Julus Kounde and Thibaut Courtois Winter Wildcards Player Reviews
This past week we saw a lot of unusual but exciting cards enter the game through the Winter Wildcards promo. In this instance, this week I have reviewed two positioned changed cards with Barcelona’s Jules Kounde going from a centre back to a defensive midfielder and Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois going from a goalkeeper to a striker.
This weekend was my third week in a row where I missed out on 14 wins as I finished on 12 wins. Again, I started the weekend well, finishing 7-3 after 10 games, but dropped off towards the end and settled with the 11 wins rewards.
My team:
Formation and tactics used:
I again used the 4-3-2-1 formation as it has brought me the most joy this year and suits my playstyle the best. The tactics are used were inspired by FUTWIZ Mark11’s custom tactics which can be found here: https://www.futwiz.com/en/fc24-tutorial/4321-custom-tactics
Courtois (ST)- Stay Central, Get In Behind
Kounde (Central CM)- Stay Back, Cover Center
Jules Kounde (CM):
Jules Kounde played as my defensive midfielder out of my midfield three. He stayed back to attempt to stop counter attacks and intercept passes through the middle. Kounde only scored 1 goal, but he got 10 assists so I was very happy with this contribution from the Frenchman.
Positives:
-Defensively he was very good which was to be expected due to his stats. He has 87 interceptions and standing tackle and 88 defensive awareness. Kounde often intercepted the ball which was a very good attribute
-Kounde was very quick and easily could run back after being beaten on the dribble or when needed to run back to defend a counter attack. I applied an anchor chemistry style which definitely benefited.
-His short passing was very accurate and he distributed the ball to teammates close by easily. Kounde has 96 short pass which showed in-game
Negatives:
-Even with the Brusier+ PlayStyle, Kounde didn’t feel physical enough. I can barely remember when he shrugged someone off the ball. This could be a combination of his 80 aggression and his body type as he is quite small for a CDM at 5’11”.
-Speaking of his height being an issue, Kounde also didn’t win a lot of headers due to his height. When he was defending crosses, I conceded a few goals when he couldn’t win the header.
-I found Kounde’s agility and balance to be quite low. For me, this wasn’t a massive issue as I like my defensive midfielder to be taller and more physical to get more interceptions, but his turning speed certainly wasn’t a positive.
-Finally, his skill moves and weak foot wasn’t the best due to Kounde being 3* 3*. Again, not a massive issue especially in a position where these aren’t essential, but an upgrade in both would have been nice.
Overall, I would give this card a miss. His stats aren’t outstanding and there is definitely better defensive midfielders out there for cheaper. There is a lot more negatives than positives to this card and I found his lack of physicality a big issue considering the position this card is in. I can’t see this card featuring again in my team in the future
Thibaut Courtois (ST):
This card intrigued me the most out of Team 3 as going from a goalkeeper to a striker is a drastic change. Courtois also has some really intriguing and contradicting stats so I was quite excited to use him in weekend league. The Belgian scored 25 goals and got 1 assist which is a decent return from 20 games of champs.
Positives:
-This man from corners was deadly. Every time I won a corner, I would player lock onto Courtois and aim for him and the majority of the time he would win the header. I would say 80% of his goals this weekend came from headers. This was due to him being 6’6”, having Aerial+ and having 99 jumping. However, he does have 49 heading accuracy, so I was curious to see how this affected him, but this felt like it made no impact.
-His 99 shot power was super effective and it felt like he was completely a power shot at times. His shots nearly ripped the back of the net and he gave goalkeepers no chance as the strike riffled into the top corner.
-Courtois has 99 strength, so I don’t think he got pushed off the ball once. He won every shoulder to shoulder. With the additional help of being as tall as he is, Courtois’ hold up play due to his physicals was great.
Negatives:
-I found Courtois to be quite slow and this is probably due to his 79 acceleration. He never really burst away from defenders and this changed the way I liked to use my striker.
-Even though he has near perfect dribbling, I found him to be quite heavy and his dribbling to not be great. He does have 81 in-game dribbling, but he has max agility, balance, reactions and composure. This didn’t really reflect in game though and this could have been because of his body type.
-I would have liked him to have scored a few more goals that weren’t headers. I felt myself only wanting to cross the ball into Courtois which yes was effective, but I was probably too predictable to defend against. I didn’t feel confident when shooting with him.
In my opinion, there’s better strikers on the market that are better finishers and will get you more goals. If you really wanted to use Courtois, I would suggest playing him in a 4-4-2 with another more agile and quicker striker and use him as a target man as he is exceptionally good at this due to his amazing aerial abilities. For me though, as I have Virgil Van Dijk who has the Aerial+ PlayStyle, I probably won’t be using him again, but out of the two players who we’ve reviewed here, I’d sooner use Courtois over Kounde.
