Nobody expectedSifudeveloper Sloclap to release a live-service football game, but it eschewed expectations and did so anyway.Rematchisn’t youraverage FIFA or EA FC instalment, however. It’s inventive, exciting, and more similar to Rocket League than Football Manager.
The arcade stylings lend themselves well to this 5-a-side format. A stepover away from photorealism and an elastico towards skill expression makes for a potent combination, and Rematch has that crucial ‘one more game’ quality in spades. There’s just one problem.
Other players.
Rematch Beginner Tips
I can give you a few important tips for Rematch. Number one: remember your positioning. Your team needs defenders as well as attackers. If you’re the last defender between your opponent and the goal, don’t join the attack. Stay goalside. Jockey. Play it carefully. An occasional overload can be helpful, but make sure a teammate is covering you.
That goes double if you’re in goal. I don’t mind if you want to play sweeper rather than keeper, but don’t abandon your position entirely because you find it boring. We all do our time between the sticks, so tough it out until it’s your turn up top.
Number two: pass the ball. Passing is incredibly effective in Rematch. Whether it’s a simple tap or a Gerrard-esque crossfield masterstroke, passing is by far the easiest way to advance up the pitch and get into the opposition box.
Rematch has room for expressing your silky skills, but if there’s an easy ball on, play it. You may not get to feel like Maradona, but Rodri won the Balloon d’Or last season for a reason. Keep it simple, and the goals will come.
My final tip is more point 2.5 than point three. It’s the biggest frustration I have when playing the game and causes my teammates no end of fury. For the love of God, stop trying to do fl*pping rainbow flicks.
What’s Wrong With Rainbow Flicks?
There are only a handful of skills you can use in Rematch. This isn’t EA FC where you have to memorise an elaborate Konami code to unlock some ridiculous heel-to-heel scoop-turn combination in order to glitch past AI defenders. In Rematch, you can press A while holding the left trigger to do a little sidestep, you can double-tap it while moving to do a Marseille Turn. Or you can press your right bumper and A to do a rainbow flick. That’s it. But people keep messing it up.
You need to work to keep hold of the ball in Rematch. If you use your super-sprint power-up while dribbling, there’s every chance you leave the ball behind. The same goes for skills. While the humble sidestep can nimbly dodge a sliding opponent, you have to control the ball when it returns to Earth after your rainbow flick. It’s all well and good being able to do a little backheel chip over a defender’s head, but it’s useless if they can recover possession. And they inevitably do. Every. Single. Time.
I’m exaggerating, but only a little. I’ve played a decent chunk of Rematch now, between the beta and the full game, and I would wager that one in every ten rainbow flicks is successful. The rest give the ball away. If you’re able to’t be sure you’re going to beat your man (or woman) with your little trick, play the pass. This is a game that encourages movement on every loading screen; there’s always a teammate free.
I must admit, I’m not usually one for pragmatism on the pitch. I am in a constant argument with fellow FIFA Enjoyer and Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley about the ‘cheeky pullback’. I call it sweaty and boring, she calls it efficient. Back in my Ultimate Team days, I would always try to - yes - rainbow-flick-scorpion-kick over the ‘keeper just to flex. The difference in Rematch is that your fancy tricks don’t work.
Part of this is a skill issue, clearly. I’m only in silver rank - hardly the upper echelons of competition – and players are still learning the game. But ranked mode isn’t the place for that. We’re trying to win, we’re doing our part, I’m stuck in goal watching you flail around like Mr Blobby if he sat on a hedgehog.
But there’s a bigger problem than the rainbow flicks. It’s the players who try them. Let me tell you a story. I was in a match with a player named CRISTIANO RONALDO, all caps. It sounds too on the nose to be true, but I promise I’d make up something better if this were a lie. Every time he got the ball, he’d run straight towards goal. He’d shoot from the halfway line. And he’d try rainbow flick after rainbow flick.
Not a single one came off. It was as if each failed attempt gave him more confidence that the next one would succeed. The sunk cost fallacy buried itself deep in his brain and he was desperate to show us, strangers with no voice chat, that he could pull it off. Reader, he could not.
CR7 did manage to score a goal (celebrated with the customary siu), but it was a tap-in at the back post after a well-worked passing move from those of us trying to actually play the game. Did that provide an epiphany of how to actually play this game? No, back to rainbow flicks and rushing out of the goal to attempt to grab the glory.
I wondered briefly if my experience with this player had unfairly soured me on rainbow flicks, but the truth is clear. I played for another few hours, took a break, and then played some more. Rainbow flicks, performed by my teammates, my opponents, or even myself, rarely work. There’s simply not enough time or space in this game to pull one off.
Maybe I’ll find some pro rainbow flickers once I ascend to the higher ranks. Perhaps it’ll come with practice, a meta will emerge and we’ll start reading slide tackles better. Maybe Sloclap will improve the servers so lag is less noticeable and we can hit our tricks more accurately. But until that day, if you’re on my team, let’s get the basics right first, please. After all, Ronaldo would have been nothing without Modric and Kroos behind him.
