Defending against human opposition

[Andreas]

I consider myself a pretty good PES/WE player. I've been playing it almost daily ever since Pro Evolution Soccer came out 2001 (or 2002?), and I'm currently in 10th place in the evo-league.com ladder, having beaten many of the people above me.

But one thing I find very difficult against human opposition is defending. It's so hard to defend inside the box when the other player has the ball. He can pass it almost freely inside the box to another player and I concede a lot of goals this way. Many of the people I play against, when they get a corner, they do the short option, and they can just run into the box, pass it to an open player, and there's always a big goal chance.

Is there any effective way of stopping players when they are one on one with the defender? Those goals are so annoying to concede!

 

[Dar]

Defend by zones all the time. I find that when playing online this can especially frustrate your opponent.

Dont go for the tackle unless you know 100% that you're going to come away with the ball, always defend using a forward or midfield player if possilble. Use Square to make the AI defender pressurise the ball while you concentrate on blocking the available passing angle(s). Defending online is mostly about blocking the passing angle(s), not actually tackling and winning the ball. It's easy enough to usher a player away from the danger zone but the key is to do that as you block the obvious pass to the open player in the box. I had a good goals conceded average up until recently (0.91) but then I started using teams like Fiorentina and Sevilla more, which as most people will know have utterly crap defences in Pro Evo. Add the fact I played a few matches against a laggy bastard using Barca and my goals conceded average is now 1.10...for the moment. I'll get it below 1.0 again though, I want that more than my goals scored average to go up. I usually score enough goals.
I usually use Udinese online as well, more than any other team and they only have a back three, so it is possible to defend well.

I hope that doesn't come off as one big messy rant and at least helps a little.

 

[Andreas]

No, I understood everything I'm gonna try a few matches now, see if I can get it right

Thanks for the help!

 

[Andreas]

Tried the zone press thing now, and it kind of worked, but I guess I have to give it some time to master it completely. Did some mistakes here and there, but I could see that it worked pretty good, and it gave the game a more realistic feel to it (the standing off/closing down part at least).

 

[Dar]

Yeah, it's all about patience. Also when it's your half as the client you have to be really careful, a small bit of lag can mean doom!

The other thing is to be aware of when it is right to go for the killer tackle. You need to predict what your opponents next move is. Against some people this can be tough, but sometimes before the match starts you can already see how they're going to play, (say if they have three forwards and two of them are wing forwards, you know its going to the wide men 9/10).

If you use the zonal cover method well and dont pull players out of position, you can close the defence off quite easily. The golas you concede then are usually just annoying mistakes, but thats a different story.

 

[hmaa81]

Yeah, it's all about patience. Also when it's your half as the client you have to be really careful, a small bit of lag can mean doom!

.

Hi ,
Do u mean when i am hosting agame , i usually get the lag on the second half as the opponent is hosting it ?
and since my connection is good i get no lags on the 1st , if i joined a room then this means i will get a good second half and the lags if any will be mostly on the first half ???

Highly appreciate your feedback on the issue , it is driving me crazy

 

[Dar]

Yes. If you host a match you then host the first half and your opponent hosts the second half. If you join the game then you play "away" first half and then host the second half.

 

[Andreas]

...but sometimes before the match starts you can already see how they're going to play, (say if they have three forwards and two of them are wing forwards, you know its going to the wide men 9/10).

Yeah, I find that pretty annoying to play against. Some people just, as soon as their defenders get the ball, hold or and fire a pass direct up to their forward and let them do the job.

Now the stupid thing is that this is a tactic that actually works in PES/WE, and I find it so amazingly annoying! The game is so much more enjoyable when you pass through the middle, using your midfielders playing one-two's, playing the ball around until you find a passage in the opposition defence, having your full backs overlapping etc., but this is just ruined by the fact that instead of doing it like that, you can just give it to the striker right away.

Now this is just AI faults/bugs, so hopefully, Konami will fix these things in the newer versions.

 

[ruffneckc]

I'm not a bad player myself (400+ games and 0.80 goals against average) but I have started to concede a little too much goals lately as opponents continuously try to run at my defence with someone with excellent dribbling ability (i.e. Ronaldinho..)

Just as described above by Andreas, some players just set 3 fwds all the way up field (often with the dribbler on the wing) and punt the ball to them as soon as they gain possession.

A decently skilled player can easily dribble 2 defenders scrambling back with someone like Ronnie and it is frustrating and hard to defend against.

What I have tried to experiment with is having the fullback man mark him and also have my wide midfield player help in defending (high defensive arrow) against this. It has proved successful somewhat in stopping players who play this way.

