This is what we've been trying to do with Pure Football right.
I tried SP Football Life this year and it can do that straight out of the box.
Quite satisfying being able to walk the ball with your player instead of sliding it everywhere.
Yup, that's what Pure Football was aiming for. Sadly, is way more difficult to get it done in FIFA. That and the freaking defenders not defending are really what destroy FIFA, cause then the AI is a bit better and more customizable, and positioning is way better than PES, with players receiving the ball between the lanes, being more active in the sense of moving without the ball (yet they do run too much in general), but also, I still feel that the pitch is way smaller in FIFA, so it also helps that match pace is way worse.
I don't know, in general, I feel that each game has it's strong and weak points, and I'd need to rework some of my UFS values in order to make the game better, so that players can be a bit more reactive in defense, so that when playing in -2, cutting the other side is less effective. I'd also need to redo ball physics, since with the exe I am using now, it feels like the players actually don't control the ball properly. Lastly, I'd need to redo pressure and markings, cause right now is way too effective, and if I improve first touch passes and controls (which I need to do, yet with care to avoid them being op), ball fights in the center of the pitch might open up too much for goals, and concede too much goals.
Essentially, problem with PES is that it is not positional enough, and it needs to play more around posession, with teams defending more on block, either high mid or low block, instead of defendin so individual.
PES football feels way too much english, and from the previous century, and if you add to that low effort from defences, open shots, and high accuracy on open shots, you end up with players shooting from 30 yd alone and scoring bangers from out of the box minute 16 out of 90 (real time here), one match and again, or either getting the ball to their striker too easily cause players won't recover enough, etc. etc.
FIFA, on the other hand, has better positioning in general, but players are too lazy to follow marks (something that happens in PES aswell but not THAT MUCH), and ocassions being created out of nowhere.
So essentially, both games need a more solid defences, more difficult to surpass, but less adept to take the ball away from you, less do-or-die, and much more staying their ground and giving some space for the ball carrier to think, in the sense of not taking the ball away inmediately, but however being close enough as to avoid passes. All that, tied with a good, sensible and logical stamina system, where players ACTUALLY NEED TO MESSURE how much they sprint, instead of mindlessly sprinting all the time, and were users can have more contol over the speed of their players, with, and without the ball.
Problems we face is that we are limited on resources and values to change, specially in PES, even if it has a better base in terms of base speed/acceleration, player proportions to the pitch, ball speed, animations and animation blending, and all those things. As said, the amount of things to change in PES is way more limited, and in FIFA, is really difficult to find the key that makes the game behave as we want, and defence be much more of a group thing, trying to cut more passing lanes, being more active in the 1-on-1, following marks, etc., but without being running all the time, more from a positioning perspective.
Summing up... we are a little bit fucked. Yet we will keep on trying.