Finding it difficult to "read" the match engine

A lot of the excellent threads I see around here are about tweaking your tactics to address particular problems that are happening on the pitch.

However, I'm having real trouble "reading" the match engine - and find it quite difficult to identify the specific problems that need fixing.

Any advice on this?

(to be clear, I'm not looking for under-the-hood of the ME advice - just to get better at identifying what's going right and wrong)

How do you watch highlights?

The more you watch the more info you get, I watch all mine on comprehensive.

In no particular order I look at:

A) Which team is attacking in most of the highlights? Me, them or fairly even.

B) Are we getting caught on the ball?

C) Are the opposition getting in behind us with direct balls or playing it around keeping possession.

D) Do we need to play more direct? quicker? keep possession?

How do you watch highlights?

The more you watch the more info you get, I watch all mine on comprehensive.

In no particular order I look at:

A) Which team is attacking in most of the highlights? Me, them or fairly even.

B) Are we getting caught on the ball?

C) Are the opposition getting in behind us with direct balls or playing it around keeping possession.

D) Do we need to play more direct? quicker? keep possession?

I almost always watch them on comprehensive or full. Never less than extended.

I think I could look out for A and B.

How would you go about looking out for C or D?

How would you go about looking out for C or D?

Well for C are they playing the ball forward into the final third early in the highlight or are they knocking it around at the back, then to a MC/winger and back again to fullback/midfield/defence. Basically are they looking for the pass into the box straight away or is there a lot of passing in front of your defence.

For D it depends on what the opposition are doing and the scoreline. Are you behind? do you need to make something happen or are you happy with them having possession at the back? Its also important to have patience, if you are 1-0 down early on you have most of the match to equalise, you might have to defend for long periods and wait for your chance later in the match.

If you are getting caught on the ball are you better trying to keep possession and play quicker or is it better to play more direct earlier so you don't get caught.

Whats important is that there is no right or wrong answer, what works in one game might not work the next time. Its about making the decision you think is right for that match.

Quick tip:

If the AI wide defenders are overlapping and getting far forward, chances are they're being quite aggressive tactically.

Second quick tip:

Watch for situations where your players are doubled up by opponents. This could be an indication that the AI is closing down heavily, and thus likely leaving gaps in their shape. Exploit those by passing through them (into space) and bumping up your tempo (if your team is capable of playing that way!)

Third quick tip:

It's easy to tell what the other team's attacking intent is. Seeing lots of balls played into the middle of the park, where the AI is attempting to get behind your CM's or DM's? They're probably utilizing players who cut inside and run towards goal. Seeing lots of crosses into the box, and very little play through the middle? The AI is probably attempting to exploit the flanks and play a more direct/crossing style.

Fourth:

Watch the build up play. Does the AI team slowly pass the ball around and work hard to keep possession of it? Or do they quickly move it forward and drive into space?

Are they defending deep? (Ex. you recover possession, and then notice the AI starts to drop deep into shape, as opposed to pushing on and pressing you)

Are they defending the flanks by doubling up on your wide men? (In this case, exploit the gaps they're leaving and pass into space!)

Fifth and final quick tip:

When your team has the ball, are they rushed to make a pass? Or are they being given time/space to work with? Are the passing options being restricted from the ball's current position, or by the defenders sticking to your players who want to receive the ball?

Answering these questions will help you

Nice post bababooey

Quick tip:

If the AI wide defenders are overlapping and getting far forward, chances are they're being quite aggressive tactically.

Second quick tip:

Watch for situations where your players are doubled up by opponents. This could be an indication that the AI is closing down heavily, and thus likely leaving gaps in their shape. Exploit those by passing through them (into space) and bumping up your tempo (if your team is capable of playing that way!)

Third quick tip:

It's easy to tell what the other team's attacking intent is. Seeing lots of balls played into the middle of the park, where the AI is attempting to get behind your CM's or DM's? They're probably utilizing players who cut inside and run towards goal. Seeing lots of crosses into the box, and very little play through the middle? The AI is probably attempting to exploit the flanks and play a more direct/crossing style.

Fourth:

Watch the build up play. Does the AI team slowly pass the ball around and work hard to keep possession of it? Or do they quickly move it forward and drive into space?

