FIFA 21 reveal trailer set for Thursday, but cover athletes have already leaked online

The official FIFA 21 reveal trailer is scheduled to air this Thursday, July 23 - however, information about this year's cover athletes has already surfaced online.

The livestream is due to air this Thursday at 8am PT/11am ET/4pm BST. You can tune in below, so be sure to bookmark this page if you want to access it as quickly as possible in two days time.

Although there is very little known about what the trailer is going to show - I mean, we're going to see loads of lads kicking footballs, but aside from that - a fan recently spotted something in the metadata that appears to reveal who this year's cover athletes are going to be.

Check out the tweet below, which includes a screenshot of the tags.

A quick browse of the data on display seems to imply that this year's cover stars are going to be PSG's Kylian Mbappé, Borussia Dortmund's Erling Haaland, Atlético Madrid's João Félix, and Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold.

On another note, an interesting point of contention surrounding this year's FIFA is the subject of loot boxes. EA has made a significant amount of money from microtransactions in FIFA Ultimate Team over the last few years, but UK reports are fighting for loot boxes to be classified as "a form of gambling."

FIFA 21 is due to launch on October 9, 2020 for PS4 and Xbox One. Those who purchase it on current-gen consoles will automatically receive a free upgrade for next-gen, meaning that buying a PS4 copy will automatically net you a free PS5 version, while an Xbox One copy will provide you with free access to FIFA 21 on Xbox Series X.

I'm sorry, but I am physically incapable of writing about FIFA without including my favourite FIFA story ever, which is the one where EA made a couple of pro players settle their match with a game of rock, paper, scissors after the FIFA servers canned.