4-4-2 Box Midfield

It’s hard to believe it but it’s been almost fourteen years since the FIFA World Cup was played here in my home country. Thanks to a friend of mine (and his rich uncle), I was in the stands on 4 July when my beloved US National Team played against Brazil in the first knockout round. The Yanks had made an unexpected run in the group stage that included a shocking win over pre-tournament favorite Colombia. The lads put up a brave fight, but in the end Brazil was able to eliminate the USA 1-0. I left Stanford Stadium disappointed that day, but watching the Samba Warriors changed the way I view football forever.

The way they played could best be described as an orchestra. Individually, each instrument could create quality sound. Collectively organized, however, they produce beautiful music. Some criticized Brazil that year, insisting that all the creativity and attacking flair that had made Brazil so fun to watch over the years had been erased by that team. Many say that Brazil was, and indeed still is, too organized. For some reason, a large number of pundits and fans insist that Brazil run out on the field with no plan and throw 14 men forward and let their ball skills try and win every match. In the modern game of football, this is simply unrealistic. In fact, Brazil underachieved in the previous five tournaments, and for 24 years they watched other nations hoist the cup. It wasn’t until Carlos Alberto Parreira harnessed the natural creativity and flair of the Brazilian players and organized it into a framework that featured their skills were they able to win the World Cup once again.

When I began my real-life coaching journey, it was only natural that I researched the Brazilian tactics and style of play. Stacks of books and film occupy my shelf, worn from hours of study. When I discovered Football Manager, of course all of this heavily influenced the way I play the game. So this discussion will focus on Brazilian tactics and how to we can best implement them into our game.

1. Possession Passing Along the Floor – Brazilians don’t play a direct “hoof it up the pitch†style of football. They prefer a short passing game, and they generally don’t doddle on the ball. They try and minimize individual touches on the ball so that it is continuously moving. They consider the ball precious, so they don’t rush their attacks. The slow build-up of play is a trademark of the Brazilian style of play.

-Implementation into FM: Some basic settings to best help simulate the Brazilian style are simple: keep the tempo slow and the passing short. To make sure the ball stays moving, be very stingy with whom you give the “Run with Ball†instruction, and you may not want to set that instruction to “Often†on anyone.

2. Central Location of the Midfielders – This is not necessarily a universal principle, but with most Brazilian teams you will find that their midfielders are positioned centrally. Most of their 4-4-2 sets are ran with box or diamond midfields without outside midfielders or wingers. Brazilian 3-5-2 formations are actually more like a 5-3-2 with advancing wingbacks. The reason their midfielders are centrally positioned is so the flanks are there are for midfielders and fullbacks to make runs into. These runs are intended to help these players lose their marks and unbalance the defense.

-Implementation into FM: Simply position midfielders centrally. We will get into formations later on, but this is perhaps the easiest principle to translate into the game.

3. Overlapping Fullbacks – Brazil essentially invented the overlapping fullback, or at least they perfected it. This innovation was cemented into the Brazilian style of play by the late Claudio Coutinho, used by Brazil in the 1978 World Cup. If not for politics and the corrupt way in which the 1978 tournament was organized, Brazil probably would have won it, having not actually lost a game in the event. The reason overlapping fullbacks is so effective in real world football is because they often come darting from the back unmarked, receiving the ball in space and ready to wreak havoc.

Implementation into FM: There are a few ways to get your fullbacks to overlap, and FM 2008 is the best version in recent memory to recreate this. The first and most obvious way is with the forward run instruction. Set to this to mixed or often and your fullbacks will get into the attack. You can also give your fullbacks forward arrows, and this should get him into the attack as well.

4. Switching the Point of Attack – Brazilian attacks are typically very patient. They’ll try one side of the pitch and if that’s blocked, they’ll circulate the ball through to the other side. They will try the occasional one-touch lob to the other side, but generally they prefer to keep the ball on the ground and link up with 2-3 quick passes.

Implementation into FM: A little trickier than the other principles. The only way I have found to somewhat simulate it is set the passing to “Down both flanksâ€. The theory is, when an attack down one flank is stalled, the attacking team will try and swing it across to try the other flank rather than try and force an attack down the middle.

5. Receiving the Ball Away from the Direction it Came – If you watch a Brazilian playing, they will generally try to ensure that they receive the ball with their back facing the direction it came from. The idea is that this will allow the player to better read the situation and means his first touch will likely be away from the pressure.

