Pina's Million-Coin SBC, the Gallery and a Free Keeper Upgrade: What's Worth Your Time in FC 27

Transcript

Alex: Welcome to Half-Space, the show that makes you better at FC. I'm Macca, with Javi and Kev.

Charlie: Thirteen wins in the Finals. Thirteen! On an account that has never spent a coin. No packs bought, no transfer list, just objectives and whatever the game handed him. I went six and four with a team I've been building for a fortnight.

Alex: Sorry, go on. Six and four is a good first weekend, Kev.

Charlie: It was a good first weekend until I found out a bloke with nothing beat it by seven games.

Sam: And this is my whole argument in one weekend. Thirteen wins with nothing. The cards are not the gate. The habits are the gate: where you stand, which pass you choose, when you shoot.

Alex: Right. And at the other end of the same weekend, a pro went fifteen and nothing and said the pairings felt odd. So the best player in the room and a man with zero coins both had a great weekend. That tells you something about this game.

Charlie: It tells me I've got no excuses left.

Alex: Not one. And that's tonight: what's actually worth your time and your coins this week, and the habits that win you games without either. Tonight on Half-Space: the first Finals weekend paid out, five Player of the Month cards and a new Team of the Week, and a row about why Division Six is harder than Champions. Then Javi runs the Coach's Tip, a keep on corners and a try on switching. The big one is Worth Your Time: Pina, the seventy-nine upgrade, the Gallery, Goal Guardian and Live Events, with a verdict from all three of us. Javi's back with what's working, the low driven and the jockey. Last time's picks get re-rated, and Kev closes with his Desk.

Sam: And one thing about me, since we keep doing this. I played youth football in Seville until I was nineteen, a central midfielder, not fast, but I saw the space. Then my knee went in one tackle and that was the end. Everything I coach now, I learned watching from the side with a bag of ice.

Charlie: One from me. I do IT support at the council. Most of my day is resetting passwords for people who wrote the old one on a sticky note. So when the game makes me relearn something every month, I take it personally.

Alex: And mine. My first FIFA was oh-eight, on my cousin's PS2, because we couldn't afford one. I didn't get my own console till I was fourteen. Two years later I was beating him so badly he hid the controllers.

Charlie: Last time, my homework was corners into a zone. I've got numbers, and you'll hear them.

Alex: Last time we also gave you three cheap picks, and we said we'd re-rate them. We will. First, the week. This week in FC starts with the money. Five things in the news tonight: the Finals rewards, the Player of the Month cards, Division Six, Future Stars, and Destined for Glory, then one bug. The first FC 27 Finals weekend finished on Monday, and the rewards came out this week. And before anyone moans about them, the context: EA said before launch that Champions and Rivals now pay several times more coins per match than last year, and that more match rewards are coming later in the year.

Charlie: And they do pay. I've got coins I didn't have last year, and I didn't even play the Finals properly.

Alex: The headline at the top end is BorasLegend. Fifteen and nothing on his first run. And the interesting bit is he said the pairings felt odd: he was fifteen and nothing and still meeting people on much worse records.

Sam: That makes sense to me. When you win every game, there are not many people left at your level on a Sunday. The matchmaker goes wider.

Alex: Right, and that's not a complaint you hear from a man who's lost. And down the other end, the zero-spend thirteen we started with. Same weekend, same pairing system, nothing in common but habits.

Charlie: So what do I even take from the token store? I've still got about a hundred and twenty tokens from my six and four.

Alex: On the circuit we had a name for lads who spent their tokens on celebrations: tourists. I took a red Team of the Week card for my bench, because in my team the games are decided after the seventieth minute, when Rodri's legs go and the sub comes on. He's already won me one.

Sam: And I open mine on a Sunday morning, after training with my under-fifteens, with a coffee. Never at midnight. At midnight, excited, every pack looks like a good idea, and I make the decisions I tell my players never to make. Can I say one thing about one card? The eighty-nine Messi keeps turning up in these reward packs, and my under-fifteens send me screenshots of him, "Javi, Javi, look." And the real one plays his last game for Argentina this morning, our time, against Benin in Buenos Aires. I am from Spain. We beat them in the final. And still, I get a lump in the throat. Some players are bigger than your flag. If one of my girls packs that card this week, she will play him every game, and I will not say a word.

