Smallen's Barcelona-esque 4-3-3

Hi there,

This is the first time I've felt comfortable that one of the tactics I've made is good enough to be shared, so if you're interested getting Messi to score 50 goals a season, or you want Barca style football, please give as much feedback as possible and I can use it to improve the tactic

This isn't just some 'plug in and play tactic', it requires know-how from yourselves on how to transform the tactic during a match to gain an advantage.

Now the tricky thing with Barcelona style tactics is achieving the right amount of passes. It's impossible with the way the match engine currently is, so I've not even attempted to improve that aspect of the tactic. In theory though, with the way this tactic is designed, players like Xavi should be playing 80+ passes a game (should, not will).

I've managed to get possession sorted so that you shouldn't ever experience the frustrating scenario of having less of the ball than your opponent. Pass completion is also very high as a rule, with this tactic achieving 80%+ completed passes 99% of the time.

Match preparation is obviously very important. Whilst your team is still learning the tactic, I'd have it on attacking movement and set to very high. Once the bars on your match preparation screen are all full, you can afford to move the slider down to the very low setting. Obviously, once pre-season comes around again and the bars start to regress, you'll have to switch the slider back up to very high until the bars are full again.

Now down to some screenshots:

These are the results from the first full season I started using the tactic:

http://img534.imageshack.us/f/fcbarcelonabarcelonafix.png/

http://img684.imageshack.us/f/fcbarcelonabarcelonafix.png/

http://img13.imageshack.us/f/fcbarcelonabarcelonafix.png/

The games missing off the bottom are just a couple of league game wins and the CL final (which I won. Only on penalties though )

Now many of you will say 'oh, but you've had a couple of seasons to sign players and build your squad'. In truth, yes I have. Rooney, Hulk, Chiellini, Thiago Silva and Paulo Henrique now often figure in my starting XI.

Even with that though, to win the league playing lovely football and without losing or drawing is still pretty good imo. I've also had to cope with the decline of previous world class players Carles Puyol, Xavi and David Villa. Players like Abidal have also had to be replaced due to their decline. What else was I meant to do?

This is the league table from the first full season of using the tactic:

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/407/ligabbvainformationleagi.png

This is the formation and team instructions:

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/7255/fcbarcelonabarcelonatac.png

'OMGZ! Barcelona don't play a direct passing style! '

No, they don't. The reason I've got it set like that in the team instructions is that it alters the tempo and width of the tactic. This is important, as I like to use shouts. Also, I try not to manually change the tempo, width and defensive line sliders. If I do that then when it comes to changing from an attacking mentality to a control mentality, it doesn't fully affect these areas, which obviously isn't what I want. I have manually changed the passing instructions of each player to fit a more Barca like passing style.

Now, in this tactic, the central of the three strikers is played as a trequartista. You would normally associate this role with a player who scores not so much and tries to assist the main striker more often. However, in this tactic, he is your main goalscorer. I use Messi, and this is how he played:

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/6361/lionelmessihistorycaree.png

Player roles

Goalkeeper - Defend

Fairly simple really. Just need a good goalkeeper. The likes of Adler, Neuer, Akinfeev are all good examples of the type of player you should be looking at for this role.

Right Wing Back - Attack

He'll be going up and down the flank all game and is effectively your main wide outlet.

Needs good off the ball, pace, acceleration, stamina, work rate and dribbling.

Centre Backs - Defend

Personally, I like centre backs that can play football such as Pique, Thiago Silva, Muniesa. Being able to pass is a vital part of the tactics. Players with low passing and creativity won't be as good, but I suppose it's not vital.

If you're managing in Spain like I am, it's not too important to have two big centre backs who have massive jumping attributes (my first choice ones have 16 & 13 for jumping).

Because the tactic involves such a high defensive line and using the offside traps, it's important for them to be quick and have good intelligence.

Left Back - Defend

This guy is unlike the other full back as he is used primarily as a defender. At times he can almost act as a third centre back. Abidal works well enough, but he is ageing, so I brought in Chiellini, who is the perfect example of what you should be looking for in this position. Danny Wilson would also have the right sort of attributes to play here.

