Attributes are responsible for determining a player’s quality, and knowing them well can give you the opportunity to choose your team more efficiently. In this new series presented by Silvio Teixeira – also the author of tête-à-tête – you’ll have the opportunity to go deeper on each one of the game’s attributes according to the new FIFA 16 rules. Welcome to “Learning about FIFA 16 attributes”.
Learning about FIFA 16 attributes: Tackles
So you choose your centre backs for their pace, right? Cáceres is in everybody’s team because of that. Naturally you would think that the most important thing is to be able to outrun the opponent’s attacker, since most players aren’t good at dribbling anyway. You’re wrong, my friend! Time to take a look back and change some things if you want to gain access to the highest divisions, otherwise you don’t wanna face someone who abuses of fake shots because in that case your runner centre backs will probably suffer. What really counts for a good centre back is having high Tackles, both Standing and Sliding Tackles. These movements are risky, they might cause free kicks, booking or whatever, but they’ll shut the attacker most times, and if used carefully the results are excellent. Remember that the definition of Tackle is: a player’s ability to win the ball without causing a free kick by using his body strength, being the contact shoulder-to-shoulder or by foot. In game this also translates into being able to taunt the opponent with shirt pulling, grabbing and other not-so-fair moves without being caught by the referee if your player’s Tackles attributes are high. They’ve become even more important in this FIFA since the referee is giving away free kicks and penalties much more easily. So be sure to give more attention to Tackles!
Importance by position
- Great Importance | CB, LB, RB
Medium Importance | CDM, CM
Low Importance | CAM, LM, LW, RM, RW, ST, CF, RF, LF
Great importance for defenders in general, full backs and centre backs. Defending midfielders and central midfielders with characteristics for marking come right after, then the remaining players get low importance, unless your play style consists of frequent marking, however I personally never really look at Tackles when choosing my attackers.
Having high Standing Tackles and low Sliding Tackles (or the other way around) is mostly useless. This way we’ll only analyze them together, players with both Standing and Sliding Tackles higher or equal to 85 (Gold category). Still, we consider Standing slightly more important because Sliding will result in free kicks and cards more often.
Players with High Tackles
- Gold | Chiellini (91-91), Thiago Silva (91-89), Jerome Boateng (90-91)
Silver | Squillaci (82-85), Akaminko (82-85), Tony Hibbert (82-83)
Bronze | Jon Garcia (82-73), Sharahili (76-70), M. Kobakhidze (76-70)
BPL 10, Bundes 15,
The Bundesliga wins at Tackles: 15 players with 85+, 5 more than the BPL. Once again the BBVA disappoints, this time with just 5 players with 85+.
Making good use of Tackles
– Try to hit the tackle button one more time when you miss the first one, this makes your player get back on his feet more quickly to try again.
– Besides Tackles, look for players with good Interceptions. This way you can intercept both passes and the players directly.
– On the other hand, Tackle’s main opponent is Agility, so before the match starts it’s interesting to see which players have the highest Agilities so you know when to perform your Tackles more carefully.
Squads with high Tackles
The team couldn’t be based on any other league, the Bundesliga has the best tacklers. I chose Leno to save you some coins, but obviously use Neuer if you can afford him. Boateng is by far the best tackler, and although Naldo isn’t the second best, I chose him for his Interceptions. The full backs couldn’t be more well represented, and the CDM is also great for the purpose. Feel free to change the CMs according to your play style.
Curiosities
– Life follows the game: In the list of players that cause the most free kicks on European football, only Boateng has 85+, all the remaining names in the list have low Tackle attributes in the game, which is coherent since players with high Tackles cause less free kicks, and still they do play aggressively. Boateng is an exception that confirms the rule.