FIFA 23 TIPS
You can win more often following our FIFA 23 tips.
Tips Before you Start
Everyone who’s playing FIFA online is competitive by nature: they wish to be better than their friends, a chance to play against the best players in the world, reach a legendary streak of wins, or prove to themselves that this is where they belong: amongst the most brilliant players.
However, not being able to fulfill those objectives, which most people aren’t, can be very frustrating. Remember, though, that if you’ve just started playing FIFA and have absolutely no skill, this won’t help you go very far. But there are a few straightforward tricks you may take for granted that can get you many wins.
Keep your Concentration High
Let’s start with the essential FIFA 23 tips. In most major FIFA tournaments, the most decisive factor is the player’s state of mind. Their hands are just there to cause an impulse. Success depends directly on one’s capacity to control their emotions and keep their concentration.
Mental concentration is a psychic process that consists of voluntarily focusing one’s attention on the activity they’re performing at the moment, leaving aside all that can interfere. It means that not only you must be physically and mentally able, but it’s also crucial that you cut out external factors, anything that’s not related to the game. It’s not easy being 100% focused during 20 consecutive games, but if you follow our recommendations, you’ll surely be able to increase your concentration capacity and so win more often.
Play alone
Start by choosing an environment private enough for you to be relaxed and quiet enough so that it’s not likely for you to be interrupted. No one else being present would be ideal. Your chances of victory reduce drastically if someone is constantly blocking your vision or if you’re holding a conversation with them while playing. Your chances are almost zero if you’re unlucky enough to be presented with a flash mob. If being alone is not a possibility, consider playing some other time. Even if you have a room of your own, your concentration will only remain unaffected if you’re sure no one will interrupt you at any time.
Eliminate all potential sources of distraction
Relax, no one’s asking you to get rid of your mum, girlfriend, wife, or kids! We say it figuratively. For you to engage with the game, we suggest you silence all the devices that might give you sound notifications, such as smartphones, tablets, or even messages on your console. It is also essential to ensure you reduce all movements in your field of vision that are not related to the game, such as a television or a laptop. If you’re expecting someone’s visit, make sure you have enough time to play a full game or finish the current one until they arrive.
Improve your concentration capacity
How we can ignore all that doesn’t interest us varies from person to person. Do you ever arrive at your destination without knowing how you got there? We bet so. This type of robotized behavior will not get you far in FIFA. You may even be able to score goals, but you’ll be playing far below your capacity. If this happens to you regularly, maybe it’s time you worked on your concentration capacity. It can be improved by meditation or by playing unimportant games. If you look on the internet, you will find dozens of examples. You may also try to improve it while playing FUT Champions, adopting a series of active play actions:
- Look for open spaces on the radar;
- Predict the opposition’s moves;
- Think your plays through before executing them and be original with your playing style.
Occupy your ears with predictable sounds
The fans’ cheering and other stadium sounds are reproduced in FIFA 23 to keep you engaged with the game. They were projected to increase your adrenaline levels, which you should avoid. For some people, the game’s commentators can be annoying. Therefore, it is recommended that you come up with your own techniques to hear only the sounds you consider neutral. If you can’t avoid environments where distractions are everywhere, muting the game might not be sufficient. In these cases, we recommend you put on headphones and listen to some classical music or even white noise. Other types of music of your preference are also fine as long as they keep you calm and focused and don’t have much singing. If your opponent has audio on, resist the urge to hear them and apply the same technique. It’s hard to maintain posture when things start to go wrong and, along with that, listen to provocations. Playing ‘I will survive’ is not an option.
Avoid the Adrenaline
Over the years, by observing some of the best players in the world, we could see that state of mind plays a significant role. Knowing how to control your emotions is crucial for success.
