FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Chemistry Guide

Team chemistry is the most important factor in how well your Ultimate Team performs on the pitch.  Our FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Chemistry Guide will talk you through all of the factors involved in team chemistry and provide you with the different tips and strategies involved in building your own 100% Chemistry Ultimate Team.

So, why do we need high Ultimate Team Chemistry?

FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Chemistry Effects

The reason high team chemistry is so important becomes extremely evident when you step onto the pitch with a team with low chemistry.  If you’ve ever done this you’ll know how difficult it is to pass the ball around.  And how easily your opponent manages to pass around you.

Your players are always out of position and there’s never a first time pass on.  It feels like such hard work to move the ball around.  You’re team-mates are always marked, make terrible runs and it’s near on impossible to break through your opponent’s defence.

Being an Everton fan you’d think I’d be used to this but it really is no fun.

A team of 80+ Gold players with 30% team chemistry would be given the run around by a Bronze Team with 100% team chemistry.  Ok, the Gold players would obviously get the better one on one and pace would make a difference but if you tried to pass the ball around you’d really struggle.

Raise that team chemistry up, even to 80%, and you start to see a marked improvement in how your players interact with each other on the pitch and raise it up even more, towards 100%, and you’ll drastically improve your chances of winning.

In this series, we’re going to look at all of the different factors involved in Ultimate Team Chemistry on FIFA 12, what they mean and the different ways that they can fit together to build a great FIFA 12 Ultimate Team whatever your budget.

I’ll also show you worked examples of different Ultimate Teams that I’ve created using the different chemistry techniques.

First up though, what makes up Ultimate Team Chemistry on FIFA 12?

FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Bronze Adelante

How Ultimate Team Chemistry Works

Ok, we now know how important chemistry is so we now also know that your aim is to get your Ultimate Team Chemistry rating to 100.  (Or as close to 100 as you possibly can).

Each player on your team has a chemistry rating between 1 and 9.  If a player’s chemistry rating is 9 (or close to 9) that player will fit in to your team extremely well.  All of your players’ ratings added together make up your overall Ultimate Team Chemistry Score.

Hang on!?  11 Players multiplied by a top rating of 9 only equals 99 chemistry!  Ah, well that’s where the manager comes in.  The manager’s card colour (Gold, Silver or Bronze), his nationality and his preferred formation all contribute to your overall Ultimate Team Chemistry figure so that’s how to bump your chemistry up to 100%!  (We’ll talk about managers more later…)

FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Chemistry Factors

  1. Position
  2. Formation
  3. Nationality
  4. League
  5. Club
  6. Manager
FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Silver Bundes

Position

Pretty straightforward this one.  You’re not going to play a centre back up front.  (Unless you’re Blackburn and you’re losing with 10 minutes to go…)

Players don’t like playing out of position.  They have a preferred position, for example my Pato is an CF so I’m going to get the most chemistry points for him by playing him at CF.  If I put him in CF the football boot icon on the bottom right of his card turns bright green to indicate that the player is in his favoured position.

Pato FIFA 12 Ultimate Team ChemistryPlayers also have positions they don’t mind playing in.  For example, in this picture I’ve put Pato in the ST position and he’s comfortable enough.  This time the football boot icon has turned a dull green colour indicating that my player can do a job in that position but it’s not the one he prefers (or the one he plays best in).  He’d still get a small boost to his chemistry but not near as much as if I played him in his favoured CF position.

If however I put Pato in a position he doesn’t like (CB for example) his football boot icon would turn red to tell me that my player really doesn’t like this formation and he’d get no boost to his chemistry (and he’d probably play awful in a game too).

So it’s important to choose players that fit in to the positions you have available.  For example, if you play a 4-2-3-1 formation with two CAM’s and a CF there’d be no point buying a right winger.  There’d be nowhere for him to play.

Because Position is important in Ultimate Team Chemistry it also affects a player’s price in the market.  For example, LB’s usually sell for slightly more than LWB’s because they fit into the more common formations better.

Don’t worry though, you can change a players preferred position with a training card.  LWB >> LB for example.  It’s worth checking out the cost of these cards before you buy your player to determine whether it’s cheaper to buy the player already with your preferred formation or whether it’s cheaper to buy the player with the training card.

