If you are wondering if you should get Van der Sar or not in your icon swaps i think you should because he is a great goalkeeper he is not better than Ter Stegen because Ter stegen is just broken in this game but for 6 icon swap tokens in my opinion its worth it. Now that i added him into my squad im am having my best weeken league start ever!! i really recommend him.
-HIS SIZE
-HE IS JUST A VERY GOOD GOALKEEPER
-His AI decisions making sometimes is weird specially in corners;
This card's overall legacy derived from FIFA 19 when he was the best keeper in the game. This game he definitely hasn't fulfilled what he did last year but is still a very good keeper. He makes extraordinary saves (ones which other keepers won't perform, a key thing to look out for) and is very trustworthy in goal. However, I feel like he is sometimes prone to mistakes, but I honestly believe that it's the game itself. For an easy 6 icon swaps, he is great for performance and linking reasons.
- Height
- Unique Saves
- Closing 1 on 1s
- Rare mistakes
- Throwing distribution
After completely losing interest in doing icon swaps objectives, I decided to settle for VDS for 6 tokens, which were still fairly easy to obtain with some squad battles and champs. I figured that at some point it will be useful to have an icon goalkeeper for chemistry reasons, and the strong link to the best CB in Fifa is of course nice to have. I've used VDS for the past weekend and can comfortably say that he is at least not worse than any other keeper I've used. Reviewing keepers is always difficult, because they are the only player on the pitch that is mainly controlled by the AI and their performance always seem to be quite random. Ter Stegen is widely considered the best keeper in Fifa 20, and I can't disagree having used him for the majority of this game. Oblak is the second best choice in my experience, but I also know people who prefer Alisson, De Gea and even Areola.
In my experience he is definitely not a bad goalkeeper, but he is not better than for example Ter Stegen either. For that reason it's difficult to justify the price if you buy him of the market, but I'd recommend taking him from swaps if you have 6 extra tokens.
First of all VDS has a huge figure in game. He has a great reach when diving which is great when facing power and finesse shots from outside the penalty box. He doesn't have the same kind of acrobatic jump dive that you get with someone like Ter Stegen, he just sort of falls down sideways and still manages to reach it somehow. If you move your keeper and wants him to have a great reach, VDS is your guy. He is actually alright with the ball as well, not on Edersons level but he can comfortably play a long pass with his feet, and the long throw trait is useful when starting counter attacks.
You would expect a 197cm tall icon keeper with "comes for crosses" trait to be dominating the box, but this was actually the area where he let me down. Sure he gets involved in the crosses and punches most of them away, but he has some weird habit of punching them in the worst direction possible. Same thing goes for rebounds, he may pull off a world class save but too often serves the opponent with rebound opportunities. I let in a few really unlucky rebound goals from the strangest of angles, just because VDS is simply too slow to get up and react.
So when I got van der sar from Icons swaps 2 back about 2 weeks after it came out, he was absolutely class. He would save anything with his massive arms and would stop anything that would come against him, so it was working very well. That was like that until around a few weeks ago. He kept punching the ball from crosses that were super simple to catch and would barely save any one on ones like he did at the beginning. Now, with 400 games under his belt I don't think he's worth the money anymore, so if you need an Icon goalie I would recommend you go for Yashin.
reflexes
catching
kicking
To start i want to say that i'm an elite 3 player and my best this year is 26 wins in champs. I'm also a Liverpool fan so there's no bias here :)
I understand that all keepers in fifa will always make stupid mistakes so I wont rant too much about that. Anyway i took VDS from swaps as last year he was so good for me and I thought he wouldn't be too different this year, to no surprise he wasn't and so far so good. He makes the saves you expect him to save and even gets some ridiculous saves too, His height, positioning and reflexes play massive parts in these BIG saves. My only real problem with this card is the 'come for crosses' trait, i think this trait makes any keeper rebound prone to driven/low crosses?? Whenever my opponent puts in a low cross VDS always dives across and palms the ball rather than catch it (maybe this is also to do with handling). Most the time an opposing player will always be the first to the ball which always results in an easy goal for them. I've tried the 'cautious with crosses' instruction but it still happens... Thankfully crossing isn't really meta in this fifa so it doesn't happen a lot but its still something to note and look out for.
Speed might also be a problem too but i feel that his positioning cancels it out.
Looking at the card from a buyers perspective, i feel any keeper above 300k is only worth it to people who have a great team to go with them. If you don't have that great team (2 million+) maybe consider other keepers even if they'll be on 8 chemistry.
- Height
- Reflexes
- Positioning
- GK Long throw trait
- Price
- Come for crosses trait
- Speed(maybe)
89 Van Der Sar will lose you games. He can be amazing for 20 minutes, making 1 or 2 great saves. Then comes a pearoller or a crap shot which he will flop to the ground and completely miss the ball. I know icon swaps have passed, but don't buy this card under any circumstance. I've been using ter Stegen on 7 chem and find him better. Van Der Sar can't catch the ball, he'll parry everything, save a shit shot and make it look like an Oscar winning perfomance, yet using a non-rare Danny Welbeck you can score a hattrick against him since all he does is do the splits if he faces a shot. Unreliable and just a shocking keeper for an icon. ABSOLUTELY NOT WORTH ANYTHING. I've used 80 rated Ralf Fahrmann who feels 16x better than Van Der Shit.
89 for an sbc
Makes one good save a game
Agility is okay
Can't save shit
Literally terrible
Can't save a pearoller
Him bottling a save are usually the difference between a win or loss
Horrible card
Useless
Terrible
Really bad
If you're considering getting this card with the icon swaps, then don't.
He's absolute garbage. I'd rather use 82 rated Areola, than this card.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR ICON TOKENS ON THIS CARD!!!
ICON
LINKS
AI POSITIONING
REACTIONS
HANDLING
EVERYTHING
For only 6 tokens this is an AMAZING card to use on future SBCs!
Now... Seriously, he is bad, very bad, with any chemistry style! Ter Stegen is better, Lloris is better and even Courtois (with glove chem style, I can really recommend it) is better!
89 rated sbc card
Everything.