dribbling is one of the most fundamental elements of playing a football simulation like FC or FIFA it dictates and enables everything in your attack it's essential for your buildup resisting pressing gaining ground on the pitch as well as creating chances but still quite a lot of players struggle with it or lack the understanding how to get the most out of it this video has the target to change this this video is The Ultimate Guide to dribbling I'm Benjamin part of the guide team and we will explain every little detail so you finally understand this essential gameplay mechanic no just straight facts and knowledge that you can apply in your games we are going to start with the most important concept of dribbling get an overview of all the dribbling techniques in fc24 then explain how dribbling in itself Works how to out dribble the opponent advanced moves to get your dribbling on the next level and at last how to adapt your dribbling on a bad connection so buckle up and get comfortable this won't be the shortest video you've ever watched but it will definitely elevate your game what is dribbling this sounds like a very philosophical question but actually think about it what is dribbling it's the player moving the ball around with their feet pushing the ball in a certain direction while they follow along and every time they have a contact with a ball they push the ball in a Direction so every contact with the ball is important why because every time it's a chance to determine in which direction the ball moves if the player doesn't have a contact with the ball you can't change your Direction with the ball so when you think about dribbling and what you want to accomplish with it moving into space turning around it's all enabled with ball contacts so the amount or rather frequency of ball contacts is the determining Factor when it comes to dribbling and here's the kicker generally speaking there is a trade-off between the frequency of ball contacts and the speed of your player the faster you move the lesser amount of ball contacts you will have when you just use your left stick to dribble you have a lot of ball contacts you can quickly turn but you're rather slow when you sprint with a ball you're fast but you notice how you can't change direction as easily it's because of the limited amount of ball contacts in order to be faster your player knocks on the ball further reducing the amount of ball contacts you're faster but you can't change your direction as easily there are some exceptions but as a rule of thumb this is crucial to understand the importance of ball contacts and by the way the concept of ball contacts is not only important for dribbling but at the end affects every single action and decision you make while playing FC if you're interested in diving deeper into this I highly recommend joining the guide plus because this is the place where we explain the game in such an in-depth level on a wide spectrum of topics so you finally understand why certain techniques are strong or weak Concepts on how to defend create chances Etc finally understand FC and the fundamentals of it you have over 200 lessons and 20 courses that are waiting for you so with this important learning we have set the foundation for the dribbling techniques that are in fc24 the first dribbling technique is the jog dribbling commonly known as left stick dribbling no modification buttons pressed but we just use the left stick to dribble turn around Etc left stick dribbling is the most used dribbling technique and most of the knowledge and explanations we will share with this guide is especially tailor towards this way of dribbling as already discussed with the left stick dribbling your player moves rather slow but has quite a lot of ball contacts this allows you to easily turn and that's why this dribbling technique is especially useful for out maneuvering opponents in tight spaces for example in Midfield situations when you want to change your direction in the attack or create an opening in the opponent's box you will explain later on what is important here to make it work next we have the Sprint dribbling also pretty popular you press R2 or RT and your player start sprinting with the ball they move faster but with the downset of having less ball contacts thus limiting your ability to turn hence Sprint dribbling is best used when you have space in front of you it's vital to gain ground and to put pressure on the opponent it's especially useful for either quick transitions from defense into your Tech or using space on the wing controlled Sprint is a new dribbling technique in fc24 which you do by holding a one or a B the dribbling fills the gap between jog dribbling and Sprint dribbling you're much faster than jog dribbling but not as fast with only Sprint but on the other side you have more ball contacts than with Sprint dribbling and this is extremely powerful we already published a video about this dripping technique and what is important to make use of it so feel free to click the icon in the top right corner or you can also find the link in the video description if you want to learn more about it strafe dribling is done with L one/ lb the speciality of this kind of dribbling is that your player keeps facing forward while having quite close ball control so in contrast to other dribbling techniques you don't actually turn with a left stick it's not a dripping technique which you use to be fast but to outmaneuver opponents in tight spaces with sudden Direction changes there's also a way you can use this dribbling technique to get a Sprint Boost we explain this towards the end of this video you might not be aware but yes Eder dribbling is still in the game in the last couple of years it was an A1 or a B but now this button is used for controlled Sprint so Eder dribbling was moved to L2 plus R2 or LT plus RT actually this kind of dribbling works pretty similar to strafe Drifting you get an increase of agility in your movement and you don't directly turn but the player does more of a side movement this is where this dribbling excels let movement side to side so for example when moving forward with a jog or Sprint dribbling you can quickly take a few contacts with Eder dribbling to change your direction in 90° while staying open to play passes but there are two major problems with agile and also strafe dribbling the first one