Introduction:

Hello, since I’m recently seeing quite a few posts made by new players who don’t know what to do I’ve decided to write this guide. I was inspired by this guide made by u/_thickfreakness.

I’ve started many accounts (around 10) so I have a pretty solid knowledge regarding what to do and what to not do when starting playing this game.

When I first started playing the game seemed to be very overwhelming with so many player types, I didn’t know well what every stat did and nor how the players’ behaviors affected them on the field. I wanted to write this guide to help new players clarifying some things. If you’re an experienced player the things that I’m about to explain are probably very obvious, but who knows, this guide may help you as well.

The player types:

You start with 1 Keeper, 2 Explorers, 2 Guards, 2 Producers, 2 Infiltrators, 1 Engine and your captain who can be an Infiltrator, a Producer or an Engine. In addition you’ll receive a random player after the tutorial.

The best starting captain type is the Engine because you don’t need more than 2 Producers and more than 2 Infiltrators, while having 2 all-around players in the earlier parts of the game can be really helpful.

Every time you unlock a new arena you can unlock a new random player.

While some players might have a resemblance with some of the your initial players (for example the Protector is a taller Guard with a behavior similar to the Producer’s one) some of them are totally different players.

The best player types are Intruders, Commanders and Hammers. But every player can perform decently if used well.

Bux is a hard resource to get but upgrading your new players by a couple of levels just to try them out is something that I encourage you to do.

The stats:

There are 6 stats:

• Speed – it defines how fast a player can run, very useful in attack and in defense. Low speed players (20 speed) don’t perform well in defense.
• Height – it helps during headers, very useful in midfield.
• Strength – it helps to contest the ball in tight spaces and it helps during headers too, very useful in midfield.
• Power – it’s the power of the shot and it also defines how far a player can launch the ball, it helps a lot to beat the keeper and it’s also very useful when launching long balls.
• Skill – it defines how much a player can curl a shot or a pass and the overall accuracy of his shots/passes. Very useful for beating the keeper and for launching through balls.
• Response – it defines how fast a player will change direction and how fast he’ll react to a pass/rebound, it’s the only stat which is useful everywhere on the field. I’ve noticed that it also helps a tiny bit during headers.

The formations:

There are 12 formations in the game but you start with only 2 of them: 442 + a random formation.

Some formations are more useful than others but I recommend you to experiment with all the formation using all the kind of lineups, you never know what might work.

442 is a very balanced formation which can work with many different lineups. 343 is the most attacking formation and 532 is one of the best in attack and the best one in defense, being almost universally considered the best formation in the game.

What to use at the beginning?

Well, in the beginning everything can work but I’d recommend you to stick with the classic 442 because it’s basically perfect for the initial player types.

I’d recommend you to use 442 with:

Keeper

Engine Explorer Explorer Engine. A fast central defense with some fullbacks who can do many things decently.

Producer Guard Guard Producer. A very safe central midfield with 2 playmakers on the side, your Producers are going to feed your strikers with long balls.

Infiltrator Infiltrator. A very fast central attack.

Whenever you’ll unlock new player types and new formations you’ll be able to experiment more and more, in the next section of this guide we’ll talk about how to figure out where to use every player.

And now something a little more advanced: the players’ behaviors

You might have noticed tapping on every player that there’s a section called “Player X behaviour”. This section is fundamental when figuring out where a player might perform well.

The behavior section is divided in 3 sections: the tendencies bars, the passing tendencies and the traits section.

The tendencies bar defines how often a player will shoot, pass, dribble or clear the ball.

If the shooting tendency is high it means that the player is suited to be used as central striker (for example: Prowler), if the dribbling tendency is way higher than the passing one it means that the player can only be used as central striker (for example: Speedster), if the dribbling tendency is low (red or at max orange) it mean that the player can play well both in midfield and in defense because he’ll pass the ball straight away without taking unnecessary touches (for example: Guard). The clearing tendency is a little bit trickier because while it often is just a 2nd passing tendency bar if high enough it also means that the player can be used in defense despite having a high dribbling tendency (for example: Intruder, his clearing tendency is almost as high as the Guard’s one).

The passing tendencies: players with a high safe passing tendency (blue bar) will tend to make conservative passes in order to keep the possession while players with a high attacking tendency (green bar) will tend to make more attacking passes, who can be very risky but also very rewarding.

There are 2 traits: the running one and the marking one. Players with the running trait will make runs toward the goal searching for an opening but they’ll often be out of position . Players with the marking trait will always be close to an opponent marking him.

Some general tips:

• Play the events when you can. Low arenas events (the ones that reward a silver medal) are easy to win (especially because up to 5 attempts are allowed) even with a level 1/2 team and their rewards can help your players to reach level 4/5 very fast. Gold medal events are way harder to win so until your players will be at level 7/8 you should avoid entering.
• Experiment with your players as much as you can.
• Don’t get too mad at the game! It’s just a game, there are way more things to be angry at in real life, so why getting angry at a mobile football game? Have fun when playing! I used to get very angry toward the game and I think that it’s important to never forget that at the end of the day it’s just a mobile game, it shouldn’t be taken too seriously!

Some common mistakes:

• Thinking that the game is like real life: this is the most common mistake that I see. For example, while thinking that Commanders might be really good in defense makes sense, in this game they’ll get torn apart by basically every striker in the game. Not fast enough to compete against 30+ speed players and since headers always tend to favor the attacking side they’ll rarely win aerial duels.
• Rushing the things when playing: I see that many new players launch mindless long balls without thinking about things like the movement of the striker and the ones of the defender. You have to pass the ball in midfield until you see an opening, launching mindless long balls won’t take you very far.
• Underrating the stat response: I see that some high level players do this too. Response helps a lot everywhere on the field. When using fast strikers with poor response (Speedster and Infiltrator) you have to be sure that they’re running exactly toward the goal before launching them a long ball, with responsive strikers this can be less strict because due to their high response they’ll be able to correct their trajectory fast. Also the Prowler, who has 35 speed and 50 response, can outrun everyone on the short distance (10-15 meters).
• Judging the players only by their stats and not by their behavior (and vice versa): this is something that I see really often. For example, a lot of people use Speedsters as winger thinking that they’re fast and that they can leave everyone else in the dust assisting the central striker, but the truth is that most of the times they’ll dribble until they get tackled because their dribbling tendency is waaaay higher than their passing tendency.

​

---

Feedbacks:

So, what do you guys think about this guide? Would you like to see other guides like this? I could cover more advanced topics.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them, I’ll gladly answer.

I'd also like to see other guides made by other good players :)