Total Football: Tic-Tac PHOENiX

I’ve tested these two tactics for 19 games now. I’ve won 18 and drawn 1, with a variety of teams both Home and Away, in various competitions.

Only small tweaks have been made to the original tactics, so I won’t repost the information from the original post here. The link is below:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/259190-Total-Football-Tic-Tac-Magick

Generic changes:

- Loose (No) Zonal Marking for ALL players (Maintains shape)

- Standard Mentality (8-11-14) for all players

- Wingers set to Cut Inside

- Striker set to Move into Channels

- Striker set to Mixed Forward Runs

- Playmaker now not ticked (Spreads play)

- MCR & MCL set to Through Balls Often

- MCR & MCL have +3 Creative Freedom

- Play Offside now not ticked (Defenders fall back when passing the ball)

Standard Tactic:

- Slightly wider than the Control tactic

- Slightly higher Defensive Line

- Used in Home matches or against weaker teams Away

Control Tactic:

- Slightly narrower

- Slightly deeper (give more space if being pressed by opposition)

- Used away to teams same or stronger than yourself (If the opposition is attacking heavily, you can check Counter Attacking)

Standard:

http://www.mediafire.com/?abv4nq059yk0qb1

Control:

http://www.mediafire.com/?rc97d32dfhpj6c8

Results:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/696/resultsp.png/

Player Stats:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/833/playerstatsh.png/

**Have Tight (Yes) Zonal Marking for both CBs - they deal with long balls to the striker better**

**Reduce all CMs Mentality by 3 clicks (MCL, MCC, MCR) - Do this on both tactics.**

**I'll upload some screenshots towards the end of the season**

--"The fans also appreciate the entertaining football played by the club of late"-- Overall Confidence

do we have to move time wasting etc like last time??

Hi again Magick, good to see an update from you.

I'm still using a tactic based off of your 4-3-2-1 from last year - still the best I have found for all round play as well as nice watchable football. I'll certainly be taking a look at this tactic.

Thanks again

@McAvennie: :thup:Let me know how you get on.

Nice Magick, i've used it for 3-4 games and it's looking strong, creating more chances apparently and keeping possession well, although i do find that tempo at 7 notches is often better for moving the ball faster when the opposition are closing down ; a ''possession'' variant of this tactic would be sweet, to control the game and avoid excessive tiring when leading towards the end of the game.

**Have Tight (Yes) Zonal Marking for both CBs - they deal with long balls to the striker better**

Thank you for the tactics, I'm trying to test it.

I do not understand what you mean by "Have Tight (Yes) Zonal Marking for Both CBS" because they are already in zonal marking. You mean we need to change strict marking for "YES" (Instead of "NO" actually) ?

what version of fm12 does this work on? Ive just started the game from buying it and it wont upload into my tactics

@Intenso: Marking = Zonal/Tight Marking = No/Yes. I'm still not sure about the marking - the relatively high Closing Down for the CBs means they close down earier, without the need for Tight Marking. It maintains more shape to the team when the CBs are being dragged toward an opposition striker -- this works well when we are pushed up and under little pressure. But sometimes when we're forced deeper, I think it might be useful to have Tight Marking due to the opposition strikers getting in and around the penalty area more. Still looking at this.

@mtred1984: 12.0.4.233639

all these so called great tactics with man utd man city barca etc boring why not do a "fuss" andtry this with a team like norwich then see how good it is???? or seeing as your barca why not use getafe?

@ glynnbob, i hear where your coming from, but this is the closest of any barca tactics you'll find to the real thing. have a look on the other thread and see for yourself.

not saying the tac isnt good for barca etc. just that i wish more people would make tactics for 3rd and 4th division teams hell ive took hucknall and eatswood town to the prem on previous versions and using fuss 1st season have just finished 6th with everton also using same tactic with a weak notts county 2nd season and am 2nd on that game in league one.

not a rant but just putting my point across to other tactic gurus.

@glynnbob: I understand your point. It's just the original tactic was aimed at trying to convert a style of football currently being displayed by Barcelona. This tactic can't emulate Barcelona football, but it's adopting a similar style and play. I've written about how I built the tactic so you can try applying that strategy to building a lower league tactic.

@glynnbob: I understand your point. It's just the original tactic was aimed at trying to convert a style of football currently being displayed by Barcelona. This tactic can't emulate Barcelona football, but it's adopting a similar style and play. I've written about how I built the tactic so you can try applying that strategy to building a lower league tactic.

no worries mate best of luck

not saying the tac isnt good for barca etc. just that i wish more people would make tactics for 3rd and 4th division teams hell ive took hucknall and eatswood town to the prem on previous versions and using fuss 1st season have just finished 6th with everton also using same tactic with a weak notts county 2nd season and am 2nd on that game in league one.

not a rant but just putting my point across to other tactic gurus.

