District One – District One

International football has returned in the form of two tournaments taking place in parallel. In the eastern hemisphere we have the Euros 2020; in the west is the 2021 Copa America. Fifa has introduced a special event named Festival of FUTball to celebrate this occasion.

What is the Festival of FUTball?

The Festival of FUTball is an event based on the stars of international tournaments. This isn’t the first time this event has taken place, as a similar event was introduced on FIFA 18 for the 2018 World Cup. A squad was released after each “matchday”, followed by a Team of the Tournament combining all the best cards from the promo.

Path to Glory

One of the highlights of the latest Festival of FUTball is the Path to Glory Items. Essentially these are players have represented their national team at least once in their careers. This includes both the youth and the senior men’s national teams.

These Special Items upgrade based on the number of times their National Team wins from June 11, 2021, to July 16, 2021. The format for upgrade is as follows:

3 Wins = +2 OVR Upgrade

4 Wins = +1 OVR Upgrade

5 Wins = +1 OVR Upgrade

6 Wins = 5*/5* Weak Foot/Skill Moves Upgrades

For example, France won its first game against Germany last Wednesday, which gives the Antoine Griezmann Path to Glory player its first point. Although it tied with Hungary on Saturday, Antoine Griezmann will not receive a point since the entire event revolves around team wins, rather than individual performance.

Path of Glory Team 1:

The first set of Path to Glory players arrived at the start of the Festival of FUTball event. The 1^st team features some great new cards, and the added potential of getting better would make them lethal in FUT matches. Here are all the players from the 1^st set of Path of Glory Items:

Kai Havertz (OVR 95)
Antoine Griezmann (OVR 95)
Phil Foden (OVR 94)
Marcos Llorente (OVR 94)
Matthijs de Ligt (OVR 94)
Marco Verratti (OVR 94)
Marcos Acuna (OVR 94)

Davinson Sanchez (OVR 93)
Vinicius Jr (OVR 93)
Serge Gnabry (OVR 93)
Yusuf Yazici (OVR 92)
Denis Zakaria (OVR 91)
Thorgan Hazard (OVR 90)
Alexander Golovin (OVR 90)

Path of Glory Team 2:

The second set of items in the Path of Glory series have been released. EA has stated that the Team 2 cards will start tracking from the same date as Team 1, so you won’t have to worry if they are released after a couple of matches. Similar to the 1^st team, Team 2 features some of the best names of International Football. Here is the full list of players in Path of Glory Team 2:

Eden Hazard (OVR 95)
Roberto Firmino (OVR 95)
Paul Pogba (OVR 95)
Josef Martinez (OVR 94)
Alexis Sanchez (OVR 94)
Georginio Wijnaldum (OVR 93)
Joao Felix (OVR 93)

Ben Chilwell (OVR 93)
Alvaro Morata (OVR 93)
Leandro Paredes (OVR 92)
Eder Militao (OVR 92)
Ante Rebic (OVR 91)
Nahitan Nandez (OVR 90)
Lukas Klostermann (OVR 90)

Don’t let the Faze Clan reveal fool you, The Peeps are still the underdogs. They emerged from Dreamhack Montreal 2019 with a Cinderella story that put them on the map. Fans have now gotten their first glimpse of what The Peeps can do in the Rocket League Championship Series with a big organization behind them. This season taught fans a lot about them as a team and will set the tone for expectations going forward. What are their biggest strengths, their biggest weaknesses, and how far will they take Faze next season?

Gyro, AYYJAYY, Allushin, and Moopy reaffirmed their ability to play aggressively while remaining defensively responsible. They also displayed their ability to maintain pace down the stretch, with or without a lead. It seems like AYYJAYY especially is all over the field at all times, making saves and scoring points. Faze always finds a way to transition the ball to the opposing half and apply pressure. They did begin to struggle converting this into points as the tournament went on…

When it comes to weaknesses, a lot of pitfalls in their game can be chalked up to inexperience. In their second game against Spacestation, they made a questionable call to go 2v2 down the stretch that ended up costing them the game. AYYJAYY is probably their biggest offensive threat and placing him out of position to utilize his strengths did them no favors. This was a good attempt at versatility though since they’ll need to find new ways of attacking and working outside their comfort zone. Teams they’ve beaten before, like G2, seemed to completely shut down any offensive momentum Faze could muster, and even scored more and more easily on their defense as the series went on.

So what does this mean for Faze next season? They got sent home early in round 1 after going completely scoreless in the final two games. Even AYYJAYY couldn’t come up with a goal for them, missing what should have been an easy conversion in series 2. Expectations will probably fall following such an exit, but The Peeps play their best Rocket League as the underdogs. If they want to continue this pattern on the RCLS stage though, they have to build their offense and rely less heavily on AYYJAYY and Gyro. Their ability to swarm the field and adapt to the pace of the game lends itself well to their defense, but seems to fatigue them as the games go on. Even if they find a way to focus that energy, they need more experience and versatility to place much higher next season.