How the Sensei Score works
Every player on FC Sensei is graded with the Sensei Score — our own number, not EA's. Sites like SoFIFA and Futbin show you raw ratings; the Sensei Score is a single judgment of scouting upside. Here is exactly how it's calculated — no black box.
Sensei Score = clamp( potential + round((potential − overall) × 0.5) − max(0, age − 19) + elite traits, 0, 99 )1. Potential ceiling — the base
We start from the player's potential rating: the peak overall EA projects them to reach. A prospect who tops out at 89 begins from a higher base than one who tops out at 82. This is the single biggest driver of the score.
2. Growth headroom — the bonus
A player already at their ceiling is a very different bet from one with room to climb. We reward that gap: half the distance between their current overall and their potential is added back on. A 75-rated teenager heading for 89 has 14 points of headroom, worth +7; a 88-rated player heading for 89 has almost none.
3. Age adjustment — the tie-breaker
Time to develop matters. For every year a player is over 19, we trim one point. Players at or under 19 pay nothing — so when two prospects share the same ceiling and headroom, the younger one edges ahead. The result is finally clamped to a maximum of 99.
4. Elite traits — what they can already do
Potential is a projection; attributes are what a player already has. Every attribute rated 80 or above earns one point, up to 3. A prospect who is already elite at something tends to convert more often than one who is uniformly decent — and without this term, two players with identical overall, potential and age scored identically no matter how different they were on the pitch.
Why 80 and not EA's usual 85+ “ elite” bar? Because attributes are current ratings and a wonderkid is by definition undeveloped. Across FC 26, the median wonderkid's best attribute is 80, and only 34 of 128 have anything at 85+ — a bar that high would leave three quarters of the pool indistinguishable, which is the very problem this term exists to fix.
Goalkeepers are scored on their goalkeeping attributes, since those are the ones the data records for them. A player the dataset has no attributes for simply scores nothing here — missing data never counts as a weakness.
A worked example
Take a 17-year-old winger rated 75 overall with 89 potential, 84 pace and 81 dribbling:
- Base (potential): 89
- Growth: round((89 − 75) × 0.5) = +7
- Age adjustment: max(0, 17 − 19) = −0
- Elite traits: Pace 84, Dribbling 81 = +2
89 + 7 − 0 + 2 = Sensei Score 98.
Why we show the formula
A rating you can't interrogate is just an opinion. Publishing the exact maths is the point: you can check our work on any player, disagree with a weighting, and trust the ranking because you can see where it comes from. Each player's profile shows this same breakdown for their own numbers.
Versioning
This is Sensei Score v2, which replaced v1 in July 2026. v1 was the first three terms only:
v1 = clamp( potential + round((potential − overall) × 0.5) − max(0, age − 19), 0, 99 )v2 adds the elite-trait term. Being straight about the consequence: every stored score was recomputed when v2 shipped, so a player you looked at before then may read a point or three higher now. We chose that over freezing old scores because a ranking where some players are graded by one formula and some by another isn't a ranking — and the raw inputs are unchanged, so any version of the score can be recomputed and checked at any time.
FC Sensei is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by EA Sports or EA SPORTS FC. The Sensei Score is derived from publicly available potential and overall ratings.