Charlie: That's a nice thing to say about the bloke who beat you for twenty years.

Sam: He beat everybody. That's the point. Okay. Back to the game.

Alex: So the takeaway from the weekend: if you qualified, open your rewards with a plan. Me, I take coins and tradeable packs over any pick I'd never start. That's how Rodri ended up in my midfield last year. Player of the Month. There are five of them now from September, and the prices go from silly-cheap to silly.

Sam: Groß is the cheap one, about eighteen thousand. Malen is about eighty-two thousand. Olise is about seven hundred thousand. Raphinha is about one point three million. And now Pina, one point two million on console, which runs until 3 November.

Charlie: So one of them is a normal price and four of them are a house deposit.

Alex: And Team of the Week. TOTW three leaves the packs when the new one lands, and TOTW four drops on Thursday at 4am our time. The early predictions have Haaland and Rodri in it. Sorry, go on, I just enjoy saying City players are in form.

Sam: There is one cheap thing in TOTW three before it goes. Chawinga, a ninety left midfielder, under a hundred and thirty thousand. For a ninety, that is a fair price.

Charlie: Fair for a ninety. Not fair for me. I'm the Groß tier.

Alex: The Groß tier is a good tier. You'll hear why in the picks.

Charlie: Monday night, three games after bedtime, and the bloke in my first game had an Elite badge from last year on his profile. Elite! In Division Five! I'm sitting there with Khusanov and Kim Min Jae, and he's got a team that cost more than my car.

Sam: Division Five? An Elite player? How does an Elite player end up in Division Five in October?

Alex: Right, here's the short version. The ladder pairs you by rank. Champions ignores all that and uses your Form, your location and your platform. And at the start of FC 27, everybody who finished last year in Elite, Division One or Division Two got put straight into Division Seven. So Divisions Six, Seven and Eight are packed with last year's best. A Division Six upgrade pays twelve and a half thousand coins and a hundred and fifty qualification points. Division One pays ninety-five thousand and seven fifty. Season Two starts on the twenty-second, and that should spread everybody out.

Charlie: So I'm paying the worst rewards in the game to play the best players in the game.

Sam: Ah. That explains a lot. Three of the people I coach are in Division Six, and they told me this week they have got worse. They did not get worse. They are playing better people.

Alex: And I'll defend the system, same as I did with Form last time. Those Elite lads don't stay. They win ten on the bounce, they're out of your division in a fortnight. The better player rises. That's competition.

Charlie: And in that fortnight I've played twenty-eight games of my twenty minutes against them. On the record, I said Champions pairing is a lottery that throws two-and-two players at ten-and-four opponents. This is the same thing in a different menu. I've got about six games a week. You've got sixty.

Sam: I was with Macca on Form. I still am. But this is different. Form moves every game. This placement sits on you for a month, and for a student it feels like a wall.

Alex: A wall you climb.

Charlie: A wall you climb with twenty minutes and a baby monitor. People with all day telling people with none to just play more. That's the bit.

Sam: Okay, here is what moves me back a little. Season Two is on the twenty-second. That is two weeks. If it spreads them out, then this is a launch problem, not a design problem. I can tell them that: two weeks, then judge yourself.

Alex: So Javi's come round to fair-in-a-fortnight, Kev thinks it's a wall, I think it's earned. What it means for your game: don't judge yourself by the division badge this month. Judge yourself by the goals you concede. Future Stars. Not announced yet, but leaked for 4am on Saturday, our time. Fifteen cards, live ones that upgrade with the players' own numbers, and the PlayStyles Lab is supposed to come back with them.

Charlie: And Tom Bischof's in it. I've got Bischof on my bench. So my cheap Bischof just got a famous cousin.

Sam: Your Bischof is still your Bischof. The live card is a different card. And this is the warning I give every student who messages me on promo night. The first night a live card costs the most, because everybody wants him before the upgrades arrive. So they wait one week and watch if the player even starts on the weekend. Kev, same for you: your Bischof plays, you wait.

