FIFA 20 Ultimate Team winter upgrades – Release date & FUT predictions

EA SPORTS are set to release a number of exciting winter upgrade cards for FIFA 20 Ultimate Team, as is tradition, with a ratings refresh coming soon for top players in the Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, and others. 

The game developers have been using rating changes to keep their popular trading card mode interesting since the early days, with cards being given stat boosts following the turn of the New Year.

While the process of them improving cards is always predictable, what’s not is the players who will be impacted by the winter update, and that’s something decided solely by the footballers’ performances when they play for their teams.

The ratings refresh won’t include downgrades, though, as it looks to reward those who are considered to be better players at the time of the update – in comparison to their base card rating, given when the game first came out in September 2019.

So, let’s take a look at when they will go live and who could be picked…

When will FIFA 20 upgrade cards be released?

This is very much an annual tradition for the FIFA series and just by going back to previous updates, patterns start to emerge about release dates.

In FIFA 19, the update was rolled out on February 19, while FIFA 18 was February 16, meaning that we can probably expect to see the unconfirmed cards released around that time this year – with Friday, February 14, being touted as a possible day of launch.

FIFA 20 winter upgrade card predictions

Upgrades usually involve – but are not limited to – a one or two overall rating boost. If the upgrade surpasses the overall rating of an in-form card already available, they will be upgraded too, meaning current card owners will be very interested to see who is selected.

One way of predicting who will be given winter upgrades is looking at the live rating database for FIFA 20, which is updated based on form regularly by EA. It doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about winter refresh card stats, but it does show the likelihood of a new card being granted for some players.

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The statistics below show upgrades that have been given to players on the database already, with their name, team name, original overall and improved rating included in the list:

• Adama Traore – Wolves – 74 to 79
• Alisson Becker – Liverpool – 89 to 90
• Erling Haaland– Borussia Dortmund – 73 to 82
• Gabriel Martinelli – Arsenal – 68 to 75
• Jadon Sancho – Borussia Dortmund – 84 to 88
• James Maddison – Leicester City – 79 to 82
• Jamie Vardy – Leicester City – 82 to 85
• Lautaro Martinez – Inter Milan – 81 to 85
• Mauro Icardi – Paris Saint Germain – 85 to 86

• Ricardo Pereira – Leicester City – 82 to 87
• Robert Lewandowski – Bayern Munich – 89 to 90
• Roberto Firmino – Liverpool – 86 to 89
• Romelu Lukaku – Inter Milan – 85 to 86
• Sadio Mane – Liverpool – 88 to 90
• Sergio Aguero – Manchester City – 89 to 90
• Timo Werner – Red Bull Leipzig – 83 to 85
• Virgil van Dijk – Liverpool – 90 to 92

These statistics will more than certainly not translate accurately to Ultimate Team mode, as in-form cards have been granted along the way to show each players’ improvements, although it could be an indicator as to who will be impacted.

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The likes of Traore, Martinelli, and others look to be certain candidates for upgrades, but we’ll have to wait and see who EA SPORTS chooses for the confirmed list. Once those are announced, we’ll be the first to let you know.