Biggest problem with FIFA AI has always been that every team plays the same, every player plays like a superstar.But I wonder if there's ways of crippling the dribbling and making the defending much easier through the sliders? I'd be happy breaking the game as long as it wasn't in the places where it's broken at the minute...!
For tighter defending, use the line sliders: 20 height, 20 length, 20 width, try that. Create a custom defend formation with multiple DMFs. Doing all that will draw your players back into the box to help defend, doesn't fix the defensive AI but it gets bodies back to help block shots and passing lanes.