FIFA 14 Taking Corners and Penalties

FIFA 14 Set-Piece tips and tricks If you’re here then there’s obviously one reason why - you’re tired of wasting free kicks and corners, or even more tired of conceding cheap goals from them. Here’s some tips to help you on your way to be more effective from set pieces.

FIFA 14 Corner tips



Defending Corners
When defending a corner, your best friend is the right stick of your controller. Use this to quickly select your tallest and best header of the ball, usually one of your centre backs. While it’s impossible to know exactly where your opponent will be crossing the ball to, your best bet is to place your player just in front of the penalty spot covering the near post and 6 yard box. Failing this, make sure you manage to mark the opposition’s tallest player. Getting hold of your player and positioning him can be tricky to do within the time it takes for your opponent to send the ball in. If you haven’t tried this before, playing single player kick-off and giving the computer corners by simply kicking it out will help you get used to it.

Another tactic employed by a lot of people is rushing the keeper to come and claim the cross. To do this you have to hold the Y or Triangle button on your controller. This however is a risky tactic. If the ball is too far away for your keeper to claim you’ll leave an open goal for your opponent should they manage to win the header. Again, this is a difficult tactic to get used to, so practicing against the computer is a good idea. Anything that is in your 6 yard box and a little further should be fine for your keeper to come and catch. If it’s heading towards the penalty spot or further and you rush him, he’ll be left in no man’s land.

Taking corners
Getting a corner routine together can be trial and error and will fluctuate in success depending on your opposition. There are a few things you can do to increase your scoring though.

One thing a lot of players don’t expect is the low cross. You can do this by triple tapping your cross button just like you would for a low drilled cross in open play. This can catch a lot of people out but you’ll need to have a player lurking around the front post area with a decent shot on him to capitalise using this technique.

With heading being as effective as it is in FIFA 14 it’s understandable if you want to whip it into your big players filling the box. For in-swinging corners you’ll want to start by aiming a little to the right or left of the six yard box, depending which side you’re taking it from. Out-swingers aim just to the side of the keeper. With both of these corners you’ll want to hold your directional stick diagonally to get the whip on the ball to curve back, or into the box with about ½ to ¾ power. This should direct the ball to in-between the penalty spot and 6 yard box. If you have big players in the box and they connect well with the header, on this FIFA, it will more than likely be a goal every time. However, as these corners are directed fairly close to the keeper, you’ll want to keep an eye on your opponent if they keep rushing him out. If this happens adjust your aim to close to the penalty spot. The keeper will come flying out only to grasp thin air, leaving you to nod in an easy goal if you win the header.

Creating your own corner tactics in the arena can be successful. You can do this by going to the arena and pressing the start button and then selecting ‘Create Set Piece’. This will enable you to control every player on your team and plan their runs. This will take a lot of trial and error to get right, but if you create a successful one you’ll harvest a lot of richly deserved goals.

FIFA 14 Penalty tips



The last thing you want to do in a tense game is to waste an opportunity from 12 yards. A lot of the time you can only rely on sending the keeper the wrong way to successfully convert, however there are a few tips you can follow to increase your chances of scoring every time.

An obvious but important thing to do first is hold RT on Xbox or R2 on PlayStation to bring up a list of your players. Here you’ll see a summary of penalty stats for each of your players on the pitch, select the player with the best PEN stat and you’re on your way. Another stat to look at is the PWR (power). If the player has a high PWR stat you’re more likely to blast the ball past the keeper before he can even get to the ball – this will hinge on whether you got the power of the shot right though, too much and you’ll take out a fan behind the goal.

Another obvious but massively important reminder – make sure to time your strike when the needle enters the green zone. Anything other than green and the ball could end up going anywhere. And to add to your embarrassment of taking a terrible penalty your player might even end up on his backside.

To take the ‘perfect penalty’ is incredibly difficult considering the small margins you have to work in. However with enough practice, you’ll be able to pull it off more times than not. After you’ve made sure you’ve taken care of all of the above tips, you’ll want to do the following:

• Power up your shot to ¾ full power. A little more and it’ll go blazing over, a little less and the keeper has more chance to save it. However a little less is always the way to go if you can’t get it bang on, as it will still go in if the keeper dives the wrong way.
• Aim your shot by holding the directional stick diagonally into any of the corners you desire for roughly 1 second. Any longer and your shot has the potential to go embarrassingly wide. As in real life smashing your penalty into the corners is the best way to go, but again it takes practice. Hit up the arena and practice doing this to avoid the infuriating chance of missing your hard earned penalties.

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