Also I don´t really think FIFA 08 plays as real football. Same goals, same teams, a lot of stupid dribbles, wich you only use playing football in the street. Annoying camera angles, annoying runs (why they don´t let you choose to sprint with the player?)
It´s all about PES here to me. FIFA improved a lot, but stills a robotic game.
Really, you haven't played Fifa 08. And if you have, I doubt you have understood how it works. No offense, simply my thoughts. And I don't understand what do you mean by "same teams", really, it sound a little ridiculous how can you state "same teams" as a bad thing for Fifa.
Another thing I can't understand is why sprinting with R2 has to be worse than R1. Once you're used to it there's no problem. Besides, sprinting in this game is not the key, the key is knowing when not to sprint.
My advise is you let Fifa some more rounds against a friend (against cpu it can be fustrating at times at the beggining). I really was annoyed with the awful pes 2008. It's years pes was going the wrong direction for me, last one to blow me away was pes 3. So, I'm really glad Fifa has turned so so good. And it was just at the right time for me, because pes 2008 is simply unplayable from a simulation point of view. Tactically is the worst mess I've seen in a football game, simply horrible.