OP Defending Mechanics in EA FC 24

EA Sports FC 24 is here, and loads of players have been enjoying the newest title from EA.

With a full weekend of FC 24 fun in the bag, we have a ton of content for you including all of your favourite game modes such as Ultimate Team, Career Mode, and Clubs, as well as the best players for Evolutions, the best formation, and everything you need to know about the Road to the Knockouts and TOTW 3 promo.

One key discussion over the first FC 24 weekend has been defending, something that many players have struggled adjusting to as they moved from FIFA 23. Preventing players from scoring goals is a tough task in Ultimate Team, and we have a guide on how to improve your defending in EA FC 24 right here, so let's take a look!

Latest - Defensive Depth Tactic

It has been common for many FC 24 players since they started playing the game, that it feels too easy for the opposition to break through the backline, however, Reddit user u/kuromahou has found a solution!

In your tactics, set your defensive depth to 71, and your AI team will press and track runs for you, as opposed to just passively letting the team progress through you.

The significant thing about it is that the players don't lose stamina anywhere near as quickly as they would if you had team press on.

u/kuromahou said:

"I've been trying to figure out how teams have much better AI than me, and this is what it is. It's been working for me for the most part. Some players are good enough to get around the press, but it requires having people who can cross the width of the field to do so, and not every player can. For everyone else, it feels like I'm cheating."

Overpowered defending mechanic in FC 24

In a recent Twitter post by @NofilKhan26, we now have new information on a very overpowered defending mechanic in EA FC 24 that you need to learn now to start defending like a god in Ultimate Team!

Credit: Via @NofilKhan26 on Twitter

Step 1

Go to 'Game Settings' and flick to the tab 'Gameplay' and scroll down to 'Defending' from here you want to make sure that 'Advanced Defending' is selected.

This will allow you to use the 'Seal Out controls', this will take time to get used to but it is worth it once you master the art of defending!

Step 2

Learn how to use 'Seal Out' in Advanced Defending:

Advance Defending is a new setting that changes the layout of the defending buttons. The goal is to give players the choice of what defensive action they want to launch.

• Press X || A to request a Shoulder Challenge or Seal Out
• Press O || B to request a Stand Tackle

More Defensive Improvements in EA FC 24:

• New animations for Seal Outs and Shoulder Challenges from the front to increase the usefulness and situations where these mechanics happen.
• Animation cleanup, adding hundreds of new tackles, including back heel slides, stop-ball tackles, and blocks, and improving their coverage and efficacy.

Doing this will cause your defender to retrieve the ball without committing to a challenge.

Step 3

Finding players to utilise this tactic to the fullest. This can be done by any defender but in order to make it really OP you want to find the players with PlayStyles or PlayStyles+ of Anticipate and/ or Bruiser.

If you press X | A with a player that has the Anticipate PlayStyles then you can trigger a manual interception which makes the player intercept the ball almost every single time!

The Physical Seal Out in FC 24 not only makes the player automatically lunge for the ball, the player will get between the ball and the player to make sure you have the best chance of retrieving it.

How to defend in EA FC 24

Are you looking to learn how to make your defending better in EA FC 24 outside of the OP mechanic that we have just looked at? The key to improvement is practice, you will make mistakes, and will likely pay for them, however, improvement doesn't come to you straight away, unless you hire Ange Postecoglou.

1. The first thing you will want to do is pick your perfect camera settings, preferably one with a wider view of the pitch, we recommend either Co-Op or Tele Broadcast. We have a guide on the best camera settings here.
2. Right stick switching is very important and allows you to quickly change between your defenders, so you can keep up with your opponent's attackers. Flicking your right stick (RS) toward the player you want to control next will make your defending 10x better, and give the opponent less time to think of their next move!
3. @FUTDeepview has a great thread on Twitter discussing defending, and one key component that he mentioned was the L2/LT and R2/RT combo! The jockey and sprint buttons are the most important when one-on-one defending. If your opponent is dribbling in a small space then hold L2/LT to jockey, and when you think it's the right time to tackle, swap and hold R2/RT to give you an acceleration boost when winning the ball back.
4. The final key component to improving your defending in EA FC 24 is utilising your midfield players. You can play around with tactics if you like, however, it has become popular over the past few FIFAs that using your midfielders to defend helps the back four. If you dive into a tackle with your CB and are unsuccessful, this leaves a wide gap for your opponent to exploit, however, if you dive in with your midfielder, you still have a back four, or five to help you out!

Test your new defending techniques

The next thing to do is quite simply, get yourself onto EA FC 24, and try out this defending guide! We are sure that you will start conceding fewer goals, and hopefully win more games.

Obviously, the better back four you have in the game will give you even more of an advantage, but as long as you are using meta players, we believe this defending guide is beneficial.

What the community is saying?

Defending in FIFA games in the past has always been difficult to grasp early into a new title, and this seems the same in EA FC 24.

We found a great thread on the community opinions through @FUTZONEFIFA via Twitter, who posted:

"Defending on EA SPORTS FC is the most frustrating thing ever. Change my mind."

The replies were largely siding with the tweet, stating that they were also struggling to defend in EA FC 24.

@ElliotB1878 said: "My centre halves feel like they have lorries under their boots."

One of the most popular comments, receiving over 200 likes, was from Twitter user @_HenryP_, who was not having a good time defending over the weekend.

He said: "I swear my opponent's defenders just AI defend and block everything I do.

"Don't get me started on the amount of times I've won the ball, for mine and my opponent's players to hug each other and the ball to slip free to one of their players, it's infuriating!"

There aren't too many people happy with the state of their defending right now, however, it is still early days, and the game isn't actually fully out yet, so there is a lot of time to perfect defending!

We have lots of Ultimate Team content for you to check out, including the best 20k, 50k, and 100k squads, as well as our TOTW 2 predictions.

For more of the latest EA FC 24 content, be sure to keep up to date with RealSport101.