FC 26 87 Player of the Month Pina Player Review - Cop or Flop

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you happen to like Pina Colada, if you like getting caught in the rain, then today is a good day for you my friend. Claudia Pina, the nightmare of FC26 has only gone and won the Liga F Player of the Month award for November. Which means a fresh SBC in the game and one that will potentially continue her legacy even further throught this game cycle. 

Now, whilst instantly we do not want to advocate for more of this woman appearing in squads, I suppose we may as well take a look at this SBC and see if it is worth completing. Whilst we’re at it, we’ll take a look and see if the grass is indeed green and the sky is infact blue.

Compared to the Cornerstones version, there has been no overall boost but shockingly, this card has had a downgrade in Pace and Shooting with an upgrade to Defending and Physical. The most standout change to this card of course, is the fact she comes with Finesse Shot+ instead of Low Driven. I think her Low Drivens are the most overpowered in the game behind Karim Benzema’s so it’ll be interesting to see how much of a difference there is now that she has this as a base playstyle instead. Of course, of all playstyle pluses to have instead, finesse is the next best thing. 

The hunter chemstyle is the clear choice for this card, simply boosts that pace whilst maxing out those shooting stats, making her absolutely clinical. 

Here are the following segments to unlock the POTM Pina SBC:

FC Barcelona

# of players from FC Barcelona: Min 1

Team of the Week Players: Min 1

Squad Rating: Min 86

# of players in squad: 11

Spain

# of players from Spain: Min 1

Team of the Week Players: Min 1

Squad Rating: Min 86

# of players in squad: 11

Top Form

Team of the Week Players: Min 1

Squad Rating: Min 87

# of players in squad: 11

87-Rated Squad

Squad Rating: Min 87

# of players in squad: 11

87-Rated Squad

Squad Rating: Min 87

# of players in squad: 11

87-Rated Squad

Squad Rating: Min 87

# of players in squad: 11

88-Rated Squad

Squad Rating: Min 88

# of players in squad: 11

7 total segments for this SBC with a cost of 520k to complete. Whilst this is a very expensive SBC to complete, I actually think value wise it’s fairly spot on. Of course, this is going to have some demand to it so there was no way this could be cheap or else she would continue to be in every single team. We’ve said a lot recently that these heavy SBCs aren’t great currently due to struggles with attaining fodder, but this SBC does have under a month behind it so there is plenty of time to craft. Ultimately, it comes down to is she much better than her Gold and/or Cornerstones

How did she perform in-game?

+ Her shooting was simply fantastic. The switch up from Low Driven+ to Finesse was barely noticed as she was more than capable of continuing to ping those low balls past the keeper. And not much needs to be said about the finesse shot. Outside of these meta shooting styles, she is still absolutely clinical in front of goal.

+ Dribbling on this card was pretty great also. She controls the ball really well and keeps possession tight to her feet. She does a good job of technical dribbling around players under high pressure on the edge of the box.

+ Her passing was pretty decent too but most notably was the tiki taka passing with her teammates when building towards goal.

/ The pace was okay on this card, if she has a head start she’s clear but she isn’t overly challenging to keep up with

- Strength was always going to be a problem, as is with her previous versions. Being a smaller less physical player made her light work for any big defenders.

Pina  - Cop or Flop?

This is an excellent card, price wise I think it’s pretty spot on for what it is. This isn’t a tradeable item and the cornerstone price is roughly around the same area as this one, so for it too be a little more costly is in my opinion, quite fair. However, the key thing for this SBC as mentioned earlier, is whether or not she is massively different from her previous versions and honestly the answer is no. The gold card is simply a few -1s across the board compared to this and is over 500k cheaper. So frankly there is no justifying completing this SBC with the gold being that similar with a great difference in price. I half expected the Low Driven to perhaps be quite different but frankly it wasn’t. I would save your coins and fodder on this one and maybe hold out for a Pina Evo that will inevitably come in the future.

Verdict = FLOP