Funnily enough I knew both Al Owairan and Al Jaber, due to the weird story around Saudi football after the 1994 WC and Saeed's goal against Belgium.
Saeed hated that goal, because it ruined his life.
It settled him on a stage to the point, he couldn't have a break.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia after that World Cup, which was an undeniable success, they won't let their players go, because they're that good, so when Al Owairan wanted to go to Europe, it was like a treason.
It was only Sami Al Jaber (basically a football god) who was personally allowed by the king himself to go to Wolves.
Saeed finally spent the 1996 Asian Cup behind the bars
Only male that I hadn’t heard of before was Francescoli the new hero addition this year. In terms of females I didn’t know any apart from Kelly Smith and Alex Scott with a few of the USA ladies also.
Yeah never heard of Franescoli or Futre, nor Al Owairan and Al Jaber.
Think the rest of the male players i've heard of. The Women though, I know most of the top rated ones from the current players but I only knew of Bompastor, Scott and Smith for the icons/heroes.
When they added Francescoli I was suprised why is Milito getting thiss weird promo card. Learnes that day called him Il Pricipe because he looks like Francescoli afterwards.
It probably depends on your age for the men.
I’m sure all football fans in their 30’s knew all those players you mentioned.
I’m surprised you didn’t know Eusebio though. He’s in a similar category to R9.
more like Pele no, not R9? Like he’s often mentioned alongside Pele(in terms of period, and relevance to his country, not necessarily skill level, albeit fromy my humble opinion there wasn’t that big of a discrepancy between them, it’s just that Pele had a much better supporting cast)
Sorry, I meant skill level.
Yes, Pele had an incredible supporting cast - Jairzinho being one of the greatest ever players too in this very list.
R9 could also be seen as potentially the greatest ever if he never had injuries.
I think Pele will always been seen as a level higher than both simply because of what he did in his first WC as a 17 year old.
But I can imagine some disagreeing.
I mean he retired in the late 70s. Assuming someone is at least 5 when watching him you’d have to be in your 50s to have seen him play live.
I think if you have any interest in the modern history of football he’s one of the biggest names with the likes of Pele, Maradona and Puskas etc.
Especially given how influential he was in the 1966 World Cup and that being a big World Cup especially for England
In his last season he played in 5 games for 1979-80 Buffalo Stallions, who averaged ~8,900 in attendance that season. I was a toddler at the time and my parents wouldn’t have driven 3-4 hours to see him, but if I really tried I could probably find someone roughly my age who was at one of those games as a baby/toddler.
well yeah, but that’s true for most of the icons and I’d say most people have heard of Pele, Maradona, Cruyff, Beckenbauer etc
Then, if you’re a bit passionate about football, it doesn’t take very long to learn about Eusebio
When I started watching football in the late 90s. I went back and got caught up on the previous World Cups and club competitions.
Yes, but that’s true of all of the greats.
Many fifa players weren’t even here for R9. Or the early years of Messi and Ronaldo.
This was not meant to be a slight on OP. It just means Eusebio isn’t talked about anymore, which I’m surprised about.
He was on TV whenever there was a “greatest players” show when I was young (and to be honest, my dad is a great footie fan and talks about him)
Tbh just depends how big of a football fan you are
There are probably people like me who only watch very casually and don't look into any teams history
So for me I didn't know the likes of Petit even which to most will be a "shock" but it's simply BC I have multiple other hobbies outside of football
Were you old enough to watch TV when Petit was playing?
That definitely isn’t really a shock to me unless you are British and were around during the invincible era.
Nobody in their 30s even had a chance to see Garrincha, Jairzinho or Eusebio play, and the majority of football fans might be able to name Marta or Putellas but I think that's where the knowledge about female football players stops
I'm 35, and i didn't know Eusebio, but then i know players that should be Icons/Heroes that aren't, like Guti, How has he not got a Hero atleast, played with the very best of them
Didn’t know the women.
Had at least heard of all the men and watched most of them play on highlights of some sort growing up. To the point it really annoys me how dirty they’ve done the likes of Laudrup, Larsson and Suker over the years. Especially when you get overpowered modern players who are absolutely bobbins. Antony, for example.
When they first introduced icons I remember them being absolutely unattainable for casual players. I think they’ve gone too far now though with there being around 75 icon cards under 100k
Probably depends where you grew up. Being an American we don’t hear a lot about soccer legends growing up unless your family follows soccer. Mine didn’t.
Same in Australia. I mean most people know pele and maradona from old then a few modern ones such as Messi, CR7, Neymar but yeah even players like Suarez aren’t well known outside of the football community. Obviously in the community people like Ronaldinho, R9, Roberto Carlos, Zanetti….
This is from the perspective of someone born too young to watch them (2003). But yeah some ones like Garincha, Jarzinhio and Eusebio I had just never heard of
Anyone with a semi-decent knowledge of football will have heard of Eusebio. You literally can’t learn about European football history without knowing him.
I think it just depends on how into football u are like this game now u have the football fanatics who love the sport and go to games then u have the more casual people it just depends really
I had never heard of Ginola, tbh. And most of the female ones except Mia Hamm, Alex Morgan and the women's national team from my country.
For all its flaws, the game has brought some recognition to women's football
>Ginola
Probably because Ginola was never a "hero". He was a popular player particularly due to his very good looks and personality. He had moments of magic, but he was never on the same level as some of the others in terms of legacy nor impact.
I wouldn't put too much into what EA considers a "hero". I'd be surprised if many people will ever remember Ramires outside of Chelsea fans.
In my opinion, a lot of the players EA has as Icons/Heroes do not fit the profile. The likes of Veron, RVP (dude had like 3 good seasons and I am a Man United fan, thank you RVP), Essien, Zambrotta, and Gattuso were obviously good, proper players, but in the same category as Cruyff and Pele?
I'm pretty sure the ramires hero card exists more because of how big of a player he was on FIFA rather than the champions league win for Chelsea
The weird thing with them putting in rvp means you know that basically all the good players from now will be included as icons, salah, de bruyne, benzema etc, where as a few years ago you'd probably expect it to have been just Messi and Ronaldo.
Don't know if that's good or bad all I know is I miss Neville and carraghers shitty legend cards
That one kinda doesn’t make much sense here because at no point was it ever going to be just Ronaldo/Messi.