they are not as reliable sometimes the direction changes are carried out with a delay and you might also not be sure what kind of animations and ball control will be used to dribble the ball this is what we mean with not so reliable and this can be really problematic when you have an idea how to outmaneuver the opponent but the player doesn't do what you intended second agile and strife dribbling are open dribbling variants when you move the left stick your player doesn't turn away but stays fa up to the opponent thus you're not protecting the ball with your body you will learn later on why this is important a couple of years ago the slow dribble was actually gamebreaking but over the years it more and more lost its relevance so far that most of you probably don't even know that it's still in the game part of the reason will also be that it got remapped to other buttons every other year anyway with L2 Plus i1 or LT plus RB you do a slow dribble and well you dribble more slowly with it the benefits are more ball contacts tighter turns so in theory it should be a great tool to outmaneuver the opponent especially inside the box but the problem with this dribbling technique is that it's just too slow you might have the right idea but when you turn you don't get enough ground to actually take advantage of it so when using this dribbling technique the key is to only use it for a short moment enable your player to tightly turn with this dribbling technique and then exit and continue with jog or Sprint dribbling at last we have shielding opport check the wall as it's also known it's facilitated with the L2 LT button you can either press it shortly which can help you to use the body of your player to push off the opponent's attempt to get through the ball this is most commonly used in running duels the timing is key here when the opponent goes for an attempt to get through the ball you quickly press L2 LT and push them away but you can also hold the L2 LT button for a longer time to Shield the ball as long as you hold the button your player will try to keep position between the ball and the opponent this is best used when the ball is moving slow or not at all physically strong players or players with a press proven play style will do a better job at this after we have covered the different dripping techniques now we want to talk about what limits your dribbling apparently there have to be some limitations to this because otherwise you wouldn't think as much about the question why does dribbling sometimes feel so unresponsive what do we mean with unresponsive you give an input with a left stick but your player doesn't immediately react to it or they do it differently than you would expect and while obviously this feeling is pretty uncool it has to be in the game to some extent and there are reasons for it reasons that explain this unresponsiveness this is what we mean with what limits your dribbling these reasons are limitations on dribbling that contribute to an unresponsive feeling understanding this won't make your dribbling Ultra responsive all the time but it will help you to understand how to avoid those situations as best as you can we already talked about the importance of ball contacts and yes you guessed it they are also key when it comes to the responsiveness just imagine a player that has thousands of ball contacts per second this player would be able to convert your input directly onto the ball since they have ball contacts as frequently super responsive actually that's not possible in game but paints a picture how it works so dribbling techniques which are slow but have tight ball control tend to feel more responsive on the other hand when you sprint dribble with a lot of pace you only have a ball cont take every few seconds and thus it's not responsive at all if you want to put it to an extreme you can change direction when sprinting and will take a good second until your player has the next ball contact to actually change direction another factor which comes into play is the physical momentum of your player see when you fully Sprint in One Direction and then you do a 180° turn your player doesn't only have to stop the ball and change its direction but also stop him or herself de accelerate and then accelerate again in the other direction ction while maintaining control over the ball such actions have an impact on the dribbling itself it will be more unresponsive the more you have to shift your physical momentum it increases with speed and decree of the turn the less often your player has ball contacts so you are more vulnerable to attempts of the opponent to go for the ball another reason why these slower dribbling techniques feel more responsive you don't actually build up as much Pace In One Direction and depending on the technique the player doesn't actually turn as well that way your player doesn't build up as much physical momentum while moving around other very obvious factors which influence the quality of dribbling are attributes and body types the attributes dribbling agility and balance directly have an impact on how the dribbling and turning feels with this player additionally bigger players will also feel a bit slower when it comes to dribbling and turning while smaller players will feel more agile so when you engage in a dribbling situation try to consider these factors avoid being in tight situations with those massive center backs or clunky CD M but instead get the ball to your Wingers or fullbacks most often they are much more suited for it at last we have a very underrated impact factor on dribbling it's the opponent being pressured and pushed by the opponent can lead to really clunky ball contacts all of a sudden your player takes a longer more uncontrolled touch with the ball which can result in slower turns or actually losing control over the ball this is a huge influence Factor on dribbling which you might haven't been aware of before in FIFA 23 this was put to an extreme and was one of the main reasons that left stick dribbling was pretty much dead in this game in fc24 this effect is reduced and I would say it's one of the main reasons why dribbling feeds better in this game so how do we account for this when we go for dribbling this is what we cover in our next section out dribbling opponent's Defenders is a balance between staying in control while you also try to do the