Zan's guide to reading matches - how to watch games

Hello there!

I've been thinking of writing some ideas I have concerning the reading of a match. What I mean by this is: how to interpret what you see during the match and draw conclusions about what your team is doing well and what needs change.

Before I start, I'd like to say I'm not much of a stats fan. For me, trying to make decisions based on number of shots on target, pass completion or whatever alone is like telling a commentator to tell what's going on on the match looking at the stats sheet alone... You can only speculate. There's a reason why coaches all over the world watch their team games... And it's not only for "cheerleading". There's also a reason why the coaches watch the matches from right outside the field - so they can constantly give instructions to their players. Otherwise, they might as well watch the matches like any other "fan", and beep the referee only when he wanted to make subs. Of course, this is only my opinion, and anyone might have fun with a less hands-on approach. This is a game, it's supposed to be fun, after all. That's all that counts.

That being said, like any other task, doing it methodically has its advantages. If you organise the way you watch highlights / full-matches with a mental checklist of things to watch for, you'll make sure you're not always focusing on the same aspects and leaving other concerns behind. Besides, in my opinion, one should watch in full match at least 10 of every 20 minutes in order to be able to draw "quality" tactical conclusions. Watching the game in real time is better, because you get to tweak things you see fit and watch immediately if your changes have the effect you desired; on the other hand, watching highlights retrospectively (eg playing back events through the "match analysis" tab) doesn't give you the opportunity to try to correct on the spot the patterns you find out.

Alright, on to reading matches then.

STEP ONE - BEFORE KICKOFF:

1 - The tactics

- look at the formations of your team and your opponent, and do some mental mirroring. Eg. try to imagine where all the players will lay out on the pitch: will there be a defensive midfielder hindering your attacking midfielder? Will the opponent's wingers have no direct opponent on your formation? Etc. Figure out if there as spaces you can take advantage of on the opposing formation and vice-versa (eg a formation with no wings can be exploited using wingers, whereas a 4-2-3-1 might be countered pumping more the ball to behind the "attacking midfielders+midfielders barrier").

- decide if the opponent's team formation is mainly attacking or mainly defensive. A 4-2-3-1 (with 3 attacking midlfielders) might be considered a bold approach to the game, for instance. By other words, count the players on mainly defensive positions and on mainly offensive positions, and compare them to determine the first-glance approach of the opponent against you.

2 - the players

Take a look at the opposing team players one at a time, hovering the mouse over the "i" icon to look at their attributes. I usually take a global look of specific attributes throughout the team instead of judging each player full attributes. By this I mean:

- Look at the acceleration, pace, and stamina of each player. Are center backs quick? You shouldn't rely too much on your strikers' forward runs, then. Are full backs quick? Your wingers will be hindered. Are their midfielders and forwards high-stamina workhorses? If they're not, you might try to tire them out with high tempo gameplay, or some short passing between your defenders, before trying to deal the winning blow. Are their wingers and forwards quick? Consider backing off your defensive line...

- Look at the jumping, heading and strength of their players. Find out if there are any particular aerial threats, and if the team is strong in airplay in general. You'll be better prepared with that info.

- Look at their bravery, anticipation and first touch. If you find out they are generally low, you might have a golden chance to use a more aggressive closing down and even tackling.

- Check their determination, work rate and stamina. Highly determined teams pose a special threat late in the game when they are only a goal behind.

3 - Opposition instructions

- Look out for players with little bravery, first touch and anticipation. Those are candidates for high closing down.

- Check out if there are players with good speed, dribbling and off the ball skills. Marking them tight or going for hard tackles on them might prove risky. On the other hand, players low on these attributes might be neutralized with these instructions, especially if they are prone to injuries (low natural fitness... try to tackle them harder) and have low work rate (they will move less on the field, so marking them tight might be easier).

- Look at the players' strong foot. Central players good on both feet are extra dangerous. Wide players will cross or shoot more depending on their best foot: a left winger with a good left foot will be hitting more crosses, whereas a left winger with a strong right foot will likely be cutting inside for shots. You can also use this to depict players especially good at crossing or at finishing/long shots: try to force wide players to use the foot with which it's harder to cross/shoot, depending on what skill is their strongest.