Charlie: Wait a week. That's the cheapest advice on this show.

Alex: Destined for Glory, two weeks in. The Strikers Only objective closed on Tuesday. I haven't packed a single special one, and I open more packs than anybody on this show. And honestly, I'm not chasing them: the special versions mostly carry the same PlayStyles as the base cards for ten times the coins. My base Mbappé does everything the special one does, minus the ego.

Sam: Mira, my students ask me this every promo. I make them play the base card for ten games first. If the base card is not good enough in their hands, the shiny one will not be either. Pedri in my team is a base card, and nobody has ever looked at him and wished for glitter.

Alex: Bug Watch: players report Champions wins logged as losses and Champions Tokens not showing in the store. No reply from EA yet, so screenshot your results. So: the Finals pay more than last year, five POTMs at mostly crazy prices, and Division Six is tough for a reason that should fix itself in a fortnight. Javi's been sitting on his hands since the hook, and it's his turn. Coach's Tip, Javi, keep and try.

Sam: Two things tonight: one to keep, one to try. The keep is last week's try, corners. Kev, you had homework. Every corner at the penalty spot, same power, and count how many land there.

Charlie: Right, so. One full game, seven corners. Five landed on the penalty spot, more or less. Two went over everybody's head because I panicked and held the button too long.

Sam: Five from seven. That is seventy-one percent. The target was seven from ten, so you are there.

Charlie: And we scored from one. Khusanov, of all people. He walked into the spot and headed it in like he'd been told.

Sam: Because he had been told. That is the whole idea. In FC 27 a corner does not go to a player any more. The ball goes into space, where you aim it, at the power you give it. If your aim is random, the ball is random. If you aim at the same spot every time, then you can send your man to the spot.

Alex: When I was playing, the old lads used to aim at their big centre-back and hope. In this game that's a lottery ticket.

Sam: So, the keep. Aim with the left stick at the penalty spot. Then the cross button, X on Xbox, Square on PlayStation, and hold it for about two and a half to three bars of power. Every time. Same aim, same power. Then take control of your best header and run him to that spot.

Charlie: Can I try it now? I'll do it on the pad while you talk.

Sam: Go. Left stick on the spot. X on Xbox, Square on PlayStation. Two and a half bars.

Charlie: Three bars. Over the bar. Brilliant. Okay, again. Two and a half. Yes, that's on the spot. Khusanov's there.

Sam: You see, the miss teaches you too. Three bars is too much from your corner flag. Now you know your number. And one more piece, Kev, because the delivery is only half of it. Your header has to arrive, not wait. Take control of Khusanov before the kick, start him a few yards behind the spot, and move him into it as the ball comes. If he stands on the spot, the defender stands on him.

Charlie: So I aim, I hit it, and then I'm Khusanov charging in.

Sam: Exactly. The ball goes where you put it, and he goes where the ball goes. Two jobs, one after the other. Practise it in Squad Battles, where nobody is shouting at you.

Charlie: Squad Battles. The only place nobody shouts at me. Well, apart from Mia.

Alex: In my team, Mapi León is the one I send. She's not the tallest, but she arrives late, and late is better than tall when the ball goes into space.

Sam: In mine it is Pajor. I put the ball on the spot and she attacks it from the edge of the box. Simple is hard, but this one is simple. The drill, then, and this is a keep, so it is a count you keep doing. One game: aim every corner at the penalty spot with the same power, and count how many land in that zone. Seven in ten is the bar. Kev is already at five from seven. Now the try. This one is new, and it is a setting, not a skill, which makes Kev happy.

Charlie: It does. A setting I can change in the time it takes the kettle to boil.

Sam: In FC 27 the AI defends less for you. Your teammates don't tackle like before, so the defender you control has to be the right one. And the default settings switch you to another player on a normal ground pass, at the worst moment. You are chasing the ball with one man and suddenly you are a different man, running the wrong way.

Charlie: That happens to me every game. I'm on Kim Min Jae, I'm jockeying, and then I'm Balde, sprinting at nothing.

