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In what’s become a disappointing theme for sports games in general this year, FIFA 21 takes small steps in improving its core on-the-pitch play, but largely underwhelms off of it, providing very few big changes this time around. Sure, the moment-to-moment action feels as smooth as it has done in recent years, but a lack of real investment in Career mode and only slight changes to its other main modes feel like a series of missed opportunities. Incidentally, that’s something FIFA 21’s goalkeepers know a lot about when attempting to make a save in this game.
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On the surface, those changes are hard to spot. There’s none of the usual big headline features to speak of, such as new set piece systems or the introduction of timed finishing that have come in recent years. But the more time you spend with it, the more you realise how many smaller tweaks have been made, most of them being beneficial. Those add up to something substantial.
For one thing, EA appear to have hit a sweet spot with the pace of gameplay this year, with matches flowing smoothly and, crucially, the speed of the players feeling appropriate when compared to their real-life counterparts. Not every attacker can leave a bedraggled defender in their wake this year, but certain stars such as Kylian Mbappe can – which is just as it should be. Inconsistent pacing has been one of my major criticisms of FIFA over the past couple of years, so it’s a very welcome sight to see this evened out this year.
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When simply gliding past opponents isn’t the answer, though, becoming a pass master will be key. Fortunately, that won’t take too long to achieve, as passing your way up the pitch seems as simple as ever. Almost too simple, as you create triangles of play towards the opposition box until a sight at goal appears. It seems too easy at times to create openings with killer balls being played with ease all too often and needing little skill or vision to pull off. This, combined with significantly improved positional intelligence from AI attackers and ability to now tell them where you’d like them to make a run with the flick of the right stick, leads to many, many opportunities to score over the course of 90 minutes.
More often than not, these opportunities will turn into goals, largely due to the woeful goalkeeping on display. Goalkeepers rarely hold onto a ball from crosses and corners and tend to punch and flap at the ball 99 times out of 100, with even some of the world’s best shot stoppers seemingly suffering from fever dreams where their hands melt in front of their eyes when a ball enters their vicinity. Then there’s the rebounds from shots that you’d like to think a world-class keeper like Alisson could catch with ease, which usually just deflect into a waiting attacker's path to be slotted home. Maybe I’m just cursed with bad luck, but this tends to happen far too often to purely be the work of the football gods.
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One contributing factor towards this may be that while the attacking AI may have improved positionally, the same can’t be said as much for defenders. While they seem to come to life around the edge of the box when a shot comes in (I’ve seen a noticeable increase in the amount of players realistically flinging their bodies towards to shots in order to block) they seem over reliant on the player moving each into position, which can be unforgiving at times. I enjoy defending, but I’m not sure FIFA 21 is a game made for players like me, with clean sheets coming at a premium.
That’s not to say I haven’t been enjoying it; the new collision system makes for more robust challenges and slide tackles actually result in you gaining possession regularly, rather than the ball ricocheting off to far reaches of the pitch. Making a bold defensive move offers a high risk factor, perhaps as it should, but I just wish I had a little more assistance from the players I can’t control at times. For example, if I want to bring a defender out to close down an attacker I’d like my centre-back partner to come round and cover if he manages to beat me one on one. This rarely happens though and forwards get clean in on goal all too easily.
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One area that has seen nothing but improvement, though, is crossing – and heading in particular. Gone are the headed shots of FIFA 20 that darted into the stands off of players’ seemingly cubic foreheads. Whipping in a ball from out wide onto a forward now feels like a genuine goal-scoring tactic rather than the low-odds lottery it has done in previous seasons. It’s enjoyable to create a variety of goal-scoring opportunities over the course of a match and not just slipping through-balls to pacey attackers constantly, even if the goalkeeper will ultimately have no answers to any of these questions posed at him.