My approach to creating a tactic in FM2009

My approach to creating a tactic in FM2009

First of all I set a mentality and closing down for each player. I don’t want to get bogged down with numbers and we all like to setup our own way so will list the following as an example.

Pos | M |CD

GK 8 – 10

DR 10 - 12

DC 8 - 10

DC 9 - 11

DL 10 - 12

MR 12 - 14

MC 10 - 12

MC 9 - 11

ML 12 - 14

AMC 12 - 14

SC 14 – 16

I then set Forward Runs, Run With Ball, Long Shots, Through Balls and Cross Ball to rarely for all players. In team instructions I set Creative Freedom to little (one notch before normal). I set Tempo to slow (all the way to the left). I leave all other sliders for team instructions in the centre. Focus Passing, Free Roles, Playmaker, Target Man, Target Man Supply and Offside Trap can be configured depending on how you want to play. It is also a good idea to setup Set Pieces to how you want to defend and attack and what is logical based on the player at your disposal.

The key is now to go play some games. I would strongly advise you to watch the games in full. This maybe tedious but will give you a great insight into how the engine works and once you figure that out you can switch to Extended or Key.

With all Forward Runs, etc. set to rarely and the tempo set to slow it is easy to observe your team as a unit. Watch where your players are positioned when you have the ball and when you do not. Watch when and where each player closes down the opposition. There is so much you can learn from these and other observations and over a number of games you can tweak player’s mentality and closing down. Once you have a good solid foundation you can then start adding individual player instructions gradually and see the effect, good or bad. Of course you will need to adjust the tempo, defensive line, passing instructions, etc. as well but if you try and set everything at once it is very easy to overcomplicate things and have no idea where it went wrong.

Nice tip. This is really where the Pre-season is for. I will try and implement it if I buy the game.

How long did it take you to get your formation almost right?

:thup:Nice post Rob and and very good tip !

Nice tip. This is really where the Pre-season is for. I will try and implement it if I buy the game.

How long did it take you to get your formation almost right?

Correct, preseason is perfect for this and I can get the basics sorted out in this period. Some obvious tweaks are made in this period, such as giving the full backs mixed forward runs with the setup I listed in the first post. Generally preseason results are good in this game and the league becomes a much bigger challenge so I think it is good to keep things simple going into the league games.

It takes awhile for players to adjust to you and for new players to integrate into the team so it is had to judge what is working properly early in the career. If you get the mentalities and closing down right you should be hard to break down and you can start to make adjustments to benefit your attack with the bonus of seeing how it effects your teams defense.

Bump to see if anyone else shares these ideas or would like to try it out.

Sounds good, i'll try it.