FIFA 12

Shooting saw some big improvements in FIFA 12, when compared with FIFA 11. In FIFA 12, you can expect to score from many different angles and distances, whereas you probably couldn't say the same about FIFA 11. Shots are generally much harder than they have been in previous versions of FIFA, so you can expect to score from a variety of ranges, provided you're using a player who has decent shooting attributes, especially power. Most people overlook it, but it's worth knowing who has good shooting stats and who doesn't so you know when you should be shooting.

Regular Shot

The regular, laces shot is best for long range shooting, but it is also quite effective from closer ranges as well. You perform the regular shot with your console's default shooting button alone. An important tip is that you should pay attention to your set-up touch before shooting. By this I mean that you can't expect to rip one with a small touch, you need to set yourself up with a touch in front of your player so he can get some power into it. Regular shots can also be volleys and headers, so the controls are no different.

Finesse Shot

Finesse shots are sidefooted strikes which are particularly useful when shooting from in and around the penalty box. Finesse shots are generally more accurate than regular shots, but will be much less powerful. They are useful for picking out corners, but don't expect them to be as useful as they were inFIFA 11. In FIFA 12, they're still highly effective from tight angles, but it's not as ridiculous as in FIFA 11. Finesse shots also have a decent bit of curve, the amount depending on the strength of shot and time it has to curve. To execute a finesse shot on Xbox 360, hold down RB while shooting, and R1 while shooting on PS3.

Acrobatic/Fancy Shots

Unlike FIFA 11, in FIFA 12, you have the ability to control the occurrence of acrobatic shots such as bicycle kicks or diving headers. To do so, you obviously need to be set up correctly, including having the ball in the air. For Xbox, hold down LT as you shoot, and L2 for Playstation. For lower shots, such as double-tap or triple-tap low crosses, you can do the same thing and pull off some cheeky little flicks and backheels. It's really quite simple, but it's more about the timing and set up than anything, but you can pull off some really spectacular goals if you do this well.

Chip Shots

Chip shots are useful shots which are used to cheekily loop the ball over the goalkeeper and into the goal. A chip shot has a high arc and is not very powerful, but is useful for when the goalkeeper is not on his line and a bit farther away from the goal than he should be. This scenario occurs a lot when a player is on a breakaway and the opponent rushes his goalkeeper out too early, giving you enough time to chip it over him before he gets too close to cut off your angle. Sometimes in FIFA 12, goalkeepers are off their line for no good reason, so you should look for this and give it a try if he is. On Xbox 360, chip shots are executed by holding down LB as you are pressing the shoot button, and likewise for PS3 although you want to hold down the L1 button instead.

Manual Shooting

By default, FIFA 12 is set to assisted shooting. This means that whenever you take a shot, the computer ultimately directs the shot and determines its power for you in relation to where you “sorta” directed the shot and how long you held the stick for. Once you set your shooting settings to manual, you will realize just how much the computer helps you get your shots on target. When you first set manual settings, don't be discouraged by how your shots go everywhere but into the net. You will improve over time and in the end it will be worth it as your shots will be determined 100% by your command. This means that once you get good, you can hit the far corners out of the keepers reach much more frequently than if you'd spent the same amount of time practicing shooting with assisted settings.

FIFA 12 is all about knowing when to pass and when to dribble. It is now very effective to mix it up, and unlike FIFA 11, you can now expect to blast past some unbalanced defenders with an opportune dribble.However, passing is still a very extremely important skill to know how to do well, and arguably one of the most important concepts in FIFA 12.

 

Possessing the Ball

 

The possession game in FIFA has always been very similar to what it's like in real life: hold the ball, pass it around, and wait for the moment to surge forward. If you have a team who isn't exactly the "sit back and wait for the counter attack" it's probably in your best interest to maintain posession in the midfield and slowly work it upfield. Try to emulate teams like Barcelona, who focus on the little layoffs and utilize all areas of the final third. Don't be afraid to pass back, it opens up more options, and it's certainly better than loosing posession.

 

Inside or Outside?

 

There are always pockets of space on the pitch where the defending team is nonexistent. You must look at the current defensive shape of your opponent, are they spread out all around, leaving many available passing lanes? Or are they cluttered more in the center of the field, leaving options for you to play the balloutside? You need to learn to analyze how your opponent's team is positioned, and take advantage of this. A good example would be that from a goal kick, the defending team tends to push into the center of the field, leaving your wingers or outside midfielders wide open. If you are to win the header, play the ballto any open player, who can then distribute it to your winger or outside midfielder. Another example isplaying against a team who is very spread out, which is usually due to his formation featuring many midfielders and defenders. By noticing this, you already have the advantage that there will be more passing lanes than normal, and the through ball will be extremely effective.

