After 30-40 matches with the full version, this might be my biggest issue - I've been playing cup competitions and lower quality teams are playing like Man City, with lots of beautiful first touch passing moves that, like
@Placebo said, I can't do anything about.
I do see variety in how they build out of the back, but once they arrive in the final third, every team can keep possession and succeeds at first touch passes. And it seems like all teams prefer quick passing - while I'll see wingers go on runs when they get behind my backline, I don't think I've hardly seen an attacking CPU player attempt a difficult dribble - they rarely try to take you on in 1-on-1 situations.
And quite frankly, the AI can be shockingly poor at times. The amount of space afforded CPU players is a problem, leading to these easy passing moves even by lower quality teams. Overall, I feel like I concede too many goals that I have no idea what else I could've done but the CPU attackers were just so wide open.
Meanwhile, defenders are so concerned with dropping deep and maintaining formation that they don't apply pressure like they should, making counter attacks too easy. I've had too many dribbles that start on the midway line and the CPU doesn't bother to close me down until the top of the box.
In attack, the CPU is way over reliant on low crosses from the wing. And it's like even the CPU knows that headed crosses never happen, because they are nearly always going for the low cross. I too have yet to see the CPU attempt many (and?) long shots.
For my own team, man I'm getting frustrated by my teammates starting runs only to stop after I've passed the ball. Again, it's like the AI players are so afraid of being caught out of position that they are making poor contextual choices. A great example is that in one of my recent matches, my fullback was wide open in the box for an easy shot, but he abandoned that space to run back into position, so my pass went to a defender. That's nuts - no footballer is going to just run away when he finds himself unmarked in the box!
So much to love but I'm really struggling with tons of frustration at the moment.