Every card the front page has led with
The football that made the card
A special card is the game marking a spell of football: a season somebody carried, a transfer that had just happened, one week nobody else had. This is what the player did in that spell, on every card this site has led with, researched from the record and sourced. The draws they came out of close after a week; these stay. The rating under each card is still solved from the current Live Update, so a level cap the game raises later moves the figure here too.
62 cards written up so far
39 cards
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AMF Trendyol Süper Lig Monthly MVPs Aug '26
Gabriel Sara
Ceiling 105 at AMF · R. Martínez gets it there · Ball Control 80 → 96 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
Galatasaray's August in the league was unbeaten, and it turned on one goal. A 2-2 at home to Çorum on the 14th, 4-0 away at Erzurumspor on the 21st, then Göztepe at Rams Park on the 29th in front of 49,218. Göztepe led in the 17th minute, Davinson Sánchez levelled, and in the 55th Sara put the champions ahead for good, 2-1 on the way to 3-2. Seven points from three games for a midfielder Brazil had called up in March.
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LWF Trendyol Süper Lig Monthly MVPs Aug '26
Leandro Trossard
Ceiling 106 at LWF · D. Deschamps gets it there · Acceleration 83 → 99 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
Trossard's first August in black and white was a month of learning a new league. On the 16th, the opening day, he played 62 minutes of a 1-0 home win over Eyüpspor. On the 23rd Beşiktaş lost 1-0 away at Alanyaspor. On the 31st he played 84 minutes as Çorum were beaten 6-2. Six points from three games. Behind him was the goal that mattered most in May: the only one in a 1-0 at West Ham, three points that decided Arsenal's Premier League title, before the move to Istanbul in July.
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CF Trendyol Süper Lig Monthly MVPs Aug '26
Vedat Muriqi
Ceiling 106 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Offensive Awareness 81 → 98 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
August 2026 was the month Muriqi came home and would not stop scoring. On the 11th, a second debut for Fenerbahçe in a 1-0 win at Sturm Graz. On the 22nd, the opener after seven minutes of a 4-2 over Konyaspor, his first goal since returning. On the 26th in Lyon, the 24th-minute goal that was the first of his career in a European club competition: 2-1 on the night, 3-2 on aggregate, and Fenerbahçe into the Champions League league phase. Four days later he scored after three minutes of a 2-0 win at Samsunspor. Three goals in eight days from a striker who left Mallorca with 50 La Liga goals, second only to Eto'o in the club's history.
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RB Trendyol Süper Lig Monthly MVPs Aug '26
Sidny Cabral
Ceiling 105 at RB · Cristian Chivu gets it there · Stamina 82 → 100 · booster added Off the Ball +1
Cabral's first August at Trabzonspor. The league opened on the 15th with a 1-1 at Kasımpaşa. On the 23rd, with 36,316 at home, Trabzonspor beat Başakşehir 2-1 for their first league win of the season, and Cabral played all 90 minutes with five tackles, the most in his side. He had come from Benfica in June for a reported 10 million euros, straight after a World Cup, Cape Verde's first, in which his strike against Argentina was named the Goal of the Tournament.
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DMF Daniele De Rossi Italy 2016
Daniele De Rossi
Ceiling 106 at DMF · L. Spalletti gets it there · Aggression 84 → 99 · booster added Duelling +1
De Rossi reached 100 caps in 2014 and came to Euro 2016 as the man standing in front of Antonio Conte's back three. In the round of 16 on 27 June, Italy beat Spain 2-0 and he limped off. The injury kept him out of the Germany quarter-final on 2 July, lost 6-5 on penalties, and afterwards someone suggested he had refused to take one. His answer was the whole man: "Do I look like the type who would refuse to step up to the spot? Conte didn't ask me, and that's it. I hadn't even warmed up during the game."
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CB Giorgio Chiellini Italy 2016
Giorgio Chiellini
Ceiling 107 at CB · Antonio Conte gets it there · Defensive Awareness 85 → 101 · booster added Defending +1
Euro 2016, round of 16, the Stade de France, 27 June. Spain arrived as reigning European champions and left without a goal. Chiellini opened the scoring in the 33rd minute, Graziano Pellè sealed it in stoppage time, 2-0, and Italy had their third clean sheet of the tournament. That was the whole idea of Antonio Conte's side: not a forward line to fear, but a back three of Chiellini, Bonucci and Barzagli who had played together at Juventus every week and did not need to talk. Germany ended it in the quarter-final, 6-5 on penalties.
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CB Leonardo Bonucci Italy 2016
Leonardo Bonucci
Ceiling 108 at CB · Antonio Conte gets it there · Defensive Awareness 85 → 102
Bonucci's Euro 2016 started with one pass. On 13 June his long ball found Emanuele Giaccherini for the opener in a 2-0 win over Belgium. Against Spain in the round of 16 he was Man of the Match in another 2-0. Then Bordeaux, 2 July, 38,764 inside: Mesut Özil put Germany ahead in the 65th minute and the player who walked up to equalise from the spot in the 78th was a centre-back. In the shoot-out Manuel Neuer saved his kick and Germany went through 6-5. A defender who passed like a playmaker and took the penalty nobody else wanted.
