You can instruct your team how to play the game based on your player's strengths and the opposition's weaknesses. There are different options available under the Team Instructions tab.

Mentality

This determines whether your players will focus more on attacking, defending or play a balanced game. An attacking team is likely to score more goals at the risk of letting the opponents a chance to exploit your defense when your players commit themselves to attacking. Defensive mentality will concede less goals but at the cost of creating less scoring opportunities for themselves.

Playstyle

Playstyle is mainly used to tell your players how to pass the ball. Possession focuses on keeping the ball and patiently building up an attack using a majority of short passes. Direct approach will demand the players to move the ball quickly towards the opposition goal, and with Long Ball your players try to find the attackers at every opportunity possible. A mixed approach uses suitable type of play based on situation of the match.

Intensity

You can instruct your players how hard they should work on the pitch. At High intensity, your players will try to play at a high tempo and also close down the opposition to try and win possession back whenever they lose it. A high intensity game demands more stamina as players lose their fitness faster than normal, but might be useful to get that extra out of your players in important matches. It might be wiser to play at Easy intensity to save fitness if the result of a match is not important. You can also choose to use High intensity for shorter spells during a match by utilizing In-Game Tactical Changes.

Tackling

Hard tackling will ask your players to go into 50-50 challenges. Your team are more likely to win the ball back or disrupt play but at a risk of causing more fouls or even getting cards. In Easy Tackling, your players do not go into tackles unless they are 100% sure of winning them.

Marking

You can either Man Mark your opposition or prefer a Zonal Marking style. In Man marking, your players mark a specific opposition player, and in Zonal marking defenders cover an area of the pitch rather than marking specific opponents. Choose the style that best suits your formation and your players' attributes.

Offside Trap

You can either decide to try to catch the opposition attackers offside or not. Deploying an offside trap requires your defenders to have better Positioning and Speed than the opponent's attacker, so use this with caution.