FIFA 18 Attributes Guide – All Players Attributes Explained

PACE
? ACCELERATION
? SPRINT SPEED

SHOOTING
? FINISHING
? LONG SHOTS
? PENALTIES
⚫ POSITIONING
? SHOT POWER
? VOLLEYS

PASSING
? CROSSING
? CURVE
? FREE KICK
? LONG PASSING
? SHORT PASSING
⚫ VISION

DRIBBLING
? AGILITY
? BALANCE
? BALL CONTROL
⚫ COMPOSURE
? DRIBBLING
? REACTIONS

DEFENDING
? HEADING
⚫ INTERCEPTIONS
? MARKING
? SLIDING TACKLE
? STANDING TACKLE

PHYSICAL
⚫ AGGRESSION
? JUMPING
? STAMINA
? STRENGTH

GOALKEEPING
⚪ DIVING
⚪ HANDLING
⚪ KICKING
⚪ POSITIONING
⚪ REFLEXES
⚪ SPEED
 
 
 
 

FIFA 18 Attributes

Analyses of all FIFA 18 attributes
 

One of the good things about this game is that you can pick the players that best suit the needs of your team. This is made thanks to the attributes.

Most of the gamers only pay attention to the six main attributes: pace, shooting, passing, dribbling, defending and physical. It is not enough. They only show, in a general way, how the player is. It’s a kind of summary. To choose the right player you should look to each one of more than 30 attributes each player has.

? ACCELERATION
Accelerations is the increment of a player’s running speed. The higher the value, the shorter the time needed to reach maximum speed, no matter what that is.
It needs to be considered alongside the Sprint Speed stat. On a player with high acceleration but low sprint speed, his sprint evolves really well, but his maximum speed is pretty low. In this case, acceleration becomes almost irrelevant – it’s no good getting to your top speed really quickly if that top speed really isn’t very quick. In another hand, a player who has high sprint speed but low acceleration is able to run fast, but it takes longer for him to reach his top speed.

⚫ AGGRESSION
The aggression level of a player measures the frequency and the aggression of jostling, tackling and slide tackling. It is the attribute which determines the player’s power of will or commitment to a match.
A typical aggression-based action is when you go “shoulder-to-shoulder” against someone, with high aggression our player has the initiative to push the opponent strongly (as far as his strength allows him to) and this determines the winner of the challenge. Another important moment for aggression is when you jump in order to dispute a header. If you play football you know exactly what this is, you jump placing your body against the opponent (if you’re a defender), if you manage to hit the ball with your head, great, if you don’t at least you’ll have to displace the other guy so he can’t perform the header correctly. In this case, aggression needs to work alongside jumping and strength. Players with high aggression offer some risk while inside the area because they can cause a lot of penalties without you pressing a single button, and that could possibly end with you smashing a controller, so be careful when you choose centre backs like this.

? AGILITY
Agility measures how agile the player is while moving or turning. In other words, how fast and graceful a player is able to control the ball.
Players with high agility can perform acrobatic shots or clearances, and agility also affects dribbling ability. If you’re a player who likes to run with the ball, agility is one of the stats to keep an eye on.

? BALANCE
Balance attribute is the ability to maintain balance after a physical challenge.
This is another attribute that influences a player’s dribbling skill and, more generally, how responsive the player you’re controlling feels. If you have high stats for agility and balance then you’ll move fluidly and you’ll be able to get in or out of tight spots. Also, even if you have 95+ for acceleration and sprint speed, your player could feel sluggish and a little unresponsive if they lack agility and balance.

? BALL CONTROL
Ball control is the ability of a player to control the ball as he receives it. The higher the value, the less likely the ball is to bounce away from the player after controlling it.
It’s associated with the player feeling comfortable with the ball, like when the ball binds to his feet in a way that he doesn’t need to keep looking to know where it is. It’s an important attribute for when you receive the ball but also for dribbling, including the no-touch dribbling. It has an influence on how well the player can keep possession of the ball when the opponent tackles.

⚫ COMPOSURE
This attribute determines at what distance the player with the ball starts feeling the pressure from the opponent. This then affects the chances of the player making an error when he shoots, passes and crosses. The higher the value, the better the player performs when under pressure from an opponent.
Composure is not as new as most players think. It was used in several past editions of FIFA and made a return last year.

? CROSSING
This attribute measures how accurately the player crosses the ball during both normal running and free kick set pieces.
This is basically the attribute for the players who play through the wings, but it also has an influence over free kick set pieces and it also determines how easy it is for a player to get the ball in the box in the first place. If your winger keeps getting blocked when you are expecting him to whip the ball in, there’s a good chance he has a poor crossing score.

