Player Review

Hello there,

this is my first review on futbin and I decided to do it on 97 TOTY Mane, because I played about 130 games (only WL and rivals,Gold1-Elite3, ~100 goals, ~60 assists) with him before I sold him 2 days ago.

The relationship between me and this guy already didn't start that well, since I was accidently buying his 91-TOTGS-version for 1.9 Mio first (XBox), which was 900k over the price that date. Nevertheless, I still decided to buy him (sacrificing my defense and parts of my midfield), because I was very impressed by the 90-rated version of him. I paired him up with Messi (and later 90 Del piero) in a 4-4-2 as left striker.

The first games he was fenomenal, but with time, obvious drawbacks became clear.

But first the positive things: his dribbling is very strong and he feels very responsive, similar to 94-Messi. With his aggression, strength (Chemistry style: finisher/architect) and ball control, he doesn't get pushed off the ball easily. This also led to quite a lot of turnovers in my favor. His pace is basically maxed out, so he is hard to catch by most of the defenders. Passing was also good, but nothing special.

The first negative point I want to mention is his inconsistent shooting. He scored a lot of bangers for me inside the box, but also missed quite a lot 100 percenters. Furthermore, I rarely scored outside box goals and finesse shots (even inside the box). Although his curve is almost maxed out with e.g. architect, he mostly missed the goal although I was in perfect position for a finesse shot. Since this happened on a daily basis, I didnt even try to finesse anything with him anymore. His weak foot did also not feel like 4 stars, more like 2 in a lot of situations, especially for long corner shots. For that reason, I barely used his weakfoot to score, it was just not reliable at all.

The second crucial negative aspect is his positioning. For me, he made a lot of bad runs. I often found him on the wing (as St in a 442), or he was playing as a target man (although I set him to "get in behind"). This was very confusing to me, because players like 94-Messi and 90-Del piero made way better runs, although having medium offensive work rates. Because of these two aspects, he got outscored by both, Messi and Del Piero quite significantly.

Other minor drawbacks: - he only scored 1 header for me in 130 games after a corner. With maxed out heading and jumping, I expected a little bit more.

- while sprinting, he occasionally lost possession of the ball

For me, the negative aspects slightly overshadowed the positive ones. I always thought about selling him, but then he performed well again and I kept him. Having a budget of (only) 4 million coins, I cannot recommend him to anybody with less amount of coins. He is not the game changer you may expect, although being not bad at the same time. Maybe I just expected a little bit too much of this card. In terms of comparision, I haven't tried any player in the same price region. The second most expensive striker I played with was 90-butrageno, 94-ronaldo and 90-del piero, which performed at the same level of effectiveness.

This is my honest personal view and impression of this card. He may perform way better for other people, especially taking aspects like scripting into consideration (he was just not meant to score in some situations). I am also only Gold1/Elite3, which may not be the best reputation.