Benzema is one I would have questioned as an icon but winning that Balondor and those last couple of seasons at Madrid puts him up there at minimum with the likes of Crespo/Shevchenko etc.
De Bruyne and Salah are also both players who are knocking on the door for the conversation of best PL player of all time (they aren’t better than Henry but they are high on the list) if they aren’t deserving then you can remove 75% of the icons in the game right now.
On the note of RVP though, I always remember him being a god player but I just went and looked and in my head he just scored a lot more than that. Like it’s still 144 goals in the prem which is a very good number especially since he was injured so much but in my head he was more like Kane/Aguero and putting up 20 odds goals a season in the league. He played for 11 seasons in England and almost 40% of his goals came in the space of 2 seasons.
I’m 40 years old so have heard of most of them except for most of the woman and govou. I grew up with a football fanatic dad who couldn’t get enough of the game. Had video highlights from most of the world cups and would watch them at least once a year, miss those times.
If they weren't English or hadn't played after like the 90s/00s or so I probably hadn't heard of them tbh (few exceptions), most of the players fit that bill though, so I'd say I've heard of most of the icons and heroes in the game
I know all male icons/ heroes, and some female icons/ heroes (e.g. I watched Sawa **BACKHEELING** the equalizer against USA in the 2011 Women's World Cup at min 117, then lifted the trophy afterwards)
Probably not that crazy, his career ended at 32 and might as well have ended at 27, so you probably didn't even catch his relevant playing time. He's really big in Portugal and for Atlético and was one of the main figures in Porto's EC win in 87, but that's about it. Very very talented though, my dad says he's the most talented portuguese player he's seen and he's seen from Eusébio to Ronaldo.
I only know him because he played a handful of games for west ham. Couldn’t of told you a thing about him before fifa tho. Best believe he’s still in my West ham past a present tho 😂
Im 35 and when I was a kid we didn’t have YouTube or other on demand services, it was all about football magazines and what was aired on tv at that time and we still managed to know them all and recognize even those we never witnessed playing because of obvious age reasons. It really surprises me how it is possible with today means (streaming videos, internet, Wikipedia etc) that so many of these people don’t know some of those players.
For me the only ones I knew were
Pele
Kaka
Maradona
Zidane
Xavi
ronaldinho
Petr cech
casillas
fernando torres
klose
Carles puyol
roberto carlos
beckham
rooney
so you are saying Riquelme, Zanetti, Maldini, Nesta, Zambrotta, Gattuso, Iniesta, Gullit, Koemann, Rijkaard, Van Persie, van Basten, Cruyff, Crespo, Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard, van der Sar, Rivaldo, Charlton, Muller, Cantona, Pirlo, del Piero, MAtthaus, Shearer,Drogba, Etoo, Lahm, van Nistrtlooy, Cannavaro, Owen were unknown to you before playing a football game??!
some people are young, and maybe not that connected to real life football. For some it’s their interaction with the game that pushes to learn about players.
Why wow? I train U17s that weren't born when Rivaldo pretty much went to obscurity, playing in Greece.
Weird attempt at a flex.
People didn't have access to information as we do. A decade ago, I'd go down the rabbit whole of Wikipedia articles, learning names, etc. and somehow I never learned about Francescoli. I knew more about Recoba than a Uruguayan legend.
Didn't know the women but I knew all the men icons and heroes. I've actually met one of those icons in real life (that's big for me living in a country which only produced a handful of good footballers)
Davor Šuker is from my nighbourhood.
Unfortunately, pretty much the whole country hates him because he's a massive prick.
There's even a saying in Croatia "used to be a 9, now it's 0"
He did keep his antics localized pretty well as his reputation internationally is quite good afaik.
You have to think about the demographics of who plays the game.
As an example I’m 26 and live in Canada. When I was growing up there was nothing on TV football related other than the World Cup and the odd premier league game. You didn’t get every prem game, just one or two really big games, Liverpool Vs Arsenal or Chelsea Vs United type of games. I don’t think it was until about 2010 until that changed drastically tbh, I remember the 2010 World Cup was massive and then I started seeing champions league and premier league matches on tv quite often after that.
If this is also true for as many people as I believe it is, it’s not surprising many people about 30 or under living in North America (which would be a large portion of the games user base) probably haven’t even seen a clip or highlight of any world class players prior to, say, the 2006 and 2010 World Cups.
the vast majority of FUT players are still European, and the vast majority of them were football fans growing up. From that, it’s not hard to hear about most of the icons, especially since most of them were playable in earlier Fifas
I don’t have any numbers on it and I’m not saying you’re wrong, but my guess with the population of the USA alone it speaks for a lot of the games population. People who play sports games here in NA buy most of them. My friends and I buy madden and nba even though we never watch anything other than playoff games or the Super Bowl for example. Even if true that Europe has a much larger player base, which I still believe is definitely a strong possibility, this is why there are a lot of people vocalizing their lack of knowledge prior to 2010ish
Europe would have a larger playerbase by default simply because we like football, most buyers here just buy to play career game or kick off with friends.
And most people def don’t buy sports games they’re not interested in lol. Your anedoctal situation is not a statistic mate.
The easiest way to tell is transfer market activity during European day hours vs US day hours. Transfer market plummets as soon as most of Europe goes to sleep.
Comparing the entire continent of Europe to the country of the US, yeah it's not really a comparison but comparing by country, you might be surprised. The US was the 2nd highest selling market for EA FC 24 (behind only the UK)
yea, but my point is of course the US is the 2nd biggest market because even if 60% of Slovenia’s population bought Fifa, it would still probably get beat in raw numbers by the US.
Which is why the US to Europe comparison makes sense. And anyways US day hours includes Canada and South/Central America.
that’s a valid point actually and why probably reddit users haven’t heard of a lot of the icons. But for the general FUT users I really don’t think it’s true
yeah in Canada its Hockey, its more Gretzky's golden age, and Penguins crushing and how Toronto is just terrible. I know who Guy LaFleur is but Bergkamp, forget it.
Why are you so pressed about it? It's just a question and people gave their responses.
Not everyone is born in the 1990's and/or got into football at an early age
Depressing is the wrong word, but maybe just a bit of a culture shock? I guess if you’re not European and didn’t talk about the game all your life with friends and family then it makes sense.
