EA Sports tweeted about three mythic Premier League midfielders; Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, and Paul Scholes have been teased for FC 26 Ultimate Team. But only one will get to be a pre-order bonus, and players have already begun to brawl over who deserves to hold that prime spot.
EA Sports FC and the account of the Premier League just put up the hype post named “England’s Golden Generation” with no stats of theirs or any other information about the trio. Soon, the gamer crowd went in a ruckus as to who should get the pre-order Icon treatment. And let’s just say it didn’t take long before it became a mess.
Gamers have since split their loyalty: loyal to Gerrard for his leadership, to Lampard for his goals, and to Scholes for his arguably unparalleled touch-to-passing ball skills. But one user, Grok, just didn’t want to stop with the opinion and dropped a stat review: Gerrard 504 games 120 goals, Lampard 609 games 177 goals, Scholes 499 games 107 goals. Yet those stats will surely not convince the Scholes supporters, who argued back with that count of 11 Premier League titles to Lampard’s 3 and Gerrard’s 0. Sorry, big guy.
There are some gamers uninterested in the whole debate. Instead, they are busy complaining about how EA handled FC 25. One frustrated gamer called out, “My FC 25 is still freezing on PC, any fix?” Another claimed, “EA destroyed pack weight, so it’s impossible to pack good players,” the usual offensive jab at EA.
Like: “Nobody cares about soccer, fix Madden servers,” said the American football crowd. Embrace cross-sports rivalry.
That said, the Icons? The tweet by EA has a vibe that only one out of these three Midfielding legends may be selected as the pre-order bonus, probably one that the community will pick. History will very likely tell you that Gerrard will stride away as the winner thanks to Liverpool’s massive fan base (said a bitter Chelsea fan in comments).
The bigger question is: Will any of these Icons ever be usable in-game? From their ratings in previous games, none said a player, jokingly.
EA has not told when FC 26 will arrive yet, but with pre-order bonuses already being whetted, the hype train is moving out of the station. Will you get Icon pre-order? And more importantly… which one will you pick?
The whole debate is still ongoing. Scholes got the trophies, Lampard got the Ballon D’Or runner-up finish, and Gerrard got the cult status. But, in typical EA style, the one whose pre-orders bring the most will probably be the real winner.
One thing is sure: This is just the beginning of the FC 26 marketing blitz. Get prepared for teasers, arguments, and server complaints galore along the way.