Maybe knowing that they must be prepared to play many games in a short period, FUT Champions competitors normally consider adrenaline a good thing. However, this can be a mistake that will cost a lot. In moments of stress, your adrenal glands release great quantities of this hormone which prepares your organism for major physical efforts. It also stimulates the heart, raises blood pressure, relaxes certain muscles, and contracts others. Adrenaline helps us make faster decisions and gives us an impulse in our motor capacity. It speeds up decision-making, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the right decision will be made. We become more capable of running and jumping, but that doesn’t interest us FIFA players. Also known as epinephrine, it limits our motor coordination, which is essential for giving instructions to the game through pressing buttons. To improve your success rate, you have to leave adrenaline aside. Here are a few simple FIFA 23 tips to help keep you calm.
Don’t lose your temper
Just because you watch Youtubers yelling, you don’t have to follow their bad example. They do it a lot because it’s good for the audience, not because they think this leads them to more victories. Well, some of them are just stupid. The idea that you will let your emotions out by shouting a bunch of curse words, and that’s somehow beneficial, is wrong. You’re simply elevating your adrenaline levels by yelling, and that, as we’ve explained, only works against you. If you feel you have an urge to yell, you’re not psychologically able to play. So, in this case, try saving it for later. Besides, if your opponent gets offended, they may report you, and you will be penalized. Treating them with respect will contribute to a calm environment, which means less adrenaline is involved. Do you see how this works?
Make a pause whenever you concede a goal
Have you ever conceded a goal and just wanted to restart the game ASAP to level it up and not give your opponent any time to celebrate? Of course, you have. It happens to everyone, even if they don’t play FIFA. We bet you skip every replay until the ball is back running and in your possession. This feeling of revenge is no more than adrenaline taking over. You should do the exact opposite: every time you concede, you should stop for a bit and take all the time given to you. Taking a deep breath or a sip of water can be enough for your body to let go of all the tension and return to its normal state. If by the end of that pause you’re still not feeling calm, which frequently happens when you concede ridiculous goals, pause again. Remember that you may only pause three times during the match, so it’d be really best not to concede so many goals.
Play with a sense of humour
When things aren’t going well, laughing is the best medicine. Even if it’s a simulation, it doesn’t have to be true. That can affect your state of mind and even induce some physical alterations: the endorphin levels released by your brain increase, giving you more confidence and diminishing anxiety; blood circulation is stimulated, so your muscles relax more efficiently, reducing some of the physical symptoms of stress. If you’re already mentally strong, you won’t need to resort to this trick, but the truth is that laughing at unfortunate times or events such as your opponent’s celebrations is probably the best way to deal with them. Instead of holding on to negativity, you will be immediately ready for the rest of the game. Do that and see what happens. Although it’s a simulation at first, the objective here is to laugh as naturally as possible, so don’t go on impersonating the Joker. It won’t do the job. With practice, this can become almost spontaneous, and soon enough, it’ll be decisive for how you approach the game. You’ll be able to deal with adversity more easily as this won’t result in adrenaline kicking in.
Be Realistic
Some people need to establish certain objectives to feel challenged and motivated. It wasn’t just a coincidence that EA introduced objectives a few years ago and is now adding FUT Moments to the game. They tend to make players go further and do more things in the end. What’s interesting about a game in which you’ve scored five goals if you weren’t challenged to make two of them from corners?
In FIFA 23, it’s also important to set goals. They serve as the basis for work in your performance. When you’re able to fulfill them, or each time you break a personal record, you naturally get motivated. If you fail, you keep trying until you succeed. The important thing is that you set goals that are realistic and, at the same time, don’t lack a minimum of ambition.
Of course, everyone’s primary goal in the competition will always be to win as many games as possible. Nothing else matters. Any other purpose you may come to set will only take away your focus from what matters: winning. The thing is that most people judge themselves as better players than they are. They set high objectives, such as reaching the top 200 and find themselves emotionally affected for never fulfilling that.
They keep justifying failures and never really admit the true cause: they were never good enough to beat the opposition. They blame handicap (regardless of whether it does or doesn’t exist – that’s not our point), the game’s bugs, bad luck, lack of fair game, or even the referee. Our brain is a specialist at finding justifications for the situations we consider unexpected, but it’s not always the right one it finds.