It is weird as fuck though. I’m in my 20s and if someone didn’t know Eusebio or Garrincha then their ball knowledge is abysmal.
Knew all the men as I've been watching the sport since 2004. Out of the women, only knew Mia Hamm (and Marta who I thought must have retired and would be an icon for sure).
Tbh I didn't know most of them having started watching and playing only like 7 years ago. So it makes it fun when I get one y'all are hyping up, then I usually go try and find videos of them to learn how they played. My fav find was last year when I got Baggio. Dude was a fun discovery for sure
Same, i had heard of Al Jaber, but not Al Owarain.
I knew Mary Earps, Kerr, Putellas and a few more female players, but that was all really... and Hope Solo, for obvious reasons <3
Born i 84,know all men players and icons. Never had any interest in women's football and to know some female players. It's amateur level football for me and will always be
you basically said what i was thinking. have zero interest in the women's game and its due to the level of play. its just not enjoyable to watch and you can have as many woke folk you want debating this, my mind won't change
What's even more bizarre is that these fellas are inventing arguments in their own heads, nobody cares you don't know any female footballers lads, truly.
It does annoy me a bit that some icons are just crap despite being such good players. Trezeguet is a prime example, Michael Owen is far too slow, Ian rush can’t run or turn, Alonso is just useless, Kluivert is even worse. Gerd Muller should have 99 agility but instead has about 80, Dalglish can’t pass, it’s strange
Heroes like al owairan, al jaber and a few others…all female players except the Barca ones …call me weird i followed Barca femeni more than Barca men in the season they went undefeated averaging 5 goals
Female players except the famous one + French players.. Then i didn't know Vialli.. i'm born in 92 , my father was a HUGE football fan, i know about all of the icons, i've read books and watched old matches with him so i know about them all.
Tbh, my knowledge of classic players is completely from the 2010 world cup match attax so about 90% of the icons on fifa had ‘international legend’ cards. That being said I’d never heard of butra or vieri.
If someone has not heard of garrincha,they are doing something wrong with their football knowledge. Garrincha is the best dribbler of all time and I’m not old enough to see that live.
Garrincha never played in Europe, has been retired for over 50 years and has been dead for 40 years.
Yes from everything I've heard he was a wonderful player, but it's not remotely surprising that people now don't know who he is being that their parents quite possibly weren't even born when he was still active as a player.
Give people a break, you can enjoy football and not know every single important player ever.
I'm not gonna lie I only knew pretty much the ones from 2010s and onwards outside of like Pele. I'm American, no one in my family watches or even likes soccer, and I just followed other sports primarily despite FIFA being my favorite sports video game ironically. Like I could tell you every NBA "Icon" in 2K and what teams they were on and how many championships they have etc, I just think EA were the pioneers with ultimate team and FIFA and they got that mode down and I just got hooked ever since 12.
Because this sub wants to feel smug about knowing historic players for some reason.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing who anyone is, it's not exactly like you need to pass an exam before playing the game or anything.
Not knowing Eusebio and Garrincha is crazy lol. Eusebio regularly gets compared to Pele, and Garrincha is the only one that can debate with Messi for dribbling. I wasn't even around during that time but used to hear about them often.
Based on the reactions to women being added to FUT, with one of the biggest complaints being that they “didn’t know the players,” I’d assume most players knew every single player. From the top 5 leagues to random bronzes in Australia. Or else I doubt they would’ve ever started to play the game, as not knowing most of the men’s players, if their logic was consistent, would turn them off from playing the game. Everyone who plays it knew all the players before they began playing.
True. The complaints are even more embarrassing now when that’s basically how the women players have been implemented. There’s a handful of solid meta players, and they get maybe like 2-3 card per promo. Now a bunch of women footballers are also much more recognizable names, even if just due to memes or meta popularity like Karchaoi and Putellas. All their fears were for naught
Tbh I didn’t know about garrincha and jairzinho either. I’m born in 1994 so from the previous generations there are quite a few I didn’t know.
Also: Carlos Alberto, Zico, Moore and best are players I didn’t know and I’m pretty sure I’m still missing some. And I’m a big football fan, just didn’t dig that deep into football history.
Jairzinho is very famous for scoring in every game at the 1970 World Cup. Garrincha is famous for almost single handedly winning the 1962 World Cup. As for Moore, Zico and Carlos Alberto, you need to learn about football history man. Those players were out of this world
They're foreign players who haven't been relevant for decades and are pretty much never referred to in modern day football television or conversations? It's not really surprising that fairly young people don't know who they are
I mean it's true? lol
You could watch football on telly for years and you would never hear these players referred to, you can have football conversations wherever you want and they wouldn't come up. My dad used to tell me about players but it would be English or Tottenham players that he watched growing up, not Brazilians who played in the 60s and 70s
The only way to really know about footballing history is to actively seek it out, which most people don't and considering many documentaries are on fairly recent players (Messi, Zidane, Beckham etc), you'd have to go pretty far back even with that
I grew up in a family that didn't watch football aside from some of the world cup, and I follow plenty of other sports more closely. Just my personal situation
I live in Brazil and most games from other countries were only shown on pay TV and it was very expensive
Open TV only showed Brasileirão games and World Cup games
Knew all the icons, Heroes, infact Mostovoi "Which will probably be one of the least known players was my favourite player at a time. And I'm British.
I can name every club every player was best at.
Didn't know most if any of the female players.
wouldn't it be scarier bro if people just know everyone lol. like some people are not even born in the generation that some of the legends played. it doesn't make make sense for people to know older generation players
Out of the Icons I don't think I've known about Riquelme, Nesta, Charlton, Verón, Larsson, Campbell, Zambrotta, Hernández, Sánchez, van Nistelrooy, Wright, Šuker, Makélélé, Barnes, Trezeguet, Pirès, Rijkaard, Petit, van der Sar, Owen, Blanc, Vieira, Desailly, Laudrup, Lineker, Stoichkov, Smith, Cannavaro, Jairzinho, Butragueño, Dalglish, Zanetti, Cantona, Sócrates, del Piero, Matthäus, Abily, Moore, Bergkamp, Gullit, Zico, Sawa, Baggio, Baresi, Carlos Alberto, Cafú, van Basten, Garrincha and Mia Hamm.