unexpected and stay one step ahead of the opponent this is what we will teach you in the next segments the first step to a successful dribbling is to to pay attention to the opponent's Defenders so their positioning and intentions this is important because we have to make sure that they don't get access to the ball if they try to get to the ball and we can't move the ball away or we can't Shield the ball with the body we have a problem most of the ball possession losses while dribbling are because of this the ball was open to tackle so in order to stay in control of the situation we have to analyze from which direction they are coming and how we can turn the ball safely away one way to do this is close dribbling as long as you have your player positioned between the ball and the opponent they can't get to the ball we call it closed because you don't control the ball open for the opponent but instead protected by your body but this alone won't help us much to get closer to the opponent's goal luckily most opponents will try to pressure us here comes the part of paying attention to the opponent's position in order to get to the ball they have to get around us from one side we have to recognize this and turn around to the other side that way the ball is still protected and we we absorb the pressure when the opponent is a bit further away it's easier to turn because the opponent's player doesn't hinder us directly remember how contact with the opponent can limit our dribbling on the other hand it's not as easy to completely get around the opponents and leave them behind since they are not as committed and have more room to correct their positioning the closer the opponent get the riskier it will be but also the bigger the potential upsite since when the opponents are closer it's easier to overcommit for them this will create openings or Pockets that we can then move into this is like a dance we have to absorb the pressure of the opponents by moving the ball in a way that they can't get to it and then get away from them this is something that you will have to develop a feeling for a great help will be our tutorial at the guide Plus at which we explain in detail how to practice this and build up your skill in that regard click on the icon in the top right corner or the link in the video description to get there as a rule of thump you should try to avoid going for the risky close contact dribblings in your own half especially with your your center backs and cdms because when you lose the ball here it can directly lead to conceding your goal the closer you get to the opponent's goal the more risk you have to take when it comes to dribbling but on the other hand accurate out dribble of the opponent around or inside the Box can result directly in a goal depending on the Angles and how close the opponent is you might have to turn more drastically this will raise the question how should I turn the stick do I move it around the edges or do I go for Sharp abrupt shifts I know there are plenty of gurus and coaches that talk about some hidden techniques that no one is telling you it's the secret of the pro players yada yada let me give you the honest truth both approaches work and are valid and necessary sometimes you want the DraStic Direction changes sometimes you want to turn the ball gradually away I don't think that this is something that you should put a lot of thinking into about how to move the stick this is supposed to be a very intuitive movement and fine motor skill with your finger there are whole books written about explaining that that you should trust your unconsciousness more when it comes to learning motor skills than you telling yourself the whole time oh I have to do it like this or that way most likely this will just hinder your learning experience so when it comes to moving the left stick it's once again about developing a feeling for what it's required in that situation drastic Direction changes or slower turning and how you get the desired outcome something that you should actively consider when it comes to moving the stick moving it in a way that you dribble the ball so that it's protected by your player so the other way around where the opponent is otherwise your player dribbles the ball open to the opponent which makes you vulnerable to tackles and attempts to get to the ball but not every dribbling situation can be resolved with a close dribbling sometimes you don't have the time or room to safely turn away from the opponent protecting the ball with your body in such open dribbling situations the target is the same don't allow the opponent to get to the ball but the execution is more risky and challenging we have to anticipate how the opponent is going for the ball and then turn the ball wall away from it most often this will be to the side for example in 90° angles to the left or right the open dribbling situations can be quite challenging it requires players that are able to move the ball fast away and also can turn quickly enough thus you should avoid getting into those with bad ders for example your center backs or clunky cdms they like the required quickness and responsiveness to out dribble your opponent like this before we come to the advanced dribbling moves we want to talk about the getaway absorbing the pressure is one part but then we want to take advantage of our created situation the beauty of a good dribbling is that it creates spaces when the opponents overcommit with their players they open up space after that depending on the situation you have three simple ways to follow it up most often the fastest way to progress on the pitch is with a pass by your dribbling you created the open passing Lane now make use of it in case you don't have such a clear passing option it can also be a valid approach to progress forward by accelerating into the open space sometimes you just need a bit more time to find a better passing option if you out Rubble the opponent inside the box you can most often also go for the direct finish but I don't think I have to explain a lot here just take one or two contacts to set up a proper finish and score now you have a really good foundation and understanding to out dribble opponents but the better your opponents are that you play against the basic concepts of closed and open dribbling won't cut it anymore your opponents know them as well and either