If you’re realistic and accept that most of your losses happened because the opposition was superior, which does not necessarily have to happen since football is not exactly a science, you automatically let go of all that toxic mentality. After all, you might as well be a great player, but in that case, you are facing the best players too. When you justify failure with excuses, you’re not only being dishonest with yourself, but you’re also losing focus and increasing your levels of irritability. And it’s like a snowball. The next time you lose a game under similar circumstances, your brain automatically concludes that it’s not your fault. You lost because of that thing you told yourself the last time (which not even you believe entirely in).
This behavior is dangerous because it prevents you from seeing the evidence. Furthermore, if you’re not realistic, you’ll never learn from your mistakes because it was never your fault in the first place.
How to Distribute your Games
If you reached the Champions Finals, you should consider how you will distribute your games throughout the three days. The Finals is more like a marathon rather than a speed test. You don’t get any reward for finishing your round on Friday (actually, you do earn a free weekend for yourself, which is something FUT Champions competitors don’t have). It’s quite the opposite. Your performance won’t be as good as it would be if you took the rest of the weekend to play your games patiently.
Leaving everything for the last day is also not a good idea because that can cause stress. Why play everything in a single day if you have three days to do it? The thought of there being a determined moment when you’re more likely to face weak opponents is invalid. No proof shows matchmaking will work in your favor, depending on the day you’re playing.
We suggest that you distribute your games throughout the three days. Ideally, play seven games on Friday, seven on Saturday, and six on the last day. Also, don’t play more than ten games in a row. Like any other rigorous mental activity, your brain will get tired of being forced to function for such a long period (yes, because if you are focused on the game, it means you’re overloading your brain). When you accumulate many games played in a row, your attacks become more predictable and easy to defend against. You should take a break and restart when your energy is fully restored.
Don’t forget to consider each game as a final and always play for the result. Unless you’re losing by five or more, and we have an apple pie recipe to share, don’t get intimidated or give up. If you start thinking about the next game as soon as you concede the second goal, you’ll lose focus and increase your stress levels.
Make a Pause After Every Loss
We all lose games, and although some of us can be more self-controlled, it’s always challenging to deal with losses. Remember that the worst thing you could do is go back to playing right after a loss. You have to understand that this isn’t the time to try and compensate for your recent pain. You’re frustrated, full of adrenaline, and hungry for revenge. These are the exact ingredients that will most likely make you lose again.
It’s often difficult to let go of this cycle: you stack up loss after loss and decide to play just one more game because you’re tired, and the one thing you want is to go to sleep under the comfort of one last win. This is where we see who has the potential to reach the top and who are those that don’t have the required mental structure.
Every time you lose a match, make a quick pause. Use that time to go trading, eat something, go to the toilet, make a phone call or look at a few more photos of Emilia Clarke on the internet. If you lost by conceding a dreadful goal, known as ‘eSports ready’, best give it a few more minutes. The objective is to reset your mind to its normal state: focused, calm and relaxed.
Ideally, you should be able to make a pause after every game, even when you win, to have it reset. But pausing at least after every loss is crucial if you intend to go far in the competition. Don’t blame whichever factor you believe is bringing you down other than yourself because that won’t help. Instead, let go of the anger and resume action as soon as you feel relaxed again.
Get Enough Sleep
We don’t suggest you sleep during a game. There are no records of such kind of skill. No Elite player has ever won a match while being asleep. One thing at a time: first sleep, then play. Playing 20 games in 72 hours may implicate losing some sleep, but what good is playing all these games if you’re not going to win?
Especially at night, don’t extend your playtime if you feel tired. Sleep at least 7 hours. The lack of sleep affects you negatively in a lot of ways. When you don’t get enough sleep, your brain’s emotional zones become 60% more active, which can cause some inadequate reactions and emotions. Besides, anxiety levels increase and your capacity to process complex problems diminishes, making you more predictable.
