Every Pro Clubs team has one - the player who holds the ball too long, drifts out of position, ignores their defensive duties, and then goes quiet when it goes wrong. Maybe you've played with that player. Maybe, in some matches, you've been that player. Being a genuinely good teammate in Pro Clubs is more rare than being a technically skilled player, and it has more impact on your team's results.
The Selfish Player Problem
Selfishness in Pro Clubs takes different forms. The obvious one is the ball hog - the player who dribbles when a pass would be faster and simpler, who holds possession when a teammate is making a run, who shoots when a better-placed player is calling for it. But there's a subtler form: the positional drifter. This is the player who ignores their assigned role to go where they want to be - a striker who drops into midfield and removes themselves from the attacking line, a winger who cuts inside so often that the flank is permanently empty, a CDM who pushes into the box and leaves the space behind them for the opposition to exploit. Both types cost the team more than any individual player's skill can compensate for.
Doing Your Defensive Duties
The most common way attackers fail their teammates is by not tracking back. When you lose the ball in an advanced position and your team transitions to defence, you should be making the sprint back to contribute to the defensive shape. Not all the way to your own box every time - but enough to close the numerical disadvantage created by the turnover. Wingers and attacking midfielders who stand and watch the defence scramble while they wait for a counter-attack are giving the opposition a permanent numerical advantage every time possession changes hands. This is a choice, not a feature of your position. See how to defend in EA FC Pro Clubs for how tracking back properly integrates with your defensive unit.
Being Available to Receive
Being in a good position to receive the ball is one of the most important things you can do for your team, and it's completely invisible in the stats. If your teammates consistently have options to pass to, you maintain possession more easily, create better attacking patterns, and avoid panic clearances under pressure. If you're not making yourself available - ball-watching, standing flat, not adjusting your position as the ball moves - you're removing options from the person on the ball. Being available is an active task, not a passive one. You don't wait for the ball to be played then move; you move before the pass is played to make yourself a viable option.
Not Over-Dribbling
Over-dribbling is a trust issue disguised as a skill display. When you take on three players instead of playing a simple pass to an open teammate, you're communicating that you trust yourself more than your teammates. Sometimes that's justified - if you genuinely have the better option, go for it. But if the dribble takes you into a dead end, loses the ball, and puts the team on the back foot, the teammate who was free is going to notice. Over-dribbling wears down the trust and communication that holds a team together over the course of a season. Play simple when simple is the right call. It's not boring - it's what the team needs.
Playing Simple When the Team Needs It
There are moments where the team's collective need is for the ball to circulate, to keep possession, to reset - not for you to produce something individual. A teammate under pressure calling for the ball, a phase of play where your team has just won back possession and needs to breathe, a situation where going forward would put you in a trap - these are moments for the simple pass, the controlled touch, the recycled possession. Recognising these moments and delivering what the team needs rather than what feels exciting is one of the clearest signs of a good teammate. Read about when to pass vs shoot in Pro Clubs for the decision framework that underpins this.
Not Blaming Others When Something Goes Wrong
Something will go wrong. A goal will be conceded through a mistake. An attack will break down. Possession will be given away in a bad position. In that moment, the impulse to assign blame is natural and almost always unhelpful. Blaming a teammate in voice chat or through visible frustration fractures the team's confidence and focus at the exact moment you need to recover and respond. The best response to a mistake - yours or someone else's - is to get back into position and contribute to the next phase. That's it. Analysis of what went wrong belongs at half-time or after the match, not in the moment of a crisis.
Track Your Progress
Monitor your contributions on PROCLUBS.IO. Look at assists alongside goals - good teammates create as much as they score. Check pass accuracy as a measure of how clean your possession play is. And if you're tracking your average match rating over time, you'll find that consistently doing the right things for your team - tracking back, staying available, playing simple - builds a higher rating than individual brilliance that costs the team in other phases.