Implementation into FM: Near impossible, really. The best way to try and replicate this is to set several players to “Try Through Balls†often or mixed, depending on passing ability. This way they are always playing the ball out in front of their target for them to run onto.

6. Zonal Defending – This is another principle that is not necessarily universally true, but most clubs and coaches in Brazil advocate a zonal defense.

Implementation into FM: Simple, set your players to zonal marking.

7. Compact and Tight Formation – The formation needs to stay short and tight, so when defending you have as many defenders around the ball as possible. You want reduce the space the opposition has to play with the ball. Generally speaking, there should 10-12 meters between the three strata’s of the formation.

Implementation into FM: You can keep your formation compact first of all by setting your width to narrow. This will also help with the short passing game. Secondly, setting your defensive line higher up will shorten your formation further reducing space.

The Brazilian 4-4-2 Box Midfield

The Magic Square. That is the phrase Carlos Alberto Parreira uses to describe his formation. Parreira used this formation to win the 1994 World Cup and advance to the quarterfinals of the 2006 World Cup, and it is arguably the most popular formation used in Brazil. If you pick up a rock in Brazil, close your eyes, and throw it, it will probably hit a 4-4-2 Box Midfield. It also happens to be the formation of choice of this author. Let’s discuss how to incorporate this tactic into Football Manager.

The Formation

The formation consists of a flat back four, two holding midfielders, two attacking midfielders.

This is the tactic as it looks in real life. Getting it to operate in FM is a little tricky due to the limitations of the position editor, but we can make it work. Let’s look at some variations we can employ in FM. For our purposes here, we will focus on where to position your players and leave out the arrows. First, we look at the setup the AI uses when playing a box midfield:

As we see, the midfield is arranged with two DMC’s and 2 MC’s. This is a good sound and stable formation, but let’s looks at some other variations. Below we see the 2 MC’s advanced into AMC positions:

You can become even more attack minded by advancing your DMC’s to MC positions:

One of the keys to getting the 4-4-2 Box Midfield to work in FM is to get your fullbacks to overlap into the attack. There are several ways to do this, as has already been discussed. But you can also move your fullbacks into wingback positions, this will encourage them even further to join the attack:

Now, you can imagine the things you can do with forward and side arrows, and you can see how versatile the 4-4-2 Box Midfield can be. Now, I don’t want to limit your creativity, but for the purposes of this installment we will focus on the following setup, which is what I am currently using and is the most basic version:

Offensive Movements

The 4-4-2 Box Midfield has several advantages in the attack. It leaves space in the flanks for fullbacks, attacking midfielders, and forwards to move into. In the following diagram, we see where play is advancing down the right flank. Notice how the fullback advances into the space, and the attacking midfielder has moved outside into the space:

This is how this principle works in real life. When the players have taken up position, the fullback has several passing options:

As you can see, the fullback has 3 short passing options. He can drop the ball safely to the DC (3), go down the flank to the attacking midfielder (7), make a central pass towards the holding midfielder (5), or if he wants to take a chance he can make the longer pass to the forward (10). As we look at one of my FM matches, we can see this scenario play out:

Here we see the fullback, Dunivant, with the options we laid out above. The only difference here is that the attacking midfielder (Cameron) is not quite as wide as we discussed, but given the proper specifications he will be wide on occasion. Dunivant has decided to play the ball to Cameron, who’s freedom to make lateral movement has allowed him to be free of any marker, wide open in space with ample time to make his next decision. This is a clear example of the advantage of having your midfield centrally located with no wingers. The central midfielders have freedom to roam from touchline to touchline to get themselves into open space.

Because we are playing without traditional wingers or outside midfielders, it will become necessary for our overlapping fullbacks to provide attacking width:

In the following screenshot from FM, we see that our fullback (Marcone) has received the ball on the flank in space and behind the defensive line of the opposition:

The formation has allowed him to exploit the open space, and has provided him the time to loft a dangerous cross into the box:

That Jozy drills into the back of the net:

So we briefly have seen some of the advantages the box midfield can give you in the attack. The short passing options are always in good supply with the midfielders all being located centrally and the fullbacks providing width. The lack of wingers allows the attacking midfielders and fullbacks to explore the flanks and open themselves up some space. Now, let’s move on to the defensive movements of the 4-4-2 Box Midfield.