If you sleep less than 4 hours, you lose up to 7% of your reaction capacity, which is a game of FIFA that makes all the difference. As if all that wasn’t enough, the habit of under-sleeping correlates with shorter life expectancy. A shorter lifetime means fewer months of FIFA. In other words, fewer red picks. Now you see where the problem is, right?
If your eyelids start to feel heavy, but you’re running out of time to play games, go for a short nap. The lack of sleep generates cortisol in your body, in other words, the stress hormone. Taking a nap allows your body to produce the antidote for cortisol, which fights stress and anxiety. It is also responsible for the increase of serotonin in your brain, which provokes a good feeling of disposition, which is great for controlling your emotions during a harder match.
Your power nap should last about 20 minutes. If you rest for longer, your body enters a deep sleep stage, and it’s harder to wake, so you may feel disoriented and unable to play afterward. This way, it’s essential that you set your alarm for 20 minutes after how long you think it takes for you to fall asleep. If you have insomnia or any sleep disorder, note that naps are contraindicated.
Eat Well, Stay Hydrated and Exercise
…and don’t forget to breathe. This tip may seem way too obvious, but you must be aware of its importance. When you’re playing FIFA 23, you want all your body, especially your brain, to be completely focused on the game. However, you cannot forget that it’s a machine; like any other machine, it requires energy. Providing for its basic needs is the least you could do if you wish to have it working perfectly.
eSports athletes are starting to realize that, to maximize their capacity, they must treat their bodies as if they were traditional athletes. It isn’t just a coincidence that they all bring energetic drinks and foods (bars etc.) into competitions. The top athlete’s average diet consists of 6 to 7 meals daily, corresponding to 2500 calories. Obviously, in your case, you don’t have to take it that seriously.
Don’t forget to eat if you play for long periods and keep your mind fresh with regular physical exercise. Dehydration, which occurs when your body uses up or loses more liquid than you ingest, results in physical and mental fatigue. It will help if you avoid these situations by drinking water every time. Ideally, you should keep a water bottle nearby and drink it whenever you want to relax. If you drink significant quantities at once, your bladder might get full and interrupt you at the wrong time.
Don’t Lose an Advantage
If you can open the score, remember that the opposition will do anything to level it up. It would help if you didn’t change your playstyle. After all, that’s what got you an advantage. However, you can make a few adjustments to guarantee you’ll remain with an advantage.
Knowing how to read your opponent is a great virtue. It allows you to intercept their passes more often. Most players can’t deal with that type of game very well. Sooner or later, they lose patience and make mistakes, especially when losing the game. To get that reaction from them, you’ll have to defend with all your players, attackers included. Since they’ll be running out of stamina more quickly and staying out of position more often, have other tall, strong, fast players on your bench to make substitutions in the second half. You’ll be losing attack power, but this won’t matter much as time passes. In most FIFA 23 matches, goal difference doesn’t matter. Winning is winning.
Adopting a posture of holding onto the result at all costs might be risky if there’s lots of time left. However, 20 minutes away from full-time seems enough to start doing so. That is, by the way, an excellent time to make some alterations to your team:
Change to defensive mode
When the opposition is playing at ultra attacking, you should respond adequately. Do hold them as much as you see fit. We suggest you move the D-Pad until you find a defensive game plan you previously have saved.
Crowd you midfield
It doesn’t take much tactics knowledge to know that the line of restraint (the first defensive line) is located in the midfield. It’s responsible for recovering the ball as soon as the opposition gains possession in the midfield. This way, you should crowd the midfield, keeping it tight. Besides possibly changing your formation, you can instruct your central midfielders and fullbacks not to attack. The midfield will become even more compact if you change tactics to counter-attack.
Make the right subs
At this point in a match, it’s essential to have some fresh legs. If you notice one of your players is too tired, use a substitution. If you’re bringing in an attacking player, choose one who’s fast and has reasonable ball control in case you want to use counter-attacks. Defensively, bringing in defenders isn’t always the best option. Sometimes it’s best to have more defensive midfielders capable of winning the ball and keeping it away from your goal.
