Hey guys, back with another article. Today we’re gonna talk about one of the most important aspects in game: defending.
It’s something a lot of people struggle with, which is why we’re going to cover it step-by-step.
Players
I’ll keep it short on this one since I already covered most of it in the 1st article which you can check out here.
The essence of it is that you always want at least 1 defender with Low/High or Medium/High workrates (e.g. Chiellini, Manolas, Pepe, Smalling, Koscielny) with 70+ pace and good physical stats. The other slot you can fill as you please but I highly recommend 70+ pace and good defending stats.
Good pairing examples:
Boateng-Smalling
Manolas-Varane
Chiellini-Miranda
Toprak-Pepe
Koscielny-Koulibaly
Umtiti-Bonucci
Baily-Reid
Bad Pairing examples
David Luiz-Thiago Silva
Hummels-Ramos
Naldo-Sokratis
Baily-Mathiue
You get the gist of it.
In-game mechanics
Defending around the circle
This is the part most people have trouble with; to defend solid.
One of the most important parts of defending like you have Italian blood is:
DO NOT TOUCH YOUR CENTREBACKS UNTIL YOU HAVE NO OTHER OPTIONS LEFT!
The most common mistake I see people make is panicking when their opponent comes with an attacking threat, rush forward with their CB to make an attempted tackle, and fail to do so. BOOM, you now have a hole in your defence the size of Adebayo Akinfewa and you made it 10x easier for your opponent to score.
What you want to do is to defend with your midfielders.
One of the things that helped me is rebind my teammate contain-button (R1 on PS4, RB on XBOX) to X (PS4) or A (XBOX). Please stay away from the normal contain button, it’s useless. The teammate contain-button on the other hand, is very useful. It allows you to cut of passing lanes, while still applying enough pressure to narrow your opponents space. This will often result in your opponent making hard passes which can be easily intercepted with your CDM. This is a very effective way to defend in the area around the midfield where your opponent is not yet in a scoring position.
Defending around and in the box
Defending in this area is tricky, too little pressure and your opponent has more than enough room to shoot, too much pressure and you open your opponents players up to walk free on goal. The trick is to create just enough space between your defender (ideally a midfielder but if left with no other options your wingbacks or centrebacks) which makes it hard for your opponent to shoot whilst not creating huge gaps at the same time.
ALWAYS USE L2/RT! By jockeying you can cover the opponent much easier and tackle when needed. When tackling make sure to get your timing right or your tackle will whiff and your player will need to recover. This wil give your opponent more than enough time to rush past the defender or open another player up.
Defending on the wings
Your opponent will have pacey players here, the only way to keep up with them is to use pacey wingbacks yourself. You won’t get away with using Lahm for example because any good opponent will just lob the ball over your backline, with no way for Lahm to catch up. When confronted with a 1 on 1 situation around the cornerflag, apply the same concept as normal. Don’t be too aggresive as people will use a lot of face up-dribbling and skill-moves around this area, and you don’t want them to break through. If given too much room with no wingback left to cover your opponent can just use a driven pass or triple tap cross for an easy goal.
Standing tackle
The standing tackle can be very useful, but beware not to overuse it missing it can be very costly.
Examples
You can use it to outmuscle your opponent when in a sprint for the ball.
You can use it when your opponent overextends
You can use it to give you more reach with your player (i.e. when your opponent makes a sudden turn)
Simple things that will massively improve your defending
-Don’t use L1 to switch players, use the right stick. This will make sure you select the right player and you can flick between players faster.
-Avoid sliding tackles unless when your 100% sure it will result in clearing the ball/ gives you a better position.
-When faced with a single defender and an opponent rushing towards you, don’t panic. If out of position move backwards while holding L2 and try to read your opponents path. If done correctly, it will result in you recapturing the ball or severely limiting your opponents options.
-Do not neglect the sprint button when defending. As I said before rushing towards your opponent is bad but when your opponent makes a pass, you can use the sprint button to cover other passing lanes or flick to another one of your players and cover/ recapture the ball.
-Don’t panic when someone uses flashy skill-moves or starts face-up dribbling, stay calm, hold L2 and time your tackle right. Sometimes you don’t even have to tackle and your opponent will just walk right into you, resulting in him losing the ball.
-Actually, don’t panic at all it’s the worst thing you can do when defending. Stay calm, try to predict your opponent options and react to them in the correct manner.
I’ll leave you guys with a youtube-video on defending made by pro player @Hashtag_Boras.
Most youtube-guides are very clickbaity but with very little substance, this one on the other hand is very informative.
You can check it out here!
That’s all I have on defending, it’s hardly rocket science yet the execution can be difficult. That being said, apply the things you read in this guide and your defence will improve for sure.
If you guys want to see anything covered you can contact me on Twitter here, or leave a comment!
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