Today, let's break down the art of pressing your opponent. If you can apply pressure to your opponent in a right way, then your defense will totally improve and stop conceding easy goals. So, let's jump into the article.

Mistakes

Many players make a lot of mistakes when pressing the opponent. And the common mistakes is that some players fear to challenge for the ball because they think that if they over commit the opponent might perform skill move and beat their Defender. So, from the result of this, they tend to give the opponent too much freedom.

Defender Movement

The second mistake they move their Defender in the wrong patterns in a way that they easily open up gaps for through balls. So, how do we press the ball holder beginning with contain used when the opponent has limited or no passing options?

In this case you have to position your Defender in front of the opponent's player and to be able to react to any change of direction. You have to hold both the L2 plus R2 to The Speed Jockey when we say Contain. You have to position your player in front at least two feet away from the opponent's player and wait for him to change direction or dribble into your player. Be fully focused and importantly, you have to be confident in these one-on-one situations because your opponent is trying to beat your Defender not you trying to beat his player.

Active Pressing

Then, we have the act of pressing we use this when trying to cover opponents options, like Pass or Space. So, we use the diagonal player movement as the basic way to move our Defender. When we use diagonal movements, we are able to cover the opponent's available option. And at the same time, pressing his player.

Like in this example, I switched to my Center back to challenge the opponent. He's having this One-Two Pass with his Strikers. So, if I move my Defender in front, I will be leaving this passing option open. So, I move diagonally in a way that I'm covering the Pass Lane, then applying pressure to his player. And I managed to win the ball back.

This technique you can manage multiple duties at the same time. Then you can cover and close up the Space where your opponent might dribble to an even challenge for the ball again moving in a diagonal pattern. So, after you mastered these two strategies, you do it in a pro way by even covering the Pass and the Space at the same time. By analyzing the situation, you give your opponent hard time when he tries the Pass, you cover it. And when he tries to dribble into Space, then you close up.

Push and Pull

Then we have the Push and Pull. This technique is used to defend skill moves. You have to develop the habit of reading skill moves animation in order to know which skill your opponent is trying to pull out. So, when your opponent slows down most of the times, they may be likely to perform a skill move. When you push your Defender in front to press and you see the skill move animation, you immediately pull back slightly. You back off to create a gap to reduce the effectiveness of the skill move after you push forward to challenge the ball.

Final Key Of Pressing

There's no point of pressing the opponent without tackling the ball. So, when we tackle, we use the circle button. But we have many ways of using this.

And the first is basic. When your opponent is dribbling the ball openly, this is the obvious way to tackle it away. Then, next when your opponent makes a heavy touch when he's sprinting, he have less ball control because he's making heavy touch in front another one. We use it to push the opponent's player from the ball, especially when you're in a running duel, you spam the tackle button and your player uses his body to push away the opposition player.

Then lastly, even if the opponent gets in behind, but your Defender is still a distance near. You can pull the player's shirt by again spamming the tackle button. And even if you cause a bad challenge, don't expect a brutal punishment, like a red card.

Aggresively

Being aggressive. We normally use it when the opponent is just receiving the ball. Here, we don't give him time to react being aggressive. When the opponent is just receiving the ball, we sprint to the opponent to close up the gap quickly, especially high up the pitch, then using centre-back. You have to use the fast Jockey controls because centre-backs can Jockey faster than other players on the pitch. You have to do it fast such that your opponent can't react. So, you have to master these techniques slowly by slowly.

If you can use FUT 23 Coins to improve your players, with the strategies I give you, you will definitely win the game more easily!

Read More: How To Beat Defenders With Dribbling Tecniques In FIFA 23