FIFA 22: Player ratings explained

Virgil van Dijk
FIFA 22 Player ratings explained (Image credit: Getty)

Need to get FIFA 22 player ratings explained? You've come to the right place.

One of the aspects of the FIFA series that gets fans so excited every year is their player ratings; the overall scores given to each footballer in the game. This, ultimately, determines who the best player on each instalment is, and helps managers decide who to select for any given game. 

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The higher the score, the better the player is at doing his job. But how are they calculated? Here, you'll find the FIFA 22 player ratings explained...

How are overall ratings determined? FIFA 22 player ratings explained

EA Sports employs a wide network of real life scouts who attend matches and watch tapes of games to determine the scores given to every player on the game. These can change between each instalment of the series. For instance, if a young player gets better at shooting or dribbling during the course of a real life season, his score will be increased for the next edition of FIFA. Likewise, if an older player starts to slow or loses stamina, this will also be reflected in his score. 

There are six main criteria which appear alongside the overall score: speed, shooting, passing, defending, dribbling and physicality. A score for each of these criteria is assigned to every player, and these are used to help calculate an overall rating out of 100. 

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So, why then, do some players end up with a higher or lower score than it appears they ought to? Why would a defender, such as Virgil van Dijk, have his score determined by his ability to shoot? Why should a striker have his score brought down by his defensive capabilities? 

Well, there's more to it than than meets the eye...

The FIFA coefficient rating system

In truth, there are a whole lot more than six criteria by which players ratings are determined. In fact, there are are around a dozen stats which are used to make up their overall score, from a pool of around a 35 options. Each dozen or so selected for a particular player is tailored according to their position. 

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For instance, Virgil van Dijk is actually judged on things like his standing tackle, sliding tackle, defensive intelligence, heading accuracy, strength, aggression and interceptions. He scores between 1 and 100 for each of these and these scores are tottered up to form an overall score. 

Meanwhile, Jadon Sancho gets marked on things like shooting, dribbling, speed, crossing, creativity, passing accuracy and movement. There would be little point in rating him for interceptions, would there? Each players 10-15 coefficient stats differ from players who don't play the same role as him. 

Moreover, each of these tailored categories also gets a assigned a coefficient ranking, depending on how important it is to that position. Take van Dijk as an example: defensive awareness is more important to him than, say, his short passing ability. defensive awareness, therefore, is given a coefficient ranking of 0.15. The coefficient rankings must add up to a combined score of 1, so van Dijk's defensive awareness score (92 out of 100), makes up around 15% of his overall score. Got it?

Good! So while van Dijk's shooting stat appears, at first, to be one of the six most important stats in his makeup, it actually has very little bearing on his overall FIFA score of 89. 

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