Anyone who’s played a FIFA game within the last decade knows the most important attribute for a player is their pace. It is rather curious then that the fastest player in FIFA’s successor, EA FC 24, is not the fastest in real life.
Player ratings have all gone down this year across the board, and that is reflected in pace as well. Not one player has 99 pace in EA FC 24, no one even has a 98 rating in that attribute. The fastest player in EA FC 24 is Kylian Mbappe, who has been given a 97 pace stat. That’s one more than Borussia Dortmund’s Karim Adeyemi.
These numbers continue a long-standing tradition that EA FC has taken on from FIFA. Mbappe has been the fastest player in these games for many years, which has elevated him to god-like status in FUT circles that emphasize meta credibility above anything else. There’s nothing more meta than being fast, but it turns out that despite Mbappe’s pace proficiency in EA FC 24, he’s not the quickest player in real life.
An EA FC fan who’s visibly annoyed at the injustice that is Mbappe’s pace rating in EA FC 24 has taken the time to prove that he is, statistically speaking, not the fastest player in the world.
In a Reddit post on Sept. 17, this fan brings up the fact that Mbappe’s highest recorded speed is 36.7 km/h, which has been surpassed both domestically and internationally. He mentions full-backs Alphonso Davies and Kyle Walker as evidence other players have gone beyond 37 km/h, leaving Kylian Mbappe in the dust.
Most of this is factual, except for the part where Mbappe isn’t the fastest domestically. Ligue 1’s official top speed report from last season states that the PSG forward is tied for top recorded speed alongside Lorien’s Terem Moffi.
Minor details aside, while it’s true that Kylian Mbappe doesn’t technically hold the record for the highest speed in real life, most EA FC 24 fans understand why he is given the highest pace rating in the game. It’s not a coincidence that the two players who surpassed Mbappe are full-backs. Making open runs on the wing can give you that top-speed record, but watching Mbappe and how explosive he is with the ball in his feet gives you all the context for why he is the fastest player in EA FC 24 and not Kyle Walker or Alphonso Davies.