? CURVE
Curve is used to measures the player’s ability to curve the ball when passing and shooting. The higher the value the more curve/curl the player is capable of putting on the ball.
It’s a good attribute to have for any set piece takers; curling corners can be a nightmare to defend against, and curling free-kicks can be tough to save.

⚪ DIVING
Diving is GK’s ability to make a save whilst diving through the air.
It is directly affected by the player’s height.

? DRIBBLING
Dribbling is the player’s ability to carry the ball and past an opponent. A higher value means the player will be able to keep better possession of the ball whilst dribbling because he will keep the ball closer, making it harder for the opponent to win it off of him.
Dribbling has no connection with the ball receiving factor whatsoever, that only has to do with ball control, but as soon as you have the ball ahead of you that’s when dribbling counts, allowing you to get past the opponent using dribbles. If you enjoy dribbling, your players must have good numbers on this attribute. However, good dribbling doesn’t necessarily mean the player will have many stars of skill moves. You can find players with 4 or even 5 stars of skill that have low dribbling. Skill moves stars simply qualify the player to perform certain special moves with the ball, whether it’s for dribbling or not, so although these two have similar objectives (dribbles), they aren’t directly connected. It’s also true that when we do choose players with 4 or 5 stars of skill moves, it’s because we actually want to dribble, with or without special moves, so it isn’t enough to choose a player just for his skill moves stars. If you wish to have a skilled squad, you’ll also have to check dribbling, ball control and balance.

? FINISHING
Finishing is the accuracy of shots using foot, inside the penalty area.
Not everyone knows, but finishing has no influence over headers or finishes from outside of the area. Being a great finisher doesn’t necessarily mean being able to beat the goalkeeper, but shooting on target more easily. An analogy would be thinking that having high finishing will affect the ball’s magnetism, so when the ball would have normally hit the post for a bad finisher, a great finisher would have this force push it towards the goal, or when it would’ve normally gone wide the ball would at least hit the post.

? FREE KICK ACCURACY
Free Kick is a FIFA attribute used to measures the player’s accuracy for taking Free Kicks. The higher the value the better the accuracy of a direct free kick on goal.
Ideally, you should pick a free-kick taker who has a good score for free kick accuracy and curve.

⚪ HANDLING
Handling is an exclusive goalkeeper attribute used to measures how cleanly he catches the ball and does he hold on to it.
In other words, it is the frequency that the keeper catches the ball rather than parrying it and whether or not he holds onto it.

? HEADING ACCURACY
This stats measures the heading accuracy of the player for either a pass or a shot.
In fact, this stats does two things: affects your player’s ability to get their head on the ball, then how accurate that header is going to be. It applies to headed passes as well as headers at goal.

⚫ INTERCEPTION
Interception determines the ability to read the game and intercept passes.
This applies more to AI controlled team-mates rather than the player you’ve selected. If you’ve seen players stick out legs or do something unexpected to prevent a pass, it’s likely they’ll have a high score for Interceptions.

? JUMPING
Jumping is the player’s ability and quality for jumping from the surface for headers. The higher the value is, the higher the player can jump.
Like many others, this one is fairly useless without its related attributes. For example, for a player to be really good in the air, he needs to have high jumping, strength aggression and heading accuracy stats. Obviously, his height may also help a lot. A very tall player does not need to have a high jumping attribute to connect to the ball.

⚪ KICKING
Kicking it’s another attribute that only goalkeepers have, used to measures the length and accuracy of goal kicks, from out of the hands or on the ground.
The length and accuracy of throws are partially determined by the kicking attribute but mainly determined by the long throw trait.

? LONG PASSING
This stat is used to classify how well a player performs a long pass in the air to his teammate. It doesn’t affect long ground passes.
This also determines how quickly the ball gets to him – the higher the score, the faster and more accurate the pass will be.

? LONG SHOTS
This attribute measures the accuracy of shots from outside the penalty area.
This is a great attribute for midfielders to have.

? MARKING
Marking is the ability to track and defend an opposing player. In other words, it is your player’s ability to stay close to an opposing attacker and stop him getting to a cross/pass from a teammate. Also contributes to tracking runs
AI players will do this off the ball, and when you’re in control of a defender their Marking stat will affect how good they are at containing.

? PENALTIES
This attribute measures the accuracy of shots from inside the penalty area.

⚫ POSITIONING
Positioning is the player’s ability to take up good positions on the field during a game. The higher this stat, the more likely a player is to make enough space to receive the ball in dangerous areas.
This attribute deals with a player’s ability to spot open space and move into good positions that offer an attacking advantage. However, it doesn’t affect where the player will be when taking a free kick or a corner.

⚪ POSITIONING (GK)
Positioning for goalkeepers is slightly different. It is the GK’s ability to position himself correctly when saving shots. It also affects the way how a goalkeeper reacts to crosses.