Sam: Exactly. So, the settings. Go to Settings, Controller Settings. Auto Switching: Air Balls and Loose Balls. That means the game only switches for you when the ball is in the air or loose. Then Auto Switching Move Assistance: None. If you are new to this, Low is fine to start. That stops the game steering your new player for a moment after a switch.

Alex: And then you do the switching yourself. LB on Xbox, L1 on PlayStation, takes you to the man closest to the ball. The right stick flicks you to the one you point at.

Charlie: And which one do I use, the button or the stick?

Sam: Both, for different moments. LB on Xbox, L1 on PlayStation, when the ball is near your own player and you want the closest man. The right stick when the danger is somewhere else: the striker going in behind, the man at the back post. You look at the danger, you flick to it.

Alex: The goal Kev concedes every week goes like this. Their midfielder has it, Kev's on his centre-back, and the pass goes into the channel. The game switches him to the full-back, who's facing the wrong way, and by the time Kev's found the stick, it's in the back of the goal.

Charlie: That's not a goal, mate, that's my autobiography.

Sam: With the new settings, the pass does not switch you. You stay on the centre-back, you see the striker go, and you flick the right stick to the full-back before the pass is played. Before. That is the whole try. And here is the habit with it. Switch before the pass, not after. When you see the through ball coming, you are already on the defender who covers it.

Charlie: Here's my worry. I've had the defaults for years. If I change it, I'll concede ten goals while my thumbs learn.

Sam: That is why it is a try, not a keep. Two games. Not ten. Two. If after two games you hate it, you go back. But my students who change it, after a week, they never go back.

Alex: I changed mine years ago, and the first two nights I conceded goals that made me want to throw the pad. By the weekend I was quicker than I'd ever been. Trust me, the two bad nights are the price.

Sam: So the challenge for the try: two games with Auto Switching on Air Balls and Loose Balls and Move Assistance on None. Count the goals you concede from through balls. The target is zero.

Charlie: Zero. Right. Two games. I can do two games.

Alex: So: keep aiming your corners at one spot with the same power, and try switching for yourself, with the game only helping on high and loose balls. Two settings, two games. Worth Your Time, the menus, and it's the big one tonight. Five items on the board: Pina's Player of the Month, the three-seventy-nine upgrade, the Gallery's Hall of FUT, Goal Guardian with a receipt from Kev, and Live Events Mastery. Every one gets a verdict from all three of us: do, skip, wait, or only if. Everything else on the menus is a row in the show notes.

Charlie: Five verdicts. I've got my skip face ready.

Alex: Right, the million-coin card. Claudia Pina's Player of the Month landed at 4am on Wednesday, our time, and I've been looking at it all morning with my finger hovering. I want her.

Charlie: Go on then, Javi. How does a footballer cost one point two million coins?

Sam: Okay. It is a score SBC, like all of them this year. You need a grading score of one million one hundred and twenty-five thousand. No chemistry, no formation, any players rated forty-five or more. If you buy the cards you need on console, about one point two two million coins. On PC, about one point two nine. The cheapest way, all eighty-fours, about nine hundred and fifty thousand. It runs until 3 November. And the card: her gold is already an eighty-nine left winger with ninety-one pace and eighty-nine shooting. The Player of the Month is an upgrade on top of that.

Charlie: Nine hundred and fifty thousand is the cheap way? My whole club is worth about sixty-five grand, mate. She costs eighteen of my clubs.

Alex: Eighteen Kevs. I love that as a unit.

Charlie: Eighteen Kevs, and every one of them has a mortgage.

Alex: Here's my verdict. Do. My club can carry her, and Vini needs someone pushing him for that left wing. She's already one of the best attackers in the game, and coins come easier this year. If you've got a million sitting there, this is where it goes.

Sam: Mine is wait. It runs for four weeks. After every promo, the eighty-fours get cheaper, because everybody opens packs and sells the spares. In two or three weeks the same card can cost a lot less. A million today for Pina, maybe eight hundred thousand by November. And honestly, I would rather a student spends a million on four good players than one great one.

Charlie: Skip. It's not a challenge, it's a wall. A million coins is more than my whole club ten times over, and I'm not getting there with twenty minutes a night. When the shiny card costs eighteen Kevs, the game's telling me it isn't for me.

Alex: It's telling you to save for eighteen weeks.