Needs similar attributes to your centre backs. Doesn't have to be great going forward as he is a defensive player.

Advanced Playmaker - Attack

Now you have an option here; you can play this guy either in an attacking role, or you can play him in the more deep lying role. Personally, when I go two or three goals ahead, I change him to deep lying playmaker on support.

Needs excellent passing, creativity, decisions, agility and off the ball. Preferably right footed as well. I use Iniesta for example. Nuri Sahin could play this role, as could Toni Kroos, Andrea Poli and other similar players.

Ball Winning Midfielder - Defend

This player drops very deep to fill the void between the defence and midfield. Keeps it very simple and will more often than not be the midfielder with the most passes (not actually intended in the tactic, but works well enough). I like to use Busquets here over Mascherano, mainly because he's Spanish, but also because he's a better ball player.

Needs good positioning, marking, stamina, decisions, work rate and team work. Tackling helps, but isn't an absolute necessity.

Central Midfielder - Attack

This is my main problem area of the tactic. Usually, this player ends up with one of the lowest average ratings over the season in the team, so any help with this area from you lot would be appreciated.

I use Paulo Henrique, and he comes up with some excellent games, but more often than not only gains a rating between 6.9 and 7.2.

Needs good stamina, movement, decisions, passing and creativity. Preferably left footed.

Advanced Forwards - Attack

Now the left and right sided forwards play the same role in the team and have the same instructions, so I'll discuss them in one go.

From testing the tactic, it's pretty important to have a left footed player on the left, and a right footed player on the right. If you don't have a left footed player and have to play a right footed player on the left (or vice versa), then change his wide play setting to 'cuts inside'.

Needs excellent pace, acceleration, dribbling, finishing, anticipation and off the ball.

Trequartista - Attack

This is the Lionel Messi of your team. The goalscoring creative spark who you rely on to win you matches when it looks like the rest of your team is out of ideas. He will drop deep, almost into the midfield at times and get the ball and run at the other teams goal, either supplying the advanced forwards with a killer pass, or going for goal himself.

Needs pace, acceleration, dribbling, flair, creativity, finishing, off the ball, composure, anticipation

As a whole, the team need good attributes in technique and first touch too.

ppms you should be teaching them

RB - Gets forward whenever possible

CM - Plays short simple passes, dictates tempo

RCM - Looks for pass rather than shot, tries killer balls often, comes deep to get ball, dictates tempo

LCM - Tries killer balls often, comes deep to get ball, dictates tempo

STCR & STCL - Likes to break offside trap, places shots

STC - Runs with ball often, runs with ball through centre of pitch, comes deep to get ball, plays one twos, likes to round keeper, places shots.

During the match

There isn't much scope to go more attacking in this tactic if you're behind unfortunately. You'll just have to rely on your more creative players. One thing I have done is move my right back up to either the wing back or right midfield slot (as a winger at RM) and moved his crosses ball up to sometimes. That can sometimes help to create more opportunities.

When you go 2 or 3-0 up, it'd be wise to change the mentality of the tactic down to controlled or standard. This often helps you keep possession of the ball better an helps you see out the game, whilst also having your creative players on the pitch to still create chances. Shouts such as retain possession and play ball to feet can also help you dictate the tempo of the game better once you're comfortably leading. I've also read in other tactics thread that changing the tactic and not keeping it the same the whole match stops the AI from figuring it out so quickly.

Press conferences

Now I try to attend every one of these as I'm under the impression they're a lot more important to team performances than people think. The second top answer is normally the best one, but there's some questions where it isn't. Just try and be honest and think of what Wenger/Sir Alex would say!

Pitch Dimensions

Maximum seems to work best, which would make sense considering the tactic used lots of width and a very high tempo which looks to exploit space.

