Timmy's 3-4-3 Narrow

I thought I would share this tactic as this is the first time I've ever had any success beyond the occasional cup title in any previous FM. This tactic is for FMH09.

Results to May 2015:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3429/3218543592_911f6fb885_o.jpg

Games played: 289

Games won: 153 - 52.9%

Games drawn: 62 - 21.5%

Games lost: 74 - 25.6%

Goals scored: 504 - 1.74 p/m

Goals conceded: 324 - 1.12 p/m

League titles: 3

Cup titles: 4

Players bought: 57 - E6.75M

Players sold: 18 - E6.5M

Manager jobs: 1

Manager points: 2334

I've won:

*The Portuguese Liga Sagres 3 years in a row

*The Carlsberg Cup this year and runner up last year

*The Portuguese Cup this year

*The Portuguese Super Cup previous year and runner up this year

*The European Champions Cup this year and semi-final pk elimination previous year

I picked what I thought was the worst team in the Portuguese 2nd division - Sporting Clube da Covilha. With the following tactic and some nice acquisitions, I have produced the champions of Europe.

3-4-3 Narrow (I edited the standard 3-4-3 removing all runs to match the following):

----FC---FC---FC----

--------AMC---------

---------MC---------

----DMC-----DMC----

----DC---DC---DC----

----------GK---------

GK

DC

DC

DC

DMC

DMC

MC

AMC

FC

FC

FC

Highlights show distinct weakness when playing against wide 4-2-4 teams or those that like to cross from wings.

Team Instructions:

Emphasis: Normal (switch to defensive sometimes when I get an early 2 goal lead or after 75min mark when leading by 1 goal)

Passing: Short

Tackling: Normal

Pressing: Yes

Offside Trap: No

Counter Attack: No

Men Behind Ball: No

Playmaker: No

Player Instructions:

Passing: All Team

Tackling: All Team

Pressing: 2 DMC, MC, and the bottom 2 FC set to Team; The rest set to No

Pass To: All R/L/C

Set Pieces (A): N,F,B,N,B,F,F,F,F,F,F

Set Pieces (D): N,B,B,B,B,B,B,N,F,B,B

Free Role: All No

Forward Runs: No except all 3 FC

Run With Ball: No except AMC

Hold Up Ball: No except AMC

Long Shots: No except AMC

Through Balls: No except MC and AMC

Cross Ball: No except both DMC

Marking: Zonal except GK None

---------- Specific to the team I've chosen ------------

Sporting Clube da Covilha has been quite a challenge since they start with almost no transfer funds and a low wage salary. In addition, very few players actually want to play for this team so it's hard to make good signings. Finally, after winning the top Portuguese league, the board has become quite difficult to keep pleased. I hope my luck continues...

Database Leagues: Portugal (all), France, Germany, Holland

Key acquisitions:

GK Stavros Ioannou, Greece (Olympiakos 2011/12) - Av R 7.66

MC Paulo Jorge Sa, Portuguese (Pontassolense 2012/13) - 10 goals, 15 assists - Best Portuguese Young Player Runner Up 2 years in a row

AMC Artur Patricio, Portuguese (Chaves 2010/11) - 7 goals, 20 assists - Best Portuguese Young Player 3 years in a row

FC Luis Angel Segovia, Argentinian/English (Racing Club 2012/13) - Av R 8.28, 23 goals, 4 assists - Best Portuguese Player 2 years in a row

FC Gauthier Diafutua, French (Tubize 2009/10) - Av R 7.80, 14 goals, 8 assists

FC Bogdan Popa, Romanian (Timisoara 2013/14) - Av R 7.48, 15 goals, 3 assists

I conduct searches for players with high Teamwork & Decisions stats and of course who play in the center. I favor the following attributes for each position -

DC: Heading, Tackling, Positioning, Strength

DMC: Crossing, Heading, Passing, Tackling, Positioning, Stamina

MC: Passing, Creativity

AMC: Dribbling, Passing, Shooting, Technique, Creativity, Pace

FC: Dribbling, Heading, Shooting, Technique, Creativity, Movement, Pace, Strength

In addition, I look at their performance history and scout report before making any offers.