Are they defending deep? (Ex. you recover possession, and then notice the AI starts to drop deep into shape, as opposed to pushing on and pressing you)

Are they defending the flanks by doubling up on your wide men? (In this case, exploit the gaps they're leaving and pass into space!)

Fifth and final quick tip:

When your team has the ball, are they rushed to make a pass? Or are they being given time/space to work with? Are the passing options being restricted from the ball's current position, or by the defenders sticking to your players who want to receive the ball?

Answering these questions will help you

You raise some interesting points. Could you, or anyone else who'd like to contribute, let us know what you'd attempt for each question raised in this post in game?

You raise some interesting points. Could you, or anyone else who'd like to contribute, let us know what you'd attempt for each question raised in this post in game?

Sure.

1. If the other team is getting behind your CM or DM with through balls, and OR cutting inside, then you have a few options... You could try to drop deeper and play more narrow, to compact space. Or you could try to press them even higher up the pitch (this is quite risky!) the first option is generally what you'd want to do. The second option could work in some limited situations where you're a team who loves to press high and for whatever reason it isn't quite working as intended.

2. If the other team is whipping in crosses and clearly attacking down the flanks (particularly crossing to a good header of the ball) then you'll want to press them higher up, and tackle harder. Instruct your wide men to get stuck in, and be careful with your wide defenders making sure they're not getting skinned. If they are, you'll have to lower their mentality, and then rely on a wide partner from a more advanced position, like a WM or DW who can track back and help your wide defender.

3. If the AI slowly builds up play and is knocking it round, then I would say it's wise to press them and tackle harder. You have to disrupt their flow. There are some cases where this is actually a good thing though, so for instance if I'm playing a tough road game, I don't mind the AI dinking it around in their own half. As long as they're not creating chances, I'm happy.

If the opponents are quickly moving it forward and being quite direct, then dropping deeper and staying on feet would be wise. Why? Because you're denying them the space the want. Simple.

4. If they're defending deep, you'll have a few options at your disposal... (depends on your preferences). You can try to disrupt them by using "hassle opponents" (hoping to force mistakes) and then ramping up the tempo. You could try "run at defense" to try and take more players on individually. Or, you could try to really slow things down and then tell your players to roam more, and maybe be more expressive / swap your wide players. I would recommend trying to create overloads. So maybe 2 attack duties on one flank, etc etc.

5. If they're defending the flanks well and doubling up on your wide men then chances are they're defensively quite aggressive. So, maybe exploit the middle and try to up the tempo a bit. Pass into space would be helpful too, because they're going to leave gaps running around like that.

6. If your team has plenty of time on the ball then you'd be wise to take advantage of that time, and allow your guys to be more expressive and find that killer pass. If you have little time on the ball, then you may need to retain possession and work harder to keep the ball. BUT you may also need to just clear it out, especially if your team is significantly inferior. So maybe in that case you'd want to pass into space, be more direct, etc.

It's really just common sense!

Great thread. I think it can be quite tricky viewing the match engine.

I am enjoying this thread too. It's very easy to get drawn in by the match engine sometimes as you would a real football match. Something I recommend is pausing the game every so often to get an idea of the spaces in which your players/the opponents players are operating.

As bababooey rightly says, so much of of it is logic.

Pause and rewind, watch short passages of play several times in slow motion, pausing often and checking on players positions and movements.

I do this sometimes after conceding or scoring to see if my team could have done something differently, if players are positioned where I hoped they would be or whether it was just a moment of poor defending / attacking magic, in which case I can ignore it.

The one tricky bit is determining whether or not a problem occurred via player error (the player in the match, not you) or if something tactically went wrong.

If you can determine that, you're halfway there. Then you need to figure out how to react to whatever is going on. That's the ticket.

The one tricky bit is determining whether or not a problem occurred via player error (the player in the match, not you) or if something tactically went wrong.

If you can determine that, you're halfway there. Then you need to figure out how to react to whatever is going on. That's the ticket.

Any advise to get us started on how to tell the difference between the two?

I am enjoying this thread too. It's very easy to get drawn in by the match engine sometimes as you would a real football match. Something I recommend is pausing the game every so often to get an idea of the spaces in which your players/the opponents players are operating.

As bababooey rightly says, so much of of it is logic.