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CB Anticipated Standouts 26-27
Jan Paul van Hecke
Ceiling 107 at CB · L. Spalletti gets it there · Aggression 83 → 101 · booster added Defending +1
A centre-back gets famous the season his team stops needing to defend. Van Hecke played 36 of Brighton's 38 league games in 2025-26 and finished second in the entire division for passes, with only two players in it touching the ball more often. He had already taken both Player of the Season awards at the Amex in 2024-25, and had played 118 times there across three seasons. Tottenham signed him on 18 June 2026, a Netherlands international with a World Cup behind him and the ball at his feet by design. This card is the year the passing was the point.
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CF Anticipated Standouts 26-27
João Pedro
Ceiling 108 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Offensive Awareness 82 → 99 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
Brighton sold him in July 2025 and within weeks he had won a world title with somebody else. João Pedro scored twice in the Club World Cup semi-final and once more in the final, then spent a first Chelsea season proving the summer was no accident: 20 goals, 15 of them in the league, a first top-flight hat-trick at Aston Villa, a brace at Napoli. He finished on 49 appearances and took Player of the Season with more than 60 per cent of the vote. Only 11 Chelsea players have ever scored 20 in a debut campaign in the Premier League era. This card is the year the fee stopped being the story.
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AMF Anticipated Standouts 26-27
Florian Wirtz
Ceiling 107 at AMF · Xabi Alonso gets it there · Ball Control 82 → 104
A hundred million pounds buys a great many opinions. Wirtz left Bayer Leverkusen for Liverpool on 20 June 2025, the largest fee the Bundesliga has ever collected and the largest Liverpool has ever paid, and answered in the least theatrical way available: an assist on debut in the Community Shield, two more at Eintracht Frankfurt in October, a first Premier League assist at Tottenham on 20 December, a first goal for the club on 27 December. The German Footballer of the Year of 2025 had already won a Bundesliga and a DFB-Pokal before any of it. This card is the season the transfer fee stopped doing the talking.
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DMF POTW 17 Sep '26
Elliot Anderson
Ceiling ≥102 at DMF · Thomas Tuchel gets it there · Stamina 93 → 97
A POTW card is one week of football, and this one ends at Old Trafford. On 13 September 2026 Manchester City won there 1-0 in front of 74,161 with ten men for most of it, Phil Foden sent off in the 23rd minute and Erling Haaland scoring in the 60th. Five days before that they had won 2-0 at Porto in the opening matchday of the Champions League, and the week closed with 4 league wins out of 4 and 12 points. A midfield that has to hold a derby short-handed is the whole test, and the midfielder City had bought from Nottingham Forest for a reported 116 million pounds on 23 July 2026 was standing in it. This is the week the fee stopped being the story.
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RWF POTW European Club Championship 17 Sep '26
Lamine Yamal
Ceiling ≥103 at RWF · R. Martínez gets it there · Acceleration 90 → 93
This card is one night of the Champions League. On 9 September 2026 at the Camp Nou, in front of 45,838, Barcelona beat Feyenoord 5-1: Raphinha in the 3rd and the 57th, Karim Adeyemi in the 22nd, Yamal in the 77th and Gabriel Jesus in the 85th, with Sem Steijn scoring for Feyenoord in the 82nd. What made the night different from the other big wins was what happened when Raphinha came off. The armband went to a player of 19, born on 13 July 2007, who became the youngest captain in the club's history. A goal is a thing a teenager can score anywhere. Being handed that team is not.
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GK Kawashima Eiji Kawasaki Frontale 2009
Kawashima Eiji
Ceiling 105 at GK · Ronald Koeman gets it there · GK Awareness 83 → 98 · booster added Goalkeeping +1
The 2009 season is the one that turned Kawashima into a goalkeeper the whole league had to talk about. He was Kawasaki Frontale's first choice and their vice-captain that year. Between 10 May 2009 and 1 July 2009 the club won six league games in a row, and in the middle of it he kept three straight clean sheets, against Oita Trinita on 20 June 2009, Montedio Yamagata on 28 June 2009 and Gamba Osaka on 1 July 2009. Kawasaki finished the season as runners-up behind Kashima Antlers, and he took both the J.League Best Eleven and, for the first time in his career, the Individual Fair-Play award. After the 2010 World Cup he left Japan for Lierse.
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LWF Inui Takashi Cerezo Osaka 2010
Inui Takashi
Ceiling 104 at LWF · D. Deschamps gets it there · Ball Control 84 → 101 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
Cerezo Osaka had just come up when the 2010 season started, and they finished 3rd in it, which took them into the following year's AFC Champions League behind champions Nagoya Grampus. Inui was a Cerezo player from 2009 to 2011, 94 league games and 29 goals, after a first spell on loan in 2008 that ran to 20 appearances and 6 goals. A promoted side does not finish that high on structure alone; it finishes there because somebody keeps running at defenders one against one every time the ball arrives. He went to VfL Bochum in 2011 and to Eintracht Frankfurt in July 2012. This is the season Europe started watching.
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RWF Nagai Kensuke Nagoya Grampus 2012
Nagai Kensuke
Ceiling 104 at RWF · D. Deschamps gets it there · Acceleration 82 → 96 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
2012 is the fastest year of Kensuke Nagai. He spent two seasons at Nagoya Grampus, from 2011 to 2012, 57 league games and 13 goals, in a side run by Dragan Stojkovic that had taken the club's first league title in 2010. Nagoya finished 7th in 2012, and his name travelled a good deal further than that, because he was picked in Japan's squad for the 2012 Olympic tournament. Pace like his is not a thing a plan solves; it is a thing a back four has to keep allowing for, for ninety minutes. He moved to Standard Liege in January 2013 and was loaned back to Nagoya from August 2013 to June 2014.