Charlie: It's telling me to buy four players for my actual team, which is what Javi said, so I'm with Javi.

Alex: Go on then. What does a million buy you?

Charlie: For my club? Everything. A proper striker, a better left-back, a keeper who doesn't need an evolution, and I'd still have change for a pie. That's a whole new spine.

Sam: And that is my point to Macca too. One card cannot defend a counter. Four cards in the right places can.

Alex: My spine's sorted, Javi. Courtois, Rodri, Bellingham, Mbappé, and I earned every coin of them in Champs hours, not on a credit card. The only gap left is the left wing.

Charlie: Listen to him. The only gap left.

Sam: And I make one call on this. She will be cheaper to build before her challenge closes on 3 November. Put that on the record.

Alex: Noted. If I've done it at full price and Javi's right, I'll never hear the end of it.

Sam: But here is the real lesson from Pina, and it is for everybody, not only Macca with his million. Look at why she is so good. It is not the PlayStyles. It is ninety-one pace and the numbers. This year EA cut the PlayStyle Plus to three per card, and they made the shooting and the speed depend more on the stats themselves.

Charlie: So the little icons matter less.

Sam: The icons are a nudge. The numbers are the engine. So when you look for a player, compare the pace first, acceleration and sprint speed, at striker, central midfield and centre-back. Then the stats for his job. Then the PlayStyles last.

Charlie: My Khusanov is eighty-two rated with eighty-eight pace, and he's the reason my back line doesn't get done on the counter. Cost me three and a half thousand.

Sam: Perfect example. And for defenders, mira, seventy-eight sprint speed is the floor, eighty-five is what you want. Take your starting striker, your two central midfielders and your two centre-backs, write their pace down, and if one of them is under eighty, he is the first one you replace. Not with a million. With the right numbers.

Alex: Fair. Mbappé up front has never needed an icon to beat a man. He's quick, and that's the whole card. Number two: the three-seventy-nine upgrade. Ten gold players in, three players rated seventy-nine or more out.

Charlie: Do. Every objective I finish leaves me with spare golds, seventy-five, seventy-six, rubbish I can't sell. This turns them into three players. If you buy the golds at about six hundred each, it's around six thousand a go.

Sam: Do, for a different reason. Everything that comes out of it is mine from new, never bought, and my Betis collection loves that. Fornals, Isco, Valles, I packed all of them myself.

Alex: Skip, for me. My bench is already full of eighty-sevens. Three seventy-nines is three more cards I'll quick-sell. But for anyone building a club from scratch, it's the best value thing on the menu this week. Number three, the Gallery. The part of the game everybody's been talking about, and the part we didn't give enough time last week. Here's what changed this week: people are getting to Level 10, and they're opening the reward.

Sam: Explain the Level 10 for the people who never open that screen.

Alex: Level 10 needs about three million on that screen, and it gives you a one-of-five Holographic Base Hero pick, untradeable. If you rush it with the transfer list, three or four hours and a hundred thousand coins or more in tax. If you just play your normal games, five days or more.

Charlie: And the Hero pick can be rubbish, right? One of five.

Alex: It can. One lad opened it this week and got Donovan, Larsson, Aimar, Riise and Scott. Decent, not life-changing.

Charlie: So for someone like me, is Level 10 a goal or a trap?

Sam: A goal you reach by accident. If you play your games and fill your sets as you go, you get there in a few weeks without trying. If you make it the reason you play, it becomes homework.

Alex: It's a trap if you're using the transfer list to rush it. A hundred grand in tax for a pick that might be Riise. I'd rather have the hundred grand.

Sam: And you already know the trick from last week: the cards you pack, earn or complete yourself count far more than the cards you buy. Twenty of your own in one set is worth five times a set full of shopping.

Charlie: So the game's paying me more for cards I earned than cards I bought. I actually like that. That's the most Kev thing EA's done.

Alex: And the shop is the Hall of FUT. You can't buy your way in with FC Points; you earn the currency by playing and filling your sets. Pato and Hulk cost seven hundred and fifty of them. David Luiz costs five hundred.