Well, I hope this might actually help someone. I'm having a blast playing and actually winning things for once

now thats a lot of in depth detail!

very nice

but have you just tried it with one team?

very nice

but have you just tried it with one team?

Yes, this is the only game I've started on FMH09.

I have a quick question...

How is this a breakthrough 3-4-3 tactic?

To be honest, I believe my tactic is definitely better... I'M OUT!

I have a quick question...

How is this a breakthrough 3-4-3 tactic?

To be honest, I believe my tactic is definitely better... I'M OUT!

This guy obviously put in a lot of work to get this going and posted.

So stay out you ungrateful loser.

Oh i'm sure the op will be really upset that kaiming is out.

I'm gonna give this a try, want to try something different as it's really boring just playing 4-5-1 all the time.

Nice, let us know how it works out for you Jambo_Dave.

I thought I would add another update after 1 more season.

Board expected the title this year (a little greedy in my opinion) and never went above "pleased" in their evaluation of my management though they were pleased to see that I was building rapport with the fans (never saw that message before).

Nevertheless, I won:

* the Portuguese Liga Sagres (4th time in a row now)

* the Portuguese Cup

* the Portuguese Super Cup

* the European Super Cup

I crashed out of the European Champions Cup in the second round with an 89' 1-0 aggregate loss to CSKA Moscow - my fault as three days earlier I hadn't rested my usual starting 11 and instead fielded a lot of backup and reserve players for the ECC.

My defense was much tighter conceding only 13 goals in the league for the entire season - I found 3 guys that seemed to work well together and stuck with them nearly the entire season instead of rotating to give youngsters more playtime. Defense really won for me this year. Even though I had the second highest team goals, my offense was lower than in previous seasons because of a lot of key injuries.

AMC Artur Patricio won the Liga Sagres Player of the Year - Av R 7.67, 11 goals, 19 assists (breaking up Segovia's streak of 2 in a row)

FC Luis Angel Segovia was runner up Liga Sagres Player of the Year - Av R 8.07, 21 goals, 3 assists (but only 28 appearances due to injuries)

MC Paulo Jorge Sa won the Liga Sagres Young Player of the Year - Av R 7.07, 5 goals, 15 assists

I felt Segovia should have won or at least been runner-up in World Player of the Year, but the honors went to Fabregas with Av R 7.39, 11 goals, 8 assists? I don't recall who the runner-up was.

I managed to unlock sugar daddy after the Portuguese Cup win.

Results to June 2016:

Games played: 338

Games won: 186 - 55.0%

Games drawn: 71 - 21.0%

Games lost: 81 - 24.0%

Goals scored: 599 - 1.77 p/m

Goals conceded: 350 - 1.04 p/m

League titles: 4

Cup titles: 7

Players bought: 64 - E9M

Players sold: 19 - E8.25M

Manager jobs: 1

Manager points: 3176

One thing i'd like to point out here is that leagues like portugal, scotland, belgium, australia can't let you judge whether a tactic works or not. Those leagues are really easy, I was the scottish league playing 5-4-1 defensive, counter attacking and long passing but that doesn't mean I could play that way in england.

In my opinion you can win the title in portugal, belgium and scotland with the same standard of team that would only be mid table in the top divisions of spain, england or italy.

I have an example...

I have a save where I play st dazzle's 4-5-1 with liege (the lower league one and not standard) where I have won 4 or 5 belgian titles in a row. I also have a save where I have taken marbella from liga 2b4 to la liga in spain and in my opinion my team in my marbella save is better than my liege team and highest I have finished was 7th.

Long story short, try playing this tactic in the english or spanish top flights and judge it after that.

Point taken and it makes a lot of sense. When I played FMH07, I never could win the league in the top flights in England or Italy despite using completely different tactics. I could only make it to around 6th and had some smaller cup success. I don't know the mechanics well enough, but I just figured since I won the European Champions Cup with the tactic that it might be worthwhile. I'll have to try it with a top-flight league sometime. Thanks for the info.

