The last straw

It’s true that dribbling has become overly effective after the update. But I think the real problem is something else—you don’t actually win matches with players like Ronaldo or Ronaldinho… I’m telling you, I lose to full gold teams. I think this dribbling change is done with a purpose. It’s meant for those players who, even in previous versions, relied only on pacey players—nothing else mattered.

A lot of people complain that their 97 pace attacker gets caught by a defender with 90 pace, but even in real life it’s rare for an attacker to just blow past a defender like a rocket in every situation—you need space for that. So tactics and gameplay should matter more.

Another theory I have is that many players are only buying the game now, when it’s cheaper, and the game creates certain mechanics to give them an advantage. So they think, “wow, this game is great, I need to buy FC 27 when it comes out because I’m really good.” Meanwhile, those who have played all year already have a clear idea of how the game is, and there’s a real chance they won’t buy it again. So from a business perspective, it seems like EA knows exactly what it’s doing.

EAFC 26: From Football Simulation to Dribbling Simulator

I’ve been raising this everywhere because this game genuinely feels ruined now. EAFC 26 is no longer about football—it’s just a dribbling contest.

Even average players with high dribbling stats can walk straight through top defenses. I’ve faced situations where players like Gravenberch or Tonali are casually dribbling inside my box against defenders like Maldini and Desailly—and there’s nothing I can do. Interceptions don’t work; the ball just rebounds back to the attacker every time.

After the new season update, defending has become even worse. AI defenders are clueless—while I’m manually tracking a winger, the rest of my defense just stands or walks instead of positioning properly. It feels broken.

Earlier FIFA titles rewarded tactics. You could use any formation you liked and win with your style. Now, only certain “meta” formations work, and everything else feels useless. Why even give multiple formations if only a few are viable?

This isn’t about being a pro or not. Regular players who understand football used to have a chance through proper gameplay. Now, if someone has players like Ronaldo or Ronaldinho, the game practically plays itself.

This isn’t realistic football. This is just skill-spam and broken mechanics. At this point, it honestly feels like EAFC should be renamed to “Dribbling Simulator.”

I used to play for hours. Now I can barely play 2–3 matches before quitting.

Please fix defending. Bring back balance. Let football matter again.

I was reading some opinions about the game from two months ago, and overall the problems are the same—just worse now. I think it’s harder to notice when you’re still winning matches (probably because the opponent is the one being disadvantaged by certain things). The fact that you aim a pass in one direction and hold it correctly, but the game decides to pass somewhere else—and even triggers Tiki Taka+—yet the ball still goes to the opponent… or hitting the post three times in a match, or attackers staying offside and sticking to the backs of defenders instead of attacking space… all of these are frustrating.

But when in some matches you literally can’t defend at all, and every long ball goes past your defenders with no chance to stop it, when your opponent scores from every possible angle—those go beyond any level of frustration.

I see a lot of reasonable posts here pointing out the game’s issues. Some people have been playing for 20 years, others for 30, since the very beginning—but for me, it’s becoming clear that the game is no longer made for those players.

It feels like it’s made for kids who fall for influencers opening packs and reviewing players—kids who think that if they get a certain player, they’ll win everything. The same type of players who score after your defenders literally trip over each other, while their pass gets some kind of system boost, and then they hit you with a trash celebration. The game is made for them. There are more of them. They probably complain when they lose too, even if they’re terrible at the game.

Personally, I’d rather lose fairly, but have a balanced game where I can improve what I’m not good at and then win. But no—the system uses some weird calculations and the game feels determined by them. At one point I played against someone with a full gold team—it was obvious they weren’t very good, just a few tricks, long balls to the striker, and first-time shots. Literally every ball went to the attacker and almost all of them were goals… I struggled massively to win that match. My passing felt terrible, and compared to his attackers, mine looked like bronze players.

At one point he took a low driven shot from the edge of the box, straight down the middle—my keeper could have easily caught it, but instead of diving, he stuck his leg out and the ball went under him. Even though I was leading at that moment, I felt like quitting the match.

So I don’t know what kind of crazy “balance” EA is trying to create in matches. But a gold team, used by a player who just scores finesse shots and posts them on social media to brag, shouldn’t be able to compete like that against someone with years of experience and top-tier players in every position.