Sam: Do. My Betis side is all cards I packed or earned, from Valles in goal to Cucho up front. Every time I play with it, the set moves on, so the reward arrives while I'm doing something I already enjoy. When I have five hundred, David Luiz goes in my back line, next to Bartra.

Alex: Wait, for me. None of the three beats my starters. Pato's fun, but he's not taking Mbappé's shirt. I'll wait and see who EA puts in the Hall next.

Charlie: Only if. Only if the tokens come from the games I'm already playing. The day I start buying cards to put them in a set and sell them again, I've stopped playing football.

Alex: That's the collection. Fill the sets your club fills anyway, take what comes free, and don't buy a card just to look at it on a shelf. Number four, Goal Guardian, and Kev's got a receipt.

Charlie: I do. Goal Guardian is the free goalkeeper Evolution. Plus five on diving, handling and kicking, then plus five on reactions, positioning and reflexes, and at the second level you choose a PlayStyle: 1v1 Close Down or Deflector. I put it on my bench keeper, Bayern's young German, and took 1v1 Close Down.

Alex: And?

Charlie: Three Rivals games. He saved two one-on-ones, the kind Rulli lets in. He came off his line and shut the angle before the bloke could shoot. He starts now. Rulli's on the bench, sulking. So it's a do. Free, and it made my bench keeper my starter.

Sam: Only if. Only if your keeper is tall enough to keep. A short keeper with plus five is still a short keeper. Check his height first.

Alex: Skip, for me. Courtois doesn't need plus five anywhere.

Sam: And Kev chose right, so let me say why, because this is about PlayStyles on defenders in general. For a keeper, first the height, then the PlayStyle. 1v1 Close Down helps him come out and close the angle on a through ball. Deflector pushes the save away from danger. Most goals against you in FC 27 come from through balls, so the one-on-one is the one that saves you games.

Charlie: And that's the same for the back four?

Sam: Same idea. This year the PlayStyles that win the ball back, Intercept, Anticipate, Block, Jockey, are worth more on your defenders than the shooting ones on your attackers. If you get an Evolution with a choice, and you have a defender who reads the game, give him the defensive one.

Alex: Which is why Rodri starts for me. Ugly on paper, Intercept everywhere in a match. Number five, Live Events Mastery. Win Live Event matches, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred, and at the end you get an eighty-four plus pack and a big gold pack. Do. I play every Live Event anyway to stay sharp, so it's free packs for me.

Sam: Only if. Only if you already enjoy the weekly events. A hundred wins chasing packs is not why you should play.

Charlie: Skip. A hundred wins is my whole season of twenty-minute nights.

Sam: But there is one event coming that I love. A Back to Basics exhibition, where everybody has to play a four-four-two. No date yet, but if it comes, Kev, play it.

Charlie: Because you play four-four-two.

Sam: Because it teaches you something. Two banks of four, two holders in the middle, two strikers. Everyone in Division One is playing the four-three-one-two this month, copying the pros. And they lose because they don't know where anybody goes. My main team is four-four-two, Patri Guijarro holding and Pedri next to him, and I could draw you where every player is.

Alex: Mine's a four-two-one-three, two holders as well. Different shape, same rule underneath.

Sam: That is the rule. Pick one simple shape with two players who stay in front of the defence. Then give it ten games, and do not change it after one loss.

Charlie: What does that look like in my team, though? I'm a four-two-three-one.

Sam: Then you are already there. Anderson and Nico González, the two in the middle, they stay. They don't go past the ball. When you lose it, they are already in front of the defence. Your four at the back hold the line, and the three behind the striker do the attacking. Ten games, the same, and count the goals you concede.

Charlie: Anderson and Nico González. Two holders. I've had them all along and I've been sending them forward.

Sam: Everybody does. It is the first thing I change with every new student.

Alex: That's the menus: Pina's a do for me and a skip for Kev, the upgrade is a do if you're building, the collection rewards what you earn, Goal Guardian is free and Kev's proved it, and Live Events Mastery only if you play them anyway. Javi, you've got that look again. What's Working, all yours.

