A Beginner’s Guide To Winning

Rematch, Sloclap’s new football game, is already a huge hit for the independent French developer, with more than 1 million copies sold and over 3 million unique players jumping in to try the game days after it launched.

Part of its success comes down to how accessible it is, whether you’re a football veteran or a newcomer to the pitch. With no fouls, offsides, or practically any of the regular rules of football that exist in professional play, it’s easy for anyone to pick up the game and start running the ball to the net.

If you are a newcomer though, you might want a few tips to help you score a goal or two so you can secure the win before the game’s clock winds down.

This guide will take you through five beginner-focused tips that will help lead you to the winner’s circle practically every time.

Rematch – A Beginner’s Guide To Winning

Pass the ball.

Realistically, based on how I see the Rematch community playing when I jump into a game, whether it’s a ranked match or not, this whole guide could just be the words ‘pass the ball’ repeated again and again.

It’s become a meme within the game’s community that players try to rainbow kick around every opposing player, and are seemingly shocked when it doesn’t work out two or three times in a row, leading to a scoring chance for the other team.

Passing is a fundamental element of team sports, football being absolutely no exception to that fact. Even in an arcade version of the game, where the ball bounces off a holographic wall and lightning bolts shoot out of your feet when you hit that ‘extra-effort’ button to run a little faster, passing is still paramount to how you play the game.

Passing can help you move the ball forward by sending the ball towards your teammate who is open ahead of you on the pitch. It can give you a wide-open net to shoot at by forcing the keeper out of position. It can help you maintain possession and control the pace of the game by passing to a teammate behind you.

You can do more with your teammates than without them. Pulling off a solo-effort where you make the other team look foolish and cap it off with an acrobatic goal via rainbow flick or other means can make for a nice clip, but you’ll be unsuccessful more often than not. And it’ll never look as smooth as a great passing play where multiple players touch the ball before it hits the mesh.

If you’re not able to see where your teammates are because of where your camera is pointing, try to glance at the mini-map in the bottom corner of your screen to get a sense of where they could be. Hogging the ball is more likely to lead to a turnover, with the opposing team heading the other way. At least if you try to pass, even if it misses, you’ll have an opportunity to keep possession and direct the flow of the game.

Crank your FOV to the max

A simple way to give yourself a better chance at winning on the pitch is being able to see more of the game. Adjusting your FOV slider to the max does just that. Sloclap’s commitment to its focused, third-person gameplay means you won’t be able to see the whole pitch, but if your running up the side and have your camera angled slightly in front of you, you’ll be able to see the majority of half the field.

Use the boards (walls)

Part of Rematch’s arcade elements is the fact that the whole pitch is encased in invisible holographic walls. These are there partly for show, since you can unlock customization features for them, but they’re also a key element of gameplay.

‘Use the boards’ is a mantra I heard time and again growing up playing hockey, and now that there’s a version of football that has walls that serve the same function, it’s just as viable here. There’s even an achievement for passing it off the wall to a teammate to get a goal.

That’s the obvious way to use the walls for offense, but don’t forget them when playing defense as well. If you’re chasing the ball into the corner on your side, launching it high and off the wall towards the opposing teams side can take the pressure off and give you a chance to recover if you’re trying to wind down the clock or just put an end to heavy offensive pressure that’s gone on too long.

Manage your stamina for offense and defense

As much as Rematch is an arcade football game, it’s not so arcade-y that you can sprint for infinity across the pitch. You have a stamina meter you have to watch, and just holding down the sprint button will leave you out of breath and unable to help your team, no matter the situation.

That’s why it’s important to watch your stamina and to use your ‘extra-effort’ sprint as tactically as you can. For example, you’d be smart to use your extra-effort sprint after moving the ball up the field to your teammate, in order to be ready in a scoring position for a potential cross or rebound.

Likewise, you’d also be smart to use the extra-effort sprint if there’s suddenly no one on defense and the ball is quickly turned over and going the other way. In either scenario, you’re better off using it when you don’t have the ball. When you do have the ball, activating that extra-effort sprint will cause you to lose control as you kick the ball ahead of you. If you don’t press the A/X button to dribble the ball, you run the risk of accidentally running past the ball and losing possession.

Use your regular sprint when you have the ball and want to maintain control. If you want to give some space between yourself and an opposing player, you can use your extra effort to kick the ball ahead of you, to set up a pass or a shot with your next touch.

You also don’t have to use your slide tackle at every turn, and not using it constantly will help keep your positioning and keep your stamina bar full for when you need to use it in more desperate situations. Holding the left trigger on your controller to be in defensive mode, and just tapping the B/O button will help you keep your positioning and prepare you to stop a player from trying to just rainbow kick the ball over your head.

Practice

Lastly, the best thing to do to help you win as many matches as possible is to just practice. The prologue and the practice section of the menu have drills that can help you master different skills in the game, and while those can be helpful, it’s also important to take some time in the free play mode you get into from the main menu, to run around the pitch and work on your skills.

Work on your dives as a goalie by firing the ball above the net against the wall and diving towards it. Do the same outside of the keeper’s box to practice the timing of your touches and corralling the ball as it comes towards you. It’s not ideal that you have to essentially make up your own drills to practice scenarios you’d face in a game, but that’s the state of play for the moment. For now, we can only hope that Sloclap will add a better practice mode and better drills in the future.

Following these five tips and guidelines in Rematch will help you win nearly every game in Rematch. It’s not a guarantee, of course, but after all, it’s football, not rocket science. Passing, playing good defense, and making good use of your environment will lead to strong scoring chances and the chance for you to boot the ball into the back of the net for a goal. See you on the pitch!