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FIFA 21 cheat guide: how to beat your friends, even when they're better
Are you constantly getting beaten in FIFA? Are you been thoroughly humiliated by your mates over and over again? Then you may need to employ some more underhanded tactics...
In FIFA 21, bragging rights matter. These tips will help you in your quest to be the best player amongst all your mates – as long as you don’t mind crossing over to the dark side to achieve victory. These cheats aren’t going to help you in the game's various Competitive modes, and none of them are cheating in an “EA will ban you" sort of way, but if your friends find out, you may lose out on the rights to show off forever.
Basically, while these little shortcuts to victory are all well within the rules of FIFA 21’s terms, your mates might not see it that way – so keep them to yourself and try not to get caught. We won’t tell if you don’t.
1. Make your players superstars
You can make Mbappe an unstoppable juggernaut if you wish
© EA
This is a big one, and you can either give a gentle tweak to the stats or go for full-blown domination; the bigger the advantage you give yourself, the more likely you are to get caught.
You can either do this on a player level or a team level too. Firstly, by heading to the Edit Player menu, you can decide to give any player higher stats in any category you want. Whether that means making Sunderland’s players all 99 in everything, or just upping Fabinho’s pace to make Liverpool’s midfield more mobile is up to you. You can’t use these players in Competitive online games, by the way, so don’t expect to grind to the top of the world rankings with Max Power at max stats.
2. Stat doping is a team game
You can make your whole chosen team OP very easily
© EA
As well as upping individual players’ stats, you can do it via the controller too. As the default, a team is set to 50. That’s for pace, shooting, marking, goalkeeping… you name it. Sure, Jadon Sancho is faster than Fernandinho, but they’re both 50% as fast as FIFA can possibly make them.
In the Settings Menu, you can tweak this percentage down to 0%, which makes them run in treacle, or 99% which makes them a blur. Going 99v0 is sure to be noticed, but will your opponent know if you’ve rigged their controller to 40% and your own to 60%? Maybe not. Goalkeeping ability, shot speed, shot accuracy, and pace are the big ones that can also offer an advantage here.
3. Sweaty cutbacks
The sweaty cutback is now one of the oldest FIFA tricks in the book
© EA
Look, while this isn’t actually cheating, if you try this with your mates you’ll definitely be accused of cheating, so we’ll throw it in here. The sweaty cutback has been in FIFA for years, and it’s basically the same as when real-life players leave a trailing leg dangling in the box to buy a foul. It’s not against the rules, but purists think it’s against the spirit.
Anyway, the sweaty cutback is when you’re through one-on-one with the keeper, you draw them out, then square it to a teammate to tap it into the empty net. Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva do this all the time in real life, and while it can be unpopular, it’s definitely effective.
4. Turn off assists
Turning off your mate's assists can have a massive impact on how they play
© EA
More controller messing here, as FIFA 21 has a handful of unseen influences on how good you are at the game. Things like shooting, through balls, lobbed passes, and a host of other features are marked as ‘Assisted’ by default. This means that while you have some control over them, the game will help guide your shots to where you seem to be aiming, even if your actual aim is maybe a bit rubbish.
Some top players actually turn these off to have total control, but would you be reading a bunch of cheats if you were a top player? Chances are, without them, you’d end up misfiring every shot and sending every lobbed pass out of play. If you’ve got a mate coming over, then, make sure to turn their controller’s assistance off. If you do this duplicitous act, you may get to watch them fail at even the most basic of tasks.
5. Use the loyalty glitch
Making your players loyal with have noticeable effects on how they play
© EA
This has been part of FIFA for so long now, calling it a glitch no longer seems accurate, but that’s what it’s always been known as – so we’ll stick with it. In FIFA Ultimate Team, there are a few factors aside from raw quality which determine how well your players will play. Chemistry, positioning, loyalty… it’s more tactical than just regular online play.
One way to boost loyalty is to jump into a Squad Battle with the players you want to make loyal. Kick-off, then pause the game immediately; the clock will read around 30 seconds, usually. Disconnect from the internet via your console network settings, then back on FIFA you’ll get a pop-up saying you lost connection.
This won’t count as a loss on your record, but will count as a game played towards loyalty. Do this ten more times, and the players will be loyal. You can do ten of these in the same amount of time as it would take to play one match, so it’s worth it to level up loyalty quickly.
6. The nuclear option
Perhaps just pulling the plug is the only way to save face...
© EA
If you’ve tried a few of these cheats and you’re still getting beat, the nuclear option is all that’s left. If you're playing Online Friendlies, that might mean faking a WiFi drop, and claiming that match you were losing 4-0 would definitely have been a draw. Playing a bit of couch FIFA though, you can have a second friend fake a power cut at the fuse box, or shout something so your opponent goes to see what’s going on, leaving you to further mess with their controller stats.
Okay, this one is properly cheating, but do you really want to write that apology letter for getting beat by five goals? Didn’t think so.