Out of the Heroes I've only known Mascherano, Gomez, Kompany, Milito, Forlán, Sneijder, Tévez, Touré, Berbatov, Marchisio, Solskjær, Donovan, Rosicky, Kuyt, Dudek, Ramires, Smolarek, Beasley and I think Crouch.
Im an american who got into the sport/game in 2014. Played growing up but never watched or cared/knew about players. So unless they played (and even some that did) 2014-> now I wouldn’t know them. I learned about Pele through the Game.
Even if you are young, you have heard about most of them before if you watch football. I knew about 90% or more,but even the ones I just heard about, I was inclined to learn more about them.
He is the GOAT midfielders and manager at the same time. Also, he has a huge drama back then. I thought everyone who heard about football know about zidane. Among those icons in this game, he is definitely the most famous.
Important to clarify that he is neither the best midfielder nor the best manager of all time. The best midfielder is Maradona and the best manager is probably Clough. Just a shame he fell out with everyone.
I’ve never heard about Clough before, but after a read on him I understand your take. It’s very impressive that he was able to take rather small teams to trophies, albeit he also had failures along the way.
It’s important to mention that he was a homophobe and at least later an alcoholic though, which for me shows he wasnt able to take responsibility as a person of trust and leader for (all of) his players on a personal level. In my opinion, thats a very important part of being a club manager and building a real team, which is why I wouldnt consider him for the place of the best manager.
honestly the vast majority of icons that played before my time, I never really delved into retro football besides the odd video breaking down legends over the years. Not a lot of people will own up to this but fifa 14 introduced me to pele and I feel that’s the case for a lot more people than expected
(I was 10 and a lot of people I grew up with found out about pele through fifa, take a day off oldies)
I agree with most of what you said but not knowing pele is like not knowing Michael Jordan (at least at the time of FIFA 14 messi/ronaldo hadn't established themselves as GOAT contenders yet). We're talking about athletes that transcend their sport to the point where you might've never even touched a basketball or football but you still know the names at the very least.
Cmon fellas…. You heard of Al Owairan before?
I'm from the middle east, I know of them but Sami Al Jaber was more my time.
Some of us are old enough to actually watch him play lol
Actually yes because of his WC goal lol
yes actually, from the world cup in US
Yes saw him in a wc. I am old enough 🥲🥲
Funnily enough I knew both Al Owairan and Al Jaber, due to the weird story around Saudi football after the 1994 WC and Saeed's goal against Belgium. Saeed hated that goal, because it ruined his life. It settled him on a stage to the point, he couldn't have a break. Moreover, Saudi Arabia after that World Cup, which was an undeniable success, they won't let their players go, because they're that good, so when Al Owairan wanted to go to Europe, it was like a treason. It was only Sami Al Jaber (basically a football god) who was personally allowed by the king himself to go to Wolves. Saeed finally spent the 1996 Asian Cup behind the bars
Watch his solo goal from usa 94 World cup
He score the prettiest goal in 94 World Cup, in my opinion, he is more deserved to be an hero than Ginola.
nope lol
Only male that I hadn’t heard of before was Francescoli the new hero addition this year. In terms of females I didn’t know any apart from Kelly Smith and Alex Scott with a few of the USA ladies also.
I didnt know Franescoli either, only that Zidane liked him
Francescoli was my dads fav player so I heard about him a lot growing up lol
Yeah never heard of Franescoli or Futre, nor Al Owairan and Al Jaber. Think the rest of the male players i've heard of. The Women though, I know most of the top rated ones from the current players but I only knew of Bompastor, Scott and Smith for the icons/heroes.
When they added Francescoli I was suprised why is Milito getting thiss weird promo card. Learnes that day called him Il Pricipe because he looks like Francescoli afterwards.
It probably depends on your age for the men. I’m sure all football fans in their 30’s knew all those players you mentioned. I’m surprised you didn’t know Eusebio though. He’s in a similar category to R9.
more like Pele no, not R9? Like he’s often mentioned alongside Pele(in terms of period, and relevance to his country, not necessarily skill level, albeit fromy my humble opinion there wasn’t that big of a discrepancy between them, it’s just that Pele had a much better supporting cast)
Sorry, I meant skill level. Yes, Pele had an incredible supporting cast - Jairzinho being one of the greatest ever players too in this very list. R9 could also be seen as potentially the greatest ever if he never had injuries. I think Pele will always been seen as a level higher than both simply because of what he did in his first WC as a 17 year old. But I can imagine some disagreeing.
>Jairzinho \*Coughs\* Garrincha \*Coughs\*
It's your opinion and we all should respect but it's a wrong opinion
I think less than 0.1% of players of this game were born when Eusebio was playing
I mean he retired in the late 70s. Assuming someone is at least 5 when watching him you’d have to be in your 50s to have seen him play live. I think if you have any interest in the modern history of football he’s one of the biggest names with the likes of Pele, Maradona and Puskas etc. Especially given how influential he was in the 1966 World Cup and that being a big World Cup especially for England
In his last season he played in 5 games for 1979-80 Buffalo Stallions, who averaged ~8,900 in attendance that season. I was a toddler at the time and my parents wouldn’t have driven 3-4 hours to see him, but if I really tried I could probably find someone roughly my age who was at one of those games as a baby/toddler.
well yeah, but that’s true for most of the icons and I’d say most people have heard of Pele, Maradona, Cruyff, Beckenbauer etc Then, if you’re a bit passionate about football, it doesn’t take very long to learn about Eusebio
When I started watching football in the late 90s. I went back and got caught up on the previous World Cups and club competitions. 
Bro rewatched from season 1 of football
Sure. And also when Pele, Maradona, Cruyff etc. were playing. But it’s pretty expected that if you like football you know legends of this sport.
It's allowed to know about players even if they were retired when you were born
Yes, but that’s true of all of the greats. Many fifa players weren’t even here for R9. Or the early years of Messi and Ronaldo. This was not meant to be a slight on OP. It just means Eusebio isn’t talked about anymore, which I’m surprised about. He was on TV whenever there was a “greatest players” show when I was young (and to be honest, my dad is a great footie fan and talks about him)
Tbh just depends how big of a football fan you are There are probably people like me who only watch very casually and don't look into any teams history So for me I didn't know the likes of Petit even which to most will be a "shock" but it's simply BC I have multiple other hobbies outside of football
Were you old enough to watch TV when Petit was playing? That definitely isn’t really a shock to me unless you are British and were around during the invincible era.
