big switch. Strikers will either make get behind runs, or check back to receive long passes from the defence.

Notice with this Long passing team that the nearest open player is 30 yards or so down the field. This is pretty typical of teams set to use a Long Passing tactic.

When playing against highly aggressive pressing teams, you will want to set up the long ball to take advantage of their defensive attitude. If you use a long passing team, you’ll need to be comfortable with looking at your Radar while playing so you can pick out deep players.

We receive the ball in the center circle, and you can already see that our winger is calling for the ball.

We hit a throughball to get the ball to him on a dead sprint.

His “get behind” run does the trick and he is free to go one-on-on with the keeper.

Slow Build Up

Teams with Slow Build Up Speed settings will drop back more into support positions. The emphasis is on keeping control of the ball rather than advancing it down the field.

Our attacker is moving with the ball at the top of the screen. He sees that a defender is cutting off his attack.

In typical Slow Build fashion, he doesn’t force the issue, but instead lays the ball back so that his team can keep possession. The Slow Build style is often a game of Two Steps Forward, One Step Back.

Club America has kept possession and now begins to reverse fields to probe the defence with another attack.

Fast Build Up

With Fast Build Up Speed, players will look to quickly release and make more advanced runs. Players will make lots of quick runs and dashes to open space. Use plenty of wall passes and one-touch passes to keep the action flowing quickly. Trap, pass, and move is the name of the game.

We receive the ball in the center circle with our midfielder. We are immediately looking for the next pass to get it going forward.

As soon as we make the pass, we instigate a forward run to hit the open space.

The wing pops open instead, so we fire the ball outside.

Again, we want to keep things moving, so we push the ball ahead to our Striker near the top of the box. You’ll want a big player here who can hold up the ball for the rest of the attackers to come into play.

Our initial passer is streaking into the box and will be wide open for a through ball and attempt on goal.

Positioning

Positioning affects the movement of your players in your half of the pitch. With Organized positioning, players will tend to stay more or less in their positional area. With Free Form positioning, you will see players make more flexible runs and take up different positions on the field. This setting does not have as strong an effect on Build Up as it does on Chance Creation.

Putting It All Together

The real fun when working with Custom Tactics comes when you start to combine different Speeds and Passing settings. For example, short passing with