Barcelona In FM12

First of all I'm not hear to moan but just to help make the game more real. What I want to say is that barcelona in FM11 didnt play anywhere like they do in real life for example in my save they were always second best to real madrid, they never played the 4-3-3 formation and messi, villa and pedro shared like 60+ goals between them per season when in real life messi almost got that by himself last season. This maybe due to the match engine not being able to preform and interpretate the way that Barcelona play in real life. Im not saying make them a near enough immpossible team to beat because that will make the game silly but just make there play more realistic.

Does anyone else see where im coming from?

If the game was realistic Messi would have a rasied CA/PA of about 300

lol. Yeah its kinda wierd watching players like messi and ronaldo play on fm. They play no where like they do in real life and look awkward like in fm fm 11 all messi does is stepovers, in real life he just has quick feet,amazing footwork and good dribbiling but you rarley see him do stepovers.

I don't have FM11, how AI play in Barcelona ? Because in real life, Barca play in 442 diamond since Guardiola remove Messi in the center.

There good but preety bad in a sence. What i mean is that they win the odd trophy (usually behind real madrid) and play a 4-2-3-1 formation. Also messi needs alot of working on and the majority of the team aswell. When you play them on fm you dont quite feel they are barcelona. Like i remember once when i was united and had vidic, evra, rooney, scholes, anderson and even va der sar and and park ji sung missing(yes its hard to believe) i beat them in the champions league semi-final at camp nuo then in old trafford we drew. Im sorry but with the team i had out barca would of killed me in real life.

Ok

I don't know the ratings of Barcelona but I remember making a similar style of Barca when I play FM 07, exactly with the 442 diamond of Guardiola.

For play in Barcelona, these following ratings are absolutely necessary (in attack) for any player :

1) Decision

2) Anticipation

3) Off The Ball

4) Passing

5) First Touch

6) Technique (for passing in little space)

7) Composure (for passing around opponent goal)

Maybe also teamwork, creativity, positioning but are less important with good tactic choices.

I had regulary 70-80 percent of ball possession like Barcelona even in away matches (very difficult in FM07)

The big problem is the pressing, I never really make a similar pressing like Barcelona of Guardiola. Even the high pressing of Porto in the beginning of Supercup, I don't have impression of make it once time in FM.

If the game was realistic Messi would have a rasied CA/PA of about 300

Honestly.....thats the truth. And he's not the only player.

Very true, i just saw barca v porto the kid is amazing he took it easily around helton. Does anyone think the match engine is capable of repesenting the way barcelona plays in real life?

I'm doing an experiment with Barca using the editor. I have raised their pressing stat which was only about 16 I believe. Going to change preferred formation to 4-5-1, or 4-3-2-1/4-3-1-2 and see If that helps, change Messi's positional stat to add an ST, plus raise a few of his stats such as finishing which is only 18.

Guardiola's CA will be raised even more. Any other ideas? Will raise more stats for their players too such as mentioned in Speedas post.

Barca are too easy to play against. You can nullify them with relative simplicity.

barce doing great in my save they have won the title 4 out of 5 and also been in 3 champions league finals winning 2

In my save Barcelona is amazing. I'm 6 seasons into, I manage Chelsea, and Barca is the only team I'm not favourite while playing against.

In my save barca a wack, they always come second best to madrid and recently got knocked out by a very average united sqaud because ferguson in the game has a horrible AI and buys rubbish players.

Drawing Barcelona in the Champions League is an easy draw. They're nullified far too easily. The past two seasons have shown that even Mourinho (brilliant at stopping teams from playing their way) can't handle them. His Inter side had it easier with Zlatan up front and not Villa inter-changing with Messi.

The stats attributed to the manager affects how they line up, but the match engine is only animations to try and show what the match engine is simulating. As such it doesn't have animations for everything, there is no 360 spin, there is no flicks, nutmegs etc.

Attributes have weightings, so when the Barcelona researcher is setting him up he has to look at what he thinks his abilities are on a global scale. It is easy to say he should be CA XXX but where do you improve him? You may think x, y and z should be higher but they may only take his CA up 1 point depending on their weightings. Then where do you get the rest from if you've then given him the stats you think he should have and whatnot. Changing his position or adding more also adjusts weightings, all of a sudden one attribute before which wasn't too heavily weighted may be much more heavily weighted. This means that he is already above his CA and when you start the game he may be scaled back because of attribute weightings.