Formation

Much like position, players have a preferred formation that gives a boost to their total Ultimate Team Chemistry score.

For example, my Pato above prefers a 4-2-3-1 formation.  I’ve put his in this formation and his formation icon in the bottom left of his card turns bright green to indicate that he’s in his favoured position.  Again, I get a nice boost to my Ultimate Team Chemistry.

Again, there are other similar formations that he can play in that will turn his formation icon a dull green colour but again I won’t get nearly as much of a boost to my Ultimate Team Chemistry than if I played him in his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation.

It goes without saying then that if you put a player in a formation he doesn’t like his formation icon will turn red, you’ll get no boost to your Ultimate Team Chemistry and your player won’t perform in a game.

If you choose to play a popular formation like 4-4-2 or 4-1-2-1-2 be prepared to pay over the odds when buying your players.  Like with players’ positions, you can change a players preferred formation but again, be prepared to pay big money for popular formation cards.

Again, check the prices of the formation cards before you hit the player market to see whether it’s cheaper to buy the player already with your preferred formation or whether you should buy a cheaper player and change his formation with a training card.

FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Gold Brazil

Position and Formation scores affect Ultimate Team chemistry in isolation (meaning they aren’t dependent on any other players).

The rest of the categories that affect Ultimate Team Chemistry on FIFA 12 are the result of how players in linking positions interact with each other making it a lot more important to plan building your team instead of just buying players and then trying to fit them together.

Nationality

The powers that be at EA have decided that players with the same Nationality will have increased Team Chemistry and therefore play well together.

(They’ve obviously not watched England play recently!)

Nevertheless, matching players Nationality in linking positions will give you a big boost in Ultimate Team Chemistry.

League

Just like Nationality, matching up linking players that play in the same League will give you a nice Ultimate Team Chemistry boost in FIFA 12.

Creating a team around a single Nationality of League is the easiest way to get 100% Ultimate Team Chemistry.  Just matching Nationality or League with players in the correct position and formation will bag you a 100% Chemistry Ultimate Team in no time.

Just remember though that, just like formation, players with popular nationalities (like English, Spanish and Italian) and players in popular leagues (like the Barclays Premiership, League BBVA or Serie A) are going to be more expensive.

Club

Matching linking players with players that play for the same Club gives you a double boost in Ultimate Team Chemistry because you get a boost for the Club and by default get a boost for the same League.

This can be really handy when creating hybrid teams mixing and matching players from different Leagues or with different Nationalities.  (I’ll go more into creating hybrid teams in another post).

Manager

Finally, never underestimate the importance of a good manager.

A good Gold Manager with the same formation as your squad and the same nationality as a lot of your players can boost your Ultimate Team Chemistry by as much as 20 chemistry points!  This is a huge boost to team chemistry and means that you can get away with playing players out of position or save money by buying a player with a difference preferred formation.

This comes in really handy when players get injured or need a rest.  It means you can move players around a bit and not lose out on much, if any, team chemistry.

Managers are quite cheap too so make sure you grab yourself a good one!

I usually have two managers.  One with a contracts bonus and one with a team talks bonus.  I keep the team talks manager in full time to keep players morale up and just swap in the contracts manager when I need to apply contracts to my players.

FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Gold Serie A

Well, we’ve learned what Ultimate Team Chemistry effects and why we need a high Ultimate Team Chemistry.  We’ve also learned each of the individual factors that go into your overall Ultimate Team Chemistry on FIFA 12.

Next up in our FIFA 12 Ultimate Team Chemistry Guide I’ll be looking at different ways to create a 100% Chemistry Ultimate Team, talking through real life examples and sharing some tips to build your 100% Chemistry Team without breaking the bank.

If you want to stay up to date and be informed of when new updates arrive, don’t forget to subscribe using the form over on the right and get updates straight to your inbox.

In the mean time why don’t your check out some other Ultimate Team tips and resources.

(Our Ultimate Team Chemistry Guide Part 2 is now available)

[EDIT:  Check out new research about individual player chemistry in Ultimate Team]

What’s your biggest challenge when building your Ultimate Team?