Waste Time
We know some of the FIFA 23 tips we share here can be controversial. That’s the case with this one. Time wasting isn’t pretty, but you need to be pragmatic. This can be a plausible option if you’re winning or feeling confident to take the dispute into a penalty shootout. The clock always works in favor of the player with the score advantage.
However, it’s important to know what you’re doing. The average player constantly loses the ball when passing it amongst his defensive players, and, most of the time, they suffer unwanted consequences. Besides not being able to win, they feel humiliated and ashamed for not having been able to hold the score in a match that seemed pretty much decided in their favor. If you’re an experienced player, you should try and taunt the opposition and, at the moment they’re most exposed, apply an unexpected counterattack to decide the match.
When the opposition has possession, try to stop their progression. If your players haven’t received any yellow cards yet, abuse of sliding tackles (aiming for the ball, obviously, and avoiding the ones from the back). Worst case scenario, your player will be booked, and the game resumes afterward (plus, you even get some extra time).
When we talk about time-wasting, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is bringing the ball back to their side of the pitch. Yes, it’s important to keep possession. This gives the opposition fewer chances to score. However, defenders don’t usually have good passing and ball control, so you should try and keep it as far from your goal as possible.
The corner is the community’s favorite place to hold the ball, but although there’s a chance you’ll get a corner, there’s also a chance you’ll be exposed in case the opposition steals the ball from you. That happens because your fullbacks tend to support your attacks, leaving the sides unprotected. If you wish to waste time, use the 40 meters immediately behind.
Learn from the Best
If you don’t know how to improve your game, maybe it’s time to learn from the best. This might indeed require many hours of observation, but this is the only way you’ll realize what it is exactly you’re doing wrong. Both in real life and FIFA 23, football is becoming more tactical and less technical.
There are a few goods Youtubers that are also good players who can teach you some tricks for you to improve your game. However, the best place to learn is the Champion Channel. This feature was introduced in FIFA 18 and allowed you to watch games played by the top 100 players. Try to comprehend their squads’ tactical disposition and the cause of each goal. As good as a player can get, there is always a mistake for every goal conceded.
Find out what they are to avoid making them yourself and maybe even induce your opponent. Suppose you wish not to spend so much time. In that case, you can jump directly to the highlights of every game to carefully analyze each bit you consider essential, using the tools available such as pause, speed, and camera angle.
Practice
Practice makes perfection, and that’s what FUT Champions and Elite Division in Rivals are all about. If you’re planning on becoming a better player, you must know the game from the inside out. First, you need to master all the commands. Only then will you have the aptitude to execute them when they need to be executed.
The best way to develop your skills as a player is by playing skill games. Most people consider these games a less fun way of spending their time and therefore underrate them. The truth is that they have nothing to do with what they used to be a few years back. Skill Games are becoming increasingly important for people learning the mechanics of FIFA.
Amongst the several games, there are, do give special attention to the ones relatively to marking and advanced penalties. These are crucial in FUT Champions, especially when the game is leveled. Of course, the opposition’s skill level counts, too, but if you’re not able to deal with penalties well (both in the role of goalkeeper and scorer), you’ll undoubtedly lose games you could at least have a chance to win. You don’t want to be the Roberto Baggio from the console, do you?
Keep Track of your Performances
Now that EA releases statistics relative to your performances, you can use them for your good. If you have a thing for statistical analysis, you could try and interestingly correlate some data. When do you usually concede more goals? How many were from long shots? Is it worth keeping your defenders in line? The conclusions you’ll potentially come to can be important for you to realize where it is that you’re failing and what you have to do to succeed more often.
In case you’re frustrated with a series of losses in a row and can’t help but blame EA for your misery, it may be helpful to take a look at notes from a time when you were in the opposite situation. It’s much easier to remember the bad than the good moments.
