The engine encourages adjusting your tactics for each opponent, as countering his vital spots can make all the difference between a win and a loss.
Match events. The match is divided into a number of events. There are different events for building up play, creating a key-pass, and getting into a position to shoot for goal. For each event the skills of the attacking player is calculated and compared to the opposing player. The base skills have plenty of possible modifications that can be applied during this comparison.
Choosing events. Events follow in logical order. First, one of the build up events is tested. If successful, the engine continues to one of the key pass events, and finally to related shot creating event if successful again. In case of a corner or foul the engine will skip over some of the events earlier in the chain (i.e. a corner starts as a key pass event). Which exactly event will be chosen depends on your tactical options. Selecting to build up play through the middle will skew the usual distribution more towards the middle. On the match screen stats you can see your attempted and successful events. If you focus your efforts through the middle you will get more attempts in that area, but is possible that the opponent quite successfully blocks your midfield approaches and you end up with more successful build up events on the side in the end.
These are the starting events. They represent a string of passes coming together to bring the ball over the half line and into the opposition's half. By default your team will equally attempt to build up play over the left side of the field, right side, and the middle. You can skew the distribution by selecting different build up tactical option. Possible build up events:
Successful build up will result in a key pass event, an attempt to place the ball where it can hurt. Depending on your approach tactical option your team will try certain options more often than others.
After succeeding in one of the key pass events it is up to your attackers to get into position to receive that cross, through ball, or a ball in a shooting range. Your opposition will, of course, try to prevent you from doing exactly that. In this step the type of event to test is directly related to the previous step. You need to win this step to get a chance to shoot on the goal.
After your team succeeds in all 3 types of above mentioned
events the player from the last step gets to make an attempt to score a
goal.
This test is performed individually between the shooter and the
goalkeeper.
Different skills are used depending on the type of the approach.