Ok, let's get on the same page here. The player animations can be interpreted in two ways.
Actually, no. They can be interpreted in only ONE way and that is whether they look real to life or not. I agree with the original poster, that the running and dribbling speed in PES are a caricature of reality: too fast, to chopped. Nobody in real football does mathematically correct 90 degree dribbling moves performed at lightspeed velocity. FIFA has the edge here IMO as the player movement is much more floating and the transitions are more gradual (please take note: I am talking about the player animations, NOT the ball physics)
The first is that people like the look of the FIFA animations better which is strictly a graphical/visual area.
Besides of perpetuating lame old concepts (of FIFA "graphic whores" versus the "real" football conoisseur of PES) that's only part of it. The way players move has an immediate effect on your gameplay. Why, for example does PES still so heavily rely on the super-cancel button for getting a player of its predefined path? Why do I have to press two cumbersomely arranged buttons in order to make a player STOP chase a throughball which I know will be intercepted, when the much more intuitive solution would be to just change his running direction with the d-pad or stick?. Not to mention that a really decent AI should have the player NOTICE that the ball will be intercepted and make him stop running in a useless direction automatically. What is natural about a CPU player running along an invisible track EXACTLY parallel to the side line for about half of the pitch, or exactly parallel to the middle line, just because the engine is able to only calculate in increments of 45 degrees? Were is all this a matter of only how things "look"?
The second meaning for animation is how the dribbling plays out because of the animation players in PES are tied to. This is simply a mater of opinion.
It's all a matter of opinion in the end, but like I said, the only thing the animation in PES is "tied" to, is the same old limited 45 degree directional model, which basically has been around since the good old ISSPE1 days on the PS1. Even a first release like "Football Kingdom" gives you more freedom there.
As for the meaning of gameplay, again we are on different pages. An example of poor gameplay is when the CPU controlled defense in FIFA sits back at their own box, then when you have the ball and cross a magical point on the pitch, the D comes after you. This has nothing to do with animations and fluid dribbling and sharp passing and all the other bs FIFA fans like to boast about.
I agree here, but it's not like PES doesn't have its own annoying particularities, now is it? One example is the continuing lack of any halfway intelligent off the ball runs by your wingers. They are still waiting leisurely on the sideline until your possessing player has crossed an invisible line in the BACKWARDS direction before they realize: "oh, maybe, I should now run into that wide open space there". This issue has been discussed a million times on forums such as this one, but basically Konami has not been arsed to tackle it one bit. Certainly, the OTB Control in FIFA is wrecked and over-complicated, but I remember an otherwise crap FIFA version (I think it was 2003) which had a very simple control for sending players into open space (by pressing the shoulder buttons) which worked out very good. Again, not even the slightest effort of Konami to better things there since god knows how many years. Mostly, because fanboys used to discredit any critique on their beloved game as a conspiracy by FIFA lovers and bestowed their mantra upon us that "Nobody needs to change something that's already perfect".
This is strictly a poor adaptation of the actual sport of soccer to a gameplay simulation on a video game and feels horrible when playing.
Your opinion. Maybe mine too. But there are still more people playing FIFA than PES. I am sure, in your view they are all dumb kids who have no clue of "actual soccer", as seen by a "semi-professional". BTW, i don't have to be a semi-professional to know a thing or two about football, or why did you feel the need to point this out?
Another gameplay deficciency would be when you are taking a corner and only three of your teammates are in a box, you pick one of them, play a silly mini-game and that's how a corner is taken. Agian, this has nothing to do with real soccer and simply feels wrong.
The corner system in FIFA is ****e. But for every ****e that FIFA displays there is about one that PES has to offer. And I am not talking graphics. Throw in system (in PES4 at least): a joke. Penalties: ludicrous, and always have been. Shots and headers in PES4 are occassionally totally random, and seem to depend on the score. I point a shot to the corner, yet it goes right at the keeper in the middle. I point a clearing header to the outside, yet the ball is headed towards the center and -- surprise! -- falls exactly in front of a CPU player. Still no ability to manually curl the ball from in-game shots (that is, not in set pieces). The through ball is still more subject to the wits of the CPU than anything else (Sure, there is manual passing, but who other than the total experts can use it in an even remotely useful fashion? Why not, like FIFA had it, have a pressure sensitive triangle-pass, which allows me to play the ball wherever I like?). The fact that every defender (even Terry for the love of god) is faster than your speedy wingers (Why bring in stats, when they don't play a role here?). The fact that the CPU doesn't lose stamina, while your team does. The "catch up logic" and the oh so "random" deflections, which, again depending on nothing but the score, magically bounce back to the CPU and try to weasly disguise the simple scripting which lies behind it all. PES4 has added some to this set of annoyances. The keepers who don't react to close shots. The enourmous gaps in midfield which are usually crossed by the CPU by one ore two pixelperfect passes. The hours it takes world class players sometimes to bring a simple pass under control. The fact that players are continuously downed by the CPU pulling shirts. The refs. The booking system. Advantage rule. The oh so realistic rebirth of players and the surfacing of the likes of Maradonna, Beckenbauer and Zico in current day ML teams you are playing against.
There is of course more. You know it. See, I am not commenting much on FIFA, basically because I haven't played it since 2003 (which sucked despite some good features) and PES is undoubtedly still the better package. But we should stick looking at the things we are actually playing and stop pigeonholing people for things we don't know much about.
, in PES the players act like a team, the strikers cross each other and try to find space to receive a through pass or to receive a cross. The defenders give each other back-up if needed, the midfield do their parts both in defence and attack. If there is a game where players don't run by themself then it has to be Fifa, it is nonscene to control 2 players at the same time, with one you have to try to not lose the ball and the other you have to run into a free space, I can't believe that people are still playing Fifa, while all of this are lacking and even worse they know that it is lacking. Another thing there are a lot of threads showing the good graphics of PES, the players look a like, the last time I saw Fifa the players looked like their faces were rotten or something. PES graphics aren't bad, the pixels are great etc. Each year EA promises a lot of new 'great' features but when you buy the game half of them are left out, every year they give you the same game, Fifa 04, Fifa 05 and UCL all look the same, if you look at PES you can clearly see improvements.
At last we,ve actualy found a PES/WE player (On this Forum), who is mature enough to give an honest review of the game, and Not just say that it,s Perfect then compile a list of about 20-30 reasons why Fifa,s 
