My 2-2-2-2-2 with Barcelona... interesting football

I was playing Pro Evolution Soccer with the classic Brazil team and they had an interesting tactic that played dominating attacking football. I decided to try the tactic in FM and I choose Barcelona to model it with.

Here's what it looks like:

The tactic aims to keep the opponenets in their own half of the pitch, the opponent full backs are kept back and pushed back by the forward wingers, the midfielders and especially the attacking midfielders can always easily pass the ball to the forward wingers to keep position and be in a dangerious position.

The four man centre midfield works great, the 2 midfielders back (Xavi and Deco) are set to make no forward runs, they are the anchor of the team, they are always there if the attacking midfielders need somewhere to pass to. The attacking midfielders work great between them, passing the ball often and as mentioned passing it back to the centre midfielders if they have to. This creates great danger for the opposition because its hard to close them down.

The goals come from the attacking midfielders and forward wingers working together. They can send through balls to each-other, they can give 1-2s and they create alot of space for eachother to shoot.

Interesting nice football... I'd say 2/3s of the goals come from strikes from the centre of the pitch just outside or just inside the penalty box. The shooters have an easy task of just hitting inside either post. Very cool! I've never seen so many goals from a team of mine coming from (reletive) long distance shots.

The defense has been interestingly solid. The two centre midfielders are always in the middle, never going forward so they stop alot of the attacks, this I'd say it the most important part of the tactic defensivly. There is a high closing down as needed with this tactic. The main defense of the team is as said before keeping the ball in the opponents half and creating alot of pressure.

Here's a look at the team:

And here is a look at the fixtures:

1 draw, the rest are all wins, most goals allowed in a game was 1. (friendlies were handled by assistant)

This tactic is definitly succesfull thanks to Barca's quality players, there have been a few games where its been even but my team's clinical finishing has been the difference.

The tactic has a team mentality of this:

Running with ball is set to medium with the midfielders (including wing backs) and often with the forwards. Forward runs are indicated in the screenshot and through ball is played often by the 4 centre midfielders and the forwards.

Any one wanna play around with it with their team, maybe try it with a weaker team? Or maybe have a discussian or questions about it?

recent result vs Real Madrid, pretty good...

can you put in a link so i can download your tactic it sounds spot on cheers

I'd Love to try this with MY perfect team

gk----buffon

dc----richards

dc----terry

wbr---danny alves

wbl---evra/marcelo

mc----gerrard

mc----fabregas

amc---messi

amc---ronaldinho (before 802)/aguero

st----torres

st----ibrahimovic

I think its interesting that no other team on pro evo uses that tactic only classic brazil. Cant beleive it works on fm tho. Any chance of posting it so I can use it with my liverpool team??

Could w ehave a link for this tactic please!

Put back arrows on the wing backs and one or both DM's and you would have a pretty solid formation to work with there.

-forgive the double post, we can't edit our posts-

That's a fairly interesting take on the Box Midfield actually. I might give it a go. I don't have Pro Evo, so would you mind telling me what era the classic Brazil team is from? Or is it just a collection of Brazil's best players of all time?

its a collection of their best players from all time including zico, pele but must are from 1970s. I think the team is on wikipedia somewhere under pro evo classic players.

POST THIS BLOODY TACTIC PLEEEEASE

Yeah, stick the tactic up. It looks very interesting.

Steve

It would be interesting to see how your team and your tactic plays and how the two centre backs would react to having no one to mark at all teams

Ok, here is the link:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XM0QQ4PJ

please tell me your results

Some information about this tactic and some others can be found here

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Park/8885/wcteams.htm

Thank you for uploading but you like to take your time eh...

will post back to say how it works for me cheerz

ok... hoping to hear from people

im about to try this tactic now with my aston villa team in the 3rd season it looks like it has potential il try my best to keep u posted with all the info

Ok so i have just done one match so i thought i would let people see, so far this tactic looks like a good one have a look for yourself

Here is my team, which is pretty strong

and here is the result, its against arsenal in the european super cup

i hope this works as you can see the tactic is good, i usually struggle to keep possesion with any other tactics and the first few matches this season were really tough becasue some new signings and bad choice of captain disrupted my teams harmony.

but with this tactic i won this match with no trouble at all

Bad tactic , i lose evrything with redditch

im pretty sure this tactic would only work for good teams with high creativity and attacking stats,

ive had to tweak it a bit i seem to concede easily but the centre backs attacking mentality is set to nearly full attack so i brought them back to defend more seems ok.

also im gettin around 15 -20 shot a match most on target but there all being saved its crazy cause my strikers are immense.

i may try experimenting with using playmakers and target men but i dont wanna wreck a tactic that already works

The reason I created the thread was because of how suprised I was that the tactic didn't fail.. it had alot of interesting positive points.

I was wondering if any tacticians could implement some tweaks that would make the tactic more stable and better.

