How to stop players from retreating so far?
 

After good periods of possession as I'm slowly building my attack, there's nothing more frustrating than when the CPU then win the ball near the edge of their box - only to then see the entirety of my team retreat backwards, even if the CPU don't push for a counter attack themselves and simply play the ball backwards.

Does anyone know of a way to stop this? The CPU players don't do it when the reverse happens and I'm on the edge of my own box - they keep the pressure on and try to win the ball back immediately to resume the attack. That's what I want my players to do. I understand defensive midfielders and full backs retreating slightly, but my attacking midfielders/wingers shouldn't be giving up like that.

Are there some sliders I should be tweaking for this? Marking perhaps? Or is it something I should be looking at in my Custom Tactics sliders in Team Management? Such as Pressure, Aggression etc.

Re: How to stop players from retreating so far?
 

Hi Bixer!

Have a look at your team tactic, I am pretty sure that the team your are playing with has "pressure" set to a low value which would explain why your players are dropping quickly after your team loose the ball.

Teams that are pressing high up on the pitch usually have their tactic with high pressure (>55-60) and also often high aggressiveness. But after messing with tactics it seems to me that aggressiveness control more the "urgency" with which the team play that is translated in terms of fifa gameplay as quick cpu build up that gives you those pacy games. On the other end pressure seems to control the height on the pitch at which the team start pressing the opponent.

Re: How to stop players from retreating so far?
 

Cheers, I'll give experimenting with those a go! My 'Pressure' slider is already as high as 70, but then my 'Aggression' slider is about 50 I think, as I generally found that raising both drastically reduced your players' stamina.

Perhaps I should try bringing both to around the 65 mark though and see how that pans out.

Or I suppose I could temporarily activate a 'very high pressure' custom slider for when I lose the ball in the opponents half, only to then switch back to normal settings if the attack fully breaks down?