About through balls

Pretty much. The game is too attack orientated and the defensive AI still a little too dumb. The result is that spamming ultimately does pay off. Just see online.
 
What I do online when people spam the through ball is to just run one of my defenders well behind the defensive line in anticipation of that ball being played, then most of the it's a simple case of cutting it out because your opponent is too stupid most of the time to exploit the broken defensive line.
Sometimes (especially on chipped through balls) though your defender will inexplicably miss the ball and let your opponent through... People know this so they will repeatedly try the same thing over and over despite it not working, because the probability is that it will pay off at least once...

Offline... Never really played offline on this version.
 
I only play online and over time I've found that I've adapted to this whilst vastly improving my defense.

A high line with offside trap - when judged properly - can usually foil the most obvious spammers, i.e those with Ronaldo positioned on your goaline. Importantly, when the opponent gets the ball I start tracking my players backwards - switching betweeen them, and not towards the ball, keeping my fingers off the pressure buttons. The defense tends to re-organise itself quicker this way I find and can intercept most long through-balls.

Also, I rarely send the keeper out - they often expect this and can be unnerved when they have to shoot rather than dribble around. The keepers ar too easy to round on this version.

If you're playing against a top player like Ronaldo whose form arrow is red it's common that they'll score. You just have to try and score more.
:P
 
Recently I got tonked by a noob online 5 - 0. He played 5 at the back and all hed did was sit back and spam the through balls. There were no intricate one twos or defence splitting passes, it was all lthe goddamn lofted through balls.
Worse thing was it was a special match worth 10M prize money!

I was already at a disadvantage with half of my squad on blue or purple arrows so it even made it easier for him to activate the through balls. And then my brother came back home, turned on the pc and there was considerable lag. Jesus.

I was on a 5 game winning streak before this so it was Konami's cruel sick joke to purposely pull me down to earth., its not funny. A winning run is supposed to increase morale and form not fluctuate it!

Anyway back to topic yeah it works regardless of tactics and strategy. One waye to stop it is not to play a high line. But if your attacking, and the move breaks down, invariably your defence will push up to the halfway line regardless. So the solution may be to learn to anticipate the idiotic through balls better. Timing of offside traps and keeping a compact team shape also works for me.
 
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