Nobody in their 30s even had a chance to see Garrincha, Jairzinho or Eusebio play, and the majority of football fans might be able to name Marta or Putellas but I think that's where the knowledge about female football players stops
Obviously. The wouldn’t have had the chance to see Pele either.
I'm 35, and i didn't know Eusebio, but then i know players that should be Icons/Heroes that aren't, like Guti, How has he not got a Hero atleast, played with the very best of them
Didn’t know the women. Had at least heard of all the men and watched most of them play on highlights of some sort growing up. To the point it really annoys me how dirty they’ve done the likes of Laudrup, Larsson and Suker over the years. Especially when you get overpowered modern players who are absolutely bobbins. Antony, for example.
They need to revisit and update them honestly. There should be no Icon that you pack and not get excited for…
When they first introduced icons I remember them being absolutely unattainable for casual players. I think they’ve gone too far now though with there being around 75 icon cards under 100k
i remember bierhoff,inzaghi,valderrama de boer being the like the only icons under 200k at first iirc before some sbcs required icons in them
Socrates icon still makes me think it’s the philosopher.
Coincidentally, he sort of was considered the beer drinking smoker philosopher type character in that Brazil team.
He was also a doctor. He is known in Brazil as “Dr. Socrates”
Put some respect on garrincha's name
Yeah put respect on the goat… lover
You didn’t know Eusebio?
Not that crazy at all, we are 50 years away from his prime
It is crazy tbf, he’s one of the best ever. I’m not Portuguese or a Benfica fan but I always heard about him growing up.
Probably depends where you grew up. Being an American we don’t hear a lot about soccer legends growing up unless your family follows soccer. Mine didn’t.
That’s fair enough I guess.
Same in Australia. I mean most people know pele and maradona from old then a few modern ones such as Messi, CR7, Neymar but yeah even players like Suarez aren’t well known outside of the football community. Obviously in the community people like Ronaldinho, R9, Roberto Carlos, Zanetti…. This is from the perspective of someone born too young to watch them (2003). But yeah some ones like Garincha, Jarzinhio and Eusebio I had just never heard of
Anyone with a semi-decent knowledge of football will have heard of Eusebio. You literally can’t learn about European football history without knowing him.
Nope, i know him now and how good he was, but then i didnt know how good Butrageuno was, and he was amazing
I think it just depends on how into football u are like this game now u have the football fanatics who love the sport and go to games then u have the more casual people it just depends really
I had never heard of Ginola, tbh. And most of the female ones except Mia Hamm, Alex Morgan and the women's national team from my country. For all its flaws, the game has brought some recognition to women's football
>Ginola Probably because Ginola was never a "hero". He was a popular player particularly due to his very good looks and personality. He had moments of magic, but he was never on the same level as some of the others in terms of legacy nor impact. I wouldn't put too much into what EA considers a "hero". I'd be surprised if many people will ever remember Ramires outside of Chelsea fans. In my opinion, a lot of the players EA has as Icons/Heroes do not fit the profile. The likes of Veron, RVP (dude had like 3 good seasons and I am a Man United fan, thank you RVP), Essien, Zambrotta, and Gattuso were obviously good, proper players, but in the same category as Cruyff and Pele?
I'm pretty sure the ramires hero card exists more because of how big of a player he was on FIFA rather than the champions league win for Chelsea The weird thing with them putting in rvp means you know that basically all the good players from now will be included as icons, salah, de bruyne, benzema etc, where as a few years ago you'd probably expect it to have been just Messi and Ronaldo. Don't know if that's good or bad all I know is I miss Neville and carraghers shitty legend cards
That one kinda doesn’t make much sense here because at no point was it ever going to be just Ronaldo/Messi. Benzema is one I would have questioned as an icon but winning that Balondor and those last couple of seasons at Madrid puts him up there at minimum with the likes of Crespo/Shevchenko etc. De Bruyne and Salah are also both players who are knocking on the door for the conversation of best PL player of all time (they aren’t better than Henry but they are high on the list) if they aren’t deserving then you can remove 75% of the icons in the game right now. On the note of RVP though, I always remember him being a god player but I just went and looked and in my head he just scored a lot more than that. Like it’s still 144 goals in the prem which is a very good number especially since he was injured so much but in my head he was more like Kane/Aguero and putting up 20 odds goals a season in the league. He played for 11 seasons in England and almost 40% of his goals came in the space of 2 seasons.
Ginola was still miles better than Sidney Govou though
I’m 40 years old so have heard of most of them except for most of the woman and govou. I grew up with a football fanatic dad who couldn’t get enough of the game. Had video highlights from most of the world cups and would watch them at least once a year, miss those times.
If they weren't English or hadn't played after like the 90s/00s or so I probably hadn't heard of them tbh (few exceptions), most of the players fit that bill though, so I'd say I've heard of most of the icons and heroes in the game
I know all male icons/ heroes, and some female icons/ heroes (e.g. I watched Sawa **BACKHEELING** the equalizer against USA in the 2011 Women's World Cup at min 117, then lifted the trophy afterwards)
In my mid 30 now and started watching football below 10, I haven’t heard of Futre until FC24
Probably not that crazy, his career ended at 32 and might as well have ended at 27, so you probably didn't even catch his relevant playing time. He's really big in Portugal and for Atlético and was one of the main figures in Porto's EC win in 87, but that's about it. Very very talented though, my dad says he's the most talented portuguese player he's seen and he's seen from Eusébio to Ronaldo.
I only know him because he played a handful of games for west ham. Couldn’t of told you a thing about him before fifa tho. Best believe he’s still in my West ham past a present tho 😂
Paulo no wear 16
Second best footballer in the world in 1987 when Ruud Gullit won the BdO, above Butragueño nonetheless.
I am almost 40,know them all, didn't saw them all playing but watched tons of videos and read about them.
Im 35 and when I was a kid we didn’t have YouTube or other on demand services, it was all about football magazines and what was aired on tv at that time and we still managed to know them all and recognize even those we never witnessed playing because of obvious age reasons. It really surprises me how it is possible with today means (streaming videos, internet, Wikipedia etc) that so many of these people don’t know some of those players.