Sam: Two things working tonight: the low driven at the near post, and the jockey. One to score, one to stop them scoring. First, the low driven. Inside the box, this is the finish that is working this year. You press shoot, then shoot again after the power bar: B on Xbox, Circle on PlayStation, pressed twice. The ball stays on the floor and goes hard to the corner.

Charlie: And the near post, specifically?

Sam: The near post, when the keeper is moving across to cover the far side. The coaches are all teaching it this week, and a zero-spend account went thirteen wins in the Finals with near-post low drivens and balls over the top. And remember what I said about the numbers: this year the low driven depends on the shooter's own stats. With a good finisher, it is a weapon. With a centre-back, it is a pass to the keeper.

Alex: Mbappé from the left side of the box, low, near post, and the keeper's still moving. That's half my goals this week.

Sam: And Pajor in my team, the same. She does it without thinking. But here is the mistake: people use it from thirty yards. Outside the box, it is a different shot. The low driven is for inside the box.

Charlie: I tried it with Endrick on Monday. Two tries, one goal. The other one I hit from the edge of the box and it rolled to the keeper like a back pass.

Sam: And watch the keeper's feet before you shoot. If he steps across to cover the far post, the near post is open, and the low one goes under his hands before he can come back. If he stays on his line in the middle, go across him to the far corner instead. The keeper tells you where to shoot. The edge of the box is the edge of the rule. Get one more step inside. One more touch to set it on your strong foot, then shoot, then shoot again.

Alex: And pick the shooter. Bellingham's fine at it, Mbappé is lethal, and my centre-backs shouldn't go near it.

Charlie: So for me, Endrick and Musiala, and that's about it.

Sam: And Gordon from the left, cutting in. That is three. Enough. The second thing working is the oldest one in football. Jockey, don't lunge. In FC 27 your teammates don't tackle for you any more, and the jockey got faster. So the man you control does the defending. Hold LT on Xbox, L2 on PlayStation, stay between the attacker and the middle of your goal, and walk backwards with him.

Charlie: And then what? He just runs at me?

Sam: You wait for him to make the mistake. A heavy touch, a turn, a pass. Then you tackle. Not before. If you press the tackle while he is facing you with the ball close, one touch and you are out of the game.

Alex: That's the one I was worst at. I didn't learn to defend properly until my last year on the circuit. I used to dive in because waiting felt like losing.

Sam: And show him the line. Show the winger down the touchline, away from the middle. A small winger turns very fast, but she cannot turn through the touchline.

Alex: The thing I tell people now: count to two. When he gets the ball, hold the jockey and count to two before you even think about the tackle. Most of the time he's made the decision for you by then.

Charlie: Count to two. I can count to two. I do it with Ollie every night at bath time. My Kim Min Jae used to sprint at everybody, because I made him. Now I hold the jockey, he backs off, and the bloke runs into Khusanov coming across. Two clean sheets in three games. Two! I've never had two in a row.

Sam: That is the whole idea. Patience is a skill. The drill if you want it: one full game, every time someone dribbles at your defender, hold the jockey and back off until he gets it wrong. Count how many times you get beaten after diving in. Zero or one is the target.

Alex: So: low and hard inside the box at the near post with a real finisher, and on the other end, hold the jockey and let them make the mistake. The Picks, and we said we'd re-rate last time's three. I'll go first, because mine's the awkward one. I picked Musiala, the eighty-seven attacking midfielder at about ten thousand. Bellingham's in my team, so Musiala never got a game from me.

Charlie: But I have. He's been in my team since day one, and he's the best player I've got. Ninety dribbling, he never loses the ball, and when Endrick makes the run, Musiala finds him.

Alex: So the pick stands, through Kev's games, not mine. Nine out of ten. The one thing with him: the through ball doesn't aim itself any more. You have to point the stick where the runner's going, Y on Xbox, Triangle on PlayStation.

Charlie: And wait for him to be moving. The first week I kept firing it at Endrick standing still, and the centre-back just took it. Now I wait till he's already going, then I play it into the space in front of him.

Sam: My pick was Groß, the Player of the Month at about eighteen thousand. I completed it after we recorded last time and played him from the bench in two games, deep, next to Pedri. Short passes, always the simple one, never loses it. For eighteen thousand, he is the best value of all five. Eight out of ten, because he is slow, and I knew that.

