EA Sports FC 24's TOTY nominees have officially arrived, voting kicks off today

The squads of nominees for EA Sports FC 24’s version of the annual Team of the Year - TOTY for short - have been revealed, with voting set to begin today to decide which players should qualify to receive a swanky blue Ultimate Team card this year.

Yup, as has become tradition since FIFA began turning us all into virtual collectors, fans of EA’s footy series are getting a chance to have their say regarding which members of a list of nominated footballers deserve to have their real-world ball-kicking efforts during this season immortalised. If nothing else, it’s a chance to influence which cards you’ll be praying to land the next time you sit down to open some high-value packs.

This year, you’ve got two TOTY squads to help shape, with EA having introduced a women’s team of the year for the first time in series history, in addition to the usual men’s XI. You can check out the full lists of nominees, which match up with the leaked lists that were circulating online at the tail end of last week, in this blog post.

There are plenty of familiar names on both the men’s and women’s ballot, even if some players a little bit narked that a few inclusions seem to be based on name value, rather than just their accomplishments over the past 12 months. There’s also good news in the fact that wingbacks like Bayer Leverkusen’s Álex Grimaldo and Marseille’s Jonathan Clauss have been classified as defenders rather than attackers, as they’d been shown on some of the leaked lists.

So, you don’t have to worry about your favourite pacey left and right backs having an unjustly tough time making it in over traditional attacking wings.

Voting to decide which of these nominees will make the final TOTY squads begins today, January 8, meaning that the cards will likely start to arrive in-game at some point around January 20.

If you’re trying to win your way up through the online ranks of the game, make sure to check out our incredibly useful guide to the best cheap players to use for squad building challenges and our coverage of what’s in the game’s latest updates.