Can you play Xavi like real life?

I am asking that since Xavi in my game rarely makes more that 30 passes...Am using him as deep lying playmaker with very short passing....

Is there any chance to get those kind of players be REAL playmakers with lots of passes??

Have him roam, or click free role, and make sure that he is the playmake that the team uses. Also if you have an attacking tactic, the team is going to look for goals before looking to give the ball back to your deep playmaker. Try slowing your tempo, it might help.

I guess tactics would be the most obvious answer (maybe liberal usage of the retain possession shout?). He averages about 40 passes a game for me and I don't usually like to play him the full 90 because of fitness/discipline. I think one of the issues with playing as Barcelona in FM is that they're ridiculously good. I checked the player stats page for La Liga and none of my players are in the top 100 for distance covered and in real life Xavi covers like 11-12 kilometers a game. He has high workrate in FM, but it hardly shows.

I am asking that since Xavi in my game rarely makes more that 30 passes...Am using him as deep lying playmaker with very short passing....

Is there any chance to get those kind of players be REAL playmakers with lots of passes??

I use the same settings as you Alekos and I am also having similar problems. I mean my LB Abidal often gets 20-30 more passes than Xavi!!!

play with slow tempo.

Yes, I'd say you can.

Have got Paul Scholes playing as he does in real life, so Xavi shouldn't be much different.

I use the same settings as you Alekos and I am also having similar problems. I mean my LB Abidal often gets 20-30 more passes than Xavi!!!

100% same...Abidal usually makes around 60 passes...

I am using very slow tempo and lot of time wasting since I want to have ball possession(I have around 60% in every game)...

Has anyone of you got Xavi making over 70 passes or from a similar playmaker?

I really can't see at the end of the match Abidal and Dani Alves having more passes than Xavi...Also I have focus play through the middle so it is still weird....

100% same...Abidal usually makes around 60 passes...

I am using very slow tempo and lot of time wasting since I want to have ball possession(I have around 60% in every game)...

Has anyone of you got Xavi making over 70 passes or from a similar playmaker?

I really can't see at the end of the match Abidal and Dani Alves having more passes than Xavi...Also I have focus play through the middle so it is still weird....

Do your players have an attacking mentality?

If so they will look to pass the ball forwards rather than being more patient looking for backwards or sideways options. You have Xavi as a deep playmaker therefore all his passes will come from defenders once he passes it forwards its unlikely he will see it again for the duration of that attack.

I use the same settings as you Alekos and I am also having similar problems. I mean my LB Abidal often gets 20-30 more passes than Xavi!!!

Same problem with Fabregas for me at Arsenal. I put him as playmaker, slow tempo, control, pass through middle, retain possession, very short passing, high creative freedom, etc and he still completes only about 20 passes compared to 30+ by Clichy per game.

I haven't played as Barcelona yet on FM11 but on FM10 it took a lot of tweaking to get Xavi to play lots of passes. It is very hard to get your team to have 60% or more possession per game and is one of my biggest problems that I have with FM that even when you absolutely dominate the match and create 20 chances to 0 the possession is still 55/45% which to me is very unrealistic.

set him as a playmaker would see him get the ball alot more often, maybe hold up the ball too

Do your players have an attacking mentality?

If so they will look to pass the ball forwards rather than being more patient looking for backwards or sideways options. You have Xavi as a deep playmaker therefore all his passes will come from defenders once he passes it forwards its unlikely he will see it again for the duration of that attack.

Philoshopy is balanced...Otherwise I think you cannot play like RL Barcelona...Also even I have to all players shooting rarely they keep shooting rather than giving the ball to Xavi he is the most of the time free of marking and in better positions...I agree also with samba23 that possession is a problem most of the time...With that kind of strategy I use with Barca I should have most of the time around 70% possession like IRL but am around 60%....

What is your width set to? Maybe focus the ball through the middle too and don't make your full backs push up too much so they are in a position to get the ball all the time. They get the ball all the time because they are usually the unmarked players when a team attacks.

Try the "take a breather" shout.

I do manage to get players playing like Xavi without much fuss.

Finally: don't get caught up too much on the number of passes he makes. At the end of the day, does it really matter?

Philoshopy is balanced...Otherwise I think you cannot play like RL Barcelona...Also even I have to all players shooting rarely they keep shooting rather than giving the ball to Xavi he is the most of the time free of marking and in better positions...I agree also with samba23 that possession is a problem most of the time...With that kind of strategy I use with Barca I should have most of the time around 70% possession like IRL but am around 60%....

Is that team philosophy or player mentality?

Like I said the more attacking the mentality of a player the more he will look to play forwards rather than sideways or backwards.

As for the shooting, players shoot when they lack options which points to a bigger issue. I suspect this is your passing orders - you say they are set to "very short" this is the passing range and if there are no players within that range they are forced to ignore the instruction. Widening their passing range while not rushing them will help them to pick out passes better and give them more options.

EDIT

Mentality also affects passing risk so the more defensive the mentality the safer the passes the player makes, a more attacking mentality will see him try riskier balls.

Mentality is defensive for defenders and for the rest are around normal...Focus play throught the middle and for full backs instructions are to stay back...

