Last year I (unsuccessfully) implored you all not to play as PSG in FIFA 22. The Parisienne giants were the most popular team by far in FIFA 21, but a relatively weak defence, technician-heavy midfield, and one-dimensional frontline meant there were ways for you to counter them. In PSG's wild summer, they bought Donnarumma to upgrade on the already excellent Navas between the sticks, Hakimi and Ramos to fix the defensive issues, Wijnaldum to add depth to the midfield, and the small matter of Leo Messi upfront. Nobody listened to me, but I'm trying again, only I'm changing teams. In FIFA 23 (the last FIFA ever, unless the real FIFA makes a disaster of a game itself), you're not allowed to pick Man City.
Man City are already one of the best teams in the game, and I've played with them myself a few times, but then it's pretty normal for players to use the greats online. I'm not asking everybody to start playing as Sunderland or Levante. It's just the overuse of the single, predetermined best team that gets boring. Man City are currently an interesting team to play as because they have the striker dilemma – do you go with Jesus, or risk a pacy winger through the centre? Do you go for the technical ability out wide, or the speed, and where do you get the best out of KdB if you don't have a recognised striker. Liverpool are also interesting, because their midfield is sturdy but can be slow, meaning you need to play precisely through the middle before bolting off as Salah, Mane, Jota, or Diaz – once you've chosen which ones to drop.
Haaland seems destined to be a success at City. They aren't struggling for goals but only one option upfront feels very threadbare for a team of their quality. Would Haaland have helped convert those three glorious chances they had before Real came back at them in the Champions League? Would he have capitalised on their FA Cup comeback against Liverpool? Would the League Cup have been adorned with sky blue again, would the title be sewn up? It could still fall apart. Shevchenko never really settled in England, Crespo was hit and miss, Werner has been a bit of a disaster, and despite his Premier League experience Lukaku has been poor all year. It feels like I'm picking on Chelsea but they've had some dodgy forwards over the years. I haven't even mentioned the Mutu failure, the Kezman misfire, the Falcao saga, the Torres transfer, or the Pato experiment.
The point is, in the stat driven world of FIFA, how Haaland fairs does not matter. In reality, PSG's experiment does not seem to have paid off. They've won the league at a canter, but crashed out of the Champions League after throwing away a two goal lead (the PSG players were presumably busy looking to see where their teammate Messi had gone missing to). It seems a no-brainer that Haaland adds to City, but even if he shows himself to be Penling Fraudland (as he will undoubtedly be called on Football Twitter), it doesn't matter. In FIFA, Man City are the new kings.
My colleague Ben Sledge wrote something similar about Rudiger's transfer to Real Madrid, but it's worth noting that Ben writes from a FUT perspective. Rudiger at Real opens the door to La Liga heavy teams and shifts away from the more established Premier League meta. I play the more pure Online Seasons, where you must make do with what resources a team has. You cannot buy players to patch gaps, which is why City are currently quite interesting and PSG are terminally dull. City have just patched their FIFA gap in real life, which means they'll probably be the go-to FIFA 23 team, especially if Mbappe leaves Paris. I'm glad PSG's reign of terror is over, but perhaps I won't know what I had until it's gone.
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