FIFA 18 Ultimate Team Players Cards Explained

The FIFA 18 Ultimate Team players cards are the most important ones. In this page, we explain what information you can see in these cards.

FIFA 18 Ultimate Team Players Cards

Introduction to the FIFA 18 Ultimate Team players cards

As you may imagine, the players’ cards are the most important FUT 18 cards. If your club has that type of cards, it means that you can control those players on the pitch.

You can buy hundreds of players for your club. Just buy their cards. There are many cards of the same player but you can only have one of each. That is, you can not have two cards of the same player. In fact, you can have two cards of the same player in your club if each one has different clubs (player was transferred) or have a special version and you place them in different squads.

You may learn about the different players’ cards here but now we will explain what you can find on FIFA 18 Ultimate Team players cards. It has a lot of information that you must pay attention to improve your chances of victory.

Rating and Attributes

To know how good a player is, you shouldn’t look at his rating. It only shows, generally, how popular and how good he is in some attributes, allowing you to compare him with the others. The overall rating is not an average or an reflection of all attributes. Sometimes, players with lower ratings can be better choices.

Depending on their ratings, players may belong to one of the following groups:

✔️ Bronze, for ratings up to 64;
✔️ Silver, for ratings between 65 and 74;
✔️ Gold, for ratings between 75 and 99.

The rating is also important because it is responsible for the star rating system of teams. The star rating of a squad is a representation of the overall rating of each player in the squad. This is calculated from the players in the starting line-up and on the subs bench. It is a requirement for some matches and it is used too in matchmaking.

Here are the star rating ranges:

If you want to know how good a player is, you should look to his attributes. The six main ones (pace, shooting, passing, dribbling, defence and physical) give you the idea of how they play. But it is not enough. If you want to know exactly what you could expect from them, you should look to all their attributes and not the main six. In this case there is the exception of goalkeepers who have on their cards all the stats that determine their performances.

Each attribute ranges between 1 and 99 (99 correspond to the perfection). Such information is written on the all players’ cards. Depending on your play style, your formation and the attributes of the others players in the squad, it may be a good option to choose players that are better in some specific attributes. For example, a team that often uses crossing for heading should have a striker with good heading (included in physical).

FIFA 18 Ultimate Team Players Cards Explained

Position

A crucial information, when you are planning your squad, is the preferred position of the players. You can choose to place the goalkeeper as a striker but, as you may expect, the performance will be very poor. You should try to respect the player card detail about his preferred position. Otherwise, you will be damaging his individual chemistry and the chemistry of the team.

Cards of the same player may have different positions. If you have a card whose position does not fit into the formation of your team, you may have to make one of the following:

✔️ Trade the card on the market by another identical but with the correct position;
✔️ Lose a few points of squad chemistry and keep the player adapted to the new position;
✔️ Buy and use position change cards that modify the position showed on the player’s card.

Fitness

The performance of a player on the pitch depends on his attributes, his chemistry, team’s chemistry and his fitness.

It is very important to keep your players with high fitness. As it is easy to understand, the fitness depends of the playing time, the effort spent in the match, and of the injuries that eventually the player may suffer. The fitness level is printed on the player’s cards. It is a number that ranges between 1 and 99.

It is important to pay attention to the fitness because a group of players with good chemistry will have no use if their physical condition is poor. To fix this, you may make them rest in some matches, providing a rotation of your squad, or buy and use fitness cards.

During the matches, players can get injured and being out of the following matches. On the players’ cards you can find the details about how many time the player will be out and what kind of injury he has. Both are important for you since you will be able to know how to manage your squad and how you can speed up the player’s recovery.

The global healing cards can reduce the healing time up to four matches. However, if you know if the injury was on the foot, leg, knee, arm, upper body, head or back, you will be able to buy and apply specific healing cards for these ills and reduce the downtime by up to five matches.

Contracts

Every match that a player plays is a contract that he spends. The only way to prevent a player from running out of contracts and being unable to play, apart from not using him, is buying contract cards. That is why it is recommended that you save some coins in order to being able to buy contract cards and keep your players available.

The contract card is the only consumable card that you really have to buy in order to play. That’s why it is so important.

The number of contracts is also expressed on the player’s card as a number between 0 and 99.

Chemistry Styles

When a player is released in a card, his chemistry style is basic (BAS), the starter style. It means that all his attributes are improved in the same way (one point if chemistry is the higher possible). If you want to adjust the players attributes to your squad needs, you can apply a chemistry style card. In the active squad menu, you have a visual indicator (little green arrow) next to the stats of each player showing which ones will be affected by the chemistry and how much will be the potential chemistry boost.

The Chemistry Styles allow you to let choose what stats are changed but not how much it will change. It depends of your chemistry. If you get individual chemistry 10, you will get the higher improvement possible in the stats you chosen.

