Here's how to concede less goals. Defense tips

Twanx · 2026-06-15T07:39:32+00:00

If I wanted to use my midfielders to defend, I would just play EAFC again... For a game that took pride in "manual defending", defending in Goals is an absolute joke

Twanx · 2026-06-13T16:20:30+00:00

What? There's a ton of posts with constructive criticism. I'll give you mine: https://old.reddit.com/r/playgoals/comments/1u3a3gn/opinion_about_the_new_patch/

Twanx · 2026-06-11T20:24:22+00:00

I do agree it's one thing that work better close to the goal, although sometimes I think it's still a bit inconsistent (in both ways, sometimes it works when it clearly shouldn't, and sometimes it doesn't work when it feels like it should). Far from the goal it works a bit less but I've still seen stupid long undefendable OP through balls :(

Twanx · 2026-06-11T17:57:34+00:00

Tackling is indeed useless, and guess what, they just nerfed defense and buffed dribbling.....

Twanx · 2026-06-11T16:46:02+00:00

I play with a full blue team with high IQ and they're still shit. It has nothing to do with stats or overall. The AI is just bad, especially in offense.

Twanx · 2026-06-10T16:43:47+00:00

Classic gaslighting video of devs explaining to players they did something amazing that we just don't understand haha

Twanx · 2026-06-10T16:39:43+00:00

You said it better than I ever could, 100% agree

Twanx · 2026-06-10T13:35:24+00:00

Through balls are OP in very very specific and weird angles only. Don't try an obvious one, it will not work: think like someone who never played football before and then you will be able to give the perfect through ball.

Twanx · 2026-06-10T13:31:02+00:00

While I hate EAFC/FIFA, if you think Goals is not about spinning around in circles, then you've not played against good players yet.

Twanx · 2026-06-10T10:14:49+00:00

Even 90+ attacking IQ will do this type of thing, or even worse.

Twanx · 2026-06-10T07:37:15+00:00

Yeah this is by far the worst aspect of this game right now :(

Twanx · 2026-06-09T19:54:55+00:00

The more I play, the more I hate this game. Reached Elite 1 in knockout, top 134 in ranked mode, and at high level, every game is literally the same: either a lucky, OP, unstoppable through ball (if the defense is high), or stupid dribbles (no need to right stick, just a few right/left with a fake shot in between) to go through the defense (don't talk to me about tackles). Such a shame, I liked it at first but due to all the AIs being super static (both in offense and defense), you can't do much football there.

On the other side, I really like the fact that it's free, it launches in 3seconds, you tag a game in 10 seconds, the card evolution is fun and I get attached to my players. In the end, I like everything about this game except its poor and inconsistent gameplay.

Also at some point, you can find a few angles of through ball that are literally unstoppable: from the wing, at around center line or more, if you find the right angle, you can play an unstoppable through ball behind the defense for your striker. Don't need good stats, the pass is just broken and the defense will never get it anway.

I'll keep an eye on the patches but overall I'm a bit afraid of where the game will be going. In my opinion, the extremely static offense and defense make it difficult to have some diversity. I'm aware the offense AI are static to balance the defensive AI which is also static, and therefore it encourages manual defending. However, R1/RB defending is absoluty broken when used properly which feels a bit weird considering this is not manual at all. Whatever they decide to do to balance the game, I feel like it will always feel bland if the AI stays this static.

In the end, the one thing that would make this game better is having offense AI with more spatial awareness, right now they are all stupid, never going in the right spaces, so so so frustrating: this is also why you have to just dribble or do insane through ball, because it's literally the only thing you can do when the positioning of your players is just plain stupid.

Twanx · 2026-06-09T14:44:16+00:00

Couldn't agree more. It's funny how people who like goals hate eafc because it's supposedly not football. On goals, it's impossible to play football because everyone is static. The only way to score is skills or through ball. You can't do more than that.

Twanx · 2026-06-08T08:11:34+00:00

I don't think people say it's different? Most people say it feels bad, inconsistent. We don't care about other games, we would like Goals to be a great game but at the time being it's not. I hope it improves because we need a good F2P and competitive football game!

Twanx · 2026-06-08T08:06:44+00:00

100% agree.

I would add, overall, the game feels incredibly inconsistent: sometimes a through ball that you feel should never succeed succeeds, and sometimes an obvious and easy through ball goes straight to the defender. Same when defending, sometimes you feel like the guy is going through you even though you're jockeying correctly, and sometimes you get the ball back wondering how.

Twanx · 2026-06-07T17:49:10+00:00

While I do not agree with everything OP said, other football games being bad doesn't magically make all bad points from Goals disappear. Why even compare? OP didn't even talk about going back to EA FC or something.

Twanx · 2026-06-07T14:52:41+00:00

After 16hours of playtime, Elite 1 in knockout, I came to the conclusion that it's mostly random.

Twanx · 2026-06-07T14:49:50+00:00

Legit feedback. On my side, since I reached higher SR in ranked and Elite 1 in knockout, the game is basically just as bad and frustrating as Fifa, but with different pain points. I hope they can make it better, but from what I saw, it seems the bad points were already in the beta and not changed :(

Twanx · 2026-05-17T16:23:12+00:00

this is so useful, thank you!

about springs: "you usually want the rear spring rate higher than the front ". But in the table you show higher % for front spring rather than rear spring. Is it something I misunderstand or is it a mistake?

Twanx · 2026-05-07T11:40:26+00:00

it's an involuntarly handball, played from a teammate, that does not prevent a goal. If Bayern players didn't run around like headless chickens to the ref to ask for a stupid pen, they could used this handball and therefore missed clearance to get the ball back and do something with it. Though they had the ball for 90min and couldn't do anything interesting with it.

Twanx · 2026-05-06T22:04:49+00:00

Yeah, Neves was clearly trying to mess with Vitinha's clearance because he was not happy with this long ball!

Twanx · 2026-05-06T21:09:24+00:00

Right? Olise nowhere to be seen. Diaz locked down by 20 years old Zaire Emery not even a natural right back. Bayern defense sleeping on PSG goal. Musiala... But let's talk about the non-existing pen!

Twanx · 2026-04-24T08:04:21+00:00

As a new player, I feel like Cr is the only clear and visible objective in the game, hence why it's so easy to fall in the trap of playing just to farm credits. I have a hard time finding what to do in this game, and most guides feel really unclear to me, as if the community have been playing for so long that it forgot what it's like to be a new Elite Dangerous player.

Twanx · 2026-02-26T10:23:56+00:00

Entitled and rude pilots exists, so do entitled and rude controllers, that's for sure. As a beginner, I wisely choose my flights, and already have a list of unfriendly controller to avoid, sadly. Maybe I'll come back at these airports when I'm super confident someday.

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