Not all tactics should be made to suit every team at every level. I don't see why people almost demand that of people that make tactics. (Although Barkermush's tweak last year did win me the title in the first season with Newcastle!)

First game with my man utd team in the 1st season ended up winning Liverpool at home 7-0. Even my aml William scored from inside his own half beckham like vs Wimbledon.

Football is very nice to watch with alot of good off the ball movement.

Used standard for the full 90 mins.

Should timewasting be changed like in the previous set Realmadrid?

After watching el Classico last nite very tempted to start a barca save!!

do we need to tweak the cms mentality or has it already been done , it wasnt clear

@scott: You need to tweak it.

cheers for the quick reply

i assume the mcr is still the playmaker

wouldn't it be better to have all cm's and the fb's with normal tackling ? it might help recover the ball back faster, wouldn't it ?

@scott there's no playmaker now.

@Oneskyride: Funny you should say that; I'm currently testing a new tactic which is looking really good.

any update?

this tactic is brillant...won everythingh with fiorentina..just be sure to find the right players. well done.

@oneskyride: Not yet. I get two weeks off for Christmas -- that should give me time to tweak and test.

@wacanda2: Thanks. Did you use both tactics, or just one?

both.....not strictly home and away..somethimes even if u are home the control work like away the standard work...is wonderfull to watch.

@wacanda2: Yeah, they work well when interchanged during matches

I'm currently sitting in a hotel waiting for my flight, leeching their internet and playing FM But I'm testing three tactics. My theory is that I can alter the Mentality of the two playmaking midfielders, combined with Tempo and Width, and this should produce different styles of football. I've just played at home against Valencia and controlled the match using this theory. We had 748 passes -- My defensive minded midfielder had 150+. I wish it was Xavi, but I don't mind. It comes from having Xavi positioned a little bit to the right, thus the CBL and FBL don't really have him as a passing option.

I'll upload a screenie in a minute. No screenie = didn't happen!

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I'll give this a look....you're post count is very low, but didn;t you release some decent FM11 tactics? new account?

@FuSS: My RealMadrid_2007 account is lost. When the site was down and came back, it said a password would be sent to the email address registered to the account. The email address was a Yahoo account and was an old one which I never used. The Yahoo email has been deleted so I can't get the password

Yeah I released the previous FM11 version of Tic-Tac Magick (Link in first post). I'm trying to tweak this one for FM12 and create a tactic pack (3 tactics hopefully) which can be used in different situations. I don't get much time these days though so it takes me ages to test the tactics.

i'm trying this changes in fm2011 ( the tactic doesnt load ( all gk's ) so i have to do it manually . that's fine but what u mean with this ?

- Standard Mentality (8-11-14) for all players

also d-line setting & width i'd like to know the value

grtz

all these so called great tactics with man utd man city barca etc boring why not do a "fuss" andtry this with a team like norwich then see how good it is???? or seeing as your barca why not use getafe?

I used it with FC Santa Claus in my first season in the Finnish Premier division (third season overall). You can see the game i took up this tactic below, i went eighteen games unbeaten. Not sure why it started to falter towards the end of the season.

is there a 3defender version? a barca sim tactic

any progress with middle team?i would try with wigan..

whats the difference between this and http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/277153-Barcelona-style-in-FM-2012?

so many tic-tacs...

The only thing i'm struggling with regarding this tactic is the big away games. I'm losing everyone currently usually only by a goal or two. Defensively the control tactic does the job, but I just don't score in those games unfortunately.

Otherwise, it's the best tactic i've used in the history of FM. The football being played is brilliant.

Used your tactics with great success in FM11, looks like you've improved upon them for FM12. Defensively your tactics are awesome, and the football is great to watch, far better than any other tactic I've downloaded, and I've tried quite a few. It's a shame this thread isn't getting the attention it deserves, IMO your tactics are superior compared to other more popular threads on here. I would like to get the AM/L & AM/R contributing a few more goals, but other than that your tactics are very effective, even with the poorer teams. Using these tactics are the only time I've ever got the opposing manager tell me I was 'tactically spot on.' And my fans regularly 'enjoy the entertaining football on display' or 'enjoy how often we tested the opposition goalkeeper'.

