A few weeks ago, the third FGS qualifier took place online and FIFA pro players have battled for the top spot and tried to secure their place in the playoffs. All eyes were again on the 17-year-old Danish wonderkid Anders Vejrgang. He was in his top form and unstoppable and unbeatable until he faced KKoray34 from Fokus Clan. So, today, I am going to explain to you how KKoray managed to eliminate wonderkid in cold blood to get himself to the finals and what you can take away from that performance for your own attack and defense.

Creating Movement In The Attack

In the higher levels, pro players often defend really well and it is very hard to create opportunities against them. Anders is one of the toughest players when it comes to defending because he sees opportunities beforehand and makes his defensive move towards there instantly.

What KKoray did against this was actually pretty smart because instead of sticking to one potential passing option, he increased the number of the opportunities by making his players run so that if Anders defended one of them, he could play the ball towards the other and then continue his build up.

So, how can you actually do this? You can make this happen automatically with the player's instructions within the tactics menu. However, it is important to trigger those runs manually as well. All you have to do is to target the player with the left analog stick and tap the L1 button. Even though we don’t see chorized controller overlay, we can pretty much understand from the behavior of his attackers that he used this mechanic quite a lot.

Examples

Let’s see what couple of examples how he actually executed it. Starting the attack off, KKoray uses the player lock to get the Winger a bit more towards the center entrance so that he prepares a running lane for the player who joins the attack from the back. 

After making him run on the wing, he turns around and also makes his Striker run towards the goal. That will create an extra passing opportunity, which is very dangerous and unders has to decide which one he needs to defend.

Since he tries to block the more central one towards his Striker, KKoray turns back around and finds the Winger on his right side. However, Anders immediately puts one Defender towards there and closes them off defensively. R9 continues his run. But that won’t be enough, since the passing lane is about to be defended.

So, KKoray triggers another run for Mbappe, a strong player you can improve by using FUT 23 Coins and makes him run down the wing since the focus is more on the passing lane towards a Striker and Mbappe continues his run and easily receives the ball in the Free Zone. One last run has to be made.

Since KKoray has two players running inside the box and has a decent crossing chance, he needs to find the better one. If Anders decides to defend the far post, he can pass the ball towards the closer runner and, in the exact opposite situation, he can cross the ball towards the far post. Even though this position didn’t end up with the goal, you can clearly see how effective KKoray use triggering runs multiple times in the same position.

Defending 1v1’s

On the defensive side of the game, there is one particular thing that KKoray did that instantly triggered my interest. He respected Anders because if you know them already, you will understand he’s a master of the skill moves, especially with the stepovers, which is his signature move.

So, instead of defending him closely, KKoray gave him some space because if he defends someone too closely, you can easily get beaten by the skill moves. But if you keep your distance not too close but also not too far away and let the opponent do the initial move, then you can stop him.

Here as he’s defending Anders. He tries to remain as much as in front of him without gambling while trying to cover as many as possible potential moves. As the opponent is sensible towards the center, he sees the next passing station, quickly switches towards the closest Defender while also covering the current Dribbler with the second meant pressure.

The expected receiver gets the ball, but KKoray waits patiently without going in. However, he gets baited and makes a wrong move, which opens up passingly. But he still manages to recover from it by making the right player switch at the end.

Selecting the right Defender and getting in front of the Striker while jockeying allows him to deny any opportunity. And even if Anders goes for advanced skill moves, such as shot canceling and reverse elastico, KKoray is able to block him.