FIFA 13 | Lower League Gems – Centre backs (Winter update)

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Welcome to the Lower League Gems series for the winter update to FIFA 13! If you want promising players for an absolute bargain, you’re in the right place.

These articles aim to highlight young, high potential players that are priced at £1m or less. The pre-winter update version of this series had 76 as the minimum potential, but there were simply so many eligible players this time round that I’ve had to up it to 77.

This year EA have been updating the game week by week. This means that player OVRs and potentials can change slightly depending on real world performances. As such, please note that the player stats on your game may slightly vary from those depicted in the table below. I tried to be as accurate as possible, but it’s conceivable that if you download the squad update in, say, two months time, some of the stats may be different.

Just remember that this year players can exceed their potentials if they play enough games and play well enough. Thus take this table to be a guide only. A player listed with potential 78 could reach the mid 80s (or even higher) if he consistently plays well!

As a final note, people have asked me what the ‘Avai?’ column is for. ‘Avai?’ is short for ‘available?’ (there is not enough space for the full word), and it refers to whether or not each player is available to buy in the first transfer window. ‘Y’ means yes, they are available, whilst ‘N’ means that they’re not. The number after the ‘Y’ or ‘N’ is the amount of years left on their contract. So ‘Y/2’ means that yes, they are available to buy in the first transfer window and that they have 2 years left on their contract. Similarly, ‘N/5’ means they’re not available to buy right away and that they have 5 years left on their contract. The ones to look out for are ‘Y/1’, as you should be able to get these players for less than their listed value. Players who are on loan will have a “-” in this column because information on their contracts is not available.

Here are my recommendations for centre backs:

• Nathan Aké
• Terence Kongolo
• Aleksandr Putsko
• Ilori

First up is a name that will be familiar to many: Nathan Aké. He’s very quick for a centre back, but his main asset is undoubtedly his flexibility. He is almost equally skilled at all of the technical stats, so you can play him right across the defence and in multiple positions across midfield. In addition to this, he’s got very high potential and a short contract, although you can’t buy him in the first transfer window. Try again in January, as often if you wait until then you can buy players who aren’t available at first. At the end of the day, just make sure you do whatever you can to get your hands on him.

My second choice is Terence Kongolo. Already very strong, he is a great threat in the air, with jumping 90, heading accuracy 75 and the power header trait. His defending is good but so is his passing, so you can play him as a defensive midfielder if you feel the need. He may only be 18 but he’ll be a real handful at both ends of the pitch, scoring goals and preventing them in equal measure.

Next is Aleksandr Putsko. Like Kongolo, Putsko is big and strong and is a real danger in the air. However, you can get him for a fraction of the price of Kongolo seeing as he only has a year left on his contract. You should be able to get him for less than £450,000, which is a great price for a very solid centre back with high potential.

Number four is Ilori. I’ve chosen him because he’s not your normal lumbering centre back; he’s strong, but also extremely fast. He’s got the speed to catch opposing strikers running through on goal, so hopefully this should reduce the amount of times you get caught on the break. He’s also got a very decent OVR for this list and is still young, so I’d expect him to exceed his 78 potential.

Finally, I’m also going to give a special mention to Rodrigo Ely because his tackling is way better than his OVR suggests, so he represents a real bargain for his price.

The full list is given below: