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FIFA 23 Team of the Season Raphinha Player Review - Cop or Flop?

La Liga Santander has entered the Team of the Season promo and I must say it seems a bit like EA have woken up with the content! Premier League was decent, Bundesliga had some great cards but felt like a lot was missing which for me made it a bit of a snooze fest. But day one and we are graced with so much to work with! SBCs galore, Objectives left right and center! That’s all before even talking about what an incredible team we have on our hands.

One of the many SBCs for today is none other than TOTS Raphinha. I feel I must comment on the skill moves first, I feel like EA has really dropped the ball in not giving Raphinha 5* skills. It certainly seems to have caused a stir within the community and rightly so! It’s an expensive SBC to complete with (outside of pace and dribbling) pretty bog-standard stats in comparison to many other team-of-the-season cards.

This SBC has been quite heavily downvoted and it comes as no surprise whatsoever. I personally feel like it has been well overpriced at around 400k. When we’re at the stage of having so many options, the bar on the quality of card we should be getting for this kind of price range just has not been hit.

You can check out the card here!

Here are the following SBC Requirements you’ll need to complete:

#1 - Top Form
IF or TOTS Player - Min. 1
Squad Rating - 85
Pack Return - Small Prime Gold Players Pack

#2 - Tactical Emulation
# of players from FC Barcelona - Min. 1
Squad Rating - 86
Pack Return - Premium Electrum Players Pack

#3 - Brazil
# of players from Brazil - Min. 1
Squad Rating - 87
Pack Return - Prime Electrum Players Pack

#4 - LaLiga
# of players from LaLiga Santander - Min. 1
IF or TOTS Player - Min. 1
Squad Rating - 88
Pack Return - Rare Mixed Players Pack

So as I mentioned, a pretty pricey SBC. The pack returns aren’t anything amazing either! Of course, it only takes one pack to turn everything around. But regardless I really feel like we could have done without the fourth segment of this SBC and it would be a little bit more reasonable.

Starting XI

Raphina ran up the right alongside TOTY Hakimi trying to create as many an opportunity for our La Liga hero in WC Hero Forlan. I always find it interesting looking at these cards that have high stats in certain areas such as this with the 98 pace, and want to compare it to other tried and tested players that we know can do the job. So I tried to surround Raphinha with as many fast-paced players as possible.

How did he perform in-game?

+ Dribbling on this card by far was the standout stat for me. He performed so well on the ball. Incredibly agile and well-balanced. He was holding onto the ball for dear life making light work of getting around the opposition. Again, just a shame about the missing 5* skills.
+ Shooting actually surprised me quite a bit, especially the weak foot. He was netting some pretty tasty goals from me in very unexpected positions. So a big plus in the shooting department
- Stamina for me felt really disappointing. At 97 stamina you would figure this card would last the entire game and still have some fuel in the tank. But come the 70th-minute mark I could really start to see this card gas out and struggle against the opposition, the recent update won’t have helped with this...
+/– May be going against the grain here but Pace for me felt a little misleading. I mentioned prior that I wanted to compare his pace to others and when compared to TOTY Hakimi (whom has just +1 pace) the difference seemed night and day. I found myself quickly having to rely on his dribbling to save myself from constantly being caught up to by midfielders and defenders.

Raphina - Cop or Flop?

I’ve said it enough but this is an expensive SBC. Especially when in comparison, we had the TOTS Chukwueze SBC that came in at just 55k. Sure it’s a harder-to-link card but it came with with a 5* weak foot and very similar stats. I could go on and on listing countless cards we have had recently that was a hell of a lot less expensive and perform just as well, if not better! Not getting at least 5* skills for me has let this card down massively also. The inform version comes in at just 30k and the comparisons in stats really don’t justify a +370k price tag for me. 

Verdict?
FLOP

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