EA FC 26 TOTY campaign timing and how every drop is scheduled

Team of the Year in EA FC 26 is not a single drop; it is a month-long promo that rewires Ultimate Team’s economy, pack strategy, and meta. Timing matters, both for when you open rewards and when you plan upgrades.

EA FC 26 TOTY start time

EA FC 26’s Team of the Year promo is expected to begin on Friday, January 16, 2026 at the usual 6pm UK time. That launch marks the moment the first upgraded blue cards replace regular versions in packs and the in-game promo menu shifts fully to TOTY branding.

The promo then runs through the second half of January, with different positions and side-content entering and leaving packs on a fixed rotation rather than everything going live at once.

FC 26 TOTY voting window and team reveal

Before cards hit packs, the event starts with a community ballot. The Team of the Year vote is expected to:

• Open: around January 7, 2026, once EA publishes the shortlists.
• Run for roughly a week: early January, covering both the Men’s and Women’s XIs.
• Close: in the days before the main promo goes live, to give time for final selection and card prep.

The final XIs are then revealed publicly in mid‑January. That reveal comes just ahead of the first wave of TOTY items entering packs and is followed later by separate “12th man” and “12th woman” votes that add one extra card to each team through an in-game poll.

Full EA FC 26 TOTY release schedule

The promotion is structured around staggered position groups and layered content. The expected calendar for FC 26 TOTY 2026 looks like this:

Everything revolves around that January 22–30 window, when the full TOTY XI, Honorable Mentions, and Icons are all available together. For anyone saving packs, that period offers the broadest set of high-end pulls from a single opening session.

How the phases change what you can pack

Each window adjusts what the game can spit out from a player pack.

During the attackers phase, only forwards from the Team of the Year are in packs. That’s the most common time to hunt for a specific striker or winger and when the market for high-rated offensive golds and previous promo attackers can drop hard.

The midfielders window then takes over with central and wide midfielders as the only TOTY items available. Shortly after, the defenders and goalkeepers slice arrives, which is when full-backs, centre-backs, and keepers get their big upgrades.

Once all three waves cycle through, the full TOTY XI phase starts. At that point, any TOTY starter can show up, alongside the growing pool of TOTY Icons and, from January 23 onward, the first Honorable Mentions and Fan Favourites.

Pack contents are determined the moment you open them, not when you earn them. That makes it viable to hoard Division Rivals, Champions, and SBC rewards in the run-up to January 16 and open them only when the slice of the promo you care about is live.

What counts as “Team of the Year” in FC 26

Team of the Year in FC 26 is built around four pillars:

• Men’s TOTY XI – 11 players in a 4‑3‑3: one goalkeeper, four defenders, three midfielders, three attackers.
• Women’s TOTY XI – a parallel 4‑3‑3 with the same structure for women’s football.
• 12th man and 12th woman – a single extra attacker, midfielder, or defender for each team, chosen via a short in‑game vote after the main reveal.
• Honorable Mentions – a wider batch of players who made the shortlist or had standout seasons but missed the XI, given strong upgrades without fully matching TOTY power levels.

Recent years also folded TOTY Icons into the promo, splitting them into two teams across the calendar and sometimes adding individual Icons through SBCs or Objectives. FC 26 continues that pattern, treating them as themed special items that sit on top of the usual Icon pool.

Why the January dates matter for your club

Team of the Year lands at a moment when squads are already stacked with promos like Winter Wildcards and Time Warp, so the timing of each TOTY slice makes a real difference to how you manage your club.

Through early January, players tend to offload high-end meta cards and previous promos, turning them into liquid coins ahead of the TOTY crash. That selling pressure, combined with expectations of stronger cards, drives prices down before the January 16 start date.

Once the promo begins, those dates above create natural inflection points. The attacker drop pushes down elite strikers and wingers. The midfielder window hits box‑to‑box engines and playmakers. The defenders and keepers phase undercuts full-backs, centre-backs, and goalkeeper specials. The full XI window then unleashes a flood of pack openings as people finally crack open their big reserves, flooding the market with fodder and older specials.

Each segment of the schedule is also when EA leans hardest into:

• TOTY‑themed SBCs that ask for high-rated squads and drive fodder demand.
• Limited objectives that pay out packs or loan TOTY items for use in specific modes.
• Store packs labelled around TOTY eligibility, often with position-focused odds.

How to line up your plans with the calendar

For most players, the question is not whether TOTY matters but how to align everyday Ultimate Team habits with the promo’s timing.

Before January 16, the key levers are preparation and restraint. Many players:

• Save Weekend League and Rivals rewards instead of opening them immediately.
• Complete upgrade SBCs and objective paths that grant high‑value untradeable packs, then park them.
• Trim non-essential meta cards that are likely to lose value once their TOTY equivalents appear.

Across the position phases, you can then decide when to cash in your saved rewards:

• Open during the attackers window if your team lacks top forwards and you mainly care about strikers and wingers.
• Hold for midfielders or defenders & goalkeepers if your upgrades are in the spine of the squad.
• Wait until the full XI and TOTY Icons overlap if you want the broadest possible pool of elite pulls from each pack.

Throughout the January 16–30 span, new content drops at 6pm UK time, which is also when short‑lived SBCs and lightning‑round packs typically appear. Those daily resets are mini‑events inside the wider calendar and can briefly spike fodder prices or create buying opportunities as players rip packs and dump unneeded cards.

Team of the Year in EA FC 26 is a calendar more than a single date. The voting week in early January, the January 16 kickoff, the attacker‑to‑defender rotation, and the late‑month full XI window each shape how you should save packs, when you should sell or buy, and which nights are worth logging in right at content drop. Treating those moments as anchors for your own schedule is the best way to squeeze value out of the promo instead of just watching the market implode around you.