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Free kicks can be very difficult to turn into goals, and a lot of the time you may feel like you’re wasting your time taking them. Here are a few things to consider when taking a free kick.
Distance – this is crucial to the kind of free kick you’ll be taking. If you’re 35 yards out you wouldn’t want to be sending a powder-puff shot towards the goal as there would be no chance of it going in. Anything over around 30 yards you’ll want to be using the driven free kick. To use this technique you’ll have to hold LB or L1 whilst shooting. This will send a crashing drive towards goal. If you hit it to the keeper’s side you’ll probably end up with a corner with the keeper pushing the ball away. So for best effects you’ll want to try and curl it around the wall whilst it’s hurtling towards goal. This is an incredibly hard free kick to pull off successfully, but if you get it right you’ll burst the net.
Short free kicks (17-26 yards) require a different approach. Here you’ll want to be trying to get the ball over the wall and down enough to creep under the bar. Picking the right player for the free kick is the first step in helping you converting. The stats you will want to look out for when selecting a player (hold RT or R2 depending on your console) are FKA – Free Kick Accuracy - and CRV – Curve.
After you’ve selected your player there are two things that are crucial to scoring. Power of the shot and making sure you hold your directional stick upwards when shooting to create the topspin on the ball required to get the ball down enough to hit the back of the net. For the power of the shot you will need to adjust depending on how far out you are. Try to avoid the temptation of putting too much power on your free kicks as you’ll give the ball less chance of dipping enough. A rough guide to aim for is between ¼ and ½ of the power bar. Different players with different stats will sometimes throw off this guideline as the power of the player’s shot will come into play. So try to have a regular free kick taker you’re comfortable with for best results.
Aiming these free kicks is fairly simple, the majority of the time you will want to aim your shot between the heads of the two players in the middle of the wall. This will give you enough room to squeeze the ball in and combat any effects of the ball curling away from the goal or towards the keeper. 
There are also a number of wacky free kick tactics you can employ to catch your opponent out. When taking a free kick take notice of the little menu that appears in the top right of your screen. Aside from the change kick taker that we’ve already addressed there are prompts for calling a second and third player to stand over the free kick with your selected free kick taker. Here are a few combinations you can use with these players:
• Hold the 2nd free kick taker’s button and tap your cross button. This will flick the ball up in the air for the 3rd free kick taker to smash at goal on the volley. You can also tap A or X which will lay the ball off for the player to strike at goal.
• Hold either of the 2nd or 3rd free kick taker’s buttons and take your free kick as you would normally. This will take the free kick with the player whose button you have held down.
• Again hold the button of the free kick taker you desire and do a fake shot/long pass (B/X + A quickly or Circle/Square + X quickly). The player will then run over the ball and make a run into the box. If you spot a big gap where players are being marked and the wall, this can be very effective by simply passing it to the player who has ran over the ball.
Last but not least you can always use our old friend the create set piece function accessed from the arena. This will enable you to control your player’s movements when taking a free kick. If you’re having difficulty scoring direct from free kicks this can be a good alternative or last resort. It will take some time to get right, and you’ll probably want multiple tactics to use so your opponent doesn’t catch onto what you’re doing and snuff it out.
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