Feel Good With Your Team
Ultimate Team is a game mode with everything to do with YOUR Team. You don’t just gather a bunch of good players. They must complement each other and fit your philosophy. Don’t be afraid to assume your identity on the pitch. It’s what brought you here. Don’t change the rhythm you’re used to because it’s different from your opponent’s. The more like you, the better. We’re not saying you shouldn’t be original. We’re just suggesting that you work on what you’re already good at, keeping yourself inside your comfort zone.
All you’ll need is a team built by you and for you. Don’t bother copying others. They weren’t projected, taking your needs into account. There aren’t two people that play FIFA the same way. It would help if you didn’t change your style according to which players ended up in your squad. It should go exactly the other way: pick players according to the weaknesses you think should be taken care of and the qualities you think you have.
A player with a higher rating isn’t always the one that fits your needs. Start by prioritizing regular items and only upgrading to special cards later. If you want to boost your squad, buy FIFA Points as soon as possible. Also, don’t be a slave to chemistry. You should try and build good chemistry, but that shouldn’t stop you from picking the players you think are an excellent fit for your Team.
When building your squad, prioritize having good defenders. Aside from being cheaper, they’re the true game-changers. Any decent striker will score at some point. To avoid conceding, on the other hand, you’ll need some of the best center-backs in the game. You’ll also need criteria to select your players for the substitute bench. If you’re going for bronze benching, at least have two or three quality players you can count on during the match.
As soon as all positions are occupied, it’s time to adjust your Team according to your progress and play style. In this aspect, the chemistry styles, player instructions, and mainly the custom tactics play a decisive role. Once again, we’re not going to extend ourselves around these themes because they depend too much on how each person plays. However, spend a bit of time testing your squad outside the competition to reduce the probability of making mistakes when you start playing for real.
Analyse the Opposition
Don’t ever forget that you don’t play FIFA 23 online alone. There’s someone with legit expectations to win on the other side. Any information you can get from him can be used in your favor.
When looking at the opposing squad screen, consider the formation they’re using. You don’t need to change yours to be effective, but at least you know what to expect. That is a crucial factor: if you’re able to predict the opposition’s actions, the match is half won. Being predictable is one of the worst defects a FIFA player can have. This is why it’s acceptable for the first minutes of a game to be unexciting. The sides are still interpreting each other’s tactics.
Also, you should take notice of any particular card amongst their starting eleven that plays a highlighted role. If there is, there’s a good chance they’ll use this player a lot, allowing you to predict some of the movements. Another relevant tip is to pause the game at least once to check out the opponent’s squad. That’s because many people happen to change their formation after the match starts.
Don’t Neglect the Details
It’s now time for the last of our FIFA 23 Tips. Everything counts for success, so do not neglect any detail. Almost every tip we gave here is obvious, but the truth is that many times these are the details players ignore.
Start by checking if the place you’re at is free of noises and distractions. Sit on a comfortable chair that maintains your back in the correct position. It doesn’t have to be a gaming chair, but avoid ones with an uncomfortable seat or that don’t have a backrest.
Like in the ‘127 Hours’ movie, having food and water nearby may be a good idea. If you play on a PC, consider buying yourself a controller. If you’re on console, maybe get a spare one. Having two controllers guarantees you’ll always have one available while the other is charging. One low battery notification at the top of the screen by itself can be enough to distract you, even when you know you can still finish the game before having to plug the charging cable in.
Another important tip has to do with the lighting. It would be best if you prioritized natural lighting. Don’t keep it too bright nor too dark. Eliminate all kinds of reflexes (you already have the shadows of the stadiums to upset you!) and anticipate how the light behaves while you’re playing. Avoid TVs and monitors with reduced dimensions and make sure they’re not over your eyes’ height. It is no less important that your internet connection is good and stable. Do everything you can to avoid lag, from using wired connection to the several tests we suggest.
Lastly, if money isn’t a concern for you, help the football players pay their taxes. That, or make hardware and accessory upgrades. Buy a new controller, headphones, or maybe a mouse pad. Whatever you think is most necessary. It’s impressive how gaming accessories have been selling. It proves many people don’t want to stay behind.