HOW TO DEFEND ???

The best defense is offense. That's right, but what if your opponent is following the same strategy on you. Now that's gonna have some problem for your defenders. But you wont have to worry a thing. What you have to do is just stay calm and let your opponent's striker commit mistakes which eventually he would do, for sure.

The first thing you need to learn while defending is to stop pressing E (sprint) along with D (tackle) all the time. Press E only when you are following your opponents striker to catch. This is because it becomes very easy for your opponent to dribble the ball from your defenders and once the defender is beaten he wont be able to do anything to get the ball. When the attacker is coming towards you just place your defender in front of him and use simply D and arrow keys to get the ball. Most of the time the striker will commit mistake and the ball is yours. Just dont commit your defender towards the ball and make your opponent's work easy.


The second thing to learn is try and guess which player is available for your opponent to pass the ball and mark that player. This will make very difficult for your opponent to pass the ball and eventually he will try to dribble the ball on his own and in that attemp he will surely loose the ball. For this you need to be good at switching players so that when required you can mark the opponents player.

While defending a corner what people mostly do is that they clear the ball using S (short pass) so that they can find a player and move on to a strong counter attack. But what mostly happens is instead of finding their own players the ball slips into the legs of opponent and gives him an easy chance to shoot the ball first time. So what you have to do is clear the ball using D. This will not only move the ball much farther away from your box but will also give time to your defenders to settle down at their positions in case the ball is still with the opponent.

And finally the most important thing is using sliding tackle. Many people use sliding tackle a lot instead of standing tackle. They don't even mind whether they are using it in their own box. I will suggest you to minimize the use of sliding tackle. Just don't unnecessarily use it, but use it only when you have got no other option. If you still have an urge to perform a sliding tackle than do it when the player has already passed the ball to some one else. This may give a free kick to your opponent but you are sure of not getting a card. Its use is simple, there is a high probability of your opponent getting injured. So apply it with care ;-) .

Regarding the custom style it depends on how good you can manage your defenders. If you don't want your defenders to come forward and aid in attack you can keep Zonal Defense on and Attacking Full Backs off. To put pressure on your opponent's strikers keep Pressing on. For an attacking formation or when you down with goals keep Attacking Full Backs on along with Pressing and Offside Trap on. But a lot of care has to be put into this as if the opponent striker gets pass your last defender without getting offside then its solely on you Goal Keeper to save the goal.