Raúl Jiménez unhappy with FIFA 21 overall rating

The Mexican striker that plays for Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers made known his disagreement with the final overall rating assigned to him in the upcoming FIFA 21 videogame. The game, which will become the 28th installment in EA Sports’ FIFA series, is set to be released on October 9, 2020.

In a poll conducted by ESPN’s Fernando Palomo, we see players such as Raúl Jiménez, Sebastián Córdova, Alan Mozo, and even Chilean striker Diego Valencia respond, and they all appear to be a bit uncomfortable with the FIFA 21 programmers who ultimately decided their overall rating fate. Jiménez, who is the highest ranked out of all the aforementioned players, ended up with an 84 overall rating, a very admirable and respectable total. And more than anything, not one you see very often, especially in Mexican players. The last Mexican to have a rating even close to that was keeper “Memo” Ochoa, who had an 83 in 2009.

While one can argue that Jiménez had the best season of his career last year and is arguably the center piece to Nuno Espirito Santo’s offense, more so than João Moutinho and Adama Traoré, the Mexican is rated higher than both of his teammates, who are placed at 83 and 79, respectively. But one does have to look at all aspects of the game objectively to be able to make a claim such as Jiménez’s.

There’s is one very simple way to settle this situation. Lionel Messi is rated at 93. Cristiano Ronaldo is rated one point lower at 92. At 91, we have Neymar, Man City’s Kevin de Bruyne, and Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski. After that, we have a mix of skilled players, such as Liverpool’s Sadio Mané, Mo Salah, and Roberto Firmino, as well as Kylian Mbappé, “Kun” Agüero, Paulo Dybala, Luis Suárez, and Ángel Di María. All of these players are rated between 87 and 90. Even Leicester’s Jamie Vardy is rated at 86, and he’s been playing at an extremely high level for the past five years now. You get the point. What is the one thing all of these players have in common? Not only are they center pieces for their offense, but they’ve all been crowned league champions and are all currently in the Champions League, Vardy will be playing the UEFA Europa League this year, but he already has a Champions League on his resume.

Despite one being happy for Raúl Jiménez’s performance in the past couple years and mainly the level of consistence and maturity he’s shown, he has neither been crowned champion and has not made the Champions League with Wolves. In fact, they were in a great position to make this year’s tournament as we came out of the COVID break, but he along with his team crumbled, losing three out of their last six matches, and in consequence even missing out on the UEFA Europa League.

The bottom line is, while Raúl Jiménez has shown a great deal of potential, he still has much to prove and especially much to accomplish. If he can’t show that he can take his team to the elite level, there’s no reason why he should be rated like the elites. He is exactly where he is supposed to be, a couple levels below said elites, and should be happy with that, as the FIFA programmers have been extremely generous with their ratings. What Jiménez should do is focus on his football and on getting Wolves past the hump. In other words, finish in the top 4 this year instead of complaining about how he could’ve gotten more than an 82 rating in shooting and 76 in passing. Until he proves he can place his team among the football elites, he should continue to be rated lower than them.