51 Comments
  1. Nicolas November 11, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    Good sum up of what effects cemistry and a good guide for newbies!
    I could not find an answer for what I looked for though, so I’m gonna ask..

    The overall team cemistry should effect the team as a whole. But if you have 100 % in cemistry, but one single player absolutely lacks in it, would this effect the certain players performance (e.g. if I had Pato as a CF but playing him as a ST on a team with English premier league players only and I wasn’t playing his favorate formation). Will Pato in my example be rubbish, or will he perform due to a 100 % overall team cemistry?

  2. David November 22, 2011 at 2:01 pm

    I have the same question and Cant find the answer anywhere. Plz someone answer.

    • Craig Cole April 29, 2012 at 8:51 pm

      See the link above David ;)

  3. Jezamiah November 22, 2011 at 6:40 pm

    No Pato wouldn’t play any worse as long as your chemistry was still 100. If it dropped below 100 you may notice some difference. His link-up play may not be as good as he’s not linked to the other players.

    Morale also plays an important part so watch out for that.

    • Andrew April 16, 2012 at 1:34 am

      what is link-up play?

      • Craig Cole April 16, 2012 at 9:47 am

        Hi Andrew, link-up play is basically quick passing and moving up the pitch.

        The higher the chemistry the easier this will be because your team mates movement will compliment each other and more (and better) passing options will be available.

        • Andrew April 18, 2012 at 1:38 am

          So, let’s say I had a striker like Samuel Eto’o with little or no link-up chemistry with the CF in the 4-2-3-1 formation(100 overall chem). Then he would still play well, just not as well as if he had 9 link-up chem?

  4. muka November 23, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    What I want to know is that, let’s say I make a 100 chemistry team. but a few links are not chemistry. lets say I put pique on 1 cb spot & modric on the other. they wont have synergy, yet team is on 100. how does that actually work? will they perform on 100 chemistry? thanks in advance!

  5. muka November 23, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    nvm didnt see the other comments :D

  6. Jan December 18, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    I have one question: So when I put some players from de Barclays PL in one team with all the good position and good formation and a good manager but not all with the same nationality and club in will get 100 chemistry? Thanks for advisements

    • Craig Cole December 18, 2011 at 4:06 pm

      Yes – that should give you 100% chemistry.

      • Jan December 18, 2011 at 4:24 pm

        thank you

  7. Jan December 18, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    And another question: How to get high morale?

    • nick December 29, 2011 at 6:28 am

      Win alot, moral cards, manager, and/or stadium.

  8. Kees December 19, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    Does anyone know why my player Wellinton voor 93 pace slower is then Carvalho from 56 pace?

    • nick December 29, 2011 at 6:27 am

      His dribbling is crap so if you try to run with the ball with him its not gonna be as fast as lucas, or if carnavarro gets close to you he could be pressing “B” which pulls Wellington back and not let him use his speed.

  9. Ricardo December 22, 2011 at 1:11 pm

    does anyone know how many points you lose when you have one player on the wrong position but with all players out the Barclays PL and with good formations?

    • Leo March 2, 2012 at 2:33 am

      it depends how wrong. it can be from 1 to 9 points. If your chemistry is 100 it may not be affected

  10. Kelly January 22, 2012 at 11:44 pm

    Just a note: Manager and staff effects re: contract & team talks are cumulative regardless of whether they are installed on a given team. You receive all managers on staff combined influence over contract purchasing and moral card using upon each use. Having any manager installed is strictly a chemistry issue.

  11. Dillon January 22, 2012 at 11:52 pm

    I have 82 chemistry but i can’t seem to find a gold manager from argentina. any help?

    • reubentwist January 25, 2012 at 3:20 am

      buy a manager with the same formation that your using, should do the trick!

      • glynn January 26, 2012 at 3:39 pm

        any argentinian manager will do doesnt have to be gold u get 1 point chem for every nationaly ur manager links up to aswell

        • Kez July 23, 2012 at 7:40 pm

          wow great advice, ive got a full germany and even when i put mario gomez in goal and manuel neure striker we still have 100 chemistry comfortably.