 

Regular Passes

 

By pressing the default passing button of your gaming console, you play a simple sidefooted pass to a teammate. These passes will generally go right to your target's feet, so if they have a lot of room in front of them to run on to, you might want to consider the through ball, which will be explained later. Although the default assisted controls will aid your passing direction and power, you do have a considerable amount of control over the power of your pass, so analyze the distance between you and your passing target and hold down the passing button accordingly so it gets to him without being intercepted. However, if you want full control over the direction and power of your shots, I highly recommend looking into changing your passing settings to manual. 

Lofted Pass

 

The lofted pass is useful when your passing target is wide open, but there is a player of the opposing team in the way of this. By simply lofting the ball over your opponent's head and to your target, you can evade this problem. Another useful time to utilize the lofted pass is by passing up to a big, tall striker. Most of the time, he will out-jostle and out-jump the defenders to head the ball to another player or even chest it down to his feet. This is useful because when done well, it is so sudden that the midfielders don't have enough time to get back, and you can attack just their back line.

 

Crossing

 

Crossing is an incredibly useful tool in FIFA 12. Utilize your quick wingers and get them down the line to play a cross in. However in FIFA, you can decide what kind of cross you want to play. There are three types of crosses in FIFA 11.

 

1. The Traditional Lofted Cross – by holding down the lofted pass button on your console, your player will play in a cross that tends to go high enough that heading the ball is the best option for your strikers.
2. The Low Cross – by tapping the lofted pass button down twice in quick succession, your player will play in a lower cross to the ground that is usually put away by not only headers, but also volleys. The ideal time to use this is when your striker us approaching the near post and there is not a defender in front of him, or when the player who is going to cross the ball is very close to the end line.
3. The Ground Cross – a ground cross is executed by tapping the lofted pass down three times in quick succession. This will result in a ground level, hard cross across the face of goal. This is useful for when the defensive line is rushing back to the goal to defend the cross but haven't quite made it there yet. If your striker is in line with the defence, but is faster and will beat them to the ball, then go for it. When done well, the cross will nestle right in front of your striker nicely for him to bang into the back of the net.

 

*Holding down LB on Xbox or L1 on Playstation while crossing with any of these three crossing variants produces an early cross which is best used when your strikers are still not quite into the area, so you play it into their path to run on to.

 

Through Ball

 

The through ball is an incredibly dangerous weapon to use against your opponent. The through ball is a pass which doesn't go directly to your passing target, but rather in front of him for him to run on to. Obviously, don't try this if your target doesn't have space in front of him, or if his marker or defenders around him are faster than him. The best uses for the through ball are for when playing wingers to give them a head start on their dribble down the line, or playing through holes in the defensive line so your striker can simply run past the defenders to be in on goal. The through ball can also be utilized to quicklyspeed up your attack in the midfield also, your midfielders will have space in front of them too!

 

Chipped Through Ball

 

Chipped Through balls have the same concept as the regular through ball, but that the pass is, well, chipped! This is useful for when your passing target has a lot of space in front of him and is faster than the defenders around him, but they are blocking passing lanes through which you can play a grounded through ball.

 

Fancy Passes

 

New to FIFA 12, you can control when you want to play a little backheel or another fancy flick. As you're passing, hold down RB on Xbox or R1 on Playstation to produce a random fancy pass or flick. It's not always the same type, but they're all equally as effective as eachother. By this, I mean that it's not such a good idea to do this all the time, just occasionally as they aren't all that effective.

Defending has seen some huge changes in FIFA 12, mainly due to the fact that it was just too easy to hold down a single button have your players automatically chase your opponent. In FIFA 12, defending is more down to strategy and timing than anything. You need to learn what to do and when. When you start up the game for the first time, you're greeted with a basic tutorial to the new defending system, but this guide will go much more in depth and give you the upper hand in those defensive battles.

Contain your Opponent

 

The most important thing to remember is that tackling isn't your main focus until your opponent reaches your penalty box. It is very hard to correctly time tackles, so you need to be patient and just contain your opponent. Make sure you're jockeying so that you're actually closing down players. Quickly switch players and close down passing lanes, forcing them to make a mistake. More often than not, you'll eventually intercept a pass without your opponent even nearing your penalty box. The alternative, quickly trying to just tackle your opponent off the dribble, doesn't provide quite the same success rate.

 

Tackling

When your opponent does reach the penalty box, you need to be able to tackle correctly. Tackling is all about timing. You need to anticipate when the ball will be within your reach and be sure not to tackle too early, as this will result in your player mindlessly flinging his foot forward, allowing the opponent to dribble past. Timing will come in time, but if you contain your opponent well (previous paragraph), you shouldn't actually have to tackle all that much.