Lionel Messi can only play like Lionel Messi when he is allowed to, time on the ball, the space to run into etc. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying closing him down or packing the defence tightly renders him inert, he then has to mix it up and try something different, if he didn't then he would be a poor player because if you keep trying to make pointless runs or dribble into zones that are no danger. to the opposition then its a sign of you doing it wrong. Teams in FM will line-up different to real life, there is no denying Messi would find it harder to cut in against bottom half Premiership sides who generally value being organised and tightly packed to prevent such things, than La Liga sides who are more open and attackable. FM is more likely to throw these perceptions aside and play a way that will try to work.

I'm not saying Messi couldn't cut it either in the premiership before any people get all riled up about that, merely saying it would be harder because that is the nature of the game and the tactical set-up.

I had a save in FM 2009 or FM 2010 that saw Barcelona get relegated. Messi was expensive, but he came to Arsenal.

Drawing Barcelona in the Champions League is an easy draw. They're nullified far too easily. The past two seasons have shown that even Mourinho (brilliant at stopping teams from playing their way) can't handle them. His Inter side had it easier with Zlatan up front and not Villa inter-changing with Messi.

Real Madrid won one, drew two and lost two against Barcelona last season, despite having the most attacking left back ever.

It's far from an easy draw though, easier than real life possibly, but they still have the best player in the world and several players capable of destroying you in an instant.

The stats attributed to the manager affects how they line up, but the match engine is only animations to try and show what the match engine is simulating. As such it doesn't have animations for everything, there is no 360 spin, there is no flicks, nutmegs etc.

Attributes have weightings, so when the Barcelona researcher is setting him up he has to look at what he thinks his abilities are on a global scale. It is easy to say he should be CA XXX but where do you improve him? You may think x, y and z should be higher but they may only take his CA up 1 point depending on their weightings. Then where do you get the rest from if you've then given him the stats you think he should have and whatnot. Changing his position or adding more also adjusts weightings, all of a sudden one attribute before which wasn't too heavily weighted may be much more heavily weighted. This means that he is already above his CA and when you start the game he may be scaled back because of attribute weightings.

Lionel Messi can only play like Lionel Messi when he is allowed to, time on the ball, the space to run into etc. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying closing him down or packing the defence tightly renders him inert, he then has to mix it up and try something different, if he didn't then he would be a poor player because if you keep trying to make pointless runs or dribble into zones that are no danger. to the opposition then its a sign of you doing it wrong. Teams in FM will line-up different to real life, there is no denying Messi would find it harder to cut in against bottom half Premiership sides who generally value being organised and tightly packed to prevent such things, than La Liga sides who are more open and attackable. FM is more likely to throw these perceptions aside and play a way that will try to work.

I'm not saying Messi couldn't cut it either in the premiership before any people get all riled up about that, merely saying it would be harder because that is the nature of the game and the tactical set-up.

Well said.

Real Madrid won one, drew two and lost two against Barcelona last season, despite having the most attacking left back ever.

It's far from an easy draw though, easier than real life possibly, but they still have the best player in the world and several players capable of destroying you in an instant.

Champions League games?

It is an easy game, Messi can be taken out of a game with a right footed left back. Pedro seems to be utterly useless on the game. I haven't lost to Barcelona in four seasons with Inter Milan and have kept 4 clean sheets in 8 games. They never seem to line-up like Barcelona either.

How would the game react to Pep's line up tonight? Would it return a 5-0 win?

The problem with Barcelona in FM11 is simply Guardiola's tactical attributes. Messi is fine and is basically unstoppable under a player controlled team.

However, Guardiola's tactical settings are kind of nonsensical. He is set to short-passing but with a very wide 4-3-3 which means that his players are rarely close enough to one another to really engage in a decent short-passing game. Thus, you usually see Iniesta and Messi strolling up and down the wings hoping they can get close enough to the box to eventually tap the ball off to Villa. There is no real build-up play because the players are too far apart to engage in any. To remedy this, I think a wide 4-3-1-2 with high flamboyancy would probably better reflect the way Barcelona actually plays.

Also, for some reason, Barca play with a relatively deep defensive line. Guardiola's "Depth" attribute is set to "16" which, albeit counter-intuitively, actually makes him play with a deep defensive line. I could be mistaken, but I suspect this was simply an error on the original data editor's part. If you look at other managers whose defenders press very high up the pitch, you will notice much lower "Depth" ratings. Wenger has an "8" for Depth, Dalglish has a "6" and del Bosque has a "6" as well (though FM11's Spain also play nothing like the real Spain but instead play very direct). Conversely, conservative managers have a high depth, Rafa Benitez's "17" being a good example.