I thought I would post an update as I paused my Portugal game and started a new one in Spain to test the tactic. I chose Villarreal. Databases are All England, Spain, Italy, Germany.

1st Season: Finished 10th in Liga; Runner-up in European Champions Cup

2nd Season: Finished 4th in Liga; Won Spanish Cup

3rd Season: Won Spanish Super Cup; Finished 8th in Liga; Lost in group phase in European Champions Cup but qualified for Euro Cup; Won Euro Cup; Won Spanish Cup

Start of 4th season: Won European Super Cup, Runner-up Spanish Super Cup

Results to August 2011:

Games played: 174

Games won: 78 - 44.8%

Games drawn: 48 - 27.6%

Games lost: 48 - 27.6%

Goals scored: 194 - 1.11 p/m (Awful)

Goals conceded: 137 - 0.79 p/m

League titles: 0

Cup titles: 5

Players bought: 50 - E224M

Players sold: 18 - E184M

Manager jobs: 1

Manager points: 1101

Out of 7 chances to bring in silverware, winning 5 isn't bad at all especially against opponents like Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Some of my signings:

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar - awesome, won Best Spanish League Player once

Dirk Kuyt - solid

Nuno Gomes - solid but tiring out fast now that he's 35

Pato - just bought him, scored in debut, excited to see what he can do

Ronaldo - complete bust, too many injuries

Tomas Rosicky - complete bust, yet somehow saddened the entire team when sold as a "star player" for 2M

Theo Walcott - good Av.r but only contributed ~7 goals per season so dumped him for cash

Bastian Schweinsteiger - complete bust, but holding onto him

Demy de Zeeuw - solid

Francisco Guillermo Ochoa - solid, but backup to Diego Lopez who has been very solid

I didn't use Sugar Daddy, but accepted some outrageous transfer offers over the years: 48M for Nihat, 48.5M for Theo Walcott, 39M Santi Cazorla, etc., and have turned down a lot more especially for Giuseppe Rossi. The team hasn't gelled yet since I went a little crazy in the transfer market. I've had to make a lot of transfers to cover required positions of the tactic, replace aging players, fill up a very tiny starting roster, and dump all non-center players. I'm hoping over the next 2 or 3 seasons, I might see some better league results as I think I've got some nice reserves coming up and have made some good signings. At least I've kept my job. It has come real close a couple of times and the board expects a trophy every season. Maybe I'll post another update after a few more seasons. I recall in my Portugal game, I didn't win a thing in the first 2 or 3 seasons so I'm off to a better start at least.

Well done mate, good work =)

Well this is weird. Villarreal was still in all competitions, and only 8pts off the lead in 10th place in a very competitive season. At the start of December 2011, the board was very unhappy with me and for kicks I made a board request for more time. Success! I received an email, "The Villarreal board indicate that they have faith in your ability as a manager and will give you time to turn the club around." After that I checked my job security and it read pleased and under the jobs section (when sorted by security), I was just one spot off from safe. Whew! The next day, I get an email saying that I've been sacked due to the club's poor league position. The board is dirty.

A Spanish update long overdue:

After getting sacked from Villarreal, I took over at Malaga and saved them from relegation. Since then, I have enjoyed a very long stint winning a fair bit of silverware. I never switched tactics once.

I just had my best league finish ever with 90 points - 26 wins, 12 draws, 0 losses. 71 goals scored and 16 conceded.

