How are casuals supposed to enjoy this game?

Part of the problem is the places where FC 24 implements its skill gap and how the well your AI plays in all situations on both sides of the ball. Currently, AI is unbalanced high and mid field relative to the box defensively. Offensive AI is generally bad across the board. With that being said, defending in some situations is particularly easy while in the most important situations very challenging. It’s no longer a game that makes sense which made past games a lot easier to play. You could pick up an old FIFA game and know what circle, x, and triangle do (PS) and get by with good timing and understanding angles and passing lanes. This game has really robbed players of that by deciding to create a high skill gap in not only passing but the first touch after the pass while having an extremely low skill gap in defending the pass and first touch. What you end up with is a super sweaty, frustrating experience where the skill lies not in the actual strategy and decision-making on the pitch, but how fast you are at manually switching to the right defende and getting close enough to the defender where you can spam tackle or affect the first (or subsequent) touches to get a tackle later or force a bad touch/pass. What exacerbates this is high pressure tactics that could easily be beaten with great passing, knowing how to control your first touch to create a passing lane, etc. but the new mechanics mean your defender has the advantage in these situations unless you run a specific formation/tactics for stopping this. Hence why strikers with 27 standing tackle can swarm and take the ball easily off a defender with 81 ball control. The game is currently unbalanced. Once you play someone who’s really mastered manual player switching, the game can get REALLY miserable. That’s the difference between FC 24 and past FIFA games. It’s where the opportunities of skill gaps lie. Most games I’ve played it used to be dribbling/skill offensively and holding your shape while marking the ball and cutting off passing lanes defensively. Those games were far more enjoyable because it’s easier to accept that you made a bad pass or conceded a goal on a nice move. This game aggravating because your offensive AI responds to situations MUCH slower than the defensive AI and player ability if you don’t manually tell the AI what to do in the moment. When you combine this with what I said earlier about controlling the ball..it can feel smothering and unbalanced. The balance of the game needs work and typically these games start to player better around January or February (lol). So I would just try again or check back after every update.