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Every year, EA will release at least a FIFA game title. Each game title might gives you a different feel of game play, but no matter how different it is, the basic is always there. As you look into this tutorial, it will only covers the fundamental of FIFA gaming. When you play the game longer, you will realize that there are scoring techniques that can be done repeatedly and sometimes it might look unrealistic. However, this is more than the basic of the game and I think we should get back to the tutorial.

Basically, this tutorial consists of 3 parts which are formation, build up and finishing. You will first start off by studying the formation available for you to choose. At this stage, not much practical exercise needed. It involves more on studying the placing of players in a formation. Then, you will move on to building up. Planning is mostly what you need to do at this stage. However you are required to work a little more on practical compared to the previous stage. Lastly is the most important part which is scoring goals. Practical becomes very important here as you need to really master your finishing moves. Well, why not we head into the first part now.



Formation

When you are going through the formations in the game, you might find there are loads of them for you to choose. However, I can recommend you some formations that are commonly used below:

i) 4-4-2
ii) 4-1-2-1-2
iii) 4-3-3
iv) 3-4-1-2
v) 3-5-2


The big question now is: How do I choose my formation?

Well, why not just take a moment and ask yourself some question. What type of style you want play and show your opponent? Do you want to aggressively attack your opponent to tear up their defense? Or do you prefer to have a rock solid defense and play patiently without conceding a goal in a game? Generally, it’s possible for a player to be good in defense and offense as well.

Let’s look back to the list above. I’ll give some description on those formations to help you in choosing a formation. I’ll start off with 4-4-2 then. So what you can see from 4-4-2 is that it’s a well balanced formation. When you try more on this formation, you will find that it’s flexible for you to exploit your attacks. For example, let say you heavily attack your opponent on the wing, you can make a sudden change of attacking in the middle when you realize that your opponent is comfortable in defending your wing attack. You might come to a conclusion where it is the best formation around. However, it is also one of the hardest formations to get it organized. Especially in defending, if you did not planned well, you will get yourself easily exposed to your opponents. So you need to put a lot of effort to understand this formation well.

Next is 4-1-2-1-2. I can say it is one of the easiest formations to start with. When you are playing with this formation, it’s all about middle play. Having a defensive midfielder and an attacking midfielder makes you comfortable in defending middle attacks and attacking in the middle as well. However, it’s going to be hard for you when you are trying to attack through the wing.

The following formation will be 4-3-3. If you are a person with fantastic reaction and a counter attack style gamer, then 4-3-3 is the formation to go. With the three strikers you have, you can easily send a long ball to them after breaking your opponent’s attack. But, you might have problems when you are trying to do slow build up with short passing. With a small amount of midfielders you have, your build up can be very predictable.

Lastly are the 3-4-1-2 and the 3-5-2 which I would like to combine them under one explanation. They are not much different from the rest of the formation above except that you will be defending with three defenders that are closely positioned this time. Mainly you will be defending middle attacks as well as 4-1-2-1-2 but your main threat will be wing attack.

So, this is mainly the common formations around and their pros and cons as you can see. You can try out those uncommon formations where they had five defenders or might be a lone striker. Who knows that you might be playing comfortably with those formations? After you have decided on your formation, I would suggest you to do some studies on players’ statistics. There is no need of you going through a tutorial for this matter; it is more to the dedication you made to improve your basics. You should know better which statistic is important to you based on your skills.


Build up

‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’ –I am sure that you are familiar with this line and this is what will happen during a build up play. No matter how well you are in scoring goals, you never get the chance to show people if you does not have a good build up. A good build up on the other side will lead you to ample of chances in finishing the game.

Basically, you can start planning your build up by sketching a diagram in a form of tree where you have branches after each branches. Some people call it a Binary Tree diagram. This is because after each pass you made, it is mostly you will end up at least two choice of direction where you can go. For instance, when you made a pass from your right back (RB) to your right center midfielder (RCM), your RCM can make a choice to pass to either your center striker or to your right midfielder or maybe a long ball to your left midfielder.

Let say that you are stuck while developing your attack, you can consider passing back to your defenders and re-plan your attack. Switching wingers by sending a straight long ball from one winger to another is also another strategy to buy you some time to re-plan your attack. My advice to you when you are planning your build up is not to start from the wing too early. Try to start your build up in the middle as it gives you more variety to initiate your attack.

In the process of your build up, it’s better for you to use more direct short passing than long balls. Technically, short passing is a safe way for you to keep your possession during a game. However, if you are playing a counter attack game, then long pass will be a better option. This is to ensure that you get to start attacking your opponent before he manages to recall all his players back to defend.

So, the key in a build up is to form a good binary tree and also to keep your possession well. A long binary tree is preferable, but a short one is reasonable enough for a counter attack type. For the possession wise, it does not really matter how high your possession is. The important point here is not to lose your possession unnecessarily.


Finishing

Scoring goals is the most enjoying part of a soccer game. Whether it’s an ugly goal or a fantastic goal, you will still enjoy it as long as you score it, wouldn’t you? Here are some common methods/situations of scoring goals which you can practice it from time to time to make it perfect.

a) One on One
This is the easiest situation to score and the hardest method to achieve. It’s strongly not advisable to miss a one on one situation. Believe me that you will regret on the spot if you miss it. So, practice hard on this situation as I believe that it is possible to master it until you can score almost all the time having this situation.

b) Crossing
Scoring a goal from a cross is always beautiful. This technique is harder to master compare to the rest of the scoring method. However, pro-gamers mostly aimed to master on how to score a goal from crossing. This is because defending a cross is rather more difficult comparing in defending a through ball from the middle. Each version of the game has different way of scoring from a cross. You might want to consider in dedicating some time to get the feel of crossing.

c) Shooting
When you are feeling lucky, it’s always good to do some shots. There are medium range shots and long range shots. No matter how, both type of shots occasionally need luck to score. Sometimes you might get rebounds and sometimes you might smash the ball in from far. However, it’s not advisable to abuse this technique especially when you miss your shots most of the time. It will be just throwing your possession away without anything in return.


d) Set piece
There are three types of set piece in a soccer game which are direct free-kick, indirect free-kick and corner kick. You start getting free-kicks when your opponent is going harsh on you. So it is a payback time to them for being harsh. Free kicks usually can have a relatively high percentage in scoring depending on the position of your free-kick. Corner kick can be deadly in certain version of the game. It is always good to research on the dead ball situation. Sometimes in judging a person’s standard, being good in dead ball situation do give you a boost in your standard of playing.


Conclusion

So, the 3 stages mentioned above are the process of building up a player to be a well organized FIFA gamer. By following the tutorial well, it will make you a standard higher than those casual FIFA gamer. But it will not make you a world class player straight away. Much more effort is needed to push your level into world class standard. However this will make you a better player among casual gamers. I bet you will enjoy playing after going through the tutorial.