This sections explains to you about the team instructions and what each one means that should hopefully help you in deciding what sort of passing to do or what sort of tackling to adapt:).
The team instructions are very important to as it decides how you are going to play. There are 6 instructions in all that could make or break you. Each one being a huge factor between winning and losing.
We will start with men behind the ball, a instruction i would never recommend using as it just doesn't seem to work, as soon as you turn that on goals fly in all over the place, against you and that is not good:). If i was going to ever use this it would probably be in a match that has gone into extra time and you are winning, but only for the last few minutes as the opposition players will be tired by then and probably wont be able to create much. The men behind the ball just means that all your players try and get behind the ball when the opposition players on attacking, your players must have good stamina for this to work, but rarely does it work.
The next one is what style of passing you use, i always use mixed passing as then it leaves it up to the player to decide what is the best pass to be made in the situation he is in, and it is different every game then, obviously a good passing attribute is necessary for this. I never ever use short passing as the AI seems to crack this very easily after a little while, although short passing is very effective, so if you use this make sure you have a back up tactic you can use as the AI will crack it easily. Long and direct passing can be very effective in the lower leagues with a target man striker who has good heading, strength and work rate. You should use this if you have a poor midfield and good target man strikers.
The offside trap is another team instruction i hardly ever use as it is a little dodgy, but can sometimes be effective if the oppositions strikers are slow and your strikers are quick and have good anticipation and positioning. One other situation you could use it in would be if all your defenders have the necessary attributes i have mentioned above and the opposition are playing long or direct passing, these would probably be the only situations i would consider using the offside trap in.
The counter attack can be very effective with good pacey players, it can set up defense into attack in no time but you must have really good players for this to work, a reason again i hardly ever use it (im a very attacking player also). To use this i would recommend editing the with/without area heavily so your players are positioned well, this is a must.
Now pressing is a must in my tactics, i always use this and try not to give the opposition too much time on the ball. Players who use this should have good stamina as it can tire out players a lot so you should probably use this with caution but always start with pressing on, and if you go into what you think is a comfortable lead, take it off and give your players a rest.
Tackling is probably the most important instruction of them all. I always play hard tackling and never see a increase in booked players or injuring the opposition's players. With hard tackling and pressing on it is a dynamite combination as you always win most of the tackles and never give the oppositions players any time on the ball, a combination that has held me very very well over my CM playing years:). I have never played soft tackling as i do not believe this can work in any situation. Normal tackling is properly the most used style of tackling, but people use this because they don't want to get lots of players booked etc which is what they think will happen using hard tackling, but it doesn't, so i would recommend hard tackling every time.