I think a big part of the problem is the pro players, who have all kinds of advantages and tolerate a poorly developed game.

There’s a lot that needs improvement in this game. And many valid points are simply ignored when brought up. You might still see a moderator here thanking people for feedback on minor things, but the major issues are ignored as if they don’t exist. And when they suggest things like checking your connection or watching pro players to learn how to play, it just makes you want to lose your mind.

Everything makes sense though, including why the offline mode is so weak.

they hired psychologists some years ago to see how they can make people pay more money ;( so as long as you don't get mad to spend money on the game you're still winning against EA who tries to make you depressed and angry and then adicted by giving you a big pull after spending money ;/ it defenitely shouldn't be a 3+ game knowing that this is in the game but the world is getting dumbed down since some years :/ 

sadly the same mechanics were left for the solo modes as well as it is cheaper ^^ but in pvp games it's way more noticable that you just can't win this game 

Yeah you are literally describing my experience. I broke a control today, I was frustrated. That was my trigger to come and find out if other people were finding the same thing.

i deleted the app today and I won’t be playing the game again. I put 400 hours in to this game, embarrassed. Going to spend my time to do more productive and rewarding things. 

Yeah, I loved this game too. I’ve been playing it consistently since FIFA 06, but now it’s just a complete joke. You make changes that impact the game so heavily and you don’t even announce them. Instead of fixing problems, you make them even worse.

The other day I genuinely felt like the worst player. No matter what defensive settings I use, my defenders stay way too high up the pitch. My fullbacks, who used to help me a lot defensively when set to defensive and “fullback,” just don’t exist in defense anymore. On top of that, one of my center-backs looks like he’s being pulled forward every time there’s a long ball from the opponent. He gets bypassed by the ball and it goes straight to the attacker who ends up one-on-one with the keeper.

And I don’t get it. I actually improved, especially defensively because that’s where I had issues, but now I can’t do anything. And it’s strange because this problem doesn’t seem as noticeable for my opponents. It almost feels impossible to lose like this in every mode—WL, Rivals, Gauntlet, African League… it’s like everyone I face is top 50 in the game. But that’s because defensively I’m at zero.

Not to mention that sometimes my players make such weak passes and shots, while my opponents seem to have extra speed. It honestly feels like my account has been targeted and my “sliders” have been secretly changed.

Something has happened in the last 3 days for sure, since the new season started and the PL TOTS promo. Like you, my defending has gone to pieces, I feel like 70% of the people I’m playing are all sweats and have mastered a mechanic or a patch I’m not aware of. My normal steady passing game is now too slow and exposed to aggressive press, my defenders have lost brain cells, bashing to each other, more rebound goals than ever before, more bounce back, players deliberately letting me tackle them because they know they can do ridiculous tackle backs instantly and open up scoring opps. I just can’t work it out. 

I was just in Div 1 rivals come the end of the last season, and my natural place is low Div 2, however since the season reset, I’m struggling to get out of Div 3. I know the reset will bring the top players down and it will take a week or two to level out again so I thought it might be just playing the uber sweats who I wouldn’t normally play.

However, I e done two round of Gauntlet, in both rounds I only managed 2/4 wins. I’ve never ever got less than 3 wins in a round before when I’m locked in but this time even the ones I’m winning they are unbearably frustrating. 

Something has changed. The only way for me to have a chance of winning is reduce myself to brain dead tactics and counter and basically not touch my defence at all, which is bad because I have been manual defending most of the game cycle.

I love fifa, but getting punished for manually covering passing lanes, getting punished for not spamming press, getting punished for not just relying on the AI, getting punished for making good tackles on the edge of my box. It’s BS.

I feel for you, I know exactly how you feel.

A word on the community - most people get pleasure out of trying to wind up their opponents. Fine, I do it too, you find an edge when you can, if you feel like you need it. But, when you come up against a player in round 4 of gauntlet, and when they play hard against you, score and then quit, just to make sure you don’t pick up a win, well **bleep**, there are lots of people out there who get pleasure from being utterly miserable to other players, hiding behind consoles and being sub-human, it really is a sad sad place full of sad sad people.

Unfortunately I love FIFA so it’s hard to know what else to do - no matter how good or bad the game is, the community has a talent to make the experience even worse.