Playing Squad Battles in FC 27 Without Wasting a Weekly Match

Each match is 4 minutes per half, and you’re playing against the computer. The weekly competition timer is always ticking though. Squad Battles is very much the laid-back side of Ultimate Team, particularly for new players. There are a few rules in place that can see you lose a match without even realizing it. Which games count for points? Which don’t? What if you just miss a match? All the games also give you FUT Coins and contribute to your Objectives, so it’s definitely worth taking a few minutes to get to grips with the rules.

What Squad Battles Actually Is

EA’s Squad Battles help page describes the mode in one line: players face AI-controlled squads. Those squads are not invented. They are built from real squads that were used in Squad Battles, Draft (online and offline), Ultimate Team Champions, and Rivals, and opponents can come from any platform.

That makes the mode a good first step. EA’s beginner guide recommends Amateur or Semi-Pro difficulty against the computer rather than facing another player with a starter squad, and every match is a full game with four-minute halves and all standard rules, fouls and substitutions included.

Starter squads are a 4-4-2 with the players in their preferred positions. If you have someone out of position, they lose attributes. That’s the first thing that most new players run into and a lot of them will spend their first few FIFA coins on a player who is in a better position than a quick fix.

The Four Opponents and How They Are Picked

Each weekly competition comes with four opponent squads. At the start of a competition, or after an Opponent Update, the game picks them like this:

A match pays its Battle Points when it ends, and the amount follows the result and the difficulty picked, which makes the choice of opponent a real decision for the week. When the Hard squad outclasses the club, it can be simpler to buy FC 27 coins before the match and fix the weak position, so the hour stays on the game and not on the market.

It is worth looking at what the Hard squad is made of. It is a quick way to see how real squads from Draft or Champions are put together.

Battle Points: What Counts and What Doesn’t

Battle Points only count towards your weekly score in competition matches. Games outside of competition still give you coins and assist with Objectives. Extra matches give you FC 27 coins and progress but don’t impact your Rank.

Two rules catch players out:

• Ending a match early, or skipping one by refreshing, earns no Battle Points.
• Quitting a match forfeits it, as in Live Events, and records a 3–0 loss.

Rewards arrive shortly after the weekly competition ends, based on Battle Points and the final Rank.

Rank and the Leaderboard

Your rank in Squad battles is based on your share of the player base. Each rank covers a certain percentage of the player base as determined by Battle Points. As it’s a relative rank your rank can change whilst you’re offline as others are earning Battle Points. The leaderboard updates approximately every 5 minutes. The Your Rank tab shows brackets based on progress rather than player names and there are separate leaderboards for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

If you check that tab on the last evening of the competition, you might well be tempted to go and buy some FIFA coins to upgrade your squad for the final games. As Rank is based on percentages every point counts and it can be very difficult to lose a game right on the edge of a bracket.

Refreshing Opponents Without Losing Matches

You can choose when to refresh your opponents. The caveat is that unplayed matches still count towards your weekly total and you can’t go back and play matches you’ve skipped. So refreshing isn’t a free reroll.

This is how you should go about a difficult matchup. To skip it is to waste the match. The correct approach is to check the squad once, work out if you can actually win, and if your team has a glaring weakness, then go and replace that player. Some players will buy FC coins for this very reason as it can be cheaper to fix one position than it is to lose a weekly match.

Featured Squads and Replays

Featured Squad Battles are special matches against squads put together by FC community members (i.e. real footballers or pro players). You can go back and play these again to improve your score. The beginner guide states you can replay a Featured Squad or a Team of the Week Squad as many times as you like, but you can only play each of the weekly competition matches once.

This is a very useful way to practice. You can go through a tough squad repeatedly, learn their tactics, and then apply that in your actual weekly games.

Squad Battles With a Friend

Starting Co-Op is simple really, just invite a friend from your Friends List in the Main Menu. The Lobby Captain will pick the opponent and the difficulty and both players will get Battle Points and FC coins. One thing to bear in mind is that if either player has no weekly matches remaining, then neither of you will get Battle Points from that match.

It’s a good idea to check both players’ progress prior to playing together. If one player has already completed their matches, you’ll only get coins, not Battle Points.

A Weekly Routine

Here is a calm way to run the week:

1. Check the four opponents once and note which one is the Hard squad.
2. Play the weekly matches at a difficulty level that your squad can actually cope with.
3. Warm up with the Featured Squads prior to playing a weekly match that actually matters.
4. Don’t skip or drop matches.
5. Check your rank prior to the final evening, not during it.

What about the days in between competitions? That’s the quiet time. The new opposition hasn’t arrived yet, so there’s nothing on the line, and you can put your squad together without any pressure. Some will go and buy the FC 27 coins so that when the new week comes along you’ve got every position filled. Others will just go and practice. Either way, those games count, as they’ll help with the majority of the general objectives (goals, clean sheets, etc.), and Squad Battles will not help with Moments.