- Look for player prefered moves. They are excellent for a sneak peek into your opposition's tactics: they will tell you specific behavior patterns on opposing players.

4 - Their form and inspiration

If you're willing to be that thorough, you may check their last results (a winning or a losing streak can always tell you something about their latest form and morale), and even each player's match rating in their latest matches. Also look at their beginning condition before kick off - a player with 80% and low stamina mightbe a bad omen for them. Tackling him a little harder might even help the "profecy" come true... All's fair in love, war and football, right?

STEP TWO - THE MATCH

This is the real meat and potatoes of the decisions you make while the match unfolds.Until now, everything you've done is pretty speculative, it was only to have a little background and some preparation before really interpreting what's going on on the pitch. You now have the context: next is the game reading itself.

1 - Team formations

You now must check if what you foresaw about how both formations would interact is correct or not. This will depend on how fluid you and they play, their and your creative freedom, and too many other factors to depict them all. This is why actually watching the game is so important.

- How solid is their formation (eg can you see perfectly which formation are they using at all times)? How about yours? What about the mentality of certain players - is there a central midfielder laying more forward than the other/a central midfielder sitting in front of the defenders? Are there attacking midfielders that look more like actual strikers?

- When they have the ball, are there players of theirs that have none of your players next to them (an isolated central attacking midfielder, or an extra central midfielder compared to you)?

- When they have the ball, are there players that dramatically change their position (eg do their full backs come way up the pitch for overlap)?

- When you have the ball, does the player with the ball always have 2 or more "easy" passing options available? If not, which positions do run out of passing options: wingers, full backs, center backs, forwards...? If it's your forwards or wingers that run out of passing options, it's relatively normal - the more up the pitch/the closer to the sides, the harder it is to find passing options. However, if it's a defender of yours or a center midfielder who's running out of passing options, this is not normal and it will severely affect your team performance. You should find a way to correct that.

- How is the pitch concerning width and length? And how are both teams occupying the pitch? Is there a lot of space behind the defensive lines? Is there a lot of space for the wingers?

2 - Team instructions

Besides looking at the players' movement work and general tactic shapes, you can also draw additional conclusions about the instructions your oppositions probably got from their coach. Again, looking for patterns and knowing exactly what to look for is key. This is probably an area few people remember to pay attention to.

- Are their defenders passing the ball between them a lot? If they are, perhaps their manager is looking for open spaces/trying to bring your team forward before building up attacking efforts. You might be reading a counter-attacking tactic between the lines... Depending on the context, they might even be playing safe or trying to waste time (if they're weaker than you, playing away or leading late in the game).

- Are their defenders trying a lot of through balls? If you find out a pattern on their long passes, eg to the wings, focus on whether those passes actually succeed or are only moments of possession waste. If they succeed, work out if they do pose any kind of threat; long passes that give the ball to the winger but on a position where your whole defence is still behind the ball won't do too good for them, for instance. If they don't succeed and you're the one that ends up with ball possession, great. Either their defenders are making poor possession decisions or your team is doing great work at closing them down (you might even take a look when they make those long balls - was it because they had no one to pass to? If that's the case, that's actually a compliment to your team performance).

- Are they focusing their passing through the middle, or down the flanks? How about your team? Is your team passing as you would expect? And where are both team posing more threat?

- Are their forwards (or is one of their forwards) laying right over your defensive line, looking for forward runs? If that's the case, check out their acceleration + pace, compare it with your center backs and, if their forwards are quite slower, you might consider using the offside trap.

- Are their forwards laying deep, between your defenders and your midfielders? Are they doing so to do flick ons and to open spaces for other players (attacking midfielders, wingers) to come forward? If the answer to these questions were yes + no, you might consider bringing your defensive line a bit forward. Watch out for those supportive players, though: deep lying forwards might give you a false sense of security.

- Are they trying a lot of shots, even long shots (pun intended)? And are those posing real threats? Find out if it's always the same player doing this. If it is and he's posing threat, pay closer attention to him and consider closing him down more, marking him tighter or tackling harder - however, it's important to check out if he's brave and has good anticipation and first touch (dangerous to close down), good at dribbling, hard worker, quick and good off the ball (dangerous to mark and to tackle hard).

