Ok, this is my rant! I have recently been playing fifa trying to push myself up the rankings and encountered a terrible problem that seems to me sneaking up on everyone, people playing online in ranked matches, with custom teams.

I stood back for long enough with people playing bullshit formations of 7, 8 or even 9 defenders, but now this creeping in, is an absolute joke! Im still on a winning ratio of around 80% but I’ve lost 8 games this week more than I’ve lost in the past 2 months, due to people using this custom team glitch. The first guy was Lincoln City (if you don’t know, there shit) and their starting 11 was Torres, Gerrard, Messi, Maicon, Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo and many other stars. At first I just thought Fifa has a small problem an let him get on with it, but as this happened 3 times on the bounce, I started to see it. It was a glitch that some sad bastard has found in order to bring these teams in, so I started to report every player who used it.

I didnt encounter anyone then for a few games, until I came across one gamer, who im not scared to name and shame, Jawz E10. This game was starting well for me with him penned in his own area for the first 30 minutes or so, even though he had this shitty dream team thing. Then the minute he got control of the ball he paused, it was then I would encounter the shittest and lowest thing on the game, he used a custom formation of 8 – 1 -1! This really pissed me off, not only has he chose to cheat but he’s also cheap with bullshit formations that are so boring its unreal. I eventually lose the game 1-0 it extra time and I sat back and thought, that guy is so shit that he has to cheat and pack the defence as much as possible.

This has really started to get up my nose as you can tell, so this is my way of telling the public about this, and hopefully someone will pass this onto EA for them to immedietly patch and fuck off all those people who spent time doing this rediculous glitch.

I also want you to name and shame here in my comments, any user you find using this cheat in ranked matches, anyone who has pictures/proof please comment and I will ask for them in email, we can help stamp all these idiots out together. The kids who chat shit, the people who think there cool because they cheat, all those people that totally devalue the fee we pay xbox each month for playing online!

Attacking, Part One

Ok last time I brought you tips on how to defend successfully with four at the back instead of people playing the 5 and 3 sweapers(which i think is really stupid for a football game). This week I will break down my attacking tips into two pieces so that I don’t end up leaving you with far too much to read in one sitting
Custom Tactics

Everything I’ve ever read online doesn’t really give you much of a guide with these although some people mention them. Obviously, I play with 4-4-2, so bare in mind these are tailored around that. Anyway, there are only a few of the settings I alter, one of which is width, i make this rather narrow, the amount depends on preferance(i’ll explain why i use narrow later on).

The rest of the settings I edit are all under build up play, the 1st of which being speed. This is best set to balanced. When balanced is suggested, players neither move slow nor fast when building attacks, this is helpful as each situation you encounter when attacking should be different if your going to beat most of the opponents you meet as all will play differently. If you need a quick attack then you can simply pass the ball harder to go bypass your midfield and direct to your strikers. The oposite for slow attack, pass it around your defence and midfield to build slowly. I stress this to alot of people, balanced is the best option as you never know how your player will set up until the match has started!

Defending: This has to be set to cover, the offside trap can cause you all sorts of different problems when actually defending from attacks that break down. For more tips on defending see my fifa 09 defending tips
Building an Attack

Ok now we’ve got the set up out of the way, you need to know how to build an attack. You have a fair few options in this, I will only talk through on the floor and through the middle in this part, please wait for part b if your looking at getting opportunities from the air. Anyway, you first need to decide how you want to build, do you want to go for a slow one? Or are you looking to break on people with a super quick ball?

Slow Attack: Really simple, pass the ball, across the back, until you find a midfield player free, its well better to use the full backs and L + R midfielders to switch between areas. If you use the player run button this can pretty much guaranatee that the player who passed the ball is free straight away, its probably the best tip i can ever give. Player run screws up everyones defending plans because its impossible to budget for a player making a run. The player run can leave you exposed however, so be careful and if your even in doubt, knock it back to the goalie, or just out of play and regroup. Once your in a more advanced position on a slow attack its pretty difficult to actually break through, you have 3 options, shoot (please wait for finishing tips), play a neat through ball if you see the chance, or get to the corner of the box and hit in a driven cross along the floor, very effective when the defence think your going backwards as your attatckers tend to be moving forward!

The through ball is hard to master so take care when trying this, aim towards an area the keeper isnt going to come for, or another defender might cut out, the best way is to look for one twos, pass to one player, use the player run and then pass back you’ll usually find your way through on goal then!

For fast attack and other attacking tips please read part b, i’m trying my hardest to break it down so you don’t have 1000 words to read in one go like my defending tips

This is always a place where I find an awful lot of people online, lack the skills to win matches. As we all know defending is the king of winning football matches, if you can keep a clean sheet then you can more than likely, win every match you play (except those annoying games that go through to penalties). In this post I will take you through some of the basic parts of defending for Fifa 09 on the Xbox 360 and PS3

Formation

Ok where do we start when it comes to defending? The first place to goto is, your formation, alot of players that are ranked quite highly top 500+ tend to use an awful lot of defenders with some people even playing a flat back 4 and then 3 sweepers (this can be broken very easily please wait for my attacking tips). The most common is people playing with 5 accross the back, usually 4 + a sweeper, this is the most difficult to break down however I dont like to use this as it can severly damage your attacking options. I find myself using a 4-4-2 usually with one of my midfielders in an “anchor role”

The anchor role tends to help you when it comes to people getting the ball up to their strikers and trying a 1-2 between them usually leaving you as vulnerable as you could ever imagine. However if you’ve got an anchor in there, its a player who can stop this from happening either directly or indirectly.