Defensive Movements

The obvious concern most people have when they first look at the 4-4-2 Box Midfield is the lack of a defensive presence on the flanks. We see this illustrated below:

It is understandable to see this and be concerned. But I believe that this can actually be turned into an advantage rather than a disadvantage. I once heard famed college basketball coach Bobby Knight once say, “Make them shoot from the corners, it’s the hardest shot to make in basketball.†Certainly, this is also true of football. The farther out wide the shooter is, the more narrow the angle on goal is. So, conversely, the closer to the middle of the pitch he is, the wider the goal is. Therefore, it makes sense to aim to clog the center of the pitch. On the team I coach in real life, we call this area “The never ever ever let them shoot from there ever never ever zone.†Theoretically, congestion in the middle will force the opponent to either force passes to marked players, or play long hopeful balls across the pitch. In the following diagram, we see how the formation should move out to press a player who has received the ball on the flank against a standard 4-4-2:

As you can see, the middle of the field is well congested. The only man left open is on the other side of the pitch and our formation would have plenty of time to reorganize should the ball be played over there with one touch. Below is a pretty good example of how it works in FM, with the attacking midfielder moving out to pressure the ball while the other four midfielders clog up the middle. This forces the opponent to keep the ball on the flank:

One defensive principle of the Box Midfield that operates with and without the ball is the defensive diamond:

The basic idea is that of a see-saw, when one side of the formation advances, the other withdraws to offer defensive support. This advancing can be the attacking on a flank, or it could be one side of the formation pressuring to win the ball back. The movement should leave you with a diamond shape in the back, consisting of the weakside central defender forming the back of the diamond (almost like a sweeper), the weakside fullback and strongside central defender forming the corners, and the weakside holding midfielder forming the apex or the top of the defensive diamond. This principle can be difficult to replicate in FM because in my experience that weakside fullback wants to dart up the flank and the two central backs always want to play flat. But the idea of defensive support can be there in a general sense.

Personnel

The 4-4-2 Box Midfield can be adapted to many styles of football, but if you want to play the Brazilian way this is not a tactic you can just plug any player into. You need athletic players who can pass the football, and have a reasonably high work rate. Your fullbacks must be of the attacking variety, slow defensive specialists will not work since the Brazilian style calls for the fullbacks to provide attacking width and cross the ball.

But the formation does offer a distinct advantage when it comes to team building, and that is in the midfield. In a standard four man flat midfield, you usually have to find four distinct types of players. You have to look for a right AND left winger, and usually two complimentary central midfielders, one attacking and one defensive. And of course, you will need depth. So you have to find players who can step in to give the starter a spell or in the event of an injury. To go two-deep at every position, you will need to find 8 players total. With the box midfield, things are simplified a bit and all you have to find in the midfield are 2 attacking and 2 defensive midfielders. Depth is also easier to find as one of each will usually suffice.

When it comes to the midfield, sometimes it is difficult to find a midfielder who can “do it allâ€. For example, attacking middies that have world class skill at passing, dribbling, and shooting can sometimes be hard to find. So for a club who cannot bring in such a player, it can be advantageous to bring one AM who can dribble, and another than can pass. You can then set your instructions so the two players complement each other. The dribbler can be given a higher run with ball setting, while the passer can have his run with ball set to rarely but try through balls set to often. Similar principles can be applied to the defensive midfielders.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you haven’t seen the title of this thread hoping to find out how to play all out aggressive football because that is only the perception of modern Brazilian tactics, it is not the reality. Brazilian football these days is very organized, and very rigid, and very structured. I hesitate to say defensive, because it can still result in very beautiful, attacking football (as you will see in a moment). But you are going to win a lot more 2-1 games than you are 5-4 if you adopt this style of football.

I did not originally intend on posting any tactics files, because the intention of this discussion is not to spoon feed you tactics, but to guide you in the direction of the Brazilian style. I intended for you to take the ideas presented here and incorporate them into your own method for creating tactics. But ultimately, I decided to go ahead and present you with 3 tactics, 3 basic versions of the 4-4-2 box midfield. These will not guarantee success, and I offer them as a starting point only. Look them over and make what changes are necessary, because it is certainly true that not all players are right for certain instructions. If your attacking midfielder cannot dribble, don’t let him run with the ball. There are many examples I could make, but in today’s FM every tactic should be custom fit to your squad.

