Originally Posted by
Narf
In my experience and going by the logic that you've explained - short passes would work better with non-flat formations and even more effective when you focus passing through a particular area of the field where you have a lot of players. Especially when you're playing through the middle as it would simply be dumb to focus all of your team on either of the flanks.
However, this doesn't mean that long passes couldn't be better in some of these cases. For example, when your opponent plays a formation with 5 men in the middle line (flat, ML, 3MCs, MR), then you are doomed to fail with short passes - it's better to try with long passes "above" them to reach your AMs or STs.