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GK Edwin van der Sar Netherlands 1998
Edwin van der Sar
Ceiling 108 at GK · Ronald Koeman gets it there · GK Awareness 84 → 100 · booster added Goalkeeping +1
A goalkeeper's tournament is measured in the goals he could not stop, and in 1998 there were two of them. Van der Sar carried the Netherlands to the semi-finals, where Ronaldo scored in the 46th minute at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille on 7 July 1998 and Patrick Kluivert answered in the 87th in front of 54,000. Extra time settled nothing and Brazil won the shoot-out 4-2. In the quarter-final Dennis Bergkamp had brought down a long pass and scored in the last minute against Argentina, which is the goal everyone still plays back from that summer. Three major tournaments in a row ended for him on penalties, Euro 1996, this one and Euro 2000, and this is the card of the one that came closest.
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RWF George Best Northern Ireland 1970
George Best
Ceiling 109 at RWF · R. Martínez gets it there · Dribbling 87 → 102
Northern Ireland never reached a World Cup or a European Championship in the years George Best could have played in one, and that is the fact this card keeps returning to. He was capped 37 times between 1964 and 1977 and scored 9 goals, and the best of him was spent somewhere else. In 1968 he took the European Cup with Manchester United and the Ballon d'Or ahead of Bobby Charlton, Dragan Dzajic and Franz Beckenbauer. Two seasons later, on 7 February 1970, he scored six goals in an 8-2 FA Cup win at Northampton Town, a record nobody has touched since. This is the card of a country that could not give him a stage, in the year he built one himself.
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RWF Gareth Bale Wales 2016
Gareth Bale
Ceiling 108 at RWF · D. Deschamps gets it there · Kicking Power 82 → 101
Wales had not been to a major tournament since the 1958 World Cup when they arrived at Euro 2016. Bale scored 7 in qualifying, more than anyone else in the squad, played every match of the finals and scored 3 more. The night it all met was 1 July 2016 at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, where Radja Nainggolan put Belgium ahead in the 13th minute and Ashley Williams, Hal Robson-Kanu and Sam Vokes answered in the 31st, the 55th and the 86th in front of 45,936. Portugal closed it 2-0 in the semi-final on 6 July 2016 through Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani. This is the card of the summer a small country went further than anyone had planned for.
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CB Carles Puyol Spain 2008
Carles Puyol
Ceiling 107 at CB · L. Spalletti gets it there · Aggression 85 → 101 · booster added Defending +1
Before 2008, the last thing Spain had won was the European Championship of 1964. That ended on the night of 29 June 2008 at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion in Vienna, 1-0, Fernando Torres in the 33rd minute and UEFA's man of the match. Puyol started every game but one at that tournament, and in the 5 he played Spain conceded 2 goals. The side is remembered for keeping the ball, which is the half of it anybody can see; the other half was a defender who would not let the plan be broken into. He finished with 100 caps and a 2010 World Cup to go with this.
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AMF Tomáš Rosický Czechia 2006
Tomáš Rosický
Ceiling 107 at AMF · R. Martínez gets it there · Ball Control 85 → 99 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
The Czech Republic opened the 2006 World Cup with ninety minutes that looked like the whole tournament was theirs. On 12 June 2006 at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, in front of 52,000, Jan Koller scored inside the opening minutes and Rosicky added two, in the 36th and the 76th, to beat the United States 3-0. The first of his was hit from 30 yards, 27 metres, and is the goal that still opens every clip of him. He had scored 7 in 12 qualifying matches, the last of them the only goal of the play-off second leg against Norway that put the team in Germany at all. The Czechs then went out in the group, which is why this card is one night rather than a summer.
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CF 19 Jun '00 Alessandro Del Piero Big Time Italy 19 Jun '00
Alessandro Del Piero
Ceiling 108 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Curl 83 → 106
This card is pinned to one day, 19 June 2000. At the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven, in front of 30,000, Luigi Di Biagio put Italy ahead in the 39th minute and Henrik Larsson levelled for Sweden in the 77th, and the game was heading for the kind of draw nobody keeps. Del Piero scored in the 88th. That 2-1 sent Sweden home and sent Italy on, all the way to a final France won 2-1 with a golden goal from David Trezeguet. A group game decided in its last two minutes is a small thing to build a card on, until you notice everything that came after it.
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AMF Wesley Sneijder Internazionale Milano 10-11
Wesley Sneijder
Ceiling 107 at AMF · R. Martínez gets it there · Low Pass 83 → 100
The season after a treble is the one nobody plans for. Sneijder started it by winning the Supercoppa Italiana 3-1 against Roma on 21 August 2010, was named by UEFA the best club midfielder in the Champions League five days later, and by October stood 4th in the Ballon d'Or, behind a Messi nobody was beating that year. Inter then changed coach at Christmas and lost him to injury for part of January, and still ended the calendar year as champions of the world and the season with the Coppa Italia. He played 39 games and scored 7 in a side that finished 2nd. This card is the year he had to prove the last one was not luck.
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LB Nagatomo Yuto Internazionale Milano 10-11
Nagatomo Yuto
Ceiling 106 at LB · Cristian Chivu gets it there · Stamina 84 → 102 · booster added Off the Ball +1
When this season kicked off he was not an Inter player at all. Nagatomo arrived on loan from Cesena on 31 January 2011, in the swap that sent Davide Santon the other way, the first East Asian player the club had signed. He came in off an Asian Cup won with Japan days earlier and took the number 55. His debut was on 6 February, on for Sneijder in a 5-3 win over Roma. By May he had 19 games and 2 goals, one of them at San Siro against Genoa in the 84th minute. A half-season loan to plug a gap turned into a left back the club stopped looking to replace.