To use the tactics provided, I generally will play the Attack version at home or away games where I am heavily favored, and away games I will start with the balanced. The counter version is for when the opponent is coming at you hard. And, as an added bonus, I have included an Overload version for when the opponent packs it in or plays defensively after going a man down.

Also note that in the tactics provided, the defensive midfielder on the right is the more defensive minded of the two. He stay will back and support the defense; while the left sided defensive midfielder will occasionally make runs forward. This replicates the relationship that Mauro Silva and Dunga had in the box midfield for Brazil in 1994, with Dunga being the more attacking of the two while Mauro Silva laid back. Keep this in mind when setting up your squad.

The 4-4-2 Box Midfield

Goal Compilation

It's not great quality and there is no sound, but here you will find a compilation of goals I threw together using the box midfield tactic with my Houston Dynamo squad. You will see some good examples of the slow build up of play, free flowing football using the open space, and goals scored in transition from defense to attack. The final goal is the example I gave earlier with still shots, this time you can see it in action as Marcone whips the cross in for Altidore’s lethal finish. By the way, all those Brazilian names you will see is by design.

Joga Bonito

So the links didn't turn out right, but you can copy and paste.

By the way, this is an open discussion, so if you have ideas by all means, present them.

wow

i like this;in one of my games brazil won the world cup using this formation

i like my wingers so this formation never really appealed to me. but you have presented it in such depth and clarity, i may give it a bash this weeekend with my beloved liverpool. they hane no good wingers, so this should suit.

wow, what do you like more, rumba or samba?

DC DC FBR FBL DM DM AM AM FC FC?...like you said both AMC's are key as well as attacking minded full-backs. to implant this formation corectly, IMO, full backs need attacking mentality and FR set to often, all 4 players up front on free roles and very high creative freedom (for roaming around). one DM FR set to to mixed other to rarely. slow short style, all players set to RwB often, except both DC's and maybe one DM. crossing rarely for all players

top class post, anyway!!

Holy moly what a thread!!!..great effort..gotta be the most beautiful lookin thread ever.

Excellent thread unclesam, I remember when you did this on sortitoutsi

Great post Uncle_Sam

Well thought out explanation of the Brazilian style and one that could quite easily be set up with alot of the big clubs in FM and conceivably perform well.

I love the Brazilian style and will have to give this a whirl. I'm thinking that I'll give it a run with Manchester United, as they have plenty of quality players that theoretically would slot into the roles you describe extremely well.

Is there an award for best presented thread. This would win by a mile, and got some good stuff in there too

Being Scottish, I like my wingers too much to abandon them! But, you never know, one day, maybe!

Originally posted by Cleon:

Excellent thread unclesam, I remember when you did this on sortitoutsi

Aye, I do it every year

And I appreciate all the feedback, when I present a tactic I always try and do it in a way that I would enjoy if I were reading about someone else's tactic. Plus I steal bits and pieces from the brilliant threads I see here and around the scene.

I have tried this tactic but I couldn't really get the AM and the SC to run into space.(I'm tactically poor btw) They were quite static when I tried to implement it, so they usually clashed with each other on the field.

Putting side arrows made them drift out wide whenever I attack, and the AMC couldn't really function well as I can't find any AMC good enough to function on the wings and in the middle as well.

And yep, I got the idea of Box 442 from Sortitoutsi

Originally posted by rashidi1:

Holy moly what a thread!!!..great effort..gotta be the most beautiful lookin thread ever.

tell me about it. KUTGW dude

Originally posted by Uncle_Sam:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cleon:

Excellent thread unclesam, I remember when you did this on sortitoutsi

Aye, I do it every year

And I appreciate all the feedback, when I present a tactic I always try and do it in a way that I would enjoy if I were reading about someone else's tactic. Plus I steal bits and pieces from the brilliant threads I see here and around the scene. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You've certainly got the info across a lot better than previous years imo. Not bad for a yank after all

You still using this yourself atm?

Originally posted by Cleon:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Uncle_Sam:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cleon:

Excellent thread unclesam, I remember when you did this on sortitoutsi

Aye, I do it every year

And I appreciate all the feedback, when I present a tactic I always try and do it in a way that I would enjoy if I were reading about someone else's tactic. Plus I steal bits and pieces from the brilliant threads I see here and around the scene. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You've certainly got the info across a lot better than previous years imo. Not bad for a yank after all

You still using this yourself atm? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks.

