Winning matches in Attak Mode earns you fans, allowing you to progress to higher tiers that offer greater rewards for a victory. The process then repeats for the second half. Then your opponent takes a turn, playing a half against your defenders (controlled by the AI but following your tactics). Suffice it to say that you play half a match controlling only those times your team has the ball, trying to score as many goals as you can.
However, you can use a combination of the two for example, using the stick to dribble and then tapping on a teammate to pass. One very important thing to remember is that the stick and buttons override the tap controls, so as soon as you are on the stick, that’s in control. The stick is used to direct the player’s movement, while the buttons have context-sensitive roles on offense and defense: pass (blue), sprint & skill (green) and shoot (red) while attacking, and switch (blue), sprint & tackle (green) and slide (red) while defending. The alternative is to use a virtual stick and button combo.
This is a little trickier than passing but still not too difficult overall, and you should get the hang of it quickly. To shoot, you simply start on the player with the ball and swipe toward the goal, with the speed of the swipe controlling the shot’s power and the direction of it controlling … well, the direction of the shot. Passing can be done by either tapping on a player without the ball, in which case the current player will get it to him by ground or air, depending on the distance, or by tapping on a spot on the pitch to play a pass into space.
The important things to remember here are how to pass and shoot. Your team will operate this way by default. The first and most basic way is to let the AI control where the players move when they have the ball, with you stepping in to use taps and swipes when necessary. While we’d argue that FIFA Mobile still doesn’t quite deliver a console quality experience in terms of its actual match play, at least it gives you two viable options for controlling your team.