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RB Javier Zanetti Internazionale Milano 10-11
Javier Zanetti
Ceiling 106 at RB · Cristian Chivu gets it there · Stamina 84 → 101 · booster added Off the Ball +1
Everything around him changed that year. Inter swapped coaches at Christmas, the treble side came apart a player at a time, and the title was gone by spring. Zanetti played 52 games in that season, 35 of them in the league, at 37. In January he passed Giuseppe Bergomi for Serie A appearances, which at this club is the record that means something. He had signed on for two more years the previous August. The team he captained finished 2nd, won the Coppa Italia and came back from December as champions of the world. Sides fell apart and were rebuilt around him, and the right side of Inter never once had to be filled.
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CB Summer Transfer 10 Sep '26
John Stones
Ceiling 106 at CB · Antonio Conte gets it there · Defensive Awareness 82 → 102
A free transfer is not a cheap one. Stones left Manchester City as a free agent in the summer of 2026 and signed a two-year deal at Inter Milan, reported at around €4m a season. Juventus, Newcastle United and Atlético Madrid all asked first. He chose the side that had just won Serie A. He was 32, which for a centre-half who reads the game is not the end of anything.
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CB Summer Transfer 10 Sep '26
Ronald Araújo
Ceiling 106 at CB · Antonio Conte gets it there · Tackling 83 → 101 · booster added Defending +1
A loan is not a trial. It is both sides buying time to decide. Liverpool took Araújo from Barcelona for the season in August 2026 with a £47m option to buy written into it, and he has played 4 times so far. The back line he joined is at a junction: Virgil van Dijk is 35, Joe Gomez 29, both in the last year of their contracts. Araújo says he can already picture staying, and the club has a season to say it back.
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SS Summer Transfer 10 Sep '26
Maghnes Akliouche
Ceiling 106 at SS · R. Martínez gets it there · Dribbling 86 → 100 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
Monaco raise players like this and then have to sell them. Akliouche came through their academy, gave the club 109 league games and 18 goals, and left in August 2026 for Paris Saint-Germain in a deal reported at 50 million euros, on a contract to 2031 with the number 11 waiting for him. Paris had a hole to fill after Lee Kang-in went to Atletico Madrid. He was 24, fresh from a World Cup squad and already carrying an Olympic silver from 2024. This card is not a career. It is one summer, the one where a Monaco academy boy became the 11 in Paris.
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CF POTW 10 Sep '26
Lautaro Martínez
Ceiling ≥103 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Acceleration 90 → 93
This card is one week of football, and the week was ninety minutes long. Napoli were 2-0 up at San Siro on 5 September 2026, scoring twice inside four minutes after half time in front of 75,423. Lautaro pulled one back on 56, Thuram levelled on 82, and the captain finished it himself in the first minute of stoppage time. A comeback like that is not a season and it is not a run of form. It is one evening a striker decides the game is not being lost, and POTW is how the game says so.
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GK Petr Čech Chelsea B 05-06
Petr Čech
Ceiling 109 at GK · Ronald Koeman gets it there · GK Awareness 86 → 101
On 29 April 2006 Chelsea beat Manchester United 3-0 at Stamford Bridge and the title was settled, a second in a row in the club's centenary season. Both sides scored 72 league goals that year. Chelsea conceded 22 and United 34, which is the whole of it. Čech played 41 games in all competitions, 34 of them in the league, behind a side that won 18 at home and lost none there. The season before this card he had set the Premier League record of 24 clean sheets in a campaign, and nobody has been near it since.
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DMF Claude Makélélé Chelsea B 05-06
Claude Makélélé
Ceiling 107 at DMF · L. Spalletti gets it there · Tackling 85 → 102 · booster added Duelling +1
Most people remember a defensive midfielder for the tackles. Chelsea's that season was remembered for standing in the right place. Mourinho played Makélélé at the base of a 4-3-3 so Lampard and Essien could leave, and the job ended up carrying his name. He started 31 of the 36 games the title run needed, at 33, with opponents by then sending someone to follow him around. His team-mates voted him the club's player of the year, which is the vote that counts when the numbers cannot see you.
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CB Jaap Stam Manchester United 98-99
Jaap Stam
Ceiling 108 at CB · Antonio Conte gets it there · Defensive Awareness 83 → 102 · booster added Defending +1
A club-record fee in the summer of 1998 did not buy Manchester United a defender. It bought them a back line that could be left alone. Stam came from PSV Eindhoven and played 51 games in his first season, the cover that let Denis Irwin and Gary Neville go forward and stay there. United lost five matches all season and one at home in the league. It finished with the title, the FA Cup and a Champions League final turned around against Bayern Munich, 2-1, on 26 May 1999, the first treble an English club had won, and UEFA made him its Defender of the Year in 1999 and again in 2000.
