When is a Tactical Tweak really a Tactical Change?

Whenever people start talking about tactical changes and tweaks on this forum, quite often there is a dichotomy between the responses. Some responses talk about changing tactics, others talk about tweaking tactics, yet the responders mean the same thing. There seems to be no common definition of either a tactical change or a tactical tweak. Let me offer some.

Tactical change:

This is where you change the formation and/or team set up. You may change from 442 to 531 or 424. Essentially, it is changing the way the team is set up and requires different players to make the new formation work. The change can be made during a match, or between matches, but it is a wholesale change in attitude and team ethos.

Tactical tweak:

This can be a substitution, a move from attack to defence, or (in older versions), changing the arrows. You don't need to change players to make it work, just their mindset. It would involve moving the sliders one or two notches, but nothing that would change the overall state of the team. An example is time-wasting at the end of the match. Not a major tactical change, but a short term tweak.

Comments and opinions please.

Yeah pretty much agree with those definitions, although would say tactical change wouldn't necessarily mean a change in formation, for example keeping 442 but going from long ball to short passing would be a tactical change

Yeah pretty much agree with those definitions, although would say tactical change wouldn't necessarily mean a change in formation, for example keeping 442 but going from long ball to short passing would be a tactical change

I'd call that a tweak as although it changes the nature of the passing game, it doesn't change anything major in the tactic.

Begs the question, though, of whether a change from offensive to defensive is a tactic change or a tactic tweak. I'd err on the side of tweak myself.

It changes everything in the tactic. Short passing and long passing require completely different set ups to work. Same for defensive and attacking, though to a lesser extent.

A "tweak" for me would be having my AMC take more long shots, or my full backs cross from the byline. A "change" would be things like going all out attack and using the wings more instead of playing a short, narrow, conservative game.

Perhaps this debate would be better suited to T&T?

Perhaps this debate would be better suited to T&T?

Possibly. But if it's in there, how many general readers will find it, which was an aim.