Welcome to the first in a series of tutorial-style articles from FIFA pros, Hashtag United, to help you get to your A-game.
For our first piece, Hashtag Shawrey outlines 10 top tips to bring your basic skills and knowledge up to speed.
Hashtag Shawrey's Top 10 Tips
Primarily, it's worth noting that the most effective playstyle for FIFA 20 is very different from FIFA 19. There are (currently) far fewer glitches and exploits to use to score goals. FIFA 20 requires a more tactical approach to the game.
1. How to score Long Shots
Perfecting long shot longs can be a good tool in your arsenal especially if you are struggling to break down an opponent who is 'parking the bus'.
First, you need to make sure you have the right player on the ball (with good shooting stats) on their strong foot (unless they have 5-star weak foot).
Finesse shots seem to be the most effective way to score long rangers, you need to test different angles to find the most effective shooting position.
READ MORE: FIFA 20 Ultimate Team – Best Premier League team
2. How to attack effectively & score goals in Ultimate Team
Attacking quickly on the break, before your opponent has a chance to reset their defensive positioning, can be very effective this year.
Playing 1-2’s with your fast wingers/strikers works well, with the through ball being very useful in FIFA 20.
3. How to score from corners
Corners are something I am still perfecting on this new game.
With heading being nerfed massively compared to FIFA 19 I would recommend taking the corner short and playing the ball to the man on the edge of the area.
From here you can shoot if the right angle opens up or keep-ball until a gap appears in the defence.
4. Best skill moves to use
Long gone are the days of FIFA 19 where you could chain together three la croquetas. On Fifa 20 there is a high error percentage on skill moves performed consecutively.
The most effective skill moves to create space are the drag back and heel to heel; used at the right time and in the right position, they can open up a load of space.
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5. How to defend effectively
FIFA 20 requires you to defend manually, the AI won’t help you by tracking runs and making tackles like in FIFA 19.
I would recommend using LT/L2 as it allows you to jockey the player at a fast pace, keeping them in check. Make sure you time the tackle correctly because a mistimed tackle gives your opponent lots of time to break away before your player recovers.
6. Best formation and tactics to use
The most popular formation used by pros so far is 4-2-3-1. It's a very balanced formation that offers good defensive cover (with two CDMs), while still having 4 attacking players free when the break is on.
7. Best tactics to complement 4-2-3-1
The two main instructions are setting the CDMs to stay back while attacking and set your striker to get in behind. The rest of the custom tactics are worth playing around with to see what suits your play style best.
Hashtag Harry and Hashtag Shawrey will be helping you improve at FIFA over the next ten weeks!
8. Who to buy on Ultimate Team
If you don’t have the budget for Ruud Guilt, the best budget buy would be Sissoko. In the most recent qualifiers, he featured in nearly every pros squad.
Virgil Van Dijk is basically a cheat code but comes with a big price tag. The best budget replacement for the centre back is Eder Militao; he feels like a much higher rated player than the stats suggest.
There are also some good budget wingbacks available, for example, Semedo (mid-price) Wan Bissaka (cheap).
9. How to build your squad
I would suggest reserving a large percentage of your squad budget for the attackers (Strikers/CAMs/Wingers) as the attacking stats like pace/shooting/dribbling are what really make the difference in the final 3rd.
IF you manage to pack a good un-tradeable player, who would normally be out of your budget, it makes sense to build a squad around them.
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10. FUT market trading tips
I would offer advice on how best to play the market but I have overspent on most my buys. Including buying Gullit the day before he dropped by one million coins...