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LB Brasileirão Betano Selection 3 Sep '26
Alex Telles
Ceiling 105 at LB · Cristian Chivu gets it there · Speed 82 → 99 · booster added Off the Ball +1
An attacking full-back is a luxury until he is the one scoring in the final. Telles came home on 3 September 2024 to sign for Botafogo, and on 1 December he started the Copa Libertadores final and scored his first goal for them in a 3-1 win, a title that changed what the club is. In 2026 he is their captain. The road there was long: Juventude to Grêmio in 2013, the year he was voted the best left-back in Brazil, then Galatasaray from January 2014 for a league title, two Turkish Cups and a Super Cup, a season on loan at Inter, and Porto from July 2016. Brazil capped him in 2019, and a knee ended his 2022 World Cup against Cameroon.
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DMF Brasileirão Betano Selection 3 Sep '26
Jorginho
Ceiling 105 at DMF · L. Spalletti gets it there · Defensive Awareness 77 → 96 · booster added Duelling +1
He left Brazil at 15 and came back an Italy international. In between: 160 games for Napoli with a Coppa Italia, Chelsea from 2018 with a Europa League and then the Champions League of 2020-21, Arsenal in 2023 for £12 million, a European Championship with Italy, a place in its team of the tournament, and in 2021 the UEFA Men's Player of the Year award, which no other Italian has ever won, plus third in the Ballon d'Or. On 6 June 2025 he signed for Flamengo until July 2028, and his first goal for them was a penalty against Bayern Munich at the Club World Cup on 29 June. The Brasileirão is the league he never played in until now.
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CF Brasileirão Betano Selection 3 Sep '26
K. Viveros
Ceiling 105 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Acceleration 81 → 97 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
The top scorer of the 2026 Brasileirão is not Brazilian and does not play for one of the big clubs. Kevin Viveros is Colombian, he plays for Athletico Paranaense, and he had 18 league goals, three clear of Flamengo's Pedro on 15. The route to that was Carabobo, Deportivo Cali, Sarajevo and La Equidad, then Atlético Nacional, where he won the Colombian league and cup in 2024 and scored twice in a 3-1 Copa Libertadores win over Internacional on 8 May 2025. The Brazilian season he leads runs from 28 January to 2 December, with a month and a half taken out of the middle of it for a World Cup.
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LMF Brasileirão Betano Selection 3 Sep '26
Jhon Arias
Ceiling 106 at LMF · Thomas Tuchel gets it there · Acceleration 84 → 97 · booster added Off the Ball +1
Six months in the Premier League and then back again is a story nobody tells well, so read the numbers instead. Arias left Fluminense for Wolverhampton Wanderers on 24 July 2025 on a four-year deal, and on 7 February 2026 he was in Brazil again, at Palmeiras, three years, €25 million paid in instalments across four. What he brought with him was a Copa Libertadores from 2023, a Recopa Sudamericana from 2024, and a place in the team of the tournament of the Libertadores, of the Brasileirão and of the 2025 Club World Cup. Colombia started him in a 3-1 win over Uzbekistan at the 2026 World Cup on 17 June.
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AMF POTW 3 Sep '26
Bruno Fernandes
Ceiling ≥103 at AMF · R. Martínez gets it there · Kicking Power 88 → 91
One week is the whole unit a Player of the Week card is cut from, and his had both halves of a season inside it. On 22 August 2026 Manchester United lost 2-0 at Hull City and sat 17th. On 30 August, at Old Trafford, in front of 74,148, they beat Ipswich Town 5-2 and three of the goals were his: the 40th minute, a penalty on 61, another on 68. Jacob Greaves turned one into his own net and Bryan Mbeumo added the fifth. Nothing about the table had been settled. The week had.
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CF Francesco Totti Roma GR 06-07
Francesco Totti
Ceiling 108 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Finishing 81 → 98 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
The best season of his life, by the numbers, was 2006-07: 26 goals in Serie A and the league's top scorer, six more between the Champions League and the Coppa Italia, 15 assists in 50 games. On 17 June 2007 he collected the European Golden Shoe as the leading scorer on the continent. Roma came second, went out of Europe to Manchester United in the quarter-finals, and beat the champions Inter over two legs for the Coppa Italia, 6-2 at home and 2-1 down at San Siro. The first goal of that home leg took him 50 seconds. He had gone to the previous summer's World Cup with a metal plate in his ankle.
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CF Adriano Internazionale Milano 05-06
Adriano
Ceiling 108 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Kicking Power 84 → 100
Inter took the 2005-06 Scudetto and the Coppa Italia, and the man at the centre of the title was Adriano. They called him L'Imperatore, and in 2005 the IFFHS made him the world's leading goalscorer; he had come sixth in the 2004 Ballon d'Or and seventh in 2005. The season before he had scored 28, two of them in the first leg of a Coppa Italia final that ended a 23-year wait. He had come back to Inter in January 2004 for about €23.4 million. The other thing everybody remembers is the decline that started when his father died in 2004, which he has since described plainly: he became an alcoholic. He went home in 2009, won a Brasileirão with Flamengo and another with Corinthians, and stopped in 2016 at 34.
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CF Andriy Shevchenko AC Milan 02-03
Andriy Shevchenko
Ceiling 108 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Acceleration 83 → 99 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
The 2003 final at Old Trafford, on 28 May, was the first the Champions League had held between two Italian clubs, and it finished the way that sentence predicts: 0-0 after extra time, with neither side willing to open a door. The shoot-out was where the goals went. Dida saved three, Buffon saved two, and the man who walked up to settle it was Shevchenko, who did. Milan won 3-2 for a sixth European Cup, nine years after the last one. They had won the Coppa Italia too, and had finished third in Serie A behind Juventus and Inter, which is how a treble gets away from a team that was better than everyone in the games that were watched.