When you buy a player, look very well to which chemistry style he has. If he doesn’t have the chemistry style you want, you can apply him another chemistry style card or buy another card of the same player with the right style.

Chemistry

Expressed on the player card as a number between 0 and 10, the chemistry evaluates how well he identifies himself with his team mates, the manager and the team. It is a factor that helps the game play by interacting with the familiarity of the players with the positioning, the relation with the other players and the manager.

When you buy a player to your squad, you should check if he will get a good chemistry. We recommend to get, at least, individual chemistry 8. However, is specific cases, better players with lower chemistries may be a good option.

More Details

A player card gives you even more details. You can check the biographical details about the player, his statistics and the item details.

The players’ cards have some biographical information about them that has a merely informative interest. In addition to a photograph of the player’s face, it also includes his name, surname, nickname, nationality, club and country where he plays, date of birth, height, foot preference, weak foot, skill moves, work rates, fitness, injuries and if he is untradeable or not.

On the FIFA 18 Ultimate Team Players’ cards you can also see all attributes and some statistics about performance of those players. In particular, you can check how many matches he played, how many goals he scored, how many assists he made and how many yellow and red cards were shown to him.

It is also possible to check three details of a specific player card: the purchased date, the price of this acquisition and the cumulative number of owners.

Graphic Signs

Sometimes you find a player card that has something different on it. If you don’t know what is it, we will try to help you to identify six different situations.

When a player or a manager is out of contracts, their cards have a red folder sign on the top right side. It is very useful, especially when you are searching players or managers on the transfer market. As soon as you apply a contract card, the sign disappears.

When a player is suspended, his card has a red rectangle sign on the top right side. It is very useful, especially when you are on your main squad menu. As soon as he is able again to play, the sign disappears.

When a player is injured, his card has a red band-aid sign on the top right side. It is very useful, especially when you are on your main squad menu. As soon as he rests or you apply him a healing card, the sign disappears.

When someone applies a training card on a player, he will have better attribute(s) for one match. In order for anyone to recognize this, the player card has a pin signal on the top right side. As soon as you use him in a match, the sign disappears.

The players on loan are also identified by a specific signal: a blue retangle on the top right side of the card, showing the remain matches.

Lastly, the Winter Downgraded/Upgraded cards have a green arrow on the lower left side.

Basic Management of Players

Tips for begginers

For the less experienced Ultimate Team players, sometimes it may be a bit tricky to perform a few basic management players’ tasks. Here they are the most common ones and the best way to lead with them:

➡️ Buy Players
Go to transfer market, use the filters and buy (check this video, please)

➡️ Send a Player to the squad
After you have bought him, choose ‘send to club‘ or ‘place in active squad‘ (check this video, please)

➡️ Use a Player running out of contracts
Choose the player, select ‘Apply Consumable’ and apply him the contract card (check this video, please)

➡️ Use a Suspended Player
Put him in the reserves (on the right of substitutes) and wait until the suspension expires

➡️ Use an Injured Player
Put him in the reserves (on the right of substitutes) and wait until he recovers
OR select the player, choose ‘apply consumable’ and apply him the healing card

New Stuff

What’s new on FUT 18

For people that are used to Ultimate Team, we decided to create a simple chapter where you can consult a brief history of changes concerning players’ cards.

FUT 17 >> FUT 18
✔️ Attribute details added to the player’s card
✔️ New card’s design

FUT 16 >> FUT 17
✔️ New card’s design

FUT 15 >> FUT 16
✔️ New card’s design

FUT 14 >> FUT 15
✔️ New card’s design
✔️ Physical replaced heading stat

FAQ

FIFA 18 Ultimate Team player’s cards frequently asked questions

Q: Where can I find all the attributes of my players?
A: Since FUT 18, you can see the attribute details as you usually do to see the player bio, directly in your console or PC.

Q: Can I have more than one card of the same player stored in my club?
A: You can have several cards of the same player but only in the transfer list. To have more than one card of the same player in your club, you need to place each one in different squads and they must be from different clubs (the player has moved to another club). You can also have a NIF and a IF card of the same player in different teams.

Q: How do I change the work rates of my players?
A: That’s not possible.

Q: Getting a high/high work rate is a good thing?
A: Usually not. It means that your players will be often out of position. They want to attack but they also want to defend. It depends of your formation, play style and the player position.

Q: I don’t use skills. Do I need players with high star skills?
A: No. If you don’t perform skills, it doesn’t matter the star skills of your players. However, our advice is that you should learn, at least, one skill movement. It doesn’t need to be a 5 star skill movement.

Q: Is a gold player always better than a silver one?
A: Usually yes, but not always. What makes the player gold is his rating. What really matters to know if a player is good or not, is his attributes. Some silver players can have better attributes than gold players. The same happens with bronze/silver players.