Check the following stats from my last game...

The red cards occured after 88th minute so they didn't play any role on total possession...

Again full backs have the most passes here(Puyol had the most!!??).....

The team stats suggest the opposition played defensive keeping men behind the ball restricting your passes. With a lack of options the pass available most often was to an available fullback or it was a choice of taking a long shot.

I suspect your goal came fairly late in the game as the opposition tried to hold on for a point but even if it didn't they left it late before making a last ditch effort to take a point.

In terms of players I would be concerned that Xavi as your playmaker has only one key pass while other players have more, this along with his high pass completion suggests he isn't being given the right orders to allow him to slice open defences.

Yes, I'd say you can.

Have got Paul Scholes playing as he does in real life, so Xavi shouldn't be much different.

Would you like to enlighten us as to how you achieve this, rather than just say yes it can be done, as that does not really help.

Try the "take a breather" shout.

I do manage to get players playing like Xavi without much fuss.

Finally: don't get caught up too much on the number of passes he makes. At the end of the day, does it really matter?

It doesn't matter in terms of win, draw, loss, no, but then neither does any aspect of style of play. If you want to recreate Barcelona's style of play as accurately as possible then having loads of passes is part of that.

It just seems odd to me that in real life the 'top teams' will regularly chalk up over 400 passes a game (in Barcelona's case change to 500) yet in FM11 breaking the 300 barrier requires seems t require using quite extreme passing, tempo and width settings, whereas on FM10 you could comfortably pass the same mark without adjusting anything that was given in the tactics creator if you picked the right options.

Although I do disagree with the guy who was saying it's difficult to have high possession figures, I regularly get 60%+ possession on the demo, it's just it takes low passing figures to do so.

Would you like to enlighten us as to how you achieve this, rather than just say yes it can be done, as that does not really help.

It offers hope.

I've done nothing that isn't done by using the tactics creator.

The team stats suggest the opposition played defensive keeping men behind the ball restricting your passes. With a lack of options the pass available most often was to an available fullback or it was a choice of taking a long shot.

I suspect your goal came fairly late in the game as the opposition tried to hold on for a point but even if it didn't they left it late before making a last ditch effort to take a point.

In terms of players I would be concerned that Xavi as your playmaker has only one key pass while other players have more, this along with his high pass completion suggests he isn't being given the right orders to allow him to slice open defences.

Well I don't really agree with that...It is supposed that the defensive team usually has a fair amount of possession but in this case they were just throwing the ball away because I used to close down their defenders..That's why I had 71% possesion..I am very happy with my possesion but they problem is, as shwayne said, it is impossible for a team to make more than 300 passes in any game so I assume that's why Xavi can not make lots of passes because the game doesn't leave him to...

I would like a respond from the creators telling me if something like that(I mean above 300 passes) can be achieved...

Another match that I totally dominated but still the most passes were from the full backs...I used contained startegy, pass to feet, play narrow, play safer...My full backs mentality was 5 notches from Defensive, Creative Freedom little, Run from deep rarely...

Here are the stats from this game:

Seems something is wrong....

Also all of my players had long shots instruction on rarely but as you can see most of them were outside the penalty area.....

my DR and DL regularly get the most passes in my team, which i find slightly odd as surely wide players would usually get the ball less, no?

The AI seems to have cracked it. For a CL match against Rangers, 64% possession, 88% passes completed (team), Xavi 72/84, Busquets 38/45, Mascherano 42/45, Dani Alves 37/40, Abidal 48/52. Seems realistic to me in terms of overall possession, number of passes by Xavi, completion percentages and passes by midfielders in relation to the full backs.

The AI seems to have cracked it. For a CL match against Rangers, 64% possession, 88% passes completed (team), Xavi 72/84, Busquets 38/45, Mascherano 42/45, Dani Alves 37/40, Abidal 48/52. Seems realistic to me in terms of overall possession, number of passes by Xavi, completion percentages and passes by midfielders in relation to the full backs.

If I got it right your opposition was Barcelona?

No. I'm playing as Arsenal. I just clicked on a random Barcelona game in the CL. I have no idea how the AI manager managed to get Barca to play like that.

Surely you need to get Xavi in positions further up the pitch. So, use slow build up and, say, control mentality, then set Xavi as an Adv. Playmaker, not DLP, and set his Roams from position to Yes. Set his runs with ball down to rarely, and his runs from deep to rarely, his mentality to a few notches higher than the team and his creative freedom even higher. Finally, set him as the primary playmaker. I think that should do it, but I cannot test it right now.

I think I've nailed the, "can you play like Xavi/Barca" thing.

I love Barca and Xavi and have spent hours and hours and hours in previous FM's trying to replicate their style...failing miserably in each of the last I don't know how many versions of this game.

Now though, after a fair bit of testing and just spanking Roma 5-0 (Messi hat-trick), I think I've nailed the right set up.

So yes, in THIS version of FM, I think it can be done.

I play a formation like this

---------*--------

*----*-----*----*

------X----*------

P-------M-------I

--------D---------

I've marked where I play Barca's key men.