23 cards
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SS Japanese Stars 31 Aug '26
Maeda Daizen
Ceiling 104 at SS · Xabi Alonso gets it there · Acceleration 86 → 97
The last month of his Celtic career reads like a highlight reel somebody edited too generously: goals in five consecutive league matches, an overhead kick against Rangers, the second goal in the 87th minute of a 3-1 at Hearts on the final day, 16 May 2026, which turned the club's record 56th title into arithmetic, and then the opening goal of the Scottish Cup final, lobbed from the edge of the box. He left in July for Ipswich Town with 5 championships, 3 Scottish Cups and 2 League Cups, as the players' player of the year of 2024-25, having arrived as the J1 League's top scorer of 2021.
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CB Japanese Stars 31 Aug '26
Tomiyasu Takehiro
Ceiling 105 at CB · L. Spalletti gets it there · Defensive Awareness 81 → 100 · booster added Defending +1
A centre-back who can play either full-back position is the most useful player in a squad until his body decides otherwise. Tomiyasu's Arsenal contract, bought from Bologna in 2021 for up to £17 million, was ended by mutual agreement in 2025 after a run of injuries. Ajax took him as a free agent that December, for half a season, only the second Japanese player in the club's history after Ko Itakura, and when it expired Crystal Palace signed him on 7 August 2026. The Japan team he plays for went to the 2022 and 2026 World Cups with him in it, and the JPFA named him in its Best XI three years running from 2022.
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DMF Japanese Stars 31 Aug '26
Morita Hidemasa
Ceiling 105 at DMF · L. Spalletti gets it there · Stamina 84 → 97 · booster added Duelling +1
A defensive midfielder's career is measured in the things that did not happen, so the numbers are the part that reads: two J1 titles at Kawasaki Frontale, in 2018 and 2020, with an Emperor's Cup, then two Primeira Liga titles at Sporting CP and a Portuguese cup, and a 150th appearance for that club on 4 March 2026, a 1-0 over Porto. In May he said he would not renew, and on 24 July 2026 he signed for Hull City for two years with an option on a third. He has been Japan's since a debut against Costa Rica in 2018.
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CMF Summer Transfer 27 Aug '26
Youri Tielemans
Ceiling 106 at CMF · Thomas Tuchel gets it there · Low Pass 84 → 101 · booster added Offence Creator +1
One shot from distance is the whole of his reputation in England, and it was worth an FA Cup: the 63rd minute of the 2021 final, against Chelsea, Leicester City's first. Everything after it has been quieter. A free transfer to Aston Villa in 2023, 134 appearances in three seasons, a Europa League in 2025-26, and then a £35 million release clause Manchester United triggered on 15 July 2026, five years, the second midfielder they bought that summer after the £50 million Andrey Santos. He had left Leicester with 28 goals in 195 games. He captains Belgium, and he has been playing in the Champions League since he was 16 years and 148 days old.
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DMF Summer Transfer 27 Aug '26
Bruno Guimarães
Ceiling 106 at DMF · Thomas Tuchel gets it there · Tackling 80 → 97 · booster added Duelling +1
Newcastle United had not won a domestic trophy in 70 years, or anything at all in 56, when their captain lifted the Carabao Cup on 16 March 2025 after beating Liverpool in the final. Seventeen months later he was Arsenal's, for a reported £75 million, on 8 August 2026. The route there ran from Athletico Paranaense to Lyon for a reported €20 million, from Lyon to Newcastle for up to £40 million in January 2022, and then through four and a half years as the player a rebuilt club was arranged around. He had said it himself at the final: this is my second home.
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RWF Summer Transfer 27 Aug '26
Karim Adeyemi
Ceiling 106 at RWF · R. Martínez gets it there · Balance 82 → 101
36.65 kilometres per hour is the fastest anybody has been measured in the Bundesliga, and that was him, on 4 February 2023. Borussia Dortmund got 36 goals in 146 games out of that speed, including a Champions League hat-trick in a 7-1 against Celtic that only Lewandowski and Reus had managed for the club before him. Barcelona paid a reported €29 million on 23 July 2026 and gave him five years, and the manager who signed him, Hansi Flick, is the one who handed him his Germany debut in 2021. He scored on his debut for them on 23 August 2026, away at Elche, in a 5-0.
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LB POTW 27 Aug '26
Riccardo Calafiori
Ceiling ≥103 at LB · Cristian Chivu gets it there · Stamina 90 → 94
23 seconds is not enough time to settle into a final, which is the entire point: Myles Lewis-Skelly put him through and Calafiori had scored the fastest goal a Community Shield final has ever seen, on 16 August 2026, in a 3-0 against Manchester City. Five days later he set up Kai Havertz for the first goal of Arsenal's league season, another 3-0. He had finished the previous one as the third Italian ever to win a Premier League, after Mario Balotelli in 2012 and Federico Chiesa in 2025, which for a defender bought from Bologna two summers earlier is a fast way to build a medal collection.
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CB Alessandro Nesta Italy 2000
Alessandro Nesta
Ceiling 108 at CB · L. Spalletti gets it there · Defensive Awareness 85 → 105 · booster added Defending +1
The tournament that turned Italy's defence into the story was not a clean one for Nesta. In the semi-final in Amsterdam on 29 June 2000 it was his foul on Patrick Kluivert that gave the Netherlands a penalty, and Toldo who saved it. Italy had been down to 10 men since the 34th minute; Kluivert put a second penalty against the post; 120 minutes finished goalless and Italy won the shoot-out. Two goals conceded in five matches took them to the final, and on 2 July 2000 that held until the fourth minute of stoppage time, when Wiltord equalised, and until extra time, when Trezeguet ended it 2-1.