  12. Arthur February 13, 2012 at 8:25 am

    If I want to make a team with the best players of the world next to one another (Ibrahimovic, Rooney, Xavi, Sneijder, Tevez, Robben, Thiago Silva) and put them in their preferred formation and position, would my chemistry also be 100?

    • Leo March 2, 2012 at 2:30 am

      Each player in preferred position and formation gives you 6 points of chemistry. A gold manager adds 10 extra points.

      If they have no relation (club, league or nationality) with each other you would start of 76 chemistry points

    • Kez July 23, 2012 at 7:36 pm

      it wouldnt be 100 but it would be very high. like 85

  13. Tommo February 23, 2012 at 5:18 am

    Does changing your formation in-game through the start menu affect team chemistry?

  14. Henk March 29, 2012 at 10:39 am

    I have a question about the tournement: Golden Invitational, i have a team like this:

    Valdes(barcelona)

    Sergio Ramos(real) Puyol(barcelona) Pepe(real) Marcelo(real)

    Ozil(real) Mascherano(barcelona) Xabi Alonso(real)

    Falcao (Atletico Madrid)
    Benzema(real) Higuain(real)

    on the bank: Raul Albiol, Carvalho, Thiago, Khedira, Rossi, Sahin, Diego

    But still i cant play the tournement, please help mee, because i dont know what i am doing wrong. They say: exact number of clubs: 4 basic players in your team. But i think i have 4 clubs: Barcelona, Real, Atletico, Villereal. Please help i dont understand this

    • phil March 29, 2012 at 3:14 pm

      you have to start with 4 different clubs. u dont have a villareal player starting

  15. jame March 30, 2012 at 10:27 am

    lets say i have a 100 chem team, if one or two of my 11 players has 7 chem, do they play worse than the 9 chem players.

  16. Austin Yon April 9, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    Ah thanks for this read! I had just redone my team of English international players and made it into a team of Brazil internationals. After buying Julio Cesar, Marcelo, Alex, Luiz, Maicon, Rafinha, Luiz Gustavo, Bastos, Kaka, Pato, and Welliton my chemistry was only at 68 playing in a 4-1-2-1-2. I took your advice and bought a good Brazilian manager and his formation happened to be a 4-1-2-1-2 as well. Boosted my chemsitry to 92! Thanks!

    • Craig Cole April 9, 2012 at 11:32 pm

      Glad it helped! A good Gold manager can make a big difference and won’t break the bank either!

  17. stuuu J April 19, 2012 at 11:50 pm

    good guide but way too hung up on team chemistry. that means nothing. its all about player chemistry. 9 on all players will give best stat boost (e.g bbva team) but if you randomly drop in robben as a winger with the right formation and position you’ll still have 100 team chem despite the fact he plays bundesliga and would drop down the player chem for the midfielders.

    • Craig Cole April 20, 2012 at 12:35 pm

      That’s a great point! We’ve had a few e-mails about player chemistry recently and have done some research and players do appear to perform better the better their individual chemistry.

      Thanks for your comment stuuu.

  18. Archie April 22, 2012 at 10:43 am

    hi, Im building a hybrid team and I want to put Luis Nani at RM rather than his preferred LM. He currently has the formation 442 an he’s playing in 41212. This means at the moment he has a base chemistry of 2. When I add in Evra (who has a shiny green line with him at they play for the same club) at RB this shoots up to 7. But when I add in the CAM and the CDM (Danny and Miguel Veloso (who share the same nationality)) who he has yellow lines with (used to be dark green) he drops his chemistry down to 5. Is there any way around this? I thought there would be a small boost in his chemistry as they are both Portuguese is there any way of getting him to 9 chemistry? (I am already going to give him a formation card). Please help.