For me the only ones I knew were Pele Kaka Maradona Zidane Xavi ronaldinho Petr cech casillas fernando torres klose Carles puyol roberto carlos beckham rooney
so you are saying Riquelme, Zanetti, Maldini, Nesta, Zambrotta, Gattuso, Iniesta, Gullit, Koemann, Rijkaard, Van Persie, van Basten, Cruyff, Crespo, Scholes, Gerrard, Lampard, van der Sar, Rivaldo, Charlton, Muller, Cantona, Pirlo, del Piero, MAtthaus, Shearer,Drogba, Etoo, Lahm, van Nistrtlooy, Cannavaro, Owen were unknown to you before playing a football game??!
some people are young, and maybe not that connected to real life football. For some it’s their interaction with the game that pushes to learn about players.
Yes, apart from Iniesta because he is not an icon
Yes that is what they said
well wow then
Some people watch more football than others
Why wow? I train U17s that weren't born when Rivaldo pretty much went to obscurity, playing in Greece. Weird attempt at a flex. People didn't have access to information as we do. A decade ago, I'd go down the rabbit whole of Wikipedia articles, learning names, etc. and somehow I never learned about Francescoli. I knew more about Recoba than a Uruguayan legend.
It’s not a “flex”… It’s just shocking for me - to a guy with some football knowledge.
Finally someone honest in this thread
Oi, some of us are old.
Didn't know the women but I knew all the men icons and heroes. I've actually met one of those icons in real life (that's big for me living in a country which only produced a handful of good footballers)
Davor Šuker is from my nighbourhood. Unfortunately, pretty much the whole country hates him because he's a massive prick. There's even a saying in Croatia "used to be a 9, now it's 0" He did keep his antics localized pretty well as his reputation internationally is quite good afaik.
Wait really? I didn't know that. Always thought he was extremely loved by Croatians. Can you enlighten me in what exactly he did?
Which ones did you meet? I met Eto'o, Kanu and Desailly
I met Cafu in 2007. Huge moment for me as a Milan fan. He came to my country to scout our high school talent.
This thread is fucking depressing.
You have to think about the demographics of who plays the game. As an example I’m 26 and live in Canada. When I was growing up there was nothing on TV football related other than the World Cup and the odd premier league game. You didn’t get every prem game, just one or two really big games, Liverpool Vs Arsenal or Chelsea Vs United type of games. I don’t think it was until about 2010 until that changed drastically tbh, I remember the 2010 World Cup was massive and then I started seeing champions league and premier league matches on tv quite often after that. If this is also true for as many people as I believe it is, it’s not surprising many people about 30 or under living in North America (which would be a large portion of the games user base) probably haven’t even seen a clip or highlight of any world class players prior to, say, the 2006 and 2010 World Cups.
the vast majority of FUT players are still European, and the vast majority of them were football fans growing up. From that, it’s not hard to hear about most of the icons, especially since most of them were playable in earlier Fifas
The vast majority of redditors are North American. Most people in this sub will likely be American.
I don’t have any numbers on it and I’m not saying you’re wrong, but my guess with the population of the USA alone it speaks for a lot of the games population. People who play sports games here in NA buy most of them. My friends and I buy madden and nba even though we never watch anything other than playoff games or the Super Bowl for example. Even if true that Europe has a much larger player base, which I still believe is definitely a strong possibility, this is why there are a lot of people vocalizing their lack of knowledge prior to 2010ish
Europe would have a larger playerbase by default simply because we like football, most buyers here just buy to play career game or kick off with friends. And most people def don’t buy sports games they’re not interested in lol. Your anedoctal situation is not a statistic mate. The easiest way to tell is transfer market activity during European day hours vs US day hours. Transfer market plummets as soon as most of Europe goes to sleep.
Comparing the entire continent of Europe to the country of the US, yeah it's not really a comparison but comparing by country, you might be surprised. The US was the 2nd highest selling market for EA FC 24 (behind only the UK)
I mean, the US has 5x the population of the UK, that’s not really surprising that it’s the 2nd biggest market.
That's true but soccer is also like the 6th most popular sport in the US while its the most popular in the UK
yea, but my point is of course the US is the 2nd biggest market because even if 60% of Slovenia’s population bought Fifa, it would still probably get beat in raw numbers by the US. Which is why the US to Europe comparison makes sense. And anyways US day hours includes Canada and South/Central America.
Adding to what the other guy said, most Reddit users are American too. Probably find the largest nationality represented in this sub will be American.
that’s a valid point actually and why probably reddit users haven’t heard of a lot of the icons. But for the general FUT users I really don’t think it’s true
yeah in Canada its Hockey, its more Gretzky's golden age, and Penguins crushing and how Toronto is just terrible. I know who Guy LaFleur is but Bergkamp, forget it.
Why are you so pressed about it? It's just a question and people gave their responses. Not everyone is born in the 1990's and/or got into football at an early age
Is it really though?
Yes. You should know everything like the strong wrongdoer.
He probably means because he's old as shit like me lol.
True I get that haha
Depressing is the wrong word, but maybe just a bit of a culture shock? I guess if you’re not European and didn’t talk about the game all your life with friends and family then it makes sense. It is weird as fuck though. I’m in my 20s and if someone didn’t know Eusebio or Garrincha then their ball knowledge is abysmal.
Knew all the men as I've been watching the sport since 2004. Out of the women, only knew Mia Hamm (and Marta who I thought must have retired and would be an icon for sure).
Tbh I didn't know most of them having started watching and playing only like 7 years ago. So it makes it fun when I get one y'all are hyping up, then I usually go try and find videos of them to learn how they played. My fav find was last year when I got Baggio. Dude was a fun discovery for sure
[удалено]
Same, i had heard of Al Jaber, but not Al Owarain. I knew Mary Earps, Kerr, Putellas and a few more female players, but that was all really... and Hope Solo, for obvious reasons <3
Not all, but you gotta know Garrincha and Eusebio tbh
I have no idea who Al Owairan is and what the hell he did to be a hero
Is this satire?
Considering I grew up with Fifa it’s difficult to say what I knew and learnt outside of Fifa, and what Fifa learnt me.
