7 Rematch tips to help you hone your football skills

Sloclap's hotly anticipated football 'em up has finally hit the pitch, and it's proving to be as nuanced as it is popular. You can queue up for a match only minutes after booting it up for the first time, but after playing a lot of Rematch myself, I highly recommend first getting a sense for its fast pace and slew of keybinds far away from any peeved teammates spamming the 'Good job!' emote.

If you're serious about sharpening your football skills, you should also check out our guide to how Rematch ranks work before you start trying to work your way up through the leagues. Now then: Here are a few tips to chew on for your first few matches and beyond.

Make use of workshops and free play

Rematch kicks off with a very brief prologue that speedily reviews all the controls, and you might confuse that for the whole tutorial. It's definitely not. There are actually a lot of learning resources tucked in the main menu. On top of a longer, more involved tutorial, there are several workshops—small minigames that give your mechanics a rigorous test—that helped me adjust to the game’s unique control scheme. It’s easy to understand dribbling past a defender in theory, but having to keep the ball away from a few bots in a small arena will ensure you know the timing in a practical setting.

Free play, on the other hand, is a great way to test various sensitivity settings, key binds, and input methods without the chaos of all that footballing. If you haven’t tried out both, it’s worth seeing if you’re more comfortable with a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad.

Misdirection is key to scoring a goal

It’s a cliché at this point, but Rematch isn’t won by flashy plays from all-star MVPs. When you're taking a straight shot at the goal, the defender has every advantage: not only do goalies get infinite stamina, they’ll also have plenty of time to react to any but the cheekiest of shots. With that in mind, look for your teammates as you approach the goal. If any of them are open or asking for the ball, it's often prudent to trust them with the shot. Even if their shot isn’t perfect, getting the drop on the goalie may give them the edge.

To further make defenders' lives hell, you can use the invisible walls around the field to pass and pressure the goalkeeper. Be sure as well to shape all your shots with the mouse or left stick to give it a misleading arc.

Use the rainbow flick sparingly

If you aren’t aware, pressing A with the right bumper (or just hitting C on the keyboard) will perform a rainbow flick, sending the ball with your heel into an overhead arch. It’s a tricksy motion that can trip up anyone trying to steal or even delay your shot enough to fool a goalie, but it also leaves your ball highly vulnerable to anyone who sees it coming. Because it trips up new players, it's easy to lean on it as a crutch; once you become predictable, opponents will be waiting to intercept your ball out of the air.

Any given technique has a counter, so mix it up and keep opponents on their toes. It's not exactly rock paper scissors, but mind games go a long way in Rematch.

Pass, pass, and pass again

Whenever your team has possession of the ball, defenders will be trying to control space and steal. The longer the ball is with a single player, the more time your opponents have to close gaps in their defense and block incoming shots. The nimbler your team is with the ball, the harder it will be to anticipate where it’s headed next; and a player will never move on their feet faster than the ball can sail through the air. Think of players more like nodes where the ball can be possessed rather than vehicles to get the ball to the goal all on their own.

Part of this is being ready to receive; it’s a tight timing window, so be ready to hit the "push ball" key to make sure you’ve got a hold of it. When you’re the one passing, don’t forget you can lob the ball overhead or even pass behind you without turning around. It's usually better to make a safe pass toward your own goal than to risk a turnover.

Communication wins games

Even if you forego the circus that is voice chat in a competitive online game, there are plenty of ways to talk to your team. The most crucial of these is performed with a click of the right stick (or middle mouse), which will cause you to call out and ask for a pass. So long as you aren’t hammering the button, it’s a great way to let whoever’s got the ball know who’s open. Trying to dribble past a pack of defenders is chaotic and distracting, so a timely ball call can inject some necessary clarity.

If you’re trying to climb to Elite rank, enabling voice chat will probably go a long way in establishing good rapport with your pubs. With that said, the ball call will take you very far in the heat of a match.

Save your extra effort sprint

Players in Rematch can jog, sprint, or use an "extra effort" sprint. Regular sprinting drains your stamina, but extra effort uses a smaller, separate resource that’s crucial to keep in mind. It might be tempting to go for it anytime you need to close distance, but it telegraphs the period right after where you'll be slower than anyone with extra effort readily available.

It also empowers your shots and passes, so don't be afraid to save it for when you need to mark a wide-open opponent or you're taking a desperate shot at the goal. Just be wary that when extra effort sprinting with the ball in your possession, you push it farther in front of you than normal, so don't lose hold of it or let anyone swoop in for a turnover.

Practice in 3v3 and 4v4

If you want to climb the ranks, you'll be spending all your time in 5v5. It's the most intense and elaborate mode, so that tracks; but because there are nine other players, your individual agency in the match is diluted. If you want to improve your passing, scoring, and defense all in a single match, 3s and 4s will shove you into the spotlight more often and give your mechanics a rigorous stress test. Once you're more confident in your muscle memory, it'll be easier to focus on tactics and positioning in 5v5.

If you haven't gotten your cleats dirty yet, you can buy Rematch on Steam.