Los Nerdes Verdes: EA Sports — Its in the Ratings – CAPITAL CITY SOCCER
EA’s FIFA franchise has been attributed to the growing popularity of soccer in the US and is now fully ingrained in the sport itself. While the season is in its early stages, let’s look at how the teams stack up in the virtual world:
Austin’s average player rating from their week one starting lineup comes in at 20th in the league — not ideal but also above their preseason prediction of Wooden Spoon contention. It also improves drastically once Driussi returns to the lineup. The Argentinian midfielder carries a 78 rating on EA FC 24, 6 higher than the next closest (Rigoni at 72). With him in the lineup, their average improves to 12th best in the league. Here’s how Austin stack up:
| Player | Rating |
| Emiliano Rigoni | 72 |
| Matt Hedges | 70 |
| Alexander Ring | 70 |
| Gyasi Zardes | 70 |
| Leo Väisänen | 69 |
| Brad Stuver | 68 |
| Daniel Pereira | 66 |
| Ethan Finlay | 65 |
| Jon Gallagher | 64 |
| Žan Kolmanič | 64 |
| Owen Wolff | 64 |
Career performance tends to have a much greater impact on EA FC ratings which helps explain both why Inter Miami’s average rating is so high and why someone like Gyasi Zardes is 4 points higher than Dani Pereira and 6 points higher than 2023 All-Star Jon Gallagher.
Some notable trends from around the league: Toronto and Philadelphia have the largest range (24) between their lowest and highest rated players. Montreal has the lowest spread at just 7. At this point, they aren’t enticing the star players needed to move the needle on EA FC, and their lowest payroll in the league helps prove it. Austin FC had a range of just 8 player rating points, but that changes significantly with Driussi in the starting lineup.
Miami, not surprisingly, has the highest average player rating and also, not surprisingly, has the largest payroll. Philadelphia and Colorado both started players with 52 ratings in EA FC 24, the lowest out of any starting player in week one.
Removing all in-form and promotional cards, this is how MLS would field their top rating teams:
While it’s unlikely this is how the 2024 MLS All-Star game will shape up, it tells a good story about how necessary it is to get production out of your big name signings in this league. Teams like LAFC and Inter Miami that have seen their stars make clutch plays in important games are bringing home silverware while teams like Toronto who’ve flopped with Insigne and Bernardeschi are still trying to right the ship.
As a league, CB and RB are the weakest positions with Chiellini (those career accolades are doing work here), Zimmerman, and Arias the only gold players at their positions.
While we’re only headed into week 2, the stats show early warning signs. According to Fbref, Austin gave up 3.0 xGA. That’s the 2nd-highest in the league by a good margin and the only team with worse (New England) played 65 minutes with 10 men. Since then, Austin’s defense has only gotten less healthy.
Austin will be without Leo Vaisanen who suffered an injury mid-game last week and more than likely still won’t see the return of Sebastian Driussi. The Sounders are also missing some key contributors including starting GK Stefan Frei and CM Joao Paulo.
Seattle/Austin has been a crapshoot throughout the Verde & Black’s entire franchise history. Starting off all the way back in May of 2021 with a 0-0 tie that felt like a win, Seattle still holds the historic lead with 3 wins, 2 draws, and a loss. Those matches have included the (in)famous loss to a bunch of teenagers later in 2021. On the other side of the coin, Austin’s won some shockers — particular last year when the Verde snapped an 8-game winless streak by beating the Sounders 2-1 on the road. That win was one of just 3 on the road for Austin last season, and they’re desperately in need of a repeat today to avoid starting the season with two straight losses for the first time in the club’s history.