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?

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

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.

Players 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.

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.

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)