Is this unrealistic and is there a club who actually does this?

I was thinking about using a formation with 3 at the back but it just seems to be a bit unrealistic.

I know Manchester United played 3 at the back against Fulham a few seasons ago but that was only for one game due to injuries.

Is there actually a team in real life who play 3 at the back every game?

Your the manager, do what you wish.

you mean 3 CB and no Side Backs? or 3+2=5? in both cases I am sure that there are. in the first case though the side midfielders would help defend

Three defenders isn't a common formation in the UK but teams like Lazio for example regularly use three DCs I believe.

Iran national team did it for a while as long as i can remember

3-5-2 and it's defensive variant 5-3-2 were very popular formations in the '90's and early 2000's. The problem with the formations (IRL) were that they gave very little play out wide (essentially you were playing with either 2 full backs or 2 wing backs) and had to have something special to unlock the middle.

Now they go for what is euphamestically called a 4-3-3 formation (mostly a defensive 4-5-1 rarely an attacking 4-5-1, which gives more defensive solidity but is very stultifying and mostly dependant on opposition mistakes for victory).

Uruguay played 3-4-3 at the world cup if im not mistaken

Three defenders isn't a common formation in the UK but teams like Lazio for example regularly use three DCs I believe.

What I was planning on using was 3 cb's without a rb or lb. Perhaps a 3-4-3 formation but I didn't know if any teams used this in real life as I like realism. Is this the formation Lazio used? It would take a brave manager to use this haha.

Uruguay played 3-4-3 at the world cup if im not mistaken

Really? If so I would feel much more at ease using this formation. I'll just have a sneaky look on t'internet to make sure

Napoli plays like this. So did Mexico at the world cup.

What I was planning on using was 3 cb's without a rb or lb. Perhaps a 3-4-3 formation but I didn't know if any teams used this in real life as I like realism. Is this the formation Lazio used? It would take a brave manager to use this haha.

ATM Lazio and Napoli use variations on this formation (well according to World Soccer). But to go for the locus classicus (indulge me for my big word fetish) you'd have to look at the Beckenbauer lead Bayern Munich of the late '60's and early '70's. If you have mobile centre halves and four good box to box midfielders this could be very succesful as a formation.

Didn't Liverpool play 3 at the back in the second half of that CL final?

But yeah, 3 at the back has been out of favour for a decade at least. In the 80s there were loads of variations on 3-5-2/5-3-2, often using an anchor man/libero.

Celtic used the 3-5-2 formation as recently as 2003 and got to the Uefa cup final using it.

This was how the team and formation looked back then.

Gk: Rab Douglas

Rwb: Didier Agathe

Lwb Alan Thompson

Cb: Johann Mjallby

Cb: Bobo Balde

Cb: Joos Valgaeren

Cm: Paul Lambert

Cm: Niel Lennon

Cm: Stilliyan Petrov

Cf: Henrik Larsson

Cf: Chris Sutton

Liverpool have often played three at the back. We did against Chelsea and beat them 1 - 0.

Didn't chile do it also at the world cup? or am I mistaken?

Liverpool have done it a few times this season. Done it a few times since Kenny has taken over and it's worked pretty well.

Didn't chile do it also at the world cup? or am I mistaken?

I think i can remember them playing 3 at the back

you really want to go old school realism

2-3-5

you really want to go old school realism

2-3-5

The original and best, where centre halves were for scoring and only two players defended.

Unless Whittingham reverted to his old (2/3 years ago) fullback position, Cardiff played three on the back again Middleborough.

Didn't chile do it also at the world cup? or am I mistaken?

I think i can remember them playing 3 at the back

Bielsa's base tactic always starts with three DC's v's any formation using two central attackers, although when the opposition play only one central striker then one of the CB's steps up into midfield. Mexico use a similar system, except theirs works in a slightly different manner. When Mexico have the ball the central DM drops back to CB to form a three man back line and allow the FB's to go forward as much as possible. When they lose possession the DM steps back up into midfield, the FB's retreat and form part of a back 4.

Whoever mentioned three-man back line formations being unusual in the UK is correct. It was different 15 years or so ago when wingbacks were all the rage, but despite it being rare in the UK it's still a commonly used set up in other parts of the world.

egypt recently have played that formation very sucsefuly for years, winning back to back african cup of nations dominating the competition against arguably better nations. They played 352 with 3 centrebacks who were very good on the ball and played a short passing game

Play the kamikaze formation that Japan played in the 1930's: 1-3-6. They lost 8-0.

