First of all, I might be wrong because I haven't tried out all the possible tactics relative to this. I have noticed that if I instruct them to play direct football or high tempo football, in both cases players choose to hit long balls at the earliest opportunity. But in some cases I want to transition with short passes at fast pace. With shorter passing and higher tempo, players still hit long balls every time. It becomes totally unplayable when I don't have a tall forward as target man