Passing Trouble

Hello everyone! This is my first post and I have played FM202 for quite a few hours now. I stumbled upon the game and really enjoy it. The issue that I'm having is that I cannot seem to stop my players from playing long balls. There are open players near them but they still seem to try and hammer the ball down the pitch. I have pass into space turned off, and I have my tactic set to most direct to try and stop them from the long balls. The issue with the long balls is that my players are never there to receive the ball so every time we get the ball and they try a long ball, we turn over possession. In games I have watched on Youtube, players don't seem to have this same problem even with the tactics that I have chosen.

What can I do to stop my players from making this passes so that we can try and retain possession?

I presume you mean least direct not most direct...?

What mentality are you playing? Do you have counter highlighted? What is your tempo?

Yes, you're correct. I relaunched the game to double check. When I have it set to use the shortest passes, they still launch the ball down the field and lose possession. I usually play on a defensive mentality and rarely above a positive mentality. I do not have counter on, and my tempo is set to the lowest setting as well.

Presume then you have a stretched formation as it sounds as though your players have few short passing options and with a lower risk mentality are hoofing it up the pitch as the safest option.