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CB Paolo Maldini Italy 2000
Paolo Maldini
Ceiling 109 at CB · L. Spalletti gets it there · Defensive Awareness 84 → 101 · booster added Defending +1
Four minutes of stoppage time was all Italy had left to hold, and Maldini was the man holding it. Marco Delvecchio had scored in the 56th minute at De Kuip on 2 July 2000, and 48,100 people were waiting for the whistle when Sylvain Wiltord equalised. Trezeguet ended it with a golden goal, 2-1. Italy had conceded 2 goals in 5 matches to get there. Their captain finished his international career the way he had spent it: four World Cups, three European Championships, the all-star team every time, 126 caps, 7 goals, and nothing won with Italy.
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CB Fabio Cannavaro Italy 2000
Fabio Cannavaro
Ceiling 108 at CB · Antonio Conte gets it there · Tackling 87 → 103
Italy played the semi-final with 10 men from the 34th minute and did not concede: Toldo saved Frank de Boer's penalty, Kluivert hit the post with another, and 120 minutes finished goalless before the hosts went out on penalties in Amsterdam. That was the defence Cannavaro stood in the middle of, 2 goals conceded in 5 matches on the way to Rotterdam. In the final he was booked in the first half for a foul on Thierry Henry, and early in the second half he blocked Henry's shot after Zidane had put him through. It held until the fourth minute of stoppage time, and then Trezeguet ended it in extra time, 2-1.
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AMF POTW 20 Aug '26
Martin Ødegaard
Ceiling ≥103 at AMF · Xabi Alonso gets it there · Ball Control 90 → 94
A Player of the Week card for a week with one match in it. On 16 August 2026 Arsenal beat Manchester City 3-0 in the Community Shield, the club's 18th, and the captain had a hand in two of the goals: a curled cross for Kai Havertz to head in, and then the third himself, taking Christos Tzolis's pass inside the box, sending Gianluigi Donnarumma the wrong way with a feint and rolling it into an empty net. Riccardo Calafiori had already scored in the 23rd second, the fastest goal a Community Shield final has ever seen. Champions against the FA Cup winners, settled before anyone had sat down.
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RWF Tijani Babangida Nigeria 1998
Tijani Babangida
Ceiling 104 at RWF · D. Deschamps gets it there · Speed 85 → 103
A 4-1 defeat is not a match anybody keeps, and inside it is the only goal Nigeria scored in the knockout round of 1998, and it is his. Babangida played four games at that World Cup, on the right, where his pace was the entire argument: at Ajax they compared him to Marc Overmars. Nigeria had taken Group D with 6 points, beating Spain 3-2 in Nantes and Bulgaria 1-0 in Paris, and then met Denmark in Saint-Denis and were pulled apart. He spent nine years in the Netherlands, won Olympic gold in 1996, and played more than 30 times for his country.
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GK Nishikawa Shusaku Urawa Reds 2016
Nishikawa Shusaku
Ceiling 105 at GK · Ronald Koeman gets it there · GK Awareness 84 → 100 · booster added Goalkeeping +1
Urawa Red Diamonds took more points in 2016 than anyone in Japan, 74 from 34 games, 23 wins, and conceded 28 goals, fewer than any other club in the division. They were not champions. The J1 League was decided by a championship stage, and after winning the first leg 1-0 at Kashima on 29 November 2016 they lost the second 1-2 at Saitama Stadium on 3 December. The tie was 2-2 and Kashima Antlers went through on away goals. Nishikawa kept the best defence in the country and was named in the J.League Best XI for a fifth straight year, from 2012. What he won that season was the J.League Cup.
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CMF Shibasaki Gaku Kashima Antlers 2016
Shibasaki Gaku
Ceiling 104 at CMF · Thomas Tuchel gets it there · Low Pass 83 → 100 · booster added Offence Creator +1
For eight minutes of the Club World Cup final, from the 52nd to the 60th, Kashima Antlers were beating Real Madrid, and both of their goals were Shibasaki's: one just before half time, one from outside the box. They had reached the final by beating Atlético Nacional 3-0, the first Asian club ever to get there. Madrid answered through a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty on 60 minutes and two more in extra time, on 98 and 104, and won 4-2 on 18 December 2016. Kashima had finished third in Japan's aggregate table that year with 59 points and taken the title through the championship stage.
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SS Usami Takashi Gamba Osaka 2014
Usami Takashi
Ceiling 105 at SS · R. Martínez gets it there · Ball Control 83 → 99 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
Gamba Osaka spent 2013 in the second division. They came back up and won everything in Japan in 2014: the J1 League, the Emperor's Cup and the J.League Cup, under Kenta Hasegawa, with the league settled by a 0-0 draw away at Tokushima Vortis in December. Usami was the top scorer of that treble, 10 in the league and 21 in all competitions. Three years earlier he had gone to Bayern Munich on loan, scored in the DFB-Pokal against Ingolstadt on 26 October 2011, and then managed 2 goals in 21 matches at Hoffenheim. The player who came home was not the one who had left.