Xavi is set as a DLP (support), normal (10) for mentality and 15 for creativity.

Everything else is set as 'rarely', other than through balls, which is set to 'often'.

Also set roam from position to 'yes' and set to zonal marking and no tight marking.

Xavi is now passing the most out of the team (not by miles as Dani Alves and Abidal seem to have loads of pases?) and lots of key passes/assists.

Key points for the team set up.

Fuild

Control

Short passing

Press more

Push up - first notch of, no higher

Narrow - last notch before normal

Slow - 2

Messi is set to Attacking Midfielder (support) but I've clicked run with ball and run from deep to 'often'

I've had some very good results possession-wise with my set up, usually at least 60% and far more attempts at goal than the opposition.

In my last game (friendly against Roma), the team had 17 shots to Roma's 1, which was off target.

5 clear cut chances, which were all taken.

However, 11 shots were long range, which annoys me as I've got everyone on 'rarely' for long range shots - this was a pain in last years game too.

Though I assume that anything out of the box is considered a long range shot and having looked again at the stats, I think this is the case.

What was pleasing though, was that 4 out of my 5 goals were from inside the box and no shots were from silly distances, like previous versions, so in my opinion, I'm actually thrilled with FM11 as it's by far the closest yet to allowing the playing to replicate Barca's style of play.

I think I've nailed the, "can you play like Xavi/Barca" thing.

I love Barca and Xavi and have spent hours and hours and hours in previous FM's trying to replicate their style...failing miserably in each of the last I don't know how many versions of this game.

Now though, after a fair bit of testing and just spanking Roma 5-0 (Messi hat-trick), I think I've nailed the right set up.

So yes, in THIS version of FM, I think it can be done.

I play a formation like this

---------*--------

*----*-----*----*

------X----*------

P-------M-------I

--------D---------

I've marked where I play Barca's key men.

Xavi is set as a DLP (support), normal (10) for mentality and 15 for creativity.

Everything else is set as 'rarely', other than through balls, which is set to 'often'.

Also set roam from position to 'yes' and set to zonal marking and no tight marking.

Xavi is now passing the most out of the team (not by miles as Dani Alves and Abidal seem to have loads of pases?) and lots of key passes/assists.

Key points for the team set up.

Fuild

Control

Short passing

Press more

Push up - first notch of, no higher

Narrow - last notch before normal

Slow - 2

Messi is set to Attacking Midfielder (support) but I've clicked run with ball and run from deep to 'often'

I've had some very good results possession-wise with my set up, usually at least 60% and far more attempts at goal than the opposition.

In my last game (friendly against Roma), the team had 17 shots to Roma's 1, which was off target.

5 clear cut chances, which were all taken.

However, 11 shots were long range, which annoys me as I've got everyone on 'rarely' for long range shots - this was a pain in last years game too.

Though I assume that anything out of the box is considered a long range shot and having looked again at the stats, I think this is the case.

What was pleasing though, was that 4 out of my 5 goals were from inside the box and no shots were from silly distances, like previous versions, so in my opinion, I'm actually thrilled with FM11 as it's by far the closest yet to allowing the playing to replicate Barca's style of play.

Well Barcelona is not playing excactly like that..They use 3 midfielders and one of them more defensive(Busquets or Mascherano) than the other two...But as you said in your tactics you made him simulate his real life play which worries me and makes me wonder if the game cannot use the playmaker as we want if we use a defensive midfielder...A team that played against me had the same tacticts as you mentioned(at least formation) and their MCR had the most passes...As you they didn't have a player at DM position....

Just tried the formation and style you mentioned but still Xavi had only 31 passes and Abidal 74....

i play a balanced style, short passing, creative, control strategy often, retain possession. i let fabregas run forward often, and reduce long shots, so he is more involved in build up play and gets more of the ball in the final third

Set through balls, long shots and cross ball to rarely for most of your TEAM. This will make them get the ball on the floor and play a patient build up. Reduce run with ball and runs from deep so NO ONE is set to often on anything and reduce creative freedom and set hold up ball for your midlfield and forwards.

The AI absolutely seems to know how to do it.

Barcelona - Mallorca 4-0.

Possession 71-29%

Xavi: Passing 110/116: Distance 10.0 km, 3 assists!!

so we just use the cheat to see how the ai plays him and copy it. simple

So anyone saw any change after the patch??

Wonder spend too long trying to get him to play, his physical stats deteriorate so quickly that he won't be in the first time in 2 seasons anyway

The AI absolutely seems to know how to do it.

Barcelona - Mallorca 4-0.

Possession 71-29%

Xavi: Passing 110/116: Distance 10.0 km, 3 assists!!

That's rubbish. I've watched AI controlled Barca games of any kind of opposition, home and away. They play terribly, Xavi gets 40-50 passes tops, fullbacks are still the top passers in the team. Possession is also terrible, never got above 55%, quite often below 50% as well. So, no; the AI doesn't know how to play Xavi or Barca either. Actually, noone knows. The match engine just can't handle it apparently.

Xavi can't play like real life considering he'll be suspended after 2 yellow cards.

xavi can't play like real life considering he'll be suspended after 2 yellow cards.

loooooooooool!