EA FC 26 Greats of the Game: New ICONs, Dates and Best Cards

Greats of the Game is the ICON drop of the Festival of Football, and it is live in EA FC 26 from June 19 to June 26. This is the wave built around World Cup legends: two brand new ICONs make their debut in Mario Kempes and Rivellino, and a deep pool of returning greats headlined by Ronaldo Nazario and Zinedine Zidane fills out packs, SBCs, objectives and the token store. If you have been banking Festival of Football Tokens, this is one of the windows they were meant for. Here is the full picture of what is in the promo, every way to get the cards, and whether chasing them is actually worth your coins.

What Greats of the Game is

Greats of the Game is EA's recurring ICON promo, and in FC 26 it lands inside the six week Festival of Football celebration tied to the real World Cup summer. Where Path to Glory upgrades current players based on their nation's results, Greats of the Game does the opposite: it spotlights retired legends, mixing two genuinely new ICON debuts with special boosted versions of greats already in the game. EA's reveal puts the pool at 42 ICONs and Heroes for this window, which makes it one of the largest legend drops of the season. The cards are spread across every acquisition route, so this is a promo you can engage with whether your budget is millions of coins or zero.

The hook this year is the World Cup framing. The new debuts are both World Cup icons, the returning headliners lean on players who defined the tournament, and the whole wave is designed to ride the Festival of Football token economy that has been running since June 5. Our Festival of Football guide covers how that token system works across the full event if you are catching up.

The two new ICONs: Kempes and Rivellino

The headline news is two World Cup legends joining the ICON roster for the first time. Both are South American greats with World Cup pedigree, which fits the promo's theme exactly.

Both debut as Greats of the Game ICONs during the promo week, and their Base ICON versions are scheduled to enter the general pack pool from June 26 once the wave ends. If you collect ICONs or want one of these as a long term squad piece, the launch week is when their special versions are in circulation, while the cheaper Base copies arrive later through normal packs and the standard ICON SBCs.

Returning headliners and the wider pool

Around the two debuts sits a stack of returning legends getting boosted Greats of the Game items. Based on the trackers and leaks circulating at launch, every card in the wave is rated 94 or higher, with the very top anchored by two all time names. Treat the exact ratings below as reported until you see them in your own client, since EA confirms the full numbers as each card releases across the week.

The pool runs deep beyond these names, with the full 42 split across pack only releases, guaranteed SBC and objective items, and token store redemptions. Because the wave is so ICON heavy, it pushes the quality ceiling of squads this week, which matters if you grind Champions or Rivals against meta opponents.

How to get the cards: every route

Greats of the Game spreads its items across three clear routes, and the order you tackle them in decides how much you spend.

• Packs. The newest and highest rated items, including the debut ICONs and the 97s, headline store and earnable packs. This is the lottery route: exciting, but the odds on any single named ICON are long, so treat store packs as entertainment rather than a plan.
• SBCs and objectives. The guaranteed route. A portion of the wave is delivered through Squad Building Challenges and play based objectives, which means a fixed cost in fodder or playtime instead of pack luck. Price these against your fodder reserve before starting, and use the rating combinations in our cheap SBC fodder guide rather than brute forcing same rated squads.
• Festival of Football Token Store. The route your saved tokens were for. Token exclusive ICONs are stocked here at fixed prices: Javier Zanetti and Emmanuel Petit, for example, each cost 2,500 Festival of Football Tokens. Tokens do not expire mid event, so spend them on the card you actually want rather than the first thing stocked.

For most players the value play is identical to every other ICON promo: clear the objectives first because they are free, weigh the SBCs against your fodder, and keep packs as a treat you can afford to lose.

Is Greats of the Game worth it?

That depends on what you are chasing. If a specific legend is your endgame squad target, this is a genuine window: the debut ICONs are only in their special versions this week, and the token store gives a guaranteed path to named cards without gambling. If you just want to improve your team right now, the honest answer is that an ICON splash rarely beats buying a couple of in form meta golds for the same coins, the exact logic our best cheap players guide is built around. Collectors win this promo; ladder climbers on a budget usually do not.

Confirmed versus leaked

News weeks blur reveals and leaks, so we separated them. Confirmed at launch: the June 19 to 26 window, the two new ICON debuts in Kempes and Rivellino, the three way acquisition split across packs, SBCs and objectives, and the token store pricing on the token exclusive ICONs. Reported but not yet fully confirmed in client: the precise ratings of the returning headliners such as the R9 and Zidane 97s, and the complete 42 card list, which the trackers assembled from leaks ahead of each daily release. Where sources disagreed on which exact players sit behind SBCs versus packs, we left those claims out rather than print a leak as fact. We cross checked against EA's official FC 26 news hub, Operation Sports and the FifaUTeam tracker, and we will update ratings here as each card is officially released.

How it fits the Festival of Football

Greats of the Game does not run in isolation. It is one chapter of the Festival of Football, the World Cup themed event running from June 5 to July 24, and it directly follows the Path to Glory window that closed on June 19. The free 93 rated Pele login ICON, the weekly token cap and the campaign objectives all keep ticking through this wave, so the smart move is to fold your Greats of the Game grind into the tokens you are already earning. For the full date map of what comes next, our promo calendar stays current, and the wider summer picture is in the World's Game update breakdown that kicked off the whole event.

Frequently asked questions

When does Greats of the Game start and end in FC 26?

Greats of the Game is live from June 19 to June 26, 2026, as part of the Festival of Football event. The new ICONs' Base versions then enter the general pack pool from June 26.

Who are the new ICONs in Greats of the Game?

Two World Cup legends debut as ICONs for the first time: Mario Kempes of Argentina and Rivellino of Brazil. They join a 42 strong pool of returning ICONs and Heroes for the promo week.

How do you get Greats of the Game cards?

Three ways: opening packs, completing guaranteed SBCs and objectives, and redeeming items in the Festival of Football Token Store, where token exclusive ICONs like Javier Zanetti and Emmanuel Petit cost 2,500 tokens each.

Bottom line: Greats of the Game is a collector's window first. Grab the free objective items, use the token store for a guaranteed legend if one fits your club, and treat packs as entertainment you can afford to lose. The rest of the week's coverage lives in our news section, next to the Ultimate TOTS finale that handed the summer over to the Festival. Looking further ahead, our EA FC 27 hub tracks every confirmed detail and rumour for next season.