Opposition Instructions

I just let my assistant manager do this. Try to make sure his tactical knowledge is greater than 15 and he should do a good job

Team Talks

Never ever ever ever say pleased at half time. If you're winning 6-0 at half time, just leave it at none. Pre-match use 'you can win tonight' for teams you're favourites against and for the fans against rival teams only, otherwise the players get bored of hearing it by the time a rival game actually does come round. If you're expected to lose, use 'you can win tonight' or 'wish luck'. After a win say pleased and then delighted for those 8.0 and over and disappointed for anyone who was significantly worse than the rest of the team (usually under 6.5). After a loss/poor draw say 'disappointed' and then 'angry' for any players who were significantly worse than others (usually under 5.7)

Link:

http://www.filefront.com/17784460/Smallen's Barca 4-3-3.tac

So yeah, give it a try and see how you go. It's not going to work wonders straight away, but please post in here if you have any problems with it. I really want to improve it, as it'd be awesome to get a good Barcelona style tactic.

No one tried this yet?

Some results:

I'm trying it with Arsenal right now, mixed results. I turned off transfers so the squads are the same all round.

Drew 2-2 with at Liverpool (13 shots, 2 CCC's), drew 0-0 at home to Blackpool (18 shots, 3 CCC's)m won 1-0 away at Blackburn (18 shots, 1 CCC) and lost 1-2 at home to Bolton (12 shots, 1 CCC, they has 2 shots, scored both)

So yeah, mixed completely, was going well in pre-season, granted against poor teams, but still, not good enough.

Have since lost 3-1 at Dinamo Kiev (18 shots, 1 CCC), 0-1 at Sunderland (13 shots, 1 CCC, they scored a 93rd min FK)

hmm those are some pretty poor results. Who did you have playing in the three strikers positions? In my testing with Arsenal, I have Arsharvin as the trequartista, Van Persie/Vela on the left and Walcott on the right. Each of them seemed to score loads. Also bought in Rossi to either operate in the centre or the left. I'll do some more serious testing with Arsenal and let you know how I get on.

Some good away results you've achieved it seems, but really poor home ones. What did you set the pitch dimensions to?

Also, try moving the central striker's long shots to rarely, as I've realised that works better

I've had Vela/Walcott on the left, RVP in the middle, and due to injuries, Sunu/Deacon on the right. (Deacon actually has 3 in his last 2 games). I'll limit RVP's long shots, as he has been hitting alot of them, can't remember my pitch size, and don't know if I can check anywhere.

Last few results have picked up, 3-2 home win against Bristol City (14 shots, 2 CCC's), 3-0 at home against WBA (19 shots, 5 CCC's) and 5-0 at home to Cluj (16 shots, 4 CCC's, RVP hat-trick).

First result was a 2-1 away win against Bolton. They only scored because Diaby is poor and gave a penalty away.

Second game a 2-0 home victory vs Birmingham. They had one shot all game - parking the bus was an understatement.

Everton away next, which should be more of a test

added some more stuff to the OP

my team is manchester united

i like it .. results are good

pleased to see someone having some success

New results;

Important matches;

Wayne Rooney

very good tactic congratulations

38-0-0 wins and 120 - 10 goal difference looks pretty awesome I think I'm gonna give this a try if I start a new Barca game.

I guess you haven't tested it with weaker teams so far?

with barcelone it's simple to win did you test your tac with a weaker team or in an other champ ? with a medium team like sunderland or benfica ,porto , OM, LOSC , Schalke or any team like that ?

this is a great tactic.messi scores loads but what about the wide fowards.they dont seem to be scoring that many?also how well did xavi play for you.doesn't seem to be getting enough touches of the ball .i play him in the advanced playmaker role

with barcelone it's simple to win did you test your tac with a weaker team or in an other champ ? with a medium team like sunderland or benfica ,porto , OM, LOSC , Schalke or any team like that ?

I'm testing with Arsenal at the moment. It's not really built for lower teams, but if anyone wants to try it with lower quality teams and provide feedback, that'd be great. Arsenal testing is going ok so far. I'm second in the league to Man U and top of my CL group.

this is a great tactic.messi scores loads but what about the wide fowards.they dont seem to be scoring that many?also how well did xavi play for you.doesn't seem to be getting enough touches of the ball .i play him in the advanced playmaker role

Thanks. I will try to work on the other two strikers for a new version. The only thing is, it might sacrifice some of the goals coming from the central striker. Which would you prefer? More goals from the central striker, or less goals from the central striker and less from the wide ones?

