Playing the meta game: a short description of a narrow 4-2-3-1

In many strategy games an emergent behaviour known as the "meta game" is often the center of a lot of strategic discussions. Basically, it's "what everyone plays right now", and if you can create a strategy specifically aimed to target "what everyone plays right now", you'll probably do well. Eventhough it's mostly a term used in player-vs-player games, I thought it was a good concept to borrow for this little article. You see, I manage a team in the Swedish Premier Division, IFK Göteborg, and in said league almost every team I face play either a 4-5-1 or a 4-4-2. Very rarely do I face teams with three center backs or with 2 defensive midfielders, for example. Why not then formulate a game plan specifically aimed to be good against these formations?

Well, I couldn't see why not, so that's what I did.

My plan was simple.

By playing 3 AMCs the outer AMCs (AMCr and AMCl) will occupy spaces that are very awkward for the opposition to defend. Their fullbacks will not pressure them, their MCs will be slow to fall back, and their centre backs and holding player will leave dangerous space exposed if they close them down. Therefore I set my own defense and defensive midfield up so that they are able to quickly get the ball to one of my AMCs (for example through the passing pattern indicated by the black arrows). I then have a 4 vs 3 in a dangerous area (light green oval) and the oppositions´ players are left with tough decisions.

As you can see the instructions are fairly simple. I have set the front four up so that they move around quite a lot and exchange positions (especially "vertically"), this to maximize the difficulty for the opposing DCs and DM. If they follow a run, another run will seek to exploit the opened space. The rest of the team is simply there to defend and recycle possession. The marking/closing down instructions of the fullbacks helped my players avoid beeing skinned, but maybe that won't work for everyone.

My results so far have been very good, and I'm very pleased to see that the game plan is working as intended with many 4v3s every game.

I will end it here as I don't want this thread to necessarily be about my tactic per se, more an inspiration to find trends in your league and find ways of exploiting that.

Thanks for your time.

Do you find it difficult defending the flanks with no wingers tracking back? Also, why do you play Balanced with no specialist roles or playmakers?

Do you find it difficult defending the flanks with no wingers tracking back?

No. I had some problems with it early on, but after I added the player instructions (seen in the second illustration) for the fullbacks we have been solid.

Also, why do you play Balanced with no specialist roles or playmakers?

I have one specialist (the shadow striker), but originally I also had the AMCr as an AP/A, but I found him to be a little bit too stationary and switched to AM/A. The team played well, so I didn't see the need to switch to a more fluid approach.

Edit: also, if I understand it correctly, a balanced approach allows my wingback and DM/S a little bit more license to move forward, which helps tie the team together. But I'm not entirely sure about that.