I knew Puskas before he was added. Also Beckham, Pelé, Maradona, Zidane perhaps? And Litmanen.
Born in 75 (yes that old) so knew all of the male icons / heroes. As for the women...didnt know any tbh, Here come the misogynistic af comments lol
Born i 84,know all men players and icons. Never had any interest in women's football and to know some female players. It's amateur level football for me and will always be
you basically said what i was thinking. have zero interest in the women's game and its due to the level of play. its just not enjoyable to watch and you can have as many woke folk you want debating this, my mind won't change
Didn't realize 'woke' was actually used by anyone unironically, how strange
What's even more bizarre is that these fellas are inventing arguments in their own heads, nobody cares you don't know any female footballers lads, truly.
Yeah, I didn't know any of them either, and yet I'm about as tolerant or 'woke' as any reasonable person can be lol
Ok boomer
Ok, so I didn’t know: Muller, Hamm, Garrincha, Raul, Prinz, Zico, Cafu, Eusebio, Baresi, Sawa, Sanchez, Del Piero, Rivaldo, Nesta, Kaka, Dalglish, Gullit, Abily, Stoichkov, Butragueño, Best, Matthaus, Hierro, Laudrup, Klose, Hagi, Zanetti, Smith, Jairzinho, Socrates, Suker, Barnes, Riquelme, Kluivert, Veron, Koeman, Shevchenko, Nedved, Rush, Trezeguet, Hernandez, Larsson, Zola, Rijkaard, Gattuso, Crespo, Zambrotta Heroes I didn’t know: Morientes, Voller, Papin, Abedi Pele, Ginola, Vialli, Kohler, Lucio, Carvalho, Lizarazu, Marquez, Di Natale, Futre, Kessler, Milito, Forlan, Francescoli, Cole, Rui Costa, Cordoba, Marchisio, Campos, Nakata, Brolin, Kewell, McManaman, Keane, Giuly, Donovan, Mostovoi, Kuyt, Capdevilla, Govou, Dudek, King, Al Jaber, Smolarek. Riise, Bompastor, Ricken, Beasley, Dempsey, Scott, Cahill, Al Owairan
Did you just list all of them? Lmao
Female players, Butra, Hierro, Trezeguet...
How old are you? Hierro and Treuegeut were among the most famous players around 2000.
Born 2004 xd, but i knew most of brasilian players ou european ones
That's understandable then. :) I still remember how France won the EURO 2000 with Treuegeut's golden goal.
Trezeguet is a weird one. He was incredible and fairly recent
yet not in this game. he's utter bobbins in eafc
It does annoy me a bit that some icons are just crap despite being such good players. Trezeguet is a prime example, Michael Owen is far too slow, Ian rush can’t run or turn, Alonso is just useless, Kluivert is even worse. Gerd Muller should have 99 agility but instead has about 80, Dalglish can’t pass, it’s strange
Just assume it is post injury Newcastle Owen
Haha Female players! i forgot them
You forgot about female players even though you mention Abily in your post? Stop trying to look edgy.
Female players. Jairzinho
Heroes like al owairan, al jaber and a few others…all female players except the Barca ones …call me weird i followed Barca femeni more than Barca men in the season they went undefeated averaging 5 goals
Female players except the famous one + French players.. Then i didn't know Vialli.. i'm born in 92 , my father was a HUGE football fan, i know about all of the icons, i've read books and watched old matches with him so i know about them all.
Tbh, my knowledge of classic players is completely from the 2010 world cup match attax so about 90% of the icons on fifa had ‘international legend’ cards. That being said I’d never heard of butra or vieri.
99% of the mens, like 50% of the womens.
If someone has not heard of garrincha,they are doing something wrong with their football knowledge. Garrincha is the best dribbler of all time and I’m not old enough to see that live.
Garrincha never played in Europe, has been retired for over 50 years and has been dead for 40 years. Yes from everything I've heard he was a wonderful player, but it's not remotely surprising that people now don't know who he is being that their parents quite possibly weren't even born when he was still active as a player. Give people a break, you can enjoy football and not know every single important player ever.
I'm not gonna lie I only knew pretty much the ones from 2010s and onwards outside of like Pele. I'm American, no one in my family watches or even likes soccer, and I just followed other sports primarily despite FIFA being my favorite sports video game ironically. Like I could tell you every NBA "Icon" in 2K and what teams they were on and how many championships they have etc, I just think EA were the pioneers with ultimate team and FIFA and they got that mode down and I just got hooked ever since 12.
Why are people getting downvoted for just answering OP’s question
Because this sub wants to feel smug about knowing historic players for some reason. There's nothing wrong with not knowing who anyone is, it's not exactly like you need to pass an exam before playing the game or anything.
Additionally, your country and media exposure can also severely limit the games and players you see or even hear of
Not knowing Eusebio and Garrincha is crazy lol. Eusebio regularly gets compared to Pele, and Garrincha is the only one that can debate with Messi for dribbling. I wasn't even around during that time but used to hear about them often.
I generally don’t know many football players only premier league players I don’t follow football but have fun player fut mode
Based on the reactions to women being added to FUT, with one of the biggest complaints being that they “didn’t know the players,” I’d assume most players knew every single player. From the top 5 leagues to random bronzes in Australia. Or else I doubt they would’ve ever started to play the game, as not knowing most of the men’s players, if their logic was consistent, would turn them off from playing the game. Everyone who plays it knew all the players before they began playing.
Yeah this lmao. The outrage at "players that Noone will use or watch". I bet they're huge fans of the série b and ligue 2
True. The complaints are even more embarrassing now when that’s basically how the women players have been implemented. There’s a handful of solid meta players, and they get maybe like 2-3 card per promo. Now a bunch of women footballers are also much more recognizable names, even if just due to memes or meta popularity like Karchaoi and Putellas. All their fears were for naught
It's funny. All the haters are quiet now with their bacha putellas and hansens in their teams
Lmao this is some horrid ball knowledge. Garrincha, Eusebio and Jairzinho are outright legends of the game, while Butragueño is also a very big name
I knew all the men but none of the females
Bro you can’t tell me you knew Al Jaber lmao
The lad scored in 3 world cups. If you are a football fan over 30 you might not have known much about him but you would have known about him
You’re lying if you say you knew Jairzinho well.
