Licensing battles mean there is no such thing as FIFA 21 Juventus. For the second year in a row, FIFA 21 sees Italy's most successful club team replaced by the generic Piemonte Calcio. Rival publisher Konami captured exclusive rights to Juve in 2019, meaning PES 2021 is the only one of the big two to feature its official badge, kits, and iconic Allianz Stadium. The deal runs for three years, meaning the earliest you’ll see Juventus in an EA game again is FIFA 23. [The image at the top of this piece is from their last appearance, in FIFA 19.]
FIFA 21 Juventus player details
It’s not all bad news on the FIFA 21 Juventus front. The Piemonte Calcio replacement side has fake kits and a fake badge, yet all its players are real, with mostly accurate faces. Utilise them in exhibition or career mode and you still get to do so with lifelike versions of Cristiano Ronaldo, Paulo Dybala, Giorgio Chiellini, Wojciech Szczęsny and co. No Miralem Pjanic any more though, after the Bosnian joined Barcelona during the summer.
Ultimate Team cards are still based around real-life performances too. Cristiano Ronaldo earned a 93-rated TOTW item in week 9 after scoring twice to overcome Cagliari, while Juan Cuadrado's performance for Juve against Torino, assisting both goals in a 2-1 win, scored a week 11 TOTW card with an OVR of 84.
FIFA 21 AS Roma look a bit different
While all of the above was true last year, it also now applies to another fabled Serie A club: AS Roma. Konami has also purchased exclusive rights to use them in PES, as pictured above. That means their new FIFA 21 name is simply Roma FC, and they too have a redesigned badge and fictional kits. They compete in the generic Stadion Olympik.
“You can still expect to see the same AS Roma real-world, authentic players and related likenesses in FIFA 21 and Ultimate Team,” says an official EA statement. “Player Chemistry within Ultimate Team will be unaffected by these changes. We'd like to thank everyone at AS Roma for the years of collaboration as the team's official sports video gaming partner.”
EA has produced an FAQ explaining the finer details of the Roma move, which you can read on its official website.
FIFA 21 Piemonte Calcio explained
For the record, the name Piemonte Calcio isn’t as random as it may sound. Juventus are based geographically in the city of Turin, which is in the region of Piedmont, bordering France and Switzerland. And Calcio simply means ‘football’ or ‘kick’. Hopefully we don’t need to explain the meaning behind the name ‘FC Roma’.
All other Serie A clubs remain fully licensed, with accurate kits and badges.
Outside of Italy, it’s also worth noting that Argentine heavyweights River Plate are unlicensed in FIFA 21. Instead they’re known as Nunez.
The most notable fallout of all of this licensing kerfuffle is how it’s affected the individual status of Portugal skipper and talisman Cristiano Ronaldo. For many years he was FIFA’s cover star, and best player, untouchable in Ultimate Team despite the brilliance of longstanding rival Lionel Messi. Those covers would not be possible now.
Last year, with Ronaldo assigned to Piemonte Calcio, he found himself demoted to the game’s second best player behind Messi, and it’s an arrangement which repeats itself in FIFA 21. (If you’re interested in checking out who else makes the game’s top 100 players, immediately leap over to our FIFA 21 ratings guide.)
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