Tried it with Arsenal first season for a little while. Mixed results, but I was just giving it a shot. I noticed if the other team had overlapping fullbacks, they would score a lot since there was no one to mark the extra men on the wings. Didn't tweak it at all yet though.

I downloaded and had a look through your tactic. It's very attacking, so against teams that sit back and rarely throw anyone forward you will probably enjoy a measure of success. Probably why you won at Barcelona. However, if a team decides to attack you they will have a significant numbers advantage and will score.

You could make it work if you created a few different versions. Formation wise, for your more standard tactics a place to start would be putting backwards arrows on the MCs and Wingbacks.

When you need to defend, tone down the forward runs, lower the mentality, etc.

the tactic is still going well the main problem im having now is the shot to goal ratio which is just a poroblem with the games ai

I've (Milan) been having some pretty good results so far with this tactic - 10 wins and a draw. No big teams in there though, 'cept Juve (and I beat them 1-0).

But I guess as it was suggested earlier, having a good team does help.

Just followed that up with a lovely 4-1 win at Roma. Here's my team/starting lineup btw.

Have used this with Chelsea, Man Utd, Everton and Newcastle.

Rooney, Ronaldo Drogba , Johnson, Vaughan and Owen and Martins are all world beaters with this formation in the striking department.

Overlapping full backs do see you conceding one or 2... though i find my own centre backs score from almost every corner.?!

Here's the final standing (drew 2 of the last games because I was playing my youngsters)

been using this with man utd in 4th season not got a great squad as to previus management selling but i've only lost 1 in 10 games doijng well i need to buy some players for most positions though but i'm very happy with it

Anyone else working on this? I've developed a pretty good set with this formation. In my career game in 2017/18 I took over an AC Milan side that hasn't finished any higher than 8th in the past 4 years and I currently sit atop the table. After 18 played, I've won 15 and drawn 3, outscoring the opposition 55-13.

Looks a good tactic and seems one with all the praise. I will try later.

ugly formation but interesting chemistry you have there

unbelievable....lost 2 games in my third season and still not champion!!! aaaargh. But thanks for this tactic. It is really really good. A lot of goals and some nice football to watch.

look interesting ...ill try

can i have another link to download the tactics? thanks

Currently testing this with Hibernian in the SPL for one season, i'll get back when its done.

Here is a tactic set I have developed with this formation:

4-2-2-2

Was pretty crap,finished 4th first season but 9th the next.

Do i have to download it or would it still work if i just simply copied it?

Do i have to download it or would it still work if i just simply copied it?

How can you copy all of it when there is no image for each particular players 'Player Intructions'?

I'm using this but with barrows on the MC's and FB's and farrows on the AMC's. Seems to work well(so far).

I (Milan) regularly win Serie A with this tactic yet I keep getting thumped in Europe by the big guns (Real, especially).

I (Milan) regularly win Serie A with this tactic yet I keep getting thumped in Europe by the big guns (Real, especially).

This is because the big guns aren't going to sit back and defend against you like minnows in Serie A. You need to develop a more balanced and a more defensive version for games against teams of similar or higher reputation.

Mixed results over a season but it was good to see the opposition centre backs confused about who to mark lol. I found that my strikers didnt score too often but my amc's did and near enough all the goals were from outside the area.

If there was a way to get the strikers scoring more often then it would work very nicely against stronger teams and be a whole lot more consistent. And also the defense could do with some tweaking has goals do go in quite a lot. This tactic does have potential if someone can tweak it and make it better.

Has anyone actually tried this tactic with Brazil??

Used the 2-2-2-2-2 in a cup match at Rimini, ran out 6-0 winners

shall try it in a few more more meaningful games

Tried this with Chelsea as a test.

W 7-0 v BORO

W 4-0 v PORTO

W 5-1 v READING

W 3-0 v MAN UTD

Very good start :-D I did some tweaking with it though. And not even started on opposition instructions.

You'll have success with it at Chelsea, but when you get into europe you will need to develop a more defensive version.

Have you tried this formation with teams in the Championship?

though i find my own centre backs score from almost every corner.?!

Hahaha. Ajani, shame on you.

This is a very good tactic... Just hammered Real Madrid 3-1.

How will you accomodate for injuries, or when needing to defend a lead in games?

i really like the shape with this tactic and so have started working on my own version:

so far i've added back arrows on the centre mid and wing backs and given the attacking mid/strikers forward arrows.

In theory we attack with attack with 4 defend with 6.

I've given the whole team short passing apart from the center back and goalie and have witness some sublime intricate passing moves generally followed with the comment of super team move or flow etc.

The issue so far has'nt been with scoring goals but it conceed quite a bit against good side because the defence is left quite exposed with long balls. So altering the width to one notch above narrow kills most of the oppositions attack and improves goalie performances.

I'm just wondering what have you guys noticed with this tactic so far.

Amazing... I'm playing for Milan and I'm 8 games into the season, played 3 games in Champions league and haven't lost a game yet! Hammered Juve 5-0, Lazio 4-1... Just wow.