I hate first touch, I can't seem to get my head around it, but holding L1 when receiving the ball seems to help massively with it and my players are actually capable of holding the ball up.
Where i struggle is build up play, but like said above, I guess it is more like real life football, in that it takes an age to make a decent attack.
I always, always hold L2 to receive... not sure what L1 does but probably similar (it's the touchline dribbling rather than close control button)