Best strikers in EA FC 24 Career Mode: Current stars, highest potential, and best bargains

We've got something for everyone, from the very best strikers in EA FC 24 to the best bargains on the market.

The back of Erling Haaland's No. 9 shirt at Manchester City
Image via EA

Ultimate Team might be the EA Sports FC cash cow, but we all know that the real ones are working their magic in Career Mode. There aren’t any Teams of the Week or an endless supply of new and better players here, so you must recruit well from the very start. We’ll help you do that with a guide to the best strikers in EA FC 24 Career Mode.

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You won’t get very far in Career Mode if you don’t have a top-level striker to finish off your team’s attacks. Whether you’re sticking to the trends and playing with a single man up front or going old school with a couple of strikers, we’ll help you find plenty of talent to fit your club’s needs and resources.

We will of course present the best forwards and strikers in EA FC 24 Career Mode, but if you can’t afford them, you will surely be interested in the highest potential youngsters and the outright bargains that are available, as long as you know where to look.

The best strikers and forwards in EA FC 24 Career Mode

Unsurprisingly, the two hottest names in the striker position are Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. Both are rated at 91 OVR, and what is more incredible, both have a 94 potential that they can feasibly reach as Mbappe is still just 24 years old and Haaland is 23. Lionel Messi is finally beginning to join the Old Man’s Club. The Argentinian maestro is “only” tied for the best forward in EA FC 24 and is joint-third when we count forwards and strikers together.

The top strikers in EA FC 24 tend to be on the older side. Six of the ten highest-rated strikers in Career Mode are 30 years old or above, and no one is younger than Haaland. In other words, don’t expect much growth from anyone who isn’t Mbappe, Haaland, or Victor Osimhen.

The situation isn’t much different with forwards. Messi and Karim Benzema, the two highest-rated forwards in EA FC 24 Career Mode, are 36 and 35 years old, respectively. Messi’s countryman Angel Di Maria, who is 35, also makes the top 10. Most other forwards with great current ability are around 30, so if you’re looking for growth, you’ll need to go elsewhere, and we’ll do just that in a moment.

Highest-rated strikers in EA FC 24 Career Mode

  • Kylian Mbappe – 91 OVR (Paris Saint-Germain)
  • Erling Haaland – 91 OVR (Manchester City)
  • Robert Lewandowski – 90 OVR (Bayern Munchen)
  • Harry Kane – 90 OVR (Tottenham Hotspur)
  • Antoine Griezmann – 88 OVR (Atletico Madrid)
  • Victor Osimhen – 88 OVR (Napoli)
  • Lautaro Martinez – 87 OVR (Inter Milan)
  • Cristiano Ronaldo – 86 OVR (Al Nassr)
  • Iago Aspas – 85 OVR (Celta Vigo)
  • Ciro Immobile – 85 OVR (Lazio)

Highest-rated forwards in EA FC 24 Career Mode

  • Lionel Messi – 90 OVR (Inter Miami)
  • Karim Benzema – 90 OVR (Al Ittihad)
  • Sadio Mane – 86 OVR (Al Nassr)
  • Paulo Dybala – 86 OVR (Roma)
  • Christopher Nkunku – 86 OVR (Chelsea)
  • Diogo Jota – 85 OVR (Liverpool)
  • Memphis Depay – 84 OVR (Atletico Madrid)
  • Angel Di Maria – 83 OVR (Benfica)
  • Rafa – 83 OVR (Benfica)
  • Cody Gakpo – 83 OVR (Liverpool)
Kylian Mbappe in EA FC 24 Career Mode
Screenshot by Dot Esports

The best young strikers and forwards in EA FC 24 Career Mode

The four highest-potential strikers and forwards in Career Mode are already among the top 10 in current ability, but we won’t regurgitate the same names over and over. Just keep a tab that Mbappe, Haaland, Osimhen and Martinez all have the potential to go +3 from their starting overall rating, Nkunku can go up by two, and Gakpo by the largest amount—five OVR, up to a maximum of 88.

What we were looking for here are young players with room to grow their OVR rating by at least five points, up to at least 80 OVR. Many more young strikers fit the bill than forwards. One of these, Cody Gakpo, technically matches our criteria, but as we mentioned him among the best forwards already, we’ll consider him an honorable mention for the sake of giving you more options on the market. Talented young forwards are few and far between in Career Mode, so one more potential wonderkid is worth twisting our rules a bit.

Best young strikers with highest potential in EA FC 24 Career Mode

  • Rasmus Hojlund, 20 years old – 76 OVR, 89 potential (Manchester United)
  • Elye Wahi, 20 years old – 78 OVR, 88 potential (Lens)
  • Darwin Nunez, 24 years old – 82 OVR, 88 potential (Liverpool)
  • Dusan Vlahovic, 23 years old – 83 OVR, 88 potential (Juventus)
  • Goncalo Ramos, 22 years old – 80 OVR, 87 potential (Paris Saint-Germain)
  • Youssoufa Moukoko, 18 years old – 77 OVR, 87 potential (Borussia Dortmund)
  • Mathys Tel, 18 years old – 71 OVR, 86 potential (Bayern Munchen)
  • Nelson Weiper, 18 years old – 66 OVR, 86 potential (Mainz 05)
  • Evan Ferguson, 18 years old – 74 OVR, 86 potential (Brighton & Hove Albion)
  • Folarin Balogun, 22 years old – 79 OVR, 86 potential (Monaco)
  • Julian Alvarez, 23 years old – 80 OVR, 86 potential (Manchester City)
  • Alexander Isak – 23 years old – 81 OVR, 86 potential (Newcastle United)

