Free Role

Anyone know if there's a sure fire way of knowing whether one of your players can handle the Free Role instruction?

I interpret "Free Role" as the player having license to roam around the pitch in order to pick up the ball in attacking situations. As such, I would expect excellent levels of "Off the Ball" and "Creativity".

Behind the scenes though, isn't there a "Free Role" attribute which determines how good he'll actually be, if given that instruction? Any way of knowing this without having to experiment in a few games first?

Cheers all.

Anyone know if there's a sure fire way of knowing whether one of your players can handle the Free Role instruction?

I interpret "Free Role" as the player having license to roam around the pitch in order to pick up the ball in attacking situations. As such, I would expect excellent levels of "Off the Ball" and "Creativity".

Behind the scenes though, isn't there a "Free Role" attribute which determines how good he'll actually be, if given that instruction? Any way of knowing this without having to experiment in a few games first?

Cheers all.

The PC game has a rating for a player's comfort in playing a free role, I don't know about the the handheld version though.

But since there's no way of looking into the game data etc on the PSP, I think the answer to your question is 'No' - there's no way to know without trying the player out. I guess that's fairly realistic.

My question about giving a player a free role is whether it matters at all what position he is nominally given in your formation. I imagine it doesn't, so you just want to have your free role player in a slot where you don't mind having a 'gap' in your system - up front or wide midfield generally, I guess.

I remember Marc Vaughan writing a tips guide once where he stated you could play a 4-3-3 with the centre midfielder given a free role, along the lines of England's tactics in 1966.

You're right about leaving a hole defensively, hence Marc recommending you have two bruisers either side of him to win the ball back.

In which case, would a 4-3-3 with the centre striker given a free role, be the equivalent of a 4-3-1-2 formation?

Well, 4-3-3 with one of the forwards set to free role is the only way I have given a player a free role and it worked pretty well. If my free role guy hadn't insisted on proving he could hit the crossbar twice a week, I would probably still be using it now.

a player on free role i am guessing should have good movement and postioning i have it for my striker when i play just the one up front but some times for an attacking midfielder.

toftyboy, positioning is only a defensive attribute.

Old school defenders with a lack of pace such as Baresi, could play into their more mature years due to having excellent positioning sense and anticipation. Once could argue John Terry is in a similar mould as he isn't all that quick but rated as one of the best in the world.

Look for high positioning stat for any player in your formation required to perform zonal marking.