Yup, winning a lot of hardware with Houston Dynamo of MLS. I've put together a squad that can run it beautifully.

Originally posted by lyw_85:

I have tried this tactic but I couldn't really get the AM and the SC to run into space.(I'm tactically poor btw) They were quite static when I tried to implement it, so they usually clashed with each other on the field.

Putting side arrows made them drift out wide whenever I attack, and the AMC couldn't really function well as I can't find any AMC good enough to function on the wings and in the middle as well.

And yep, I got the idea of Box 442 from Sortitoutsi

As I see it, and Uncle_Sam may correct me if I'm off the mark here, I would look for players able to play wide positions as well as the AMC role. Players such as AM.RC, AM.LC, AM.RLC should be comfortable more with the role of making wide runs.

Tell you what though, this thread is one of a number I've enjoyed reading in the last few months. This one follows in one sense, an ideology that I've worked with for a long time now, in that I develop or work with a tactic, then build the squad around it.

I'm not ashamed to say I download and use tactics presented by others in the forum, as well as my own creations. I think it's good to explore different options, of which there are countless possibilities available in FM08. Many posts such as this have opened my eyes to different approaches, some work for me, some don't. What I will say though is that there are aspects at least, of each tactic I've looked at, that have opened my eyes to something new that I can implement with my own preferences.

Thanks again Uncle_Sam for a great post that's been very "edu-taining"

Holy je**s Ch***t!!!

This has got to be the tactic on the web with the most tears, sweath and effort behind it.

It must be a crime not trying it out!!

Il certainly give it a shot as it looks good and you deserve it!

GOOD WORK M8!

Download link:

http://files.filefront.com/4+4+2+box+midfieldrar/;9771925;/fileinfo.html/1/1

some of the best well worked goals i have ever seen. and the football is just fantastic.

I know you will not care but this tactic works great on Fm 2007. I tried to implement these tacticz after reading your post and used the more defensive tactic. The football that is put on show is world class. I tried with my Freiburg team and it was like keep ball. This is all with Freiburg, who are not a team enriched with talented passers. I have had to make changes but that was always gonig to happen as i am on 07. Im sure you are not interested in football manager 07.

The goals on your video were outstanding. The second one would of won goal of the season every everyseason in the last 10 years.

Great post

love the thread uncle sam - one of your threads last year inspired me to research the box formation - i'm definitely a fan of it now

have tried to implement it with Zaragoza by using the same shape but with farrows on the RB/LB and AMC's - managed to get it working quite well but it was never really stable

will be trying these out soon hopefully

just had a click through them and out of interest why did you opt for 'pass down flanks'?

and have you tried pass through middle?

finally - what kind of rating do your DM's get?

Originally posted by bluenose1:

love the thread uncle sam - one of your threads last year inspired me to research the box formation - i'm definitely a fan of it now

have tried to implement it with Zaragoza by using the same shape but with farrows on the RB/LB and AMC's - managed to get it working quite well but it was never really stable

will be trying these out soon hopefully

just had a click through them and out of interest why did you opt for 'pass down flanks'?

and have you tried pass through middle?

finally - what kind of rating do your DM's get?

I have about 15 variations of the formation that I use, including the one you described.

As for my DM's rating, it tends to vary. One thing I have done when I've a DM who is a great distributor of the ball is to set him as a playmaker. This maximizes his touches and I had him getting 9s and 10s. He would was getting up and over 100 passes a game, which is what I wanted. Can't just do that with anyone though. Needs to have ratings high in passing, decisions, etc.

I don't worry too much about the ratings a DMC gets, because I think that midfielders ratings are weighted more towards their attacking input in FM08.

That said though, personally I've not seen the the consistently low rating that some people see, so might be down to their individual instructions.

Fantastic thread, i will make a new game to try this.

Uncle Sam:

Could i give my opinion (it's good) about using these ideas on football manager 07

Great post

I'm still marvelling at how well this thread was put together by Uncle_Sam, its a great effort. While others complain about how difficult it is to get a tactic working; the possibilities, if one understands how to use arrows/instructions, are amazing.

There are many variations to the 442Box midfield that you mention, and I'm glad to see that you have made it work for yourself. The box midfield is now much easier to do than it was in FM2007, and the defending is easier to manage.

