It’s the most wonderful, and by far the most infuriating, time of the year for football fans. The official FC 26 Ratings have been revealed, and just like clockwork, the entire global community has exploded into a fiery, passionate, and often hilarious debate. It has become a sacred annual ritual: you wait months with high hopes, you load up the database, and you immediately search for your favorite players, praying they got the respect they deserve. For every fair and justified rating, however, there’s one that makes you wonder if the decision-makers at EA Sports actually watched any football last season.
We’ve sifted through the hundreds of player ratings, ignored the obvious high marks for the global megastars, and focused on the ones that have sparked genuine controversy. These are the ratings that have ignited arguments in group chats, on social media, and in forums across the internet. This is our official breakdown of the biggest snubs and most shocking upgrades of the new game cycle.
The 6 Biggest Snubs (Or: The “EA Doesn’t Watch Football” List)
These are the players who put in world-class shifts all season, breaking records and exceeding all expectations, only to be rewarded with a shockingly disrespectful rating.
1. Cole Palmer (Chelsea): New Rating: 87
This is an absolute disgrace and perhaps the most obvious snub of the year. After a season where he single-handedly dragged Chelsea to a European place with a phenomenal 22 goals and 11 assists in the Premier League, a mere +2 upgrade to 87 is criminal. He was not only a good player but a top five player in the toughest association in the world; he was a player of the month award winner more than any other in the game. His play required an enormous jump to the top echelon 89-rated category. This is less of a rating but an insult.
2. Granit Xhaka (Bayer Leverkusen): New Rating: 86
He was the unquestionable pulse of Bayer Leverkusen team that made history and was crowned a Bundesliga champion, 93 points without defeat. He was the field coach himself, the metronome to dictate the rhythm of every single game leading his category in touches, passes made, and in progressive passes. He was probably the most valuable player in the whole league yet his rating is lethargic at 86. This is a classic case of EA completely undervaluing a deep-lying playmaker who does the crucial, less flashy work that wins titles. This is one of the most baffling decisions in the entire FC 26 Ratings release.
3. Viktor Gyökeres (Sporting CP): New Rating: 84
Overall the man scored 43 goals and registered 15 assists across all competitions and donned the Sporting jerseys. Dutch it down to the soup that comes to our gut that you can tabulate that:. He was directly involved in 58 goals. Yet he only receives a +2 upgrade to an 84 rating? It’s an insult to the Portuguese league and to one of the most lethal, all-around strikers in all of Europe last season. His combination of pace, power, and clinical finishing deserved, at a minimum, a push into the 86-87 range. A rating this low for that level of production is simply inexcusable.
4. Pascal Groß (Brighton): New Rating: 83
Brighton’s most creative and consistent player for years, Pascal Groß once again finished the season near the top of the Premier League charts for chances created and passes into the final third. His football IQ is off the charts, but because he lacks blistering pace, his player ratings are always criminally underrated by EA. To leave him at an 83 after the season he had is just lazy analysis, punishing a brilliant football brain for not being a 90-pace sprinter.
5. William Saliba (Arsenal): New Rating: 88
On the face of it, 88 is an impressive score but it is actually a slight on a player who was rated amongst the two or three best center-backs in the game last season. He was also the backbone of the league leading defense and proved a perfect combination of pace, powe,r and composure. He ought to fall in the same 89-90 bracket with the utmost elite defenders in the game. This is more of the impression that EA is giving him the impression that he has to be able to earn it once more rather than rewarding his proven talent as a world-class player.
6. Diogo Costa (FC Porto): New Rating: 85
The Porto goalkeeper has had a spectacular campaign that saw him top the Portuguese league in terms of clean sheets and he also saved penalties that proved vital to Porto in the Champions League knockouts. Over and over again he has proven that he is one of the best young guardians in the world yet his rating could only move up to 85. To put things into perspective, keepers who had considerably lower statistical seasons received higher ratings, so as much as this snub may have been confusing, it must have been a great disrespect to these keepers.