Alex: And I called it a rule bend last time, Javi, because he cost more than a third of the card he replaced. I'll admit it now. For what he does next to Pedri, the bend was worth it.

Sam: Thank you. Write that down, Kev.

Charlie: Mine was the gold Malen, not the Player of the Month. I bought him for about eighteen hundred. I've played him twice up front. He's quick, he scores the easy ones, and he goes in behind if you keep telling him to. He gives up after a few seconds, so I tell him again, LB on Xbox, L1 on PlayStation. Seven out of ten. For eighteen hundred coins, I'm happy.

Alex: So: three cheap picks, three keepers. Not bad for week one. Kev, you look like a man with a clipboard. Kev's Desk is yours.

Charlie: Three things on the desk tonight: my drills, our results, and a question that's been bugging me. First, the drills. Corners you've heard: five from seven. The other homework was the shot type, naming every shot out loud before I take it. Jess came in halfway through and asked who I was talking to.

Sam: And the count?

Charlie: Three types used: low driven, finesse, one chip that went over. Two goals from six shots. So I hit the three types, and the conversion was thirty-three percent. Above the target, just.

Sam: Above the target is above the target. And you used the chip. That is the hard one.

Charlie: Results. Rivals this week: I went two and one. Macca, you?

Alex: Seven and one. The one was a bloke with a four-three-one-two who did nothing but pass sideways, and I lost my head.

Sam: Four and two for me. Two losses in a row on Monday, then four wins. I was tired. I should have stopped.

Charlie: You? Tired? The man with the rules?

Sam: The man with the rules broke his own rule. I tell everybody: play in short blocks, three games, then a break, and always stop after two losses in a row. On Monday I did two losses and played on, angry. Then the four wins came after I went for a walk. So the rule is right, and I am a hypocrite.

Alex: Put that on a mug.

Charlie: And the bet, Macca's four-two-one-three against Javi's four-four-two, that's over the Finals weekend, and the next one starts on Friday. Same for my seven out of ten. So both of those wait for next time.

Alex: The bet stands. Four-two-one-three over the four-four-two, this weekend.

Sam: We will see.

Charlie: My question. Monday night, ten-forty, I'm three-nil down in the second game. Do I finish it, or do I quit and go to bed?

Alex: Finish it. Every quit knocks a quarter off your multiplier for match coins, and each game you finish only gives back two hundredths. One quit takes about thirteen finished games to undo. And a finished game still pays the completion award, about five hundred and fifty coins, even when you lose.

Charlie: Thirteen games. That's two weeks of my twenty minutes.

Sam: And there is the football reason. When you concede, the next two minutes decide if one goal becomes three. So: one breath. Then keep the ball for four passes before you go forward. You don't win it back in one move. My students who learn this lose by two, not by five.

Charlie: Right, so I finish it, I keep the ball, and I lose by less. That's the most honest advice I've had all week. And next time's question, I'm bringing it now: defending corners. Now I know how to take one, I want to know how to stop one. Over to you, Macca.

Alex: So, tonight: the Finals paid out, Division Six is tough for two more weeks, and the menus had one bargain and one million-coin card. Keep this: aim every corner at the penalty spot with the same power, and count how many land, seven in ten. Try this: two games with Auto Switching on Air Balls and Loose Balls and Move Assistance on None, and count the goals from through balls. If you do one thing to try before next time, make it the switching. On the record for next time: the bet, my four-two-one-three against Javi's four-four-two over this weekend's Finals; Kev's seven out of ten in that same weekend; Javi's call that Pina gets cheaper before 3 November; and Kev's question on defending corners. Before we go: Half-Space exists because of Dan. He's a time-poor dad who loves FC but never has the hours to get properly good, and he was tired of the hype. He wanted something more reliable: the fundamentals and the game's own logic, a little and often, so he could actually improve. So he built his own podcast studio with AI. Everything you've just heard is generated: the research, the script and our three voices. Macca, Javi and Kev are characters. Every source we used is in the show notes, so you can check our working. Aim your corners, switch for yourself, and keep your coins for your actual team. That's Half-Space. See you on the other side of the Finals.