I keep coming back to this thread because of the nice pics, you have put in a lot of effort and its good to see people excelling.

Originally posted by heathxxx:

I don't worry too much about the ratings a DMC gets, because I think that midfielders ratings are weighted more towards their attacking input in FM08.

That said though, personally I've not seen the the consistently low rating that some people see, so might be down to their individual instructions.

I've read threads where people complain about their DM's ratings, it's purely down to instructions. A DM is an anchor player and needs to be treated as such.

Uncle Sam

Great tactic,in my career game, I've managed to get Gloucester City promoted from the Blue Square South, using a variety and combination of various tactics, all of which produced a boring, "survival" type of play. Been in the Premier 2 seasons now, both of which I had to scrap to avoid relegation. The squad I've managed to cobble together has gelled to a degree, where with one or two more quality players I felt they were ready to start producing a better style of play, without having their butts kicked! Decided to take the plunge and introduce your tactic for season 3.

I'm halfway through the season now and although the team doesn't resemble Brazil in any way, the football produced not only looks good, it has given the team a nose bleed! Currently sat in 3rd position p20 w12 d5 l3 gf42 ga18 pts41 which is amazing for a small team with little resources, with a ground capacity of 13000!!!

Quick question, do you switch tactics in-game, dependent on situation - i.e. go a goal down switch to attack, even if the other team is heavily favoured? Or are you more patient and stick with the tactic which is relevant to the match odds when you start, hoping that the play will swing in your favour without switching?

I know it may sound a bit of a dumb question, but I've had relative success with both approaches and wondered how you as the creator of the tactic utilised your "creation"

Cheers for a superb tactic, which if managed in the correct way, out of interest, can be used on a smaller club without any superstars!

Originally posted by rashidi1:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by heathxxx:

I don't worry too much about the ratings a DMC gets, because I think that midfielders ratings are weighted more towards their attacking input in FM08.

That said though, personally I've not seen the the consistently low rating that some people see, so might be down to their individual instructions.

I've read threads where people complain about their DM's ratings, it's purely down to instructions. A DM is an anchor player and needs to be treated as such. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I haven't really noticed particularly low ratings on my DM's. In my season right now, both are averaging over 7. In my system, they sort of compliment each other. I have one who acts as a stopper in front of the back line, and the other who supports the attack more. I do pay attention to ratings, but to me results is what's important. Wins, points, trophies. The ratings are just an extra, although my entire first XI average over 7 right now.

Originally posted by Hot Dog:

Uncle Sam

Great tactic,in my career game, I've managed to get Gloucester City promoted from the Blue Square South, using a variety and combination of various tactics, all of which produced a boring, "survival" type of play. Been in the Premier 2 seasons now, both of which I had to scrap to avoid relegation. The squad I've managed to cobble together has gelled to a degree, where with one or two more quality players I felt they were ready to start producing a better style of play, without having their butts kicked! Decided to take the plunge and introduce your tactic for season 3.

I'm halfway through the season now and although the team doesn't resemble Brazil in any way, the football produced not only looks good, it has given the team a nose bleed! Currently sat in 3rd position p20 w12 d5 l3 gf42 ga18 pts41 which is amazing for a small team with little resources, with a ground capacity of 13000!!!

Quick question, do you switch tactics in-game, dependent on situation - i.e. go a goal down switch to attack, even if the other team is heavily favoured? Or are you more patient and stick with the tactic which is relevant to the match odds when you start, hoping that the play will swing in your favour without switching?

I know it may sound a bit of a dumb question, but I've had relative success with both approaches and wondered how you as the creator of the tactic utilised your "creation"

Cheers for a superb tactic, which if managed in the correct way, out of interest, can be used on a smaller club without any superstars!

Glad to hear about your success! And yes, I do switch between tactics during a match. If the other team is more heavily favored I will start out in balanced. If they're attacking hard and seem to be getting the better of the match, I may set the fullbacks' forward runs to rarely or perhaps even switch to the counter tactic. Note that the counter tactic doesn't actually have counter ticked, if you think you need to tick it, go ahead.

I'll also make other little adjustments in game, adjusting mentality and such. Eventually you get a feel for things and what needs to be done in-match.

I'll also make other little adjustments in game, adjusting mentality and such. Eventually you get a feel for things and what needs to be done in-match.

