If you are passionate about playing FIFA 11 and want to win more matches, then you should improve your defending skills. That’s because even if you are good at attacking play like ‘through ball’, ‘finishing’, ‘free kicks’ etc., you don’t want to lose 5:4, but rather win 2:0 or 1:0.
So give more attention to defending style of play than attacking, but you should be good enough to score goals in the first place because this article is about defending and not attacking.
Defending Style of Play that you must master:
1. Stand your ground and let the opponent make mistake. Because if you stand in his path and don’t give him any room to run, he may do a missed pass or he can panic and shoot early. This doesn’t mean that you should just stand still and do nothing, but instead you have to anticipate your opponent’s move and make your move to go in the line of path of his run.
2. When the attacker is near to you, press B (Note: keys mentioned here are not keyboard settings, but xbox controller keys, so use appropriate keys that you configured for your keyboard) to tackle, here the timing is important. He has to be at the right distance to make the tackle. If you are new and not sure of the timing and everything, then tap B like 2 to 3 times when your opponent is near to you.
3. Follow the attacker by pressing A+RT and press LT at the right time as in the case of previous step. You have to practice and find the right timing for these tackles. But don’t use too much of sprint(RT) + A, or else you may lose too much energy too quickly. So use it appropriately and effectively.
4. You can block your opponents’ moves by pressing LT and RT constantly, which will help you preventing crossing and passes. This is jockeying. This can also be used when you know that your opponent is going to use “through ball”. All you have to do is give control to the defending player who is near to your opponent who has started to make a run ahead, and press LT to catch up with that attacker.
5. You can ask your other defender or player near to you to join you in defending by pressing B and holding it. You have to do it well before your opponent has near you, otherwise the player near you won’t be having enough time to block the attacker. Use this sparingly, because you are making some open spaces by calling other players near you and if you do this wrongly, you may pay the price, as your opponent can use that open space to pass or move towards your goal.
6. Last but not the least, the sliding tackle. It can save your team in desperate moments but again, you have to use it at the right time. Press X to make a sliding tackle. Don’t attack the player and slide on him while doing it. Try to target the ball and anticipate and then make a sliding tackle. As they say, sliding tackle can be spectacular if you time it right, or else you may be looking at referee pointing yellow or red card at you.
That’s it for now. Enjoy defending and play fair games.
Update:
You can try using different keys to see how the game responds. One that I found for defending in FIFA 11 works good for me but requires some practice to master it.