There I was, chugging along at the start of another Weekend League, hoping to scrape to my usual 18 wins - but after yet another rubbish start, I decided to get Rijkaard's loan card and goodness me, he is the absolute truth. I finished my 20 games with him and immediately did his full SBC, which I had just barely enough coins to do.





I went from 18 wins to 23 with him in my squad (and had three penalty shootout losses too) and honestly, he has completely revamped how I play. He does so much defensive work that in a 4-1-2-1-2 (2) at CDM that instead of telling my two CMs to either stay back or be balanced, I set them to get forward without any dramas at all.





I put Catalyst on him because when you already have 90 defending and strength, you really don't need any more - put he was the kickstarter for many of my attacks with his runs and passes, and the killer of many, many more of my opponent's. His balance stat is extremely low but at no point did I notice that in the slightest.





I don't know about his shooting because he hardly ever gets into a position for one, but has set up a handful of goals with some nice long balls - he's not a silky dribbler but he's not in my squad to glide through my opponent's midfield.





Positioning, outstanding. Tackling, outstanding. Interceptions, outstanding. I have mainly used Vidal in that role and also tried 85 Blanc, TOTGS Kimmich, Goretzka, SIF Mooy and others and nobody even comes remotely close - I'm a free to play player so I'll never have enough coins for Gullit or Vieira or Petit. But as we move through February and close to people having their end-game squads, to 600k or so it took to do this SBC seemed like an absolute bargain, especially as he's going for twice that on the market right now.





In short, he helped me, a pretty bad player, be slightly less bad. He's great, get him.