I was thinking about using a formation with 3 at the back but it just seems to be a bit unrealistic.

I know Manchester United played 3 at the back against Fulham a few seasons ago but that was only for one game due to injuries.

Is there actually a team in real life who play 3 at the back every game?

seen many italin clubs using it ..

Egypt national team win CAF 3 times using it , as all clubs in egypt use it too

unfortunately in FM match AI is not tested in such formation , as your wing back will not attack as they should be .. so i advice you not to use it

Celtic used the 3-5-2 formation as recently as 2003 and got to the Uefa cup final using it.

This was how the team and formation looked back then.

I actually just cried a little bit. What an immense team that was. However, I would suggest that Thompson and Agathe were more sside midfielders than wing backs, making it an authentic 3-5-2 rather than a 5-3-2 in disguise

3-5-2 is used quite a bit in the scottish first division.

A lot of German teams play this way. The 2 outer defenders mark the strikers, and the middle one takes care of the passing.

Udinese played like that too, with 3 pure DCs and two very attacking WBs like Isla and Armero.

AC Milan won the domestic title in 98-99 with Zaccheroni's patented 3-4-3

i watch a lot of lower leagued football and theres a lot of 3 5 2

Udinese played like that too, with 3 pure DCs and two very attacking WBs like Isla and Armero.

AC Milan won the domestic title in 98-99 with Zaccheroni's patented 3-4-3

Udinese used 3-5-1-1 for most of last year

Lazio used 3-5-2 for the last half of 09/10 when Reja first toke charge

Napoli have played 3-4-2-1 under Mazzari

Genoa played 3-4-3 under Gasparini (so maybe we will see Inter doing that next year?)

Delio Rossi did on ocations use 3-4-2-1 at Palermo

Unai Emery have experimented with a back 3 at Valencia

Brazil played 3 at the back in the Women's world cup (3-4-3). The 3 at the back was constantly described as being "outmoded" on German TV. I though Brazil were pretty good, particularly up front.

That's women's football though. They don't play with wide defenders to try and reduce the chances of them spotting a nice pair of shoes in the crowd and losing concentration.

3-5-2 worked very well for Roma when they won the scudetto in 00/01 you can read about it here!

Liverpool have often played three at the back. We did against Chelsea and beat them 1 - 0.

liverpool used to play it regularly under roy evans.

babb,mark wright and john scales, i believe. then they had mcateer as the right full back and probably bjornebye at left. from what i remember, it was a very attack minded style as well.

That's women's football though. They don't play with wide defenders to try and reduce the chances of them spotting a nice pair of shoes in the crowd and losing concentration.

That may get you in trouble.

Back on topic. Like it has already been said, Liverpool have played with 3 at the back on a number of occasions this season. You really do need a couple of creative sparks to make this work though.

I've been wondering if SAF is planning to develop a 3-man defensive variation at Man Utd, hence the pursuit of CB/DM players (Phil Jones and Varane) to replace CB/FBs (O'Shea and Brown), in an effort to beat Barca (who would probably be best challenged by a solid 3(/5)-man defence.

Dalglish is looking like he could use a 3-man defence with Liverpool pretty often, if not as their default.

And supposedly under Scolari, he first used to draw their formation on the tactics board with Mikel as a CB, and the FBs as WBs. Since the idea of abandoning a back four seemed to upset the players, he started drawing it with Mikel as a DM in front of a back 4, but he didn't actually change the tactics, just the portrayal.

The problem with a 3-man defence, and the reason it fell out of favour, is that if the opposition are using only 1 central ST, then you've basically got 3 men standing around trying to mark 1 guy, while wingers playing high up the pitch run riot.

That's why the people who use it nowadays, like Mexico at the WC, have the central CB (Marquez, in Mexico's case) working as a CB/DM- stepping forward to mark AMs- when they play 1-striker teams, which basically makes the formation a 4-1-... (with the WBs sitting deeper)

In the same way, Barca play 3 at the back pretty often too, with Busquets dropping back when they have the ball rather than a CB stepping forward, but the idea's the same. It's what allows Alves to bugger off up the pitch for half the game without getting caught out.

The original and best, where centre halves were for scoring and only two players defended.