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AMF Jay-Jay Okocha Nigeria 1998
Jay-Jay Okocha
Ceiling 105 at AMF · R. Martínez gets it there · Ball Control 88 → 101 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
The opening game is the one everybody kept: Nigeria 3-2 against Spain in Nantes, on a night the Super Eagles played as though the tournament belonged to them. It did not. Bulgaria were beaten 1-0, Paraguay won 3-1, the group was won with 6 points, and then Denmark took the round of 16 apart, 4-1. The first week is the reason the world looked, and Okocha was in the middle of it. The market agreed: Paris Saint-Germain paid around £14 million after the finals, more than any African player had cost, and got 84 matches and 12 goals across four years. He finished with 73 caps and 14 goals for Nigeria, and a record of 15 dribbles completed in one match, set four years earlier against Italy.
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CF Nwankwo Kanu Nigeria 1998
Nwankwo Kanu
Ceiling 105 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Offensive Awareness 78 → 95 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
In the summer of 1996 he captained the Olympic champions, scored twice in the closing minutes of a 4-3 win over Brazil from 2-3 down, and was named African Footballer of the Year. Then a medical at Inter Milan found a malformed aortic valve and the doctors told him his career was finished. Massimo Moratti paid for the surgery in Cleveland, in November 1996, and Kanu did not play for his club again until April 1997. This card is the Nigeria of 1998, which means a man who had been told he would never play again, at a World Cup, in a side that won Group D before Denmark beat it 4-1.
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RB Summer Transfer 17 Aug '26
Denzel Dumfries
Ceiling 105 at RB · Cristian Chivu gets it there · Stamina 83 → 100 · booster added Off the Ball +1
Five years at Inter ended on one clause: Real Madrid activated it and Inter announced the move on 5 July 2026. He left with 207 matches, 27 goals, 28 assists and 8 trophies, and with a Champions League semi-final that belongs to him. At Montjuïc against Barcelona he scored with a bicycle kick and with a header, and set up Thuram before either of them; across the two legs he finished with two goals and three assists. His last season brought 11 goals, more than any other, a brace against Atalanta in the Supercoppa in Saudi Arabia, and two more at Como with the title still to be won.
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AMF Summer Transfer 17 Aug '26
Morgan Rogers
Ceiling 106 at AMF · R. Martínez gets it there · Dribbling 83 → 98 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
Aston Villa paid a reported £8 million for him on 1 February 2024, rising to £15 million with add-ons, and a sell-on clause owed Manchester City a quarter of it. Two and a half years later Chelsea paid £117 million, more than any British player has ever cost, on a seven-year deal signed on 22 July 2026, beating the £116 million Manchester City had agreed for Elliot Anderson earlier that month. Between those two numbers he won the 2025-26 Europa League with Villa, was their young player of the season in 2024-25, and finished third at the 2026 World Cup with England. He had left Manchester City without a single first-team appearance.
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CMF Summer Transfer 17 Aug '26
Elliot Anderson
Ceiling 107 at CMF · Thomas Tuchel gets it there · Ball Control 83 → 100
Two summers before this card, on 1 July 2024, Nottingham Forest bought a midfielder from Newcastle United. By the end of 2025-26 he led the Premier League for touches, for duels won, for fouls won and for possessions won, all four at once, which is one player doing the work of a structure. Manchester City agreed the deal on 2 July 2026 and he signed for five years on 23 July. The reported £116 million was a record for an English footballer, and it stood until 22 July, when Chelsea paid £117 million for Morgan Rogers, the day before Anderson had signed anything. On 13 September 2026 he was man of the match in a 1-0 win at Old Trafford.
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CB Gary Cahill Chelsea B 16-17
Gary Cahill
Ceiling 106 at CB · L. Spalletti gets it there · Defensive Awareness 82 → 101 · booster added Defending +1
The back three Conte settled on was Cahill, David Luiz and César Azpilicueta, built on 1 October 2016 out of defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal. Chelsea then won all four league games that October without conceding one, scoring 11, and kept going until they had won 13 in a row. They let in 33 goals in 38 matches and finished on 93 points with 30 wins, a record for the league. Cahill's own numbers read like a forward's: 6 league goals and 8 in all competitions. His 300th appearance for the club landed in the middle of the run, a 1-0 at Crystal Palace on 17 December 2016.
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CF Diego Costa Chelsea B 16-17
Diego Costa
Ceiling 108 at CF · R. Martínez gets it there · Offensive Awareness 83 → 99
The back three left one striker in front of it, and for one season the loneliest job in England was also the most productive. Costa scored 20 league goals and 22 in all competitions, more than anyone else at a club that scored 85 and conceded 33. On 17 December 2016 his 13th league goal of the season was also his 50th for Chelsea, reached in 97 games, quicker than Didier Drogba had reached it. He had already opened the scoring against the champions, Leicester City, on 15 October 2016. Chelsea won 13 in a row through that autumn and finished on 93 points with 30 wins.
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LWF Eden Hazard Chelsea B 16-17
Eden Hazard
Ceiling 109 at LWF · D. Deschamps gets it there · Dribbling 88 → 100 · booster added Striker's Instinct +1
No European football for the first time since 1996-97 left Conte a full week with one league game in it. He spent the week on a back three, from 1 October 2016, and Hazard is the player that shape was drawn for: the left of a front three, on the ball, with the pitch already pulled open in front of him. He scored 16 in 35 league games and 17 in all competitions, took the Player of the Month award in October 2016, and Chelsea won 13 matches in a row. The title was settled at West Bromwich Albion on 12 May 2017, with 93 points and 30 wins, more than any champion in Premier League history.