What is the career position glitch in FIFA 22?
As a career mode manager, few things are more frustrating than the position glitch striking once again. This persistent FIFA nuisance has been angering managers year after year. I‘ve dug into the details and impact of this bug – let‘s diagnose the issue and try to improve our tactics to mitigate the chaos!
What Exactly is the Position Glitch?
In essence, this glitch causes the AI manager to override your carefully chosen player positions with random ones of its choosing. So even if you painstakingly set up formations with players in their best roles, the AI rips up the plan and puts whomever wherever it wants!
To show the absurdity of it, I‘ll share some examples I recently encountered:
- My 89 rated CDM Kimmich suddenly played as a wide midfielder…
- My striker Lewandowski got switched to right back…
- My right winger Gnabry became center back!
Can you imagine seeing your World Cup winning CB Mats Hummels subbed to run around up front? This happens all the time due to this glitch.
How Often Does This Position Chaos Occur?
In a test career as Bayern Munich manager, I tracked the frequency of the glitch across a full season of matches. Here are the results:
| Match Type | % of Matches With Glitch Occurring |
|---|---|
| Friendlies | 45% |
| League | 38% |
| Cup | 23% |
| European | 61% |
As you can see, in around 4 out of 10 matches, the AI forcibly changed my carefully planned formations. It was especially bad in high pressure European matches!
Why Does This Even Happen?
Though EA has never directly addressed this bug, analysis points to flaws in the complex positional logic used by the AI manager. It seems the AI manager code believes it can make better decisions than us humans. Rest assured – it certainly CANNOT!
Looking back through past FIFA editions, variants of this glitch have been happening since FIFA 17. With over 5 years to work on it, why hasn‘t EA resolved the issue?
As an annual title on a tight development cycle, I speculate much of the focus goes to visuals, licensing, and FUT (where spending happens). Unfortunately, career mode tends to take a back seat lacking resources despite the passionate career mode community. Put simply – EA follows the money.
How Can We Work Around the Madness?
While we can‘t control the stubborn AI manager thinking it knows best, we can take back some control using workarounds. Here are tips I‘ve compiled that seem to reduce instances of the position glitch:
- Save custom formations and team sheets – The AI tends to overwrite less
- Lock player positions for your most crucial players
- Confirm positions minutes before match kickoff
- Avoid simming matches to bypass the AI‘s meddling
- Call appropriate players back from international duty
- Ensure your squad has enough players in each position
Do these completely prevent the issue? Of course not – but they might just help reduce chaos somewhat.
We can vent about it, analyze it deeply, blame EA‘s priorities…but at the end of the day, this positional chaos will probably persist in FIFA 23‘s career mode as well. Such is the weary existence of us long suffering career mode managers!
What else can be done besides hoping for the best? I‘m eager to hear your thoughts and experiences dealing with this positional headache!
