The author makes an unusual choice of words with both shorten pass directness and lower tempo.
Shorten pass directness means to make shorter passes. This also implies that you would need to make more of them to get to the goal. For example, if Player C is near the goal and player B is midfield, instead of making a long pass from Player A to Player C, you might make a pass from Player A to Player B, and then have Player B pass to Player C to score the goal. That would be an indirect pass from Player A to Player C.
Lower tempo means to slow things down, usually in a musical context, but I suppose it has the same meaning when applied to soccer.