The classic W-M! I can't see it ever coming back though.

3-3-1(2)-3(2) is my FM formation if I'm losing with 60 minutes gone (change from 4-3-1-2). The opposition usually can't deal with the extra midfielder/striker and I find it to be a very useful shape. And yes, I'm almost certain Chile played with 3 at the back at the World Cup last year and they were extremely effective.

Chile ran a 3-3-1-3

I'm running 3 at the back right now because I have no full backs...

Barça plays 3-4-3 or at times even a 3-3-4 when in possesion.

The classic W-M! I can't see it ever coming back though.

W-M is an abomination on the true inverted pyramid, placing too much emphasis on defence and created the classical Arsenal 0-0 bore draw.

In all seriousness W-M was developed in the '20's by Chapman to counter the then new offside law (when it was changed from 2+1 to 1+1 for a player to be offside). Initially the formation was very unsuccessful, indicated by a 7-0 loss to Newcastle early in the '25-'26 season.

I hear the new Inter coach is a fervent user of 3-4-3, so that will be interesting.

In FM playing with 3 at the back is kind of tricky. At least I didn't manage it to get the outer DC's to attack the opponent's wingers, which led to a lot of poor results. If you can make it work, I would be interested in your tactic

Uruguay played 3-4-3 at the world cup if im not mistaken

I think you meant Chile. Quite sure that Uruguay played with 4 defenders.

Bielsa is a fan of the 343 and his teams often play it, and often in a very entertaining manner. (He managed Chile at the last World Cup).

I haven't used a 3 man defence in FM since the days when it was still CM, but presumably it could be made to work still.

In FM playing with 3 at the back is kind of tricky. At least I didn't manage it to get the outer DC's to attack the opponent's wingers, which led to a lot of poor results. If you can make it work, I would be interested in your tactic

I think you meant Chile. Quite sure that Uruguay played with 4 defenders.

Uruguay only had 2 CB's on the field most of the time, but the FB's pushed right up essentially as WB's with a midfielder falling back to be a 3rd CB almost, similar to Mexico. Except for the France game where, for some reason, Uruguay opted to play with a back-9

Bielsa is a fan of the 343 and his teams often play it, and often in a very entertaining manner. (He managed Chile at the last World Cup).

I haven't used a 3 man defence in FM since the days when it was still CM, but presumably it could be made to work still.

Bielsa's system isn't really a 3-4-3, it's far more fluid and flexible, and features 4 distinct 'banks' of players. Occasionally Chile played with effectively only 2 men in defence, sometimes a flat back 4, but never with a 4 in midfield unless you include the very advanced playmaker and the wingbacks as midfielders.

I've always found playing with 3CB's and WB's in FM pretty straightforward, and far simpler to achieve a water-tight defence than formations with a flat 4. It's not difficult to set up, provided you understand the roles each player has to play and instruct them to act accordingly. It also requires defenders with slightly different characteristics to those I'd typically look for to play in a back 4, so it's not suited to just throwing any old bunch of defenders in there. It's a very flexible set-up, allowing several variations depending on circumstance. I had good success trying to emulate Bielsa's system on FM10, even down to having several different approaches depending on how many attackers the opponent was lining up, much in the same way Bielsa varies his set-up in real life. Once I got to grips with understanding exactly how my instructions affected the player and team behaviour, which type of player was best suited to each of the roles, the team played in a manner pretty much exactly like Bielsa's Chile, with WB's popping up like inside forwards, a loony AM running the show with more or less free reign to do as he liked, and the opponent struggling badly to cope and being overwhelmed with the movement and sheer numbers of attacking players.

It's a pleasant and interesting change from the plethora of 4-something systems, takes a bit of persistence to refine the system and collect the 'proper' players to make it work, but it's most certainly viable in FM, and can create good, attractive attacking football.

Udinese used 3-5-1-1 for most of last year

Lazio used 3-5-2 for the last half of 09/10 when Reja first toke charge

Napoli have played 3-4-2-1 under Mazzari

Genoa played 3-4-3 under Gasparini (so maybe we will see Inter doing that next year?)

Delio Rossi did on ocations use 3-4-2-1 at Palermo

Unai Emery have experimented with a back 3 at Valencia

Gasperini is already trying 3-4-3 at Inter during pre-season friendlies, so I guess we'll see it during the season too... But I don't think Inter has the right players to play that way!