Done with this game

The game is trash. You win one match, you lose the next. You get promoted, then immediately relegated. It feels scripted.

When the game decides you’re not meant to win, everything goes wrong. Your attackers stop making runs. When they receive a through pass, they start jogging instead of sprinting. Your defenders refuse to tackle, instead of closing down space, they literally move aside and let opponents walk through and score.

Sometimes the player you’re controlling suddenly abandons the attacker he was supposed to challenge and starts marking someone else entirely, leaving a clear path to goal. You make a clean tackle, and the ball magically rebounds straight back to the opponent, usually the one closest to your goal.

Your goalkeeper catches the ball, you don’t press any button, and somehow he automatically throws it directly to the opponent near the post… and that’s another goal conceded.

When your opponent plays a through pass, your defenders suddenly slow down while their attacker gets a speed boost you can’t match. But when you attempt the same pass, it either goes in a completely different direction or gets intercepted immediately.

Your players ignore the intended pass target and instead pass to someone surrounded by defenders. Your goalkeeper fumbles simple shots. When the game doesn’t want you to win, your players won’t tackle, won’t track runs, and sometimes even face the wrong direction.

Opponents commit rough tackles in their own box, no foul, no penalty, no card. But randomly, a defender you’re not even controlling brushes an opponent somewhere else, and suddenly it’s a penalty against you. And conveniently, there’s no proper replay shown.

There’s so much questionable scripting that it would take days to list everything.

I stopped buying after FIFA 23 because I’d had enough. But EAFC 26 promised improved gameplay, and I thought things had changed. Clearly, they haven’t. I won’t be buying any EA game anytime soon.

Football simulation games have been reduced to micro-transactions, and EA is the architect of it all.