? REACTIONS
Reactions measures how quickly a player responds to a situation happening around him.
It has nothing to do with the player’s speed. A player can be really fast but at the same time have low reaction capacity. It’s the time in between the moment he sees where the ball is at and the moment he gets in position to receive it. Many people think this attribute only has an importance over the players that are being controlled by the computer because the reactions of the players you’re controlling would depend only on your button-pressing reaction capacity, but this is not true. In several different situations, the player you’re controlling might or might not control or even reach the ball. When he receives a pass it’s not necessary to have a high reaction, he’ll be expecting to receive the ball, but when there’s a chance to score off a rebound, for example, or an unexpected turn of events some players just get hit by the ball, but the ones with high reaction have better chances to control it even in difficult situations. Suppose the opponent’s goalkeeper has just saved a powerful shot, you get a rebound, press shoot but your player doesn’t shoot, he just bluntly hits the ball, that happens because that player didn’t have enough reaction to getting both his body and foot in position properly to shoot. Reaction also influence dribbling, although it doesn’t quite make a player a better or worse dribbler, it allows your player to have the right reaction when the opponent goes for a sliding tackle, try and win the ball from you, and eventually it even gives your player the ability to jump over a tackle attempt.

⚪ REFLEXES
Reflexes stat is the agility of the goalkeeper when making a save.
In other words, it determines how quickly the goalkeeper reacts to a shot on goal. If the stat is low he will make a move later or could miss it entirely.

? SHORT PASSING
This attribute ranks how well a player performs a short / ground pass to his teammate. In other words, it determines a player’s accuracy and speed of passing over a short distance.

? SHOT POWER
Shot Power evaluates how hard the player hits the ball when taking a shot at goal. It is the amount of power a player can put into a shot while still keeping it accurate.
It affects how fast the ball travels when struck from any distance. A player with a low shot power can still hit the ball hard into the back of the net but the longer you hold B/O the more likely he is to miss.

? SLIDING TACKLE
This stats measures the ability of the player to time sliding tackles so that they win the ball rather than give away a foul.
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.

⚪ SPEED
This is another stat that only goalkeepers have. It is the ability to close down an opponent in one-on-one situations.
This attribute is especially important if you use the off-side trap to stop your opponents.

? SPRINT SPEED
Sprint speed measures how fast the player runs while at top speed.
We already explained in ‘Acceleration’, what sprint speed is. However, if you still need help to understand the difference between acceleration and sprint speed, here is a good example. A race between a man, a car and a plane, who wins? It depends. If it’s a 30 meters long race the man wins, and it would take him only 4 seconds to finish. However, if the race had been longer, around 150-200 meters, the car would win, and then the plane would be the winner at anything beyond that. That happens because the man’s acceleration is greater than both the car’s and the plane’s, but when it comes to maximum speed capacity he naturally loses.

? STANDING TACKLE
This attribute measures the ability of the player to time standing tackles so that they win the ball rather than give away a foul.
If the stat is low, he is more likely to miss time the challenge or kick the ball away. See ‘Sliding Tackle’ for more details about how this attribute works.

? STAMINA
Stamina determines the rate at which a player will tire during a game. It evaluates how tired your player gets as the match approaches half time or full time.
Don’t think that your player is tired only when he stops to catch his breast. When he gets to this point it actually means he’s stopped playing, his performance starts being affected way before this happens. Stamina is also responsible for your player getting injured more easily in any challenge, not necessarily in the last minutes of the match. This attribute also determines how quickly a player recovers between matches and the amount of time a player can sprint before slowing down.

? STRENGTH
Strength is about the quality or state of being physically strong. The higher the value, the more likely the player will win a physical challenge.
Your player’s strength stat will decide how they cope with any physical battles, so a good score in this area is important for anyone with defensive responsibilities. It’s also a desirable attribute to have for at least one of your strikers, just to give you a chance in 50-50s with defenders.

⚫ VISION
Vision ranks the player’s awareness of the position of his teammates & opponents around him. It is the attribute that increases (or reduces) the possibilities of a successful long pass.
When we’re playing looking at the screen we usually have an above view of the game, just like when we’re watching football on TV. However, a player has quite a different view, a first-person pitch view, and it’s very hard to see where his teammates are. Without seeing where they are, a long pass will have a random destination, it might be a teammate or an opponent that receives the ball. The better the Vision attribute, the wider your player will see in order to locate his teammates and therefore the bigger the chances of a successful long pass. It doesn’t matter how high is the long passing stat of a player if he doesn’t have a decent vision.

? VOLLEYS
This last attribute measures the accuracy and power of volleys at goal. It affects the technique and accuracy of shots taken while the ball is in the air. This tends to be coupled with the balance trait if he is not fully facing the goal.
Volleys stat is responsible for some of the most beautiful goals.