Felley - would love to see a list of tips (similar to bababooey's above) from you. This thread was inspired by reading your "Pole to Pölten" thread a couple of weeks ago.

Honestly guys the best thing to do is stop reading the forum and just go watch matches and learn from trial and error. I've done a lot of reading here, but ultimately where I gained the most was in actually watching those matches.

Honestly guys the best thing to do is stop reading the forum and just go watch matches and learn from trial and error. I've done a lot of reading here, but ultimately where I gained the most was in actually watching those matches.

This is the best advice - I've read the forum alot over the years but the best thing to do is watch games play out and see what happens. There is only so much you can learn from reading; the rest you need to learn through experience.

This has been an incredibly useful thread to me and I really hope it's not going to tail off into answering the question "I'm having trouble identifying tactical problems through the match engine. Any tips?" with "Just watch the match engine" just yet.

I'm pretty sure everyone here (whether having trouble or a seasoned FM pro) can work that one out for themselves!

Any more tips before we go off and practise?

Try this from Cleon, along with the associated link in the OP http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/394522-SI-Sports-Centre-The-Analysis

The most important thing that you must do before you can read the match engine is: have in mind exactly what you want each of your players to do and the style of play you expect of them.

For example, ensure you know whether your inside forward should be getting on the ball during the build-up or at the end of an attack, or whether you want your DMC to charge at the opposition player with the ball at all opportunities or to sit back and intercept passes to the striker(s).

Similarly, if you have set yourself up to be an attacking force that will dominate the game through possession and movement, but instead all of the highlights and stats show that the opposition has more of the ball and is running through your midfield like a hot knife through butter - well, you know that your expectations aren't being met. The next action is to determine why. It could be that your tactic is not very well trained, so the team is unfamiliar with it. Or your players do not fit your desired system / instructions. Or the opposition players are better than you. Or the opposition manager's tactics are better than yours. Or your players have low cohesion. Etc., etc.

Sometimes, the problem is large: no highlights of your team attacking. To me, this is indicative of a strategic problem- too high a mentality for a close battle, too low a mentality against an attacking opponent, your formational shape being exploited by the opposition's formational shape, etc. This requires a bit of a rethink, but could be a simple as altering mentality or switching to an alternative formation - if you have a suitable one trained.

At other times, the problem is smaller: you are unable to break down the opponent and they are having some decent forays forward on the counter. This could be solved by a smaller, more tactical, change- lower the d-line or pass into space or exploit the flanks. Or a combination of a couple of instructions.

In neither scenario would I advocate changing a lot of things all at once.

The final problem is something that I go through whenever I'm initially creating a tactic: the players aren't quite doing what I want them to do. For this, I tweak player instructions- make my b2b midfielder get forward more, make my AMC tackle harder, switch my inside forward to an advanced playmaker, etc.

The most important thing that you must do before you can read the match engine is: have in mind exactly what you want each of your players to do and the style of play you expect of them.

For example, ensure you know whether your inside forward should be getting on the ball during the build-up or at the end of an attack, or whether you want your DMC to charge at the opposition player with the ball at all opportunities or to sit back and intercept passes to the striker(s).

Similarly, if you have set yourself up to be an attacking force that will dominate the game through possession and movement, but instead all of the highlights and stats show that the opposition has more of the ball and is running through your midfield like a hot knife through butter - well, you know that your expectations aren't being met. The next action is to determine why. It could be that your tactic is not very well trained, so the team is unfamiliar with it. Or your players do not fit your desired system / instructions. Or the opposition players are better than you. Or the opposition manager's tactics are better than yours. Or your players have low cohesion. Etc., etc.

Sometimes, the problem is large: no highlights of your team attacking. To me, this is indicative of a strategic problem- too high a mentality for a close battle, too low a mentality against an attacking opponent, your formational shape being exploited by the opposition's formational shape, etc. This requires a bit of a rethink, but could be a simple as altering mentality or switching to an alternative formation - if you have a suitable one trained.

At other times, the problem is smaller: you are unable to break down the opponent and they are having some decent forays forward on the counter. This could be solved by a smaller, more tactical, change- lower the d-line or pass into space or exploit the flanks. Or a combination of a couple of instructions.

In neither scenario would I advocate changing a lot of things all at once.

