Explain to me the 4-2-2-2 formation

I have only ever seen Brazilian league teams use it. What does it do? I can't imagine it. How do you get any width?

Im talking about the one where the mids are both central mids.

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some italian teams play it in fm, lazio did in fm 10 anyway. i would expect it to be very slow tempo along with very narrow short passing, with possibly 2 complete forwards

Well your width would have to come from the full backs, with two defensive minded midfielders to cover them.

I have only ever seen Brazilian league teams use it. What does it do? I can't imagine it. How do you get any width?

Im talking about the one where the mids are both central mids.

_

You're basically crowding the centre of the pitch using short passing. The width comes from the full/wing backs who push forward.

In FM10 I used 4-2-2-2 wide with Fluminense (wide is when you place AMCs instead of CMs). And yes, it's very common in Brazil

Brazilian Ricardo Gomes is Barcelona manager on my game in 2028 and they are using a 4-2-2-2 and having a lot of success. Helps to have full backs with lots of pace and stamina in my opinion.

I have only ever seen Brazilian league teams use it. What does it do? I can't imagine it. How do you get any width?

Im talking about the one where the mids are both central mids.

_

Here's a couple of really good threads you might want to look at, from Tactics & Training:

Brazilian Tactics Discussion Thread, by Uncle_Sam

Uncle Sam's Brazilian 4-4-2 (4-2-2-2) *not a plug-and-play* tactics set, by Uncle_Sam

There's probably about as much detail explaining the Brazilian 4-2-2-2 as you could ever hope for there.

Might be worth you adding Uncle_Sam as a "friend" in your forum profile options too, as he usually does a 4-2-2-2 Brazilian thread with each release of FM. I've yet to see anyone present more detail and information about the system on these forums.

I've seen a couple of teams play this formation against me, most recently Man City.