Ultimate team is a way for you to build "all-star" squads to play with online against other people. In the standard game you are used to you have to play example Barcelona vs Man United. In this game you are able to acquire players from various teams to build your own squad, so you could have Messi and Ronaldo on wing, Ibrahimovich(sp) at striker, Silva, Fabregas, Modric at MF, etc . . . all on one team. You can then take this team and play one on one games or special tournaments online or against the computer. The way you acquire players is thru packs (like baseball,football cards) and thru trading an Ebay like auction system. You get money for the packs by playing in games and trading your existing players on this auction system.