Out of curiosity, is there any particular reason you prefer to have the central CM (defensive) at CM, and not DM?

somehow it seems weird with the playmaker tick off.. my CM is usually the one who gets the most passes and my players appear lost at times

i am using this tac with my newcastle team to great effect (dominating possession almost every match) but the results are kinda mixed since the quality of my players are not good enough to have an efficient attack. 2 quick question from me:

1. how do i get the 2 inside forwards to be more involved in the attacking? they dribble into the byline and more often than not they would pass back to the oncoming full back (with mixed fwr & rwb and nothing else) and the attack is lost. granted that they are no messi, xavi nor iniesta but i wish my ben arfa and jonas would cut in and square the ball or attack the goal at least.

2. how do i get the neutral central midfielder (the one with barrow and more attacking mentality) to support the roaming attacking midfielder? often i found him too close to the defensive midfielder, thus offering little going forward. i've tried ticking roaming but i found it to make the play worse. would setting his fwr to mixed weaken the defence since there is no DMC and this formation uses a high defensive line.

Great tactic again, i love the way it keeps the ball. i'm using the standard one with my aresnal team and i havn't lost a game yet, drew a few away games against 'lesser' teams. once i've cracked the team talks i think it will be unstopable.

@kyjelly do you have your left footed winger on the right and the right footed winger on the left, atleast that way they should cut inside and shoot as they tend not to cross on their weaker foot.

do you have your left footed winger on the right and the right footed winger on the left, atleast that way they should cut inside and shoot as they tend not to cross on their weaker foot.

yep i do, right footed jonas on the left and left footed ben arfa on the right. they are not messi but i was expecting them to provide more with the attacking play rather than the back pass to the full backs. may be i should increase their through ball & crossing to often?

MAGIK, How long till we get a realsese of this tactic??? or will you be waiting for patch 12.3?

MAGIK, How long till we get a realsese of this tactic??? or will you be waiting for patch 12.3?

Have you read the first post? He released this tactic last month.

Have you read the first post? He released this tactic last month.

Well this isn't nearly as popular as last years version then!! Is it not as effective as it once was???

Is it OK if one of the wingers plays on the side of their natural foot? I want to play as Arsenal and put Walcott on the right but don't know if this will ruin the tactic.

Thanks.

so far so good, the draws were both away games early on in the season and the loss came agaisnt villa over the christmas period when i subbed to many players to soon and 2 late goals from darren bent. i just wish utd would slip up!

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yep i do, right footed jonas on the left and left footed ben arfa on the right. they are not messi but i was expecting them to provide more with the attacking play rather than the back pass to the full backs. may be i should increase their through ball & crossing to often?

id stick with it maybe play obertan on the left, jonas on the right and use ben arfa as your mcl. it took wallcott awhile to adjust and take shoots on but he does now and is going nicely.

Is it OK if one of the wingers plays on the side of their natural foot? I want to play as Arsenal and put Walcott on the right but don't know if this will ruin the tactic.

Thanks.

i use wallcott on the left and gervinho on the right works a treat. i still works like that i did that alot in fm11 sometimes it worked better one winger cutting in and one winger crossing a bit more but still cutting in.

edit i've gone back to and started mixing in your old magick attack formation for 2011 it's a monster and still works a treat, the standard tactic was starting to become less effective, but still the best thing about this tactic is the way it plays the results are actually a bonus for me.

2nd edit i'm working on my own version of this tactic and it's going great. i've made with the tactics creator.

it's pretty much a standard 433 with your cm player set up its going great, so far i havn't lost in 15 games of using it after having a bad start to the season using the control or standard tactic.

baciscally it's

gk-defend

DL/DR full back defend,

DC-both central defender defend

mcl-advanced playmaker attack with mcl setting

mc-deffensive midfielder defend with mc setting

mcr-cetral midfielder attack with mcr setting

aml-insider forward support

amr-inside forward attack

st-poacher

the only thing i can't seem to get to work is to get my wingers to track back like the do with your tactic and i think having Aguerro upfront is helping alot with this tatic.

p.s. i can't believe more people don't use these tactics, they're amazing.

What are the player roles for each position i.e. attack, defend, support or automatic?

@Robin_ellis_19: This tactic has been superceded by a new version:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/295728-Total-Football-Tic-Tac-Magick-%28The-return-Part-2%29

I build the tactics in Classic view. I've included a description of mentalities in the thread above.

Loosely:

Defend: GK, 2 CBs and DM

Support: 2 FBs, MCL and MCR

Attack: AML, AMR and STC