• Directly: Simply by intercepting the ball as its passed across the back, when you look to do this you have to ensure that you watch the position of the oposition and try to judge(guess) where their likely to play the ball and then position your player accordingly
• Indirectly: When this midfielder is there, it is quite easy for a half decent player to spot that the ball is unlikely going to reach its intended target, then what tends to happen is they try to force the pass resulting in an interception, or the pass ends up going backwards giving you a chance to push your midfield into play instead of your back 4.

As you can see, either way can be quite effective giving your opponent less of a chance of actually breaking free. There are positions where you can find yourself feeling really vulnerable at the back i.e. when they are breaking down the wing with a player such as Ronaldo or Messi. This tends to be an awful lot harder to defend against but it is just as containable as any other situation.

Wing Play

If the player breaks away from you on the wing and starts running to the bi-line dont even try to catch him! Your best bet is to switch player (preferably to one of your centre halves) and have him come across to try and get the block in, if your defensive settings are on cover then your full back will slip into the centre half position hopefully not leaving you under too much pressure should the cross make it into the box.

You may find yourself behind the crosser, this can obviously be quite dangerous as an unmarked cross usually leads to atleast a chance. Once you discover you player wont recover, leave him, change man and try to get in the best postion to block the cross. As you do this, be sure to hold the 2nd player press this will atleast try to make your other player recover as you try to block the cross. If your opponent see’s two men running at them one from the front, one from the back, then this can send them into panic and try to get a ball in which usually results into a poor ball.

Closing Down

There is a right time and place to close down. If you try and close down in the wrong situation you get turned and leave them through on goal which most decent players score from.

The Right Time to Close Down: The ball is travelling a long distance over the floor, usually from a defender right upto a striker, get extremely close and your defender can usualy get either, infront of the reciever or right up his backside leaving him not much place to go.

The Wrong Time: Ball in the air! If the ball is in the air towards their attacker, closing down can be extremely dangerous. You could get close to them and all they have to do is judge the timing and give you a little nudge, the number of times I have seen a nudge flick off someone elses man and run through towards goal with a striker following up is rediculous.

One on One

Even if the tips above cant help you from getting in a situation where you have 1 defender against a striker, then dont panic, thats the most important thing of this game DONT PANIC. Ok if your rather high up the pitch facing your oponent, then dont put him under pressure or close down, give him plenty of room. This allows you to have enough time to correct any errors without the player being past you. People don’t know what to do with time, they always look for the quick flick past you! While doing this, don’t hold the run button, I see people do this and then cant handle the turn of pace that an attacker may make.

When they have this space and are not sure what to do with it, you find they end up getting to close to you and then you come away with the ball very very easily where you can choose to either pass it out of the defence or just get shut (I have a bad habbit of trying to pass out but you get the best results when you just hoof it to get shut).

If the player is close in i.e. in shooting range, you have two options.

1. Slide tackle: This is best done from the side with perfect timing, if you do this from the front you risk missing the player alltogether, from the back you obviously risk giving away a free kick or even getting sent off!

2. Get really tight: Its a must if the guy is in a shooting position, it is lethal to give ronaldo, rooney, berbatov or any other decent striker of the ball, enough room to get the shot in. If it goes on target 60% of the time they probably score, the other 40% it goes out for a corner which you don’t want.

Free Kicks

Direct

There are alot of people online who believe direct free kicks are all about luck, does it go in, doesnt it go in and there is nothing you can do to affect the situation. That is wrong!!! The 1st thing you can do is get a man on the line, you should place the man on the line of the side the goal keeper is not covering, you see commentators saying, put a man on the line. It works!! If the opponent lifts the ball over the wall into your direction then you simply press A or X (xbox, PS3) and the ball will be headed off the line, SIMPLE

In Direct

Not alot you can do here with you only really controlling one player, the one player you control is all about educated guess work, my preferance is to stand infront of the closest player this means you opponent can only really loft the ball high into the box, or risk passing it to the player your marking and lose the ball(some idiots actually do this). Use a similar logic when defending corners too keep an eye on the closest player and then just pray your players in the box can win the headers.

Jostle

When a ball is in their air, jostling is the key to winning it. This can be affected by the player you have control of compared to the player your trying to battle. Jostling is as simple as pushing the control stick towards the player effectively moving him. This either causes him to make a mistake, or you will win the ball to help you bring the situation under control.

These are all the tips that come to mind for ways of defending right know, I know its a lot to take in but if you follow these steps you will soon find that most of your soft goals will be erradicated helping you to win alot more games

If you feel i have left something out or wish to add your own input then please leave me some comments and I will answer any questions for you.

I leave you with a video that shows some of the tackles you should avoid should you want to win most of your games on Fifa 09!