Player ratings for EA Sport's upcoming football simulation game FIFA 15 are some of computer gaming's worst-kept secrets with a series of leaks finding their way through the many porous cracks of the internet a good month before the game's official UK release on September 26th. Already we've seen alleged leaked player ratings for the stars of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United while yesterday we unearthed a list purporting to show Barcelona and Real Madrid's scores. Some of these ratings were as you might expect, while others, others were well off the mark. Long-term fans of the FIFA franchise will tell you player ratings are a pretty big deal. Scored out of 100, publishers EA assign a score value to each and every single player on the game based on their real-life counterpart's performances in 2013-14, which dictates how the digital version of the footballer fares on computers and consoles. These ratings are often a bone of contention among the game's fanbase with even the most marginal of changes to a player's score - be it up or down - enough to send gamers into a fury. And some may not be happy by what they've seen so far based on the purported leaks, with a number of stars either under or overvalued in FIFA 15. Here, we take a look at 12 leaked ratings EA have already gotten wrong.
12. Luke Shaw, 76
Luke Shaw has exploded onto the football scene over the course of the last 12 months, excelling for Southampton at left-back last season before completing his move to Manchester United this summer, becoming the world's fourth-most expensive defender and one of the planet's costliest teenagers following his £27 million switch. And that all makes his paltry rating of 72 in predecessor FIFA 14 look somewhat ridiculous. According to the leaks, EA have revised Shaw's score by handing him an increase up to 76 but we still feel this is too low. The 19-year-old is one of the game's fastest-rising stars at present and his recent performances - which saw him earn a place on England manager Roy Hodgson's 23-man World Cup squad - should have seen him score closer to 80. His new teammate Rafael has apparently been handed a ratings increase to 79, and that's despite the fact the Brazilian only made 19 Premier League appearances last season due to injury. Why then is Shaw considered inferior to the right-back? It really is perplexing giving the duo's varying campaigns in 2013-14.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