Regarding the playmaker, there's not a lot I can do about how much he gets the ball. Central midfielder involvement is poor in the current match engine, and there is a lot of defensive focus on marking the more creative players out of the game. I will see what I can do though and try to improve that area

Smallen, I downloaded your tactic to have a look in a few matches in my Barca save (early second season).

IMO, the Advanced Playmaker (Xavi) was more involved after removing his roaming and changing his wide play back to normal. It helps even further if you lower his RFD to rarely and restore the middle MC (the Ball-winner) back to his default mentality.

Since I love symmetry, I've copied the DR's instructions to the DL and MCL is the same as MCR. I like how the tactic works then.

FYI, this is the line up I've used:

GK - Valdes

DR - Alves

DCR - Pique

DCL - Puyol

DL - Tremoulinas / Maxwell

MCR - Xavi

MC - Busquets / Fontas

MCL - Iniesta / Thiago

STCR - Bojan / Aguero

STC - Messi

STCL - Villa / Muniain

thanks for the feedback yonko. I'll test a few games with some different instructions for the RCM. I've already changed his runs from deep to rarely and reduced his mentality for version two

How happy are you with the front three in your tactic? If you like to tweak it and make it better then I recommend the following thread which I'm participating in: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/250341-strikers-off-ball-and-RUN-FROM-DEEP

I must admit that your tactic inspired me to use a true 4-3-3 formation such as yours and to try to recreate Barca's trio real life behavior.

i would rather all 3 score a good amount and not just the centre foward scoring all the goals. this just means that if one has an off day than the others can step up

I think you'll get the other two scoring more if you switch Messi's through balls to sometimes. I have, anyway. Unfortunately, it seems to reduce Messi's goal threat considerably

smallen i have a tactic of yours you posted in a possession thread do you still belive in that tactic or is this your new philosophy on things

it's a similar tactic in terms of team and player instructions, really. There are a lot of differences in terms of formation and mentality though. This one is more about results, getting the central striker (Messi) to score loads and good football rather than exactly replicating Barcelona, which I was attempting to do in the tactic in that possession thread.

This tactic is better in terms of results, scorelines and stats, so I use this nowadays. I'm still developing it though, and there should be a version 2 out soon. Just sorting out consistency.

Smallen, I don't mean to highjack your thread but I have taken the tactic you originally posted and added my own tweaks to it. In attack it looks very much like the real Barca this season, defensively the pressing is not quite there maybe, but my defense is very solid despite that - I average 3.6 goals for and 0.3 goals against in my second season around January. As I said before, some of my tweaks have made the individual instructions symmetrical, other tweaks have changed substantially how the front three operate. Not that there is anything wrong with your front three, but I just felt inspired by you to try a real 4-3-3 and had a little bit different vision how to make it bring me success. In addition to scoring a lot, I manage to average some good numbers for possession % and pass completion, which I've found it hard with other tactics. Maybe it is because I have very good team chemistry, I don't know.....judge for yourself:

GK - Valdes, Pyatov, Mino

DR - Alves, Montoya

DL - Tremoulinas, Maxwell

DC - Pique, Puyol, Bartra, Muniesa

MC - Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Thiago, Afellay, Fontas, Romeu, Dos Santos

ST - Messi, Pedro, Villa, Aguero, Bojan, Muniain

If you are interested, I could PM you some more details of my tweaked version, rather than posting directly here, to give you some interesting ideas in case you want to improve yours. Or if you permit, I could share more details directly here - it's up to you.

wait until I release version 2 yonko, then see what you think of that. I have changed the front three significantly to balance the goals out a bit more. The midfield has also been changed a bit, to get them performing better (Iniesta performs much better in the central role).

