Build A Soccer Squad Chemistry Guide
Chemistry is built from links between players sitting next to each other in your Starting XI, and the game shows it as coloured lines running between the player icons. The guides give different answers on which shared attributes create those lines — so this breakdown separates the points every source states from the three views on what creates a link.
How Build A Soccer Squad Chemistry Works
Build A Soccer Squad Chemistry isn't a single stat you level up — it's built link by link between the players sitting next to each other in your Starting XI. Every card is checked against the ones placed directly around it in the formation, and the game draws a coloured line between a pair when a link forms. Green is the strongest line and grey the weakest, with four steps in between.
The guides give three different answers on which shared attributes pull that line towards green. This page lays out what every guide agrees on first, then the three views with each source attached so you can compare them.
The link colour scale
- Green Strongest link
- Mid shades Four steps in between
- Grey Weakest link
Adjacent squad slots (XI) are joined by a coloured line. Green is the strongest link and grey the weakest, with four steps in between. Which shared attributes create that line is the part the guides disagree on.
What Every Guide Agrees On
These four points hold across every source.
| Agreed point | What it means | Backing |
|---|---|---|
| Chemistry appears as coloured lines between adjacent player icons | Green is the strongest link and grey the weakest, with intermediate shades in between. | Stated in both the AllThings.How beginner guide and its 100+ rated team guide. |
| Links only form between neighbouring cards | A card is checked against the players placed directly around it in the formation, not against the whole squad at once. | Stated in the AllThings.How beginner guide and repeated in its best-team guide. |
| A fully linked squad can beat a higher-rated unlinked one | Every guide covering Chemistry makes this claim. | AllThings.How beginner guide and best-team guide both state it explicitly. |
| Link strength is shown by colour | The game shows link strength as line colour, so the practical goal is to turn as many lines green as you can. | Stated in the AllThings.How beginner guide. |
Three Views on What Creates a Link
Each view below comes from a published guide. Dates are each article's own last-updated stamp.
| Question | What this source claims | Source |
|---|---|---|
| What actually creates a link? | Shared tags — nation, club, league and country. The more tags two adjacent cards share, the stronger their line. | AllThings.How — beginner guide updated 2026-07-05 |
| What actually creates a link? | Only two attributes matter — nation and league. League is the backbone of a squad, nation is a bonus layer on top. Club is never mentioned. | AllThings.How — how to build the best team updated 2026-07-01 |
| What actually creates a link? | Position matching — put each card in the slot printed on it and the link turns green. Nation, club and league are not named as link sources at all. | AllThings.How — tips, and its 100+ rated team guide updated 2026-07-06 |
| Does Chemistry add rating on top of the average? | Yes — Chemistry is added on top of the raw average of your eleven cards. | AllThings.How — beginner, best-team and tips guides updated 2026-07-06 |
| Does Chemistry add rating on top of the average? | No — the squad number is simply the average of the eleven starters, with no hidden bonus. | AllThings.How — how to reach a 100+ rated team updated 2026-07-08 |
Plan around link colour rather than a bonus number: green is the strongest link and grey the weakest.
Chemistry Link Planner
Tick what two adjacent Starting XI cards have in common. The planner tells you which guide backs each attribute you tick.
Check what two adjacent players have in common to see which sources back it.
Why Chemistry Matters More Than Raw OVR
A lower-rated player with strong Chemistry links can outperform a higher-rated player sitting with no links at all. Every guide covering Chemistry makes that claim, which makes it the safest thing on this page to build around. Instead of slotting in whatever card has the highest number, look at what's sitting next to it.
Because the guides differ on what creates a link, the robust play is to satisfy more than one explanation at once: keep cards near others they share something with — nation, league, club, all of it — and put each card in the position printed on it. That squad links under every competing explanation, so you don't need to know which one is correct. Steer your Rerolls and Refreshes (the resources you get from codes like LIMITBREAKER and DOUBLE) toward deepening that overlap rather than chasing every high-OVR card you see.
Chemistry and Other Systems
Chemistry sits alongside the game's other progression systems, but be careful about how you combine them. Cup Mode gates entry on your Starting XI averaging 93 OVR or higher — and whether Chemistry adds anything on top of that average is something the guides disagree on, so don't count on links to carry you over the line. What does hold: a Chemistry-first build tends to make a Captain card easier to unlock, because collecting a full designated squad and collecting cards that share attributes pull in the same direction.
Building Around Links
The most common mistake is treating link-building as a separate step you do after collecting cards, rather than a filter you apply while opening packs. Before locking in a Starting XI, look at what overlap already exists in your collection — the nation, league or club that keeps showing up — and build a line around it, then use whatever OVR headroom is left to decide between near-identical options.
The second mistake is trusting a specific number. Plan around the ordering you can see on screen — green line good, grey line bad.
Sources
Sources for this page:
- AllThings.How — beginner guide (updated 2026-07-05)
- AllThings.How — how to build the best team (updated 2026-07-01)
- AllThings.How — tips: chemistry, rerolls and higher OVR (updated 2026-07-06)
- AllThings.How — how to reach a 100+ rated team (updated 2026-07-08)
Checked 2026-07-26.
Keep Reading
Best Players Tier List
The highest-OVR cards confirmed so far, if you're deciding which pulls to build a Chemistry core around.
Read the guide → 99Captains
Squad-completion goals overlap naturally with a Chemistry-first build — see how the 99 OVR unlock works.
Read the guide → 93+Cup Mode
The 93 OVR entry gate is measured on your Starting XI average — what that means for a link-first squad.
Read the guide →