You may already know the answer by the time you read this, but at the EAFC 24 Coins time of writing all we have is a list of nominees to go on. Fortunately, some of the team picks itself. We predict:
Goalkeeper: Gianluigi DonnarummaDefenders: Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias, Marquinhos, Achraf HakimiMidfielders: Kevin de Bruyne, Jorginho, Joshua KimmichAttackers: Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski, Mohamed Salah12th Man (vote options): Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr
There is a little debate around some of these picks, but not that much. In defence, Hakimi is not a dead cert (Trent Alexander-Arnold or Alphonso Davies might be there), while Kimmich is mostly on the list because EA probably wont allow a full Premier League midfield. (If they do, we would expect to see Kante in there.) Attack is where the biggest question lingers: can EA really leave out Mbappe, the cover star? We shall see.
Will there be a Team of the Year market crash?
In previous years, the transfer market has taken a huge tumble ahead of Team of the Year as FC players have sold off their teams to make sure they have coins in hand. With so many packs being opened during TOTY, supply goes through the roof, driving down prices and allowing everyone to buy things cheaply.
This year, it not quite so simple, because the puppetmaster economists at EA have been fiddling the market in new ways. Rare Gold players are historically cheap, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi both available for under 300k, while the most expensive Rare Gold of this cycle, Kylian Mbappe, is now under 900k. The sheer volume of high-quality special cards released through promos like Winter Wildcards means that very competitive teams can already be assembled on the cheap.
All of which is to say that there wont be a traditional market crash where everything valuable plummets overnight, because most cards are already at historic lows. We will probably see Prime Icons, and rare meta cards like FC Hero David Ginola, take a short-term hit, but for the most part we will see a continuation of the gradual, steady decline in prices that has been going on for the last few months.
So is it worth selling your team? If all your coins are tied up in high-rated special cards, then yes. But if you decide to hang onto them, you wont lose anything like as much as you might have done previously. If youre still rocking golds, or mostly untradeable, you should be fine.
What TOTY Objectives and SBCs will we see?
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In short, we expect the following:
SBC: Repeatable, league-specific upgrades (once the full team is in packs)SBC: At least one high-rated Flashback and/or Moments playerSBC: Repeatable Icon Player Pick (live from Jan 16 for two weeks)SBC: Daily 20TOTY Challenge21 puzzle SBCs for various packsObjective: At least one high-rated 20Honourable Mention21 playerObjective: A loan version of one of the TOTY players, probably 12th Man
This year, EA introduced a new event called 20Team of the Year Warm-Up21 in the week prior to TOTY itself, featuring time-limited Objectives and Squad-Building Challenges. Unusually, there was no special team to EA Sports Football Club Coins go with this or any other incentive to open packs. In fact, the messaging around Warm-Up suggested that it was designed to help us all craft and save packs for Team of the Year itself.