How universal defenders intercept the goal kick

You will learn how universal defenders intercept the goal kicks

Overview

Universal Defenders as a class can intercept the ball flying on the adjacent cell. The guide describes how the defenders choose the cell to intercept and how their attribute Defence is stacking.

Basic Rules

• If the ball flies through a defender, the defender alone tries to stop the ball.
  
• If a defender stays near the cells on which the ball flies, the defender tries to intercept the ball by moving to the cell which is closer to the kicking cell. The footballer tries to intercept the ball with 40% of his attribute Defence for Precision Shot (60% for Power Shot).
  
• If few defenders are going to intercept the ball flying near them, their attribute Def is stacking.

Examples

There are few examples of how it works. To make it more understandable, I made the Defence for every defender equal 100. Same for the goalkeeper. Accuracy of the forward is also 100.


Everyone tries to intercept the ball close to the kicking cell


Defence of 3 defenders is stacking


No defence is stacking. Defenders on the line of the ball try to intercept it with their full Defence


The good way to defend your goal is to put one defender on the line of the ball. Other 3 defenders stay adjacent to the line of the ball flying. So they will try to intercept it behind the main defender. 60% of their Defence will stack (for Precision Shot it will be 40%)


Even more stacking Defence


Just a real game example.

- B and C stay adjacent to the cell where the ball will fly. However, footballer C stays on the line of the shot. So C intercepts the ball on his cell. Only B will try to intercept the ball on the adjacent cell.

- A, E, D stay near another cell where the ball will fly. So their Defence is stacking on this cell


Wide used formation with 5 defenders. Now you can see why it's so popular: defence is stacking behind the central defender.

[_K_o_S_]

You can hold Ctrl on the DF who intercepts the pass and see that he has 50% penalty if the pass goes through the neighbour tile and no penalty if the ball goes through him.

[Seeker22]

How does the DF intercept passes? Does he use his full Def or is it also 60%?

[_K_o_S_]

You can easily remember it: 100%-80%-50%-20%

[Norax]

I can't find a picture of the malus to accuracy based on the distance to the goal. Is there any in the ingame-pedia? I know theres a tutorial with one, but I want to check it in the middle of a match.

[_K_o_S_]

Yeah, you might be right

[Doomsday31415]

This would be much more intuitive if arrows appeared for ALL defenders guarding a single square instead of just one.

[Le Mulet]

Thanks that is useful !

[RoadRager1904]

Excelent guide, now I know why my 5-man box in front of goal (like you have in the "Even more stacking Defence" example) was a real stop to slightly superior teams. Could you make the reverse guide, i.e. best forward placement for X-man defensive formations? I usually match the midfield, and put an extra man in defense against their attack, but I rarely know how to put my attackers on field, I go by eye, and it's not perfect.

[_K_o_S_]

Added the last example

[Kaede11]

Thanks! Could you add some defensive formations just to try? I used a line of 5 defenders because I didn't know how did this exactly work.