- Is a player in particular passing many killer balls? To whom? On these situations, you can always take action in two places: the passer and the ball receiver. Try closing down, tackling hard or marking tighter the "playmaker" (see point above, though), and find out if the ball receiver is getting the ball due to forward runs or he just finds space for passes directly to him. Then think . What would be the safest + most effective way to shut down/intercept those passes?

- Is someone running a lot with the ball? Is someone holding the ball a lot and dictating tempo?

3 - Monitoring windows

While you watch the match itself, it will be beneficial to have several visible windows monitoring both teams in several aspects. Those are the things I consider important to keep an eye on at all times:

- Your players body language, and their body language. Both generally and on specific players, you can gather vital information from this window - maybe you can even find out that their left back is very anxious, and focus passing down that flank to exploit his state of mind! On the other hand, motivated players on their team should be monitored with extra care - those are the best candidates to make a difference against you! Also look at your players' motivation, and remember: context. A young player that's just started playing on your main team might be anxious just because of that, not so much because of match events by themselves. A striker with no goals for 300 minutes might be anxious because of his goal drought. A player of yours might be nervous simply because some clubs are interested in him at the moment... Your team might be feeling anxious in general because of a teamtalk, because they expect to do well (or even win) but can't create chances, or because they do create chances but every shot is hitting the post or the bar or whatnot. Or they can't get enough of the ball and feel powerless - possession might play a role too. OR the opposing team is attacking to much to their liking... Again, context is key. Try to find out the cause of anxiousness and try to counter it - more ball possession might calm the players down, maybe short passing and slow tempo is a good idea; more shots on goal might feel more efficient, so consider working the ball into box; or maybe they need the hairdryer treatment, so try to hang on to halftime...

- The player ratings and condition. This will help give tips as to who's playing particularly well/unwell in case you haven't figured that out for yourself yet. Besides, the ratings in general provide an extra bit of info as to whose side is doing better on the pitch today. Finally, and maybe this is THE most important detail, it allows you to detect who's picked up a knock... on the spot! Some knocks don't imply that green cross, so they might go unnoticed - but not if you're keeping a close eye on the players' condition. A sudden drop tells you he's hurt. This goes for both teams - if he's your player, you might want to sub him, go easy on him or try waiting to see if he recovers; if it's a player of theirs, maybe try to turn a knock into an injury, or at least close him down more, perhaps... You might even exploit his weakness by focusing attack through the pitch area that player usually defends.

- The opposition tactical shape. The AI changes the tactic shape quite frequently. Knowing when that happens on the spot is always a plus. So, keeping an eye on their shape is important, to detect major tactic adjustments of theirs and act accordingly if fit.

- The possession bar. This bar is always there, of course, but looking at it from time to time might give you a hint. However, always take into account possession quality vs possession quantity. Sometimes I see my team almost has no possession but still gets more chances than the opposition.

Well, that's basically it. I hope this helps you on your tactical decisions in the future. I decided to write this because I saw few people leaned over this topic, and I consider it vital for a manager. Many people discuss tactics, counter-tactics and how to read stats, but I've never seen anyone debate thoroughly how to read a match with a methodical approach. Hope it helps!

Using the tactics creator and having a logical set up that compliments your team/players is just the first step to being successful IMO.

Making good use of your shouts at the right time is the key to winning and losing games.

Great post!

Good work, I stuck this into the FMGuide which is available for download on the forum as a mobi and pdf file.

Nice post, Zanman. Everything you've mentioned can make a difference in the result, if paid attention to. Always like posts like these that encourage playing the game in a proper and logical management style.

Really good, thank you. A nice complement to Cleon's thread about the full 90 minutes. I'm trying to get more into this play-style as, although it's slower, it's also more fun. Beat Man Utd 3-0 last night and there's little better than that

Thanks, I'm glad you guys liked it. Indeed, there's a special feeling of satisfaction when attention to details pays off . Personally I'm hoping I can get good enough at this analysis to the extent where I can watch only extended highlights and still skim through this mental list successfully. That would take a lot of practice, though.