The final problem is something that I go through whenever I'm initially creating a tactic: the players aren't quite doing what I want them to do. For this, I tweak player instructions- make my b2b midfielder get forward more, make my AMC tackle harder, switch my inside forward to an advanced playmaker, etc.

All of this. Please, please, please heed this advice before posting.

A lot of the excellent threads I see around here are about tweaking your tactics to address particular problems that are happening on the pitch.

However, I'm having real trouble "reading" the match engine - and find it quite difficult to identify the specific problems that need fixing.

Any advice on this?

(to be clear, I'm not looking for under-the-hood of the ME advice - just to get better at identifying what's going right and wrong)

I haven't been posting for ages, with my appearances on the forum now limited to some other facets of the game. Having played this game since CM days and using the same philosophy this is how I've learnt to spot what the engine does and how i adapt. There are certain things that can be explained and a whole plethora of stuff you need to experience. In the early days of the game we would simply look at the engine, bust it wide open with a tactic and then wait for the next version of the game. It was that simple.

Today things have changed, but the principles still apply. Its now much harder to build a one tactic that can win everything with any side without making any changes. Yeah those days existed. So work on the TC began a long time ago I think back when FM8 was in development. The TC takes the 'sliders" and puts them into overall frameworks and changes to these sliders come from Player instructions or Team instructions. You set the overall behaviour for your team from Mentality and Team Shape ( thank god they changed this from philosophy, cos that was misleading). These are your very basic parameters. Assuming you do nothing the game will then set up your sliders for you. The team shape is just that - essentially just affecting the "overall depth" of the team. Things have changed a lot since the simpler days of FM08, now the overall mentality sets up how each position plays at default, with a counter attacking mentality generally having more players set to direct passing than a control mentality will. Individual player roles will then shift these slightly. The biggest drawback now for a lot of people is the fact that you can't really see how this gets translated on the pitch; you need to make assumptions and in the absence of an ingame GUI that breaks this down for people, theres very little you can do, except do your own spreadsheets.

These are all your broad settings. Kick-off and internally the engine does a lot of mathematical algorithms that are affected by a players attributes. These translate into whether he will make a certain kind of pass, run, or movement in the game. For example a player who has high decisions, high Off the ball running, pace, crossing may start to make an early move to get into space to receive a potential cross field ball early, as opposed to another player who stays behind. Your overall mentality setting acts as a modifier that adjusts this, and your PI further complicates things if you go and tell him to get forward early.

1. To see all this in action and to try and demystify the engine yourself you absolutely need to watch the game.

2. You must have a clear goal and system employed when you play. Your formations roles, must be clear to you, and you need to understand the impact of any change to the Piti (player instruction team instruction) settings. My advice when learning is to understand how each Piti setting affects your play.

3. Learn the impact of Opposition Instructions

4. And finally to some extent look out for player preferred moves..this is in no way a game breaker, it acts as a modifier but not as big as the Piti settings

If you want to get under the hood, be prepared to watch a lot of games at comprehensive and full game settings. Once you actually build a system that works the way you want it with the right players for the job, a full game can be quite entertaining to watch. And when you get to that stage, you in all likelihood understand the engine well.

I did cover a lot of the basics in my blog but that was for FM12, the principles are the same, and for more current stuff you need to follow Cleon's threads. A lot of the time they will take you on a journey as they themselves try things out to learn and that can be illuminating

A lot of the excellent threads I see around here are about tweaking your tactics to address particular problems that are happening on the pitch.

However, I'm having real trouble "reading" the match engine - and find it quite difficult to identify the specific problems that need fixing.

Any advice on this?

(to be clear, I'm not looking for under-the-hood of the ME advice - just to get better at identifying what's going right and wrong)

How well do you read a real football match? Because my first port of call would be to learn real football. If you're good at that, you'll do well in reading the ME. So whenever you watch football, watch it analytically. It's better if you go the match for real, from TV it's a little hard. (It's a narrative media and does a good job in telling stories, portraying emotions, creating heroes and villains, that kind of things. Come to think of it, that's quite useful for FM, for the man management part.)

Have a look at the analysis tools. These are great especially early on in games. The Avg Position tool is really useful albeit only for the first 15 minutes or so. You can assume alot about the opposition by their average positions.

For example if each player is spread apart it is likely they are playing direct passing. It can also show the oppos' width and defensive line.