 

Anticipate Passes

 

Like stated before in the guide, anticipating passes is paramount. I wanted to emphasize this because in previous versions of FIFA 12, it's all been about tackling and winning the ball quickly. This is replaced with anticipating tackles in FIFA 12: you now need to be patient and think "Where would I pass in his posiion?" and close down that passing lane accordingly. It seems like a lot to think about, but you'll get the hang of it as long as you practice and are patient.

 

Other Tips

• Use the right stick to change players quicker.
• Be patient!
• Stay goal-side of your opponent.
• Time your tackles well.
• Anticipate through balls and bring a player back for cover.
• Be wary of skill moves, just focus on jockeying a player like this.
• Use the slide tackle sparingly, and in only dire situations.
• If you are to win the ball, make good use of your counter attack!

Also see our list of the 5 star skill players in FIFA 12 here!

Below is a table of all the possible skill moves in FIFA 12. Remember that pretty much every skill move requires for the left trigger to be held down, without it your player will just dribble normally if you are moving the right stick. These controls are the same for both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation, although on the Playstation the trigger you want to use is L2. Note that just these core moves are not the onlytricks you can do, you can combine them however you want to create your own unique skill move.Please note that many of these skills can be done with either foot, so they have two versions, which are done using opposite sides on the analog stick.

Note that the FIFA 12 version of the series continues the 'Star Rated Dribbling' system. In this system, players are ranked on a 1-5 scale of stars, with the players having 5 stars being able to perform every skill move and players with just 1 star will only be able to perform the simplest of skill moves. Also keep in mind that you can watch most of the moves here using the 2nd column "Watch", which will cause a GIFimage to show up and show you exactly what move we're referring to.

