The 2020/21 ePremier League contenders have been confirmed, and the latest FIFA101 instalment comes from this season’s youngest competitor.
16-year-old Cameron "cameronrock2307" Wiley will be representing his boyhood club Aston Villa in this year’s tournament and will be facing his SAF teammate Dan "Stingray" Ray in the first round.
Take a look at Wiley’s top attacking and tactical advice below.
Attack the best form of defence
We have seen the 5-3-2 become a popular formation on FIFA 21 Ultimate Team, but that is not what Wiley is looking to do.
With the exuberance of youth, Wiley likes to go all-out attack and try to outscore his opponent, something he is extremely confident of doing.
“I feel with my attacking ability on this game I need to get the most goals as I can, and I’d back myself to score a lot of goals against anyone,” said Wiley.
“At the start of the year I played a 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 like everyone else, but in the past few weeks, I’ve switched to the 4-3-1-2 which is a very attacking formation,” explained Wiley.
Using the 4-3-1-2, "You can get hit on the counter quite easily because you’ve only got your two centre backs back if you lose the ball at any point really.”
However, Wiley also explains that you can negate the counterattack with a counter-press.
“I use that (4-3-1-2 formation) with the pressure tactic so if I do lose the ball, say in my opponents’ box, my players come in and press and if I win the ball high it’s a guaranteed goal.”
Wiley is far from a one-trick pony though, and he is well aware of the need for more than one game plan.
“If I’m getting countered a lot (using 4-3-1-2), I know [4-4-2] is a formation that’s basic I can switch to it if need be.
“I know where each player is going to be, and the runs they are going to make and stuff like that, just from playing the game so much."
As you please
Making sure your players are doing exactly what you want is vitally important, so getting the tactics and instructions right can give you that extra edge.
Wiley also acknowledges that he sets up differently depending on his opponent.
“I think it all depends on the formation they play. If it’s a 4-4-2, I’m always going to play with balanced attack and defence, same as a 4-2-3-1,” says Wiley.
“Then a narrow I feel, the press really helps and can win games for you.”
If your opponent does use the width, it can be much harder to press as they will have easier ‘out balls’ to the wings.
“You can switch up your instructions and tactics with a narrow by adding "Fast Build Up".
Let’s say you’re two goals down with 20 minutes left, it means your whole team will push up as fast as possible so you create a massive overload onto the defence, and that can help loads,” says Wiley, highlighting the importance of getting your pre-set tactics sorted.
Silky skills
Anyone who plays FIFA 21 Ultimate Team seriously will know how beneficial skill moves can be in attack, and how difficult they can be to defend.
Wiley is no different, and he relies heavily upon skill moves to earn him that extra yard of space.
He says: “So, you’ve got the Elastico and the Reverse Elastico which you can do whenever really in any position."
“I tend to use it a lot where I press L1 on my controller, so it does a dead stop on the ball.
“Then you can either Elastico to the left, or Reverse Elastico to the right and the player you’re playing against has to gamble on a direction, and if they go the wrong way it’s a guaranteed goal.”
Away from his go-to move the Elastico, Wiley also uses other ‘cancelled’ skill moves to get the edge on his opponent.
“There’s also the cancelled skill moves like the La Croqueta Cancel,” says the 16-year-old Aston Villa star.
“I use this quite a lot, it creates quite a lot of angles for passes and shots."
“Also, R1/L1 Flick. A very broken skill move, it gives a massive speed boost to get past the defenders and you score.
“So many goals at the top level are scored from them instead of well-worked goals.”
All of these tricks are great at working space when on the attack, and the players you are performing the moves with are also crucial.
ePremier League 2020/21
The 40 best UK-based players of EA Sports' FIFA 21 on Xbox and PlayStation 4 have found out who they will face in the finals, which start on Tuesday, 23 March hosted from London's Gfinity Arena.
Each player competing will be able to select their squad from any Premier League player available on FIFA 21 Ultimate Team.
Unsurprisingly, Wiley wants as many Team of the Year (TOTY) players as possible in his team.
Talking about who he will select, Wiley said “Team of the Year Bruno Fernandes and Kevin De Bruyne. Marcus Rashford will definitely be in my squad.”
“[Allan] Saint-Maximin, the Freeze item. With my style of play, I want as many five-star skillers as possible.”
I think most FIFA fans would love the opportunity to select from any Premier League player.
Looking ahead to the tournament itself, there was one man Wiley wants to avoid if possible.
“I don’t want to play Hashtag Tom, to be honest, he’s the best player in Europe at the moment.”
Tom Leese is the reigning ePremier League champion and current England eLion player, so we don’t blame Wiley for wanting to avoid him.
The ePremier League finals are taking place from 23-26 March. Visit premierleague.com/epl for more info.