Best young forwards with highest potential in EA FC 24 Career Mode

  • Joao Felix, 23 years old – 81 OVR, 87 potential (Barcelona)
  • Giacomo Raspadori, 23 years old – 79 OVR, 86 potential (Napoli)
  • Eliesse Ben Seghir, 18 years old – 72 OVR, 85 potential (Monaco)
  • Talles Magno, 21 years old – 73 OVR, 84 potential (New York City FC)
  • Hakon Arnar Haraldsson, 20 years old – 70 OVR, 83 potential (Lille)
  • Musa Barrow, 24 years old – 77 OVR, 83 potential (Al Taawoun)
  • Samuele Vignato, 19 years old – 65 OVR, 81 potential (Monza)
  • Cyril Ngonge, 23 years old – 73 OVR, 81 potential (Hellas Verona)
  • Brajan Gruda, 19 years old – 62 OVR, 80 potential (Mainz 05)
  • Zito Luvumbo, 21 years old – 68 OVR, 80 potential (Cagliari)
  • Nathanael Mbuku, 21 years old – 71 OVR, 80 potential (Augsburg)
Joao Felix in EA FC 24 Career Mode
Screenshot by Dot Esports

The best striker and forward bargains in EA FC 24 Career Mode

If you have taken on the challenge of bringing glory to a club on a really tight budget, you will be forced to look for bargains, whether you like it or not. Some factors can reduce a player’s price, like the club and league he’s playing in or his contract length. Generally, though, there is no better deal than buying a promising youngster dirt cheap and watching him blossom at your club into a superstar.

The one stat that makes a bargain truly stand out is the player’s potential growth. The higher the difference between current and potential OVR, the better the deal. Once again, there is much more gold to be dug up in the striker category than with forwards. If we were to make a combined top 10, not a single CF would have cracked it. EA FC 24 appears to be predicting the death of the position.

The scarce resources at the forward position have an adverse effect on pricing. Though we wanted to keep all of our proposals under $500,000, that simply proved impossible because there are barely any good CF deals under a million dollars, let alone half a million. It’s a different market these days, so having a dozen potential bargains under the $500,000 threshold is a miracle in itself. What’s clear is that you’ll have to go deeper in your pockets to get a quality center forward compared to a striker.

Somewhat amusingly, the worst center forward in Career Mode, Fardin Ali Molla, has the fourth-highest growth potential for the position. Since he would still be a very mediocre player (64 OVR) even after the full projected growth, we’ve excluded him from our bargain list. Sorry mate, we make up the rules, and as we already established, we’re not afraid to bend them.

Best striker bargains in EA FC 24 Career Mode

  • Emre Tezgel – 56 OVR, 82 potential (Stoke City) – $150,000
  • Nathan Lowe – 55 OVR, 80 potential (Stoke City) – $400,000
  • Norman Bassette – 61 OVR, 84 potential (Mechelen) – $350,000
  • Anders Hartveit Ryste – 53 OVR, 75 potential (Odds Ballklubb) – $100,000
  • Jovan Zivkovic – 59 OVR, 81 potential (Rapid Wien) – $250,000
  • Sonny Finch – 51 OVR, 73 potential (Middlesbrough) – $60,000
  • Daniel Tristan Gudjohnsen – 53 OVR, 74 potential (Malmo) – $100,000
  • Roko Brajkovic – 60 OVR, 81 potential (Hajduk Split) – $250,000
  • Bobby Wales – 61 OVR, 82 potential (Kilmarnock) – $350,000
  • Divin Mubama – 57 OVR, 78 potential (West Ham United) – $180,000
  • Fabio Jalo – 57 OVR, 78 potential (Barnsley) – $180,000

Best forward bargains in EA FC 24 Career Mode

  • Brajan Gruda – 62 OVR, 80 potential (Mainz 05) – $450,000
  • Samuele Vignato – 65 OVR, 81 potential (Monza) – $800,000
  • Ben Bobzien – 60 OVR, 76 potential (Austria Lustenau) – $300,000
  • Eliesse Ben Seghir – 72 OVR, 85 potential (Monaco) – $5.5M
  • Hakon Arnar Haraldsson – 70 OVR, 83 potential (Lille) – $4M
  • Jayden Braaf – 65 OVR, 77 potential (Hellas Verona) – $2M
  • Jakub Myszor – 64 OVR, 76 potential (Cracovia Krakow) – $1.5M
  • Zito Luvumbo – 68 OVR, 80 potential (Cagliari) – $3M
  • Jacopo Desogus – 62 OVR, 74 potential (Cagliari) – $1M
  • Michal Rakoczy – 66 OVR, 78 potential (Cracovia Krakow) – $2.5M
Emre Tezgel in EA FC 24 Career Mode
Screenshot by Dot Esports

We tried to cover all aspects of the striker and forward market in EA FC 24 Career Mode, and we sincerely hope that we succeeded. The general takeaway from this deep dive is that most of the current best attackers are on the older side, but Haaland and Mbappe’s generation has already taken the throne, with other talented youngsters ready to step up the chase. With the correct market maneuvers, the next superstar striker can play for your club in EA FC 24 Career Mode.

Author
Image of Kiril Stoilov
Kiril Stoilov
Dot Esports general gaming writer. Loves writing, games, and writing about games. Began working in the industry in 2018 with esports.com, before moving to earlygame.com, and later joining the Dot Esports staff. Though a single player gamer at heart, he can be seen noobing around CS:GO lobbies.