A Quick Guide To Football Card Abbreviations
12.January 2022 by Calum Walker
A Quick Guide To Football Card Abbreviations
Not sure what the abbreviations and numbers on a CardsPlug football card stand for? You're not alone!
Not everybody knows or likes football. Which means a lot of us might not know what ratings and abbreviations to use on your CardsPlug. If that describes your situation, don’t worry! This quick and easy guide to football card ratings is here to help.
Before we start, remember you can also consult our full guide to making a real life football card. As well as ratings, that also covers other aspects like choosing a design and card size.
Still with us? Great! Let's get started on the basics.
The Basics Of Football Card Abbreviations
Every CardsPlug has a position and 7 numbers or ‘stats’ on it. These show the player’s position and a rating out of 99 for each skill (in abbreviated form). The most popular positions are:
| Position | Abbreviation |
| Goalkeeper | GK |
| Centre Back | CB |
| Left or Right Back | LB/RB |
| Defensive Midfielder | CDM |
| Centre Midfielder | CM |
| Left or Right Midfielder | LM/RM |
| Left or Right Winger | LW/RW |
| Striker | ST |
If you aren't sure which position to choose for someone, just ask them what their favourite position is. They’ll never know it’s for CardsPlug! Now let's move on to the skill ratings you see on the card.
A Quick Guide To Football Card Skill Ratings
Every football card has a big number at the top and 6 smaller numbers at the bottom. The big number is the player's overall rating out of 99. Meanwhile, the smaller numbers show their skills in different areas.
Each skill is rated out of 99. So the higher the better. The stats for an outfield player (i.e. all positions except Goalkeeper) are shown below.
| Skill/Attribute | Abbreviation |
| Pace | PAC |
| Shooting | SHO |
| Passing | PAS |
| Dribbling | DRI |
| Defending | DEF |
| Physicality | PHY |
Goalkeepers have their own stats, which you can see here:
| Skill/Attribute | Abbreviation |
| Diving | DIV |
| Handling | HAN |
| Kicking | KIC |
| Positioning | POS |
| Reflexes | REF |
| Speed | SPD |
If you choose Goalkeeper as your position, our team will change the skill abbreviations to Goalie ones for you. If you'd like to do it yourself, you can also edit these in our personalised football card builder.
Still not sure what numbers to put? Don’t worry! If you’re feeling generous, you can put 99 (or a mix of numbers in the high 90s) for every skill. Or you could use our randomize button to keep things interesting.
If you have any worries, you can always drop a line to our friendly support team. We’re here to help!
Extra Fun With Football Card Ratings (Optional)
It must be said, most people just use the football positions and skills above. However, if you’d like to do something different and personal, our Card Builder lets you write whatever you want for these ratings.
This could mean putting your own attributes in. Which can be hilarious for adding an inside joke to your football card. Or making it extra personal for an occasion like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
For example, you could put JOKES or HAIR instead of PAC (Pace). Or you could put MUM, DAD, BRO or SIS as the position instead of ST (Striker). It’s completely up to you!
As I said though, most football and gaming fans will appreciate the standard football card stats most.
You're Good To Go!
So there we have it. You're now an expert in everything to do with football card ratings and abbreviations!
We hope this makes it easier for you to personalise your real life football card with us. If you're ready, the first step is to open our football card builder and pick a card design to customise.
If you have any other questions, you can take a look at our full guide to making areal life FIFA card. Or you can reach out to our friendly support team with anything at all. Happy gifting!
