.
At the end of all this I hit my goal of a 1 ½ star team with 99 chemistry, no player less than 70 pace and some good physical presence. They aren’t the greatest team in the world – you sacrifice a lot by getting pace into the team, and maybe I can make some further improvements. The main thing I need to do is get some games with the team and start figuring out how to tweak it. I’m sure I can make it much more effective.
Building an Ultimate Team like this has been a really interesting process. There are so many ways to do things like this as opposed to just putting in the 11 best players you can think of in the same team. Even when writing this article I’ve been wondering just how much of an improvement I could get by getting some preferred formation training cards so that I can widen the potential choices open to me. I’m also considering modifying the team to get rid of the two Silver and one Gold player and instead build a completely bronze team. Some of the players I’ve got could have some decent training applied whilst keeping them as Bronze players.
I do enjoy the ultimate teams of course – the team I’ve described punches well above its weight, but it’s still no match for a team of superstars and it’s much harder to play some of the really slick football I enjoy. Still, it’s a great feeling to win as an underdog, and for those that want a bit more of a challenge, I highly recommend it.