Skill Move	Watch (GIF)	Controls
Sideways Roll	Watch	LT + Right Stick R/L (hold)
Body Feint	Watch	LT + Right Stick R/L (flick)
Stepover	Watch	LT + from Right Stick U to R
Reverse Stepover	Watch	LT + from Right Stick R to U
Fake Shot	Watch	B, A (quick succession)
Blanco	Watch	While still, LT + press down Right Stick
Inside Circle Drag	Watch	While still, LT + Right Stick SW/SE twice (quick succession)
Elastico	Watch	LT + from Right Stick R under to L
Hocus Pocus	Watch	While still, LT + from Right Stick L to R
Roulette	Watch	LT + from Right Stick counter-clockwise D to U
Heel-to-Heel	Watch	LT + Right Stick U, D (quick succession)
Juggle Ball	Watch	LT + RB repeatedly
ATW (Around the World)	Watch	While juggling, LT + Right Stick full rotation starting from bottom
Ronaldo Chop	Watch	While running, LT + Right Stick SW/SE (quick succession)
Overhead Flick	Watch	While still, LT + U, U, D
Rainbow	Watch	While running, LT + Right Stick D, U, U (timed)
McGeady Spin	Watch	LT + Right Stick flick U, flick R
Matthews	Watch	LT + from Right Stick L to R
Rainbow Variation	Watch	LT + Right Stick U, U (hold), D (timed)
Rabona Fake	Watch	While sprinting, LT + power up power meter and cancel with Pass Button while holding backon the Left Stick(back as in in regards to direction sprinting in)
Triple Elastico	Watch	LT + from Right Stick U, to R, to L
Scooped Lob Pass	Watch	While still, LB + X
Roll and Flick	Watch	While running, LT + Right Stick R (hold), Flick NW
Ball Roll Fake	Watch	LT + Right Stick L, flick Left Stick R
Ball Roll and Back	Watch	While still, LT + Right Stick R (held), L (held)
Stepover Double Touch	Watch	LT + Right Stick U, across to R, Left Stick NW
Stop Ball and Turn	Watch	LT + Right Stick U, flick L
Fast Ball Rolls	Watch	LT + Right Stick D (held)
Fancy Fake Ball Roll	Watch	LT + Shoot/Lob button, Pass button quickly after
Airborne Rainbow	Watch	LT + tap RB constantly throughout, Right Stick D, U, U (timed)
Directional Ronaldo Chop	Watch	LT + Shoot button, Pass button quickly after, use Right Stick in any of the following directions to designate direction (U, L, R, NW, NW, SE, SW)
Elastico Chop	Watch	LT + Right Stick D, flick L
90 Degree Scoop Turn	Watch	LT + X, A, Left Stick L
180 Degree Scoop Turn	Watch	LT + X, A, Left Stick D
Bergkamp Flick	Watch	LT + Flick Right Stick D as ball is coming directly toward player.
Reverse Toe Bounce	Watch	While juggling, hold Right Stick L.
LATW	Watch	While juggling, Right Stick D, clockwise twice fast.                                   A feature that returns to the FIFA series for a fourth time after its debut in FIFA 09 is the ability to control thecelebration of your player after he has scored. There are two types of celebration moves; running moves and finishing moves. Find out your favorite combinations andcelebrate your great goals with a traditional punch the air or a more fancy salsa dance. Running Moves Celebration Xbox Control Playstation Control Signature Running Move A X One Arm Raised B Circle Thumb Suck X Square Ear Twist Y Triangle Finger Points tap B, then hold B tap Circle, then hold Circle Arms Out tap X, then hold X tap Square, then hold Square Wrist Flick tap Y, then hold Y tap Triangle, then hold Triangle Aeroplane press down Right Stick press down Right Stick Point to Sky Right Stick U Right Stick U Shhhh! Right Stick R Right Stick R Telephone Right Stick D Right Stick D Can you hear me? Right Stick L Right Stick L Fist Pump Right Stick R, hold L Right Stick R, hold L Come on! Right Stick L, hold R Right Stick L, hold R Blow Kisses Right Stick D, hold U Right Stick D, hold U Double Arm Swing Right Stick U, hold D Right Stick U, hold D Flying Bird Right Stick R, hold R Right Stick R, hold R Hand on Head Right Stick L, hold L Right Stick L, hold L Heart Symbol Right Stick D, hold D Right Stick D, hold D Arms Pointing Up Right Stick U, hold U Right Stick U, hold U Windmill spin Right Stick clockwise spin Right Stick clockwise Finishing Moves Celebration Xbox Control Playstation Control Kneel Slide to Fist Pump LT + B L2 + Circle Jump Punch to Fist Pump LB + X L1 + Square Big Fist Pump LB + Y L1 + Triangle Shoulder Dust LB + double tap B L1 + double tap Circle Bottom Dance LB + double tap Y L1 + double tap Triangle Point to Crowd LB + double tap Y L1 + double tap Triangle Stand & Point to Sky LB + hold Right Stick U L1 + Hold Right Stick U Standing Archer LB + hold Right Stick R L1 + hold Right Stick R Kneel Slide to Fall on Back LB + hold Right Stick D L1 + hold Right Stick D Punch & Dodge LB + hold Right Stick L L1 + hold Right Stick L Chest Slide LB + flick Right Stick D, U L1 + flick Right Stick D, U Bow LB + flick Right Stick D, U L1 + flick Right Stick D, U Head Shake LB + flick Right Stick L, R L1 + flick Right Stick L, R Standing Arm Sweep LB + flick Right Stick R, L L1 + flick Right Stick R, L Backflip (agile players) LB + flick Right Stick U, U L1 + flick Right Stick U, U Arms out to Crowd LB + flick Right Stick U, U L1 + flick Right Stick U, U One Knee Fist Pump LB + flick Right Stick R, R L1 + flick Right Stick R, R Kneel and Point to Heavens LB + flick Right Stick D, D L1 + flick Right Stick D, D Handstand (agile players) LT + Right Stick clockwise revolution L2 + Right Stick clockwise revolution Roll & Punch LT + Right Stick clockwise revolution L2 + Right Stick clockwise revoltion Double Backflip (agile players) LB + Right Stick counter-clockwise revolution L1 + Right Stick counter-clockwise revolution Roll LB + Right Stick counter-clockwise revolution L1 + Right Stick counter-clockwise revolution Upper Curl Jump Punch LB + press down Right Stick L1 + press down Right Stick Shoe Shine LT + B L2 + Circle Violinist LT + X L2 + Square Spanish Archer LT + Y L2 + Triangle Kneel Slide Spin LT + double tap B L2 + double tap Circle Hands on Ears LT + double tap X L2 + double tap Square Heel Taps LT + double tap Y L2 + double tap Triangle I can't hear you! LT + Right Stick R L2 + Right Stick R Side Slide LT + Right Stick D L2 + Right Stick D Brick Fall LT + Right Stick L L2 + Right Stick L Fall to Knees & Hold Face LT + Right Stick D, D L2 + Right Stick D, D Kneel Slide LT + Right Stick U, D L2 + RIght Stick U, D Samba Dance LT + Right Stick L, R L2 + Right Stick L, R Who am I? LT + Right Stick R, L L2 + Right Stick R, L Frontflip (agile players) LT + Right Stick U, U LT + Right Stick U, U Kneel Slide to Sit LT + RIght Stick D, D L2 + Right Stick D, D Bird Walk LT + Right Stick L, L L2 + Right Stick L, L Cartwheel and Flip (agile players) LT + spin Right Stick clockwise L2 + spin Right Stick clockwise Twist Flip (agile players) LT + spin Right Stick counter-clockwise L2 + spin Right Stick counter-clockwise Cartwheel Roll LT + spin Right Stick counter-clockwise L2 + spin Right Stick counter-clockwise> Robot LT + press down Right Stick L2 + press down Right Stick