Very important with any tactic. If you play it for long enough, you're able to understand where things are going wrong and therefore improve them. Something we as humans clearly have the advantage over AI managed teams who's options are far more limited.

Which pitch dimensions are the best to use with this tactic? short, narrow, long, wide?

I was wondering what happens here

By peter_evo at 2008-03-10

was thinking wat type of Striker is left and right type. >_<

Played the attacking box tactic and in my first game was leading 5-0 at half time. Naturally I was elated with my lads, who then played dreadfully 2nd half which ended 6-3.

Awesome thread mate! Remember following your box tactic while playing 07, and it worked really well. Can't understand why I haven't tried it in 08... Tonight I will though!

someone add the link for this tactic please?

Check further up mate, link has been added!

Great thread, Uncle Sam.

Just wanted to add something between a curiosity and a further indication:

this is also the way Ac Milan has played all these years under Carlo Ancelotti. So if you want to recreate that tactic or if you just want another reference from real life football this could be useful.

Every remark can be applied to Milan's recent 4-3-1-2, from the one that won the 2003 CL to the last year one, which remarkably modified the tactic. The squad got older and they lost Shevchenko without properly replacing him, so Ancelotti last year changed his midfield from the famous "Gattuso Pirlo Seedorf Kaka" to "Gattuso Pirlo Ambrosini Seedorf", basically bringing Kaka up forward as a second striker. The squad was more defensive because Ambrosini is not exactly an AMC, but still he covered both defence and offense.

I think I'm going to try the box midfield in my effort to recreat Milan tactic, I always insisted in using 1 DMC (Pirlo) and two on the MC line (Gattuso and Seedorf, with very different tasks), but it might actually be more reasonable to place Pirlo and Gattuso as DMC and try the box (I repeat, everything you said about brazilian football is true as well for Milan, even the comparison between Silva-Dunga and Pirlo-Gattuso).

Hello Uncle_Sam. OK I started a thread on this but there is one apect of this formation that I don't Understand

By peter_evo at 2008-03-10

How would this be defended. Who would be moved. Also, would you even use this formation when coming up against the 4-5-1

Also, what tools did you use in your images, just out of curiosity.

Also, how would you defend against this

By peter_evo at 2008-03-10

I would like to know to help me see if my team are defending correctly

this is my new favourite thread

i am starting to use this formation on fm with milan i began with a tricky home game against roma, was winning 2-0 at half time, kaka then got red carded straight red btw, with just a minute of the second half gone, then roma scored 2 goals to equalise in 6 minutes i was well ****ed, then i dnt understand why i scored 4 more goals with 10 men amauri whom i bought off palermo €25m euros scored a hatrick for me, there something very arsenal about this tactic in the sense that with 10 men my team actually played better, hats off to amauri 4 goals on your debut aint too bad, also bout barzagli from palermo for €18m euros to shore up my defence, play kaladze as left back barzagli and nesta in the cb positions and oddo ad a rb, bought poulsen from sevilla for €10m as competition between gattuso-pirlo and him, akinfeev i also bought as competition for dida i layed out €20m for him from cska, iam after dani alves and possibly manual pasqual, marcelo or evra as left back, i sold ambrosini to palermo for €8m euros and loaned paloschi out to triestina!.so far so good but only played one game.

btw.. i have noticed by setting play down both flanks my players sometimes play the ball down the flanks to nobody so what i may do now is set everyones creative freedom to 5 notches from left and give kaka, pirlo and seedorf creative freedom of 10 notches from left! and see if that works if not i might change the balls down the both flanks setting.

Yea, you may want to set the passing to mixed or through the middle. The settings I have are not necessarily meant to be hard and fast.

I've also had success counter attacking with the attack version against the 4-4-2 long farrowed formation. I also might lower the mentality a couple of notches.

It would be very difficult to detail my in-match tweaking because I do so much of it.

Originally posted by peter-evo:

Also, how would you defend against this

By peter_evo at 2008-03-10

I would like to know to help me see if my team are defending correctly

What's going to happen in this scenario is your fullbacks will step up to mark the wingers. A holding midfielder (6 or 7, depending on which side) may also step out to create a pressure pocket. This will give you 2v1 on the flank and 5v4 in the middle.

Sam,

just wanted to know your reasoning for the following:

How come the striker who makes forward runs is also the one who holds up ball?

shouldn't it be the other way around?

Thanks,

wow