FC 25 92 Icon Beckenbauer Player Review

With the Dreamchasers promo feeling a little bit underwhelming, we decided on a huge change of gears with this weekend's review…  Stopping to go back and look at a recently released, but extremely difficult to get, legend of the game in Franz Beckenbauer.  The German ICON was extinct forever but has now gained manager wide access, so we immediately tossed him into this weekend’s squad. 

I have finally reached the breaking point of “if you can’t beat em, join em” levels of frustration coming up against the 4-2-1-3 formation, and simply had to give it a try myself this weekend.  While it wouldn’t matter at all for Beckenbauer’s positioning, it would still be a weekend of growing pains defensively and a great look at how Beckbauer would carry the backline.  The SHADOW Chemistry Style seemed like the go to for me, but I can see the shout for ANCHOR applications as well.  With that, everything was set for yet another Weekend League battle with General Beckenbauer marshalling the backline all weekend long in the following squad:  

Rating: 9/10

Starting completely off topic, but if you took a second to look at my squad and looked beyond my 4-2-1-3 transgression you would have noted Dreamchaser ICON Xavi in my midfield… That card is absolutely insane… The Passing PlayStyle+ trifecta is as effective as you would imagine and the card gets around the pitch in a hurry.  But back to the task at hand and looking at the latest addition to the game in Franz Beckenbauer.  With the majority of Base ICON options already on their second promo card, there was the risk that Base Beckenbauer would simply be too far behind the curve to be a viable option, but EA kind of brought the juice with the statistics, but spilled the juice with the PlayStyles.

Main Statistic - Defending

Pace Rating: 9/10

Defending Rating: 9/10

Physical Rating: 8/10

PlayStyles: Intercept, Anticipate

The Pace was perhaps the biggest surprise with this card… Not so much that Beckenbauer was able to somehow catch Ousmane Dembele in a footrace despite only 91 ACCELERATION & 89 SPRINT SPEED on a CONTROLLED AcceleRATE with zero PlayStyles… That happens all the time in FC25 (patch or not).  The surprise came with just how agile Beckenbauer felt when jockeying and transitioning out of jockeying and into a sprint.  Many opponent’s attacks broke down in moments where they felt they had a step on Beckenbauer, only to find themselves on the wrong side of the ball, and the scoreline.  

The Defending on the other hand held no surprises as the near perfect statistics produced near perfect results.  Honestly this category is closer to a 10/10 when just considering performances, but the lack of PlayStyles just holds back the rating for me.  The fact that the PlayStyle+ is LONG BALL isn’t helping the defensive side of the ball and the minimal list of PlayStyles almost seems like someone forgot to add the second half of the list.

Another missing PlayStyle is the AERIAL option and creates some difficulty against bigger attackers.  In fact Beckenbauer was not the best in the air at all despite his 95 JUMPING.  On the other hand he felt way more solid than his 81 STRENGTH would suggest and bullied all attackers in close battles.

Value/Coins

Value/Coins: 5/5

Looking at the list of CBs in the 500-600k range it does feel like Beckbauer has the edge in terms of pure statistics.  I will touch on the Passing shortly, but the alternative CM/CDM positions and the statistics to play in the midfield certainly bolstered that area of the German’s game.  Yet still I would imagine that the recent ability to actually get this card will only drop the price lower making it an even bigger steal.

Good vs. Bad 

Good vs Bad Rating: 5/5

Definitely a defender to keep an eye on as the skills keep adding up.

+ While the LONG BALL Plus wouldn’t have been my first pick (or second, or third…) I certainly used it a fair bit.  Time and time again I played out of Beckenbauer’s side with some of those torpedoes to the far side of the pitch, leading to goals and just generally relieving pressure.  The 94 SHORT PASSING & 95 LONG PASSING  are complimented by the INCISIVE PASS & LONG BALL PASS+ to the point that I was confident Beckenbauer would always find a way out of the defensive third and transitioning into attack.

+ The Dribbling was yet another surprise despite the 80 AGILITY & 77 BALANCE, Beckenbauer actually feels quite responsive on the ball.  Again there is a lack of PlayStyles outside of the TECHNICAL option and once again the card feels kind of thrown together from that perspective.

Closing Words

Upon first glance I just felt like Beckenbauer was going to be far behind the curve and essentially waiting for a Promo or EVO to come and save him from mediocrity.  Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some mediocre aspects of the card and the PlayStyles have to be the biggest talking point there.  But in the end there were numerous circumstances and combinations of statistics that just worked and produced an extremely solid defensive performance.  The card is right there on the edge of usable and produced some moments that had me contemplating a longer stay in my squad… Watching the German track back from my opponents box after a corner, all the way to my box to produce one of the most punishing slide tackles I have seen in the game, might just have put him over the edge into must have… Certainly a must try for other managers at the very least.

Hoping you are well.  Cheers for reading.