Like you, I also prefer symmetry, but I am also trying to keep the tactic at least similar to Barcelona, which means that the left back has to be more defensive than the right wing back. Admittedly though, in version 2 the midfield is quite a different shape to Barcelona IRL

it's a similar tactic in terms of team and player instructions, really. There are a lot of differences in terms of formation and mentality though. This one is more about results, getting the central striker (Messi) to score loads and good football rather than exactly replicating Barcelona, which I was attempting to do in the tactic in that possession thread.

This tactic is better in terms of results, scorelines and stats, so I use this nowadays. I'm still developing it though, and there should be a version 2 out soon. Just sorting out consistency.

ok mate thanks for the reply I'm at a stage where I'm just trying to replicate the possession i have been using your possession tactic for about 6 games now so its still early but its looking postive, i have dowloaded this new tactic of yours and will give it a try in the cup games, oh ps please dont give up on trying to replicate barcelona

thanks mate. I'll work on a separate tactic for release (I'll put it in this thread too) emulating Barcelona as close as I can get. The results might not be as good though

wait until I release version 2 yonko, then see what you think of that. I have changed the front three significantly to balance the goals out a bit more. The midfield has also been changed a bit, to get them performing better (Iniesta performs much better in the central role).

Like you, I also prefer symmetry, but I am also trying to keep the tactic at least similar to Barcelona, which means that the left back has to be more defensive than the right wing back. Admittedly though, in version 2 the midfield is quite a different shape to Barcelona IRL

No problem, my friend, I will wait then. Speaking of Barca's tactic IRL, this season Abidal/Maxwell have license to get forward and contribute in attack from left-back position just as much as Alves on the right IMO. Dani is simply more creative and better technical player than both Abidal and Maxwell, hence why he appears to play differently and with more freedom.

I would also like to share with you that I've found the creative freedom slider for each player to be very important in the way my tactic is working at the moment. It's better to stay within the Normal range for most players while only the front three having the lowest click of High.

No problem, my friend, I will wait then. Speaking of Barca's tactic IRL, this season Abidal/Maxwell have license to get forward and contribute in attack from left-back position just as much as Alves on the right IMO. Dani is simply more creative and better technical player than both Abidal and Maxwell, hence why he appears to play differently and with more freedom.

Think you're right to a degree. Abidal/whoever's played at left back has had a lot more licence to go forward. I'm not convinced they have had quite as much as Alves though, but I get your point. It remains to be seen how they use the left back in the big Champions League knock out games. I have a feeling they may go back to having almost a third centre back for those. We'll see though.

I would also like to share with you that I've found the creative freedom slider for each player to be very important in the way my tactic is working at the moment. It's better to stay within the Normal range for most players while only the front three having the lowest click of High.

funny you should say that as I've noticed that myself recently. I've changed the philosophy to a more rigid one to suit the distribution of creative freedom. Messi already has full creative freedom by default from the trequartista and I'll have a look at the other two.

Main thing that's concerning me now is getting a right footed player to work in the left striker slot (or vice-versa). Any ideas?

Think you're right to a degree. Abidal/whoever's played at left back has had a lot more licence to go forward. I'm not convinced they have had quite as much as Alves though, but I get your point. It remains to be seen how they use the left back in the big Champions League knock out games. I have a feeling they may go back to having almost a third centre back for those. We'll see though.

funny you should say that as I've noticed that myself recently. I've changed the philosophy to a more rigid one to suit the distribution of creative freedom. Messi already has full creative freedom by default from the trequartista and I'll have a look at the other two.

Main thing that's concerning me now is getting a right footed player to work in the left striker slot (or vice-versa). Any ideas?

Yeah, we have to wait and see how Barca play in the big CL games. Against Arsenal, Abidal will have to be more defensive against Walcott at least in the first away leg I guess.

Regarding lower Creative Freedom, I have manually changed it for each players, while keeping the Attacking strategy and using Fluid philosophy.

http://zapodaj.net/fed79a27e0f8.jpg.html

FM11? pach 11.3?

Well it only works real ass

Great tactic! it works well and goals comes are distributed across all the strikers

though the strikers should learn to pass more, at times when it's a 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 situation, strikers choose to shoot instead of passing to the open player