    • Kez July 23, 2012 at 7:34 pm

      when you give him his new formation card his chemistry should go up to 7, youll never get his chemistry to 9 when hes playing at rm but if you can get all the surrounding players to have green lines with him his chemistry should go up to 8, hope it helps

  19. Kiluminati007 May 2, 2012 at 5:55 pm

    Right, i need help with changing my base formation.. I am on a
    4-2-2-2 formation, all my players are of that formation, so is my manager. But the thing is, I want to change my active formation to 4-1-2-1-2 and doing this as we all know wld drastically reduce my chemistry and rating, How can i go abt this without having to buy formation cards for each player individually. Could i simply buy a 4-1-2-1-2 formation card for my existing manager? Doing this, will it automatically change all my existing player’s formation to the same? pls helppp!!! tnx

    • Craig Cole May 2, 2012 at 6:30 pm

      There’s only 2 ways I can think of I’m afraid…

      1) Buy formation cards for your manager and all of your players.

      2) Sell your players and buy them back in the 4-1-2-1-2 formation. (might work out cheaper)

      No easy option unfortunately. :\

    • Kez July 23, 2012 at 2:15 pm

      if your team in 4-1-2-1-2 is 90 chemistry or over with your players prefered formation of 4-2-2-2 you can just buy a formation card for your manager and he we give you an extra 10 chemistry

  20. Carl May 12, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    New to the site had to post again first did not show!

    Making a post as I noticed this new company started with a website but I cant find and more information about it. Its called ultimateteamtraders ltd website is .com …Have you heard about it? I sold stock on ebay but got banned for violation of terms and conditions. This site allows us to sell stock for cash like an ebay site for ultimate team gamers and members have to be verified or get some kind of kick start package.Sounds like its against scamming which is good. Can anyone let me know what you they think? Watch the videos and it has facebook etc Let me know Cheers Carl

  21. Carl May 12, 2012 at 4:19 pm

    wooops posted again as i did not see waiting for moderation. sorry

  22. David June 13, 2012 at 5:43 pm

    how do you grab players from you club. I bought a player and accidentally put him in my club and i wanna know if i can get him out and use him?

  23. FIFA U Team Administrator July 20, 2012 at 11:25 am

    Very good post. Visit our website http://www.fifauteam.com to other articles about FIFA Ultimate Team.

  24. Kez July 23, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    Hi great website, ive learned alot about link up. Does anyone have any ideas on a a team with 100 chemistry that would cost about 70,000 coins?(thats my budget) thanks kez

  25. Kez July 25, 2012 at 8:50 am

    hello everyone i have a really great bit of advice for the players who want to score many goals in a match. get the 3-5-2 formation. the reason is your opponents defence will mark the CAM and one of your strikers. the other one will be left alone for you to play a through ball (chipped or ground pass) and score your 1 on 1. it is important for your strikers to have pace so they get away when they are unmarked. i score many goals this way and an example of a team which i use is a full france team with strikers remy and benzema who both are very fast and have a lethal finish. it is only about 9000 coins for both of them aswell. reply to this message if it works!!!!

    • stevie August 24, 2012 at 12:33 pm

      thanks for the advice kez, it really works!!! i have chossen a full brazilian team with strikers robinho and pato and as a cam neymar. i usually score 4-5 goals a game using the 3-5-2 and im VERY happy with my team and with your comment!!! EVERYONE TRY IT, IT REALLY WORKS (3-5-2)!!!!! PACE IS ACE

  26. Kez July 25, 2012 at 8:57 am

    other examples:

    bpl: hernandez, bent, or defoe (bent and hernandez would be better)4000 coins

    bbva: benzema, nilmar or rossi 12000 coins for all three

    seria a: robinho, pato, cavani 16000 coins for all three

    ligua 1: gomes, gamiero, remy 5000 coins for all three

    bundesliga: podolski, rues, muller 8000 coins for all three

    choose which two of the three strikers you like more and remember 3-5-2!!!

  27. Ramesh August 21, 2012 at 4:56 am

    i want to make player running faster than opposite team.which key i have to press to make player faster while playing Fifa 2012 in my computer..

  28. Ramesh August 21, 2012 at 4:58 am

    i want to make player running faster than opposite team.which key i have to press to make player faster while playing Fifa 2012 in my computer..please reply me on my mail and give some important tips about fifa 2012

  29. Jude September 22, 2012 at 6:35 pm

    If I have a 100 chemistry team but none of my players are in the right formation will it affect my games? I have an all Spanish all Liga BBVA gold squad please help!

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