Very good guide. Just a couple of things that you haven't mentioned and that I've generally not seen much around the forum:

1) The first thing is looking at the opposition manager's profile before starting the match. A few useful things can be gleaned here: his preferred formation, his preferred playing style, his preferred pressing style, his preferred playing mentality and his preferred marking style. Although these won't necessarily be entirely accurate in the match (depending on your team's reputation and form for example a manager with an attacking mentality may still prefer to be more conservative and vice versa), they still offer a very useful overview regarding the style with which the opposition will approach the match. This is especially useful information if used in conjunction with the information available about their playing squad.

2)The second point relates to this quote:

-Sometimes I see my team almost has no possession but still gets more chances than the opposition.

In the general overview you have the Action Zones section. Here you can see what the percentages of possession of each team are in each area of the pitch. You can use this to infer the strategy that the opposition is playing with: having a lot more of the ball in their own area than they do in yours is generally indicative of a more defensive approach to the game, while the contrary is generally true of the opposite.

As I'm a tactical 'inept' manager, I tend to look at the other team's personality, media interaction, determination, composure and bravery before every game. This gives me a chance to destroy the oppositions morale whilst making sure my own players play at maximum motivation level.

Also, during each match, I watch the motivation widgets carefully, this gives me some options:

1) players on my own team not being fully confodent/motivated get their role changed (depending on how confident/motivated they are) and will have a motivational team talk at half time

2) if my team gets nervous allout, I will try to conserve posession more

3) if the opposition gets nervous, I will try to overload them

4) if my team gets complacent, I will make sure they will hassle for the ball and I will increase the tempo, at half time they will get the hairdryer treatment,..

5)...

Thanks very much. I've been trying to figure out how to figure out what's happening in the game - my tendency is to just sit and watch like a fan. Will give this a try.

As I'm a tactical 'inept' manager, I tend to look at the other team's personality, media interaction, determination, composure and bravery before every game. This gives me a chance to destroy the oppositions morale whilst making sure my own players play at maximum motivation level.

Also, during each match, I watch the motivation widgets carefully, this gives me some options:

1) players on my own team not being fully confodent/motivated get their role changed (depending on how confident/motivated they are) and will have a motivational team talk at half time

2) if my team gets nervous allout, I will try to conserve posession more

3) if the opposition gets nervous, I will try to overload them

4) if my team gets complacent, I will make sure they will hassle for the ball and I will increase the tempo, at half time they will get the hairdryer treatment,..

5)...

Same for me. If they get nervous I will shout "Get Ball Forward" if I am nervous I shout "Retain Possession." Seems to work pretty well most of the time.

Great post Zanman. I'd like to add a tip of my own to speed up your player review process.

Rather than hover over the 'i' icon on each player, I create custom views in the opposition instruction screen with all of the important stats. So using one of your criteria as an example, I'd create a view called "Aerial" which shows Jumping, Heading and Strength. I can then view the whole team at once and get a clear idea at a glance.

just play the game instead of studying it..sorry but it winds me up to know that peo0ple buy the game to conquer it asap well that just takes time u learn as u go on not in ya first few games BORING!!

just play the game instead of studying it..sorry but it winds me up to know that peo0ple buy the game to conquer it asap well that just takes time u learn as u go on not in ya first few games BORING!!

Don't get so wound up, people bought the game let them do as they wish.

Nice guide, I find studying games in depth tedious but there are still some really good, helpful hints here. Kudos.

just play the game instead of studying it..sorry but it winds me up to know that peo0ple buy the game to conquer it asap well that just takes time u learn as u go on not in ya first few games BORING!!

Pointless post. I'm sorry but it winds me up when people post this sort of drool on in a thread that someones taken their time writing just to help others.Great thread though zanman, a few points in there that I'd never considered whilst watching a match.

Pointless post. I'm sorry but it winds me up when people post this sort of drool on in a thread that someones taken their time writing just to help others.Great thread though zanman, a few points in there that I'd never considered whilst watching a match.

And yet you drag on an argument that has finished over 4 days ago. Your post is also pointless and not needed (the first bit at least).

Please stick to the topic and if anyone has issue with something someone has posted please use the report function rather than feeding the trolls. Then a mod can deal with it instead.