Results to May 2026-

Games played: 991

Games won: 541 - 54.6%

Games drawn: 253 - 25.5%

Games lost: 197 - 19.9%

Goals scored: 1390 - 1.40 p/m

Goals conceded: 674 - 0.68 p/m

League titles: 4

Cup titles: 17

Players bought: 151 - E688M

Players sold: 73 - E399M

Manager jobs: 2

Manager points: 6846

Silverware-

League: 4x, runner up 3x

Spanish Cup: 6x, runner up 3x

Spanish Super Cup: 5x, runner up 1x

European Champion's Cup: 1x, runner up 2x

Euro Cup: 3x

European Super Cup: 2x, runner up 2x

I'm 3rd in the hall of fame behind Klinsmann (8806 Chelsea) and Spalletti (7643 retired). I have been offered jobs out of the blue several times from the top clubs - Milan, Chelsea, Arsenal, Juventus, Barcelona, Real Madrid, et al. - which is pretty cool, but I have turned them down. I'm still trying to get a place on the board. I hope to eventually finish off the full 30 seasons and I will report final stats whenever that happens. (I play slowly)

Interesting formation, I'm a bit hesitant to play without wide players though. I might try and combine some of your ideas with my 3-5-2 and move one of the midfielders up into attack, see how that works out.

Sounds interesting. I like it how you made it detailed. I've sot of set aside handheld for the moment but keep us updated on how succesful tactic is, because it seems like its working very well at Malaga!

Have you tried changing:

Pass To: All R/L/C

to

Pass To: All Centre?

Just thinking that with no wide players, that could be an improvement.

Mission Accomplished!

Spanish Super Cup +1

Champions Cup +1

Spanish Cup +1

Runner-up in the league on the final day (by 1 point damn it) with 78pts - 22 wins, 12 draws, 4 losses. 49 goals scored, 18 conceded. What a pity as I had a 6 point lead back in January.

and I received the following email from the board:

Board recognise Daclown's achievements

In recognition of the tremendous achievements that you have managed during your time in charge of Malaga the board are pleased to offer you a position on the board at the club. In practical terms this will effectively mean you will be able to manage the club until such time as you feel you have taken the club as far as you can.

Do you wish to accept this position?

(ok, to give you an idea of the board I'm working with... heading into May, I was tied for second place in the league, in the champion's cup final and spanish cup final but had 3 draws in a row. The board view of me went to extremely unhappy and the fans were asking for my resignation)

Needless to say, I took the position

Results to May 2027-

Games played: 1053

Games won: 583 - 55.4%

Games drawn: 269 - 25.5%

Games lost: 201 - 19.1%

Goals scored: 1478 - 1.40 p/m

Goals conceded: 697 - 0.66 p/m

League titles: 4

Cup titles: 20

Players bought: 156 - E808M

Players sold: 76 - E406M

Manager jobs: 2

Manager points: 7503

theskintman: I tried all center passing in my first Portuguese game when I first attempted the tactic and it didn't work too well.

Out of interest Timmy, how good is your squad compared to others in the league? Would you say you're overperforming, underperforming, or performing adequately for your standard of players?

I have a very good squad - most probably the best in Spain right now since I've had a lot of time to build it up - but Malaga had a weak squad flirting with relegation when I took over and first switched to this tactic. It took 2.5 seasons before I started finishing somewhat consistently in the top 4. Most recently, I have been given 156M in transfer funds each time for the last few seasons though I rarely spend more than 60M total on 2 - 4 choice signings. One of my strikers this year actually won the World Player Award which was a first and a nice surprise.

Some players have been with me a long time so there are very few first team changes each season. I never give a new signing an immediate starting role regardless of his age and skills. I might get him into the mix a little but he won't have a chance to really feature until at least his second season even if he becomes unhappy riding the pine or hanging with the reserves. I keep about 26 - 29 players on the first team and the rest (about 10 - 15) get loaned out and/or stay down in reserves in case of injuries. I'm at 1.6M out of 3M max on the wage budget. Average age of first team is 28.

I would say there are comparable quality squads on Real Madrid, Barcelona, Villarreal (who won the league most recently), and to a slightly lesser extent on Sevilla, Athletico Madrid, and Valencia. They splash major cash in the transfer window consistently and get fantastic regens. Other teams have their superstars too, but most of the big talent seems to be concentrated on the fore-mentioned teams. I suppose I should have won everything this season, but I suffered some freak losses to teams on the bottom of the table and had draws with Real Madrid and Barcelona home/away.