Pro Clubs Tips

One of the ever growing popular game modes in Fifa 12 is Pro Clubs. It’s a great way to play with your friends and try climbing the rankings to unlock new stadiums for your club. It is unclear as to whether any dramatic changes are to be made to pro clubs in fifa 13 but I think it would be extremely naïve of the Ea sports fifa team to not give any consideration to one of the most popular, if not THE most popular game mode on offer.

What do you think they could improve in terms of pro clubs? Use our Fifa 13 ideas page to post your thoughts.

The reason this game mode is so popular is the ability to use your virtual pro and unlock accomplishments whilst enjoying the teamwork and banter that goes with playing for a club with your friends. You can control all the team by selecting to be ‘Any’ so one player has control of all players including the virtual pro they use. You can just select to play in a certain position and let the AI do the rest of your players for you.


After we have discussed the formations below we will give our tips to becoming a great pro club. So what are the best formations to use on pro clubs?

5-2-1-2
Probably the most used formation we come across. The main reasons for this are its compactness across the defence and its ability to go from front to back with great speed. If you are playing with 2 players usually these will be the right striker and the left striker. Teams will let the AI do the defending for them and then use accurate long balls to get it to their human controlled strikers and look to break quickly. The downside of this particular set-up is that you have very little support in build-up on the flanks, which weakens the midfield. However, if you are a player that struggles defensively and are part of a team that predominantly just looks to use the virtual pro, human controlled players then you should achieve some success using this formation.

5-2-2-1
Although only slightly different from the above formation, the 5-2-2-1 formation isn’t nowhere near used as much by teams. As mentioned the formation are very similar except that instead of an attacking midfielder behind the two strikers, you have one striker up top with two forwards behind him. Five defenders in the back give you excellent coverage defensively as the above formation does.

The main positive aspect of using this set-up is that you can use a (big) target man in the box for crosses. Whilst using crosses/headers was one of the main weapons to use in FIFA 11 it can still be very beneficial if you have good crossers of the ball in your team and someone who knows how to win their headers. The downside is that you don’t have a midfielder behind the attacking forwards which leaves a huge gap between the forwards and defense. This is very dangerous with counter attacks from your opponent as well as leaving a large threat of long range shots.

4-5-1
The 4-5-1 formation is usually perceived as a defensive formation that is used to pack the midfield and dominate the centre of the pitch. In truth the formation doesn’t differ massively from the 4-3-3. Although you will have a solid defensive line, you will also have options going forward, particularly if you like to build up play through your team instead of missing out the midfield (which a lot of teams do). This particular formation is geared mostly towards attacking the centre of the pitch with three players and that’s the downside of this formation really. The wide players have a lot of ground to make up to get into the positions to cross from so if you like attacking down the flanks then I’d suggest you avoid this set-up.

4-3-3
If you have 3 human players who all want to play a role up front then this formation is the one to go with. The players can interchange and make all kinds of movement which is incredibly difficult for defenders to pick up. This can be a negative though; if communication isn’t great between players (or they don’t have headsets) then players can get in each others way and quickly use all their energy. Working with a tall, target man as the central of the three strikers can work well. However, the 3 strikers have to be disciplined as to not pull each other out of position; you don’t want your 6’5 striker in the wide positions where he can’t cause as much damage.

4-3-1-2
This is the formation we use the most. I do ‘Any’ and then depending on which other players I’m playing with for my club will determine which position I put my virtual pro to play. We find this formation works well with 2-3 players. We like to work the ball forward as a team and this formation allows us to do this. It provides a solid defensive base as well as allowing 4-5 players to join in attacks when you have possession of the ball. We’ve had a lot of success using this formation after trying several other ones. If you haven’t already and you have a decent player at defending then use ‘Any’ with that player and good luck.

Pro Club Tips
- See if the players are doing ‘Any’ or using the AI. If one of the player names shows up above every player they are the ones doing ‘Any’

- Look at what formation they are playing

- Pick out which players are the human controlled players. Usually they will have colored boots or gloves or something you will be able to use to pick them out. Players will look to use these players almost all of the time so try to nullify the threat by marking them players tightly and not giving them room to maneuver.

All these things can be done within the first 5 minutes to help you get started and give you an edge

- Keep the ball. By doing this you’ll tire your opponents out quicker as they will chase the ball down. This makes them less of a threat in the latter stages of the game

- If your opponents are closing the ball down very quickly and pressuring all over the pitch then shift the ball quickly using 1-2’s to take out opponents easily

- Use your goalkeeper as an outfield player (read more here)

- Have your most experienced player or a player with custom set-pieces as your captain. This enables them to shift between tactics and use set-pieces throughout the game

- If your opposition has a virtual pro GK then you need to stay OFF finesse shots for the majority of your efforts on goal. Players can use fully assisted settings for their GK so if you have found a GK that is almost impossible to beat, this will be why. Using the power shot enables you to take away that reaction time they have to press ONE BUTTON to make the save. (This is something that I think needs changing for Fifa 13). We have found ourselves having had at least a dozen shots in countless games plucked out of top corners etc because of these assisted settings. You’ll be able to tell by the appearance and name above the GK if they are using a human controlled virtual pro for this position.

- Mix up your play. If you always try to run the flanks or always look for the long ball over the top then you’ll become predictable and any decent clubs side will read your play and cut off this easily. By having several ways in which you can forge an opening for yourself this makes you unpredictable and make you a more dangerous threat.

- Set-pieces play a big part in your success. Because the computer players are all pretty poor this means that scoring a header from a corner is going to be a fairly hard thing to do. If you have a big defender or striker in your team with great jumping, strength and heading stats then by all means, launch a corner into the danger area. However, playing short and then trying to work an opening (much as Barcelona often does) can often be more rewarding. Try creating some set-pieces in the arena to free-up space for one of your human controlled players.

A good site to use
If pro clubs is something you are passionate about and a game mode you play on a regular basis then joining this site could be a great idea for you. Fifa Club Network is run by a great guy called Andy and he is putting alot of effort into getting this new community for fifa 12 clubs up and running. Click on the link above to take you there or there are these sites which are both brilliant resources also. http://www.ifvpa.com & www.fvpa.co.uk pay these a visit too if you love pro clubs.

That’s all for now, we hope these Pro Clubs Tips and formations can help you to climb the rankings and unlock some bigger, better stadiums for your club. Any questions then please post a comment below.

The below video shows some of the goals we have scored on pro clubs