EA Sports has revealed the top 25 rated players in Major League Soccer for FIFA 18 and the results are pretty goofy. There’s no disputing the top two players on the list (2015 MVP Sebastian Giovinco and 2016 MVP David Villa), but the football simulation is basically asking you to willingly suspend your disbelief after that.
Given that this list reads more like a summary of who’s on a Designated Player contract rather than their performance of late, it’s pretty obvious that the powers that be at EA Sports really hate to downgrade a legend.
It’s no secret that Orlando City and New York City FC will look to move forward without Kaka and Andrea Pirlo respectively following this season, but these ratings in no way reflect how peripheral the aging legends have become.
NYCFC are a playoff caliber club, but they’ve navigated toward the top of the table without Pirlo playing much of a role. He’s started only 12 of NYCFC’s 28 matches, logging one assist and three shots on goal. However, the 38-year-old still manages to trump Michael Bradley in FIFA 18, a player who actually plays the role of holding midfielder for the league’s best side.
Kaka has made more of an impact with Orlando this year, scoring four goals and registering five assists in 15 starts, but with the Lions again in serious danger of missing the playoffs, supporters are keen to follow the example of clubs like Atlanta who've invested heavily in young attacking talent like Miguel Almiron.
Almiron has put up eight goals and 11 assists for Atlanta, but he still trails Kaka in FIFA by virtue of how good the Brazilian was in 2007.
In a way this is all well and good: when you play with MLS clubs in FIFA, you’ll usually select a club like Chicago because you want to play as Bastian Schweinsteiger. We definitely want the box-to-box World Cup-winning version of the German in the video game, not the one with an assortment of calf, hip and muscular problems.
I'm just saying I would like to see Kellyn Acosta, Jordan Morris and Bill Hamid all given their deserved ’99’ ratings, that’s really my only qualm with this whole process. Instead we’ve got the sad reality of Clint Dempsey, Bradley and Tim Howard still leading the American charge.
The Top 25 MLS Players In FIFA 18
- Sebastian Giovinco | Toronto FC – 82
- David Villa | NYCFC – 82
- Bastian Schweinsteiger | Chicago Fire – 81
- Ignacio Piatti | Montreal Impact – 80
- Kaka | Orlando City – 80
- Jonathan dos Santos | LA Galaxy – 80
- Miguel Almiron | Atlanta United – 79
- Giovani dos Santos | LA Galaxy – 79
- Diego Valeri | Portland Timbers – 79
- Andrea Pirlo | NYCFC – 79
- Clint Dempsey | Seattle Sounders – 78
- Pedro Santos | Columbus Crew – 78
- Nicolas Lodeiro | Seattle Sounders – 78
- Osvaldo Alonso | Seattle Sounders – 78
- Michael Bradley | Toronto FC – 78
- Blerim Dzemaili | Montreal Impact – 78
- Tim Howard, Colorado Rapids | 78
- Romain Alessandrini | LA Galaxy – 77
- Josef Martinez | Atlanta United – 76
- Victor Vazquez | Toronto FC – 76
- Fredy Montero | Vancouver Whitecaps – 76
- Jozy Altidore | Toronto FC – 76
- Federico Higuain | Columbus Crew – 76
- Laurent Ciman | Montreal Impact – 76
- Bradley Wright-Phillips | NYRB – 75
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