Player Review

92 - Headliners Upgrade

3.5

Close, but not good enough (89 UPDATE!!)

By Dovahklutch, 30-01-2020

Packed him right after his hat trick, so I figured I'd keep him over the weekend and try him out. I don't mind "off-meta" players, so trying him in WL wasn't an issue for me, and his stats looked pretty good. I thought this card had hidden gem potential.

...he's okay, but that's about it. There are a few things that REALLY hamper this card from being a truly elite one. He has very obvious pros and cons, and (sadly tbh) the cons outweigh the pros. Part of this is the way FIFA programs tall players, and part of it is the way his stats are allocated.

For reference, he played all 30 WL games for me this past weekend AND he played an evening of rivals after the 89 live upgrade. I tried him with engine, hawk, and hunter cards.

Let's get to the pros and cons.

Highly skilled, he will make every pass in the game and make every shot in the game.
95 base long shots, 90 base passing, 90 base curve, 95 base dribbling, 95 shot power- you can feel all those stats in game, even in bad connections. Like I said, he is one of the most skilled cards in the game. In terms of passing, the card he felt closest to me was Prime Laudrup.
Finesse shot makes his decent base shooting jump to very good/elite shooting.
4*, 4*, lefty, but his weak foot genuinely felt 5*. Like I said, he will make every pass you can think of with both feet. I also felt no "penalty" when he shot with his right foot. His finesse trait AND base 95 shot power and pseudo 5* WF, make his shooting feel amazing.

This is where the card goes to shit, and it falls mostly on the way FIFA programs tall players. Ilicic has THREE major flaws.

The first his is dribbling. With an engine card, Ilicic falls right behind the :threshold" of usable dribbling stats for tall players - 80 agility, 80 balance. When a tall card has 80/80, they don't feel as clunky and you can take advantage of their dribbling stats. The player I always think of is Firmino, who has base 80/80, which allows you to take advantage of his insane dribbling.

Because Ilicic doesn't have 80/80, you can rarely take advantage of his 99 dribbling. I would be clean on goal or have space, and he would take these god awful touches or look like he was tripping over himself. Other times, you COULD feel his 99 dribbling, but those opportunities were rare, and didn't happen often enough for me to justify the 99 dribbling stats on the card.

The second are his physical stats. He is 6'3 but has little strength and aggression, so you can't really run in behind people because he gets bodied too easily, and you can't take advantage of jump balls because he can't jump or fight for second balls. This kills the card!! Other tall players usually have decent physical stats to make up for their lower dribbling stats, but Ilicic doesn't have them. Players like Socrates, Firmino, Zlatan, Kane, Henry, De Bruyne, Balotelli, etc ALL are strong to compensate for it. Ilicic is one of the tallest, yet weakest players in the game and you feel it!

On top of that, he has low stamina, so after a few bumps and tussles, he's dead by the 70th minute. I tried everything with him, conservative interceptions, possession, etc, but he's too weak and has too little stamina to be effective at the end of a game.

The third are his work rates. M/M by itself isn't a killer, but coupled with his low strength, aggression, and stamina, Ilicic ends up being a passenger most of the game. He has too little stamina to be a central cam and not enough pace to be a winger. The position where he's most effective is as a second striker in a two striker formation.

Formation: 442

Position: CAM

Games: 40

GPG: 0.00

APG: 0.00

3.5

Overall

5.0

Value

3.5

2.5

Stamina

Pace (7/10)

Shooting (9/10)

Passing (10/10)

Dribbling (7/10)

Defending (4/10)

Physicality (5/10)

See All reviews...

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