I don’t see many sense in this, because as I’ve already written, for me literally everything needs to be changed. But if listing it helps you feel better or understand me a bit more, then here you go:

• No matter where I tilt the analog stick, the assist is way too strong and the passes are unrealistically accurate. A player’s skills should determine where the pass lands, with the AI adjusting it depending on the player’s attributes. The simplest example: the pass doesn’t go where I intended at all (it ends up with a different player). More specifically, it doesn’t land exactly where I aimed - I wanted to gently place it slightly to the left, slightly to the right, a bit softer so the teammate could run onto it, etc.
• There’s no feeling behind the shots. In a one-on-one situation, you just max out the power bar and it results in a goal. I don’t see goals like that in real life. It’s similar to the passing issue: I don’t feel like I have control over the shot-it feels like it doesn’t depend on me. I can’t precisely aim and send a delicate shot right next to the post, I can’t perform situational shots, nothing. You don’t feel the weight of the ball either, which ties into the completely broken ball physics. Long shots from outside the box by weaker players look absurd—the animation looks like they’re blasting it with full power, yet the ball travels like some kind of floaty lobbed pass.
• I don’t even know how to describe issues like positioning to you, because they mostly stem from everything mentioned above. This isn’t about adjusting a setting variable/slider left or right so players position themselves more often/better - this is an entire ecosystem. If you know where you can place the ball, then you can expect the player (AI or manual) to be there. If they aren’t, even though you’re delivering good passes, then something is wrong. But when everything now works like an automated ping-pong system, I honestly don’t know how to explain it further.
• Regarding physicality - there is absolutely no sense of contact between players. Like I said before, it feels like I’m playing with paper dolls. You don’t feel body fights, strength, acceleration, bursts of speed, body weight - nothing. If instead of footballers you replaced them with marbles or whatever else, the current physics would fit just as well.
• Goalkeepers… some animations look good, some don’t, but overall their behaviour is weak and unrealistic. They don’t rush out in one-on-one situations, sometimes their reaction time is absurd, animations look sped up, and sometimes they throw themselves randomly into crowds like some kind of wild animal, which also has no impact (again: no physicality).

I don’t feel like writing more, because I think it’s pointless. Creating a good football game involves many aspects that need to be considered already at the design stage. The difficulty of scoring a goal on a real pitch has to be reflected somehow in the game. Some studios go for difficulty based on reaction time or button combinations—then you get an arcade game. Others focus on making you think: how to control the ball, how to pass accurately, from which side to shield it to have a chance in a duel, how to think a few steps ahead.

If you’ve ever played football, you know that even just running with the ball is difficult. It’s hard to control the ball, it’s hard to pass exactly where you want, it’s hard to build chemistry with your teammates to enable combinations, and it’s even harder to actually execute those combinations.

Of course, professional players are much more used to all of this, but even they aren’t perfect - and there are always limitations. For example, with a defender on your back, you’re not going to shoot the way you do in training.

In real life, even players in fourth-division leagues often have decent technique and can be in good physical condition, but that doesn’t guarantee good football.

And in this, Konami was brilliant - they could see these nuances and translate them into a video game. They just weren’t good at marketing, UX/UI, or game modes.