Player Review

FIFA 22 is a hard game to score goals on. I am currently in division 2 and the amount of games where it would be 0-0 at half time and end up 1-0 or 1-1 is crazy.

That is... until I bought this beautiful Spanish man.

It seems like this year the gulf in price between cheap meta and top meta is crazy - players like Mbappe, Neymar, Ronaldo are still crazy expensive, but your regular low tier meta players are so much cheaper (Martial, Yedder etc). This makes it very difficult to make upgrades to your squad without buying a million coin player.

This is one of the reasons why Fernando is so good, being at 'only' 300k (which is very obtainable for RTG like me). For his price, I cannot see anyone better. he has completely transformed my team from one that struggled to score into one that bangs in goals for fun. The shooting stat is VERY important this year. Your striker has to have high shooting if you want to score consistently. This is a fact I discovered once I started using Fernando. Put it this way, that Spanish flag is not the only thing Fernando is carrying.

Morientes finishes everything. Keepers are no longer OP when facing the power of this mans shots. Scoring inside the box is no longer an impossibility, and of course Fernando can smack them in with both feet, both power and finesse, from 30+ yards. Now lots of people will look at his dribbling and immediately laugh at how I 'don't understand the meta' - to them I simply laugh and proceed to roulette Lacroix and smash it past Casteels. Morientes (with an engine) feels incredibly responsive. With his shooting being so good, he only needs to create a tiny bit of space to score with either foot, and he can do this with ease. He performs skill moves fantastically (mainly roulette, stop/turn, ball roll, drag back) - his height actually helps him perform skills better due to longer strides.

Another extremely important attribute is physicality and heading. I play a 4-3-2-1 with Morientes as the focal point, and quick wingers either side. Now I am not a cross spammer, but this Spanish behemoth wins every header, and has turned corners almost into penalties if your opponent does not move their keeper.

Lastly, and the most noticeable thing about this card, is his POSITIONING. I have never seen a striker make such intelligent runs, make little movements to find space and receive a driven pass. His pace is incredible, and outstrips the face card stat by a long way. Once he has used his attacking AI to get beyond the defender, there is no stopping him with his pace and physicality. He is by far the easiest player to get through on goal with that I have used. And once there, he makes the chances count.

Worth mentioning his passing too. With Engine he never misplaces a short pass. With a lot of players you notice the low passing stats (eg Haaland) but not with Morientes. I have barely any assists with him because I usually try to take the shot with Fernando, as I can trust it will go in almost every time.

And as if it couldn't get any better, it's so easy to get chemistry with him. He perfect links Llorente and strong links Ousmane and De Jong. Need I say more?