It is one thing to zone cover and block passing lanes but it is a complete different kettle-of-fish when someone only dribbles at your defence (not looking to pass) with an outstanding player like Ronaldinho.

 

[Dar]

It is one thing to zone cover and block passing lanes but it is a complete different kettle-of-fish when someone only dribbles at your defence (not looking to pass) with an outstanding player like Ronaldinho.

Not really, as I said above, defend with a forward or midfield player, dont approach them with a defender. Hold square to get the CPU to close them down and apply pressure with two players. If you're using a midfielder then you'll quite quickly crowd them out once they approach the edge of your penalty area.

For the people playing the 3 men up front. Man mark the WF's aggresively with your side backs, then be sure to put your DMF on a high defensive arrow and also on covering marking. He'll fill in wherever a gap will be left by a player who's gone forward and should help ease the pressure.

Of course if you're playing against a decent player it'll always be tough, but these simple things can help you out considerably where the default AI falls flat on its face. It's about knowing your own teams limitations as well as the best attackers abilities of your opponent to defend really well.

By the way, nice Average Ruffneck.

Who do you usually use to maintain an average like that?

 

[Teacher]

Yeah, I find that pretty annoying to play against. Some people just, as soon as their defenders get the ball, hold or and fire a pass direct up to their forward and let them do the job.

Now the stupid thing is that this is a tactic that actually works in PES/WE, and I find it so amazingly annoying! The game is so much more enjoyable when you pass through the middle, using your midfielders playing one-two's, playing the ball around until you find a passage in the opposition defence, having your full backs overlapping etc., but this is just ruined by the fact that instead of doing it like that, you can just give it to the striker right away.

Now this is just AI faults/bugs, so hopefully, Konami will fix these things in the newer versions.

I disagree with you here, fellow evo-league player! (I'm known as iMotherEarth over there, hi!)

When you combine the wingplay tactic with combinations through the middle you'll become unpredictable to your opponents. And using wingplay is as realistic as all the other ways of playing, I think. We have to respect everybody's playing style, just accept how things are!

In The Netherlands using wingers is almost the standard way of playing. The national squad uses it as well (Robben, Overmars, Van Der Meyde, Kuyt sometimes)

What I find hard to play against is playing with a defensive block and an attacking block. You know, 4 defenders and 2 defensive midfielders. And then 2 attacking midfielders and 2 strikers. The six man defence is very hard to play against, especially when people use sides like AC Milan or Man Utd. These teams are so strong at the back, combined with world class DMF's you'll never get through combinating! So, that's where I use wingplay to actually go around this block! It works, it works, I agree!

As far as bugs, and don't think wingplay is a bug. If something's not your style or your 'thing' you can't call it a bug, just like that!

 

[The Power]

@Andreas


make the a-linepressing b-zonenepressing b-offside a-conterattak strategy

 

[arjen-robben]

Yeah, it's all about patience. Also when it's your half as the client you have to be really careful, a small bit of lag can mean doom!

The other thing is to be aware of when it is right to go for the killer tackle. You need to predict what your opponents next move is. Against some people this can be tough, but sometimes before the match starts you can already see how they're going to play, (say if they have three forwards and two of them are wing forwards, you know its going to the wide men 9/10).

If you use the zonal cover method well and dont pull players out of position, you can close the defence off quite easily. The golas you concede then are usually just annoying mistakes, but thats a different story.

the trick is to play very defensive in the client half. I usually play a 3-5-2 formation with very defensive "quick setting" in the client half, and a normal or offensive style as host.

The trick is indeed to allways try to intercept passes, using super cancel can be very effective for this! And closing down with square, although that doesn't allways work out well, so be carefull with that. O yeah, and pray that you don't have to play a lagging 56k-idiot :mrgreen:

 

[ruffneckc]

By the way, nice Average Ruffneck.

Who do you usually use to maintain an average like that?

I mostly play with Arsenal and France. The teams I support in RL

BTW, thanks for the headsup on cover marking I forgot about that one.

 

[riboflavin]

Hi ,
Do u mean when i am hosting agame , i usually get the lag on the second half as the opponent is hosting it ?
and since my connection is good i get no lags on the 1st , if i joined a room then this means i will get a good second half and the lags if any will be mostly on the first half ???

Highly appreciate your feedback on the issue , it is driving me crazy

No wonder I get lag every second half when I host, I had no idea about this, it was driving me crazy as well, literally i was going nuts and I couldnt figure out why I had lag every second half. Its such a pain in the ass though that lag, the game becomes 10x more difficult. With defense during the second half, pretty much just try to switch players fast enough to get a guy in front of the attacking player. Sometimes you get lucky and there is minimal lag, other times, its really quite a challenge.