EA Sports FC 26 Festival of Football Captains are here bringing new chemistry boosts to Ultimate Team squads.
Festival of Football, seemingly a year-long theme set to run throughout the duration of FC 26, celebrates international competitions culminating with the 2026 FIFA World Cup next summer. EA Sports had multiple Ultimate Team promotions in FIFA 23 during the 2022 World Cup, so expect Festival of Football to pop up periodically throughout this game cycle.
First off is the Captains event. At launch, there are 44 items available to players with more expected to arrive through objectives and Squad Building Challenges.
Captains are spread across both men’s and women’s player items greatly expanding squad building capabilities available to FC 26 players.
EA FC 26 Festival of Football Captains Chemistry Explained
They lead. The world follows.
— EA SPORTS FC (@EASPORTSFC) November 14, 2025
Festival of Football kicks off a year-long celebration with Captains: The leaders who lift their nations, featuring enhanced chemistry to boost your nation-based squads.
See the squad, themed SBCs & Objectives, and more.
Only in #FC26 pic.twitter.com/FFuYYEQL68
Festival of Football Captains provide three nations links, one club link and one league link for squad chemistry. As such, player items will inherently have one of three possible chemistry points without any other links.
For example, Robert Lewandowski’s FoF Captains item provides the following links:
- Three Poland links
- One FC Barcelona link
- One La Liga link
Standard gold items provide just one link per nation, club and team, so FoF cards represent a new way to hit that 33 chemistry threshold. Instead of needing five items to reach two nation chemistry links, FC 26 players will need just three if an FoF captain is included. From there, players can utilize other leagues and players from clubs to reach max chemistry.
Think of these FoF Captains somewhere in between a Hero and Icon in terms of squad building. Heroes provide an extra league link while Icons provide an extra nation link, though Icons notably provide a chemistry link for every league in the game making them superior for multi-league squad building purposes.
When Does FC 26 Festival of Football: Captains End?
The FoF: Captains promotion is set to end on Friday, Nov. 21 at 1 p.m. ET.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as How FC 26 Festival of Football Captains Chemistry Works.