read your next move and outsmart you or take away your next options so your dribbling doesn't really benefit you anything on the pitch it's time to pull off some advanced moves the first move is not actually a move but more a concept it's quite likely that you will develop some typical patterns in how you dribble the ball for example the direction that you control the ball or in which situations you turn Etc your opponent will see this a few times and then adapt we have to break our own or typical patterns that other players do and by this we can create the surprise Factor required this can be accomplished by very simple things from for example in a situation where you quite often would turn in a specific Direction in order to avoid the opponent instead you just keep running forward if your opponents anticipated the turn you caught them off guard this works especially very well on the wing and overall this is a very powerful move because when it works you punish it really hard by moving as fast so with breaking patterns our Target is to use the anticipation of the opponent in our favor and do the opposite we move in the direction where the opponent will leave open space the the fake Turn is one of my favorite moves for years it builds up on breaking patterns but it's just a very specific application of it for the fake Turn we initiate a turn to one side but only for a brief moment the animation starts and a good opponent will react to this signal to not only reposition himself but actually anticipate you follow up in this direction for a longer time they think it's a a got you moment and go for the tackle but it was all just a setup and bait we initiated this Direction Change just to quickly turn back the other way around such a simple move can be enough to move the opponent's out of position and open up space right in front of you from my experience this move works best in Midfield situations especially on the wing when you have the ball with your fullback here the opponent is willing to anticipate more aggressively so exactly what we need to make it work not really an advanced move but something that we have to include in a dribbling guide It's the ball roll you do it by holding the right stick in a 90° angle to the left or right ative from your current viewing Direction this move is extremely important when it comes to left stick dribbling the reason is the momentum reset you've watched this video so far so you already understand the implications of turning how physical momentum plays aor Etc the beauty of the ball roll is that it's a super effective way to reset the physical momentum out of a full on Sprint you can do a ball roll and change Direction with a sharp turn after a ball roll your player is able to follow up with a turn much better with closer ball control you can use the ball roll when you're sprinting back with your Center back retrieving the ball and the opponent's attacker in your back to initiate a turn to the side to play a safe pass or you're sprinting down the wing to cut inside all of a sudden to play a deadly pass into the center the ball roll is an extremely versatile tool when it comes to enhancing your left stick dribbling that should not be overlooked at last we have a nice Sprint Boost combo for this you briefly hold the L1 or LB button for the strafe dribing you only need one or two contacts then you let go of the button and press Sprint with this you get a very sudden acceleration it's the switch from a slow paced dribbling technique to a fullon Sprint that will catch your opponent off guard so in game you should use it when you're not already running fast but for example on the wing in the Midfield you go into the strafe dribbling and wait until the opponent moves a bit forward in an attempt to get closer now is the time to explode with a Sprint and leave the opponent in the dust At Last I want to talk about dribbling on a bad connection I know I know you already have a burn burning desire to write a comment to tell me that this all sounds so nice but you can't do any of those things because of the shitty servers but hold up give me a second trust me I know these kind of weird games or matches with a bad connection your player doesn't turn even though you're holding the stick in that direction or take some really weird ball contacts funnily enough when you record and show such gameplay which I'm doing right now it looks quite normal but still when you play the game at that moment it just feels off so I don't have a solution for it okay now you can start writing your comments but seriously there is no easy fix which solved these problems it's a bad situation and all we can do is make the best out of it but the handicap persists so one reason why such games feel so off and weird is that delay ruins our internal timing we make some input and expect something to happen but it only happens delayed which then has an influence on our next option here's a typical example which I encounter frequently I start turning with a player to set up a pass the player doesn't turn because of lack of responsiveness but they already do the passing input now since the player gets the passing input switches from the Turning animation into the passing animation and plays a really bad pass because of it it's such simple things that can put you off so one point to deal with delay is being more patient you can't chain a lot of different actions shortly together but more simple things and slower and I understand that this limits our capability to create we would also advise to Sprint Less in Midfield situation the reasoning is pretty simple with more Pace you have less ball contacts which gives you less opportunities to change direction Etc with delay this makes it even more difficult on the other hand it's important to not lose complete faith and confidence in your abilities when you get in and around the Box you still should be brave and willing to pull off one move to potentially outplay the opponent's Defender a very targeted skill move could work wonders here in the center of the screen you can click on the video to learn about five Advanced skill moves that could help you with that there's so much more to explore and explain when it comes to dribbling but we think that this video sets a really good foundation and it's time to come to an end thanks for watching keep a clean sheet I'm out