FIFA 21 Gameplay Changes : Defending and Blocking

A lot of work went towards adding Player Personality for tackling, allowing for the top defenders to stand out and be more accurate when predicting where the ball will be in order to make the best tackle. Multiple attributes are used to differentiate the effectiveness of players when performing a tackle. For example, when performing a standing tackle a combination of the Standing Tackle, Defensive Awareness, and Aggression attributes will define the outcome of that challenge.

• Shoulder Challenges have been re-worked to create better contact between players, and avoid the defender overshooting their opponent.

• Seal Outs are when a defender puts themself between the attacker and the ball to take back possession or shepherd the ball out of play, and they have also been re-engineered to create a better positioning between the player and their opponent.

• To perform a Shoulder Challenge or Seal Out, tap the L2/LT button whilst side by side with your opponent when defending.

EA has completely rewritten the blocking system and added it to the Controlled Tackling technology, creating more reliable and realistic blocks when defending shots and passes. To ensure the contrast between good and the best players, it was added Player Personality via their attributes to make sure the system is balanced. A player’s attributes will determine the effectiveness of a block, how far away from the ball a player can block, how long it takes to start the block animation, how well you can react and transition into a different block animation if something changes, and how long it takes to recover from a block.