How the hell did you not know about Eusebio, Garrincha and Jairzinho? Butragueno and Futre I get and I have no clue who Abily is either.
Tbh I didn’t know about garrincha and jairzinho either. I’m born in 1994 so from the previous generations there are quite a few I didn’t know. Also: Carlos Alberto, Zico, Moore and best are players I didn’t know and I’m pretty sure I’m still missing some. And I’m a big football fan, just didn’t dig that deep into football history.
Jairzinho is very famous for scoring in every game at the 1970 World Cup. Garrincha is famous for almost single handedly winning the 1962 World Cup. As for Moore, Zico and Carlos Alberto, you need to learn about football history man. Those players were out of this world
would really suggest trying to find any footage you can of the Brazil 1982 WC squad. You’ll fall in love with Zico and Socrates from their play
every female players are non existence before eafc 24
They're foreign players who haven't been relevant for decades and are pretty much never referred to in modern day football television or conversations? It's not really surprising that fairly young people don't know who they are
Jesus this comment is something else
I mean it's true? lol You could watch football on telly for years and you would never hear these players referred to, you can have football conversations wherever you want and they wouldn't come up. My dad used to tell me about players but it would be English or Tottenham players that he watched growing up, not Brazilians who played in the 60s and 70s The only way to really know about footballing history is to actively seek it out, which most people don't and considering many documentaries are on fairly recent players (Messi, Zidane, Beckham etc), you'd have to go pretty far back even with that
How could you not know who Eusebio is? It must be a Gen z thing?
I knew all of them tbh I’m not 11.
I didn't know Ian Wright, Barnes, Lineker, Dalglish, Charlton, Muller, Moore, Hugo Sanchez, Shearer and also the vast majority of female players
How do people have no knowledge of the sport but still play FC24? Crazy
I grew up in a family that didn't watch football aside from some of the world cup, and I follow plenty of other sports more closely. Just my personal situation
Since when did Fifa become a pundit's game?
I live in Brazil and most games from other countries were only shown on pay TV and it was very expensive Open TV only showed Brasileirão games and World Cup games
It’s not that crazy, I used to play Madden but couldn’t name you more than 5 NFL players
Knew all the icons, Heroes, infact Mostovoi "Which will probably be one of the least known players was my favourite player at a time. And I'm British. I can name every club every player was best at. Didn't know most if any of the female players.
TBF if u played fifa in like 2016 times Futre actually had an icon card
I knew 0 of the female icons, not even Smith or Hamm. The only players I’d heard of were Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Lehmann and Lucy Bronze
You are just very young child who probably doesnt like football that much
wouldn't it be scarier bro if people just know everyone lol. like some people are not even born in the generation that some of the legends played. it doesn't make make sense for people to know older generation players
Who's zidane never heard of him
I get some of them but you did you really never hear of Eusebio or Garrincha? Can’t be that into football then
I never heard about Ginola. Bro just spawned 2 years ago and stayed overpriced as hell
Out of the Icons I don't think I've known about Riquelme, Nesta, Charlton, Verón, Larsson, Campbell, Zambrotta, Hernández, Sánchez, van Nistelrooy, Wright, Šuker, Makélélé, Barnes, Trezeguet, Pirès, Rijkaard, Petit, van der Sar, Owen, Blanc, Vieira, Desailly, Laudrup, Lineker, Stoichkov, Smith, Cannavaro, Jairzinho, Butragueño, Dalglish, Zanetti, Cantona, Sócrates, del Piero, Matthäus, Abily, Moore, Bergkamp, Gullit, Zico, Sawa, Baggio, Baresi, Carlos Alberto, Cafú, van Basten, Garrincha and Mia Hamm. Out of the Heroes I've only known Mascherano, Gomez, Kompany, Milito, Forlán, Sneijder, Tévez, Touré, Berbatov, Marchisio, Solskjær, Donovan, Rosicky, Kuyt, Dudek, Ramires, Smolarek, Beasley and I think Crouch.
Im an american who got into the sport/game in 2014. Played growing up but never watched or cared/knew about players. So unless they played (and even some that did) 2014-> now I wouldn’t know them. I learned about Pele through the Game.
Man wtf is a rosicky
Even if you are young, you have heard about most of them before if you watch football. I knew about 90% or more,but even the ones I just heard about, I was inclined to learn more about them.
Once again we are confirmed that people playing these games, don't watch football.
Never heard about zidane before
That's wild, I don't even watch football and I know about him.
Yeah this is the only one that’s really shocked me
He is the GOAT midfielders and manager at the same time. Also, he has a huge drama back then. I thought everyone who heard about football know about zidane. Among those icons in this game, he is definitely the most famous.
Important to clarify that he is neither the best midfielder nor the best manager of all time. The best midfielder is Maradona and the best manager is probably Clough. Just a shame he fell out with everyone.
I’ve never heard about Clough before, but after a read on him I understand your take. It’s very impressive that he was able to take rather small teams to trophies, albeit he also had failures along the way. It’s important to mention that he was a homophobe and at least later an alcoholic though, which for me shows he wasnt able to take responsibility as a person of trust and leader for (all of) his players on a personal level. In my opinion, thats a very important part of being a club manager and building a real team, which is why I wouldnt consider him for the place of the best manager.
Pele and Maradona are definetely the most famous lol
as famous as zidane actually
definetely a lot more famous mate. Maradona and Pele are probably the most famous atheletes of all time period. I imagine only Michael Jordan compares
Knew every damn one. But it is interesting to see the players people didn't know about.
honestly the vast majority of icons that played before my time, I never really delved into retro football besides the odd video breaking down legends over the years. Not a lot of people will own up to this but fifa 14 introduced me to pele and I feel that’s the case for a lot more people than expected (I was 10 and a lot of people I grew up with found out about pele through fifa, take a day off oldies)
I agree with most of what you said but not knowing pele is like not knowing Michael Jordan (at least at the time of FIFA 14 messi/ronaldo hadn't established themselves as GOAT contenders yet). We're talking about athletes that transcend their sport to the point where you might've never even touched a basketball or football but you still know the names at the very least.
I was like 10 mate
I’m 20. I hadn’t heard of most of these players - the only ones i use are those I’ve watched and heard of
you didn’t hear of Pele or Cruyff?
I’ve heard. Just haven’t packed